Warrior of the Stars- Book one of the Jay Shang Chronicles

Chapter 5-First Day

Chapter 5 - First Day

Jay awoke to a shockingly cold wave washing over his body. He jumped up, screaming. "What was that for?" he gasped angrily sweeping the water away from his face as his hair dripped from the unwelcome bath. Benjii laughed as he threw a now empty bucket into the corner of the tent where Jay had been brought after dinner the night before.

"It's time to wake up, lad!" he said cheerfully. "We have some shopping to do!"

Jay sat up and rubbed his eyes groggily. "Shopping?" he yawned as he stood and stretched.

Benjii handed him a strip of meat, "Eat that and then we can be off. And yes, shopping. Well, not exactly. Everything we're getting is free." Jay sighed and began to gnaw at the dried meat as he followed Benjii out of the tent. His jaw protested the stiffness but he chewed on.

The first place they went to was the seamstress. The head tailor herself was an old woman, with black eyes and an overall grizzled appearance. She took a break from the clothes she was hunched over to look at Jay, muttered something that he expected was an insult and threw two more pairs of clothing at him. She added a pair of thick leather boots that had a bloodstain on the toe. Jay gulped and ran after Benjii, who apparently didn't think that bloodstained shoes were anything to be worried about.

Next, they went to armory. The man in charge measured Jay's arms, legs, and torso with a marked string and then scurried off. He returned with a bow and a quiver of arrows, a long wooden staff with short wicked looking blades on both ends. He also gave him a strange scabbard with...two hilts sticking out of it. The ends of each scabbard were tapered, with the far end thicker than the hilt and hooked slightly. Benjii took the clothes from Jay so he could carry his new weapons.

They brought the supplies back to the cooking fire so that Jay could eat before he was assigned to his training squad. Meriki and Maria were there already. Jay was given another bowl of stew and a torn off hunk of thick brown bread. "Are you all set for your assignment?" Maria asked him as he ate.

Benjii nodded, and it seemed to Jay as if there was something sad about the way he did so. Maria shook her head and refilled Jay's bowl and gave him another slice of bread. "You best be eating up boy. That'll be the last decent meal you will get in a while."

Jay stopped and looked at her. "You make it sound so bad. And before Benjii mentioned something about it being dangerous, is it?"

Benjii sighed and rested a hand on Jay's shoulder. "Lad, it is dangerous. The years you will spend training to be a warrior in the Kimanche army are going to be the worst of your life."

Jay gulped, his bread stuck in his throat. "How many years is it?"

"That entirely depends on you. The faster you master the necessary skills, the faster you will progress through the ranks."

Jay was quiet for several moments. The others continued to eat, watching him from the corners of their eyes. "So it really is survival of the fittest, then? I have to be the best in order to get through it all?"

Meriki nodded at him. "Yes boy, that's exactly what we're saying. And none of us are going to be there to help you. Once novices are assigned, their training master has complete control over them."

Jay sighed and set his bowl on the ground. "Ok then, can we just get it over with?"

Benjii nodded as he got up and led Jay away from the cook fire.

"Good luck!" called Maria after them.

Benjii led Jay away from the little cookfire and towards the portion of the camp reserved for novices. When they got there, he was not surprised to find that the camp was in every sense of the word, a hovel. There were few tents for what appeared to be between one hundred to one hundred and fifty children, and those that Jay could see were threadbare and had holes in them.