The next day, after the excitement of going off camp, the knight recruits were woken alarmingly early in the morning and introduced to a new concept of hell.
At barely six, the bell rang. And as much as everyone wanted it to be the breakfast bell, it was NOT the breakfast bell.
It was Instructor Valen standing in the yard with the particular energy of a man who had been awake for hours and had decided that nobody else deserved sleep either. He wasn't shouting. He didn't need to shout. He just stood there in the pale gray morning light with his arms crossed and his expression carrying the specific patience of someone who had all day and knew you didn't.
Recruits stumbled out of barracks in various states of consciousness. Some had managed full gear. Others were still pulling on boots, hopping on one foot across the yard while trying not to fall over. One green recruit emerged with his tunic on backwards and didn't realize it for a full ten minutes.
