“She's listening to us,” Shawnrik said, no longer bothering to whisper. The slight flinch and reddening of her cheeks was all the confirmation he needed.
“Oh, man! Good catch!” Verrian's voice was barely perceptible as he noticed the Instructor's reaction.
Mythology went by smoothly, though Instructor Wildthorne pointedly avoided looking anywhere in Shawnrik or Verrian's general direction for the entire duration. Shawnrik considered what Verrian had said about her hidden beauty more as she paced back and forth at the front of the class. He could see that she was at least a foot shorter than the shortest Elf he had ever seen, and her body seemed to be built for flexibility and grace rather than the swiftness and grace that the Elves exuded. Before he knew it, she was handing out a stack of papers to be passed around, and Shawnrik found that he needed to get another book from the Depository.
“Do we get books for every class?” Shawnrik asked as he passed a slip over to Verrian and handed the rest up behind him.
“Yes,” Verrian said, obviously not sharing Shawnrik's excitement about the fact. “Well, maybe not the physical classes, but we'll need at least one book for just about every other class.”
“That's great!” Shawnrik said.
“Oh yeah, great,” Verrian replied. “Just what I need, more books.”
“More? You mean you already own some?”
Lunch raced by, with most of the talk revolving around Instructor Wildthorne. Their next class was another one that they shared—Philosophy—and they soon learned that the class would be droller than they had expected. The Instructor was a Halfling by the name of Reginald Theodric Terian Bluestaff, and he explained with a smile that Halflings decided a long time ago that they needed longer names in order to make up for their lack of height.
The classroom was much like the one they had Mythology in, although slightly smaller, with only four rows instead of six. Shawnrik decided that he preferred this type of classroom, as it didn't feel so confining and gave him more room to stretch out. Watching the animated Halfling Instructor talk about the coming year, Shawnrik decided that he was going to enjoy Philosophy.
Weapon Smithing, according to the instructor Baldrick Doomslayer, was a dying course at the Institute. Seeing that there were only four other students in the class, Shawnrik was inclined to agree. The smith's shop was set up in the northeastern corner of the Institute's campus, a stone’s throw from one of the inner walls of the long dead volcano that housed Serenity Valley.
Three out of four of the students were Giant-kin, and Shawnrik figured that they would each take over the smithy for their respective villages when that time came. The last member of the group was a young man from the northern tribes of Terrazil known as the Stroml'Dier. His name was Rigael Ironfist, and from the moment Shawnrik locked eyes with his new classmate, he could tell that the young man hated him fiercely.
That hatred made absolutely no sense to Shawnrik, as he had never met the Stroml'Dier before. Hatred seethed from Rigael's eyes nonetheless, and Shawnrik decided that there wasn't anything he could do about it, so he ignored it. To make a bad situation worse, Baldrick Doomslayer had one of the thickest accents that Shawnrik had ever heard, and he found it difficult to understand what the Dwarf was saying.
“If'n ye 'eat yer metal tuh much ye won't be able ter mold 'er proper like. She'll split on ye like a wench ye gave a snake un'to when she cools,” the Dwarf said, his face serious.
Shawnrik had learned the basics already while under the tutelage of Pedrial Lightfeather, his grandfather, so he was able to figure out what the Dwarf was saying. He just hoped that he would get used to the Instructor's thick brogue before they started learning things he didn't know.
It had only been the night before that Shawnrik had learned that Pedrial was his grandfather, and now that fact was not helping him concentrate on the job at hand. He had lived with his grandfather for more than a year and he hadn't even known it. Between wondering why his grandfather had never told him that he was his grandson, Instructor Doomslayer's accent, and the eyes he could feel staring at him with such hatred, it should come as no surprise that Shawnrik's first day of Basic Weapon Smithing went by in a haze.
Shawnrik left the workshop holding a now familiar slip of paper containing the name of the book he would need for the course. Realizing that if he wanted to talk to Verrian during dinner he would have to hurry, Shawnrik took off at a lope, heading towards the mess hall.
It took him longer than he had expected to get back for dinner, so he only had a few minutes of conversation between bites of food before they were heading to their last class of the day: Basic Offense.
Unlike the rest of the classes that Shawnrik had been to so far, Basic Offense was held on a practice area that had been set up in order to facilitate training in a large variety of combat fields. Shawnrik's first impression of the area was not a positive one. The Institute's training area was half the size of the one that had been outside Nim's manor in Safeharbor, and as far as he could see it possessed less than a tenth of the equipment. There were only two archery targets, one jousting target, one sword dummy, and one sparring ring. For the first time since arriving in Serenity Valley, Shawnrik truly realized the level of importance that the people that lived here placed upon practical field skills.
In Safeharbor, every day contained a new lesson on how to survive using whatever skills you had managed to acquire, in addition to your wits. The citizens of Serenity Valley seemed to think that wits alone should be able to get a person through any situation, and while that notion might work in an ideal world, Shawnrik knew that Terrazil was anything but.
Shawnrik had been hoping that this class would be one of his favorites, but the condition of the facilities made him wonder if it would even been in the top five. Feeling an itch on his back, Shawnrik turned to see Rigael Ironfist walking into the practice area glaring daggers at him, and he knew that a confrontation between the two of them was inevitable, even if he didn't yet know why.
The Instructor of Basic Offense was an older human male who seemed to wear a perpetual scowl. His name was Calligan Boulette. Instructor Boulette stood on the far side of the practice area, carefully watching his students as they filtered in. He continued to watch them for another five minutes as they aimlessly milled about the field, before marching brusquely towards the middle of the practice ring.
“Attention!”
Shawnrik had already been paying careful attention to the Instructor, but the command still came as a surprise to him. The man's tone reminded Shawnrik of Ashur's, and he found his body naturally going rigid into an attentive posture. Instructor Boulette's scowl deepened over the ten seconds that it took for some of the members of the class to quiet down and assume a somewhat attentive position.
“When I say attention, I expect a clear and immediate response,” Boulette said as he eyed each of them. “If you want to know the exact response I am looking for, I suggest that you look around you. It seems that at least two of you maggots have had some proper training.”
Shawnrik felt eyes wandering across his rigid form, and he didn't need to look around to guess who the other person was that had come to attention. Rigael Ironfist moved like a man that knew he was a good fighter and thought that the world should know it too, so it made sense to Shawnrik that he would be the other person who had come to attention correctly.
“I want ten push-ups from each of you.” Shawnrik heard one of the students begin to say something, but whatever it was that they had been about to say was overridden by the booming voice of Instructor Boulette. “This is not a democracy, little boy; you are in my class, which means that you follow my rules. If any of you came to this class thinking that it was going to be easy, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Those of you that cannot understand this inalienable truth should request a new class by this coming Thirdday, or be prepared to learn it.
“I am a hard man, but I am not needlessly cruel. Some of you will have come to this clas
s knowing more than the others and may be in possession of useful skills. Unlike reading or writing, where they expect everyone in the class to learn at much the same rate, I do not. If you give me a hundred percent, you will pass, but if you give me one iota less, you will fail. Many of you will have never even touched a weapon before, but by the end of these three and a half months that we have together, I will have at least taught you how not to kill yourselves with one.”
Shawnrik did his push-ups with minimal effort, and he marveled at how much trouble some of the students were having performing ten correctly. Verrian was one of those that seemed to be having the most trouble, and Shawnrik decided that he would make it his duty to get his new friend in shape during his time at the Institute. Instructor Boulette had been marching down the ragged line of boys as he talked, and it wasn't until Verrian had finished his last push up that he moved back into the middle of the sparring ring.
“Now, as it should be with all matters of combat, pecking order in this class will be decided by skill.” A sadistic grin spread across the Instructor’s face as he spoke. Shawnrik groaned inwardly as he realized what was to come. “I am going to place all of you into pairs, and each pair will meet in this ring. Today, we will be using quarterstaffs that have been padded in order to minimize any serious injuries.”
Instructor Boulette walked down the line of students and partnered people by random, as far as Shawnrik could tell. Shawnrik had been paired with a stout fellow who seemed nearly as wide as he was tall, and not where it would help in matters of combat. The poor kid had a confident look upon his face as he entered the ring, and Shawnrik had allowed the boy to perform some pretty yet utterly useless advances before casually knocking the staff out of the portly boy's hand.
Ashur had given Shawnrik basic training with every weapon that Nim had on hand at his manor during the six months that he and Victor had lived there, and the pair had an impressive array of weaponry. His training had initially been focused around the quarterstaff, however, as Ashur believed that the fundamentals of many of the other weapons could be learned by learning how to properly handle a staff. By the time he had left Safeharbor with Ashur and Dunnagan, Shawnrik's focus had changed to daggers, swords, and axes, but both of his mentors would frequently refer to one of the numerous staff forms in order to convey what they wanted him to do.
Verrian's match had lasted a bit longer than his, but that was only because both of the boys seemed to be trying to figure out how exactly they should use their staves. Shawnrik could tell that Verrian was trying to mimic the way that he had been using his staff, but unlike Shawnrik's relaxed grip, Verrian was holding the staff tightly. His opponent decided that he might as well use the staff as a club,
running at Verrian with his staff held high.
The two boys' quarterstaffs met twice, and to Verrian's credit he blocked the other boy's blows well. However, instead of deflecting the attacks, Verrian had tensed and let the staff do all of the work. Shawnrik watched as the vibrations of the impact coursed through his friend's little body, with his opponent faring little better. After that initial contact, the boys circled each other in the ring, obviously wary of the pain that had accompanied the blows. After two minutes with no contact, Instructor Boulette firmly ordered the boys out of the ring.
Most of the matches after that had gone much the same as Verrian's had, each student testing the limits to which they would endure. At the end of the matches, four students who had passing knowledge of the weapons in hand stood before the Instructor.
Two of the three other students were Guardian Elves, who also happened to be twins. The Guardian elves were one of the groups that managed to escape Eske'Taure during the time known as the cleansing. According to the stories Dunnagan had told him, they had been known as Wild Elves before that unfortunate event. The Wild Elves had tried to talk some sense into their Elven brethren, but they finally concluded that the High Elves could not be talked out of their madness. When the Wild Elves officially renounced their High Elven brothers, they became known as Guardian Elves. They took this name because of the histories that they kept safe from the High Elves, who had a rather selective view of their history. Dunnagan said that the Guardian Elves probably knew more about the History of Terrazil than anyone alive.
Shawnrik also knew that the Guardian Elves' melee weapon of choice was the quarterstaff, so it was no surprise seeing the two standing beside him. He couldn't tell if the brothers were just naturally talented or if they had had training before, but he knew that they would put up a good fight.
The last of the four was Rigael Ironfist, the Stroml'Dier boy who seemed to have a perpetual glare on his face whenever Shawnrik saw him. He wasn't sure if the boy always looked like that or if it was something the young man reserved only for him, but Shawnrik knew there was a lot of anger inside the young Stroml'Dier. Shawnrik couldn't help but respect Rigael's skill with the quarterstaff, though: he handled it as if it was an extension of his body, and his opponents had not lasted long.
Instructor Boulette paired Shawnrik up against one of the Elven brothers, leaving the other to face Rigael. Shawnrik found his heart beating quickly as he stepped into the ring and took several deep breaths to calm himself. Here was a skilled opponent for him to fight, and he couldn't help but get excited. He was so excited about it in fact that he couldn't remember anything about it except the exact moment that he had seen the hole in his opponent’s defenses and struck, landing a solid jab with the end of the staff into the Elf's midsection.
As Shawnrik left the ring, he saw a curious expression pass over the young Stroml'Dier face that he wasn't sure he liked. Rigael and the other Elf took to the ring, shaking hands before taking their ready stances, as had every pair before them. When the battle began, however, Shawnrik began to frown, and that frown grew steadily as the match progressed. Rigael was obviously not using all of the skill he possessed, and looking at the disapproving visage of the Instructor, he wasn't the only one that thought so. The Elf eventually took note of the pattern of Rigael's attacks, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Stroml'Dier boy had been purposefully leaving openings in his defense, seizing upon one such opening with a sloppily done counter that ended the fight.
Shawnrik was disgusted.
He had never been the kind of person who would show off, but he felt very strongly about not trying your hardest at everything that you did. Shawnrik finally realized what he had seen cross the face of the young Stroml'Dier, and it didn't improve his opinion of the young man. Rigael had decided that there was a chance that Shawnrik would defeat him if they fought, so he had purposefully let an opponent that was less skilled than himself take him out rather than give Shawnrik that opportunity.
Shawnrik was seething internally as he entered the ring against the twin of his earlier opponent, but he tried not to take his anger out on the kid. Annoyed but with the rage contained, Shawnrik abruptly ended the fight after only a dozen contacts. The twin had still not caught on to the fact that he had been allowed to win his previous match, so he had gone into the fight with Shawnrik full of confidence. As he exited the arena, however, that look had been replaced by confusion and shock.
“Alright,” Instructor Boulette said as Shawnrik left the ring. “I now know where all of you are at in your training, or lack thereof. You all performed admirably enough, and with your best efforts put forward...” his eyes flicked towards Rigael, who at least had enough sense to look abashed, before finishing with, “I'm sure.”
“Now is my favorite part of about the first day of the course!” His eyes settled on Shawnrik, and Shawnrik got the distinct impression that he was a mouse that had just been caught in the gaze of a hawk. “Whether you knew it or not and whether you want it or not, you are now my teaching assistant.” A murmur went through the assembled students, which was quickly cut off by the Instructor's raised hand. “At first thought, this might seem like a position of honor to most of you, but this simply means that I am going to work this young ma
n harder than everyone else. Not only that, but I will also expect him to help me mold you lot into something resembling warriors. Before we leave for the evening, however, there is one thing left to do.”
Calligan Boulette walked over to the rack that held the non-padded staves and selected one before removing his vest. Shawnrik's heart was still beating with the rage of what Rigael had done, but it picked up tempo as he realized what the Instructor had in mind. When the Instructor moved towards the center of the ring and motioned Shawnrik towards the rack of staves, all of his anger evaporated, and he found it hard to suppress the grin that wanted to spread across his face.
Instructor Boulette was obviously at the very end of the prime of his life, as shown by his graying hair and well-worn face, but the man's body was still in peak physical condition. All in all, the man looked as if he had been chiseled from stone, an artist’s ideal of what a soldier should look like. The Instructor quietly stretched as Shawnrik moved towards the staves at the side of the ring before moving into a ready position.
Shawnrik entered the ring cautiously, keeping his eyes locked on his opponent. It felt right as he held his staff in the vertical salute Ashur had taught him to do instead of the handshake that they had been using all evening. Boulette had not been expecting the customary salute from one warrior to another, and a grin tugged at the edge of his scowl as he returned it in kind.
It was that moment that solidified Shawnrik's opinion of the man, and that thought hadn't changed as he exited the sparring circle five minutes later with a field of bruises on his side. He had found someone in this strange place of peacefulness and learning who was of a kindred spirit, and that realization allowed him to release a lot of the tension that had been building inside. Shawnrik had been watching his unmarked instructor put his vest back on, so it took him a moment to realize that the rest of the class was completely silent.
Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2) Page 10
