by Heath Pfaff
“Line up.” She snapped and then, as we hastily fell into place in some semblance of a line, she stood at the head of the line and began to judge us based on criteria that I couldn’t quite tell. As she passed each of us she pointed us towards one of the eight storage sheds.
When she reached me I felt her intense dark eyes on my body and had the very distinct impression that my worth was being judged. “Stand up straight.” She said, and I did as I was told quickly. There was a snap to her voice that made one want to do what she said. When she spoke, it sounded as though she were just a moment from attacking.
She pointed towards a shed with a group of people standing next to it already and I went as instructed, not sure what the point of all of this was. The people I was standing with all seemed of a certain type though and it took me a moment to realize that we all seemed to have close to the same body build, height, musculature. It took me another moment to figure out that these sheds must contain weapons that she thought were suited to our current bodies.
“Alright, go into the sheds that I sent you to and pick a first weapon. There is no hurry. Your entire group could pick the same weapon and there are plenty for everyone. These will probably not be the weapons you end up with at the end of training, but they’re a place to start.” Again her instructions were crisp and clear, and spoken with some practiced ease. She’d done this many times before.
I joined my large group of well over a hundred others as we approached the shed. Zarkov wasn’t in my group, and I saw only one other deady and he wasn’t interested in me at all, so I tried to stay out of the way as we approached the door. There was a tall, skinny man standing there. He had angry features and a dangerous look about him. His eyes were light blue, but they did little to brighten his overall look of pending violence.
“Ten at a time, no more.” He said, and then began letting us into the room in groups of ten.
I was in the last group so I had a very long time waiting to sit and watch as people filed out of the shed with weapons in hand. These weren’t fake weapons either. The blades were sharp, the maces actually covered in dangerous spikes. A large portion of my group had chosen swords, which I found interesting considering the speech we’d just gotten a few minutes before.
As the final group, the one I was part of, was led into the shed I got my first real look at my choices, and there were a lot of them. I was surprised at how many weapons were in this room. So many of them would just sit unused. The cost must have been quite extraordinary. Three of the people in my group walked in and grabbed swords before walking out without looking at the other weapons. I guessed they’d been taught how to use swords and were thinking that was their best option. They’d been specifically told not to do that, but it was likely that they each thought they were the exception to the rule.
I made my way slowly around the room, picking up each weapon in turn and trying it in my hand. I didn’t know what I was really hoping to achieve by doing this, but I also figured it was better than just taking something at random. Finally, after much mental debate, I found myself looking at three different weapons.
The first was an unassuming looking staff that came up to just above my shoulder. I’d thought it made of wood, but upon touching it I saw that it was actually metal. There was a seem in the center and an intricate catch which made me think the weapon split there, but I couldn’t figure it out without touching it. No one had taken one of these from the pile. It didn’t have any kind of edge on it and I wasn’t sure how effective it would be in actual combat.
The next option I was considering was a spear. It was as long as the staff weapon, but had a sharpened steel point at one end that seemed to make it a much more effective weapon. I’d seen one person take one of these. I liked it because it looked simple and I could use it at a distance, but it was the third of my choices that kept drawing my attention.
They were a pair of small hand axes with blades on one side and a sharpened hook on the other. I’d never seen or heard of anyone fighting with something like this before. I’d seen a few people choose them, but they were intriguing. I liked that they were to be used in pairs. As the last other person picked up a curved sword and exited the shed I reached out and grabbed the set of axes and the leather belt that went with them. I strapped it on as I joined the others outside.
There was still a small wait as other groups finished up, but then Shina spoke again. “Alright, these are the first weapons you’ll learn. I see most of you chose some type of sword. Very disappointing. Most of you are wrong, but you’re here to learn, so that’s to be expected. If you did choose a sword you shouldn’t feel bad. Some few of you will be best with a sword, but most of you didn’t choose the correct weapon anyway, so it’s not much of a problem.”
She clapped her hands together. “Alright, now I’m going to break you up into training groups with my assistants. There will be six groups and I will go from group to group each day so that you all have time with me as well. My assistants, and those who work under them, are very well trained, each at least as good as I am, so no one is getting less training than anyone else. You will get out of this only what you put into it. I recommend you put everything into it because failure gets you nothing. Failure makes every moment you’ve spent here worth nothing at all, and wasted moments can never be gotten back.”
The six individuals who’d been by the sheds to see us through the weapon choosing process turned out to be Shina’s assistants, and each of thad had ten others that worked under them so that no group of students would be more than twenty large once everyone was split up. We were quickly divided and I ended up in a group with the man who’d been at my shed whose named was Quin. He actually managed to smile a bit as he introduced himself and it did some small bit to alleviate the fact that he looked like he might strike someone dead at any given moment. Some very small bit.
He took the group of students he was given and broke us down into approximate weapon types and then assigned us to one of his subordinates. I was put into a group with a woman name Arrai who was a massive tower of a woman. She was solid muscle, bigger than many of the strongest men I’d ever seen. She had an axe on her back that looked like it would be hard to lift, let alone use in combat.
“Alright, kids, you’ve been given into my care because you think you’d like to use an axe as a weapon.” She said, a strange accent on her tongue that made her sound foreign in a way that she didn’t look. “I will teach you why, for many of you, you’re probably wrong.”
With that we began a long day of education and physical work. Axes had far more nuance than I’d originally thought. There were general rules for striking and methods for attacking without leaving yourself open to attack. Axes were flawed in that to be effective they had to have heavy power behind them, but the most effective axe strike would wedge the weapon in its target and make the wielder vulnerable to counterattack. There were ways around this, of course.
Some weapons, like mine, had been designed with a secondary attack built in, and carrying a second blade meant that there was always something to attack with as long as battle pacing was kept in check. Of course I gave up power for mobility, and lethality for speed. Arrai pointed out that the work around for her weapon was unrelenting strength. Her weapon wouldn’t get wedged in a target if she pushed it through the target entirely, and if it did get stuck, she had the power to swing her weapon and the corpse attached to it at the same time. She admitted this wasn’t really a solution most people could work towards.
There was a great deal of discussion and drilling that first day, but overall it wasn’t too strenuous. By the time we were heading back to our rooms for the evening I felt pretty good about the way everything had gone for me. I was still sore and I knew I was going to have blisters on my hands from the axes, but compared to a day in the Rift, I felt wonderful.
I stopped in the mess hall on the way back and had a meal that consisted of a thick stew that was actually warm and a piece of bread that was fanta
stic, fresh and crusty. It was the first real meal I’d had in quite a while and it was very satisfying.
When I got back to the room Zarkov was already there. He had a short sword out and was swinging it in what I guessed was some kind of practice routine that involved raising it above his head and bringing it down straight in front of him over and over again. I frowned as I entered.
“You really took a sword after the lecture we got?” I asked incredulously. I’d perhaps given his intelligence too much credit.
“The sword called to me, Lil. You heard what she said. Some people will end up with a sword, and I’m pretty sure I’m one of them. It just feels right.” He answered, grinning a bit foolishly as he played with his new toy.
“What did you choose?” He asked, looking at my axes.
Before I could answer him Ori came back into the room. She was wearing a bastard sword on one hip that she took off and placed next to her bed as she began to remove her boots.
“You picked a sword too?” I asked, even more incredulous.
Ori snorted. “No, I’ve been training on the sword since the end of the first year. It was deemed the right weapon for me, the one I was best with. The first weapon I picked was the dirk and shield. I’d always wanted to use a long knife, and that plus the shield seemed like a good pairing to me. Apparently it didn't fit me well at all.” She gave a shrug. “I think Shina dies a little bit inside every time someone ends up with a bastard sword.” Ori said, laughing darkly. It was one of the few honest laughs I’d heard from her.
“So you two didn’t get along well?” I asked, imagining Shina to be considerably harder on those who ended up with swords, specifically bastard swords.
To my surprise Ori blushed, her cheeks lighting bright red. She waved a hand in the hair. “We were alright. It doesn’t matter now. I don’t see her anymore.”
I was confused by this response. It wasn’t at all what I’d expected from her.
I tried to think of some way to flesh out this answer more clearly, but Ori was climbing into bed and she pulled the blanket up over herself with her back turned to us. I knew the conversation was over. I could have tried to press the matter, but that would just make her angry and I wouldn’t get anything else out of her.
I looked back at Zarkov who just shrugged before stripping down to his small shorts and crawling into bed. I considered it for a moment, and then I slipped off everything but the binding on my breasts and my panties before crawling in next to him. It was getting easier not to be bothered by it. I didn’t hurt the way I had the night before, but I was exhausted and Zark had shown absolutely zero interest in anything about me physically. It was fairly easy to think of him like my brother. Like the brother I no longer had.
I fell asleep quickly.
The next day started much the same as the others. We dressed and headed out to grab another terrible, dry breakfast bar before moving off to the day’s activities. Today was our first day at the Scorch training yard. Again we found ourselves before two large, intimidating doors, though these ones opened onto an area not unlike the one we’d been in for weapon practice, though this one seemed geared towards training our bodies specifically. There were weights and areas where we could run in large circles indefinitely.
Warden Sedth came to greet us. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the formality, but he played it through anyway. “Here you will run through the fire of rebirth and be shaped anew in a form that is useful and powerful. It will not be easy, but working here will make you better able to handle the Rift, and this entire endeavor is about the Rift, so this is important. You will be divided into groups and assigned to work in the areas that you most need to improve in. You must develop strength and stamina, and after having watched those of you who ran the Rift for the first time on Firstday, I can say that you have a long way to go.”
With that he split us up into groups, and we were introduced to the assistants that would be handling our first year training. We were put into groups based upon what we most needed to work on, and I was tossed in with a group of largely female students who apparently needed to build strength first and foremost.
The day was terrible. Again, when I compared it to the Rift it wasn’t so bad, but it was definitely worse than the day of weapon training which had often had breaks from physical labor to discuss theory and reasoning. This was an onslaught of lifting and carrying with very rare breaks that lasted only long enough to explain why we were lifting and carrying incorrectly and how to improve our lifting and carrying. We also trained endurance, but it was mostly strength based. We pushed our bodies through to exhaustion and then were fed a meal at lunch time, cheese and meat, and then put directly back into training.
At the end of the day, as the sun faded, each of us was visited by one of the Tortured who did something to us, though I wasn’t exactly sure what. It didn't make me feel better at all, but I could tell that something was happening to me. I could feel a change. I headed off to supper and then returned to my room feeling exhausted again.
I was the first one back this time, though Zarkov wasn’t far behind me. He looked tired and bedraggled.
“They had me running all day long.” He said with a sigh “Any time I started to slow down they had one of those damn golems behind us chasing after. Now that I know . . . well, it was horrifying.”
“Did you get a look inside of it?” I asked out of curiosity. It had been brighter out in Scorch than it had been in the Rift.
Zark looked horrified. “By the Blackened, no! Why would I want to see that? Are you out of your mind? I didn’t even want the thing to touch me. Poor bugger.” He shook his head. “Monstrous.”
“You aren’t curious at all?” I pressed, surprised at his squeamishness, or maybe more surprised at my lack of squeamishness. This was something I probably shouldn’t have been so curious about. I wondered if there was something wrong with me since I couldn’t stop thinking about it now, not since Ori had told us that story.
Ori entered the room looking far better than either of us, as was normal. She didn’t talk to us as she undressed and crawled into bed, and neither of us bothered to talk to her.
“Some things you’re better not being curious about.” Zark said quietly as he undressed and slipped into bed. I pulled off my clothes and joined him, laying facing him for a change.
“I guess I just want to know if it’s really as horrible as Ori said.” I whispered the words so as not to disturb Ori. I was trying to make an excuse that seemed reasonable, or to justify my curiosity, but I knew that it was just because the image I had in my mind was so terrible that I wanted to prove to myself it wasn’t that bad. It couldn’t really be as troubling as Ori’s story.
Zark turned to face me. The bed was small and we weren’t at all far apart as we were now. We were close enough to kiss, and for the first time since being there with him the thought actually crossed my mind in an amusing way. A slight flush of heat ran through me.
“I’m afraid it’s exactly as horrible as she says it is.” He answered softly. His eyes held fear, which was something I’d never really seen there before. “I don’t want to know. One of us could end up there some day, and I just don’t want to know.”
I watched his lips move as he spoke again and thought about kissing him some more. I wasn’t sure he was even a little attractive to me and I knew that I wasn’t to him, but it would be nice to be close to someone for a little while. I pushed those thoughts away.
“Yeah, I suppose it’s better not to know.” I said, though I didn’t completely believe that as I said it. I still wanted to see. In fact, the reality that I might one day become one of those things just made me want to see more. I wanted to know what horrors were ahead of me if I didn’t succeed. Maybe seeing them would make me work harder. Could I actually work harder? I felt like I’d been putting everything I had into the things I’d done here, but I knew it wasn’t enough. Seeing Ori made it clear that I wasn't good enough by a wide margin.
&n
bsp; I fell asleep shortly after that, a deep blank respite, thankfully devoid of all dreams.
2.4
The following day we returned to martial training which was another long and difficult day of learning how to use the weapons we’d selected. This one was more physical, with less explaining of fundamentals, though there was still a great deal of that, and repetition. Everything we learned was drilled into us time and time again. I spent a good portion of the day simply hacking away at a practice dummy with arcing side swipes. At first it had seemed easy, but the instructor kept returning and fixing my posture and swing method, small, tiny adjustments that she said made me more effective, but that were harder on my body. Plus I had to do it with both arms, and I soon found that my dominant arm could keep it up much longer than the other. Before long I was in a great deal of pain, and the axes were pounding the palms of my hands, ripping them up from the repetition. Blisters formed and then broke, the grips of my twin axes becoming increasingly difficult to hold on to.
I wasn’t the only one suffering, though. Each one of us was doing the same sort of thing, working on some small piece of the total picture, beating away at it like it was a glowing piece of metal in front of a blacksmith.
“Muscle memory.” Arria explained. “We’re teaching your body to know what to do even if your mind is too tired or doesn't have the time to react. I’m perfecting your form, and forcing you to repeat it so that eventually when you swing your weapon through this first form you’ll do it without thinking about it at all. You won’t have to make adjustments with each swing. You’ll just know how to do it, and if you do make a mistake, you’ll know exactly what it is from feel alone.”
