He and Jade turned to head back up the hill, and the boys split up. One moved swiftly behind them, the other two in front, between them and the way home.
“I don’t know.” One of them shoved his hands into too-big pockets. “She’s pretty enough, but she’s still a scrawny little thing.”
“You take care of him, then. We’ll take care of her.”
Before he could think, Jade pulled away from Venture and broke into a run, but one of the boys caught her arm, twisting it so that she cried out. Venture tried to run after her, but a shock of pain stopped him mid-step as knuckles slammed into the base of his back. A hand grabbed the back of his collar, and he felt a hot, reeking breath of laughter on his neck.
“Get your hands off me,” Jade screamed. “What are you—stop! Vent! Please!”
Venture pivoted around and buried a fist in the older boy’s gut and he doubled over, but as he tried to run for Jade again, the boy recovered and kicked his feet out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto the road. Venture scrambled on the ground, trying to stand, but the boy kicked him in the side and called out to the others, “Help me out here. This one wants to fight.”
“Does he?” Another of the boys joined him and shoved Venture back down into the biting rock and dirt as soon as he found his feet.
Every time he got up, they punished him for it with a fist or a foot. But worse than the pounding of their blows, than the taste of the dirt and the blood in his mouth, was the sting of Jade’s screams.
“Stay down,” one of the boys told him, “and it’ll be over soon enough. You and your little friend can go on your way and we’ll go on ours.”
“No!” Venture screamed. “No!”
Someone shoved his face back into the dirt. When he lifted it, there was his mother’s pendant, lying on the ground beside him, the ribbon snapped. He scraped it into his fist along with a clump of dirt. He hurt like he never had in all his life, but he hated those boys even more. With his eye swelling shut and his head spinning, he rose and took a swing at the closest boy, the pendant pressing into his hand.
“I’m going to kill you! You hurt her, and I’m going to kill you!”
He missed, and all three boys laughed.
The boy who had Jade let go of her arms. “Let me have a crack at him.”
Run, Jade
, Venture wanted to say.
Please. Just run
. But he didn’t dare call their attention back to her. He cursed at the boys instead, swung wildly, and managed to make contact with one of their noses, but then he took a boot right in the gut for it. He had to get up before they noticed her again. Had to. He breathed in dirt and he coughed it out and he kept getting up, and they kept pounding on him.
Then one of them said, “Hey! She’s gone!”
“Never mind her. Let’s finish him.”
Thank God
, she’d gotten away, disappeared into the roadside brush. He imagined her slipping through the weeds and into the trees, soundless and quick like the rabbits she liked to help him track. When the time was right, she’d get up and run, taking the shortcut home.
But he was still here, still breathing dirt, still going to die with the pounding of their fists and the roaring of their laughter like the throbbing triumph of darkness itself in his ears. Even the ground shook with their blows—no, that wasn’t it. It was the pounding of hooves. Someone was coming.
The boys backed away, and he rose again with renewed fury, spat out a mouthful of grit and blood, and hurled himself at them, screaming and swinging.
CHAPTER THREE
Venture had never thought he’d be standing here, on the front steps of Beamer’s Center, that his master would bring him here. But things were different now. His hand went to his arm, and he felt a phantom flash of pain, though it was healed well enough. It had been nearly six months since it had been broken, along with several of his ribs. But Jade had gotten away in time, before they could do what they wanted with her, and now those boys were rotting in the lockup.
“Listen to me, Vent.” Master rested a steady hand on his shoulder.
Venture tried to listen, tried not to attempt to peer through the fogged-up windows instead. The windows were high up on the walls, right up under the eaves, presumably so that no one would go crashing through them. This complex of plastered stone buildings and wooden add-ons was the best center for training boys in the fighting arts in all of Richland. Vale Beamer, the center’s director and head coach, even had a female instructor at the center to teach girls self-defense and swordplay, and Jade had started taking lessons here shortly after the attack.
“This isn’t just about what happened to you and Jade. It isn’t just about you learning how to fight.”
Venture shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. “It’s about me messing up all the time, isn’t it, sir?”
Master pulled him in closer, against his fine linen shirt, just for a second. And just for a second, Venture allowed himself to imagine that it was coarse, homespun wool. Master had hugged him, really hugged him, after he and the other men had chased down those boys who’d attacked him and Jade. Hugged him like he was a son and not a servant.
“It’s about what’s going on with you, yes.” Master pulled away a bit. “It’s either this, or . . .”
Master’s hand left his shoulder. Venture looked back at him and watched him rub at his temples. He seemed to do that a lot lately.
“This needs to work out.”
Work out? How could bringing him here possibly work out? He wanted to learn to fight properly more than anything now, but this was crazy.
“I know you’ve heard things about Vale Beamer.”
Venture had heard that he’d been Champion of All Richland back in 632 and again in Thirty-Five. What would a great fighter like him want with an out-of-line bonded boy, other than to remind him that his place was elsewhere? Had Master told him about the things he’d done? Did Beamer enjoy beating the trouble out of troublemakers?
“The other boys might not make this easy for you, but Beamer is a fair man, and you’re strong. And there are no Cresteds in there.” He pointed to the heavy wooden doors, painted bright red. “There never will be, because they think they’re above it. Do you know what that means?”
Of course Cresteds would never stoop to come here. They were the descendants of renowned warriors, called
Crested
for the family emblems their ancestors had marked themselves and their men with in the Wartimes. They now held the highest positions of power in Richland. The Cresteds had training rooms in their homes, and practiced their fighting arts there, away from the unworthy eyes of the common.
“I don’t know, sir,” Venture replied.
A muffled bang came from the building. Venture glanced at the windows again, but could make nothing out. There may not be any Cresteds in there, but there certainly weren’t any bondsmen either. Surely Master knew better than to expect anyone to want to teach him how to fight.
“Beamer only cares what you can do. He’s not like the others. It’s a different world in there, as much as he can make it. He’s agreed to give you a try, but only you can convince him to keep you here.” Master’s eyes filled with something that could be desperation, that could be hope. “It’s the last thing I can think of to do for you.”
He led Venture inside, into the foyer, and through another door, whose window was clouded over with steam. A dark-haired, sinewy teenage boy whose clothes clung to him with sweat shut it behind them.
He shook Master’s hand and said his name was Earnest Goodview. “So this is Venture. Beamer’s expecting you.”
The plastered walls of the training room, stained with the greasy marks of sweaty bodies that had brushed and slammed against them, were marked here and there with blood-brown smudges. Except for a narrow strip of wooden planks, the floor of the long room was covered in canvas-covered straw mats, and those mats were covered with boys, right around Venture’s age, some on their feet, some on the ground, all in pairs, grappling, struggling to gain the upper hand. The room throbbed with their energy, with effort and impact, with frustration and victory.
Earnest raised his hand and caught the eye of a massive figure on the other end of the training room. He turned his close-cropped, graying head in their direction and raised a hand back before working his way toward them. Vale Beamer. As he walked, a short reed whistle, hanging around his neck by a leather cord, swung against Beamer’s chest.
Venture bowed, but after Beamer shook Master’s hand, he held it out to Venture too. It was big and gnarled and heavy around Venture’s fingers, and his face was so unreadable as he looked him up and down that it was all he could do to make himself stand tall, to not squirm under his gaze.
Earnest took him to a changing room and outfitted him in the same lightweight shorts and shirt as the other boys.
“This your idea or your Dad’s?”
“Huh?”
“We get a lot of boys coming in here because their fathers have some sort of idea in their heads. Hardly ever works out the way they expect.”
“Oh.” Venture’s face grew hotter. “He’s not my dad.”
Earnest squinted at him for a moment, and Venture was afraid he was going to have to explain, but then he shrugged and said, “Well, you’re your own man in here, either way. You have to be.”
On their way back, they passed another room, also with a little window in its door. The same sort of noise was coming from there as from the other training room. Venture wiped the glass with his forearm to get a quick peek before Earnest noticed. There were bigger boys in there, about fifteen years old, fighting with an even higher level of sophistication and intensity.
“You want to be a prize fighter?” Earnest said.
Venture jumped and pulled back from the window. “Me?”
Venture’s stomach did a little flop. Was it that obvious? He’d always wanted to be a professional fighter, and when he was little he used to really think he could be one. There were fighting styles in which points were awarded for using one technique or another, but no one could make a career of point-fighting. The awards were a pittance compared to the winnings of the absolute professional fighter, the prize fighter. There were no points in absolute fighting. In these fights to the surrender, nearly anything was allowed, though the only weapons used were the mind, the might, the skill, and the will of the man. Venture had often thought he might grow to have more of each of those attributes than any other man, that he could become the best fighter in the world, the Champion of All Richland. Sometimes he still dared to think it, even though now he knew that it was impossible.
Prize fighting was the last thing he should be contemplating now. He shouldn’t be watching these older boys, these future prize fighters. He shouldn’t be here at all. That’s what his brother Justice would say.
But you’re not my Dad, Justice
. The lump formed in Venture’s throat almost too quickly for him to stop it. But he was good at stopping it.
“Why not?” The expression in Earnest’s deep brown eyes seemed to reflect exactly what Venture was feeling. “You’ve got the build for it,” he said with a sad smile. “By the time you’re my age, you’ll be big like those guys, the elite boys. You’ll be getting ready to move on to Champions Center like them. To train with the best prize fighters in the country.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“No. I’m too small. Looks like I’m going to stay that way.” Earnest shrugged and gestured for Venture to follow him back to the training room. “But maybe I’ll get to be one of their trainers one day.”
Venture entered the training room again and joined the boys his age, not aspiring prize fighters—yet. Boys too young to choose a career, learning to fight for fun. They put an opponent in front of him, just like the others, only unlike the others, Venture had had no instruction, and he had Vale Beamer watching him, and his master, too.
Lance, a lanky boy just his size, but about a year older, shook Venture’s hand and gave him an appraising look. The whistle blew, sharp and clear. Lance ducked under Venture’s arms and picked him up off his feet and slammed him to the mat. Venture’s body rattled against the firm straw and his palms scraped painfully over the rough canvas as he tried to prevent himself from falling. Lance let him up, only to sweep him to the mat with his feet. Venture got up again and tried to nail him with a left jab, but Lance was too quick; his fist met Venture’s eye instead, and he took Venture down again before he could even think.
From the matside, Earnest said quietly, “Come on, Lance, it’s his first day.”
Lance shrugged apologetically, and Venture shot back up to his feet, grabbed Lance’s legs, and pulled them out from underneath him, sending him to the mat this time. He took a swing at Lance while he had the chance, and his knuckles connected with Lance’s cheek with a satisfying burst of pain. But Lance, more accustomed to having his face bruised than Venture was to smashing his knuckles, blocked the next swing. Using his feet to lift Venture’s body and sitting up at the same time, he reversed their position so that he was on top. Lance’s left arm was under his neck; his right was under Venture’s left. Venture couldn’t move. Lance let go his right and pulled it back, as though to get another punch in, but he just tapped Venture’s cheek playfully.
“Hey. Calm down.” Lance stood and held his hand out.
Seeing that Lance’s smile was nothing but friendly, Venture grudgingly allowed him to help him up.
“You weren’t supposed to bust your hand,” Earnest said.
“Not on my face, anyway.” Lance rubbed the red spot on his cheekbone. “We’re not supposed to make contact, not like that.”
Venture blinked his watery eye. It stung, but mostly, he realized, because Lance had inadvertently scraped it. His knuckles were red and his hand was throbbing.
“Do this,” Earnest said, opening and closing his fist.
Venture did. He shrugged as though it didn’t hurt.
“Can we keep going?” Venture dared to look Beamer in the face. “I want to try again—please.”
“You’re not done, Delving,” Beamer said. Beside him, Master had that half-smile on his face, the one that meant that Venture had surprised him, impressed him.