"You have one year in which to prove you can keep up with the boys. If you do not satisfy me on that count, you will go home."
It's ten years since royal decree permitted girls to train as knights. No one applied - until now. Keladry of Mindelan is determined to follow in the footsteps of the nations greatest legend: Alanna, Lioness of Tortall. She's in for a nasty suprise.
The royal training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, thinks girls should stick to embroidery. He will take her for one year only - on probation. If Keladry doesn't meet his exacting standards, she's out.
It seems so unfair. Keladry knows she's equal to any of the boys, but how can she hope to succeed when Lord Wyldon's mind is already made up?
Entering her room, Kel shut the door. When she turned, a gasp escaped before she locked her lips.
She surveyed the damage. The narrow bed was overturned. Matress, sheets and blankets were strewn everywhere. The drapes lay on the floor and the shutters hung open. Two chairs, a bookcase, a pair of night tables and an oak clothespress were also up-ended. The desk must have been too heavy for such treatment, but it's drawers had been dumped on to the floor. Her packs were opened and their contents had been tunbled out. Someone had used her practice glaive to slash and pull down wall hangings. On the plaster wall she saw written: "No Girls!", "Go Home!" "You Won't Last!".
"A final word, Page Keladry." Lord Wyldon stood, bracing his hands on the desk. "This will stop," he said tightly. "There was never so much fighting before you came here. It will end now."
Even after a year, some of the pages still don't think a girl should be training as a knight. For a time it seems as if they will try anything - insult, trick, brawl - to get Keladry thrown out.
But then the bullying stops, and Keladry hopes she can concentrate on honing her warrior-skills - especially with the big exams approaching.
That test-day will be the most important in Kel's life. And it's the perfect moment for those who loathe her to strike...
When would help come? Were theyeven ithing hearing distance of the camp? They had lost track of how far they had gone.
"Kel, we're at the cliff!" hissed Owen.
She looked back. Now they had protection at their backs. but it was not much. Peering through the fiery shields again, Kel countes twenty-three raiders and gnawed her lip. The odds were bad. What she wouldn't give for mages other than a healer and a light-bringer! But they were what she had. She didn't like to think how much of Neal's and Prosper's strength was going into those screens....
"I thought if I survived the big examinations, I'd be fine. I thought somebody would take me, even if I were The Girl."
At the age of 14, Keladry of Mindelan is a squire--one who serves and learns from a seasoned knight for four years and then faces a final test. Keladry has finished her page training, she'd passed the exams and now she's a fully fledged squire, which is great - except you cant really be a squire if no knight will take you on.
But Kel's luck is in. After weeks of waiting a Knight-Master has come forward. A true Warrior to follow - if she can cope with the gruelling life on campaign. Bandits and renegade centaurs are just what she's trained for - it couldnt be better. But eventually Kel will have to return and face the final test of a squire. That final test is the Ordeal, which takes place in a magical room called the Chamber. There, a squire encounters the parts of himself (or herself) that the Chamber deems the most difficult to face - be they fears, failings, or unrepented wicked deeds
One boy has lost his mind - another his life - already...
The creature leaped free of the pack to wrap fore- and hind-paws around Kel's mail-covered arm. Kel grabbed its curved, yellow beak with one hand to keep it shut. She yanked her captive arm free of the creature, pressed it on her lap, and wrapped the leather pack around it to neutralize the thing. Only when she was certain it couldn't free itself did she look it in the eyes. They were the hot orange of molten copper. She'd never heard of an animal with copper eyes.
"Cat paws, cat tail, eagle . . . " she murmured, then stopped as the hair stood up on the back of her neck. "Oh, no," she whispered. "Oh, no, no, no."
"This is one of the knights who has come to defend the border - Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan."
Kel is finally a knight. The first girl to make it in decades. She's dealt with the hazing and prejudice of her year-mates, and the terrifying Ordeal, the final test of a squire. Now she faces the real thing.
Tortall is at war.
The Scanran raiders have united to form an army, and they're invading. Refugees are flooding away from the northern border, destitute and terrified, with stories of the fearsome metal creatures that the invaders have brought with them. Kel's post is to the border refugee camp - Scanrans, and their monsterous weapons, will be waiting for her...
Kel swallowed hard to fight off the urge to cry, then cleared her throat. A knight didn't complain. A knight did her duty even when the duty was distasteful. Even when everone would say Lord Wyldon had so little confidence in her that her was tucking her away behind the front lines.
"Who's to command this place, sir?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain even, her features smooth and calm.
Wyldon raised his brows. "You are."