Change of Darkness (The Change Series Book 3) by Jacinta Jade (best new books to read txt) 📕

CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS JUST twenty or so captives completing the twenty-fifth lap when Herrin startled them all with a gruff shout.

‘Halt!’

Siray stumbled to a stop with her friends, bending over to brace her body on her knees and keep herself standing as her chest heaved. She and her friends, except Zale and Kinna, were fitter than the other captives, having gone through intense training and testing at Gonron just before being captured by the Faction. It made this kind of test easier for them in both a physical and mental capacity.

Sensing motion from where Herrin was positioned, Siray straightened quickly at the edge of the group, her own movement alerting the others. Together, they all watched carefully as the scarred training master approached them in his slow and measured way. While Herrin’s face didn’t give anything away, there was something sly about his gait that made Siray think he was enjoying this and was purposefully drawing out his approach in anticipation of what was to come.

Indeed, she could feel the strong muscles of her thighs coiling almost imperceptibly in response to her assessment before they quivered slightly. The march from Gonron to this city had deeply fatigued her body, yet she still didn’t even know where on the massive continent she was. Someplace on the coast, obviously, potentially on the southern side of the mainland, given the cooler temperature, although it could also have been because they were in the last turns of the golden time, with second winter soon to be upon them. Not that it was noticeably cooler right then, with the sun streaming in brightly high above through the arena’s clear dome roof and reflecting its heat off the sand and into the captives’ faces.

Having strolled across the sands to reach Siray and her pack of runners, Herrin stood and waited, scrutinising the faces and condition of Siray and the other twenty captives closely. Almost as if he were memorising their faces. Then he turned his head, and only his head, to watch the walkers dribble in.

Siray turned her head just slightly also, watching the other two-thirds of their group hurry across the sands while keeping one eye on Herrin.

Some walkers kept their pace, defiant as they joined the growing clump of captives. Other stragglers, seeing they were amongst the last to rejoin, began jogging to reach them faster, as if that would help them to blend in again.

Siray fought the impulse to shake her head. Instinctively now, the walkers were just realising the danger they had put themselves in. Some may have consciously chosen to ignore it, potentially not believing that Herrin could punish them all in the same way as the male who now lay, dead, out on the sands. If they had been smarter, she thought, they wouldn’t have dared to walk.

With keen blue-grey eyes, Herrin watched each captive rejoin the group until all sixty-one of them stood before him, some breathing more heavily than others, most avoiding his eye.

‘Organise yourselves in a line. Those who were still running at the end, over here. Those who walked at this end. And I want walkers in the order that you stopped running.’ He said all this in a deceptively neutral and calm voice.

Yet the reaction from Siray and the other captives was one of stillness. Not a normal stillness, but that of frozen bodies and caught breath.

Until Tamot shuffled a step towards the spot that had been pointed out by Herrin for the runners.

This seemed to break the hold over Siray and the others who had kept running, and they all staggered as quickly as their tired bodies would allow them to line up together.

Siray was glad that Tamot had been the one to take the first step. It showed that he was still with them, still aware of what was going on. Because they didn’t really know, couldn’t fully know, the extent of the mental anguish he was in. Or if it would be enough to push him over the edge.

But this tiny glimpse of the old Tamot, the one who wanted to be first to do and know everything, gave Siray a tiny spark of hope. Of course, if he were his old self, he would have placed himself at the far end of the line, as far away as he could get from the walkers. Instead, he let Kinna and Loce overtake him, allowing them to be the first two in line.

The walkers moved a lot more slowly, less keen to identify themselves to Herrin.

Which proved just how much they were underestimating their new training master.

Watching calmly, and with apparent patience, Herrin appeared unconcerned as the walkers took a lengthy time to organise themselves. A couple of small and mumbled arguments broke out as a few walkers disagreed over the order of their placement in the line, but the smallest step by Herrin in the direction of these little disputes, and soon all were facing outwards and awaiting his next order.

Strolling casually up to where the walkers’ end of the line began, Herrin pivoted slowly on the sand and started moving down the long file of captives.

Siray noted he didn’t turn to look at any of them as he went by, but she still suspected he was cataloguing everything.

After passing Loce and then Kinna, Herrin turned and marched his powerful body back to his initial position, about ten paces out and centred.

‘Number off,’ he commanded, his deep voice reaching Siray clearly. ‘Starting at sixty-one, with you.’ The trainer raised a bladed hand to point out the wretched female captive who had first started walking.

As if she had been threatened, the female quivered, hesitated a moment, then managed to stammer out, ‘Six—Sixty-one.’

‘Stop!’ The call was instantaneous. ‘Call it out, again,’ Herrin ordered. ‘Nice and clear.’ He drew out the last couple of words.

The nervous-looking female took a deep breath. ‘Sixty-one!’

The trainer nodded in satisfaction.

‘Sixty!’

‘Fifty-nine!’

Herrin was nodding as he listened to the captives sound out the count, but behind him, Siray saw two