Chapter two
Tor knew, intellectually at least, that the head weapons instructor wouldn't really kill him just for missing lessons for one day. After all, if he did that no one would work with him anymore, they'd all run away in fear. That didn't mean that Tor wouldn't wish for death by the end of whatever was coming. That, he knew from personal experience, was more than likely.
It had happened before. Oh, not him missing class, except for one time when he'd been out with a bug for three days, food poisoning, Tor never really got sick. Kolb had been fairly nice about the whole thing, just adding in some extra lessons when he got back, so that he could keep up with everyone else. But there had been a few little things, not learning something fast enough, or not having the needed strength to really take out one of the larger students from the combat section in practice on command.
Then there was normally a lot more training, painful to the extreme.
But this was different.
For the first time Tor had done something that was actually wrong. Missing lessons without permission wasn't really a big deal in his other classes. After all, kids did that, going off to get drunk or have sex instead of studying and learning like they should. Some of the rich kids hardly attended classes at all, sometimes not showing up for days on end. But the military and combat studies section was different, at least for the upper level students, which for some reason Tor had been included into. The instructors tended to treat absence as an attempt to leave the military without permission or something. In the army that could lead to imprisonment or even death.
Tor knew he could argue that this wasn't the military and that he'd even been put in the section by mistake. He simply wasn't a combat student. Tor would never be, no matter how hard he tried. Even Kolb clearly knew that, having him work with wooden weapons instead of magical ones for the last few years, even when everyone else got to move ahead. He made Tor run daily, telling him over and over again that in a real fight, against real enemies, it would probably be his only hope for survival. He just lacked the size and strength for anything else and really no amount of training or practice would give it to him. So run away.
But all of that wouldn't get him out of what was coming. Not unless he tried to run away right then, instead of approaching the practice field like he'd been ordered to. OK, requested to, but that was just to make him sweat more, being asked politely like that. It worked too. Kolb wasn't just a master of fighting unarmed or with weapons apparently. He could use words too. Well enough to make Dorgal Sorvee look like a chump.
The large instructor stood in the empty square, his shirt off in the cool breeze already, hitting at a pell, a wooden log set in the ground, that was larger around than Tor could reach with both arms by a good bit. It only stood about eight feet high, but still looked massive. The ground shook as powerful blows followed each other nearly too fast to be kept track of. The reverberation went through him, shaking bone each time.
Tor swallowed and looked around, trying to see the trap, or punishment that was planned for him. He really hoped it wasn't being beaten with that sword. That would actually kill him, most likely. Even a dull blade hitting him half that hard would do the trick.
The training square was large, about a hundred feet on each side, ringed in a low stone wall, too high for him to see over, but not for a lot of the combat giants. Maybe six foot? Inside, away from the main gate, to the left, the ground was paved with very flat, very hard black stone. The rest was dirt, packed hard from years of being stomped and trampled underfoot. A hill stood, higher than the wall on the back left corner, dipping down into a small pond, the thick mud of which was hard to stand on when someone was hitting you, or, as he knew from only occasional personal experience, just as hard to stand on if you actually connected with someone else. He'd sat in it every single time he'd had to work there, usually making the other students laugh.
The remaining section was just flat, dry dirt, his favorite place to work in the square. A lovely soft tan color that didn't show overly on the browns, as long as you didn't have to roll around in it for too long.
Tor plodded over slowly, head hanging a little. Dread filled him, but there was nothing for it. As long as the instructor didn't actually kill or maim him, no one would say much about any punishment given and while Tor could quit at any time, there wouldn't be a second chance like this in life. Finishing his schooling here could make him, but half trained? Who knew? He'd either open his own bakery somewhere or try for the sea and just pray something worked out.
Bald head glistening in the bright daylight, beads of perspiration dripping off of his back and shoulders, Kolb spun suddenly and pointed the dull metal practice blade at Tor's throat.
“Ah, good, you made it! I was worried you might be too busy...” The look he gave him didn't hold the expected derision, just a matter of fact expression that made Tor wince. It would have been easier to just be yelled at. This “reasonable” man in front of him couldn't be a good sign.
“Now, your advisor, Gear, told me why you didn't make it yesterday. In the future I expect to be notified in advance if you can't make it due to other work, understood? My time's too valuable to be standing around wondering where you are. In general everyone's time is too valuable to waste like that, even yours. Keep that in mind, eh?”
The blade swung back around to the pillar behind the man, making it shake, a tremor that could be felt through the thick leather soles of Tor's brown shoes.
“Don't worry; I'm not going to make you work the pells all day as a punishment, though the thought had occurred to me. First Instructor Kara suggested a several hours long beating, and she actually likes you, so you can imagine what the others wanted to do. I want you to watch something instead. Pay attention here, alright?”
Five more blows hit the post, the form perfect, driven by the thick and lean arm of the man in front of him. After the last one he turned.
“Each of those blows would hold a good chance of killing an un-shielded or unarmored man. Even with a dull weapon like this. If someone comes at you in a similar fashion, baring you wearing a full shield, you need to do what in order to survive?”
“Run away.” It came out sounding almost bored, which was about the worst thing that could happen. Yes, Tor had to say it a half dozen times a day, but angering the man right now was not a good survival strategy. His stomach tightened and he swallowed, which must have showed on his face. The blade swung at him without warning, causing him to back pedal as fast as he could, ready to run in truth if the attack continued. That had happened before, with five students, led, now that he thought about it, by Petra, the tall girl that kept waving to him the day before, chasing him for nearly an hour along the road to the nearest town. Kolb stopped after a single swing this time and gave him a serious look.
“Exactly. Not trying to bore you here, but do pay attention. I don't want to have to repeat myself later. Fail in this lesson and you'll probably die later. Now look here...”
The sword was put on a low table and a piece of metal no longer than a regular fighting knife, but flat and not sharp at all, was held in the large hand instead. The big thumb was placed over a triggering sigil and held. Looking at Tor with a soft smile, the giant man casually, without perceptible effort, swung the metal at the pell, making an angled sweep that, if it had been a human would have bisected the neck and shoulder.
For a second nothing happened at all.
Then with a crash nearly a hundred, maybe two hundred, pounds of wood slid off the pell and hit the ground, making Tor jump back out of the way. The wood was smooth, shiny even, on the top of the log, now nearly three foot shorter and angled at the top.
“A simple cutter, about a four foot sweep on it. You've made cutters before, right? Same basic idea here, only bigger than generally needed for a tool, except in stone working or cutting logs for timber. Now here's the task I have for you. On top of your regular studies and practice, you have two weeks to make a shield that will protect you from both of these weapons. It must be able to withstand twenty minutes of sword, and the same amount of time from this cutter. Failure means death, most likely at least, so I suggest you take the project seriously.”
A large hand was held out as if to forestall speech.
“Yes, we already have shields, so you know that the basic idea can work. But, you aren't allowed to just make a copy of one. I expect novel work, since you've shown yourself capable of that now... Understood?”
Tor did.
The man really did mean to kill him. He'd never even set eyes on a working shield before, and now he had to make one, from scratch, inside two weeks? That kind of work could take years to get right. He was so dead. He may as well run off, or at least send a letter to his parents explaining why he died.
Kolb just laughed as he stood shaking.
“You look cold. Go ahead and run to Lenders and back to warm up, then we'll work stones and unarmed for a while. Don't worry, you have some time to work on your new shield.” The voice held a warm and jovial quality that Tor didn't really associate with the man at all. It wasn't something he could trust then. New things generally weren't, as had been recently pointed out, they needed to be tested first.
Tor ran, and for the second time since he'd come to the school, really considered the idea of just going down the dirt road to the nearest town. It took about an hour to run the distance and back and no one would be following him. After all, this was just part of his daily routine.
The first time he'd considered it had been after he'd foolishly asked a girl if she'd like to attend one of the student parties with him. Everyone else was getting dates, but the girl, one that he hadn't thought totally outside of his social standing and class, had shut him down cold. And loudly. In front of everyone in the dining hall. That had been during the spring of his first year.
The only reason that he hadn't run off then and just gone back home was because of Rolph, who'd told him that things like that happened sometimes. Some girls couldn't see a good thing when it was presented to them. Their loss. That was easy for Rolph to say, rich, good looking and gregarious to boot. Tor hadn't done anything for weeks after that, even avoiding meals so that he wouldn't have to see the girl again. Two weeks later the girl disappeared, pulled back home by her parents for some reason. At least then he'd been able to go to meals in peace. Except for the people talking about him, pointing and staring when he came in the first few times.
After that he'd kind of withdrawn from everyone except his roommate and the instructors. He was there to work and learn. No matter how pretty a girl was being humiliated like that was too much for him to handle, so he didn't give them a chance to make fun of him like that anymore.
Now this...
Well, he considered, as his feet tapped the ground lightly, a steady jog being good enough for the first half of the trip he felt, could he make a shield like that? What kind of magic would it take? Did he know how to make anything that would help?
His mind turned in on itself as he moved, his focus increasing until he didn't notice the strain of running or that he'd sped up a little. What, he asked himself, was the real problem to be addressed?
A cutter was, he knew from experience, a powerful tool. Just look what it had done to that log. But the basic idea was simple enough. The field just organized a region of space on the tiniest level of being. It told all the energy on each side of a sliver thin line to move in opposite directions. If the gap became large enough, meaning a strong field, it separated matter into two pieces. It didn't cut so much as get the object to pull itself apart, name aside. It was simple and elegant, as well as powerful. Not even requiring outside energy to be made to work.
If he could disrupt that field, scramble it or put in conflicting instructions, that should stop any kind of cutter or even explosive magic from working on him directly. Explosives were similar, he thought. He didn't know it for a fact, but it made some sense that if everything tried to move away from a central point it would blow up. As long as the field had enough force behind it.
That left physical blocking, which baffled the hell out of him for a minute. Luckily for him it did, since he found himself halfway into Lenders and still going, have missed his turn around about half a mile back. Oops. He turned and started going the other direction, making a point to take it a little faster, since Kolb would think he just slacked off if he didn't get back at the expected time.