The following morning, Zane awoke to the sound of the horn at dawn. He shook the sleep from his head, his eyes automatically seeking the posters that covered the walls of his room. Instead, his eyes encountered the tan walls of the tent. Excitement shot through him as he remembered where he was. The first evaluation was today! He rolled out of his sleeping bag onto his knees and opened his chest. He pulled out the other tunic that he had packed. He threw it on, clipped his sword to his belt, and slid his shield onto his back. He turned around to see that Cliff was already up and ready. He was sitting quietly at the table, his face a little pale. Aaron was groggily rummaging through his chest, his hair sticking up in several places. Pug was trying in vain to untangle himself from his sleeping bag, which had somehow been twisted and flipped into a huge knot. Zane walked over and seated himself next to Cliff. When Pug finally managed to untangle himself and get ready, they set out for the command tent. When they finally approached, the sun's rays were barely visible on the horizon. Even so, they found that they were the last group to arrive at the tent. Captain Dux saw them coming and approached them,
"Why am I not surprised that it's you bunch that's late?" he asked them. "What's your excuse this time?" Zane, Aaron, and Cliff all looked at Pug.
"Don't look at me it wasn't my fault!" Pug said defiantly. The three continued to look at Pug. "Ok fine maybe it was my fault. I got into a fight with . . . uh . . ."
"Your sleeping bag?" Aaron offered. Pug shot him a look. Dux squinted his eyes at Pug.
"I'm watching you Puganto," he said and walked back to the front of the group.
"Why do I get the feeling that he doesn't like me?" Pug said to no one in particular.
"I don't think he likes anyone," Aaron replied. Zane was only half listening to their conversation; he was busy searching for Rose in the crowd. He finally spotted her in the back by a group of girls. Zane led the others to her, and they sat down on the compacted dirt.
"What do you think they're going to make us do?" Rose asked him as he sat down.
"No idea," Zane answered shrugging. "I didn't really think about it much."
She thought for a moment and then said, "You wouldn't by any chance know what happened to Winston's face would you?" she asked looking looking into the crowd with a mischievous smile. Zane followed her gaze and couldn't help but laugh. The entire left side of Winston's face was bruised and swollen.
"Why do you assume it was me?" he asked defensively. "This time I have to give credit to Cliff here." He patted Cliff on the back, who was looking uncomfortable at being included in the conversation. Rose looked at him and sighed,
"Why does Winston have to piss everyone off?" she asked almost to herself. "Why can't I have a normal cousin?" Zane was watching Cliff; his gaze had shifted to the girl sitting on the other side of Rose. She had light brown hair with dark brown eyes.
"What is her name?" Zane whispered to Rose gesturing toward the girl.
"That's one of the girls from my tent. Her name is Penny, why do you ask?" she said looking at him suspiciously.
"Oh no reason," Zane answered. Rose gave him a weird look and turned to the front where Captain "Dirt face" Dux was about to speak.
"Today is your first evaluation," he said in his usual bored tone. "The men will be tested separately from the women. Before dinner will be the scouting test, and after dinner will be preparation for the warrior testing. Everyone will take every test. There will be no whining about placement choices. Placement will be decided by Oran and myself, if you have a complaint about your placement keep it to yourself."
"What do you think the odds are that dirt face makes me a cook?" Pug whispered to Zane.
"With Oran in on the decision I'd say there's a pretty good chance you won't be," Zane replied.
"Now, the ladies will follow Oran and the guys will follow me." Dux said to the group. They were each given a small shoulder bag and then Dux led the guys to the eastern end of the canyon. One of the trainees followed close behind Dux seemingly trying to copy his confident, yet nonchalant lope. Pug must have also noticed.
"Suck up." He muttered under his breathe. Zane nodded and they continued to walk. They finally stopped at the edge of the thick trees that surrounded the river.
"Ok," Dux began. "First of all, I would like to introduce Lieutenant Furtim." He gestured to the small man standing next to him that Zane and Pug had mistaken for a trainee. "He will be explaining this test and will also be the judge of your evaluation."
"Early this morning," Began Lieutenant Furtim. "I placed twenty-five of these," he pulled out a small round glass sphere from his pocket, "In the forest. Your goal will be to find as many of these as possible. There are three colors of spheres, red, blue, and green. Red represents the easiest to find, blue slightly harder, and Green the hardest. Red spheres are worth one point, blue is two points, and green is four points. Your point total is how you will be evaluated. You have to work alone, no exceptions, I will be patrolling the forest randomly and any violators of this rule will be removed from this and all of the tests. You will report back to this spot in three hours. Good luck." He turned and walked into the forest. No one moved and everyone stood staring at Captain Dux.
"Get moving the test started!" He sighed heavily. "Bunch of idiots . . ." He said shaking his head. Everyone scattered in all directions and ran into the forest. Zane went into the forest and looked around. He had hunted small game all his life and assumed that this would be similar. His guess was that Furtim left trails for them to follow that directed them to the spheres. All he had to do was find a trail and it would lead him to one. He scanned the ground and found the half a boot print in a space of dirt. It looked as though it was placed deliberately, and Zane decided that it was his best clue, so he went in the direction that the person who made the print had gone. He started forward scanning the ground and trees for any other signs of someone passing. There! He spotted a flattened patch of grass. He adjusted his direction and continued; twenty feet further he found a snapped twig. He adjusted accordingly and continued.
He followed the trail for about an hour before srumbling into a small clearing. The clearing was empty except for a large rock and a hollowed-out log. Zane examined both and noticed that the moss was rubbed off on part of the log. He looked inside and yelped with joy. He reached in and pulled out a blue sphere. Excitement ran through him, despite the fact that he wanted to be a warrior, he knew that his father would want him to try his best at everything. He looked at the blue sphere again and felt a surge of pride. He needed to find another.
He spent the rest of the time following various trails, several of which led to nothing. Eventually the feet of trainees stomping through the area confused the trails and Zane couldn't determine which direction to go. He searched in vain until he heard the horn go off signaling that the three hours had passed. The horn kept sounding every couple minute so they could move toward the sound.
Zane followed the sound feeling dismayed and exhausted. He had hoped to find more than one sphere. The trees began to thin, and he came out of the forest near the appointed meeting place. He saw that only a few people were back from the test. He walked through the people and spotted Pug. Pug was sitting on the ground near Captain Dux.
"How did you do?" Zane asked him.
"Not bad," Pug answered.
"You find any?" he asked.
"A few," Pug said being abnormally quiet. Zane sat next to him and they waited for the rest to get back. When everyone had returned Lieutenant Furtim had them line up and began asking their names, which he wrote down along with the number of points they received. Zane got in line behind Aaron and Cliff. Pug got in line behind Zane. He watched in silence as the people in front were evaluated, his spirits lifted as he saw that only a few people had managed to find a sphere. He also noticed to his delight, that Winston had failed to find any. After a long wait, it was Aarons turn to be evaluated.
"Name?" Furtim asked.
"Aaron Rudis," he answered. Furtim then opened his bag and turned it upside down to shake the contents onto the pile of spheres next to him. The bag was empty and Aaron sadly walked back to join the rest of the group. Cliff was next and he stepped up to Furtim.
"Cliff Arx," Cliff told him. Furtim turned his bag inside out and two red ones fell out. Zane felt another wave of relief, that was the same point total as his. Zane stepped forward and said,
"Zane . . . uh," he'd forgotten that he didn't know his last name. He felt his face heat up and knew that his faced was turning red fast. "I don't have a last name sir." He finally said with his head low. The Lieutenant didn't seem to care though. He took Zane's bag and dumped the blue sphere on the pile. Zane then went to the group and stood by Cliff and Aaron. Pug shuffled up to Furtim and told him his name. Zane noticed that Captain Dux took a step forward at Pug's turn, he really was watching him! Furtim took his bag and seemed surprised when three red ones and a blue one fell out.
"Not bad Brevis," he said in a respective tone. Pug grinned a huge grin and said,
"You think that's good then watch this!" He shook his sleeves and two green spheres slid into his hands. He dropped them into the pile still grinning. Furtim seemed lost for words at the appearance of the two green spheres, but Dux wasn't.
"Enough with the games Puganto! Do you have any more or am I going to have to shake them out of you!?" he said angrily.
"That's not a good idea sir," Pug replied, "You wouldn't like where you found the last one."
"Puganto!" Dux growled his facing turning red.
"Just kidding sir. That's all of them," Pug told him his smile fading.
"It better be! Now quit holding up the line and get out of here!" Dux yelled. Pug scrambled to get out of his way and came over to Zane and the rest of them.
"You know Pug. You're really not giving him a reason to like you," Aaron said when he approached. Pug just shrugged and stood in silence the smile returning to his face.
"How did you get so many?" Zane asked him.
"It was easy," Pug replied with another shrug. "I found the blue one right away. Then I spent most of the rest of the time hunting down the two green beauties. The red ones . . . uh . . . well I might have nicked them out of other people's packs while they had their noses pointed to the ground." Zane looked at him incredulously. "What!? They never said it was against the rules!"
Zane laughed and patted him on the back, "I should've known you'd be the one to think of some way to get around the rules," he said.
"Yeah," Aaron put in. "It doesn't surprise me at all." Pug just crossed his arms, smug grin still on his face. They sat around and took turns describing their small adventure in the woods, except Cliff of course, he just sat and listened to everyone else. When everyone had been evaluated, Captain Dux commanded everyone to start head back to camp for food. The walk back to camp went quickly and they were soon eating. After they finished, Zane found Rose in the crowd. He asked her how her evaluation had gone and learned that the girl's evaluation had been the same as theirs. Rose had found a blue sphere, same as Zane. Then the horn sounded, and they once again gathered in front of the command tent. When they all arrived at the command tent Captain Dux began to speak,
"At this time, the ladies will be asked to once again split up from the guys. Ladies will be evaluated on their nursing skills while the guys complete the first round of the warrior evaluation." He finished with a lazy wave of his hands and signaled for the guys to follow him again.
Zane waved goodbye to Rose as she reluctantly joined the girls for the nurse evaluation. As he watched her go, he noticed Cliff once again watching Penny leave with Rose. He made a mental note to ask Cliff about it.