“It’s a good one.”
The meat was only slightly salted, and the potato was boiled, with nothing else on it. Aiden looked down at his plate and sighed. The meat looked like something that you would find on the side of the road. The food in this world definitely wasn’t anything like back home, he thought sadly. What he wouldn’t give for some Taco Bell, or Wendy’s right then. The other piece of meat he held to his eye was frozen, and from the black freezer burn on it, he guessed that it was from five years ago. It did the job, though.
“What’s with the meat?” Elisa asked from behind him. He took the meat away to look up at her with both eyes. “Wow! What happened to your eye?”
“That pleasant fat man over there gave me this meat to help,” Aiden answered her first question. “As well as this delicious dinner,” he continued, looking down with a sigh at the plate in front of him.
Elisa chuckled. “That’s Tiny. He’s been the chef here for years,” she explained.
“Tiny, eh. That’s fitting …”
“He’s not the best cook, as I’m sure you can tell.” She smiled, looking down at the menu for the night. “Unfortunately, however, he is the only person around here that can actually handle cooking for this many people three times a day. Now, do you want to explain to me what exactly happened to you, to make you need a frozen piece of meat on your face?”
“I was training, sort of,” he started. “Logan thought it would be fun if we went to the training grounds and practiced a bit before I officially started my training tomorrow. Needless to say, I’m not as fast as he is.”
Elisa held his chin in her hand, tilting his face in different directions. “Elbow?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” She shrugged her shoulders, letting him go and sitting down across from him. “I’m going to be the laughing stock of the whole place—I hope you know that. I’m not prepared for this.”
“Don’t worry, Aiden. You have the best of the best teaching you, and you have the rest of us to help you out if you need any extra help after training. Despite my feelings toward Wolf, he is one of the best fighters we have, and would be a great asset to you if he tried to teach you a thing or two. Logan is also very good, as I’m sure you had the chance to see. With people like us around, there is no way you can fail.”
“You sure do think highly of yourself.” Aiden laughed. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“Just being honest—why lie about it if it is true?”
“It’s called modesty. You might want to try it once in a while.”
The bench he sat on shook as a body plopped down beside him. “Wow!” Wolf smiled, his face only inches away from Aiden’s. “That is a good one!”
Logan sat down beside Elisa on the opposite side. “Why, thank you.” He smiled, bowing mockingly.
“Shut up.” Aiden sighed, placing the frozen meat back over his swollen black eye. It was already so bad, he could only imagine how it would look tomorrow. The King and the Captain would see him and realize right away their mistake. He let out another sigh, and tried to cut the dried-out piece of meat that lay on his plate.
The training earlier that day had gone pretty much as horribly as he expected. Logan had been extremely fast in his movements, whereas his were slow and clumsy. The weapons were extremely heavy, and the heat of the afternoon had made it hard for him to catch his breath. Logan had gotten a few good blows on his sides in before he actually started to make use of his shield. Logan had complimented him on that, saying he was already showing improvement by using the shield to its advantage. The problem was, once he put his focus on blocking the hits coming from his opponent, the other hand that held his weapon just hung there. He couldn’t do both at the same time, so he got no attacks in from his side. Logan told him he had to use both weapons as if they were extensions of his own body. Both movements had to be graceful and fluid, each working with the other, each complementing the other. It was, however, easier said than done. Thankfully, the others around him couldn’t see the bruises that were already forming on his body as well. Logan probably knew they would be there, but he wasn’t saying anything. The black eye was mortifying enough for him.
“Captain Turk is going to have a field day with this.” Wolf smirked.
“There is nothing wrong with a black eye,” Elisa said, defending him. “It just shows that you’re in the process of learning, which is good. Everyone will take a hit once in a while; you just have to take that hit and learn from it. Now you know better than to ignore the rest of someone’s arm, even if there’s a weapon on the end of it. Warriors will use every possible bone in their bodies to attack an opponent.”
All three boys listened to her in awe. When she spoke about fighting, it was like she was just one of the guys, but she wasn’t. She was a girl, and that made her exponentially different from everyone else there.
“Why are there no other girls?” Aiden blurted out. Elisa looked at him in surprise.
“Um, I don’t know?” she answered wearily. “I guess none of the other girls want to be in the King’s army, and if they do then they must not have the skill to do so? I was born into it. I didn’t really have a choice. My father didn’t have a son, so I had to pick up that responsibility.” She shrugged indifferently. “Every Captain has had his child enter into the army after him, but my father never had a son to do so, so he made sure I did. It was unconventional, but everyone accepted it after some time. I had to prove myself,” she continued, looking down at her plate. Aiden could only imagine how hard it would have been for her, being the only girl to probably ever have entered the King’s army, and to have to go up against the sexist minds of all the men here. “We can’t all be lucky enough to come here and instantly be a star,” she said, casting a hard smile across the table at Wolf.
“Ouch,” he responded, laughing. “Bitter much, Elisa? Are you jealous of my natural skills and charisma?”
She laughed mockingly. “Jealous of you? No, why would I be? You have taken up the lovely task of entertaining every last female in the city, leaving me to perfect my craft even more so than yours. Although you do play the whore, oh, so well.” She smiled sweetly.
“That is below the belt,” he shot back warningly.
“Well, you’d know all about that area,” she bit back.
Logan held up his hand just as Wolf sucked in the breath to rebut. “Now, children,” he said, interrupting the two. “Let us not fight at dinnertime. We’re all on the same team here—must I remind you of that? I think we have enough enemies out there. We don’t need to be making more here.”
Wolf sat back, looking away angrily. Aiden almost felt bad for him.
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Aiden said, feeling the exhaustion from the afternoon finally hitting him. “Not that this wasn’t a lovely evening, but I need a lot of rest before tomorrow.” He got up, pushing his half-eaten food into the middle of the table. Logan grabbed it and started to eat what was left. Saying goodnight, he turned and started to walk back up to his room. It was only the second day, and he already knew how to get around the dormitory by himself. It was a simple building. There was only the main hall where they ate, on the first floor, and the other floors were separated into rooms. His was on the fourth floor. Each floor consisted of a single hallway, so it was pretty impossible to get lost. Outside was a different story, but he’d give himself more time to memorize that. Back at home he hadn’t been very good with his sense of direction, but hopefully it would be better here.
As he crawled into bed, his thoughts started to turn to his family. He missed them, and wondered what would be happening now in his world, while he was here. Diana had said it would still be the same night, which shocked him. How could he be doing all that he was doing, days be going by here, and yet only minutes passed there? It was such a weird concept that he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Forcing his mind to settle down, he started to fall asleep, his last thoughts of Eddie and her smiling face.
“Time
to wake up!” Wolf yelled in his ear. Aiden shot up in bed, blinking against the sun that filled his room. “Holy crap!” Wolf yelled, stepping back as he looked at Aiden’s face. The previous day and its events flooded back into Aiden’s mind, and he remembered the shiner Logan had been so generous to give him.
Aiden looked over at Logan, who stood there with his mouth hanging open. He knew it would be worse that morning; how was he supposed to go to training looking like he did? “That bad, huh?” He sighed, getting up to go into the bathroom. A small mirror hung on the wall above the basin that was used as their sink. The only other thing was a small toilet, which was basically a seat with a hole in the ground, since they didn’t appear to have indoor plumbing. The showers were in the basement apparently, a large room where everyone went to shower. Aiden hadn’t been there yet, but he could only imagine what their version of a shower would be. He took a whiff of his shirt, and thought he had better go find out after training, or he’d start repelling people by his scent alone. Looking into the mirror, he prepared himself for the worst.
“What the hell?” he yelled. Wolf and Logan were silent in the next room. Aiden stared at his reflection.
“Good morning,” he heard Elisa’s voice in the main room. “What is the matter with you two?” she asked curiously. Aiden walked out in a daze, looking to her for an answer. “What is wrong with all of you?” She looked from one to another. Slowly, Aiden raised his finger and pointed to where the black eye should have been. What was left there now was a perfectly healed eye. He quickly lifted his shirt to look at the bruises that had been on his ribs, to see his skin unblemished again. His skin had healed completely overnight.
“I don’t understand,” Wolf breathed.
“He’s a fast healer,” Elisa stuttered, looking at Aiden for backup. “Right?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling weakly. “I heal fast?” It sounded like a question as it came out. Wolf and Logan looked at one another. There’s no way they’re buying this, thought Aiden.
“We should go,” Elisa pointed out, trying to change the subject. “We don’t want to be late, or my father will have all our heads.”
All the men stood around in a large circle, lining the training area. About a hundred of them were there; the rest were at posts around the city. The men there were the ones still doing their training, which meant they ranged between fifteen and eighteen years old. Wolf and Logan were on their last year of training, before they would be officially considered the King’s men. Most of the guys there looked big and confident, all except Aiden, who stood awkwardly beside Elisa. He could feel the curious eyes on him, but he tried to ignore them, focusing on what the Captain was saying.
“Today we are doing hand-to-hand combat with partners,” he shouted. “I want to see the combinations we’ve gone over numerous times, and I don’t want to see any of you holding back. Everyone will wear protection, just in case there are any accidents,” he explained, his eyes finding Aiden’s curiously. Aiden wondered if he had heard about the incident yesterday, and was surprised to see him looking completely normal. Aiden cleared his throat and avoided the look the best he could. “Find your partner and get suited up; let’s not waste my time today, boys.”
“Do you want to be partners?” Elisa asked, turning toward him.
“Partners? With you?” He swallowed hard. Fighting a girl was not what he had planned. She looked offended.
“Is that a problem?” she asked defensively.
“No,” he answered quickly. “I just … didn’t think you fought boys …” As soon as the words came out, he knew he had pissed her off even more.
“Well, seeing as there are no other girls here, I don’t really have a choice. Not to mention, when we’re in a war, the other side won’t pair me up with a woman just to make it fair.”
“Of course. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to offend you!”
Wolf walked up, laughing. “Don’t worry, newbie. It doesn’t take much with this one.”
“Elisa,” they heard the Captain shout. He walked over to the threesome with a determined stride. “I want you to go and practice your targets. Aiden will be paired up with Felix.” He motioned toward another boy, who stood alone.
“My targets again?” She sighed. Aiden stood holding his breath, not imagining ever speaking back to the Captain the way she did.
“Yes, again,” he instructed through clenched teeth. “You’re our best archer, let’s keep it that way. Aiden, go get suited up and stand with Felix. Wolf, get back to your partner!”
“Yes, sir,” Aiden and Wolf both replied simultaneously.
As Aiden strapped on the leather pads that were laid out for him, he tried to keep his breathing slow. He had never done this, except for yesterday with Logan, and Logan had taken it easy on him. The Captain had strictly instructed everyone to not take it easy on anyone, and this boy Felix didn’t know that Aiden was completely new at this.
“Aiden,” he heard the Captain’s voice from behind him.
“Sir?” He turned around, straightening up.
“I heard you got quite the nasty hit yesterday—you seem to be okay now?” It was a question. So he had noticed.
Aiden cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. It would appear that I heal quite fast.” The Captain nodded his head thoughtfully.
“Interesting,” was all he said, before walking back into the middle of the training grounds. Aiden finished getting suited up before walking over to his new partner.
“Hey,” he said as he walked up to the other boy. As he got closer, he saw the boy was probably the same age as Aiden, and looked just as scared. He must be new, Aiden thought hopefully. Felix was the same height as him, but a bit bulkier. His hair was cut short to his head, and was a mixture of red and brown. He had tiny green eyes, and freckles along his nose.
“Hello,” Felix replied in a husky voice.
“I’m Aiden,” he said, offering his hand.
“Felix,” he replied, shaking hands with Aiden. “You new?”
“Yeah, you?”
“I’ve been here about a month,” he explained. “I’m still pretty new compared to some of the other men here.”
“Well, this is only my third day here in the city, and my first for training, so I’m sure you’re a lot better than me.” Aiden smiled.
“I guess we’ll see,” Felix said, smiling back. Aiden decided he could like this boy: he didn’t seem cocky, and he was friendly enough to him.
The Captain was yelling for everyone to get into rows, facing their partner. Aiden and Felix fell into line beside Wolf and Logan. Logan looked over and smiled at him. “Remember all the pointers I gave you,” he whispered across the space separating them.
“Logan!” the Captain yelled. “Shut up when I am talking, or I will shut you up myself.” Logan closed his mouth instantly, but Aiden could see the sides of his mouth twitching from his desire to smile. Wolf also seemed to be struggling. “All right, you useless bunch, let’s get started.”
Aiden held the shield in front of him, and the axe in the other hand. He kept reminding himself that he couldn’t just block, he also had to attack his opponent. Both hands had to be working, he told himself. Although when someone else was running at you, it was hard to keep that in mind. The mechanics of fighting were easy enough to understand—block the hits from the other person, and hit them instead. Once you’re in the situation, however, the mechanics seemed to get fuzzy, and Aiden found himself struggling just to stay on his feet. Felix was a good fighter; the month he had been there showed through. Aiden was holding his own, though, which he couldn’t help but feel proud about. He already felt stronger than he had yesterday with Logan. Is that even possible? he wondered. Despite the numerous pairs fighting around them, Aiden could feel the Captain’s eyes only on him. He was watching to see what Aiden could do on his own, and Aiden didn’t want to disappoint.
Felix ran at him with a high blow, the short curved sword he held coming down fast at Aiden’s head. Lunging f
orward, Aiden held the shield high above his head, blocking the blow that was headed for his skull, and swung the axe around, hitting Felix in the open area at his ribs with the blunt side of the axe. It was left unguarded during his own attack. Felix fell over in pain, holding his side and gasping for air. Aiden had knocked the breath right out of him.
Kneeling down beside him, Aiden started to apologize immediately. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, Felix,” he was saying as the Captain walked up to them.
“What are you apologizing for, boy?” he barked. “This is combat—you’re supposed to hit your opponent. Felix, get up and start again.” Felix nodded his head, holding the side that had been hit as he stood back up.
“I’m so sorry,” Aiden whispered again as they took their fighting stances.
“No worries, Aiden.” He smiled, although Aiden could tell he was still in pain. “As the Captain said, it is the point of the exercise.”
Aiden nodded his head, and they ran at each other once more, falling back into the same movements as before. This time, Felix came at him with a blow to the side that Aiden was too slow to block. The pain reverberated through his whole ribcage, causing him to curse out loud. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise.
“What was that?” Wolf laughed. His face heated as he realized the “F-word” wasn’t something they used in Eden.
“Sorry,” he breathed, trying to avoid everyone’s looks. “Just a … saying I picked up from home.”
“All right, boys,” the Captain interrupted. “Everyone take a break for lunch. Aiden,” he shouted. Aiden jumped in surprise. “You stay with me.” Aiden nodded his head, looking back at Felix.
“Sorry,” Felix said, thinking that Aiden was in trouble. Everyone walked over and took off the gear, heading back toward the main hall for lunch. Aiden walked over to the Captain, who stood by the entrance in the only shade in the place.
“Not bad, son,” he said as Aiden approached. “I expected you to be worse. I mean, you’re definitely not the best—your technique is crap, and you clearly have trouble bearing the weight of the tools—but you’re not hopeless. How is your side?” he asked curiously.
The Eden Series: The Complete Collection Page 10
