“Now drop your chin to your chest and duck left,” Bruno says. As Aldo easily escapes my grasp, I hear the Guardsman yell, “Your other left, Recruit Itzal!”

We take turns, and he makes us repeat it three more times before we switch partners, and then do it again. My third partner is Pedrón, and he comes at me faster than expected.

My reflexes kick in, and a split second later Pedrón is yelping as he hits the sand hard. Immediately, I reach down to help him—

“Recruit Red!”

I snap to attention. “Yes, sir!”

“We’re supposed to be drilling them, not killing them!”

It’s not really a question and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to respond, but I settle on a “Yes, sir!”

Bruno pauses to rub his face thoughtfully. “Of course, that’s your training. It’s the proper way to do it. We’ll train all of the recruits to perform the same way . . . eventually.”

My shoulders relax a bit; I’m not in trouble.

He scans the group. “How about this? Recruit Red, you take the army boys and the Basajuaños, they’re all fairly advanced. If you’re teaching them, you can’t possibly hurt anyone. I hope. Start drilling them in the five basic escapes while I bring the others up to speed.” When I hesitate, he asks, “You do know the five basic escapes?”

They were the first thing Hector ever taught me. “Yes, sir.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Ask me when you need help with something. The rest of you partner up over here. Not you, Itzal—you’re with me!”

Pedrón jumps up and gets back in place. “Can you show me that again, but slower?”

“Sure,” I say. “Pair up with Arturo—the other Arturo, short Arturo.”

I show him again, but slower.

I’m worried the other recruits will think I’m lording my training over them, but they’re all competitive, they all want to be the best. By the end of the morning session, we’re sweaty and sore, sand scraped and bruised, but we’re all grinning.

Bruno orders us into line and inspects us. Half to himself, he says, “You performed better than I expected after speaking to Master Santiago. Maybe we should have started with the unarmed combat.”

I exchange a glance with Iván. Hopefully one of us has done well enough to earn time off.

“Recruit Red,” Bruno says.

“Yes, sir?”

“You may take the afternoon off. We’ll see how much your group really knows.” As relief surges through me, he looks over the rest of the recruits, the ones that he’s been training. “Iván!”

“Yes, sir?”

“You did creditably well. You’re free too. Now all of you, go get something to eat, and I expect to see everyone but Red and Iván back here before the next bell.”

Finally, a spot of luck. Or maybe it wasn’t luck at all. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rosario had engineered the whole thing. Iván meets my eyes on the way to the dining hall and we exchange a small nod.