Azerick stepped back amongst the crowd’s howl of outrage to allow the fighter to regain his feet and his breath. Azerick looked over to his friend who gave a shrug, still standing with his arms crossed, and his smile just a bit wider.
“Enjoy your momentary victory while you can, wizard, I’m ready for you this time,” Dirk said as he regained his feet.
“I’m not a wizard, I’m a sorcerer,” Azerick clarified.
Dirk just gave him a confused look and charged in swinging. Azerick parried each blow, giving ground as he fought off the larger, stronger boy’s attack. Dirk thrust forward with his blade trying to skewer him. Azerick blocked the thrust and threw the blade far to the outside, half turning his attacker around. He spun around him in the opposite direction, which placed him squarely at his opponent’s back. Azerick thrust out hard and sent Dirk to the ground once more with a shot to his left kidney.
The injured fighter lurched forward from the blow but riposted with a vicious backhand swing that would have taken Azerick’s head off if he had not ducked and had the sword not been a dulled training blade. Azerick crouched under the desperate swing and jabbed the end of his staff into Dirk’s sternum, taking all the wind from him. Dirk measured his length in the sand and dirt of the training ground desperately trying to draw in air.
The fallen warrior rolled onto his back and Azerick placed the butt of his staff lightly under his vanquished foe’s throat just above the rib cage. Still lacking the breath to form words, Dirk tapped the weapon that lay against his throat three times as an act of submission. Azerick extended a hand to his opponent and helped him to his feet.
“You fight pretty well for a wizard,” Dirk gasped out, his hands on his knees in an effort to hold himself up.
“Sorcerer,” Azerick corrected.
“You fight damn well no matter what you call yourself,” the gruff weapons master said. “I won’t tell any man no who wants to learn to fight. You come back any time and I’ll see to that you get the training you need.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate that and I’ll definitely take you up on your offer.”
“Where did you learn to fight like that? I know they don’t teach that stuff in that Magus Academy,” inquired the weapon master.
“I studied under a master named Ewen when I was younger, then it was mostly what I taught myself and learned in the streets.”
“That explains it, the streets are tough master but you learn quick or you die, trust me I know. You bring yourself back anytime, I want to see you here regular like though if you’re serious about learning how to fight like a man.”
“I will sir; I’ll be here every day if I can.”
Alex congratulated him on his win and gaining the acceptance of the surly weapons master. Azerick thanked him for supporting him then left to make his way back to his own Academy. As he walked past the stables, Travis and his friends burst out of one of the stalls where they had been lying in wait and grabbed him, forcing him back into the empty pen.
Realizing that trying to push four other boys was futile, he grabbed one by the shirt front and yanked him in the direction they were pushing him, pivoted, and threw him head first into the stable wall where he slumped down to the straw-covered floor.
The other three young men shoved him up against the same wall a fraction of a second later and started raining blows on him with their fists. Azerick covered, ducked, and dodged as best he was able, even snaking out and connecting with a few quick jabs of his own but their greater numbers soon brought him down. All four boys launched a few extra kicks after he slumped down to the floor before stepping back. Travis pulled out his wand and threatened him once again.
“I told you we weren’t done, peasant. This is just the beginning. Do you think I would just forget about what you did to me? Every time you start to feel comfortable or safe, I will remind you once again that you are not welcome here. Do yourself a favor and leave the Academy or I will kill you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day I will do it. I can take you out any time I want to, but I will not do it right away. I want you to be afraid. I want you to wonder if today is the day that I end you, until I decide to finish you. Think about that every time you see me and live in fear.”
Azerick pulled himself up off the ground as soon as they left and dusted the straw and dirt off his clothes before going back to his room. If Travis thought he could scare him, he was sorely mistaken.
“What the heck happened to you?” Rusty asked as he walked into the room.
“I was sparring with the Martial Academy guys after class.”
“Are you crazy? Those guys are all psychotic killers who love to bash each other’s brains in for fun,” Rusty exclaimed before he could finish.
“I did fine with the sparring, it was Travis and his friends who jumped me that gave me all the bruises.”
“Are you alright? You should go to the infirmary then tell the Headmaster.”
“
Pfft
, I’ve gotten hit harder by the floor falling out of bed. Those guys are amateurs. Try getting beat up by Hugo and his cronies. They may be as dumb as horse droppings, but they know how to work a person over. Besides, you know the Headmaster cannot or will not do anything about it. I can handle it myself. What is that wand that he likes to threaten people with?”
“I heard him say it was a wand of magic bolts, like the spell that most of us learn early on but more powerful,” Rusty explained.
“Sounds unpleasant, I may have to do something about that sometime.”
Azerick avoided the troublesome group as best he could by keeping a wary eye out and varying his route to and from different location just as he did on the streets. However, he still had to go to class. In alchemy class, he sat down with a glass beaker full of a caustic liquid only to find that his chair was an illusion. He fell flat on his backside spilling the substance all over him, which ate large holes in his clothes. He returned the favor by switching the labels on some of Travis’s component jars. When he set his mixture over a flame it started to bubble and expand, releasing a noxious odor that ended the class for the day.
Over the next few weeks, an all out battlefront of pranks erupted. One of Azerick’s potions blew up, covering him, Rusty, and Magus Morgarum in a pink-tinted dye that took nearly a full week of scrubbing to remove. Of course, Magus Morgarum was clean the next day, a feat he did not feel inclined to share with his two sabotaged students.
Azerick found a good illusion spell in one of the library spell books. With Rusty’s help, he cast an illusion over Travis that made it appear as though he were wearing no clothing. The effect was only visible to those more than five or six feet from source of the spell, so neither Travis nor his friends were aware of the image of being not only nude but also tragically underdeveloped in the manhood area and slightly overdeveloped in the breast area.
Travis and his cronies crossed the commons and walked into class followed by the stares, giggles, and catcalls of every student they passed. By the time the group had made it to class, Travis was livid not knowing why everyone was staring, pointing, and laughing. He looked at his robe, asked his friends if they saw anything wrong and demanded to know what everyone was staring at. It was not until the applied magic class that Magus Florent saw through the illusion and dispelled it, informing her student of the effect.
Travis repaid him by making it appear as if the landing atop a flight of stairs was larger than it really was. When Azerick stepped towards what he thought was the top of the stairs, his foot fell through the illusion and he tumbled the entire way down, breaking his elbow and wrenching his knee, which had to have mended with a healing draught.
Azerick returned the favor by making one of his small constructs and sending it through Travis’s window late one night. The spider-like construct skittered across the ceiling and hung above the sleeping mage’s bed. The body looked like a spider but its bulbous abdomen was a bladder filled with a sticky substance. The spider construct released its payload onto its unsuspecting target as he slept.
Travis awoke when the automaton poured the honey-like substance onto his head and shoulders. When he leapt from the bed, the construct released its hold from the ceiling and dropped down onto his pillow where it quickly crawled under it and exploded. The pillow burst into a cloud of feathers and down which adhered to the sticky substance, effectively tar and feathering him.
Sometimes weeks would pass before another strike and retaliation erupted. This cycle continued for the rest of the year. Sometimes Travis and his friends were able to corner him alone and pummel him at which Azerick would stalk them individually and administer a beating of his own.
Azerick stuck to his melee training as best he could, getting three and four days of practice a week in with the Martial Academy students. Both his magical and martial skills were developing quickly, and by the year, he had nearly caught up to most of the students his age in the Magus Academy and could hold his own with his staff against many of the Martial Academy fighters.
He stayed at the Academy during the summer when most students went home to their families for the next two months. Master Devlin took advantage of the extra time to work him even harder in his studies. From sunrise to sunset, Master Devlin pushed him at a grueling pace, forcing him to learn as much as he could.
“Now, I want you to cast a spell at me. Tap the Source, form your spell, and release it at me,” his master instructed.
“You want me to actually attack you? I can’t, what if I hurt you?”
“There is little fear of that, Azerick. You may be clever, you may be skilled for one with as little training as you have had, but I’m certain my shield will protect me from anything you can muster,” Master Devlin responded with a rare smile and laugh.
Azerick did as he was told, feeling rather foolish at his presumptuous thought. He called the power into himself, formed it, and was prepared to launch a stream of magical bolts when something interrupted him. He felt the power slip from his grasp as an object smacked him in the middle of his forehead.
“Now tell me what just happened,” his tutor said.
“You hit me with something and it made me lose my hold on the Source,” Azerick answered rubbing a red spot that suddenly appeared on his forehead.
“No, you allowed an external force to break your concentration. That will get you killed in any fight you get in. You must not allow anything to break your focus; not pain, not sounds, nor fears. If your own mother or child was being burned to death and their screams assailed you mercilessly, you must block all of that out or you are of no use to anyone, not even yourself. Now try again.”
Azerick began his casting once more and again his master struck him with a small bag filled with dried beans. On his third try, he successfully sent three luminous missiles at his master. His spell struck but the protective magic that Devlin had used to shield himself easily dissipated it.
“Good, now try again. As you become more focused, the method I use to distract you will get harder.”
Azerick was able to work past the distractions on most of his successive castings until his master hit him with the flat of a book across the shoulder. Azerick was soon out of spells and was still distracted by the book bashing. Master Devlin had him go through the motions of casting once he had depleted his repertoire of spells until he could perform the motions and words without error. His master finally dismissed him for the day, battered and bruised, but he felt more confident in his casting.
Azerick found Master Devlin hard and unfriendly but a good teacher. He set a pace that he knew Azerick had to work hard at but was able to keep up. He never allowed him to slack off one bit, making him repeat lessons over and over until he got it.
He was also able to find someone to spar with to practice his staff skills with on occasion. By the time Rusty and the rest of the students returned, Azerick felt as though he had completed another entire year of school, which was not far from the truth.
His concentration was now sufficient that he could form and cast a spell without interruption even when Master Devlin jabbed him in the thigh or shoulder nearly hard enough to draw blood. Azerick accepted his training without complaint, which he was certain pleased and impressed his master even though he knew that Master Devlin would never say as much.