by Eric Vall
He looked markedly different from how he had the first few classes we’d had the previous week. His robes were pressed and clean, the stains gone. His beard had been trimmed. I only caught the scent of mango about it, instead of his usual musk of sweat and alcohol. A pleasant change, though that didn’t make me hide my frown.
“Can I help you, sir?” I asked with what little modicum of respect I could muster. If he could see how little I cared, he didn’t show it.
“Yes, Gryff, you can,” he said sternly. He coughed, cleared his throat, and straightened his posture. “I’d like to speak with you privately.” His voice was equal measures pleading and commanding, like it was an order but he was being nice about it. Odd, but there was something different about him.
I looked at Braden and Layla, who stared back at me with blank stares. They obviously didn’t know what he wanted, so they shrugged and went back to what they were doing. Great help there. With no recourse, I sighed and stood up. I took a moment to yawn and stretch my limbs, although the whole reason I did that was to draw this out and annoy him.
“Alright, let’s go talk, sir,” I said, my voice a little too enthusiastic.
Mr. Brevens scowled. “Cut the shit, kid. Come on.” He strode past me while I put my hands up with a smirk.
“You really shouldn’t antagonize him,” Braden called behind me as I followed the teacher. I ignored him.
Mr. Brevens led me out of the common room and into the hallway beyond it. As he came to a halt, he turned back toward me to fold his arms and slump against the wall. It looked more like his arms were laying across his bulbous stomach, and a moment later, he dropped his arms, perhaps feeling my scrutiny. He ran his hands along his robes as he tried to smooth over the creases and wrinkles.
I folded my own arms and arched an eyebrow as I waited for whatever it was he wanted to talk about. Whatever it was, he didn’t look comfortable. He brought a hand to his bearded lips and cleared his throat.
He grumbled. “This isn’t easy for me, kid, but I’d like to apologize to you.” His tone was low and sincere for once.
I furrowed my brows. “For what, sir?”
He scratched his head. I noticed that he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Well,” he began and again cleared his throat, “for dismissing your attempts at modernizing how we approach summoning. I was wrong to be so closed-minded and belligerent. I haven’t exactly had a great go of things as a summoning professor, always being belittled by my peers. You can understand my skepticism and trepidation.”
I nodded. “I guess I can. What made you change your mind?”
He grumbled and looked at his toes. “The, uh… Headmaster Sleet set me straight when I complained to him about you. Told me his plans for you and all about what you’ve done with your monsters.”
“Oh, did he now?” I asked with a grin so wide it made my cheeks hurt.
Rori glared at me. “Don’t be shitty, you brat. I’m being sincere here.”
I tried to suppress my smile. “Sorry, sir. Continue.”
“The point is, I was wrong, and I’d like for you to work with me in whipping those other two summoners in shape.”
“Are you asking me to teach the class, to teach you?” I arched an eyebrow and smiled.
He scowled. I could tell he wanted to swat me. “No, you jackass. I understand the fundamentals of what you do. Believe it or not, I’ve attempted similar things in the past, though not with the same flair or success as you, and certainly not to the level that you can do it, but I have tried. Maybe it’s because of that failure that summoning never progressed.”
I blinked at him, surprised by his candor. I’d always believed that summoners did what I did before I came to the Academy and learned otherwise. Yet, it didn’t surprise me that he and others had at least had the idea of what I did way before me. That meant I wouldn’t have to change people’s minds from scratch, there was a foundation to build from, though it was a weak and small one. Still, it was better than nothing.
Here was a man who clearly had been beaten down in his life and career, belittled by peers and people that were supposed to be friends, allies, colleagues, all because of his chosen path. I’d never felt that before coming here, as summoners were much more valuable in the wilds because of our usefulness and versatility. Maybe if I’d experienced what he had, I might have given up too. His laziness and apathy made sense now, and though I wouldn’t accept it, I could at least understand it.
If Rori was willing to change, I could too. I could work with him.
I put out my hand. “Well, thank you, sir, for believing in my skill. I’d gladly help you ... and I apologize for how I’ve behaved toward you too. So let’s have a fresh start.”
He smiled and took my hand. His grip was much stronger than I anticipated. “Good to hear, and don’t worry, I would have reacted the same way to someone like me if I’d been in your shoes. But no longer. We’ll make our profession respectable at last.”
I nodded with a wide smile. “Let’s do it.”
***
After a hearty lunch of beef, cheese, and hot chicken soup, I went to summoning class with Layla and Braden, my usual demeanor for the class gone, replaced by excitement and determination to make my friends better.
I was coy with them when they asked me what Rori and I had talked about.
“Why can’t you tell us?” Layla asked, her voice whining.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” I responded.
She groaned. “You know how impatient I am!”
Layla, as usual, had to know every detail, or she would die from curiosity, but I stayed strong and didn’t indulge her excessive nagging. “Sorry, Layla, my lips are sealed.”
“You’re no fun, Gryff,” she said as she sagged in her seat and crossed her arms. She sat like that for a few seconds before she perked up and leaned over to my desk and whispered into my ear.
“If you don’t tell me what you talked about, then we’ll never fuck again.”
I gave her a long look. She had a wide smile and a joking lilt in her voice so I knew she wasn’t serious. “You liked it too much to risk that, Bethel. Just sit tight for a few more minutes.”
A long groan escaped her throat. “Fine, you ass.” I grinned at her, triumphant for surviving her relentless nagging assault. I didn’t feel bad about keeping the information to myself because there was no point in telling them when Rori was perfectly capable of revealing the details himself.
They’d find out soon enough, anyway.
Mr. Brevens entered soon after us. He smiled and looked so different from the man I’d first been introduced to. He had hope again, passion, instead of looking at life from the point of view of a downtrodden teacher. I had given him that, and it felt good to know that my summoning could change lives and save lives in equal measure.
Mr. Brevens cleared his throat as he slammed a pile of books onto his desk. “Today and from this class on, we’re going to change up our syllabus.”
Braden and Layla looked at each other, all confused frowns and furrowed brows. “What do you mean, sir?” Braden asked.
“I mean that we are no longer going to adhere to the old policies and standards that have been set forth for summoners. After a discussion with Headmaster Sleet, as well as a brief consultation with our good friend Gryff here ...” He paused, his gaze on me. Braden and Layla both turned to look at me too. I just smirked in reply. “... it is decided that we will no longer be laborers. We will learn to maximize our skills in fighting, as Gryff has.”
They stared at me for a while. Braden looked conflicted. I knew how good he was inside, how much he wanted to help people, but he was still Braden. He was afraid of monsters and didn’t know if he had it in him to summon them properly, let alone fight with them. Layla, on the other hand, looked at me with thinly veiled anger. She had no interest at all in fighting. I didn’t blame her, as she really hadn’t been given a choice in coming here, and here I was, a dear friend, helping the military and Acade
my make her into the fighter that she didn’t want to be.
Her gaze grew to a glare that she thankfully turned from me to Rori. “I signed on to be a summoner because I didn’t want to fight. Now, you expect us to just march in step and go to our deaths?” I felt like she was addressing both me and Mr. Brevens, but her focus was still on him.
He scratched his belly and sighed. “No one is making you fight, Bethel, not yet. You and Flint are hardly up to snuff fighting with your monsters like Gryff, and that aside, this isn’t an official proclamation that all summoners have to fight in the future. That is the goal, but as of yet, it is a dream.”
Layla sat back and folded her arms with a huff. “Okay, good. Maybe one day I’ll fight, but not now, not yet.”
I got up from my desk, stood next to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “But that’s the point. You two aren’t ready to fight, and that’s alright, no one has prepared you to nor expects you to. Hell, I doubt Rori can handle himself.”
He grumbled behind me. “It’s Mr. Brevens to you, shithead. I’m still your teacher, and I can handle myself fine if need be. My methods might be antiquated to you with my singular monster use, but it was potent the few times I saw combat.”
I chuckled. “Good, then maybe we won’t start from scratch.” I turned back to Layla, who still eyed me angrily. “Look, we may never fight, we may never prove to them that we’re worth the risk in battle, but shouldn’t we try? So that summoners in the future can have respect and contribute to the salvation of mankind? Don’t you want that?”
She squirmed under my gaze. “Well, if you put it like that… I guess I can give it a try.”
Braden chirped up. “Y-y-yeah me, t-too,” he said with his nervous stutter. “I can’t m-make promises, b-b-but I’ll give it my best.”
“That’s all the Academy can ask of you right now,” Rori said, his eyes alight with fire and pride. “Just try. It’s all we can do in this life, isn’t it?”
Layla snorted. “How wise of you.”
We all shared a laugh then. It died soon after though as all of their eyes settled on me, expectant. Even Rori seemed to wait on my lead, which was odd since he insisted he was still the teacher.
“So,” Mr. Brevens began, “how shall we begin?”
A fair question. A lot of what I did wasn’t taught to me, but things I simply figured out. Half of what I did, I knew on instinct. Instinct could be taught, but it was a difficult thing to foster. That didn’t mean that Braden and Layla couldn’t do it though, we would just have to spoon feed them what I knew.
There were plenty of simple moves that they could easily use, like using daggerdillos to put spikes on wallerdons, speed slugs with virtually any monster to make them a whirlwind of claws, or bullet basses to turn things metal or channel lightning attacks from an imp or an elemental mage. Those things weren’t hard, but learning to do it on the fly without even thinking about it would take practice.
But we had plenty of time and means to practice.
I stood and waved for them to follow me. “I guess let’s go to the practice arena and see what I can show you.”
Layla rolled her eyes as she smiled and followed. Braden nodded, tense yet determined, as they walked passed me and through the door. I turned back to Rori and found him downing the contents of a small metal flask. I gawked at him.
“Mr. Brevens!”
He belched and wiped at his beard. “What? A man can’t enjoy a quick sip?”
I shook my head. “I mean… I thought you were cleaning yourself up?”
He scowled. “I am, but I won’t quit drinking altogether. Besides,” he trailed off and smiled, “I’ll need to be a bit sauced if I’m gonna let a damn student teach my class.”
I snickered. “Fair enough.”
Chapter 17
The weeks went by in a haze of school work. My summoning classes progressed much better, now that Rori was on board with my style of summoning. Overall, things were good. Arwyn came to and from school a lot over that span. There was an uptick of rifts opening, and she was needed, but she always came back, which was a welcome relief.
My punishment with Nia came and went uneventfully. I rarely got her to talk much about herself after that first night, so when we did speak, it was mostly about school. We quizzed each other while we worked. She never got a question wrong, even about things like summoning that I threw at her, but to my credit, I rarely got things wrong either. I could tell that she was impressed by the subtle smirks and the raised brows she gave me when I answered a particularly hard question right.
I couldn’t say that we were friends, but she tolerated me a lot better. I kept my chin up since I knew I’d make her like me eventually. It would just take a little more time and finesse.
Most people at least respected me now, which was a pleasant development. They didn’t know how skilled I was as a summoner, but I participated in class more and got most questions right, and I routinely excelled at training. I still wasn’t an expert marksman with a bow or rifle, but I was competent enough. My sword skills developed fast, and I still had yet to be beaten by any student in the ring, though a few of the other students worked me to a draw. But it wasn’t a loss. I once sparred with the major, however, and he had me flat on my back in less than ten seconds.
It was time to fight again, and I found that it was one of my favorite times of the week.
The sun hung low in the afternoon sky as another training day drew to a close. I cracked my neck and my knuckles as I waited for the major to ring the starting bell. My classmate Folli stood across from me, shirtless, his chest dappled with sweat. He had a bush of chest hair that was the same bright red as his hair and was just odd to look at.
“Like what you see?” He smirked at me.
I scoffed playfully. “You wish.”
Folli was well built, barrel-chested with huge forearms that were also covered in red hair. He wasn’t as large as Braden, no one was, but he was certainly an imposing foe. I’d seen him fight a few times though, and I knew that he wasn’t too skilled. He used his brute strength as a crutch and wasn’t one for quick maneuvers or strategy. Still, if he got his hands on me, he could put me in an unbreakable chokehold in a hurry.
“Ready gentleman?” the major asked from his chair. We both nodded, so the major rang the bell. “Begin.”
My classmate didn’t hesitate for a moment. He charged at me full speed. I’d seen him try this approach already, a quick attack that was meant to overwhelm and stun the opponent before they had time to react. It had served him well the first time he’d used it, but I was an experienced fighter. That tactic would not work on me.
He swung frantically, all the weight in his punch, but I ducked out of the way and knocked his arm aside. He stumbled past me with a gasp as he realized that his one strategy was spent. Folli tried to recover, but I wouldn’t let that happen. As he gathered himself, I jabbed and caught his jaw with my fist. His head snapped to the right, and his body staggered from the hit.
I tackled him roughly around the waist and drove him into the hard tile of the ring. He crumbled beneath me with an audible groan. Before he could make a move to get up, I held him down with a knee to his chest. I raised my fist, ready to swing, but he tapped my leg.
“Alright, you got me, I yield,” he said as he winced and tried to play it off.
I smiled.
The major rang his bell. “Winner, Gryff. Excellent job. Dedarian, you need to be more patient, let the fight develop. We’ve talked about this.”
“Yes, sir,” Folli groaned beneath me. I hopped off of him and offered him my hand. He took it, and I helped him to his feet. We shook hands.
“I should have figured that charge wouldn’t work on you,” he said with a smirk. He rubbed his jaw where my punch had landed. “You’re too good of a fighter to get caught like that.”
I shrugged. “Can’t know if you don’t try, and we can’t learn if we don’t make mistakes.”
Folli rolled his eyes
and snorted. “You sound like a philosopher.”
“Maybe I am one,” I said, my nose raised haughtily
We both chuckled. The major grumbled from his chair. “Okay you two, enough chit-chat, out of the ring, now.” We obliged.
The major called on a couple more combatants, but I wasn’t paying much attention as I went to wrap my knuckles in some bandages I had in my bag. I heard Braden’s name but didn’t catch his opponent.
Once I was done, I returned to the ring and stood around the sparring arena, Layla by my side, as Braden fought a short but stout man from our class. Deren Kiltro, I believed his name was. He didn’t speak much, and most didn’t acknowledge him. When the major called on him, I hadn’t even heard his name, but I was fairly certain I had his name right. He was just forgettable, poor fellow.
The fight wasn’t forgettable though, as Braden and Deren were both built like boulders and could take hits well. Deren constantly stayed behind Braden, for though he was slow, he was smaller and could maneuver much better than my large roommate. As Braden lunged for Deren, the smaller man ducked out of Braden’s reach and kicked my roommate's legs out from under him.
Braden dropped with a yelp, and as his back hit the ground, Deren dropped the full force of his weight into a punch that connected with Braden’s gut, knocking the wind out of him.
Deren seemed to think that he won, but as he got to his feet and started to walk away, Braden erupted from the ground. My roommate tackled Deren around the waist and threw him from the ring. Deren hit the hard earth with a resounding yelp and a gasp of breath.
A few people clapped as the major rang the bell that signaled the end of the match. “No more, the match is over via technical disqualification. Good job, Flint.”
Braden cracked a wide grin. He stepped out of the ring and helped Kiltro to his feet. He clapped him on the shoulder and whispered something to him. Deren shook his hand and then they melted back into the crowd of students. No hard feelings, of course. It was only practice.
