Chapter 4: Combat Test
When Gailwyn and Lance first met Thane and his friends, they were suspicious. They would have never trusted the children if it were not for Marcus. Gailwyn had dropped her suspicions before they set out for the fortress. Her extreme trust for Marcus, paired with her curiosity about the magic of these children soon led her to accept them After all, it would be very beneficial for her to have a couple new research and test subjects.
Lance was far less trusting, mostly because when they arrived at the village, he was the one holding the map. THey saw a farming village, there were dozens, maybe even over a hundred villages just like this one all over the kingdom, each of them documented and taxed according to their production. The map he carried was an official map given to him by the royal cartographers. Every stream, road, wooded area and large rock was painstakingly documented, however this Village, and the road leading to it, were nowhere to be found.
To him, a loyal subject of the crown, this meant that somehow the merchants who passed through here had a more accurate map than the crown. It also meant that these villagers had lived for decades without ever paying a single copper bit in taxes. As far as the kingdom of Reolve was concerned, this village didn’t exist.
He would investigate it of course, he would look into the discrepancy and quickly find answers. But each answer would lead to a deeper darker question. How turned to who turned to why. Eventually the line of questioning led out of the village into something greater. When I spoke to him about it later I reminded him of an old family motto.
“Don’t ask a question if you think you aren’t prepared to learn the answer.”
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The next morning at the Stone Fox fortress.
Thane
Thane woke up in an unfamiliar bed for the first time and stared at a new ceiling. He knew he would have to get used to it, this would be his home for as long as he stayed with the Stone Fox Mercenaries. He did sleep well, heavy lifting and packing in the morning followed by half a day on horseback and an oversized meal was enough to ensure that.
He grabbed some bread for a morning meal and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before heading outside. Across the river he could see Theodore, or Mace as he liked to be called, leading the regular recruits in running laps around the training yard. Thane looked around at the open field on this side of the river and found it to already be prepared for whatever test that Marcus had in mind. There were several weapon racks set up with all sorts of training weapons. Some made entirely of wood, and some with blunted metal. He noticed a rack that had a few bows of different sizes and a few archery targets across the field. He started at the targets and counted steps to measure the distance to the bows. About 30 meters.
He began to fire a few practice shots to warm up as he had hundreds of times before. He heard the voice of the elf Gryssel as he approached, “Is your shooting style self taught?”
Thane looked over to the wood elf, he looked so different from Mersene. Being a wood elf his skin had a darker bronze color to it. He had been told that the hair and eyes of a wood elf match the season they were born in. Gryssel must have been born in the fall as both were a reddish orange color.
“My father taught me the basics when I was young, the rest is from experience.”
“Have you ever used a long draw bow?”
“I’ve never had the chance.”
“That is to be expected, long bows are usually for soldiers, not hunters.”
The elf picked a long bow and tossed it over to Thane and then handed him a much larger arrow than he was used to. “Draw it back, you will need a wider stance. Now turn your body more, the draw should be higher than your chest but parallel with it. Good.” Thane followed his instructions and pulled the arrow back. “Look at the wall by the edge of the keep. Count over five stones and aim for the middle of the top stone and fire.”
“That’s over 100 yards right?”
“Yes, by a decent amount. Once you are ready, fire.”
He released the arrow and sent it flying at the target. It was the first time he had fired a bow this size but his aim was good and the arrow struck the middle of the fifth stone. Thane turned to Gryssel. His facial expression didn’t change as he blinked with surprise and handed over another arrow. “Two more times.”
A bit of a crowd began to gather around the two. Bartholemew and Lily were looking at the two of them, still shocked that the elf was talking to someone else. Mahs, Sarah and Kisha had joined the group as well. After Thane fired his third shot one of the men who had gathered around approached the two of them.
He was a tall and muscular man in his late twenties with a clean shaven head. “Well?” he asked.
“There is no problem with the boy’s archery, if he were born to my people he would be piercing Talhassan necks by now.” The elf turned to Thane, “You have nothing more to prove with a bow. Let your friends go first and rest your arm. You’re going to need to be at full strength.”
The bald man snorted as Gryssel left, “And that's the closest thing to a compliment you will ever hear from him. Do what he says boy I’ll play with your friends first.”
Thane walked back to his friends who were standing with Bart and Lily. “What’s with all the people gathered here?”
Lily replied, “They want to see the new guys get knocked on their asses a few times. That guy is the vanguard for the elite adventuring squad.”
“Where is Harland at?”
“Hung over in a corner somewhere of course.”
The bald man addressed Thane and his friends, “All right, I will be seeing how you measure up in a fight. My name is Liam, former Second Sword of the House of Blades. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means that you can count on one hand the people in all of the Southlands who could beat me in a square fight.”
Mahs replied, “If you were such a big shot, what are you doing here?”
He smiled as he turned to look directly at Mahs, “A tragic story of loss and redemption involving trespassing and a lack of pants that should not be repeated in front of the ladies. Thanks for volunteering to be first, smart ass.”
Mahs stepped forward and Liam eyed him and the sword at his belt before speaking, “We don’t have any smallswords for training here. If you tried to use that thin thing on an armored target or a beast with a thick hide it would snap right in half.”
“I can use a longsword, but I don’t like to because they have a bit too much weight.”
“You might want to get stronger then, boy. Grab a blade and show me what you can do. We will do two spars, one without using mana, and one where you hit me with everything you can. Assuming you know how to enhance yourself with mana.”
“Just so you know, close combat isn’t my forte. I prefer to use magic.” Mahs took one of the blunted metal swords from the rack and gave it a few swings before facing Liam. Both of them held their swords in a one handed grip.
Mahs lunged first, taking a wide swing at the open side of Liam, who quickly twisted his body to deflect the blow. He let the younger man do two more attacks before he countered himself. The first overhead swing was easily dodged by Mahs, a second horizontal slash was blocked with a loud ringing of steel on steel and visible struggling from Mahs. Liam clicked his tongue and arced his sword around with a lightning fast swing that slapped the flat of the blade on Mahs’ hand causing him to drop his sword. With a flick of the wrist he swung the sword up and slapped the flat of the blade across Mahs’ cheek before turning around and walking away.
“Now, use whatever magic tricks you have and come at me again.”
Mahs rubbed his red cheek and picked up the sword. This time he focused on his mental constructs and started to chant a spell before engaging.
“Fician host, Fician occu. Let them see only what I wish them to see.”
-Deceive my foes, Deceive their eyes. Let them see only what I wish them to see.-
Despite the fact that thre was no flash or change in lighting, the audience began to rub their eyes as if a bright light had been shone in their face. The battlefield looked exactly the same, only this time Mahs was a bit more confident as he sprinted towards his foe to close the distance. He ran to the left side of Laim taking what appeared to be an extremely wide swing. However halfway through the swing.
*CLANG*
Metal on metal rang out. Liam was holding a block almost a meter to the right of where Mahs’ sword was stopped. Mahs backed up and began to wield his longsword more like the smallsword he carried at his waist, giving several quick thrusts. He assumed that it would be harder to track the thrusts when his real position couldn’t be discerned. While this was technically true, each thrust was expertly parried by Liam. To the audience, it looked like the two were shadow boxing, only the sound of metal on metal gave an indication that Liam was actually parrying the attacks. Liam put a bit of force into one last parry, sending Mahs staggering forward while Liam turned 180 degrees and used the spinning motion to bring his clenched fist swinging at his invisible target.
It took the audience a moment to realize Liam had rabbit punched Mahs at the base of the skull, sending him sprawling to the ground. As soon as he hit the ground, the displacement spell was released and he lost the grip on the sword that was now skidding off into the distance.
Liam walked over to Mahs and grabbed him by the collar, picking him up like a scruffed kitten until his feet were underneath him and let him go. “Two pointers before you go. You could pick any five of the men Theo is training across the river. If they all fought you while you were using that technique I would place my money on you every time, HOWEVER.” He paused a moment before continuing, “That won’t work on someone who is experienced. If you want to fight using tricks, you are going to have to be far trickier when dealing with a strong opponent. A true warrior will be able to see through that with ease. Your image doesn’t leave footprints in the dirt, it doesn’t breathe heavily when exerting itself or grunt when it swings. Second, your arms are a bit weak, I felt your strain when blocking me. You should learn to use a spear for fighting nasty beasts. It’s simple to learn the basics and you can use both hands to put some weight behind it to pierce thick hide.”
He patted Mahs on the back pushing him to the sidelines, “Next!”
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