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“Irjah, Jima, Yim, and Sonnen give oral exams,” said Raban. “You’ll be questioned in front of a panel of the masters. They’ll take turns interrogating you, and if you mess up, that’s the end of your session for that subject. The more questions you answer, the more you get to prove how much you know. So study hard—and speak carefully.”
Jun did not conduct an oral exam. The Combat exam consisted of the Tournament.
This would take course over the two days of exams. The first-years would duel in the rings using the same rules that the apprentices used in their matches. They would compete in three preliminary rounds determined by random draws, and based on their win-loss ratios, eight would advance to elimination rounds. Those eight would be placed in a randomized bracket and fight one another until the final round.
Reaching the eliminations in the Tournament was no guarantee of gaining a sponsor, and losing early was not a guarantee of expulsion. But those students who advanced further in the tournament had more chances to show the masters how well they fought. And the winner of the Tournament always received a bid.
“Altan won his year,” Raban said. “Kureel won hers. You’ll notice they both landed the two most prestigious apprenticeships at Sinegard. There’s no actual prize for winning, but the masters like placing bets. Get your ass kicked, and no master will want to take you on.”
“I want to pledge Medicine, but we’ve got to memorize so many extra texts on top of the readings we’ve done so far, and if I do I won’t have time study for History . . . Do you think I should pledge History? Do you think Yim likes me enough?” Niang flapped her hands in the air, agitated. “My brother said I shouldn’t rely on getting a Medicine apprenticeship; there are four of us taking Enro’s exam and she only ever picks three, so maybe I won’t get it . . .”
“Enough, Niang,” Venka snapped. “You’ve been talking about this for days.”
“What do you want to pledge?” Niang persisted.
“Combat. And that’s the last time we’re talking about it,” Venka said shrilly. Rin suspected that if Niang said another word, Venka might scream.
But Rin couldn’t blame Niang. Or Venka, really. The first-years gossiped obsessively about apprenticeships, and it was both understandable and grating. Rin had learned about the hierarchy of masters through eavesdropping on conversations in the mess hall: bids from Jun and Irjah were ideal for apprentices who wanted command positions in the Militia, Jima rarely chose apprentices unless they were nobility destined to become court diplomats, and Enro’s bid mattered only to the few of them who wanted to be military physicians.
“Training under Irjah would be nice,” said Kitay. “Of course, Jun’s apprentices have their pick of divisions, but Irjah can get me into the Second.”
“The Rat Province’s division?” Rin wrinkled her nose. “Why?”
Kitay shrugged. “They’re Army Intelligence. I would love to serve in Army Intelligence.”
Jun was out of the question for Rin, though she too hoped Irjah might take her. But she knew Irjah wouldn’t place a bid unless she proved she had the martial arts to back up her Strategy prowess. A strategist who couldn’t fight had no place in the Militia. How could she draw up battle plans if she’d never been on the front lines? If she didn’t know what real combat was like?
For her, it all came down to the Tournament.
As for the apprentices, it was apparently the most exciting thing to happen on campus all year. They began speculating wildly about who might win and who would beat whom—and they didn’t try very hard to keep the betting books secret from the first-years. Word spread quickly about who the front-runners were.
Most of the money backed the Sinegardians. Venka and Han were solid contenders for the semifinals. Nohai, a massive kid from a fishing island in Snake Province, was widely backed to reach the quarterfinals. Kitay had his fair share of supporters, although this was largely because he had demonstrated a talent for dodging so well that most of his sparring opponents grew frustrated and got sloppy after several long minutes.
Oddly, a number of apprentices put decent money on Rin. Once word got out that she had been training privately with Jiang, the apprentices took an inordinate degree of interest in her. It helped that she was nipping at Kitay’s heels in every other one of their classes.
The clear front-runner in their year, however, was Nezha.
“Jun says he’s the best to come through his class since Altan,” Kitay said, jabbing vehemently at his food. “Won’t shut up about him. You should have seen him take out Nohai yesterday. He’s a menace.”
Nezha, who had been a pretty, slender child at the start of the year, had since packed on an absurd amount of muscle. He’d cut short his stupidly long hair in favor of a clipped military cut similar to Altan’s. Unlike the rest of them, he already looked like he belonged in a Militia uniform.
He had also garnered a reputation for striking first and thinking later. He had injured eight sparring partners over the course of the term, all in increasingly severe “accidents.”
But of course Jun had never punished him—not as severely as he deserved, anyhow. Why would something so mundane as rules apply to the son of the Dragon Warlord?
As the date of the exams loomed closer, the library became oppressively silent. The only sound among the stacks was the furious scribbling of brushes on paper as the first-years tried to commit an entire year’s lessons to memory. Most study groups had disbanded, since any advantage given to a study partner was potentially a lost spot in the ranks.
But Kitay, who didn’t need to study, obliged Rin purely out of boredom.
“Sunzi’s Eighteenth Mandate.” Kitay didn’t bother looking at the texts. He had memorized the entirety of Principles of War on his first read-through. Rin would have killed for that talent.
Rin squinted her eyes in concentration. She knew she looked stupid, but her head was swimming again, and squinting was the only way to make it stop. She felt very cold and hot all at once. She hadn’t slept in three days. All she wanted was to collapse on her bunk, but another hour of cramming was worth more than an hour of sleep.
“It’s not one of the Seven Considerations . . . wait, is it? No, okay: always modify plans according to circumstances . . . ?”
Kitay shook his head. “That’s the Seventeenth Mandate.”
Rin cursed out loud and rubbed her fists against her forehead.
“I wonder how you people do it,” Kitay mused. “You know, actually having to try to remember things. Your lives sound so difficult.”
“I will murder you with this ink brush,” Rin grumbled.
“Sunzi’s appendix is all about why soft ends make for bad weapons. Didn’t you do the extra reading?”
“Quiet!” Venka snapped from the opposite desk.
Kitay dipped his head out of Venka’s sight and cracked a grin at Rin. “Here’s a hint,” he whispered. “Menda in the temple.”
Rin gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Oh. Of course. “All warfare is based on deception.”
In preparation for the Tournament, their entire class had taken Sunzi’s Eighteenth Mandate to heart. The pupils stopped using the open practice rooms during common hours. Anyone with an inherited art suddenly stopped bragging about it. Even Nezha had ceased to hold his nightly performances in the studio.
