At first, Tristan was worried that things would escalate, possibly becoming violent. However, when one of the tier one guards approached Luke to push him aside, he jumped to his feet and stepped around him and into their formation. Shadow Fist paled at the motion. He was normally good at gauging the abilities of the people around him.
However, Luke had gotten around both the guard and Shadow Fist with no issue. That was not something anyone could do. Luke for his part just stood in front of Tristan with his hands on his hips with a stupid grin on his face.
“From what I hear, you can kill a thousand men now,” Luke said, “Also they’re saying your name is Sage.”
“Just a hundred, also found out that I do indeed eat souls,” Tristan said back with a smile.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Grace hustling Eve into the back of the house. Most likely she would be taken down into the mines, there were plenty of tunnels to stash her in down there. They could even leave her alone, as all the arrows on the walls would stop her from getting lost.
Luke’s eyes widened, “That’s awesome.”
By this time most of the guards had weapons half drawn. Thankfully Shadow Fist yelled at them to stop. Luke may be dangerous, but he was also leverage. It was another handle he could use to control Tristan.
The tense situation was diffused when Conni walked up. He was wearing an odd straw hat and had exchanged his threadbare tunic for a gambeson, “What is going on, put your weapons away.”
Shadow Fist turned to the foreman, “We are here to deliver a prisoner requested by Sir Ren for the excavation of the necessary metal.”
Conni inspected Tristan, “Kid, what did you get yourself into?”
Tristan glanced at Luke and then pointed at Shadow Fist, “I beat him up,” he pointed at Henry in the back, “We beat each other up, then I went to jail for a few days.”
Conni huffed, Tristan was not sure if the man was amused, exasperated, or both. Regardless he focused on Shadow Fist, “Is this all, or is there something that you will be leaving in addition to our metal detector?”
Shadow Fist pointed at the six guards, “They will be staying to keep an eye on him.”
“Ha!” Luke cackled, “Told you, expendable people only!”
All the nameless guards paled as they found out that they had the honor of camping on top of an elemental monster. Tristan could only shake his head, despite the fact that they were armed, these six men would be hard pressed to stop an equal number of miners. Though that comparison might not be fair, the miners had great physical fitness and a healthier diet than most people, who had to acquire their own food.
Conni seemed baffled, “I’m not feeding them unless they work, but sure,” He paused and inspected the six men, “I suppose we could have them be part of a second kill squad, what are their tiers?”
“They are all tier one,” Shadow Fist said, “All higher tiers were recalled to the plains.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Well then, no kill squad for them,” Conni mused, he shrugged, “Not my problem.”
Tristan held out his hands, “Can someone take these off?”
Shadow Fist seemed hesitant, but in the end handed Conni the keys, “Don’t let him out until you’re sure he will work.”
Conni caught the ring out of the air and nodded, “Alright Shadow Fist, make sure your smiths are ready, we are about to pull out more steel than you can imagine.”
Shadow Fist nodded and left with Henry. The patriarch looked back at the mine, or more specifically the training yard. There he could see the six man team that Siren was training. Kale had been replaced and the new guy had to face off against three veterans at once. It was harsh, but it produced elites. Henry made a mental note, that they should send some of the more rebellious soldiers here. They would either rise or die and either option was a positive.
As soon as Shadow Fist was out of sight, Conni tossed Tristan the keys, “I do like Sage better, you should stick with it.”
“What? Why, it was a joke. How do you even know about that?” Tristan complained. He unlocked the cuffs around his hands and feet, he expected the skin to be chafed. It was, but only marginally, metal kerns evidently made prison stays more comfortable.
Conni smiled and shrugged, “It came in a report requesting information on a tier two silver devil. They wanted to know if you were a rogue element that needed to be eliminated. Also, they said your name was Sage,” Conni’s smile fell, “On to more serious topics, you need to go plan things out with Siren. We have a preliminary plan, but a lot depends on the details you provide.”
“We’re seriously digging it up,” Tristan said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Conni nodded.
“Alright, well then I guess I will start by saying hi to Siren,” Tristan said as he started walking over to the training field.
The first thing he noticed was that the number of warriors had doubled, and all of them were familiar. Over the years, those stationed at the mine had cycled through. Only two had been at the mine before Tristan, one was obviously Siren, and the other was an earth kern warrior named Shale. Tristan did not know much about him.
There was a fairly intense drill going on, one in which Siren was participating. Wooden partitions had been set up to give the warriors a long, but narrow border to practice in. It was meant to mimic a tunnel, though the setup was not perfect as there was no ceiling. A man with a shield and an axe stood in the center while people in armor were holding spears. The spear users could attack from much farther away and from both sides. It was a tall task to stop both of them.
Tristan was watching Shale as he coated his forearm in stone to deflect the blade of a spear while taking another spear on his shield. He had to move quickly to stop the third member of the attackers. It was a man with a padded stick that was only two feet long. Shale was not able to attack him, only defend.
Unsurprisingly the coordinated assault succeeded in hitting the warrior. As soon as he moved to stop the stick user with the stone covered arm, the spear he deflected bonked him on the head. Tristan was impressed. This exercise did two things. First, it taught someone to fight against overwhelming odds. The multiple strikes simulate a much faster enemy. Second, it taught the aggressors how to swiftly disable and kill a single foe.
“So, you wanna give it a try?” Luke asked.
Tristan thought for a moment before nodding, “Sure, I wouldn’t mind taking a swing at it,” He looked around, “Where will we find another two people.”
Luke placed a hand on the shoulder of one of the guards following Tristan around, “You have these guys. Don’t you want to participate?”
The guard whimpered as the pauldron he was wearing started to deform under Luke’s grip. He swallowed and started talking, “It is our duty to watch,”
Luke rolled his eyes and gripped the naked blade off a different warrior with his bare hands, “All of you are dummies, so you might as well be a practice dummy.” He jerked the sword out of the guard’s hands, “It will take all of you, but you will do it, right?”
He made it sound like a question, however, when someone is deforming your armor, it is difficult not to take any request as an order. All six of them took a step back and nodded slowly. Tristan was not sure how much good they could be, but he would hear Luke out.
“Alright this game has three different parts, the ‘mental in the center, Stickers have the spears and the ‘mental can’t touch them. The last person is the Striker, the ‘mental can hit him, but the Striker gets to, well, strike first. Got it?” Luke said rubbing his hands together.
Everyone nodded. Tristan suspected that it would be much harder to defend against seven people, especially when you could not fight them or retaliate against most of them. Luke tossed Tristan a padded stick.
He caught it out of the air and frowned, “What’s this for?”
Luke grinned, “You’re the striker, the Striker, they’re the Stickers, I’m the mental.”
The mood of the guards perked up when they realized they would be allowed to strike Luke with sticks and he was not going to retaliate. Luke for his part, grabbed two more sticks that weren’t much more than batons. He drew two lines in the dirt about eight feet apart and staked the batons into it.
“This is our border, as the real warriors are using all the wooden ones,” Luke grabbed two more batons for himself and stood in the center of the path he had made, “Alright let's get going.”