This one goes to MrsCosmopilite, who's been reading so fast, I'm struggling to get this dedication written before she gets to the last posted chapter. If you haven't read any of her work yet, then I strongly advise that you do. The world that she has created in 'Second' has a well thought out history with a hint of past technology that I guarantee readers will find intriguing. The humour that she writes with is subtle and beguiling, and her characters are all so appealingly real. Give it a read.

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Grifford sweated in the confining madriel armour, his head reeling from the near overpowering smell of cured tragasaur hide. The metal armour he wore for his arms training was heavier, but the hide madriel armour was more cumbersome, all parts of it being dense and triple padded. Even the gauntlets were clumsy things, so thick he could barely feel the heavy wooden training stick that Master Chen had pushed into his hand.

"Did you hear me?"

Grifford had to tilt his head far back to look up at his assigned Madriel-master, for not only could he barely hear through the thick padding of the helmet that encased his head, he could also barely see. The padding extended forward around his face, so that it seemed as though he was peering out at the world from a deep hole. A hole, furthermore, covered in a dome of metal crisscrossing bars.

"What?" he said, his own voice sounding muffled and distant.

Master Chen regarded him with the same dispassionate expression that had not left his face since Grifford had first set eyes on him. The Madriel-master was probably not much older than thirty summers, short and slight with hard narrow eyes.

"I said that under no circumstances should you use your training stick." He tapped the heavy stick in Grifford's hand with his own. "To strike your madriel with the intention of injury. We do not use pain to train our steeds. They are not javac and we are not savages from the north."

"What is it for then?" said Grifford, holding up his stick to look at it.

"It is for defence and for restraint only. Come."

The Madriel-master drew back the bolt of the arena door, pushed it open, and stepped through. Grifford followed, feeling clumsy in the restrictive padded armour, and they entered the arena, its roof open to the sky, and the sunlight slowly spreading across the dry earth of the floor. A stout wooden pen stood at the far end of the arena, but his chosen steed was not inside. Grifford had to look about the place before he saw it, lounging in the segment of sun. The beast looked up as they entered, first fixing its odd coloured eyes on Master Chen, then sparing the merest glance for Grifford before looking away once more.

"Your steed has a failing, Squire Grifford."

"So people have told me."

"His failing is in his arrogance."

"What!"

Master Chen shut the door behind them, closing it with another bolt. He pointed with his stick at Grifford's beast, which was still lying in the sun with its eyes half closed.

"If a male madriel does not perceive a thing to be a threat, then he will not pay it any attention. It is a trait prevalent in older beasts, but your beast is already displaying such behaviour."

Grifford gave a smile at that news, but it seemed Master Chen was not content to allow him any satisfaction.

"Your first task is to make your beast attack you."

"What!"

"Just be mindful that a madriel can attack in many ways. It will charge you with its horns. It will gouge you with its claws and sometimes..." Master Chen held up his left hand and Grifford saw that a large chunk of it was missing, including its two smallest fingers. "It will maul you with its teeth."

Master Chen smiled. It was the first time Grifford had seen such an expression on his face. He looked down at the tight pink skin on the Madriel-master's hand, where his fingers had once been. The man, he decided, was obviously a complete incompetent.

"Fortunately, I believe your steed's arrogance is as much bluster as it is confidence. It is a cover for his ignorance and uncertainty."

"It is only an animal!" said Grifford.

Master Chen fixed him with his hard eyes, all humour in them gone.

"It is lucky, Squire Grifford, that you are here to learn."

* * * * *

"I can't move!" moaned Tahlia as she waddled across the sand of the training-arena.

"Don't be so melodramatic, child," said Mistress Battista. "You will get used to your armour and will, I am sure, become eternally grateful for it. We do not want your new steed scratching that pretty face of yours, do we?"

The Madriel-mistress came to stand in front of her, and then leant over sideways to look at her through the metal bars of the padded training armour, so that the young Mistress' head was on one side, with her thick tresses of blond hair falling below to conceal everything else from view.

It was the second time that the Madriel-mistress had leant over to look at her in such a manner. The first was just after she had strapped the thick padded helmet in place. Tahlia had instantly claimed that she was unable to lift her head or look upwards. That was when Mistress Battista had bent her neck down to look at her.

At the time she had thought that the Madriel-mistress was being deliberately provocative. Now she was sure of it.

Mistress Battista seemed very young to be a mistress of madriel. A lock of thick hair fell over her face; a face as yet unscarred by a madriel's claw, which meant she had either not had much experience with the creatures, or she was extremely talented. Tahlia decided that she would wait for a time before making her decision as to which of the two it was.

Mistress Battista blew the stray lock of hair away from her face, but remained leant over and looking at Tahlia sideways.

"Do you think you are ready to begin?" she said in a cheerful voice, which Tahlia was starting to find irritating.

"I suppose so," she replied, though she could feel the sweat covering her body under the thick padding of the training armour, and she was still not sure if she was capable of movement.

"Have you decided on a name for your steed yet?"

"Tembesta," replied Tahlia instantly.

Mistress Battista looked upwards through the corner of her eyes, as though studying the clouds.

"It is a good name," she said, turning her gaze back on Tahlia.

"I know," said Tahlia.

The young Mistress smiled brightly.

"Such confidence!" she said. "Now let us see if we can focus that confidence."

She straightened up again.

"Now, look at Tembesta," she said.

Tahlia had to waddle her whole body around by ninety degrees to be able to see her steed, because she still felt it impossible to turn her head in any way at all. Tembesta was currently stalking dust demons around the arena floor. The day was largely still, but there would come an occasional breeze from the north, which would stir the air of the arena and make the dry earth of the ground dance and swirl. Tembesta would pounce, first at one ethereal dust storm, and then, when her claws could find no purchase on it, she would leap across the arena at another.

"Your steed will be a good huntress," said Mistress Battista. "But she lacks focus and discipline, so it is these that we must teach her. First, though, she must learn her name. So; continue."

She made a gesture for Tahlia to begin.

"Continue what?"

"Call her, Tahlia, daughter of Tahlessa. Call her name and make it sound as though you mean it."

'Mean it!' thought Tahlia. Tembesta was the name she had chosen and of course she meant it. What was this air brained mistress talking about?

"Well?" said Mistress Battista. "Off you go, child."

Tahlia took a deep breath and smiled sweetly. She would soon wipe that cheery smile from the young Madriel-mistress' face. After all, how hard could this be?

* * * * * *

"I am having a challenge for you today, children," announced Engineer Drasneval as she closed the heavy door of the room of computation.

Dak made an attempt to sit up straighter in her chair, giving the old Engineer the entirety of her attention as she crossed the room to stand in front of the subject-board. She stood there with her hands clasped behind her back, regarding the children sitting before her with hooded eyes that showed no hint of emotion. All that could be seen in them was deep, matchless perceptiveness.

Like Dak, the other children in the room sat behind their heavy work-desks, their postures rigid and their papers and chamber pens neatly aligned with their desks' edges. All except for Yanik, who had been twiddling his pen between his fingers when Engineer Drasneval had entered the room, and who now held it, gripped in his hand like a hammer. Although the old tutor's gaze did not fall directly on him, Yanik must have felt its weight, because he quickly placed his pen, with an audible click, at the top of his work-desk, lining it up with the paper that sat in front of him.

Seemingly satisfied with the order in the room, Engineer Drasneval turned from the class and bent to retrieve a problem from the numeracy-shelf beneath the subject-board. She opened the heavy envelope and took out the number cards from inside, hanging each one on the board's pegs. The final card she took out was the gear ratio, and she hung that one at the far right hand side of the problem's three other numbers.

She stood back from the board, so the children in the class could see.

"Here is your day's first problem," she said. "Run these numbers through the cypher and give me your answers."

Dak studied the numbers hanging on the subject-board, and frowned.

They were not difficult numbers. Two of them were single digits, and the gear ratio was only two to ten; one of the easiest to run through the cypher. The other children began to pick up their chamber pens, pulling sheets of paper towards themselves, but Dak continued to frown. Engineer Drasneval had claimed to have a challenge for them, but the problem hanging on the board at the front of the bright, glow-lit room did not appear to be one.

At the desk beside her, Yanik screwed the top of his chamber pen off and immediately fumbled it in his thick fingers. It bounced on the desk top and onto the floor with a skittering sound that was loud in the silent room.

"I do not believe that I asked you to be picking up your pens."

Some of the children, chamber-pens poised above clean, empty paper, looked up at their tutor and they began to frown, in the same way that Dak was already doing. Dak also looked at Engineer Drasneval, but with her back still facing the class, her tutor's thick grey braided hair concealed even a hint of her features, so she could not tell if she was being completely serious or not.

"Today you will be doing the calculation in your heads."

Engineer Drasneval turned to the class, her features unyielding.

"You will begin."

The silence was filled with the sound of chamber-pens being placed carefully onto work-desks. Yanik climbed down from his stool and retrieved his pen top, then he took his seat again. He looked at the problem hanging on the subject-board and then back down at the empty sheet of paper in front of him, as though he had lost something. The other children in the room all had looks of similar concern.

"The problem will not be solving itself," said Engineer Drasneval.

Dak quickly turned her attention back to the board.

She prepared herself to run the numbers.

She did not know where to look, so instead she closed her eyes and picturing the first part of the calculation in her head. She had run the cypher times out of counting with the aid of ink and paper, but she found doing so without to be a strange thing. When she closed her eyes, even without ink to note her progress, she actually found it easier.

She applied the first two numbers, which joined and formed a new number, and then she continued along the path of the calculation, using or re-using the numbers and the gear ratio as dictated by the cypher, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. In her mind she could see the answer, changing its shape as the new parts of the calculation were applied. Sometimes it would split into two or three parts, each part being changed by more strands of the cypher. Then the parts would join together once more, and eventually a new and final number was formed.

It took her five minutes, and after that time she opened her eyes to the brightness of the room of computation. Her classmates were all still hunched over their work-desks, each with their own look of concentration. Beside her, Yanik's face was bright red as he sat with his eyes rolled to the ceiling, as though he would find the answer to the problem up there in its metal rafters.

No one else had completed the work. Maybe the problem was more difficult than it seemed and the answer that she had in her mind was wrong.

She closed her eyes and ran the calculation through her head again. She reached the same answer. She opened her eyes. Her classmates were still struggling.

"Dakskansia Padrid!"

Engineer Drasneval's sudden voice made her sit up straighter. The other children turned to look at her.

"Are you having an answer that is correct, Dakskansia?"

The Engineer's face was unreadable.

"I am thinking so, Engineer Drasneval."

"You are thinking that you have an answer or you are thinking that the answer that you are having is correct?"

Engineer Drasneval's face remained impassive.

Dak felt her face flushing as red as Yanik's

"I am thinking that I have an answer and that the answer is correct."

"And the answer that you are having is?"

Dak swallowed, feeling the dryness in her throat.

"Four hundred and sixteen."

Her face still blank, Engineer Drasneval turned away from the class, reaching into the problem envelope that she still held in her hand. She took out the last card that it contained and hung it on the board beside the others. On it was printed a number. Four hundred and sixteen.

The other children in the class frowned at Dak. Some of their faces held looks of mild annoyance. Yanik's mouth was hanging open.

Dak felt the heat of her face deepen.

"Well done, Dakskansia Padrid," was all that Engineer Drasneval said as she took the numbers down from the board and returned them to their envelope. Then she took another envelope from the shelf and hung its contents up for the class to see.

"Here is today's next problem."

The class turned its attention to the new set of numbers.

"It is not being for you though, Dakskansia," said Engineer Drasneval.

She crossed to the far right of the numeracy-shelf and took a different envelope out.

"This one," she said as she opened the envelope. "Is yours."