Michael
Michael’s head hurt slightly as he got off his horse in the castle’s courtyard. There was so much new information in his head after his session with Kiran and he was looking forward to just slug it out with someone in the training ring.
The number of trainees had swelled massively in the last years, Sir Godfrey Pyke had been busy recruiting those with talent and will to become augmenters of the realm. So, they had to move the training fields outside the castle walls.
Michael strolled over the large open space and watched the different groups of initiates, squires, and soldiers train together. Geron had insisted on breaking down the divide between the normal soldiers and augmenters to teach them how to work together and against their counterparts.
Sir Godfrey was on a small podium in the middle of the training field together with two other veteran knight, overlooking the nearly fifty training augments and double the number of local guardsmen. Most of these were also new recruits taken from the freed serfs.
Not nearly all of these augmenters would ever reach the level of a knight, most of them just had a stronger mana well than normal people but not enough to become a knight so they would be integrated into the guard. They were however special enough to receive a similar training to the knight prospects because it was often hard to know when the growth spurt of the mana well would set in.
Geron had estimated that half of the hundred should be able to become knights and the rest would still become stronger guardsmen. That of course depended on if they would make it through the training.
It had become harder to differentiate between trainees of noble or common origin. Those of noble origin who couldn’t deal with commoners being their equal to an extreme degree had been weeded out. Geron had consciously allowed those against it but only verbally to stay because from his explanation they caused the commoners to put in more effort to prove their words wrong.
Surprisingly there had only been one knight that resigned from Michael’s service in the last years even if the noble-supremacy faction was proportionally larger in the knighthood than the initiates and squires. Michael was of course very suspicious of them, but he couldn’t risk reducing his military might further in this precarious time, especially because many of those against his decisions still valued honor and their vows.
Michael shook off these thoughts and made his way over to a corner of the field where Geron was waiting for him.
“Good, you are here,” he said after smashing his fist to his chest. “We are gonna continue with your mana sword training. Try focusing on the mana movement and making your sword a part of your body for today.
Michael nodded and returned to the same spot he had stood at for three months already, the ground was more worn there already but the three target dummies that stood there fifteen meters in front of him were still unharmed.
He had questioned why he was already trying to achieve the mana sword rank because that was normally what elevated someone from a squire to a knight and he was way too young to be a knight, but Geron and Sir Godfrey had agreed that he was ready for it. Michael was sure that he was far ahead of others at his age but normally squires achieved this rank at around twenty. Sure, some talents managed it earlier like Eydis, Geron, or his own father but that was normally at eighteen or something like that.
To be expected to reach this at thirteen was a little bit much in his opinion but to be fair he started his martial training and mana training earlier than most other augmenters and he had a lot more mana to train with so maybe they were right. However it might be, Michael always trusted his teachers and he would not doubt them now.
With that thought gone, he turned inside and began moving his mana again, it was a nearly unconscious act by now, so it felt like concentrating on a muscle contraction.
It was no less difficult to get his mana to his hands than it was to lift his arm, but this was where the easy part ended. Letting your mana flow out into an object and still controlling it was the core of the mana sword technique and much more difficult than it would appear.
Even if it sounded like magic, it was entirely different because one couldn’t rely on an affinity or any kind of casting to achieve this milestone. The important thing wasn’t to move the mana, everyone could do that, but to connect your astral body to an object.
How well this worked and how much mana an augmenter could put into the technique depended largely on the weapon though. As with living things, most materials were able to take in mana but all to a differing degree, which meant that weapons made out of mana-conductive materials could be used for more devastating attacks and were also easier to use with the technique. Magical materials were unsurprisingly those that had a very high conductivity and sometimes even drew in mana on their own.
All that didn’t help Michael right now though, he was still trying to make a connection with the sword. Sure, he could just let his mana out and then bind it to the sword as he would with a spell but that took effort and concentration, in a bind it was fine, but augmenting had always been about speed and fine mana control. So, he continued training, but it would take a while longer until he achieved this next step in his training.
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Eydis
Eydis stared at Geron while they exchanged blows with their bubbles of mana. They were both close to reaching the aura level, some would argue that they had already, but Eydis lacked fine control and Geron raw power to be considered proficient at the art.
They have been training together for a long time now, both extruding mana and wrestling with each other trying to overcome the other’s barrier by means of power or finesse. Eydis had never been one for finesse but, even more than physical combat, this kind of combat was not kind to those who just rushed in without any thought.
To others, their fight would look like two people staring at each other while visibly straining to an invisible exertion but for Eydis it felt like a fierce battle. On one side was a huge host of soldiers, great in numbers but unorganized, and on the other side an organized castle with a small but potent garrison.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Eydis was on the offensive, like she was so often, as small groups of soldiers assailed the walls from all sides with ladders. She didn’t expect this assault to achieve a breakthrough but rather used it as a measure to gauge the defenses placed before her.
As expected, the assault was rebuffed by the disciplined defenders, but she had already found what she was looking for, a weak point.
She wouldn’t just charge in there; it would reveal the weakness to the lord of the castle too quickly to make use of it. She rather send a detachment of two hundred soldiers to another part of the castle to attack a stretch of wall far away from the weak point while quietly assembling her true attack.
Arrows, rocks, and more quickly began to fly off the ramparts while more and more heads appeared over the battlements at her feigned attack. As soon as she was sure that she had gotten enough of a reaction she sprung her trap.
Eydis’s soldiers unveiled their battering ram and an army of one thousand soldiers surged forward toward the gate.
Again, arrows surged over the walls toward her forces, but the counterattack was much less vicious than what her distraction force had endured. Her forces quickly reached the gate and smashed into it with the ram. The gate splintered but held the first strike, it wouldn’t hold a second time though.
She grinned as she pressed her advantage but right before she could break into the gate, the sound of hooves interrupted her glee.
A detachment of knights appeared out of nowhere and ripped through the back line of her assault. Her troops being cut off from reinforcements and orders fell to the renewed aggression from inside of the castle. The knights didn’t turn on her troops though they took a sharp right and charged at her camp.
With widening eyes, Eydis noticed the hole she had left in her own defenses by pouring so much manpower into the attack. She scrambled to put up a line to stop the knights, but it was too little and too late.
A gust of wind, caused by the aura attack ruffled her brown hair and she staggered back a step as the mana dispersed.
“I thought I was tricking you, but you were trapping me all along,” she signed at the knight.
Geron smiled slightly and replied, “I was concerned that you would just blow me wide open with the first charge, but I guess it worked out this time. You are getting better though, that feign caught me off guard for a moment.”
“I will beat you yet,” Eydis grinned as she rebuilt her aura, ready for another round.
They spent most of the time that Michael was training alone like this. The old Godfrey had said that even if you would nearly never actually fight someone one-on-one with just your aura, it was still the best practice to enhance one’s abilities and learn all the tricks you could do with it, without having to throw too much mana into it.
Eydis respected the old warrior immensely. She had sparred with him a couple of times already, but she had yet to win against him or even land a good hit. She wondered how badly she would do against him with both his arms still attached as she never had the chance to try. The even more daunting thing was that Godfrey was adamant that the late Cedric Rowan was even stronger than him.
She could believe it from her short fight with his brother, considering that Cedric was unanimously considered to be the stronger warrior. Eydis was a lot stronger now than she was back then though and a part of her was sad that she would never have the chance to face one of the strongest warriors this kingdom had ever possessed.
A surge of mana hit her lazily constructed barrier and she would have instantly lost if Geron hadn’t pulled his punch.
“Come on, pay attention,” the knight admonished her.
She gave him a competitive grin and they began their fight anew.
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Michael
Mana sword training wasn’t his entire pastime, of course, sparring was a large part of his martial training as it always had been. He had long since graduated from fighting initiates though and was now mostly sparring with the older squires and even with the knights from time to time.
He enjoyed fighting the knights due to the challenge they posed, he had of course never won any spar where the knight took him seriously, which most of them did by now but it was still the most enjoyable part of his training.
“Failure is an infinitely greater teacher than success is,” Solon had once told him, and he couldn’t agree more. It did take a certain self-reflection to gain all that failure could teach but if one had it then it was a good tool.
Right now, he wasn’t sparring with a knight though, he was currently fighting an eighteen-year-old squire with a broad statue and a nasty habit of breaking weapons due to his strength.
They were using magically enhanced wooden training weapons that the artificers-in-training had made them. It was nice for the knights and older squires to be able to use more of their strength in training but for Michael, it wasn’t great.
He kept his distance from the man, a direct contest of strength could never end well for him. The squire was careful though, they all knew what Michael could do and they certainly had watched him fight more often than he had watched them.
Careful didn’t mean defensive though and the squire swung at him again and again, trying to get him close but Michael didn’t let him. He watched the man, looking for an opening when the squire slipped a little bit farther than he had intended.
Michael intended to capitalize on this error without hesitation and a grin began to form on his face when darkness suddenly replaced his sight.
He didn’t know where he was, but his weapon was gone, the sound of training was gone, and the feel of his exhausted muscles had vanished as well.
A pair of ice-blue eyes appeared in the darkness and fixed themselves on Michael who stared back.
“Ferrekxan is that you,” Michael asked cautiously.
The rumbling voice of the dragon answered as if it came from all around Michael. “Yes, young Michael. I wanted to give you time to come back to me on your own, but I can’t wait any longer. Something is approaching from the west, and we need to talk.”
Michael hadn’t visited the dragon again since the first time. He told himself that he was busy and had this or that to do every time he thought about it but in truth, he wasn’t sure about the dragon. He still didn’t like the way the dragon had tried to influence his life and to be honest he was somewhat afraid of the great beast.
“What is approaching,” he asked the dragon with a frown.
“Come see me and we will talk.” the voice got quieter and quieter as if it was moving away from him.
Michael awoke with a nasty headache. He was lying on the ground with Geron, Eydis, and Zeke standing around him with concerned expressions.
He groaned and grabbed his head while getting up into a sitting position. “What happened?”
“Take it slow, milord,” Geron said and stopped him from standing up. “You took a hit to the head and blacked out for a minute.”
Michael looked past Geron to see the squire he had been fighting standing a little way away with a group of others, he was nervously shifting his weight back and forth.
“Ah, I am fine,” Michael said and forced himself to his feet. He didn’t black out because of the strike but rather blacked out and got hit because of it. “He does have quite the punch though,” Michael added and grinned at the nervous squire.
The man came over and quickly fell to his knees, “I am sorry, milord. I thought you would block it and didn’t react fast enough. I deserve to be punished!”
“For what? Winning a spar? I spaced out and got hit nothing wrong about that,” Michael replied and patted the squire on his shoulder. “You did react well enough, or my head would have cracked.”
After assuring the squire a few more times that he did nothing wrong Michael sent him on his way and the audience dispersed after some harsh words from Sir Godfrey.
“You should get yourself checked out by Sola. Head injuries are not a joke, especially if you blacked out,” Geron suggested with a worried tone.
“I will go there straight away, we were basically done anyway,” Michael agreed. “Before that though I need to change a little bit of my schedule for the next few days. I need to visit our friend in the mountains, so make preparations for the trip, we leave as soon as possible.”
Even though they were surprised, no one argued, being more inclined to get him to Sola than argue his travel plans.
Michael was concerned about why Ferrekxan was reaching out to him now after nearly two years and he would get his answers as quickly as possible.