The Ways of War

Chapter 8

I would love to say that I woke up the next morning a little cold, a little hungry, but very well rested, however, that would be a lie. No one had thought to tell Patrice, Alvin, and I that the night was the time when the Tsoro most liked to launch their attacks, which consisted of large boulders being flung at the walls surround the main camp in the hopes that one of the walls would break. This meant that all that was heard all night was resounding boom after resounding boom.

Again, I wish that I could say that that was the only thing that kept me awake that first night, however, that also would be a lie. Around midnight, the fire fully extinguished itself, causing cold air to fill the room so that it could attempt to freeze me.

By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon my exhausted body actually lacked the ability to keep me awake any longer and, while my body laid curled in a ball under the layers of blankets I had piled onto my bed, my eyes slipped shut, only to jerk open far too soon when I felt the blankets ripped away and a pillow hit me in the head. Hard.

Jerking up I pulled my limbs tight into my body and looked around for the person I was going to murder, only to come face to face with Lucas. "Time to get up, we have training to do." He told me as he turned, picked my armor up off of the bed beside mine and threw it at me. "Meet me outside, I have breakfast ready, we can eat it on the way to the training field." Lucas ordered as he turned and strode towards the tent flap. He opened it to reveal the pastel colors of the morning sky, blocked in part by the hulk of the wall.

Scrambling to cover my frozen skin, I took a few seconds to start the fire back from its dying embers before I met Lucas outside. He looked as awake as always and was leaning his form against Blade, who appeared to be conversing with Opher. Walking up to the threesome I crossed my arms and leaned back against Opher. "So, assuming we can't fly, how does one train while in an active battle zone?" I asked, attempting to stifle a yawn.

My sleep deprivation was going to give me hell later in the day; however, I needed to focus on the task at hand. Instead of giving me an answer, Lucas pulled a strip of what appeared to be dried meat out of a bag that he had slung across his body and passed it over to me. "Eat up, we have a lot to do today." He said before he started walking. "Now, our main goal is getting you up to the admiral's standards as quickly as possible. We need you shipped to the Tsoro camp so that you can get started on peace negotiations. Starting now, your every waking moment will be spent preparing you and Opher to go to the enemy camp. If you aren't with me, you will be with the researchers, learning everything you can about the Tsoro. Many of the researchers and fighters understand parts of the Tsoro language, therefore as you work the admiral will be sending different people to you so that they can teach you the parts of their language that they know." Lucas informed me as I scrambled to keep up with him.

Listening I absently mindedly brought the dried meat to my lips and bit now, and nearly stopped. My eyes started to water with pure joy as the taste of what can only be described as heaven exploded onto my tongue. After living so long with the burnt poison the school fed us and then last night with the horrid mush, a part of me had accepted that I would never again taste anything that did not make me want to rip my tongue out of my mouth in pity. Yet, here I was, eating something slowly so that I could linger longer on the taste.

Now completely ignoring everything that Lucas was saying I gnawed happily on the salty meat, trying to figure out what exactly it was so that I could tell everyone what the true taste of heaven really was. I was so focused on the meat, which was starting to dwindle in size, that I did not notice that Lucas had stopped walking until I slammed into him.