Free Tarah Woodblade by Trevor H. Cooley

learn, Tarah. Watch and learn , said her papa’s voice and Grampa Rolf agreed. The best salesman is observant. Keep your eyes and ears open in every situation. You never know what opportunities may arise .
    She didn’t care about opportunities in this place, but Tarah tried to listen to the conversations at the tables around her. Then she took her first bite and their advice was forgotten.
    These academy men ate like kings. The roast beef was covered with gravy and fell apart in her mouth, the ham was smoked to perfection, and the roast duck had a sweet and slightly nutty flavor that made her wish she had the whole bird on her plate. The roll was soft and buttery, but the food that impressed her the most was a strange vegetable she had never tasted before. It was yellow in color and looked like a mix of tomato and squash, but had a smooth texture and a peppery tang to it.
    As she ate, the weariness left her body and she realized that these academy men weren’t eating like kings. They were eating like elves. There was magic in this food. She felt like she could run all the way back to Sampo without stopping.
    She was sopping up the last bit of gravy from her plate when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up to see a guard in bulky plate armor standing beside her.
    “You Tarah Woodblade?” asked a female voice.
    “Yeah,” Tarah responded hesitantly.
    The guard took off her helmet and Tarah saw a pretty face and a head of short-cropped blond hair. A horizontal line of black paint covered the guard’s face from nose to eyebrow. “I’m Kathy. Djeri asked me to take you to your guest house.”
    “The dwarf sent you?” Tarah stood to find that this woman was almost as tall as she was and by the size of her plate armor, Tarah knew she must be very strong.
    “He asked me,” the woman clarified. “Djeri’s a friend, but he’s not my boss. He was called into a meeting or he would have come himself.”
    Tarah picked her pack up off of the bench beside her and shook her head as she shrugged it on. “You academy guards sure have a lot of meetings.”
    Kathy smiled. “That’s what happens when you’re posted at the Mage School. Wizards love to talk. Come on. Follow me.”
    They left the dining hall and walked back across the main road to the far side of the gates where a row of small houses stood. There were horses tied in front of one house and Tarah saw Derbich Furley standing next to them talking to a woman wearing mage robes. Tarah’s shoulder’s slumped. She had been hoping they would be staying somewhere else.
    “This’ll be your place,” Kathy said, pointing to the house nearest the gate. She handed Tarah a key. “The wizards keep the place clean. We eat at dawn, but there’s always food in the dining hall, so you can sleep in if you want.”
    “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep at all after that meal,” Tarah said. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like eating that food every day.”
    Kathy gave a half chuckle. “Yeah, you feel amazing the first few times, but you get used to it after awhile. I hardly notice it anymore. Anyway, it was nice meeting you.”
    “And you,” Tarah replied. The woman nodded, then turned and walked back towards the barracks.
    Tarah glanced quickly over at Derbich and was relieved to see he was still talking to the mage. She hurried over to the door of the small house and unlocked it, hoping to get inside before he noticed her.
    “Miss Woodblade!” Derbich called and Tarah winced. He said one last thing to the mage before jogging over to talk to her.
    Tarah frowned inwardly, but said in what she assumed was a polite tone, “Hello, sir.”
    “So you are settling in, then?” he asked.
    “I’ll be staying the night,” she said. “But I plan on leaving in the morning.”
    “Ah, we may be here a week or so,” he said, looking slightly disappointed. “Would you consider staying and escorting us back?”
    There was nothing she could think of that she