Free Inda by Sherwood Smith Page B

with more sound than sensation against his sturdy tunic. He scrambled up to the sound of laughter, felt the hands propelling him onward. Run, run, and there was the end, and the Go! Go! Go! was laughing, not cruel, and then one of the orderlies reached for him, whipped out his hair tie with expert fingers, and snip, snip, there went his braid. His head felt light, his neck cold, and he couldn’t help fingering his hair as he joined the small group of shorn boys. His hair, never neat, had sprung up in curls all over his head, but at least he wasn’t the only one with that problem.
    They all looked strange. No, they all looked the same, with their squared-off hair in back, and Inda, staring at the boys, realized that the shearing run wasn’t just a way to humiliate them with this silly short hair. He realized it had made them into a group, even that big blond horseapple. Well, they were academy boys now, and city people would know them as academy, commanders-in-training, set apart from civilians. They belonged.
    He rejoiced in his heart, grinning foolishly like most of the others. Why, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d heard.
    Some of the boys had already vanished, and the arms master howled at the rest of them to get ready for inspection and their very first callover, and if they weren’t ready, they’d be scrubbing floors for a month . . .
    Inda laughed as he ran back to the barracks, noticing that he had no problem finding it. Breathless laughter, joking insults about looks, easy chatter—until they reached the pit. The blond boy and a couple of others were still missing.
    But that was not what made them all stop, staring in shock.
    There was his bunk next to Dogpiss’, but their carefully smoothed sheets were trampled all over with dirty, horse dung-clumped hay, their mattresses ripped and scattered, their gear chests open and full of something that reeked enough to make their eyes water.
    Inda looked up, dazed, sick. Several boys backed slowly away, their gazes averted. He remembered Tanrid’s stories, and knew what it meant.
    He and Dogpiss had been bunk-scragged.

Chapter Six
    TWO days later, Inda finished up his punishment chores in the stable and trudged back toward the scrub barracks. He tucked his cold hands inside his armpits—
    Pain! Elbow! The world spun. A familiar grip on his arm, familiar breathing, and Inda resigned himself to a thrashing. He just hoped Tanrid would tell him why.
    Tanrid pulled Inda around the side of the stable, next to one of the huge feed sheds, held him against the wall, and frowned down into his face. There were his hard brown eyes, his unsmiling mouth, his sun-streaked brown hair now pulled proudly up into a tail high on the back of his head.
    Tanrid’s frown was not angry, it was urgent. Inda could see that clearly enough in the reflected light from the torches on the castle wall just behind the sheds. “I heard you got shit-scragged. First morning! And a fight in the mess hall?”
    “Not shit-scragged—” Inda gasped.
    “What were you thinking?” Tanrid shook him, thumb pressed agonizingly into that awful place just beside his elbow joint.
    Inda blinked away tears and managed to get out two words: “Attacked . . . Dogpiss . . .”
    Tanrid abruptly eased the pressure, but kept hold. Inda drew in a shuddering breath and spoke faster. “The fight in the mess hall was instinct. Marlo-Vayir Tvei kicked Dogpiss Noth off the bench, his head cracked, and, well, I just acted.”
    “Did the beaks come in? Wave the willow?”
    Inda shook his head. “No beaks, no caning. Pigtails landed on us, pulled us apart. But I—”
    “No buts. Do. Not. Fight in the mess hall.” Another jab in the elbow joint, and Inda gasped. “Any fight, they don’t like the reasons—and they never do—we all eat outside. All. Rain or not. There’s always rain this time of year. No justice, no negotiation. Happened twice to me so far, both times from scrubs scouting the rules. If your