Chapter 52

Tom's POV

Tom reached the final line and ran a little distance more before he fell to the ground in exhaustion.

His muscles burned with an intensity that he had never felt before and he felt like retching out all the food he ate in the morning. And he was thirsty. Oh so thirsty.

Someone suddenly passed him a cup of water and he looked up with some difficulty and realized that it was a boy who was giving water to all the participants.

He murmured a quick thanks and gulped down the water as quickly as possible and gave it back to the boy who moved on in order to quench the thirst of the other participants.

He looked around him to find how many people have arrived and found that only a hundred or so many people have completed the race so far.

Thank the gods. It at least meant that he would pass this round.

They had started the day with some 4000 men who arrived outside Dreadfort in order to join the Army.

Of those quite a few were disqualified because of their lack of height and unhealthy bodies.

Of the ones that were left. They had to go through a lot more exercises. Like pushing himself off the ground 30 times with his hands and pulling himself up on a bar a dozen times.

And in the end, the selected participants were all told to run in a long path that was created especially for them. They were told that only the top 500 people who arrived in the finishing line would be selected in the army.

And he had clearly arrived among the the top 500. He was sure of it even if he didn't knew his numbers.

He had no idea why they were told to run like this but he was sure that the men under Lord Bolton knew what they were doing.

As he finally stood up despite all the protest of his leg, he saw that more and more men were arriving in the finish line with each passing minute and was glad that at least he would be selected in the army.

Now he just hoped that he wouldn't have to run so much everyday once he joined the army.

Though he did wonder how their instructors will train them in order to prepare them for the wars that they might have to fight in the future.