PART II - KNIGHT IN TRAINING
Jesca did as told, putting a boot into a stirrup and pulling herself onto the saddle as she handed Iris off to Koda. She shifted slightly to get a little more comfortable, and then gave Artemis a pat on her neck. The unicorn, for her part, held mostly still, but pawed the ground with her two front-right hooves. You could get the sense she wanted to run.
“Good. Go ahead and ride down to the end of the range, then turn and come back. No need to go fast, I just want to see the two of you move together.”
Jesca nodded to Koda, clicked her tongue as she’d been taught, and the pair started forward in a slow trot. With the telepathic link, the noise wasn’t actually required, but the Herdmaster had decided it was still a good idea so people around the pair could hear the commands and get the sense of what was going to happen. If Jesca was to ever ride a non-bonded mount, she’d also need to know the right actions, so in the end it made sense to get into the habit of making the commanding sounds per custom. They quickly gained speed, eventually arriving at a slow, lazy gallop. It wasn’t fast enough for Artemis to pull-close her center legs, but was still a pretty good clip. Behind Callie, a few people had gathered to watch, and they were visibly amazed at both seeing a running unicorn, but also someone actually riding it.
“She has really good form,” Koda said absently, ignoring Iris as she wrapped herself around the big Bearkin’s neck, apparently appreciating the broad shoulders and bed of longer fur. “Definitely fast like light cavalry, so she’ll need to practice with her bow on the run, and I'm not sure what to do about a weapon.” Looking down to Callie, he added, “She’s just so nervous all the time. She needs some confidence.”
“She knows,” Callie said. “Give her time. She’s dealing with a lot and working through it.” Jesca had filled their friend group in about the gossip racing around the camp, and how the Beastkin were apparently starting to assign almost mythical expectations to her, as if she was the return of some legend. “Putting too much pressure on her isn’t going to help. Let her focus on improving her skills and she won’t get as overwhelmed by the other stuff. So don’t push, okay? And tell the other Beastkin to back off a bit. Don’t worry, she’ll get there.”
Jesca was on the return now, Artemis effortlessly keeping up her slow gallop while her rider bounced in perfect synchronicity. Callie distantly heard a click of a tongue again, and Artemis sped up a little. Jesca leaned forward, getting more aerodynamic and, to Callie, looking even more badass. Quickly, the unicorn and rider pulled up short, Jesca actually looking quite comfortable in her riding, and even smiling, despite seeing the audience.
Callie gave her friend two thumbs up. Jesca had proven instinctively quite good at riding, the Herdmaster beside himself with her natural ease. The suspicion was that Jesca’s newly enhanced senses, particularly her sense of balance, the animal handling and taming perks, coupled with the one for mounted combat and the telepathic connection to Artemis, were all working together, allowing her to far exceed most beginning riders.
“What do you think, Koda? Maybe I should try with a bow?” Jesca asked.
“Callie and Pixyl were right,” Koda said. “Between your perk and the instruction you received, you seem to have that largely in paw. When you get to the front, you may want to get one of the ranking light-cavalry to give you some pointers, though, as it relates to Demon combat specifically. Let’s go ahead and try with your bow; see how that goes.”
Nodding, Jesca flicked out her arm, calling forth her Heartwood bow. “To start, I’ll just try to put an arrow into each target as I ride past. Callie, would you keep track of where they hit?”
“Sure.”
Turning around, Jesca took a couple nervous breaths while Artemis danced impatiently, apparently eager to get moving again. “Call the start.”
“Annnnd…” Callie began. “Go!”
The ground was torn up slightly as the pair leapt forward. Artemis drove herself this time so Jesca could focus on shooting, the unicorn running down the center between the alternating targets on either side. Jesca slightly stood in the stirrups for stability, and loosed at the first target, hitting the second ring. She then switched to the other side, or tried to, the bow getting a bit tangled due to its length. The third target was back on the original side, and Jesca again landed an arrow fairly close to center. But the bow was just as unwieldy a second time, trying to change sides for the fourth, and Artemis came to a halt, the run aborted. The pair turned, trotting back to Callie and Koda.
“This thing is too long,” Jesca groused as she stored her weapon back into her belly. “It’s fine for one side, but I can’t switch very well and I don’t want to risk shooting over her head if we’re moving. I could hit her horn, or worse. Callie, let me try with your smaller one.”
“Oh, sure,” Callie replied, summoning up her own Gnome-sized bow and handing it off.
The Cheetahkin made one experimental shot to get a feel for the smaller size and draw, before clicking her tongue, the two taking off at a good speed. Jesca was this time easily able to switch sides, loosing the magical arrow at the alternating targets as the pair galloped by. Once at the far end, the two spun. Artemis seemed to beam with pride as they returned, gleefully pulling herself into a prim marching motion, somewhat resembling equestrian dressage.
“How did I do?” Jesca asked.
“You hit fifteen of sixteen,” Callie replied. “Eleven in the center two rings, four in the next two, but one completely missed. Pretty good, considering you were on the run. Better than I would have done, I’m sure.”
“Bah,” Jesca growled, angry at herself and glaring down the range. “I don’t know how I missed that one. It’s not as if I was shooting from very far away.” Then there was a pause, and Jesca actually laughed. Seeing the confused looks on the faces of Koda and Callie, she added, “Apparently Artemis was distracted by a butterfly for a moment, which threw her gait off.”
Jesca and Artemis continued making archery runs, getting a little faster and more controlled each time as they became more confident. The Beastmaster focused, trying to ignore the slowly growing crowd, especially when Thorn and his son arrived, the young boy grinning at the sight. Her accuracy improved some, generally being able to go sixteen-for-sixteen within a few rings of center. But, as she had mentioned, her range was less than ten or fifteen meters to the target as she rode by, and Jesca chastised herself every time something was too far off bullseye or flew wide.
Various Ranger skills were also woven into the mix. The instant-cast ones such as Multishot were easy enough, but anything with a casting time proved to be difficult to complete due to the movement and general jostling. The motion of her mount made the proper concentration almost impossible, and eventually Jesca gave up duration castings as the frustration and headache-inducing feedback of interrupted spells got under her fur. Her hope was in time she’d be able to maintain the focus needed to use them on the run as she got more comfortable.
“How long have they been there,” Jesca asked Callie in a whisper as she drank back a blue potion and gestured slightly towards Xera and Pelidri, who had both quietly stepped up next to Thorn. Then she realized the Arkan could probably hear her, but if he did, he gave no indication.
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“I dunno, maybe five or ten minutes? Thorn a bit longer. Nevikk’s been really excited watching you.”
“I shouldn’t have done this today.”
“Why? Jesca, you know it doesn’t matter when or where you do this, you’re going to turn heads. We talked about this yesterday.”
“I know,” the Catkin sighed, adding a little bit of a whine. “It’s just …”
“Hey,” Callie said, stepping close and putting a comforting hand on her mounted-friend’s foot. “Focus on what you need to do. None of them matter right now. Besides, you’re doing great! Right, Koda?”
The Bearkin quickly agreed.
Jesca took a deep breath and then nodded, working to refocus away from the crowd. “Alright, I’ll try to ignore them.” She handed Callie the smaller bow before looking to Koda. “What next?”
“You don’t use your swords much any more, right?” Koda asked.
“I’ve been finding that using my whip is working better for me. Either with a small shield in my other hand, or a short sword. Actually, I can work with two whips, but unless they are short, it’s too impractical.”
Koda frowned, his look puzzled. “I’m not sure how well a whip would work while mounted, even a single one. Or how effective it might be, for that matter.”
“Maybe we can try with a longer sword next time?” Callie suggested. Jesca hadn’t brought any of her blades along.
“What you need is a big heavy mace,” Koda grinned. “You can smash things from above.” He made a smashing noise and motion, before nodding encouragingly at the suggestion.
“I may have Ranger arms,” Jesca chuckled as she flexed, "but I don’t think that’s going to work well for me, Koda. You said it yourself, Artemis will be quick and nimble; light cavalry. I shouldn’t be fighting close to anything. A whip at least gives me a good three-meter range, and with that ironwood tip I put on, it tears right through demon hide.”
“Or yourself,” Callie pointed out in warning. When she’d been first learning, Jesca had needed quite a bit of healing when she’d hit herself. But she’d recently improved enough to add the razor-sharp tip and not slice herself open.
“True, so I just need to make sure I don’t do that.” With her chin, Jesca gestured Callie towards her backpack that had been set inside the shelter.
“This should be an interesting experiment,” Koda said under his breath. It was obvious he was quite dubious about the whole thing.
“Do you want the long one?” Callie called, digging in the backpack and pulling out Jesca’s three-meter long weapon. “Or one of the shorter ones?”
“The long one. I might as well go all the way. This is probably foolish, but I want to see if I can do this without hitting Artemis or strangling myself,” Jesca replied, now sounding a little doubtful as she shook the whip out then recoiled it into one hand a bit looser. She took a moment to untie the ironwood tip at the end. Even without it, the whip could still hurt if she hit herself or Artemis, but at least she wouldn’t slice very deep. She handed it down to Callie, who slid it into her pocket.
Again, Artemis and her rider focused downrange, as if planning an attack. Callie called the start, and with a clicking they were off, the whistling sound of the whip whooshing through the air followed by the crack as it lashed out at the target. The weapon tore through, leaving a gash in the cloth behind it. There was another crack as the whip continued its motion, snaking first overhead and then around in a snapped uppercut to savage the next target, before completing the pattern back to the first side in a figure-eight pattern. It was oddly hypnotic and almost beautiful, in a way.
*crack* *crack* *crack*
Sixteen times in total Jesca lashed out as she ran down the four-hundred meter range, each time the whip tearing a slash into the target. It was an utterly odd sight to see the fedora-wearing Catkin with the whip circling overhead, down, around, and then upwards in an underhanded strike, the movements in a dancelike back-and-forth motion. Come the end of the run, Artemis prancing proudly back to the start, the dubious look Jesca had been previously wearing had almost completely faded, becoming an actual smile.
“I pity anyone on the receiving end of that,” Callie said, wide-eyed, as Jesca came to a stop. “You’d slice them open from crotch to forehead with the tip on!” Behind them, there were a few scattered applause, and extra loud ones from Nevikk. Pelidri was rubbing his chin in curiosity as he watched on, but his eyes caught Jesca’s, and he gave her a polite nod of acknowledgement, his face seeming to brighten.
“That worked better than I thought it would,” Koda said.
“Me, too,” Jesca agreed.
Callie suddenly got ‘that look’, and she raised a finger in consideration. “You know, if you added your lightning Elemental Weapon effect, you could do a good job stunning targets with your whip. It just needs to touch them and they’d get zapped, right? If you were riding ahead, people behind you would be able to take them down.”
Koda made a careful, considering nod. “Certainly novel, but an interesting way to lead a charge, for sure.” He looked at Callie. “Then again, everything about you is novel.” Callie just grinned widely, accepting the statement as praise.
Jesca again looked back at the officers, feeling the weight of their presence. Her smile scrunched up and then faded, and she turned away, screwing her face into a focused look and trying to pretend she wasn’t under scrutiny. She could do this. She needed to show them that she couldn’t be intimidated. Wouldn’t be intimidated. She patted her mount’s neck again. “You’re right Artemis,” she said as her focus intensified. “We need to show them how good we are. You’ve been wanting to run, so let’s speed this up.”
“Jesca, you really have no need to show off for them,” Koda warned. It had been jovial for a few minutes, but Jesca’s mood had suddenly become determined, maybe even a little dark, in a way.
“He’s right,” Callie added. “Don’t get yourself hurt.”
“No, no. This is for me. I want to push myself past this … doubt … or whatever it is. I need to push myself past this, actually. In fact, I’m going to push myself past these … fears.”
“Okay then. You’ve got this!” Callie cheered, her momentary concern immediately evaporating as she saw Jesca’s determination. “Just don’t zap yourself or Artemis.”
The now-eager unicorn stared downrange as well, and the bonded pair tensed. “Okay girl,” Jesca whispered as she leaned close, "you can go as fast as you want this time. Ready?”
Artemis bounced her head and stomped her two right front hooves again. Her body seemed to tense. “Tell me when to go,” Jesca said carefully, letting out a calming breath at the same time her body readied.
“Three … two … one … go!” Callie counted down, and with a speed she’d seldom seen before, Artemis was off, dirt and grass flying behind her as she was released from her shackles. Jesca’s whip snaked out again, this time crackling with lightning. As the tip of the whip touched the first target, there was a loud clap and a small burst in addition to the whip’s report, some straw and fabric going flying and leaving a small chunk missing from the stack of hay bales. As if encouraged, Artemis ran faster, fast enough that her center legs retracted; faster than Callie had ever actually seen the unicorn move with a rider, having only ever seen the unicorn pull in her legs when racing against the Druids in Travel form. “Whoa….” Callie gasped in awe at her friend.
They ran as one, rider and mount, Artemis focused on tearing up the ground, concentrating forward towards the end of the four-hundred meter run, while Jesca’s electrified whip flashed out over, down-and-around and then up to repeat on the other side. One after the other, there was a tiny clap of thunder as the target was touched, leaving a small explosion of debris still in the air by the time Jesca struck the next one. Artemis stretched each stride, determined and covering more ground, faster and faster, with the Beastmaster she bore focusing on the attack.
Subtle at first, but growing quickly, Artemis’s horn began to glow with a pale, silver light. Yet, unicorn and rider seemed oblivious to the growing intensity. The whip snaked as commanded, making a whooshing noise before the telltale report sounded.
“What the …” Callie heard both Pelidri and Thorn say behind her. “What’s with her horn?” Thorn added.
In little time, the horn started to get quite bright, each stride seeming to add power to the light, Yet, Jesca continued to be oblivious to it happening, focusing her attention to the now-blurring targets racing by. A crack of the whip, the flash of lightning, the rumble of hooves, another target touched by the elemental effect, leaving a small chunk blown out of it.
Artemis finally reached the top of the gradual hill, coming to the final target. There was a sudden flash of blinding light, and a *BAMF* sound. The brightness faded, revealing simply a cloud of colored lights collapsing in upon itself. The unicorn was gone, and Jesca had disappeared with her!