by David Burke
As soon as the head trainer walked out, a group of various craftsmen came strolling into the room. Kyle soon found himself fitted with an odd combination of armor. They gave him pauldrons crafted from plates of metal over a leather fitting. These were secured to the two broad straps of thick leather that crisscrossed his chest that were, in turn, connected to a metal ring over his sternum.
The manacles on his wrists were flattened by one of the mages into six-inch segmented plates that were then hidden underneath thicker metal bracers that were jointed and connected into metal-plated gloves that covered his hands and would serve to protect his fingers as well. The same was done to the manacles on his ankles, which were then covered by heavy greaves that protected him up to his knees. They provided him new boots, and a metal plate that connected to the greaves to protect the top of the foot.
All the metal pieces were worked with heavy engravings and patterns designed with runes and designs in honor of the war god. The armorer told him that since he was a war elemental, it seemed appropriate. The irony wasn’t lost on Kyle.
As part of the process, he lost his pants and was given shorts that were tighter than he would have liked. At least they provided him with something akin to a leather jockstrap to wear under the shorts. It didn’t do anything to make him look smaller up front and he almost laughed.
The armor seemed non-sensical to Kyle. It provided some protection but left his groin more vulnerable than he liked, and it provided no extra protection for his head or chest.
When he complained about that fact, the head armorer responded, “We were told that your chest would be a big draw for the ladies, but that your face wasn’t too pretty to cover. We are still finishing your helmet with the measurements that I took earlier. It will be done by this evening.”
After that, the weaponsmith presented him with a heavy maul type war hammer. It had a metal shaft rather than the normal wooden one. Because of his strength, the weight wasn’t an issue. The head of the hammer was also broader and heavier than he would have preferred, but it wasn’t any problem for him to swing it. The butt of the shaft was formed into a spike and, once again, there were runes worked into the head while two-foot-long leather straps wrapped the shaft, secured tightly to prevent him from losing his grip on the hammer.
Once he was equipped with everything other than his helmet, two of the trainers took him upstairs and had him spend some time getting used to this specific hammer. He had used maul type weapons before and he imagined in a fight that the reach would be an excellent tool. With his already long arms and tremendous strength, the maul would serve as a lever to create tremendous amounts of force.
His biggest concern was what to do against an opponent who got inside the reach of the weapon. Once the trainers seemed satisfied that he had adjusted to the weight of the maul and could demonstrate both broad, sweeping strikes meant to crush through any defense and also shorter swings that didn’t overcommit him to a given motion, they had him start practicing something different.
Now they wanted him to swing full power, full speed attacks with the maul, and then find a way to stop them mid-swing. It was harder than it looked, but at least he had some experience with it. This was essentially a check swing that they were asking from him. Kyle had always had a good eye for the incoming pitches, but even he needed to pull a swing up short once and a while if he got tricked by the movement of the ball.
The trainers both nodded at one another as if content he had gotten the basic gist of it down. They then brought out wooden dummies carved in the shape of human fighters and wearing old pieces of armor. The dummies were complete with arms, legs, and weapons in hand. Each had a portion of wood coming out of their back that connected them with a two-foot diameter base. That connection and their feet formed a tripod against the base to keep them stable.
Six of the dummies were set up and the trainer who specialized in mauls and polearms gave Kyle some instruction. The man’s name was Simon, and Kyle had always noticed how gleeful he got watching Kyle smash rocks with blows of the maul. He was likely one of those guys that liked to see stuff being smashed.
“You will need to hit them hard enough to penetrate the armor, get past a shield, or take their legs out from underneath them. That part should be easy enough for you. The harder part will be for you to control the swing enough to not kill or irreparably cripple your opponents. As you know, that will have very negative consequences for you.
“So now we want you to practice with these dummies. Attack the one on the far left first,” Simon said.
As he spoke, Kyle noticed how the dummies had been arrayed in a semi-circle in front of him. Overhead, the morning sun had given way to a full noon day. Kyle felt the heat beating down on him; winter was gone, and spring was upon them. He felt the excitement build within him as it was finally going to be time to put to the test all these skills he had been working on. He’d been in this place before with a bat on his shoulder or a glove on his hand, but never with armor and a maul.
He took aim at the first of the dummies. The trainer instructed him to aim for the head, so he reared back and let loose with a full power swing. As the maul’s head almost reached the side of the dummy’s armored face, he began to pull back. The purpose of this, after all, was to demonstrate control. He needed to demonstrate power, but not fatal power.
Sure enough, the blow landed. And off went the head. Splinters flew in all directions while the helmeted dummy head rolled across the sand. Kyle looked at the trainer and felt a flush or red rising on his cheeks. That hadn’t gone as he expected.
“If you did that to a hardwood dummy, just think what you would have done to a normal human enemy. Skrug would have likely survived that, but the rest of your fellow fighters would be dead. I think it goes without saying that you have to control your strength better than that,” Simon said.
After that first failure and since they only had five more wooden dummies to work with, Kyle was instructed to practice on a slab of stone. He was frustrated with himself. He knew the principle behind what he was being asked to do, but was finding it oddly difficult to force his body to perform in such a manner.
Hilde’s voice broke in and gave him some insight as to why it might be so challenging. She said, “Your problem is that you are at least in part the war god, not the arena god. Krig would never have worn armor like that, but that is because warfare is real. It isn’t a show. And showmanship is very much a part of the arena.
“So, just like the instincts and knowledge buried in your head have made it easy for you to learn more than three dozen weapons over the past few weeks, it also makes it difficult for you to treat combat as a game. Think of it like this. Would you have been able to easily go out and play a game of baseball with little children and not properly swing the bat or clumsily miss a catch?”
“Of course not. Good habits are one of the keys to being a great ball player. Engaging in bad habits, even for a limited time, is a great way to undermine all the essential skills that you need to survive,” Kyle replied.
“Well, the part of you that is still Krig knows that pulling your blows when fighting for your life is sheer folly. For Krig, it would have been an affront to his very identity,” Hilde said.
“Makes sense, and there is a part of me that agrees with that sentiment. Problem being, I can’t really go around killing people in an exhibition match. And you already heard them say that there will be consequences if I do. Until I’m sure I can get these manacles off, I don’t know that I want to risk that.”
“For now, you are going to have to focus on tactics. Even Krig understood the value of training, so perhaps if you think of this as rough training rather than actual combat between equals, it will be easier for you. The truth is, that if you tap even a fragment of the essence stored within you, none of these fighters stands a chance,” Hilde said.
“Okay, I will try to think of it like that,” Kyle said as he began trying to work his swings of the
maul so that rather than splitting the boulder he was hitting, they were just chipping tiny bits of rock away.
At first it felt silly. Like using a sledgehammer to tap in a finishing nail. But the more he practiced, the easier it came to him. He began to realize that he could strike rapidly without necessarily hitting too hard. The many lessons with daggers, rapiers, light swords, and other more delicate weapons came back to him.
It might not be the natural use of a maul, but his strength and agility were up to the task if he pushed himself. More than that, as he began to think of it as a tactical training exercise in precision, his skill level rose. His natural combat instincts took over. The maul was not a weapon of precision, but that very fact made it a challenge. And neither Kyle nor Krig had ever backed down from a challenge.
“That’s enough. Looks like you’ve got it down. Saber was right, you learn stuff far too fast. It is downright uncanny. Now I want you to try to dent the armor on the head of the second dummy without actually taking its head off,” Simon said.
Kyle just nodded and moved back into position. His blood was pumping too fast with all the excitement, though. This was living, showing just how good he was to everyone around him. He could feel the essence within himself stirring again. It was so rare, he hadn’t been able to capture this feeling except at the quarry and then again when he had ripped a hole through the veil to see Hilde.
With all this excitement and essence surging through him, there was no way he could humbly walk over to the dummy. Instead, he rushed across the intervening space in just three long steps. He channeled his momentum into the attack and swung the maul head forward so fast that it blurred and still he clamped down on his strength. The essence within him brought the swing to an end just as it hit the outside of the helm.
The force transferred was still great enough that it rocked the dummy and knocked it over. The side of the helmet was crushed and imprinted from the head of the maul. Because the head was a little wider than a maul for a lesser man, the force was diffused more widely.
Had it been a living man, his bell definitely would have been rung. Concussion, lost teeth, and maybe a fractured skull would have resulted, but that wasn’t outside the rules. If Kyle understood correctly, that could all be healed. What it wasn’t was a fatal blow, or at least not an instantly fatal blow.
Kyle roared out, “Arrhh rah!”
He spun, shifting his momentum, and swung the maul around in a sweeping motion that upended the next dummy in the half circle. His blow crushed the armor on its left thigh and likely would have snapped the femur in two, but it didn’t take the leg off. The upward force caused the dummy to fly up and land on its head.
Kyle didn’t stop there though. He instinctively took in the knowledge that he had finished another foe and felt more powerful. It was like one of those video games where he was building more power with each hit to form a long combo attack.
In his hands, the heavy maul lashed out at the third remaining dummy. Instead of striking the body, he targeted the sword in its hands. The blade went flying from the wooden hand but not before the sheer force of his blow put a permanent crook into the steel. Even as the head of his maul was already moving for the shield of the next dummy, Kyle’s foot thrust out in a front kick. It caught the breastplate of the now-disarmed dummy and caved in the armor.
His mind registered that as broken ribs and deflated lungs. At that same moment, his maul struck the next dummy’s shield. He turned it concave from the force of his blow which undoubtedly would have broken the arm of any man holding it. Then moved forward to smash the face of that fifth dummy with the shaft of his hammer. The metal bent the nose guard of the helm away hopelessly and smashed the head hard enough to leave an imprint in the wood. The dummy toppled over backward in a flip so forceful that it spun completely to land on its face.
Pivoting to face the final dummy, Kyle flung the maul forward sideways so powerfully that the sword it was holding was ripped from its grasp and the wooden shield was cracked. The sheer amount of force involved toppled the last dummy over onto its back and Kyle was immediately upon it.
He felt no hesitation, only the thrill of battle. He might be demonstrating techniques against wooden dummies, but he would display excellence either way. As he leapt forward, he landed on the prone dummy. His legs crushed its legs, and his fist driven forward into the head of this wooden foe only stopped barely short of shattering it into so many splinters.
Kyle stood up and raised his hands to the heavens. His head tilted back and he roared in exultation. For the first time, he truly felt like the war god. He knew he had a long way to go still. Maybe more than a mortal could imagine but still he could barely stand still with the way his blood was rushing.
Chapter 15 - More Lessons
Later that evening, Kyle found himself sitting in the infirmary after getting a once over. The table he had been asked to lay on was hard stone. While he had learned that they did a great deal to make sure that the fighters stayed healthy, including reasonably good food, sleep, and having healers available, it was also clear that their owners cared nothing for the comfort of their slaves.
Once the exam was over, he sat up and saw Selma sitting in the corner reading a book. She must have been supervising the assistant who had given him his once over. He smiled at her and asked, “Interesting book?”
She appeared flustered for a moment before answering, “You have no idea. It was written by a flesh mage who spent a short time here before being sent out with the army. He claimed to have been from another world, and based upon his ways of thinking and the odd symbols that he scribed onto the front of the book, I am inclined to believe his tale.
“Either way, he was very knowledgeable about the body and this treatise has helped enhance not only my understanding of how to use essence for healing, but also of how to use many more mundane processes to aid our work.”
Medical knowledge was one of those things that Kyle cared about, in that it helped him perform better, but not because he genuinely was curious. Still, he had learned early on that it never hurt to get on the good side of the doctors. So he asked, “Oh, could I look at it?”
Selma hesitated as she looked at his massive hands and then at her book. But finally asked, “You can read?”
Knowing that Hilde could translate for him, he said, “I’m full of all kinds of surprises. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt your book. I know how valuable such things can be.”
“Oh, I wasn’t…” Selma began before letting her voice trail off. Of course, she had been worried that his meaty paws would not be gentle enough handling something as fragile as a book. Then without another word, she handed the book over to him.
Kyle handled it delicately, not wanting to risk harming something so obviously precious to a person he was trying to get on the good side of. He had intended to peruse it and act interested just to connect with Selma, but got the biggest shock he’d had in a long time—and that was saying something after some of his prior encounters. Plain as day across the front of the book were the words in English, ‘Plastic Surgery Adapted for a Flesh Mage.’
The shock must have shown on his face. Either that or she noticed from the way he suddenly sucked in air, but Selma said, “You can read the cover, can’t you?”
Kyle didn’t need Hilde’s voice in his head warning him that this could be dangerous. He answered slowly as he saw the way Selma was looking at him excitedly, “Uh, yes. It looks like it.”
“How is that possible?”
“I wish that I could tell you, but things in my life are fuzzy before I appeared in an alleyway in Thena a few weeks ago,” Kyle replied.
“This is a miracle. If only you weren’t so valuable, I’d ask Lord Soren to let me buy you and keep you here as one of my assistants. It would be worth it just to have you help me translate more of the book,” Selma said.
“So valuable?” Kyle asked.
“Yes. With the potential that you showed,
Lord Soren must be practically drooling about the price he can get for you. Being a flesh mage pays well, but not that well. Between you, Kierra, and Gilthan, he is likely going to make a fortune at the end of the exhibition matches,” Selma said.
“I’m sure that Skrug and the others have just as much value as I do.”
“Maybe, I’m certainly not an expert in the value of slaves, but I tend to think that you and Gilthan will fetch the highest prices. You have been treated with respect here, even if the accommodations are a bit rough. Not all slave owners are like that. Many like to take liberties with their slaves. Kierra will be valuable as a slave, but no self-respecting nobleman would lie with a lycan. Skrug is strong, but slow and stupid, which will limit how far he can go in the arena.
“Gilthan is powerful and capable of being used as a combat mage in the military, not just an arena fighter. Beyond that, he has the traditional good looks of an elf and so there will be many lesser nobles or even some of the great houses that wouldn’t mind breeding their daughters with him. Half-breed children could never be heirs, but if any of them inherited his bloodline, they could add power to their houses.
“You will be just as popular with many of the women, even if you don’t have the stunning good looks he has. Your muscles have muscles, and many women will go weak in the knees over that. Heck, if I was twenty years younger, I might have found more reasons for you to come to the infirmary more often. Then, of course, there is your heritage. An elemental will be valuable but a war elemental doubly so, especially since the priests say that the war god has disappeared. The fact that you heal nearly as quickly as Skrug is only another factor adding to your value.”
Kyle wanted to laugh about her last statement but was more caught up in some of the other aspects of what she had said. Being a slave so far hadn’t really bothered him. As Hilde pointed out, he was getting the training that he needed here, was fed well, and he really liked spending time with Nyda, so there hadn’t been much of a downside so far. Truthfully, he didn’t really think of himself as a slave. Manacles or no, he just had an innate confidence that he would be able to escape any time he wanted to.
