"It is not fair," Kamiéra bit off the words for, by her sisters' count, the eleventh time in the last two hours. "It is not just," she continued her litany. As she was insisting this in the general direction of the ground, she did not see Madrigel and Jaira mouthing it in time with her repetition, small smiles gracing their lips.
Llaha cleared her throat. "Kami," she began only to have whatever she'd been about to say overridden by the eleventh repetition (twelfth enunciation) of her friend's increasingly boy-like disgust and frustration. She folded her hands and resumed her embroidery, marveling again at how the whisper-steel they'd helped design left her armor light enough to remain in it comfortably after battle was over.
The twelve-and-counting-times unfair, unjust(, disgusting, frustrating) object of Kamiéra's verbal tirade was something essentially new in the history of the Trials: A tie by order of the judges. Which meant a loss in the Trials.
The Witchspears had rallied in the days following Malamo's turn at waiting on Kamiéra's table, with a new diversionary or misdirecting stratagem each time. Llaha's favorite had been an ambush of Second Brotherhood and simply kicking up enough dust as they approached First and Third to make them think, for just barely long enough, that Second was running so hard and fast as to forget operational control as they rejoined the main body.
Unfortunately, that inspired tactic led to The Great Unfairness.
Kamiéra was thirty feet forward and left, but her voice was clear and perfect in her ear despite the padding of dozens of feet at the noise of Wind kicking up dust. Tesliain had taken a page from Kami's tomes and had worked up this use of the Wind and the effect it had on battlefield communication was wondrous.
"Narrow the wedge," her leader called out in a whisper like low thunder, and Llaha watched from her edge-sight as her sisters pulled in as one. Amaso had bet she'd topple the best-looking Blademage in the bunch and after they'd finished the obvious jokes, Llaha had taken the bet and countered the same with a laugh and a wrist grasp and a hug.
There is nothing in all the world like a sister.
Fifth Company was fighting a facially-desperate series of retreats in depth against Fourth and Fifth Brotherhood so that half of Third Company could join and pin them in place long enough for this trap to finish. The Witchspears knew from hard experience that they couldn't match Blademagi body for body; but they'd also learned that the Blademagi knew it, too, and sometimes forgot that strength of mind is very different from strength of frame.
Starmetal blades cleared scabbards and lit as one just as First Company, Kamiéra pulling them on, crashed into a bunch of clearly surprised and therefore angry young men.
Kamiéra's rant continued as armor and under clothes hit the ground, stomping into the impromptu baths. "We had them. They were the ones who couldn't take their Chasm-taken medicine, all we did--" heated water pouring on her, muffling but not stopping her words. Llaha and Amaso shared a look. Kami was rarely this angry, but they knew from experience that once she reached this point, it was best to let it run aground on its own.
The trap was brilliant and not because it was designed to be perfect at the first spring. "Thrice-cursed" Malamo, whether discerning what was underway or having planned for this sort of thing before the Dance began, had appeared at the head of about half of Fourth Brotherhood, aiming at the right flank of the Witchspears like a fist of flesh and metal. Between that and Joran's undeniable tactical skill -- the entire mass of Blademagi was quickly cohering and enveloping the Witchspear wedge -- the day would have been lost.
Then came Tesliain.
"I didn't summon the rockslide!" the young-woman-shaped mass of water and steam managed to yell clearly before the burbling resumed.
Half of Third Company had been a pinning/sacrificial calf force. Half of Third Company, with Tesliain at its van, had been assigned as spies for any breakaways, and especially on Malamo. When Malamo tore loose and raced for the main body of his army, he'd picked up a train of a silent, vaguely-shimmering blur roughly the size of a dozen young women moving as one.
Just as Fourth Brotherhood was about to tear open the Witchspear force from its side, it got split by a Witchspear force from its rear. Malamo spun, fast as liquid, and dealt with this new threat, which unfortunately put Llaha's demi-Company to act as a new hammer to Tesliain's anvil.
And it was here, with the trap completely unfolded, with all forces committed and no realistic chance of a change in the overall tactical disposition, and another Witchspear victory highly likely if not assured, that everything went wrong.
Jaira came over and said, eyebrows arched, "She's taking it unusually well." Even though there was no way Kamiéra could hear them, the laughter that erupted from every First Company mouth was muffled by an equal number of hands as soon as it broke free.
The biteme in the ointment this time came not from Thrice Cursed Malamo but from his superior. Kicking back Anaka, the Second Company lieutenant who'd engaged him even as Kamiéra fought in his direction, he'd lifted his starmetal broadsword into the air.
And wrapped Flame about it.
Before everyone could pause at this dangerous breach of the explicit rules of the Trials, the Flame coursed up from his blade.
And was met by a hammer of Wind.
The water stopped and Kamiéra, clothed as she'd been when knit by the Mother, did not so much walk out of the bathing crevice as kick the ground rhythmically while carrying on to herself. Grabbing her novice robe, she turned a corner and mercifully remembered to don it before entering the open area to the tents.
The litany continued the whole way.
"Men are stronger than women" was not the first lesson they'd learned at the Academy, but it was an oft-repeated one of necessity.
Every Witchspear novice basically knew this already; most had brothers, almost all had living fathers, and before their Wills had come with their first bleeding, there had been no doubt in their daily lives which sex carried more muscle and power.
Knowing a thing in one's head is different from knowing it in one's heart, and the burgeoning of the Will and the strength it granted sometimes meant that this undeniable truth sometimes retreated to parts of the head that did not always have a say.
So it was that every Witchspear was taught, again, sometimes by having non-Gifted men mechanically toss them around under the supervision of the medicae, this essential truth of life and, more importantly, battle. A Witchspear could tire or be caught off guard by a non-Gifted man, and she had to learn how to survive and win when that happened.
But, for today's purposes, far more importantly, "As with the body, so with the Will." All but the very weakest male Wills were significantly stronger than even the strongest woman's. Even Kamiéra, whose strength was the greatest of this Witchspear generation and likely of the last several, could not muster the raw power of even the most middling of the Blademage Brothers at the Trials.
This was one of the two reasons that the use of the Gift as a direct weapon, offensive or defensive, was forbidden in the Trials: The goal was to teach the young Gifted to work together and learn from each other, because some day, they would share fields of less-friendly battle; having the Blademagi simply bowl over the Witchspears would teach no one anything.
The other reason is that the Will and the powers it commands are obviously, brutally, quickly, and other menacing adverbs lethal; and where not lethal, maiming to the extent that even medicae cannot always repair the injuries.
Flame overtopped Wind overtopped Flame spouted around Wind. Metal clashes slowly died down. Tesliain and Malamo stopped the Dance, gave each other a very brief look, and took off to their respective leaders.
Who were both staring at each other in something between determination and rage, as their Wills battled above them and their Gifts created empty circles around them.
What had happened next was in some dispute, but some details were clear.
Joran's Flame touched one of the rock walls about a quarter mile from the Witchspear left flank, searching, probing, when suddenly a face of rock and rubble began to pour down. Kamiéra's Wind wrapped some of it in gentle fists of air which then gently flung some at Joran and some in the path of the rockslide. Lightning flashed in the clear sky and then crashed rapidly into the ground, closer and closer to where young men and women had Danced just moments berore. Fire flickered on the ground, which began to undulate just a bit. Gusts of wind whipped through the valley, first those of a strong storm and then of something far grander.
Malamo and Tesliain had reached their respective leaders and were shouting, apparently pointlessly and likely unheard, for them to stop. Sweat poured down two young faces. The shaking and wind and fire and lightning increased.
And then it all stopped as the two First Captains were knocked from their feet and each sent flying several spans, landing roughly on the ground.
"ENOUGH," boomed the voice of the adult man who'd been forgotten in all of this, as his also-forgotten wife wrapped Kamiéra and Joran in chains of iron Wind. The ground before the rockslide slagged and the rocks sank in. The sky cleared.
What happened next left every Witchspear and Blademage carefully studying the mountains in the distance, random bits of rock, the clear sky, anything and everything but the two livid adults and the two-suddenly-very-young-looking Gifted at the center of their ire.
As one, Kamiéra's sisters followed her. With any luck, they could get to her before she ran into--
"I do not care that Joran used Flame first and I care even less that you were trying to counter him," Magistra Leirola bit off each word, so hard that the Witchspear in front of her seemed to recoil with each syllable. "You should have known enough to withdraw completely and Shield, at most, if needed. Instead, you escalated."
Llaha raised her hand, off-center and tilted, and First Company started a quiet retreat, when -- eyes still on Kamiéra -- Leirola snapped her fingers in their direction. They all stopped, and began new efforts to pretend they were elsewhere.
"Well?"
Kami's voice took on that dreamy, distant quality it sometimes did when being dressed down. "I should have exercised better judgment. I shouldn't have embraced the Wind--"
"Yes and no." Another whip crack of syllables. "You should have exercised better judgment. You were too determined to win at any cost, and there is always a cost to the hardest victories; before trying the purchase, know the price. You could have maimed or killed Gifted not parties to your little contest with Joran, just as you might kill innocent non-Gifted in battle with too-liberal use of your Gift.
"But had you merely Shielded yourself and your Companies, or redirected his Flame, or sent out a warning cry for our intervention, Joran's punishments -- which my husband is delighting in creating and applying as we speak -- would be unique today. Your use of the Wind was not the problem, it is what you did with it."
She rubbed her right hand over her face, suddenly looking Seasons older than she had this morning. "You are relieved as First Captain, effective immediately. Tesliain is promoted to Temporary First," her eyes barely flicked at poor Tes, who was trying to shrink into the ground, "who may choose a Temporary Second at her discretion, save you. You will march a patrol picket every night, with no external light and only Sight to guide you, until such time as I determine you have the maturity to be considered for a restoration to First.
"You will learn control and perspective, Kamiéra dal'Falein, and you will meditate on these things as you march that picket until they are second nature.
"Now, all of you go back to your quarters. You will all pay with hungry bellies tonight for your former First Captain's want of discretion. Dismissed."
It did not escape Llaha's notice that everyone waited until Kami had taken lead before heading back. She prayed it escaped Leirola's.
