Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
“Not that we have any battles anymore, now that the Madlings are all gone.” Leaper sounded glum. “We go out on patrol, but there’s nothing to fight—nothing to do but train and flame the Burn Pits when everyone knows we’ll never actually get to go to battle again.”
“Hey, the Madlings being gone is a good thing,” Jorn-o said seriously. “Don’t you know what they did to people? A single bite could make a man crazy. My father told me stories—there were men who killed their whole family after getting bitten. And some others who just killed themselves,” he added and then looked at me. “Oh, sorry, Auri.”
I shook my head, refusing to talk about my father’s suicide. I was sure that they probably knew he’d claimed to have been bitten by a Madling and that he’d ranted and raved before sinking into a deep depression when he and his dragon dived to their deaths. But I refused to feed any rumors or speak of his untimely ending. It had only been a year ago—the wound was still too fresh.
“Well, guess we’d better get to our new dorms,” Jorn-o said lamely, trying to change the subject. “Come on—I know the way to Dorm A.”
16
AURORA
Dorm A was much smaller than The Great Dorm with only twenty-two beds—eleven on each long wall. The room was shaped like a long rectangle with the necessary room on one end and the entrance on the other.
To my horror, the necessary room here was different and offered much less privacy than the Great Dorm. There were only two private stalls for one thing and their wooden doors didn’t come all the way down to the floor. This didn’t seem nearly enough stalls to me, but—as if to compensate—there was also a row of five stone urinals on the other wall.
How am I going to manage this? I wondered bleakly, looking at the two stalls, one of which was already occupied by one of our dorm-mates who was passing gas loudly while the other boys laughed about it.
I couldn’t understand why this was so amusing, but every time another “trumpet blast” of flatulence echoed in the stone room, a shout went up and they all roared with laughter. What was so amusing about the whole smelly process? And how difficult was it going to be for me to secure one of the two stalls to get dressed in every morning?
Answer—very difficult, I was sure.
And to make things worse, I saw Chud Larson walk into the dorm just as I was coming out of the necessary room.
He didn’t see me, and I tried to make myself small as I inched nearer to my cot. I had chosen the one closest to the necessary room, hoping I could beat the boys into a stall in the morning and get dressed before anyone else was up.
Of course, I had my Dragon Glass pendant, and it did seem to be doing its job of making me look more like a male, but there had to be limits—didn’t there? How much could it possibly hide?
I didn’t want to find out…but I was about to.
At the tolling of the Great Bell—which I had learned was the name of the bell that let us know when to go to meals and classes—our Dorm Monitor, Professor Hanmish, called loudly,
“All right, everyone strip. It’s bathing time!”
Professor Hanmish—a big, beefy man—taught Dragon Anatomy to all the students and he was also single. This mattered because, as Jorn-o explained, the single professors had to all take turns as Dorm Monitors for the First-years. Hanmish had his own private room at the head of the dorm, right by the entrance to keep anyone from sneaking out after Last Bell. He would be with us all year and it was his job to keep the new cadets under his care in line.
“Bathing time, I said!” he shouted now as the boys around me whooped and hollered. “Come on—everybody strip and grab your towels!”
I started to sidle away to the necessary room, but Hanmish caught me and pointed a sausage-sized finger in my direction.
“Now, now—nobody gets out of bathing time,” he growled, giving me a warning frown. “Boys get dirty—I won’t stay in a dorm stinking of ball sweat! Get undressed and grab your towel now, Cadet!”
“I just…have to use the necessary room first and then I will,” I hedged.
“All right, but don’t be long.” He frowned and folded his thick arms over his chest.
“I…I’ll just be a minute,” I squeaked. Then I grabbed my towels and rushed into the necessary room as quickly as I could before Professor Hanmish could object.
Once inside the wooden stall—which was not the one that had been in use earlier, thank the God and Goddess—I just stood there for a minute, trying to still my pounding heart.