"Fall in!" the sergeant bellowed.

    Immediately, the junior scouts ceased their scuffling and scrambled to line up in order. Swiftly, they brushed themselves off, straightened their armor, then stared directly ahead while the sergeant lambasted the lot of them for their misbehavior.

    "I have never seen such a pathetic collection of undisciplined, pit-brained, hairless no-wits in my entire military career! Who, may I ask, gave you the order to act like pant-wetting pansies tonight? Did I give that order?"

    "Sir! No sir!" they chorused.

    "Did some divine authority appear to you by revelation and command that you squander what precious little preparation time you have in prancing around like a pack of hyperactive, juvenile baboons in heat?"

    "Sir! No sir!"

    "Then what was this lobotomized display of simian depravity all about?"

    Silently, Sergeant Streckert paced among the five rows of his class, resting his fierce-featured countenance upon every cadet. He stopped at Jan Bordmann and tersely asked: "Did you start this?"

    "Sir! I started it, sir!"

    "Ravenwood! You were in on this too. Is that right?"

    Garrick, trembling, replied. "Yes sir!"

    "Very well then," the sergeant continued. "Bordmann, Ravenwood, Vortlund and Olsen, fall out!"

    The four cadets stepped to the front. Sergeant Streckert scowled as he scanned the other junior scouts, untouched, it seemed, by the cold afflicting his shivering class. He turned his attention back to the boys he had singled out and spoke in a low, threatening tone. "I want you hairless bipeds to sweep down every inch of this courtyard. I don’t want to see so much as a single snowflake left on the ground when you’re done. You will do it now, and you will do it as if the great baboon in the sky was personally supervising every stroke your broom lays on this pavement! Is that understood?"

    "Sir! Yes sir!" the replied.

    "Now, the rest of you! Since you think so little of the high honor of being called Tamarian soldiers and the incumbent responsibility thereof, you will remain at attention while your primate playmates preen the grounds you have defiled with your despicable display of dissipation. You will not move. You will not laugh. You will not talk. You will not scratch the itch in your behind. You will learn that wearing your uniform is an esteemed privilege, or you will not be deemed worthy of being seen in it!"

    The sergeant stalked back into the inn without another word, leaving twenty cadets to ponder their predicament in the rapidly descending bitterness of oncoming night. The four who’d been singled out hustled to the back entrance of the inn’s kitchen to find brooms for their duty outside. Once beyond the sergeant’s earshot, Freddy Olson and Harold Vortlund raged against their companions for getting them into trouble.

    "It’s all your fault, Bordmann!" complained Freddy. "I did nothing to deserve this!"

    Jan, full of resentment, replied sarcastically: "Oh, I guess cramming my backpack full of snow is nothing, huh?"

    "Yeah, maybe. But you started it, Bordmann," said Harold with a shove. "If it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here . . . "

    Garrick, who would never let anyone bully his friend, immediately stepped between Harold and Jan. "Back off!" he snapped. "You’re about as innocent as a naked priest in a whorehouse!"

    Harold’s anger flared, inspiring an impulse to take a good swing at Garrick, whose size exceeded Harold’s by a fair margin. Hoping to hurt and yet avoid a fight, Harold opted for an insult. "Farm boy!" he spat. "Go back to the dung heap where you came from!"

    Unwilling to back down, Garrick glared at the smaller boy. For personal reasons, he chose to overlook the affront rather than raising the stakes further. Deeply wounded by painful of memories of his experience on the farm, Garrick remained silent until the other cadet looked away.

    The inn’s kitchen, built along the south side of its main building, lay within a few strides of a twenty-foot stone wall that encircled the complex. A quirk in the inn’s layout allowed swirling wind to whisk between the outer wall and the kitchen’s back entrance. Buffeted by the icy breeze, the boys put their differences aside for the moment and huddled together for warmth.

    Just then, Garrick heard a faint sound rising from the south. He peered into the gloom, but could see nothing unusual. Garrick nudged his friend Jan. "Hear that?"

    "Hear what?" Jan replied.

    "Shh . . . listen! There it is again! Did you hear it?"

    An eerie call aspired above the rushing of the gelid windstorm. The evil cry stirred fear into every beat of Garrick’s young heart. He could tell the sound was getting closer by the moment, but he dared not speak of the foreboding he felt.

    "Good gods!" Jan wondered aloud. "What unholy thing is that?"

    "Something evil," Garrick replied.

    "Nah," sneered Harold. "It’s probably just a wolf."

    "Or a tight witch on her wedding night!" added Freddy.

    "If so," Garrick mused, "I’d hate to meet her husband . . . "

Destiny