Shadow Of The Mountain by D.A. Stone Page B

climbed, forcing him to check his footing and dig into the rise even harder. His blond hair was damp and matted to his forehead, his chest aching from the strain. The muscles of his back and shoulders burned with fire beneath the brown academy cloak, and the hands that gripped the small boulder to his chest were slippery with sweat.
    No matter how he adjusted the rock—spinning, flipping, or rotating it—the damned thing always seemed to be trying to escape. He shifted it again on the move, locking his grip at the wrist and pressing on.
    Always on the move, his mind urged. Never stop.
    The sun was nearing the highest point of the day and its light danced in through patches of forest canopy to warm the surrounding hillside. Draz could hear the struggling breathing of the rest of his class behind him, burdened by heavy packs at the back and dulled sparring swords at the waist, but hampered most of all by the large stones each were forced to carry. Normally these runs were done with their shields, but a youth named Orrik had left his unattended on the ground earlier in the week: an unfathomable transgression.
    Instructor Trobe ordered them all to abandon their shields back at the barracks. Before setting off on their exercise, a heavy stone was assigned to each. They weren’t warriors anymore, he’d said. They were landscapers.
    Draz’s group had been running like this since dawn and was on its third day of it, resting only at dusk when the possibility of a twisted ankle or awkward fall in the dark made it too dangerous to continue. All present were reaching their limit, Draz included.
    “Fly, little birds!” Instructor Trobe’s voice boomed down from the top of the hill they climbed. “I would not follow any of you into battle! How could you carry a comrade to safety if you can’t even carry a stone up a hill?”
    Draz forced the old man’s mockery from his head, focusing on the incline. How the silver-haired instructor made it to the top so quickly, he could only guess. Just a few minutes earlier he had been berating another student below over some tedious concern—an unbuckled strap or a tangled brown cloak, it was always something. The man’s pale, blazing eyes would settle upon you and make you feel like a child.
    Draz ignored the lone instructor and his taunts. All that was important now was the next push of energy, the next step, the next inch.
    Just keep moving.
    He fought to the crest of the hill and saw Sorkan ahead, already halfway down the backside of the rise. He couldn’t remember the tall runner ever passing him, but the climb had been a challenge and it wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Back in the barracks there was a tale of how Sorkan once ran down a buck in the forest on foot. It was said that for the better part of a day he kept chase, eventually finding it collapsed in a clearing nearly dead, lathered in sweat and surrounded by vomit. He claimed to have sat with the animal until its strength returned and it bolted into the night.
    A great story and one most would find hard to believe, but they had all witnessed Sorkan’s stamina during their training on countless occasions. It was as if he could run forever, and no one disputed the tale.
    “Down the back ass of it, Draz!” Instructor Trobe barked as they met. “How can you expect to lead men if you can’t even keep up with them? You are to set the example, not fail to reach it.”
    Draz stumbled down the hill, hugging the stone to his chest with tired arms. They had been on runs before, long runs, though this was the worst of it. His older brother Kirig had told him many tales of what to expect throughout the years of training, but this bone-weary run of exhaustion was something out of a nightmare.
    “You want your cloaks, but the lot of you can’t even handle this!” Trobe continued his tirade as the rest of the students struggled behind him. “It’s just a few stones up a hill! Faster, Jornan! Move faster! You may swing your