The Kazak Guardians Read Online Free PDF Page B

that identified the simulated Assassin. Consequently, I killed fewer non-Assassins and usually managed to keep the person I was supposed to be protecting from being killed.
    I passed the fourth challenge with ease. Two more were told to leave. Ten of us had survived to see the fifth challenge. We continued to work on everything we had learned up to that point, but the emphasis changed to serious weapons training-and we were given less rest time.
    My shooting had improved but I was still little better than average. We accelerated our hand-to-hand fighting and began field exercises. At first they used paint-ball guns to simulate bullets. I did poorly in the beginning, so I compensated by becoming devious. I would lie in ambush covered in leaves or in a small trench behind shrubs, rig bushes to make a noise, and found other methods to distract and confuse my opponent. My ability with knives and the baton continued to improve. To our surprise, we had no challenge at the end of that year.
    In the year that followed, the training became more physical. The guns were armed with rubber bullets rather than paint balls and the physical hand-to-hand matches continued until there was a clear winner, which usually meant injuries of one kind or the other. No one was given more than a day to recover regardless of the injury. Two were forced to leave, one because of a compound fracture of his arm and the other due to a major concussion. Many times I made it to class only because of my determination to become a Kazak or die. I vowed that they would have to kill me to make me leave.
    At the end of the sixth year, there was no challenge; however, the masters decided who would stay for the fifth challenge, based upon their evaluation of our previous two years. Two more left; I stayed. I wondered whether having mastered Arabic had helped keep me in the game. Every aspect of my training had improved, but so had everyone else.
    The seventh year was much more of the same with less rest. We worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. One day off a month. I slept the entire twenty-four hours.
    You never knew what to expect next and learned the hard way to stay constantly on alert. In one class, an instructor grabbed my neck from behind and began choking me-for real. I had only seconds to respond. I leaned forward and rotated under his arms, a trick I had learned from Gabe. That twisted his arms and caused his hands to come loose. I was now facing him. I hit him several times with my elbows, stomped on his foot, and got hit six times before landing on my ass. At the end of the day, we met at the medic's. We were both full of bruises.
    "You're small but you're like grabbing a young tiger by the tail. You scratch."
    "I wish my mother had been there to help." We laughed together. It was the first time I felt what it must be like to be recognized as one of the Kazaks.
    The fifth challenge proved brutal. We started by being tested on our ability to detect Assassins. I excelled and was the best at those exercises. Next, our accuracy using guns and knives against moving and popup targets was tested. I remained mediocre with guns. Jessie was by far the best. I think he could have beaten me blindfolded. I proved best at knife throwing. In knife fights I did well, even though I had the shortest reach. It actually might have helped because it gave my opponents a false sense of superiority. In the non-weapon confrontations, I could give as good as I got, but that didn't always translate into winning. With batons Jessie and I were the best. I think I did well because I didn't care if I got killed. Only staying mattered.
    To compensate for my less than stellar performance in face-to-face gun battles, I had decided I'd have to do the unexpected. After a lot of thought, I tried rolling on the ground while shooting. If I could perfect the technique, it would give me a definite advantage. The first month, I didn't come anywhere close to hitting fatal areas, but I did