Free The Fall of Chance by Terry McGowan Page B

mate, there are still farming posts among the Labourers,” Bull whispered. For once, he was nothing but sympathy but all Unt wanted to do was hit him. Didn’t he understand that the two things were completely different?
    Unt knew Bull had a point but it was two draws on before he could even begin to consider a possible consolation prize. By the time he had stopped reeling and started to wonder if he could stand to work under those inferior victors, one of the Farm Labourer posts had gone.
    That made one hundred candidates. Seventeen posts remained, only one of which involved farming. Maybe he’d end up a tanner, stinking of the crap and chemicals they padded about in all day.
    At a hundred and eight, the last glimmer went out. A diminutive red-headed boy named Tryp took the last Farm Labourer job. Unt hated the way his big hair framed a buck-toothed face that flicked around like an over-excited squirrel.
    He felt numb. His ears seemed blocked with wadding and it took a nudge from Bull to make him realise he’d been called. Just in the nick of time, he thought bitterly.
    Unt rolled like an automaton, wrist spilling with almost no conscious effort on his part. The dice came to rest before him: a red six and a white one.
    “Seven,” he said, voice utterly void of caring. At any point, seven would have done it. With his minus three Aptitude Modifiers, that would have made four and his Talent Modifier of two would have put him within range of his goal. If that had happened, Kelly would now be saying he was placed among the Managers.
    Instead, Kelly was reading out another score and was already through his well-practiced lines. “Your Aptitude-Modified score of four places you within the Order of Medics, however, as there are no vacant posts within that Order you are placed within the next vacant Order in the direction of your Aptitude. This being the Order of Councillors, you are hereby placed in that Order.”
     

4. Fallout
     
     
    It wasn’t so much a gasp but a rolling swell that surged across the chambers like a wave. It was that heavy energy that doused Unt like water and pulled him back to reality. Kelly’s words floated disjointed round his head but wouldn’t come together right. He was a Councillor? It couldn’t be true but there was his name being hooked up on the board.
    Kelly was still talking and was irritated by the disturbance. “There being only one post available in the Order of Councillors, we shall forgo the second part of the draw. Mr Unt, you are hereby assigned to the post of Councillor.”
    But Kelly’s words were just empty noise. No one was listening, not even Unt. They’d already done the simple maths and worked it out. It was impossible: the post was supposed to be Rob’s. But Unt had been so caught up in his own problems that he hadn’t noticed Rob’s name fail to surface and he hadn’t even registered that the post was still there.
    Unt saw Rob sat at the extreme left of the front aisle. Like everyone else, he had turned around to look at Unt and their eyes came together right then. As ever, the Councillor’s son was unreadable. Unt felt like the unwitting victor of a fight he didn’t know he was caught up in. Not knowing what else to do, he nodded in Rob’s direction.
    Whatever Rob’s reaction, Unt didn’t see it. He was literally shaken out of the moment by Bull who grabbed his shoulders in two meaty hands and jostled him violently. Unt felt like an animal being wrung to death by a hunting dog. His eyes wheeled all over.
    As Bull relented, those eyes came to rest on another person whose expression was anything but unreadable. It was Councillor Lasper and his look was so hateful Unt knew he’d just made an instant committed enemy. “If looks could kill” had never felt so true.
    The image his eyes were feeding him was in absolute contrast to the roar in his ears. “Well done, mate!” Bull was shouting at him. “You sly old fox.”
    Finally losing patience, Kelly hollered