By the time they make it to lunch the following day, it’s pretty clear to everyone that Alex has worked up a fair head of steam. Their first language lesson had been, well, interesting. Lee Shan is a competent teacher, but Alex simply isn’t a very receptive student.

They started simply, with the names of many of the things around them on the ship, Cato supplying a number of extra props to expand this vocabulary. Very quickly, however, it became clear that this language not only sounded very different from their own, it was systematically totally different. Grappling with such complex ideas as inflection, gender and case had proven to be too much for Alex. Add in the fact that Cato, Tarmon, Jamie and even Brion were all seeming to get a handle on it only made matters worse.

“We have plenty of time,” Jamie assures him as they return to the deck after a quick meal. “We went over a lot of the basics in a very short time today and it will get easier, I assure you.”

“I hope you’re right,” Alex says. “I’m not giving up, but I know already that I’m going to struggle.”

“Well, as long as you give it your best shot, that’s all anyone can ask. Anyway, put it behind you now, clear your mind and do what you do best.” Jamie gestures around the open deck where a couple of targets have been hastily improvised and a space has had a couple of thick rugs spread out for hand-to-hand practice. The crew have done well with limited resources and some of the squad of guards seem keen to take part as well.

“Now,” Alex suggests. “If you’re going to practice, keep the power down?”

“I’ll try,” Jamie agrees. “But only if you promise not to cut anyone in half or blow anyone up.”

“I’m not anywhere near as angry about this morning as you seem to think that I am, dear. Besides, we’re going to use practice blades.”

Alex steps out into the middle of the deck, gesturing for people to gather round. “I’m glad that some of you have come to practice today. I want to learn as much as I can about safety, security and fighting methods as possible.”

Gesturing to the ship’s guards, he addresses them directly. Lee Shan, off to one side, translates his words almost instantly for their benefit. “For today, I’d like to observe a little of your training. At the same time, I’m going to have my own people do the same.”

There’s a flurry of activity while men string bows, unsheathe swords and a few remove their tunics and move towards one of the rugs. “Jamie, will you do a little sword work with Brion first?” Alex asks. “Garvan and I are going to wrestle.”

“Can’t I watch you wrestle,” Jamie asks with a smirk.

Alex has never actually been taught how to fight bare-handed, but he’s picked up plenty of technique on his travels and has always been quick. Being an expert with an axe, Garvan is much more practiced in getting close to an opponent and seeking an advantage. Alex, however, has speed on his side and his reflexes are superb.

Both men are soon breathing heavily, each having pinned the other a couple of times. They are actually pretty evenly matched, but Garvan knows a few more dirty tricks than Alex has managed to pick up.

Stopping for a breather, Alex takes a minute to observe his husband, practicing with Brion, wooden sword in hand. He really has improved as the time has gone by. He now looks as if he is confident with the blade in his hand, rather than afraid of it. Pitched against the guard sergeant, he can now almost hold his own.

“That’ll do for us,” Alex tells Garvan who nods and moves to grab a couple of throwing axes from his pack.

“Now, Tarmon, it’s your turn,” Alex tells the young mage.

“I’m not…”

“Okay. I’m not going to force you to do anything,” Alex tells him. “Just remember that you are going to be travelling in dangerous places and might need to defend yourself without magic. We really don’t know how strong the suppression caused by the Star actually is or how it will affect each of us differently.”

“I’m not a fighter.”

“No, and, as I keep repeating, I don’t want you to be. What I want is for you to be able to possibly defend and protect yourself for just a few moments. That should be all the time you need before one of us can intervene.”

“I… Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Well, put that book down somewhere and take your tunic off.” Reluctantly, Tarmon hands the book to a smiling Cato, quickly baring his torso and leaving his tunic with the engineer as well. His pale-skinned back and shoulders are speckled with more freckles than his face indicated to be the case. His body is incredibly lean and muscular, he has little body hair, but there’s a tell-tale trail of reddish orange that leads down from his navel into the waistband of his pants.

“Running or climbing?” Alex asks as he indicates his obvious fitness.

“A bit of both. Climbing mostly. I find it keeps me fit and I can take my mind off other things when I’m on the rock.”

“Good. That tells me much. I had a friend who could climb. She always surprised me with how much core strength she had. Could arm-wrestle the biggest of the wagon-drivers and win every time.”

“You speak of her as if in the past?”

“She was a guard like myself. Sadly she was killed in a bandit ambush. It matters not how good you are, Tarmon. Sometimes your luck just runs out. She did her job to the end. That’s all that anyone can do, really.”

“I’m sorry.”

Alex merely nods. “Now, we’re going to play to your strengths, quite literally. We’re also going to start off slowly and take things step by step. Don’t analyse things too deeply. We’re only practicing and if you ever find yourself in a fight for real, you’ll have to react according to those circumstances. We’re practicing techniques, not situations.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now, I’m going to grab you from behind – a classic way to quickly disable an opponent before you either capture them or worse. I’m going to move slowly and then explain what I want you to think about and how to react.”

Alex and Tarmon play through several different scenarios in slow-motion, eventually increasing the pace of their interactions as the younger man slowly gains in confidence. 

“Yes,” Alex tells him as they break apart, Alex rubbing the meat of his forearm where there’s a deep red mark. “That’s your greatest advantage. Any attacker will see that you’re young and fit, but they won’t necessarily be expecting that inner strength and they’ll never expect the strength that you have in your hands. Use it. You’ve done really well. I’d not anticipated the switch to an actual grip into the muscle, rather than around my arm.”

“You’re a good teacher, Alex.”

“Well, we still have much to work on, but you have potential. Now, let’s go and watch how the Mekallan guards do it.”

The ship’s guards had gathered around the other rug where Jin Chao and one of the guards were sparring. Like Tarmon and Alex, they were naked from the waist up, but their idea of hand-to-hand combat appeared to be radically different.

The two men were circling one-another warily, balanced on the balls of their feet, each looking for an opening in the defence of their opponent. Suddenly, lightning-fast, Chao made an attack. In a blinding flurry of striking fists and a combination of high and low kicks, he attempts to overwhelm his opponent’s defences. The level of control to do this without actually making full-force contact is staggering and Alex lets out an appreciative whistle while Tarmon just stares.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone punch and block quite so fast,” Alex admits when the two men finally draw apart and bow formally to each other. “This is something you study?”

“For most of my life,” the prince admits as one of the guards throws him a towel and he wipes his face, neck and chest down. “I started to learn under one of the true masters when I was six years old.”

“It’s fascinating,” Tarmon whispers. “If you started so young, does that mean that we couldn’t learn?”

“Not at all. Just that you might never achieve as high a rank as if you had started as a child. I have reached the fourth rank, but my master is of the tenth rank. I’ve never landed a punch on him. If you wish to learn, I can teach you some of the basics. You look like you have the strength for it,” Chao adds with a very appreciative look at Tarmon’s defined abdominals.

Tarmon’s blush starts at his neck and rapidly spreads down across his chest and up to his cheeks, but his slight smile is genuine and serves to disarm his own embarrassment.

“You should,” Alex agrees. “It’s a better fit for your physique and strength than grappling up close.”

“And you wouldn’t mind?” Tarmon asks.

“Of course not. I want a few lessons myself. My concern is that you can protect yourself. How you go about that self-defence is a matter for you and you alone. Over the next few days, I want you to try as many different skills as we all have between us. On that very subject, how are you at throwing?”

“I don’t know. Throwing what exactly?” Tarmon asks.

“Knives, darts or axes, primarily.”

“I used to play catch with my cousins?”

“Not quite the same thing, but it is a start. Come and try anyway.”

By the time Alex has managed to get Tarmon to actually hold a throwing knife in an appropriate manner, Jamie and Chao are deep in conversation about darts and other throwing shapes.

“It’s quite heavy,” Chao tells Jamie as he hefts one of his iron bolts. “Seems to be pretty useless without your magic behind it. My throwing star is a practical weapon for the non-magic user.”

“I guess so, but I always have my magic.”

“Even if it is going to be diminished by the Star?”

“Even so. If I go back to my level before we took the Flame, then I can still make this go so fast as to be invisible.” To demonstrate, Jamie levitates the bolt from the palm of his hand until it is perhaps a foot in the air. Then, with seemingly no effort or concentration, he starts it spinning end-over-end.

Slowly the rate of spin increases, from a slow roll that’s clearly visible up until it is moving so fast as to almost become transparent. A low hum begins to emanate from the spinning bolt, the frequency increasing until it is an ear-piercing high-pitched screech. Everyone on deck turns to seek the source of the sound before Jamie concentrates momentarily and makes the bolt stop, facing perfectly back along a line parallel to his palm.

“Here, so close to home, I could do that same trick with a horse-cart,” Jamie tells the prince. “I could pick the ship out of the water if I wanted to. Alex and I have almost never used our full strength. If he wanted to, we could be back at the wharf in an instant, ship and all. As I’m sure from your fighting style, you understand the value of precision over pure strength. With our magic, we have both.”

“May I have one of your bolts?” Tarmon asks from one side of the two men. “As long as you don’t mind losing it, that is.”

“Of course,” Jamie tells him, giving him the bolt that moments before was spinning in the air.

Tarmon takes the bolt carefully, examining it briefly before holding it out on the palm of his right hand where everyone can see it. “The steel is from the south?”

“Yes,” Jamie agrees. “I’ve found that I prefer Salician steel for them. They’re a little smoother once worked.”

Tarmon’s concentration is very apparent to everyone, his expression going blank as he stares at the bolt. Jamie is the first to notice the subtle heat that begins to radiate from the bolt, even before anyone can see that the metal is beginning to glow as if in a blacksmith’s furnace.

As Tarmon continues to concentrate, the heat becomes apparent to all, the bolt glowing red, then orange then yellow and finally white hot. Tarmon shows no sign of discomfort despite the bolt still sitting on his palm. Finally, the heat becomes too much for the tortured steel to bear and it slumps out of shape into a small puddle of molten metal, still in the mage’s palm.

With a grin, Tarmon rolls his hand, allowing the blob of iron to splash onto the deck. A small area of planking scorches momentarily before the iron cools and solidifies, embedded into the deck.

“You don’t feel the heat?” Alex asks in wonder. “Even when it touches your skin?”

“No, I don’t feel it at all,” Tarmon agrees. “It’s a bit of a trick really and not very useful. With bigger bits of metal, it’s fun to forge it with your hands, almost like shaping clay would be without the magic. At home, I’ve been often asked to make jewellery, with gold and silver. That’s a lot of fun.”

“Can you work at a distance?” Alex asks.

“Yes, but I need to see the object I’m working on and that obviously limits my range quite a bit.”

“Can you only work with metals?” Jamie asks the next logical question.

“Oh, no. I can work with anything. Water just boils almost instantly, wood or cloth bursts into flames. Rocks eventually melt just like metal. I can turn sand into glass in little more than an instant.”

“Well, if we can teach you to throw, this could be a formidable skill,” Alex admits after a moment. “Also, I’m going to assume that you’ve never tried to heat up a person?”

“No, but I know where your thoughts are going and you’re right,” Tarmon tells him with an expression that conveys utter distaste. “It would be every bit as bad as I know you are imagining right now.”

“King Haran,” Alex, Jamie and Brion all say at the same time.

“I heard about his demise,” Tarmon admits. “Very similar, I fear.” Somewhere behind them, Lee Shan explains to the watching guards exactly what happened to Haran, eliciting a couple of gasps from even hardened soldiers.

“Well, let us hope that it is something you never have to do,” Alex tells the young mage with a reassuring glance. “We’re not setting out on a killing spree, but we will defend ourselves and our companions as necessary.”

“And I will do my part,” Tarmon tells them all firmly.