A Simple Darkness (The Young Ancients: Tiera) (13 page)

"These diagrams show the basic weak points on the human body. How long do you think it will take you to memorize them all?"

There were only about forty listed, so she tilted her head and tried to absorb the pages. She waited until the picture was set, floating behind her eyes even when she closed the book.

Then she started listing them off, one by one.

"Top of the head, Temples, eyes, base of the skull where the spine meets, throat, over the heart in the front and back..." The rest of them came just as quickly and when she got to the bottom she reversed the order, ending at the top of the head again.

The big fighter gave her a funny look and shook her head.

"You can do that in ten seconds, but you can't remember The Rules?"

Making a sour face she started to cross her arms, but then remembered that the woman in front of her might actually attack her, and resisted it.

"Get me a list of them why don't you?" That was half the problem she knew. They all talked about The Rules, but no one just wrote them out.

She was told to read and memorize the whole book instead, which took longer, since it was hand written. It was all useful though, pointing out how to best damage given targets on a person, a lot of it written for weapons use. You could punch or kick over a liver, but for it to be fatal you basically had to stab it, for instance. It was a thing she'd never even considered. Her punches the day before had just been...
thrown
. Aiming hadn't been a real consideration except in the most general of ways. This text was suggesting that it would be a lot more useful to
try
and hit certain areas.

At eleven she dimmed the lights in the room and turned in, Karen already snoring softly. She really would have preferred to have the lights off, but it made some sense to leave them on a bit. That meant she was able to get up and fight if someone tried to break in. They'd see her too, but she doubted that anyone coming for her would be less able to fight in the dark than she was.

Not that she thought anyone would do that, but who knew?

Farlo had seemed pretty ticked, hadn't she? For some reason the idea made her smile, as if a school girl was the worst thing she had to fear. Not killers that might want to take her in order to force Tor to come out of hiding or something like that. She wouldn't let that happen though. If it came to it she'd kill herself first. Since that wasn't something she wanted to do, it made sense to stay ready at all times, didn't it?

She was up early again and ate in the room, leaving before the snoring giant woke at all. There was no one in the arena that morning, so she ran first, then worked stones for a while, wrapping her hands with leather straps first this time. It let her lift the heaviest rock she could three more times than the day before. That or she was stronger already.

Then she tried to hit the pells with a club in each hand, alternating. It wasn't done that smoothly, but she got to a thousand and then made herself keep going, even though her arms felt like they wanted to fall off. When she finished she turned to find Sir Kolbrin watching her with a stern look on his face.

"Targeting. It isn't just about slapping the wood with a stick. Those are deadly weapons and the pell is a warrior that will kill you if you miss." He ran his hand across various points of the scarred and dented wood. "Eye, juncture of the neck, arms, legs, torso... Each blow from this point on should be done with intent. Mean it, like you would in battle, decide where you want to wound them and do your best each time." He grinned then, which took her off guard for some reason. He just didn't seem like a jolly sort, in the main.

He picked up two clubs as well and demonstrated what he meant on his own pell, calling out instructions to her, making her do it all again, which nearly didn't work, as dead as her arms were. After half an hour, sweating profusely, he let her stop.

 "Fine enough for now. You should also practice the unarmed work you did yesterday and then use the healing amulet Karen got for us. It makes life far more pleasant." He moved off to work with the stones himself then, leaving her to rack her weapons and then stare at the pell. She was supposed to hit it? And do some kicks? That was... going to hurt. She had the healing amulet though, so it wouldn't do permanent damage. Trying not to seem like the weakest person ever, she faced it and tried to remember what she'd been told.

Aim through the thing and use her whole body to generate force. The first punch nearly made her cry, but she didn't let herself. Her fist ached, but hadn't broken or anything. Her knuckles stung though, even as she reversed it and did the same move with her other hand. She didn't think she could do it a thousand times, it was just too painful. Instead she aimed for a hundred with each move, counting them carefully. Some things were worse than others. Slamming her elbows and knees into the log felt harder, but didn't make her bleed. Kicks were nicer but made it difficult to balance if she tried the high ones. When she tried using her forehead it made her bleed after ten strikes and nearly knocked her out. In all she decided that it was probably a lot more useful to hit things with a weapon. This training was nearly as bad as the beating had been the day before. When she finished she had to limp to the table with the magical devices and equipment, which had just been left in the open all night.

The healing amulet made her hands and head sting badly, but she healed, and there were no scars. No calluses either though. It meant she wasn't really toughening up all the way. She felt better then, fresh and rested, but wondered if she'd just undone all of her exercise. Maybe if she did the damaging stuff first, then did her exercises later? It would give her a day of building muscle each time at least. Still, things had been easier that day than the one before, hadn't they? Was that just learning or did the amulet cause her to get stronger as she healed?

She didn't know, but could only watch and see.

Sir Kolbrin gestured for her to come over, then pointed at the pond at the back of the space, which was only about fifty feet across.

"Can you swim?" He sounded gruff again, as if he thought she might not be able to. That or she wouldn't want to get wet.

"Yes, mother taught all of us kids." Without waiting, getting that it was coming next she started walking and called back, not wanting to be tossed in particularly. "How many times across and back?"

"Start with ten. I want to make certain you can do it."

She just waded in. The water wasn't deep, about four feet in the center, but it was small enough it didn't take long to finish. She was soaking when she got out, but her hair wasn't in the way, so there was that. She cycled her clothing a dozen times, so that she'd be mainly dry.

The man just nodded at her once.

"Now, you have magical weapons, but I'd prefer you learn traditional ones first. I have a class coming in for special flying practice. You have your gear with you?" He didn't seem to doubt her at least, and didn't seem surprised when she pulled the hand piece to her flying rig out and put it on. It was the older kind, on copper, but was basically the same field the military used. Hers had a right hand piece instead of left, but that was because it hadn't been meant for combat.

"Alright. No weapons today. I'll explain the exercise when everyone else gets here. That way I won't have to do it twice. Make sure to collect your shield from the table."

It took a while for everyone else to arrive, so instead of wasting time, they worked on unarmed moves for a while, mainly joint locks, since Sir Kolbrin was trying to work out a version of fighting that would work past a shield that way. Since she had a shield on, it made for some interesting moments. It was slippery, but by pushing his body against hers and using both arms to stop her arms and legs from getting away he could manipulate her rather painfully at times. Not always though and he encouraged her to try and get out of the things as hard as she could. Then they'd switch and she'd try it.

It was with her rather inexpertly trying to use her whole body to lock his right arm out that everyone else found them, walking into place lazily, most of them seeming at least a little sleepy. That or hung over. It must have been close to nine in the morning, which seemed late enough for them to have woken up, but no one looked chipper at all.

"Today's exercise is in teamwork. No use of weapons, magical or standard. Shields  and flying gear only. You have one hour to catch Tiera here, get her to the ground and keep her there. Any questions?" He looked around as everyone scrambled to get their flying rigs in place, a few of them looking panicked just ran away, not having theirs. "
Go
!"

Actually, she reflected,
she
had some questions, but didn't have time to ask them, since she was being chased. Except that no one was near her at all. About twenty miles away she dropped and spun in place, expecting to be hit from behind, but the others were still a good ten miles behind her. She could have run, but it wouldn't have been much of a challenge to the others if she did. Instead she headed for the left flank of the line coming toward her. She stuck her right hand out, upright with her feet dangling under her, trying to come up with a plan. She had nearly a whole minute to make it work after all.

When she got to the person on that side, who turned out to be a woman she didn't know, Tiera spun again and rose slightly in the air, then settled over the lady and straddled her left arm, suddenly cutting her own flight field, which knocked the woman downward, with Tiera slipping upside down for a bit.

"Ahhh!" The other girl, who couldn't have been in her late teens screamed, panicking a bit. The shield would protect her, but falling was hard to get used to and rushing into the Earth was particularly daunting.

Pushing away she got her field going again and flew backward as hard as she could, to keep the others from doing the same to her. No one even tried, just hanging in the air, like they didn't know what to do. Of the ten people that had come into the square, only six of them were left. The one on the ground would be back, but for a few minutes she might get to have some fun, she realized.

She went for them. It wasn't exactly her completely dominating them all, since they learned pretty fast and worked as a team but she did manage to force Havar to fly into Karen at half speed and took Judy down to the ground hard, which was rewarding. Then she closed with David, who was a lot better than the others were, making it harder to keep up with. She did manage to get Karen between them before taking off and not letting them catch her for the rest of the time. It was like playing chase as a child. It was always easier to dodge than recover from a missed grab. Being in the air magnified that.

Then, without anyone being near her, she landed next to Sir Kolbrin when he waved to her, since she'd moved the game back toward the school already. She didn't have a clock, but the man didn't quibble over moments or claim that her landing a few seconds early counted as a loss. It wasn't that kind of game it seemed.

In fact the man raised his eyebrows at the sky, not her at all.

"Work up an assessment." He said the words as if she was supposed to know what that meant, but then he chuckled a little and explained. "Figure out where people made mistakes, add in how they can improve on what they did and make suggestions. Try not to be too rude about it. They did
not
do well. They know that part already."

She thought about it and could see a few things that might be topical at least.

When they got in, all ten of them, Tiera crossed her arms and glared. After all, she was the one that was in charge for the moment, right? That's what you did when you were the boss. Look intimidating and growl.

"Alright. Sir Kolbrin asked for my input on this. I won't cover the most obvious things in depth, but from now on keep all your weapons and transportation on you, so you don't have to go running away if something comes up. I'm sure I don't have to mention that really?" She let her voice go dry, then smiled at the people that had forgotten their rigs. It was a quirky thing, sudden and cute enough that she got a few sheepish grins in response.

Then she outlined a few other things, including some critiques of both her own application of Sir Kolbrin's new techniques as well as her own application of them.

"The initial impact of shield against shield is a problem in the air. It feels different than on the ground and was harder to hold. I think we need to try wrapping the limbs more."

The bald man blinked.

"Demonstrate." He didn't bark the word, but he did hold out his arm for her to give an example. It didn't work exactly as she figured it might, but by crossing her own arms over his and holding it to her body at the same time he couldn't get away too easily. It didn't lead to a painful lock, but he nodded anyway.

Then had her show it again, in the air. She ended up slamming herself into the ground three times, since they were only about ten feet up, but no one laughed at her, just watching closely.

After that they broke up, with her wondering if she was going to be chewed out by anyone for being too big of a pain. After all, it was her second day, not second decade at the whole thing, what did she really know?

Karen patted her on the back gently as they walked away.

"Nice. Just the right amount of making yourself look bad to soften the blow, after you made sure we all looked like fools. No one will have a problem with that, I don't think. You've done that before, haven't you?" She sounded almost like she wanted her to say yes, but it was true enough, she really had. "Oh, sure, in Two Bends we have a game for the kids that's basically the same thing. Only... well, most of the kids there that want to be work for the delivery service, so..." How did she say that most of them were better at flying than these people were? They practiced a lot, but there was no way of saying it without seeming rude. "Anyway, we should get off to the Capital. Are you sure I wasn't too bad at the end there? I don't want anyone to get mad at me."