Sethlzaar and his peers learned of the existence of tests from the older boys as the days stretched into months, and finally into a year. They were trained in techniques required in fights.
"We teach yer not for the defense of a man, but the defense of a realm," Ordan told them one morning before training began. "We do not teach yer how to defend yerselves. No. We teach yer how to kill a man."
Arrsahel was the day of the sword, first of the week. They woke before the break of dawn and took to the courtyard where they trained.
Father Ordan remained brutal with the sword, giving Sethlzaar reason to believe he indulged them more for the opportunity of brutality than teaching them how to kill a man.
Narvi proved adept with the sword, parrying strikes from the priest and occasionally finishing a spar with only so much as aching hands. It always left Ordan's mood fouler than usual. The children dreaded going after him, as Ordan was known to take his sword play to a devastating level.
Sethlzaar was once a victim of such a circumstance. The event that followed left him with a bruised rib. It didn't take long to find he had a disliking for the priest and his way with the sword.
Insahel was given to the quarterstaff. Father Tensril, a tall skinny man with a shaven head save a long braid of black hair extending down his back and ending just below his waste from a point at the back of his head, and whose muscles made his bare torso a sight Sethlzaar could only describe as a punishment in its own, took charge of it. He started the training with a random quarterstaff, spinning it along his fingers with surreal speed that sent a whistling sound sailing through the air.
Tensril easily cared naught for the cane. His quarterstaff served as a sufficient tool for punishment whenever a child failed to execute a move accurately.
The staff was then replaced with a spear. This was eventually replaced with a lance sharpened on both ends as the days evolved. It did not take long for Frent to prove himself superior to the rest of his mates, moving with a fluidity that left Sethlzaar in awe. It gained him favor with Tensril.
The day of Nurnsahel was spent learning the ways of close quarters combat. It was a training that involved sparring amongst themselves, using the weapons bestowed to them by their birth.
The training proved a specifically detested one among them, as they fought unarmed, leaving themselves bruised by each successful parry or attack. Only after hours of engagement did they switch to the use of wooden knives.
Sethlzaar found he had a way with knives and occasionally emerged victorious after disarming his opponent with his free arm, claiming their weapon with a dexterity associated with a thief. Though, Omage proved himself master of the art. His muscled body gave him an advantage over the others.
On one such occasion, disarming Omage proved an impossible task and Sethlzaar found himself grabbing the knife by its intended blade when Omage drove in for a finishing blow. He then swiftly proceeded to disarm the boy. It earned him a series of cane strokes from the priest in charge, Father Yggdra, contradicting the look of pride on the priest's face.
Training was instructed by Priestess Emeril, the only female residing in the seminary and Priestess of the bow, on Synsahel. It was a weapon Takaris, oldest of them, took to referring to as the coward's weapon whenever none of the priests or the priestess were present.
The bow was a weapon of distance, much unlike the others. It required an arrow to be released at a target of over thirty paces away in their trainings. Not only were they expected to hit the target, but to do it with a speed of less than half what time was required of a coin to come down from a toss.
Sethlzaar took to the bow like a bird to the sky. His arrows hit their mark with consistent accuracy. His hand found arrows and picked them with surprising ease, like his fingers were attuned to the tasked. Priestess Emeril once commented that its speed reminded her of a peregrine she'd once seen take to the skies. It pleased him immensely.
While most priests employed their varieties of punishments, Emeril struck the hands of any who spent too much time fidgeting with their arrows during retrieval. Takaris suffered through brunt of it.
The boy proved unskilled with the bow. His arrows skewed wide, and he dallied the longest during his retrieval, earning him the most strikes. This seemed to foster a growing tension between both boys. It was a tension Sethlzaar found he could do without.
"It's all about the technique," Emeril would say as she walked behind them. "Don't just pull the string. Push the bow."
She was a slender woman with hair color the red of fire. It betrayed her as a denizen of the nunish tribe, one among many found in Naftali, west of the realm. She had a peculiarly soothing voice which she could bellow with the authority of any priest.
Cenam proved his skills to be something of a wonder even to the priests on Figsahel, the day of the wild. Father karnamis, the most rugged of all the priests by looks took them to the outer gate. Guiding them through the mist, he led them into the forest. Sethlzaar soon realized that the gate they passed was not the same one Valerik had left him at. It seemed the mist was ever present, surrounding the seminary on all sides.
The training of Figsahel proved tasking on both the body and the mind. They began the day learning the weapons and aids of Ayla. The poisonous plants and how best to apply them, as well as the harmless and the healing. What can be eaten and what should not. How to make fires from sticks and dead leaves, as well as hunt animals such as rabbits and deer. This curriculum always took up the first quarter of the day.
The second quarter had them seated on the dead leaves scattered over the ground. Karnamis then taught intricate hand signs and their meanings. He taught them bits and pieces of a tongue spoken amongst the priests ever so often, claiming it to be the language of the seminary, one in which its history was written. It didn't take them long to learn it was not of the church.
The final activity of the day was always the discernment of the living, Karnamis released them into the woods each time. Released, they sought out places to hide. He gave them time as he always promised. Next, he determined where they were. Each child, he found with nothing but the smell in the wind, the shift of the soil, and the sound in the air.
Those found still trying to hide were forced to hang from trees upside down for the duration of the activity.
Cenam, proving skilled, was always the last to be found, revealing himself a while after all the others on many occasions. Once, he stayed hidden into the dark of the night. It forced Karnamis to alter the rules of engagement, mandating he reveal himself after a length of time.
On occasions, some hid and others sought. Cenam, to no surprise, found his marks with ease. It often left them feeling that sometimes when asked to hide, he watched them as they searched. Karnamis was not alien to such suspicions.
"It's all about the breathing," Cenam explained with a smile in his tiny voice when Sethlzaar asked how he stayed hidden for so long. "Slower breaths mean slower life. Breathe through your mouth. It helps."
They dreaded the day of Jarsahel. It was the day of the body, spent carrying heavy loads across the courtyard while Ordan rained down strokes of the cane on them. After which, they proceeded to the cold river, swimming in its chill, the only covering allowed them being nothing but a loin cloth.
Then they submerged in the water in a test for who could hold their breath the longest, a minute seeming to stretch for hours on end.
Cenam proved fastest in the water. He cut through it with the speed and grace of a fish and Sethlzaar often wondered if the boy was born the wrong being, thinking him more an animal of nature than human. I wouldn't be a surprise if one of these days he sprouts wings and takes to the skies, he once thought.
Elsahel was the day of the credence. A day the seminary left to the whims of the children after over an hour long mass celebrated by Mother Sherlla with the aid of two other sisters and at least two of the priests. After the mass they were allowed freedom of choice for the rest of the day. As for the youngest boys, it was a day of labor, their whims not left to run free.
They worked the different aspects of the seminary, making sure the fort remained in pristine condition. As pristine as a fort that had stood for centuries could be.
If they were lucky, they were chosen to aid Father Briscon in the gardens, as he was prone to offering rewards of fruits for a work well done. And if they were not, they were sent to aid Father Antuas in the fields outside the walls, watering and pruning as were required, the finel grass snipping with a power to break the skin, and clamping tight if blood were to be drawn instantly. Leather gloves and burly clothings were provided for protection, but the occurrence of accidents did nothing to alleviate the fear of the task.
Sethlzaar found he favored Elsahel most, not for its lack of training or its fill of labor, but for the two hours of freedom it presented just after the midday meal. He spent it with Narvi, learning the secrets of the blade, the intricate techniques he was required to imitate before the boy engaged him in a spar.
The techniques were difficult, but Sethlzaar worked his way through them. Suffice it to say, it wasn't long before he came to the conclusion that the sword was not for him. His body rarely moved as he commanded, and the art required a level of control he simply didn't possess.
The final hours before lights out proved to be favored by all the boys. They proceeded to their room after their baths, engaging in discussions and friendly banter. It was during this hour that Alsipin, a dark skinned boy with hair that never seemed to grow past an inch of its roots, told them tales of the touched, men influenced by the apertures of the lost, possessing the ability to compel animals to do their wills, and even slip into the dreams of men. They possessed powers not made for men.
The credence taught that centuries ago a great number of peoples died during the war of the lost. The malice left behind twisted the souls of men. Sometimes Alsipin's stories left Sethlzaar in awe and other times so terrified he found his fingers gripping his bed. It was all he could do to keep its display to a minimum. Although they communed together, Canabi spent the time with Soartin and Narvi with Frent.
Not long into the year Cenam garnered more flesh than when Sethlzaar had first spoken to him at the dining hall. But he kept to himself most of the time, seeming to retreat into his own mind.
He talked so little that the older boys often mistook him for a mute save the days of the wild and with Sethlzaar whom he seemed to have taken a liking to. Even then, he used the littlest amount of words, asking questions more than he answered. A few vexatious conversations took place before Sethlzaar understood what the boy would not answer and how best to ask a question for a greater chance of one.
Sethlzaar often found himself an aegis to the boy during this hour, as their peers, noting his discomfort with conversations, tormented him.
"You cannot protect him forever, brother," Narvi told him during one of their sparring sessions. "What happens when you are not there?"
Sethlzaar offered no answer, knowing the boy's words held truth, yet, wishing they didn't.
Their first test came after the third full moon of their second year in the seminary. The Test of the Lost, Father Ordan called it. They were given due orders, requiring they wake an hour earlier than was regular with their hunting knives ready along with their water flasks. There was no banter the night before it. Everyone chose to ready their tools and retreat to bed, instead.
"You will be taken out of the compound, left in the mist, and required to survive. After which you must return before first light tomorrow," Shrowl told them when they assembled in front of the keep. "Anyone who returns late will be sent away with whatever they have on them. As for those who do not return..." He let his words trail.
They were no doubt left to conjure up its conclusion in their own words.
The tension dissipated faintly from the knowledge of what was to be expected of them. They had walked the mist countless times and had grown accustomed to it, although, never in the absence of a priest.
The tension thickened as they soon realized the gate they headed for was not one they'd ever gone through.
While their training with Father Karnamis had them using the south gate, Father Antuas waited for them at the east gate, leaving Sethlzaar wondering how the man cared for all the fields outside the wall, and how he seemed to be at the gates all the time.
Father Ordan spoke with Father Antuas as they walked the mist and Sethlzaar found himself wondering what would happen if he failed. Would he be able to survive outside the seminary? Did he still know how to? Would Valerik come for him or abandon him somewhere else? Perhaps somewhere worse.
Never! he chided. The thought left him with a sense of disgust. I will not fail.
"Do you think it can kill?" Canabi asked while they walked in the thick of the mist.
"No," Soartin assured him. "It's just a concentration of the water in the air. Its harmless."
"Of course it is." Sarcasm dripped from Takaris' voice. "Till you find yourself choking from what isn't water."
Soartin turned on him, acting the part of something akin to an elder brother to Canabi, as he always did. "Stop trying to scare him."
"Sod off! I reckon he aint yours," Takaris spat, then turned to Canabi. "My advice? Run like a gazelle the moment we start."
"Well," Frent cut in, "dying in a mist is not how I plan on going."
They were surprised to find Antuas beside the boy. He placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "Greater men have died in lesser ways," he said, and there was iron in his words. "It would do you kindly to remember that."
He shoved Frent from the gathering and led them on. A single grunt was the last audible sound from their brother.
They continued getting dropped off with the littlest of ceremony. A sudden physical contact from the priest followed by a shove off the line, or a simple command followed by the exit of one of them from the group.
They walked the mist for a time of some length, the priests purging them every now and then. Sethlzaar attempting to know if there was a pattern, counted the time between each purge. He found none.
The priests led them within the mist, making turns, as if out on a leisurely stroll. Finally, left with Cenam, Narvi and Omage, Sethlzaar feared himself the last to be purged.
"Step aside."
Sethlzaar stopped momentarily before realizing the words had been offered to Omage.
With the big boy gone, Sethlzaar felt himself the only source of the tension scratching at his skin. He attempted breathing techniques as Priestess Emeril taught them calmed the heart. Its effect came to naught.
He felt a hand on his shoulder eventually. It was ominous, promising of dreadful things. He understood his time had come and feared the knowledge of which of the two priests stood beside him.
"I will be happy if yer didn't return," Ordan's voice came.
Then he was shoved into the solitude of the mist.