‘Come on! Come on!’ Jula stood at the door frantically looking down the corridor. ‘Arabella!’

Arabella ran for the door and both of them sprinted away. Nona and Ghena were last to leave the changing room.

‘Come on!’ Ghena started running.

Nona made to give chase but at the doorway she spotted one of the dark linen belts, abandoned on the floor. Without thinking, she scooped it up and took it with her to return to its owner, tucking it down the front of her tunic to keep her hands free. Moments later she was sprinting down the tunnel towards the bright hall beyond. Dazzled by the sunshine as she emerged Nona couldn’t see who ran past her in the opposite direction.

‘Cutting things fine, novice.’ Sister Tallow turned to watch Nona’s breathless arrival hard on the heels of Ghena’s.

Nona bowed her head and went to join Ghena at the end of the second row. She looked about … one person missing. She opened her mouth to comment but Ghena deployed a swift, sharp elbow to her ribs.

A moment of silence passed. Another. A whole minute where eleven novices watched the sandy floor beneath their feet and tension rose around them.

‘And here she comes.’ Sister Tallow dropped the words with the same weight the judge had spoken Nona’s death sentence.

Arabella came running from the tunnel, clutching her fight tunic closed across her chest. ‘I couldn’t find it! It wasn’t anywhere!’ She pulled up breathless and close to tears.

‘An inventive child would have taken a replacement from the stores and claimed it as hers. An attentive child would not have lost her belt within moments of receiving it in the first place.’ Sister Tallow returned her gaze to the class. ‘At convent the rules apply to king and commoner alike. Once the class is finished Novice Jula will shave Novice Arabella’s head and then Arabella will perform the same duty for her.’

Nona realized her mistake. She hesitated, then reached beneath her own tunic to draw out Arabella’s belt. ‘Sister—’

‘Ah!’ Mistress Blade proved to have quick eyes. ‘I see that Nona has demonstrated an enduring and valuable truth. We may fight here in this hall and think that because our battles are unconstrained by rules that we truly understand what it is to make war.’ Sister Tallow strode the length of the first line. ‘Do not be deceived. No real fight is bound by four walls. No real fight ends at a particular doorway or when we wash off the sweat and the blood. Fights end with defeat. And death is the only defeat a warrior understands. While we draw breath we are at war with our enemies and they with us.’ The nun turned at the end of the line and approached Nona, taking the belt from her hand. ‘In future, Nona, save such demonstrations of the secret war for Mistress Shade’s class where they will be better appreciated. Though try not to irk her. Our sister of the shadow is far less … kind … than I am.’ She tossed the belt to Arabella. ‘Laps! Sharlot, lead off.’

The tallest girl in Red Class, a willowy redhead, took off running, the rest falling in behind her.

Nona was used to laps from the Caltess and she fell into an easy rhythm. She could sense Arabella behind her, last in the running order, and doubtless staring daggers at the back of her neck. At each corner Clera glanced back, offering a grin. After the first few circuits of the hall Nona let her mind empty of everything except the pattern of her feet hitting the sandy floor. She let go of the story she had told at the sinkhole, let the worry over her confirmation fee slip away, let Arabella Jotsis and her revenge fade, even thoughts of Raymel Tacsis and his revenge becoming lost beneath the placing of one foot before the other. Only the line remained, bright and burning, as it had been in her dream.

‘I will repeat myself for the new girls,’ Sister Tallow said when she had them in two rows once more, sweating and labouring over their breath. ‘It’s a message many of you could do with hearing again. Perhaps you’ll take more meaning from it after so many lessons in this hall.

‘We are not built for war. We are not fast – most every animal can outrun or evade us, be it hound, cat, rat, or sparrow. We are not strong – a mule, a hoola, a bear, all of them are pound for pound three, maybe five times as strong as man. And you are not men.

‘What we are is clever and precise. These are our tools. Wit and precision. I am teaching you to fight without weapons for two reasons. First, because there are times when you will be without a weapon. Second, because in training for such conflict you will learn about pain without getting broken, and you will learn about rage without killing.’ She held up her hands. ‘These are poor weapons. When we fight we fight to win. This—’ From nowhere six inches of gleaming steel appeared in her hand. ‘This is a better weapon. However, I can punch you with my fist and you will learn a lesson. The knife’s lesson is short and terminal.’

Sister Tallow flexed her wrist and the blade vanished into her sleeve. ‘The stories tell us that battles are about right and wrong. That winning requires heart and passion. That the Ancestor will reach out to those who believe and lend strength to their arm. The truth is that the Ancestor will gather your essence to the whole when you die. I’m sure you’re told more about that in Spirit, but in Blade just know that until you die the Ancestor will only watch.

‘Fighting is about control. Control of your fear, your pain, and your anger. Control of your weapon. Control of your opponent. Fighting is about mechanics, levers, breaking points, and speed. Your body is a mechanism. It is time to learn how it works, how far you can push it or allow it to be pushed, not before it hurts, but before it breaks. Unarmed combat requires the application of force to disable the opponent’s machine before they disable yours.

‘In Blade we value quickness. Sufficient speed makes every other aspect of combat irrelevant. If your opponent is a statue it doesn’t matter how strong or skilled they might be – find their throat or an eye and make an end of them. Speed is the way of the sisterhood.

‘You will have heard the old stories of Red Sisters, of Sister Cloud and the Western King, or Sister Owl maybe, when she tamed the Black Castle. The wordsmiths in Verity will spin such tales out for you for a quarter penny and tell you about the fist storm, about a dozen of the king’s close-guard left lying in Cloud’s wake.’ Sister Tallow spat into the sand. ‘Stories are just words. Words have no place in a fight. The truth is that almost every time two people raise their empty hands against each other they will both end up on the floor long before one of them dies or is otherwise broken.

‘On the ground strength tells, and very often you will not be the strongest. I will teach you about joints. How they will and won’t move. In which direction they tear most easily. In which place the force you apply will find the longest levers to stress those joints. How to twist yourself out of similar holds. How to bite and gouge. How to win where winning is an option.

‘More importantly you will learn about pain, fear, rage, and control. You will learn how to balance the first three to achieve the fourth. And you will carry those lessons into Grey Class where I will put weapons in your hands and teach you what it is to be a Red Sister. In Grey Class I will teach you how to make the fuckers bleed.

‘Arabella, Nona, Jula, Ghena, to the front.’

Nona followed the others to the spot Sister Tallow indicated.