The Killing Grounds Read online

  After the first lap was finished the rest of the class were some way ahead and Alara had lost sight of all but Wheezy, who puffed along in front of her. He constantly checked back at her with a look of panic in his eye. She tried to smile at him and put him at ease, but the boy's breathing was becoming ragged as he pushed himself faster to try and lose Alara in the haze of the snow. The wind had picked up and was blowing small drifts off the multitude of trees that lined the pathway and she had to duck and dive for cover several times as the snow was knocked from the bare branches. Wheezy wasn’t so lucky and got caught by a large clump that smashed into his right shoulder. He fell to the floor and cried out in pain. Alara’s first instinct was to go and help the boy but since she knew she was being watched after hearing the Quartermaster's remarks, she understood that she needed to maintain an assassin's frame of mind and focus on herself. She hung back and jogged on the spot until Wheezy dragged himself to his feet and continued to stumble around the course. As she neared the end of lap four her body was crying out for her to pick up the pace and head for the finish line, where the warmth and safety of the gym awaited. Wheezy had almost slowed to a crawl, the exhaustion of the run and the stress of Alara being behind him had made him crack and she could hear him crying as she followed. For some reason Alara felt no remorse for the boy, he was here of his own recourse and was in the same position as her. If he wasn’t strong enough he would simply fail and be retired and it would be one less blade aiming for her back to worry about.

  Alara sensed a presence behind her, ducked and fell to the floor as a blade cut through the air above her head and thudded into the back of Wheezy's shoulder, and he dropped to the floor. Alara froze, not knowing whether to head for the safety of the falling snow or to turn and try to loose a blade of her own in the direction the other had come from. Black jogged up to her with a knife in his left hand. He reached out with his right and pulled her to her feet. “Finish him,” he said, “before I finish you.”

  Alara had no time to think, took the blade from Black and walked to where Wheezy was rolling on the floor in pain. Black's blade protruded from Wheezy's back, it had caught him just under the left shoulder blade and his blood was starting to flow freely from his body and mix with the slush and dirt on the pathway. He managed to roll onto his side and pleaded with Alara to spare him, but Alara knew the boy was out of luck. It was time for her to step up and become an assassin or die at the hands of Black, and she wasn’t ready to die. Gritting her teeth she grabbed a handful of Wheezy’s wet hair and tilted his head upwards, exposing his throbbing veins. She placed the blade to his throat and slit it open, and now I’m an assassin. She was amazed at how easy the coup de grâce was, and watched as Wheezy took his last breath and died.

  “If you threaten someone, have the guts to go through with the kill and not leave them stressing while you stalk them around the common.”

  Alara swallowed hard, she hadn’t realised that she was putting Wheezy through so much pain and berated herself for being so mean to the boy, “I never meant to…” Black had run on towards the Killing Grounds, leaving Alara alone with the body. She sighed and retrieved the blade from the boy's shoulder and cleaned them both on his fatigues. Her emotions were swirling around inside of her, she was sad for the boy but at the same time she was on a high from making her first kill. The more she thought about it the more her pity for Wheezy dissipated, she was an assassin by choice and that meant she was a paid killer. She’d questioned whether or not she would be capable of taking a life, but now that she had, it didn’t seem quite as hard as she thought it would be. It was easy to do when the kill was justified and within the law, maybe this isn’t going to be so hard after all, but as soon as the thought materialised in her mind she knew the answer was, No, it will be much, much harder! She was cold from standing around and bounced up and down on the path trying to warm herself up before she launched herself at full pace back towards the warmth of the Killing Ground’s gym. Black was already back and was standing talking to Gideon, but as she started to approach him he shot her an evil look and she backed away and fell into line to wait for the rest of the class to get back from the run.

  Lord Sirap paced around the gym and threw curses at the last few apprentices to finish the race. As the scruffy Redhead and spotty boy staggered through the door he slammed it shut and shouted for them to join the line and straighten up. “Thanks for gracing us with your presence,” he said sarcastically. “Congratulations class you are down to thirty-one.” Alara could feel the eyes of the class roving up and down the line trying to figure out who was missing, but Alara faced toward Lord Sirap. She was dying to look down the line to where Black stood, but doing so might put him on the spot. “A1 report please.”

  “Twenty-nine retired Thirty-two Lord Sirap, clean and verified kill.”

  Lord Sirap’s eyes bore into Alara’s. “Indeed, any assists?”

  “Black assisted, my Lord,” murmurs of derision echoed up and down the line.

  “Quiet!” Lord Sirap shouted. “A2, would you like to explain why?”

  Black stepped forwards, “I slipped on the ice and my aim missed the mark Lord Sirap.”

  “Really?” Lord Sirap asked. Alara wasn’t sure if it was a question or more sarcasm.

  “Yes my Lord, Du Preeze was in a better position to retire him and beat me to the kill.”

  Sirap’s eyes were now boring holes into Black’s. “Fifty credit fine for your tawdry efforts Black.”

  Black turned and stepped back into line in position three.

  His lie had cost him his place as A2. Alara wasn’t concerned, his choices were his own and no reflection on her efforts, but she was starting to question his motives. This was the second time he had influenced her credit score. He could have easily retired her during the knife throwing practice and even more easily on the common path. Did she have Black all wrong? She reached out with her mind but Black’s defences were in place and forced her probe back. The physical pain in the rejection was still evident and her arm went numb from the charge. However it wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as the last time she had tried.

  “Du Preeze, step forward,” Lord Sirap instructed. She stepped up. “Anything to add?”

  “Nothing Lord Sirap.” Her eyes were now fixed firmly on the back wall of the gym in a refusal to meet Lord Sirap’s stare.

  “So be it Twenty-four, back in line.” The line shifted and Alara found her place next to Black Hair and in the safety zone. Inside she was elated and wanted to shout out in victory, but she kept her feelings to herself and never took her eyes off of the back wall. “Inspection will be in ten minutes. Class dismissed.”

  By the time they reached the dorm Wheezy’s cot and foot locker had been taken away, leaving an empty space. Apprentices busied themselves by tidying beds and lockers, readying themselves for the inspection. Black was sitting on his cot waiting for her, she hadn’t slept in her bed and her locker was sparse and very tidy, so she wasn’t worried about the inspection and hadn’t hurried back to the dorm.

  Black held out a hand, he wanted his blades back.

  “Can we talk?” she asked. Black refused to answer and reached to take the knives from Alara’s belt. She pulled away quickly and stopped him from reaching them. “I’ll trade you your blades back if you give me what you took.”

  “I never took anything from you Du Preeze.” In one fluid movement he grabbed Alara’s shoulder and spun her around, his arm was tight across her windpipe, choking her. She fought back, but the boy was too powerful for her and she felt the blackness close in around her vision. He took his blades out of her belt and pushed her face first into her cot. By the time she’d regained her dignity he was gone and a claxon sounded for the inspection. She tidied her bed as quickly as she could and stood to attention next to her footlocker after she lifted the lid waiting for Gideon’s inspection. So maybe Black is an ass after all, she thought to herself, one minute he’s on my side, the next he embarrasses me in front of t
he whole dorm. One thing he hadn’t done before was lie to her, and that meant something. If he said that he never took the note she believed him. Anyone could have taken it; she tried to remember who wasn’t around the target area watching Wheezy's failure and her survival. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her memories.

  “Am I keeping you from your sleep Du Preeze?” Gideon had made his way around the room and was now standing facing her.

  “No A1,” she said as her eyes snapped open.

  “Relax Twenty-four, this isn’t a formal inspection, and since you haven’t spent a night here yet I doubt that I’ll find anything worth fining you for.” He smiled and moved onto Ponytail's cot.

  So her absence had been noted after all. How naïve was she in thinking that her nightly movements weren’t noticed and probably reported on? Even though this seemed to pose no problems for her she knew that she would need to take more care. The words of the Quartermaster rang in her head, you have enemies and they watch your every move. She looked around the dorm examining each apprentice; some of which she knew to be enemies and none she knew as friends. She wondered if friends were even an option here. The three girls seem to be friends with each other and there were pods of boys that went everywhere together in small gangs. She wondered if they thought that there was safety in numbers. Didn’t they realise that the Law 50 restrictions would mean that most of them would be retired between now and year end, and that the retirements would most likely come from within this room? Or had they just accepted the law and decided to make friends anyway? Maybe it was just to make the hours of schooling and training more palatable. It was natural that humans act in groups; they were pack animals after all. She dismissed the thought of having any friends in this group, unless she could get close to Gideon, he was always full of smiles for her. She may only be fifteen, but she understood her body and she knew that boys of the same age normally only had one thing on their minds. If she could get Gideon alone maybe her feminine wiles could pry some useful information from him, and a night in his arms wouldn’t go amiss either. She brought herself back from daydreaming about Gideon and saw Black glaring at her from across the dorm.

  Eight:

  “Good afternoon class,” Lord Pitt said as he addressed the apprentices. It was late in the afternoon, and as much as Alara enjoyed history she was tired, and her mind had been slipping in and out of concentration all day since her fated meeting with Black on the path of the common. She sat near the window at the rear of the classroom, staring at the snow that continued to pour from out of the grey clouds circling above the Killing Grounds. “Today we will be looking at famous female assassins from before the ABC wars. It seems appropriate that at least one of the girls in the class has finally managed to pop her cherry.” Lord Pitt smiled and gestured to where Alara was sitting. Lord Pitt was an insipid man who didn’t seem worried as to whether anyone paid attention in class or not as he droned on for hour after hour. He wore the normal black fatigues, but unlike Lord Sirap’s meticulous attention to every single crease, Lord Pitt looked like he had just gotten out of bed. He was tall, at just short of two metres and as skinny as a rake, his greased back grey hair was plastered to his head and he had a forehead that extended down his gaunt face and didn’t stop until the end of his nose. His scruffy looking walrus moustache didn’t add anything positive to his sullied appearance. He looked over to the group of girls headed by Lucinda, “It seems that the gauntlet has been thrown down ladies, and I look forward to hearing about your attempts at picking it up and accepting the challenge.” Lucinda smiled but Ponytail and scruffy Redhead only nodded. “Of all the female assassins in history, pre the ABC wars, how many were successful A1?”

  “If successful means that they killed their targets Lord Pitt, then the answer is two, on the other hand if successful means that their actions caused the death post the attempted assassination, there is an argument for three, given that it’s now commonly accepted that Fanny Kaplan’s attempt at killing Rasputin did lead him to having a stroke and eventually die.”

  “That is correct A1,” Lord Pitt strolled around the room trying to keep the class's attention on him rather than each other. “Most other famous female assassins were less successful and only managed to injure their marks. Some say that this is due to the psychological makeup of the female side of our species, others say that this is not the case and that they lacked the fortitude to go through with their actions. If the latter were the case in those days, it seems the ABC wars turned that on its head. More cases of successful retirements were recorded for female assassins during those years than males. Any thoughts A3?”

  As always Black took his time to answer. “One could argue that the military still had an aversion to employing females in the armed forces at the time, and that there were more females available to join our ranks, but that hypothesis is ragged at best. Another argument put forward was that ninety percent of the ABC hierarchy was made up of men and that women were more successful due to their willingness to prostitute themselves out in order to gain better access to easier targets.” Lucinda let out a harrumph! as Black continued, “Personally I think that it’s due to the ABC executive’s decision to pound civilian populations with the bombing campaigns at the outset of the war. They targeted schools, churches and hospitals with the sole intention of killing of an entire generation of children before concentrating on the rebel forces. Once this became common knowledge there was no shortage of female assassins lining up to take shots at their decision makers.”

  “Indeed. And nicely explained A3.” A2 was squirming in his seat, visibly annoyed at being left out; it seemed to Alara that Lord Pitt knew that the demotion for Black wouldn’t last long enough to include the current A2 into the equation. “Tell me,” he pointed at Lucinda. “What is the difference between the assassins of pre-war and war?”

  Lucinda coughed and spluttered trying to buy time, but finally answered, “Motive sir. Pre-war assassins fought for personal reasons but during the war they fought for the rebel ideals.”

  “Hmmm…” Lord Pitt didn’t look amused at her answer. “Twenty-four do you agree with that statement?"

  Alara took her time to answer. “I see no difference sir, their motives were the same though their reasons were different, and I talk of the majority only. There was a minority of female assassins during the ABC wars that chose to be assassins and it was medically proven that, like some men, they had the mental capacity and fortitude to understand that retirement was a necessity in itself. Their only motivation was advancement within the ranks; they were single-minded and extremely effective in helping to win the war.”

  “Correct on all accounts Du Preeze. The hypothesis that females lack the necessary makeup to be effective assassins was proven incorrect, and we owe a great many thanks to those few. They say that only one in four women have that 'advantage'. How apt is that for this group?” He glanced towards Lucinda who was now seething. “Did you know that only one in thirty females reaches A-grade by the end of each year Twenty-four?”

  This time she answered immediately, “Yes Lord Pitt, even though I feel that A5 is a low target to aim for.” She hoped to stir up a hornet’s nest and gain some useful knowledge.

  Lord Pitt chuckled to himself as arms in the classroom were flying in the air from many of the boys now wanting in on the debate. Only Gideon and Black sat back in their chairs and didn’t seem to be bothered by her statement. “Very well said Twenty-four! And since you have proven yourself worthy today you do indeed have a claim to say that. It seems as though some of your classmates disapprove, but maybe if they step up to the plate and make their mark, their arguments may also be deemed as valid.” Arms dropped around the room and only a few remained. Alara made a mental note of those that were still waving. These would be the ones who had scored a retirement and felt that they had a right to comment. Lord Pitt waved their protests away. It interested Alara to see that Lucinda was one of those with an arm raised. She thought that she hers
elf had been the first female to score a retirement, but if Lucinda still had her arm raised that could mean that either she had a confirmed kill or that she wasn’t intelligent enough to understand Lord Pitt’s comment. Alara would have to work harder to find out what the death score was. She knew that Gideon and Black had confirmed kills along with the other A’s; you didn’t reach those high scores without retiring at least one apprentice. She took a guess that no one under the top ten had made a move yet and succeeded, with the possible exception of Lucinda. Alara now had 770 credits, and at her last check Gideon had extended his lead and had over 2,000 credits more than her. However, that had taken him two years to compile and Alara had only started less than a week ago. A good start, but she had bigger plans, and top five was a necessity if she were to survive. Her next target was to be top girl and Lucinda’s total of 1,470 credits was a long way off. Even if she retired some of the six bounties left she would still be short of overtaking her rival. They were pretty even in the gym, but Lucinda’s knowledge was proving to be superior to Alara’s. Luckily Alara had the Arts to draw from. She was getting ahead of herself, she may be out of the danger zone at present but Black Hair and Ponytail were close behind. That would have to change!

  “During the ABC wars the male assassins mostly retired targets that were long range using firearms, it was the job of the female assassins to do the up-close killing, and a healthy argument could be made for both methods. What was the significant difference in these methods A2?”