With Joe added to his private group of students, Florian needed that extra meat and on the double. He had been shocked to hear the previous night that Joe had continued to meditate and practice his magic daily, a remarkable level of dedication for a twelve-year-old. The fact that the reward for doing so was literally magic made it only slightly less impressive.

It was for that reason that Florian found himself walking through Leeds Castle at the crack of dawn, eager to find Hornbeck before he had to return to the keep to monitor his class. It was eerily quiet, not a single sound of fighting despite the darkness that surrounded him everywhere. He even thought he heard someone yawn lazily from up on the wall as he walked by,

He found the training field empty, his only company the three wooden training dummies that remained standing upright where they had been left the previous day. The wooden mace remained unused on the weapons rack while a few spears were scattered around, clearly more recently used by the Warriors in training. Florian picked up what looked to be the sturdiest of them and went through some of the basic attacks Hornbeck had taught him.

Stabbing at the dummy in a dozen different locations, practicing his precision, Florian didn’t even notice when the Warriors had begun to descend from the wall. “Well, who do we have here?” a familiar voice boomed. Florian looked up, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow just as threatened to run down into his eye. Commander Hornbeck stood a dozen feet away from him, but Florian had to do a double take as he regarded the old man.

Hornbeck was no less impressive than he had been a couple weeks ago when Florian had first come to Leeds; his physique still rivaled a mountain and his salt-and-pepper hair only added to the rugged mystique of the man. However, Hornbeck was himself now missing his left hand and his right foot. The foot was replaced by a smaller implement than Florian’s own while nothing had been done to his left arm. Instead, the sleeve of his undershirt fluttered underneath the bracers he still wore.

“You said to stop by?” Florian offered, retreating towards the practice gear rack.

“That I did, but I didn’t mean when no one else was here!” Hornbeck laughed, clapping Florian in the back with his good arm. It left a bloody stain, his hand dyed black from the ichor of the wolves. Despite his injuries, it looked like the commander had chosen to hold the line with his Warriors the previous night.

Florian chucked nervously, not sure how to respond. A few of the Warriors behind the commander looked at him with undisguised aggression in their eyes, no doubt well aware of his ability to use magic. Still, Hornbeck had never been one to disguise his intentions, and the Warrior seemed more than happy to have Florian around. “My bad?” he offered.

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This set off another bout of laughter in the commander, even as he yelled out a command for the rest of his Warriors to set up on the field and begin to practice. Wiping tears from his eyes, the jovial man asked, “What really brings you here, Florian? You haven’t been here for a while, so I doubt it’s because you had a sudden change of heart about training or because you were joining back.”

Florian nodded. “I need to ask a favor. I’m in need of Hellwolf meat, but as I’m no longer a Warrior, I can’t hunt for it on my own. I know that a lot of it probably goes to waste outside the walls after every night, so all I really need is permission to go outside and grab a couple of them each morning.

The commander stroked his chin, thinking. “To be honest with you, Florian, that meat is just about the only thing these men and women look forward to after a hard night’s work. I can’t just take the fruits of their labor away from them.”

“Is there anything I might be able to trade in exchange?”

“Cavalry in the form of wizards?” Hornbeck suggested half-jokingly.

“I’m working on that as fast as I can, and this meat would go a long way in helping me achieve that.”

“I hate to ask you, son, but how long would this take, even if I donated some of the meat we hunted to your cause?”

Florian ran the numbers in his head, not liking the result. “Months, probably”

“That’s way too long, Florian, and you know it. We got lucky last night that it was a quiet one, but as you’ve seen just recently, we’re down to about sixty percent of the number of active Warriors compared to when you first arrived here, and that’s down considerably from three years ago,” Hornbeck grimaced.

“What if I taught you magic?” Florian voiced an idea he’d come up just after Joe rejoined him. Maybe he didn’t want to return to the front lines, but if he could find a way to teach Hornbeck – someone who was about as trustworthy as anyone could possibly be – magic, that would greaten their strength on the wall.

Hornbeck seemed floored, as if that was an option he had never considered. “Can anyone just learn magic?”

Florian shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, but I figure we could give it a try,” Florian said, deliberately leaving out his doubt about being able to reproduce the same visualization help Theo had done for him.

Now Hornbeck took a moment to just collect his thoughts as the rest of the Warriors around them truly launched into morning practice with full force. “How many pounds of meat do you need?”

“Daily? Four.”

Hornbeck nodded. “That’s doable. When and where can you teach me?”

Florian and Hornbeck came up with a plan to take the commander aside for about twenty minutes after sunrise to jumpstart the commander’s understanding of the universe and of mana. It would really jack up Florian’s sleep schedule, but the promised reward was more than worth it, besides the side benefit of actually helping keep the people of Leeds safe.

“You have yourself a deal, son. I assume this is something to be kept quiet?”

“It is,” Florian agreed.

“Understood. In the meantime, I think someone’s been trying to gain your attention for the past couple of minutes now,” the commander nodded to someone behind Florian. Turning around, Florian’s face went white. He was seeing a ghost.