The Jade Mage: The Becoming: Volume 1 (35 page)

“Understood, Boss.”

CHAPTER 14

Tartum walked into the combat room with Savall, expecting the worst. Elizabeth was standing in the middle of the room, watching him with an simple smile on her face. She wore the same leather outfit that he had seen her in when he was recruited into the guild. It still fit her form perfectly and seemed to make the shadows around her somehow darker. Tartum’s blood burned with lust when he looked at her. Determined not to look like a love struck fool, he occupied himself by looking around the room. Vaund was sitting in his usual spot in the corner of the room. That was always a bad sign. He favored Tartum with a sad look.

“Tartum, I apologize for what I said yesterday. I shouldn’t have talked to you like you had done something wrong. You did exactly what you were being trained to do. I should have offered you congratulations, and instead, I spit on you. I was wrong and ask forgiveness.” Vaund looked at his feet the entire time and seemed very ashamed of himself.

Tartum was bewildered. Nothing Vaund said had offended him, but he did understand that his intentions had been to do just that. Tartum laughed.

“Vaund you have nothing to worry about. I found nothing you said offensive.” Seeing his words do nothing to alleviate Vaund’s guilt, Tartum decided to give him a penance. “However, if you feel that you owe me something, then why don’t you heal my injuries. I must admit I’m very sore this morning. I’ve become spoiled by your healing.” Tartum said with a laugh.

Vaund looked up and smiled. “Of...of course, Tartum! I should have thought of that. Sorry.” Vaund placed both his hands on Tartum’s chest and said a few words. Tartum felt Vaund’s magic flow inside him and fill him with warmth. He felt his muscles relax and his skin mend. It created an odd itching sensation all over his body that made him shiver. Vaund removed his hands and with them went the sensation. Tartum felt momentarily dizzy at the sudden shift of sensations and then inspected his wounds.

Peeling off one crude bandage after another, Tartum inspected his body. Just as he thought, there was no sign of any wounds under the bandages. Flexing his muscles and stretching out his limbs made all the difference. He felt great!

“Thank you for that, Vaund! Consider your debt to me paid.” Tartum laughed and gave Vaund a playful shove. Vaund smiled and walked back to his chair.

The issue with Vaund resolved, Tartum turned his attention back to Elizabeth. She was still looking at him, but the smile was gone and in its place was a frown.

“Are you two done bonding, or should I come back tomorrow?” she asked. She was clearly irritated with having to wait.

Tartum refused to be baited. “Yes, yes. We’re done now. What have you done with my dog?” he asked.

Elizabeth looked startled by the question, and then the smile returned to her face. “Buddy is doing fine. If you ask me he likes me better than you, anyway.” Elizabeth’s tone was almost playful. Noticing the look on Savall’s face changed her demeanor drastically; suddenly she was all business. “Do not concern yourself with the
dog for now. As I’m sure The Boss told you, today you begin your training in defensive maneuvers.” She said, her voice now dripping with acid.

Tartum saw Elizabeth’s wrist twitch and barely saw the blur of movement coming at his head. Ducking just a second too late, the object connected with the top of his skull and set his ears ringing. The object clattered to the floor. Tartum was stunned and felt his scalp to see if it was bleeding. He felt no blood, but he knew he’d have a knot there in a few minutes. Looking at the floor, Tartum found the object Elizabeth had thrown at him. It was a solid black throwing knife. Picking it up, he inspected the blade closer. It was razor sharp and perfectly balanced. The weight felt good in his hands, and the metal was treated to be dull instead of shiny. Tartum thought that made sense, considering Elizabeth probably didn’t want her weapons to be reflecting light all over the place when she was trying to be stealthy. Tartum knew little about thrown weapons, but he assumed that if Elizabeth had meant to kill him, she could have done it twenty times by now. As if to give substance to his thought, he noticed some of his hair stuck to the handle end of the blade. She had meant to only hurt him, not kill him, not yet at least. Looking up at her, Tartum grinned in an attempt to hide the pain in his head.

“Nice shot, how am I supposed to dodge that?” he asked.

With a wink, Elizabeth replied. “Well, moving would be a good start. Try knocking them out of the way with your staff. Mostly though, it’s practice. Here, throw that one at me as hard as you can.”

Tartum looked at Savall questioningly. Savall merely shrugged, “You heard the lady.”

Not knowing what else to do, Tartum threw the knife as hard he he could. It sailed across the room and bounced across the floor, missing Elizabeth by a good five feet. She exploded with laughter.

“By the Gods! You’re an awful shot!” she said, tears rolling down her face. She was laughing very hard at Tartum’s pathetic throw. Tartum didn’t think it was that funny. Elizabeth looked at Savall and asked. “You mind showing him how to do it, Boss?” Without waiting for a reply, Elizabeth whipped a knife at Savall. Savall snatched the knife out of the air and twirled it around his fingers. He made it look like the easiest thing in the world. He was smiling at Tartum the entire time. This did nothing to help his wounded ego. Still, he couldn’t help but feel impressed by the show, even if it was at his expense. He began to look forward to mastering this skill.

Savall turned away from Tartum and focused his attention on Elizabeth. He reached back and threw the knife so hard it made a whirring sound as it sliced though the air. Just as Tartum was sure the knife was going to kill her, Elizabeth burst into action. Sparks flew, and the sound of metal on metal rang through the room. Tartum heard a thunk in front of him, and when he looked down there was a knife embedded in the floor, mere inches from his foot. He couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t been able to follow anything that had just happened.

Tartum looked up at Elizabeth, this time with a much greater respect for her as a warrior. The look did not go unnoticed. She smiled and nodded at him and held up another knife. Tartum wished he knew where she was hiding them all. There didn’t seem to be any room on her outfit for pockets, let alone knives.

“Again!” She announced and threw another knife at Tartum. Without actually seeing the knife, Tartum threw himself to the right, hoping to get out of the path of the blade. He was too late. The knife handle hit him directly in the collar bone. If he hadn’t moved, it would have hit him in the throat. Tartum was getting angry, He couldn’t believe she was trying to hurt him so badly, so early into the lesson. He had come to expect it from his lessons with Jeth but had hoped for more compassion from this woman. He still had alot to learn about this guild, he realized. It seemed, if you didn’t learn fast enough, they would simply kill you. It was not a comforting thought.

No wonder I never see any other recruits
, he thought to himself.

Rubbing his collar, he looked up at Elizabeth. “Any advice?” He asked. His irritation was growing.

Elizabeth’s flirtatious smile instantly appeared on her face. “Yeah! Move faster!” She said and threw another knife.

Tartum held his staff up, guessing she was going to be aiming for his head again. The knife ricocheted off his staff and sliced him across his chin as it passed. Tartum felt the blood slowly run down his neck but never took his eyes off Elizabeth. He was focused now and was trying to get her timing down. This might be easier than he thought.

Tartum wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw surprise in Elizabeth’s eyes for a moment when he partially deflected her shot. He wondered if it was because of the block or because of the blood she drew. He hoped it was the latter. He wanted to believe she wasn’t really trying to kill him. Whatever he had seen was gone now. Instead her eyes narrowed, and she held up another knife and waved it at him. She threw it, and Tartum waved his staff in the direction he guessed it was heading and dove to the left. The knife glanced off his elbow, numbing his arm and almost caused him to drop his staff. Tartum shook his arm to get the tingling feeling to go away. It hurt like hells, and it was all he could do to maintain his dignity and not jump up and down with the pain.

Tartum had enough. He opened himself to the magic and prepared himself for her next attack. Gripping his staff in both hands, he concentrated on her and waited. As he gazed into her sky blue eyes, his thoughts began to wander. He began to wonder how those eyes might look a bit closer, how that leather might feel pressed against him. He fantasized about how those pouty lips might taste if he could just get her a little closer. A knife Tartum hadn’t noticed Elizabeth throw smashed off his skull. It felt like the entire blade had connected with him, and the magic enhancing his senses caused it to hurt worse than any of the others. He shook his head to clear away the pain and focused on making it stop hurting. After a moment, he looked back at Elizabeth.

She smiled a knowing smile. “Perhaps if you paid as much attention to my knives as you were my body, I wouldn’t be hitting you so easily.” she teased. Then with a flick of her wrist, she sent another knife at him.

The magic enhancing Tartum’s senses helped him see the black blur coming for his chest. It wasn’t much, but at least now he had a second to react. Twisting his body sideways he swung his staff into the path of the knife. He batted it away and looked at Elizabeth in triumph. She didn’t seem pleased at all. She threw another knife at him. He saw it coming at his leg and batted it out of the air. The knife went skittering across the room. Now it was Tartum’s turn to be smug, and he took full advantage.

“Seems like your training won’t take me long to master after all.” He said. It felt good to be doing the taunting for a change.

The fire in Elizabeth’s eyes could have ignited water. “That was just the introductory lessons. Have a taste of the next phase!” She hissed at him.

Tartum didn’t even have time to regret his choice of words, as two more blades came whizzing towards his face. He deflected one and almost got out of the way of the second. The handle careened off the top of his skull and went banging across the floor. Tartum couldn’t take time to recover as he saw her throw three more blades a him. Swinging his staff in an arc, he was able to deflect two of them. The third one slipped past and took a slice out of his left arm as it passed. Tartum screamed in pain and outrage. The magic served only to increase the intensity of the pain. He dared not release his hold on the source, however, as it was the only way he could track the blades in order to avoid them. He would rather deal with the pain than lose his ability to see.

Elizabeth never let up her attack. Three more blades came at him, and Tartum was on the move. Running to the right, he knocked one of the blades out of the way. His movement caused the second blade to miss, but the third found its mark and cut a gash in his leg. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Tartum forced himself to ignore the wound. He placated his protesting body by reminding himself Vaund would fix everything afterward. Watching Elizabeth, he kept himself in constant motion. He tried to make his movements random and had limited success. Or so he thought.

Throwing himself to the left, Tartum barely avoided another knife. It passed by, so close Tartum felt the disturbance in the air around him. Swinging his staff, he knocked another knife away and jumped, to barely avoid another that would have pinned his foot to the ground. It was then that Tartum realized this woman was really trying to hurt him. His anger began to swell up inside him. He was all for training, but just because he was doing well was no reason for her to attempt to cause him such a severe injury. His anger fueling him, he advanced on her position.

He dodged to the right and to the left trying to keep her guessing, so that she couldn’t zero in on him and score a serious blow. As it was, the knives were flying at a rate he would have thought impossible. Where was she keeping all of them? He guessed that she must have thrown almost thirty of them by now, and she didn’t seem to be slowing down. He was concentrating on her intensely now. As far as he was concerned they were the only two in the universe. He was determined to reach her and give her a dose of her own medicine. She was smiling again, Tartum realized she was enjoying this! The thought increased his anger.

“What are...you smiling...at bitch!?” Tartum said, in between dodging and parrying.

Without missing a beat, or a throw, Elizabeth cooly responded. “Oh nothing, I’m just enjoying the fact that you think you have a chance to reach me is all.” She was all but laughing in his face.

The comment made Tartum lose control. His vision went red, and he charged.
To the hells with avoiding her little knives, I’m gonna beat this bitch into the ground
! he thought. Dropping his shoulders and gritting his teeth, Tartum charged straight towards Elizabeth. He saw through his haze of rage, that Elizabeth looked startled for a moment. The momentary lapse in her volley of daggers allowed Tartum to quickly close the gap between them. She recovered her composure and threw five daggers at once. The smile was gone from her face as she threw her final volley. She was all business now, and Tartum realized, far too late, just how foolish his charge had been.

The knives all found their mark. Almost simultaneously Tartum felt the daggers pierce his body. Both his shoulders went numb and limp as the daggers sliced through tendon and nerve. His legs wouldn’t support his weight any longer, after two daggers pierced his kneecaps. The final dagger hit him directly between his eyes, knocking him down and making the world spin. Tartum lay on the floor, immobile and sick with pain. He refused to show it. His anger had stayed with him, and he closed his eyes to close out the rest of the world. The pain was bearable as long as he kept himself focused on the anger. He released his hold on the magic, hoping to lessen the pain and make focusing on his anger easier. The release did help to drastically decrease the amount of pain he felt. It also made him feel incredibly weak, and he lost his grip on his anger. Frustrated beyond measure, Tartum fought against the rising depression inside him. His disappointment at failing, the physcial pain he felt because of it, the fact he couldn’t compete with these people until they had beat the knowledge into him, all came crashing down on him in that moment. It was the fact that any of these people could kill him at will, that was the hardest truth to swallow. In his little town of Zerous, he was invincible. Here in Saroth, he might as well be a lamb. He lay on the floor, bleeding from four crippling wounds and with his head ringing. He wished Vaund would hurry up and heal him, already.