All the hopeful recruits stood with shields in hand before the gates of Ironhold. On the battlements above, a line of archers waited, their arrows tipped not with iron but with padded heads smeared in blue paint.
Lucen told them to run around the entirety of Ironhold, which was quite the task by itself.
It took half a day to walk from the southern gates to the northern ramparts, and in between lay streets crammed with smithies, barracks, and taverns that never slept. To run around the entirety of Ironhold might take an entire day. Exhaustion alone would be enough to break most of them.
But endurance wasn't the only test. The archers had instructions to loose whenever they saw an opening. Anyone marked with blue paint would be considered eliminated. The arrows would not kill, but they would bruise, rattle, and shame. On the battlefield, that was all it took to fall.
