Avery tried to clear her mind as she ran, focusing on the cool air and soft grass, the forest around her teeming with life, anything to keep her mind off of the stitch forming in her side and the feeling of her lungs about to explode. She had no idea how long Gumptin had had them running for, but the sun had now become fully visible in the sky. Jade and Avery had been running side by side and ahead of the others, when suddenly Jade stopped. Avery followed suit and looked back at her.
Jade had her hands on her knees, and she was shaking her head, “Nope, no more, I’m done.”
“Oh, thank God!” Skylar exclaimed stopping as well, along with Bunny and Sasha, “I don’t know how long you planned to have us running, but that’s it.”
Gumptin shrugged his shoulders, “I did not have anything planned. I was just waiting for you to go as long as you could before you had to stop.”
Before any of the girls had a chance to yell at Gumptin for neglecting to mention that before they had started running, and especially before they had reached the point where they felt like vomiting, Gumptin walked over to the oversized leather sack he had Jade carry. The girls watched as he untied the sack and took out its contents. The first thing Gumptin unpacked was a handful of cotton cloth strips.
“Tie these around your hands.” He told them, “It is time for your real training to begin.”
The girls did as they were told, just relieved that they were done with the exercise routines. They tied the strips of cloth around their hands, forming make-shift gloves.
Gumptin led them to the very far edge of the clearing, where nailed to five separate trees, were leather sacks a foot taller than Avery. Avery pushed against one of the sacks and it gave way a little. It felt, to her, as if it was filled with sand, making it a semblant punching bag.
“These are your sparring partners.” Gumptin said, pointing towards the sacks.
Gumptin directed each one of them to a different bag and then made sure they were all in the appropriate fighting stance. Feet shoulder width apart and firmly under you, knees slightly bent, weight evenly distributed between the balls of your feet, hips at a ninety degree angle to your opponent, shoulders square over the hips, and the back straight, head turned to face your opponents with your right fist up just below eye level, left arm brought up in front of the body with the fist just underneath the chin, elbows kept close to the body at all times. It sounded complicated as Gumptin was explaining it to them, but after a short demonstration the only one of the girls who required extra attention to get her stance correct was Bunny.
Once they were all in their starting stances, Gumptin led them through a rigorous training routine. He had them doing multiple kinds of jabs, standard jabs, twisting jabs, and collapsing jabs, until sweat was dripping down their faces. He had them doing cross punches, hook punches, and uppercut punches. After they finished their punches, Gumptin had them move on to kicks. He had them doing side kicks, back kicks, sweeping, thrust, and rising kicks, snap kicks, and roundhouse kicks. Gumptin then had them do multiple maneuvers in mixed order.
Gumptin called out, “Hook, twisting jab, side kick, back kick, uppercut!”
He barely left a breath between his words and the girls were expected to follow him without mistake. In fact, they weren’t allowed to stop with the exercise until they had performed five consecutive routines to perfection. To Avery’s surprise the skills and routines came relatively easy to her. Her muscles were killing her, and she was sure she’d never breathe right again, but she found that all the punches, jabs, and kicks, and doing them in different patterns came habitual to her. They were as easy as riding a bike back on Earth. She didn’t even have to really think about what she was doing; it was as if the nerve endings in her body remembered these activities.
Bunny, however, was having slight problems and was responsible for that particular training session lasting an extra twenty minutes. When she finally managed to get it down without fault, Gumptin gave them ten minutes of rest.
Avery hugged the tree she had just released a considerable beating on, letting it support all of her weight. She cringed as her sweat drenched face stuck to the leather punching bag, but it beat collapsing onto the dirty ground along with Skylar and Sasha.
After what seemed to Avery like thirty seconds, Gumptin announced, “Your ten minutes are expired. Let’s move on to ground work.”
Avery stayed glued to the tree, hoping that someone, especially Jade, would protest, but after a few moments of silence, she turned her head around and saw Jade literally crawling on her hands and knees over to the near center of the clearing where Gumptin was directing them to go. It was then that Avery pushed herself up off of the tree, thinking that whatever Gumptin was about to do to them, it couldn’t get much worse.
It wasn’t long before Avery realized how wrong she was. Gumptin first had them work on basic ground roll techniques. They were made to do forward, side, backward, and diving rolls. They weren’t difficult compared to everything else they had been doing, and they didn’t require much energy, which meant the girls took as long as they possibly could drawing out their different rolls. Gumptin, however, was not fooled and had them quickly moving on to cartwheels. First, just free form and then cartwheeling while picking up an object up off of the ground. He used a long stick as their prop.
Next, Gumptin moved on to handsprings and flips, and this is when the girls became hesitant. As Gumptin explained the technique that went into the acrobatic maneuvers he wanted them to do, the girls looked back and forth at each other, more than sure that one of them was going to break something; they just hoped it wasn’t their neck. Avery could have bet money that Bunny was definitely going to fracture something.
When he finished explaining, Gumptin pointed to Avery, “I want you to do a handspring into a front flip, run five paces, do a cartwheel into a back handspring, followed by a double front flip.”
Avery’s mouth genuinely fell open. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t even be able to verbally repeat what Gumptin had said, let alone do it.
Next to her, Avery could hear Sasha snickering under her breath, “Yeah, Avery,” Sasha squeaked out through her giggles, “show us what you got, big bad leader.”
“Stow it, Sasha!” Jade barked, glaring at Sasha from the other side of Avery. She turned to Gumptin, “This is going beyond sadistic drill instructor, alright. She could seriously hurt herself.”
Gumptin shook his head, “No, no, no, she will be fine. Your bodies remember everything. It is just like a cat landing on their feet, completely instinctual.”
As Avery moaned at the unsatisfying analogy of being compared to a cat, Jade scoffed at Gumptin, “It’s also instinctual for me to want to duct tape your mouth shut, but you don’t see that working out too well, do you?”
Avery knew Gumptin and Jade were just going to keep talking in circles without agreeing. So, she decided she would rather injure herself doing something productive, than get a migraine listening to them bicker.
“I’ll do it!” Avery shouted, above Gumptin and Jade’s heated voices.
Before Avery walked out to prepare for her aerial gymnastics, Jade grabbed on to her elbow, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jade told her.
“Relax,” Avery said, tugging her elbow free, “I’m cat-like, remember.” She said it as much to assure herself as she did to assure Jade.
Avery walked up to Gumptin, telling herself to keep calm despite her sweaty palms and racing heart.
“Just remember,” Gumptin told her, “get a running start, breathe, and let your mind go free. Your body will do all the rest. Just do not over think it.”
It wasn’t the most calming thing Gumptin could have said to her, but Avery took his advice. She took a couple deep long breaths to calm herself and tried to clear her mind. It was difficult at first with the thought of pummeling to the ground in mid jump darting through her head. A petite white flower sprouting up from the ground a few feet in front of Avery caught her attention, and she focused all of her
attention on it. Soon, Avery’s mind was free of any thoughts except that tiny flower and the jumps she was about to do. Taking a final deep breath, Avery took off into a run.
One step, two steps, three steps. On the fourth step, Avery leapt up off of the ground. She bounced into a handspring, then from there into a front flip. She hit the ground a little off balance, but quickly recovered, took five paces, then sprung into a cartwheel, a back handspring, and finally a double front flip. Her landing was a little rocky and she ended up stumbling forward a few feet, landing on her hands and knees, but she had made it without damaging herself, and that was all Avery could have hoped for.
It took Avery a few seconds of kneeling on the ground before she was fully aware of what she had just done. Avery heard cheers from the other girls standing behind her.
“Oh, my God,” Skylar hollered, running up to Avery, “I cannot believe you just did that!”
Jade ran over to Avery as well, grabbing under her arms and helping to pick her up off of the ground, “Are you alright?”
Avery allowed herself to be picked up and placed on her shaky feet.
“I can’t believe I just did that either.” Avery uttered, walking around to regain her balance.
One by one, Gumptin had the girls each do an individualized routine. Just like Avery, they got through them, shocked that their bodies could perform such tumbling maneuvers. Of course, not one of them got the landing perfect; Skylar landed on her butt; Sasha fell on her face; Jade landed so hard on her right ankle that it caused her to curse and fall to the ground, and poor Bunny overestimated her speed, came out of the routine too fast, and slammed into one of the large trees surrounding the clearing.
Gumptin had the girls flipping, tumbling, cartwheeling, and handspringing until they were all proficient in everything, including the landings. They weren’t allowed to stop until they were almost too dizzy to walk, let alone, whirl through the air.
“Aren’t we done yet?” Avery whined, sticking her head between her knees to stop the queasiness in her stomach caused by all the spinning.
“We are done with the tumbling.” Gumptin told her matter-of-factly, “Now, we move on to weapons training.”
Avery could swear she heard Skylar begin to cry behind her at Gumptin’s words.
Gumptin let the girls collect themselves for a whole minute, and then moved them back over to the edge of the forest where their punching bag trees were. Between two of the trees was a broad rectangular hole dug into the ground. A brown canvas blanket rest on top of the hole and was covered with fallen leaves and other debris. Gumptin had Avery lift the canvas cover off of the hole. Inside were four round tire-sized bull’s-eye targets, eight wooden swords, and a dozen sticks about six feet in length, a pile of arrows, three bows, two crossbows, and about a dozen sacks of different sizes. Last, but not least, resting on top of everything were three straw stuffed dummies, the size and shape of actual men, attached to a metal pole with a metal bottom base.
Gumptin had the girls drag the life-sized dummies to the edge of the clearing. He carried with him one of the sacks that had been in the hole. Gumptin dumped out the contents of the sack, which consisted of twelve thick curved metal spikes and two bulky hammers. The metal base of the dummies each had four round holes in it. Gumptin had the girls stand the dummies up straight and hammer a spike into each hole. This anchored the dummies to the ground making them unyielding.
Once they had finished staking the dummies to the ground, Gumptin gave them each a wooden sword. He stood them all in row and slowly explained the footwork, the different cuts to make with the sword that are the most effective, cuts to the leg, body, and head, assorted thrusts, and blocks. All the girls listened and followed Gumptin as best they could, but were honestly getting lost once he started to add more than five or six cuts, thrusts and blocks together.
“You are Protectors,” Gumptin shouted at them after their tenth failed attempt at a series of techniques he had told them to do, “you should know this! You are not trying hard enough! You must focus, because we are not stopping until you get this right!”
Jade quit what she was doing in mid sword thrust and turned towards Gumptin, “What is this ‘we’ crap!” She hollered, “I don’t see ‘we’ doing anything. I see the five of us working our asses off while you stand their shouting at us!”
Gumptin kept pacing in front of the girls, barely acknowledging Jade’s outburst, “Trust me Jade, it is far more painful watching the five of you pathetically labor through your elementary training routines, than it is for you to do them.”
“You’re like a little satanic monster, you know that.” Jade told Gumptin, throwing down her wooden sword, refusing to continue.
Gumptin still didn’t turn to acknowledge Jade, which Avery was sure he only did to frustrate Jade more, “For every minute that goes by in which you refuse to train, I will add an extra twenty push-ups onto tomorrow’s warm-ups for everyone.”
Jade stood with her hands on hips, not moving, but Avery could tell she was torn. It was only her pride that was keeping her from picking up the sword.
“That is twenty extra push-ups.” Gumptin said, “Shall we try for forty?”
“Jade, you pick up that sword, or I’ll strangle you while you sleep!” Sasha shouted at Jade.
Avery wasn’t about to let Jade’s pride cost her forty extra push-ups, “Jade, pick…it…up!” Avery made sure to say it in a tone that let Jade know if she didn’t pick it up, there were going to be serious consequences for
Jade.
Jade snarled and stomped her foot before bending down to pick up her sword and continue with the exercise.
Disheartened by the idea of extra work the next day and the fact that they had been out there for over six hours, they all concentrated exceptionally hard and got through Gumptin’s maneuvers in just a few short tries. Once they had completed that task, Gumptin moved them towards the stuffed dummies and had them practice their sword work on them. Three at a time he called them up and shouted commands out to them.
“Right knee cut, turn, left head cut, body thrust, turn, right body cut!” Gumptin called out.
They all muddled through the orders imperfect in some way, but not enough for Gumptin to make them keep doing the same ones over and over again.
After the sword work was over, Gumptin had Bunny bring over six of the long sticks Avery had seen in the hole. Gumptin explained that they were called quarterstaffs and were a very useful and effective weapon.
Jade complained that it was pointless to have to learn how to use a weapon that didn’t even have a pointy end. The only thing that shut her up was Gumptin’s threat to add more sit-ups to tomorrow’s exercise.
Avery was just done all together. She was sore; she was tired, and she really didn’t want to have to learn how to fight with a giant stick. These were the thoughts running through Avery’s mind as Gumptin handed Avery a staff and described the proper way to hold it, with both hands.
Having been through the sword practice before made it easier to grasp using the staff. They learned glides, and strikes, sweeps, and jabs. Once again, Gumptin had them practice on the dummies before letting them move on to the next weapon.
When they had finished training with the staff’s, Gumptin had them move on to the bow and arrows. The girls pulled out the round targets with the bull’s-eye on them and placed them each at a different distance from where Gumptin was having them stand to shoot. He led the girls in a straight path back into the woods, where there was still clear sight and shot to the targets, but so they would have a longer distance to shoot from. The first target was placed a hundred feet away, the second at two hundred and fifty, the third at four hundred, and the fourth and last target at a whopping five hundred feet away from them. Looking at the targets from where she stood, Avery thought it laughable that Gumptin expected them to hit the targets at all, let alone any of the bull’s-eyes. The furthest target, even though it was the size of a truck’s tire, looked to Avery
like the size of a Frisbee.
Gumptin explained that right-eye dominant archers hold their bow with their left hand, have their left side facing the target, use their right hand to handle the string and arrow, and take sight of the target with their right eye. Avery closed one eye, then the other, and back again, trying to figure out her dominant eye. When her blinking technique failed to give her an answer, she just figured, since she was right handed, her dominant eye was most likely her right one.
Sasha was called to go first. She picked up one of the sturdy wooden bows and a stiff arrow with a long thin metal tip on one end and three bright red feathers on the other end.
Gumptin instructed Sasha to move her body perpendicular to the target, with feet shoulder length apart. He had her point her bow downward and get her arrow ready. Then, he showed her how to bring the bow up, and pull the arrow back in one quick fluid motion. He had Sasha take a few deep breaths, aim, and release.
Sasha’s arrow flew towards the target one hundred feet away and landed just a few inches away from dead center. Since Sasha was the first one to go, and the rest of them had nothing to compare her shot with, they couldn’t help but be impressed and gave her a round of applause.
Her second shot went about as well as the first one, but her third shot from four hundred feet away didn’t land exactly near the center. In fact, the only part of the target it hit was one of the wooden legs holding it up. Sasha’s last shot was just as bad, except this time it landed in the ground a few feet in front of the target.
“This is ridiculous.” Sasha complained, handing the bow back to Gumptin, “I’m not some Neanderthal who needs to go out and bow hunt for my supper.”
“Practice, Sasha,” Gumptin told her, “more practice. By next week, I want you to at least hit the last target. The object is to hit your enemy with the arrow, not to have it land next to him so that he may see how dangerous it looks.”
The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Page 14
