Some say that the warm months thaw the soul and enable one to let go of past hurts. Ren wasn’t sure about any of that. What he was sure about was that the heat had woken up the bugs, and though he’d never imagined missing the bite of winter, his dreams were of the special stillness of a forest blanketed in snow, and cool, clean, fresh, insect-free air.
He smacked a greedy mosquito and his hand came away with a spot of blood. “Azeroth’s bleeding fire cock!” He’d started inventing new curses when the standard fare just wouldn’t cut it.
A poorly suppressed laugh came from the tree above him.
“Why do they ignore you and suck on me like I’m a bloody tit?” he whisper-yelled up to the tree.
“Because you’re so much fun to annoy.” Gunney’s square face poked down through the leaves. Even two months in, Ren could hardly believe his luck, landing in the same unit as his pod mate. “Once you toughen up and stop complaining, they’ll leave you alone too.”
“Already tried that. Didn’t work. I think my blood is just sweeter than yours. Don’t you hillfolk all just eat worms and grass and rocks? Maybe I should try that.”
Gunney widened his eyes in mock outrage. “I told you that in confidence, you bastard!”
Ren chuckled, forgetting, momentarily, the itching bumps on his face and hands. “So, illustrious Lead Scout,”—he emphasized his friend’s rank, eliciting a genuine frown—“did you see anything up there?”
“Well, I was almost up over the canopy when your bitching demanded my attention.”
Ren just smiled, pointing at the sun to indicate the passing time. Gunney responded with a deeper scowl and disappeared once more. After a few moments, a faux bird call of two lilting notes drifted down. All clear.
***
When they got back to camp, Gunney broke off to give his report to the commander and Ren passed by the cook fires on his way to an improvised circle of stones, just beyond the outer ring of tents, in which two soldiers exchanged a flurry of blows with iron cored wooden training swords. He slipped into the Silver Fox Meditation to see if he could glean any new information that would help him in his next bout. By now, he could activate it with little more effort than he drew his bow, and hold it about twice as long thanks to his gradual gains with the three chamber breathing, and his increased efficiency.
Jarreth’s knee didn’t turn with the rest of his body as he launched a blow which turned out to be a feint, free arm snapping out lightning quick to push his opponent’s blocking sword hand tight against the man’s body, even as his own sword came back around for the real strike, an upward slash that ended the fight as it stopped just under the femoral artery. He was a tricky one, and Ren had yet to get the jump on him.
Half of the hundred men at arms in Cloud Company 7—clouders, they liked to call themselves—were fresh recruits either from Ren’s cohort or the previous year. They were well trained, but not exceptional. At this point, nine times out of ten, he could best all of the newer soldiers in his unit in one on one combat. At least with training weapons. His hand still trembled terribly whenever he tried to hold a real sword.
It was the veterans who’d fought real battles that stopped him up. Some of them just had too many tricks he hadn’t seen enough to predict, while others were truly in another class. Easily worth two of their comrades in a fight.
The commander was a laid back sort. As long as chores were taken care of and their antics didn’t effect any of their duties, he let them pass their free time how they wished. Which was great, because ‘patrolling the district’ really just meant marching hours every day along the roads, winding through hills and farming compounds that all started to look the same after a while. Ren had never been so glad for the boots Garam had gotten him. The standard issue ones were prone to causing hot spots and blisters.
Of course, for Ren there was an extra benefit to the freedom of downtime, a benefit he took advantage of tonight like every other night, sitting under a tree out of siight of the camp and drawing air in with his tongue planted on the roof of his mouth, visualizing the Qi expanding as he drew it to his second gate–synonymous with his dantian as far as he could tell, then his third gate–also known as his solar plexus, then the fourth gate–the center of his chest. He held his breath, lungs burning as the three sparks of energy sizzled inside him, building heat—the manual called this phase Holding Fire, and he had to hold it in for double the time he’d taken to inhale. Finally, he exhaled, slowly, painfully, pursing his lips to create backward pressure, deflating each ‘chamber’ in reverse order as he pushed the embers of energy down to merge in his dantian. compressing it as tight as he could with his will and his breath.
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His body begged for air, as it always did, but he pushed on into another breath, the new Qi refining and attuning to his body and will each time it passed through the third gate. Though much of what he accumulated would dissipate within an hour—and in fact the manual contained a method to insure it did so it didn’t run rampant and harm his body—the Three Chamber Breath was designed on the principle that over time his innate capacity for holding Qi would expand as he compressed more and more into his center. Based on his increased physical endurance and the progress with the Silver Fox Meditation, it was working.
Eventually, he’d be able to pull in enough and compress it while imposing his will, establishing a foundation based on his ‘role in the world’ or his ‘relationship to the Great River’ and it would stabilize into a core that he could expand the capacity of. The book likened it to the difference between a puddle in a footprint that can be enlarged by piling up mud on the sides, and a pond in a mountain basin that can grow into a lake. The walls of that basin were built on his sense of self, his purpose, and his understanding of his Path. It was all a bit esoteric to him, but he figured it would make sense when he got to that stage. Eventually.
The issue was that this was a technique designed to be taught to children and trained for years and years as they matured. It was designed to be slow and safe and gradual and—Ren didn’t have that kind of time.
But there was one section of the manual he’d been studying over and over. Attunement Theory.
“Where is that bastard Ren! I’m going to win my knife back from that cheating louse.” The voice carried through the trees from camp. Hamsa must have gotten back.
Ren made one last compression then vented his Qi and made his way to camp, wondering what he would win today.
This Hamsa was the opposite of his friend from training. Where Hamsa the Asbar candidate was tall, handsome, and forever immaculate, this Hamsa was a short, stocky, round faced, bent-nosed forester who didn’t know when to quit.
Ren smiled innocently as he stepped out.
Hamsa met him with a glare. “I demand a rematch. That knife has been in my family for-”
“What do you have to bet?”
The man’s jaw worked up and down but no answer was forthcoming.
“How about you buy me a drink for every point I beat you by?” Ren drew Hamsa’s knife, a simple but elegant weapon with soft black leather wrapping the handle, and began cleaning his fingernails with it.
“Deal.”
They carved targets into trees at ten paces, twenty paces, and one at forty. From the supply cart, they pulled fifty arrows in a battle quiver and a tiny time-glass that measured one minute.
Ren gestured magnanimously. “You first.”
Hamsa strapped the quiver to his hip and called over one of the younger soldiers to watch the glass and ‘keep things fair’.
“Go!” called the impromptu referee, and the forester was firing off at full speed. He put seven arrows in the first bulls-eye; two in the bulls-eye at twenty paces, plus a tight grouping of three arrows right on the edge; and three arrows in the farthest target, though only one of those happened to hit the bulls-eye. Fifteen arrows in one minute, and not a one missed its target.
“Time!” The referee was wide eyed, with justified awe.
“That was some damn fine shooting,” said Ren, and he meant it.
His opponent puffed out his chest. “Damn right.”
The three went to pry the arrows free and score the shooting then Ren lined up and strapped on the quiver. He took a few practice draws with the bow empty. The older archers back in Rattan claimed that humidity and heat could change the tensile strength of the bow. Which became more and more important the farther out you were shooting. When he was ready, he nodded to the judge.
“Go!”
Ren’s arms moved on their own, moved as he had trained them to with thousands of shots over the past four months, moved with precision, moved the way he’d learned from watching those more skilled than himself then drilling till his fingers bled. He hardly noticed the motion of his arm, it was his will—it seemed—that projected the arrows to their targets. He only slowed down when he got to the farthest target. He’d been meaning to work on his long range shooting and this was a great opportunity. His whole body was a part of the motion, intent to pierce the inner ring of the target perfusing him from toes to scalp to fingertips.
“Time!”
The call came just after his fourth shot at forty paces. Ren looked down to find that of the fifty arrows he started with, nineteen arrows remained. He shook his head. Still a long way to go. Apparently there were archers in the elite scout units who fired an arrow every second. One couldn’t help but wonder if the rumors were overblown.
Hamsa’s jaw was unhinged before he noticed Ren’s glace. “Let’s- Let’s score it, shall we?”
“You two go ahead and score, I’ll follow and pull,” Ren said. He’d been tracking his shots and, with the exception of two arrows on the rim of the final target’s bulls-eye, they were all center point shots, grouped close enough that the shafts were forced to fan out like a porcupine’s needles.
Forester Hamsa’s voice burst out in a string of curses as he arrived at the last tree. Ren couldn’t help but chuckle. The man’s inability to hide his feelings was almost endearing.
As soon as everything was stowed, he returned to his hiding spot for some more meditation.