by David Burke
Beyond her duplicity, there was the other issue. The sexual tension between them was palpable. She was beautiful—that wasn’t in dispute—but she wasn’t anything special, when compared to Hilde or Nyda. Hells, even Nyda’s elven looks couldn’t hold up to Hilde’s supernatural beauty. Yet, for some reason, he had trouble thinking straight around Meeka. She wielded her sexuality as well as Saber handled his namesake weapon.
Yes, that definitely needed to be dealt with—and sooner rather than later.
Out of all those problems, though, he wasn’t expecting the person who approached him to be first in line. He sensed her approach but didn’t think anything of it. She was allowed to be here, of course, and he actually felt quite comfortable with her. It was the smell of bacon that caused him to turn her way. When he looked around, he saw Selma, the old flesh mage from the arena, looking up at him. She held out a plate full of bacon, ham, some eggs, and a mug of coffee.
Kyle asked, “Did Nyda tell you that I like coffee and bacon?”
“What? I have to ask around to find out that a man likes bacon?” She snorted. “I’ve been around long enough to know that pretty backsides will turn a man’s eye, and what’s between a woman’s legs will make men lose their wits, but the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” she replied.
Kyle couldn’t help but laugh. She was definitely an older woman and working with bodies to heal them had probably stripped away any bashfulness she might once have had.
“I suppose you are right.” He grinned. “So, what is this? Are you wooing me?”
Without missing a beat, she said, “Is that what a girl has to do to get a little help translating a book?” She rolled her eyes. “I would have thought that setting up your infirmary and teaching your priestess about healing was more than enough.”
“Priestess? Hmm… I take it that Saber talked to you. No, wait, I bet you had the same suspicions that he did. I guess I haven’t exactly been subtle,” Kyle said.
She snorted. “No, not exactly. But don’t worry. I assume there is a reason that a god is slumming with us. I’m not just here because of the book. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to learn about it, but I also want to see what happens. I expect big, exciting things are going to be happening around you.”
She tilted her head to the side, regarding him critically. “At my age, you reach a point where you realize that if you don’t make a move, then you won’t get another chance. I took a safe, lucrative job at the arena. I didn’t really care for watching men being made to fight, but maybe here my skills can be put to better use. Just don’t expect any bowing or scraping from me,” Selma said.
There was a part of him that crackled like thunderbolts at her temerity, but Kyle suppressed it. She might be exactly what he needed—someone to keep him grounded. He knew too much already, and a god wasn’t GOD. They were former mortal cultivators who had ascended beyond mortality, mostly in moments of great trauma.
Respect might be warranted, Kyle knew, but certainly not worship. Yet, he also knew that he’d need to rely upon some of that worship to get things done. The presence of a void wraith had changed everything.
“Okay, we have a deal. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Sit down and eat this while we talk.” She handed him the plate and mug. “It would be a shame if all my sweat and effort in the kitchen went to waste. Well, not mine, but I’m sure someone worked really hard to make this for you,” she said with a sly grin.
The two of them sat, and Kyle began eating as she continued speaking. “The first thing you can do for me, is tell me what it was you did to Saber.”
“Oh, that. I… I enhanced him a bit, I guess. Well, enhanced him and opened his essence channels while giving him access to War Essence.”
“You can do that?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, obviously.” He rolled his eyes at her. “I know your type, Selma. I’ve had plenty of team doctors poke and prod at me. You likely ran every test you could think of on poor Saber and are only coming to me because you can’t understand the results.”
She got an odd look on her face, arching an eyebrow at his comment. “What do you mean, ‘ran tests’? That sounds like something from the book.”
“We are still talking about ‘Plastic Surgery Adapted for a Flesh Mage’, right?”
“Yeah, never found a book half as interesting as that one, and I can only read the portions that are written in our language.” She shook her head. “At least half of it is written in those weird symbols that are on the cover.”
“Keep in mind, I’m not a medical person. I’ve just spent too much time around a number of them, prior to coming to Thena. And no… I’m not going to explain any of that, at least not now.”
He grinned at her. “In short, tests are ways of learning things about the body. Some of the simple tests required shooting energy into the body and making images called an x-ray of what the bones look like on the inside, although they had other things called Magnetic Resonance Imagery, or MRI, and something similar called a CT-scan—though before you ask, I don’t know what it stood for.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what the difference is between an MRI and a CT-scan, but one of them uses magnets… at least I think it does.” He shrugged. “They were ways of seeing inside the body to understand what is broken or doesn’t look right.”
Selma frowned. “I don’t need to do that. With my skills, I simply know what’s going on inside the body. It is part of becoming a true flesh mage. Both earth and sea essence have uses in healing, but the true flesh mages learns some of both and knows how to apply them to the body in ways that others can’t.”
“Okay,” Kyle nodded. “I also know that they would draw blood and use some tests to tell things about the person—like if they had an infection or if their body was low or lacking in some nutrient.”
“I’ve seen the term ‘infection’ a few times in the book. Is that talking about when the body gets corrupted and creates puss inside itself?”
“Yes, or at least I guess that is how you might describe it. Usually, it means that the body has some bad bacteria in it.” Kyle fumbled his explanation, as this was far outside of his wheelhouse.
“And how do they test for that?” Selma asked him intently.
“In some kinda lab, I think. They had ways to look at all the little parts that make up your blood—the cells in blood. But I think they also used chemicals for some of the tests… that is well beyond my expertise.”
Selma wasn’t looking at him as she spoke to herself. “Hmm, perhaps one of the alchemists could help me with that. But these ‘cells’ in our blood? What do you mean by that?”
Kyle did his best to explain the little bit of biology that he remembered from high school and college. While most of his interest in that had been limited to keeping his body in optimal shape, he’d had to take at least the initial biology track for his Kinesiology major in college. By the time Kyle was done, Selma was so lost in thought that she didn’t even notice when he got up and left the room.
He wanted to find Saber and see for himself how the man was doing. After looking inside, the offices, Kyle headed out back towards the training yard. On second thought, he probably should have started there.
For that matter, he should just have used his divine senses to find the man. He shook his head. He really needed to remember to use everything at his disposal.
The training ground was full of faces he didn’t recognize. He knew Saber, Maevis and the three trainers who had escaped Thena with them. Kyle kept forgetting their names and had taken to referring to them as Moe, Larry, and Curly. None of them dared correct him, so the names had started to stick. It wasn’t that Kyle didn’t like the guys; he just was terrible at remembering names.
“Those who want to be archers, line up with Moe for testing,” Saber’s loud voice rang out. “Heavy shield bearers line up with Curly. Spear wielders with Larry. Dagger testing and training is with
Maevis, and swordsmanship is with me,” Saber said. His voice projected even more confidence than Kyle remembered. Of course, he looked years younger than Kyle remembered and was two inches taller.
Kyle stayed quiet and simply watched.
There was a feeling in the air. He didn’t know who it would be, but with a group this large, there was sure to be one of these potential recruits who felt a need to test the trainers. There had to be nearly one hundred recruits present, most of them were in miss matched armor. They likely were caravan guards, mercenaries, adventurer guild members, or even bandits who thought this would was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Unsavory types were drawn to the potential for something great just as much as starry eyed hopefuls.
A man with a broad shoulder and an unkempt black beard stepped forward. His expression said it all. He was convinced that size meant everything. Saber had grown some after the enhancements, but next to this a mountain of a man—though still smaller than Kyle—Saber looked small.
“I came here because I was told warriors could make good money fighting for a man who never loses, not to stand in lines.” The man sneered down at the instructors. “So let me prove I can smash any of you, and then you can all start doing what I say.”
Saber must have seen Kyle enter the training grounds because he glanced over at him. Kyle just nodded. This wasn’t something he was about to intervene in. This was one of many moments that Saber would have to prove he had what it took to train warriors for the war god’s army.
The former gladiator must have understood the meaning of Kyle’s nod, because he moved without another word. He slid forward with his characteristic grace, just faster than Kyle had ever seen him move before. A quick kick to the bearded man’s front leg brought him down. The fool had leaned forward, trying to intimidate with his size and Saber had capitalized on his lack of a stable foundation.
The kick dropped the big man to one knee, where Saber’s elbow promptly made contact with his temple. That likely would have been enough to knock him out, had that been the former gladiator’s intent. But Saber had learned the value of putting on a show in the arena, so he grabbed the man’s now wobbly neck, laced his fingers behind the man’s head, and pulled it down and forward while simultaneously driving his knee upward.
The ruined mess of the challenger’s nose fountained blood everywhere. Saber let him go and allowed him to flop limply to the ground.
Then he shouted, “Anyone else?”
When no one moved, he yelled again. “Look, let’s get this out of the way right now. If you want a place here, come at me.” His grin was predatory. “All of you, at once.”
Kyle watched without saying a word but wondered if he hadn’t created a monster. Perhaps something about how he’d altered Saber had affected the man’s brain chemistry. Before he got too worked up about where he might have gone wrong, though, he would just watch.
Most of the potential trainees just looked at each other, as if wondering if this was really happening. But many of them were warriors, even if their training had been deficient. One thing that any warrior who has survived long enough learns, is that hesitation is a killer. Within seconds, twenty warriors were rushing at Saber.
At least they all had the wisdom to drop their weapons. It would have gotten bloody, otherwise. Kyle didn’t want to intervene if he could help it. Doing so would undercut Saber's authority.
Not that he had anything to worry about. Saber moved faster than any of the others could hope to match. He dodged kicks, punches, and attempts to tackle him alike. Each spinning or leaping movement of his was paired with an open-handed blow or a snapping kick.
The warriors who attacked him were dropped like flies, until finally, one of them accurately assessed the situation. This nameless fighter wasn’t the biggest of them, but he clearly was one of the brighter ones. “Swarm him all at once,” the man shouted. “Take him to the ground!”
The idea was sound, or it would have been, if Saber hadn’t been upgraded so much. They did manage to tackle him, eventually. Yet even as he went down, he knocked out another two of the fighters.
Once Saber had been buried at the bottom of a dog pile with eight sweaty bodies on top of him, Maevis yelled out, “That’s enough.”
From the bottom of the pile of bodies, Saber’s voice sounded out, “Not yet!”
Then, amazingly, the entire mountain of flesh shuddered and started to rise. Within seconds, Saber was standing upright, holding up six guys. Two others had fallen off when he stood up. It was impressive though, as with gear and all, he had to be lifting at least 1200 pounds of men and materiel.
Behind him, Kyle heard, “Whatever you did to him, really changed him.”
He didn’t need to look to see who it was before answering. “And what is your diagnosis, Selma? Has his mindset changed or has he only gained power?”
“From what I can tell, he is still the same man as before, just with an enhanced body,” she replied.
“That is good, then.” Kyle breathed a sigh in relief. “As long as he can adapt to it.”
“You will have to be careful. Not everyone can handle this. It is a lot to deal with,” she said solemnly.
“The time for caution is passing. War is coming—and not the kind of war where there can be bystanders.” Kyle looked back at her. “You may think my methods harsh, but I know something about the enemy we will face. If all the gods joined this war on our side right now, we would still lose. Maybe not today, maybe not for another hundred years, but we would be defeated.”
He shook his head. “It would be inevitable.”
“I told you, I wasn’t gonna do any bowing or scraping and I won’t,” Selma said. “And I can admit you may know things I don’t, but how can you possibly know that?”
“Because it has already happened, time and time again. There is much more to creation than Verden. I’ve already stood on the losing side of similar battles in different places and I don’t mean for it to happen again here. But when you can’t win the battle with the same old tactics, it is time to change things up.” He nodded to himself. “So that is what we will be doing,” Kyle pronounced, “we’re changing the rules.”
Without saying anything more to Selma, he walked into the training yard. “Line everyone up.”
He made sure his armor was gleaming and didn’t restrain his aura. Even mortals with no sense as a mage were cowed by waves of power coming off of him. It was like a mountain pressed down on their minds and a shadow covered their eyes.
“I am Kyle. You will learn to call me by many names, but know it is I who rule in this place. Saber represents me. If he says you can join my army, then you will. If you pass his tests and training, then you may gain access to enhancements that will make you more than you were before.”
Kyle looked over at Saber, who was dusting off and straightening his clothes. “Care to put on another little display?”
“Of course, M’lord.”
Kyle smiled. This was going to be fun. He called upon his earth essence and shaped up four stone columns at the cardinal points in a box around Saber. Each was slightly taller than the man and about a foot in diameter. Kyle recalled for a moment, an earlier time when he was the one being made to put on a display atop a much taller set of columns.
“Break them.”
Saber didn’t even hesitate as he punched his bare-knuckled hand into one of the columns. The stone shattered outward, spraying the trainees with tiny fragments and dust. They stared on with open mouths as he followed up that punch with knife hand strikes and roundhouse kicks that brought down the other three columns in short order.
Anyone who’d thought Saber was a normal man now simply didn’t understand the physics of what he had just done, but Kyle wanted to see more.
“Again,” he called.
This time the stone columns he pulled up from the ground were all at least fifteen feet away from Saber. The trainer crouched to leap at one of them, but be
fore he could, Kyle added another instruction: “Without moving from your square.”
Saber looked at him with confusion in his eyes.
Kyle nodded. “It is possible. I gave you the tools. Just look inside yourself.”
Saber sat on the ground. He closed his eyes and clearly began meditating. The trainees all stood there, shifting their weight nervously from foot to foot for several minutes. None of them were quite sure what was going on.
Kyle just watched patiently. Of course, he could see with more than his eyes. He saw War Essence stirring within Saber. This was a far more important test.
After five minutes, Saber stood up. A look of determination was upon his face. He thrust out his fist in a punch, just like he had when breaking the first column. This time, however, his target a dozen feet beyond his fist. Not so for the new power which raged inside him. War Essence burst forth with his punch, carrying with it the concept of smashing force. The column exploded in a shower of dust even more powerfully than the one that he had physically punched.
