Chapter Six: Shields and Strikes
Officer Teal led them down a hallway and entered a sideroom. They followed her in.
Inside, they found a large room with a wide open space in the middle. The edges of the room held racks filled with various training weapons: swords and bows, staffs, even some lances. All were made of wood and blunted.
The open space in the middle of the room was bigger than Joseph’s old house, and the ground was padded with straw-filled matting. Teal strode into the centre of it, Lauren following after. She beckoned Joseph to the centre too.
Joseph wandered to the centre of the room to join them, feeling a little awkward. This training facility was top of the line, a far cry from his rudimentary trainings in the town square back home.
All throughout the kingdom, citizens were required to learn the basic forms for strikes and shields. Unawakened could shift their mana, but pushing it outside their body did nothing, except in rare cases like powering enchantments. Shields and strikes were the first abilities that newly awakened gained access to, however: so it was important that everyone learned the forms just in case.
In the town he grew up in, all the children were gathered in the square once a month and taken through exercises led by some elders. Joseph had always approached the lessons with dogged determination, trying to absorb every scrap of knowledge and insight that he possibly could. He was sure that every incremental advantage he could gain would pay off when he became awakened. The other youths had mocked his dedication, and even the elders had smiled at his precociousness.
Now that he was in a proper training hall, one run by the Queen’s Royal Intelligence Service, no less, he felt out of place. It was enormously obvious that the training exercises he had done up until this point had been merely paying lip service to true training. He felt woefully unprepared.
The walls and floor of the room fairly hummed with enchantments, pressing up against his skin with their restrained magic. Officer Teal looked perfectly at ease. To her, this training hall for recruits was probably nothing special.
Joseph took his place, feeling more nervous than Lauren looked, which was not a good sign. He tried to remind himself that she had already been here for a few days, and had time to get used to proper training. He hoped he was not about to embarrass himself.
“Right,” Teal said to him. “Lauren’s already had a few days training, but I’m sure you’ll catch up soon enough. What element are you, lad?”
“Death,” he said firmly, resolving to not be shy about it.
Teal blinked. “Arrived already then. Okay…” she said. “We’ll start with shields, a little less deadly, and Lauren can participate. Tell me, what do you know about the basics of the different elements’?”
Joseph thought for a moment. “They all operate similarly. The form we use for shields uses mana to pull the related element into a disc, or as close to it as that element can manage.”
“Perfect. I’m glad someone paid attention at lessons,” she said flatly. Lauren fidgeted beside her.
“The four base elements can all shield and strike. Air has stronger shields and weaker strikes. The opposite is true for Fire. Water and Earth need their respective elements on hand to be able to use them, but both can impart and disperse more physical force than Air and Fire. Water is not as powerful as Earth, physically speaking, but can form their shields and strikes into a larger variety of shapes more easily. Earth is slower, but stronger. You follow?”
Joseph nodded. This was basic theory that every child learned. Had Lauren truly been so uninterested as to not even be sure of this much?
“Great. The four sacred elements work a little differently. Due to the rarity of the sacred elements, you will likely not have learned this. So pay attention.” Joseph straightened. Any new information on the sacred elements was like gold to him.
“Life and Death can use both shields and strikes. Heart can only strike, and Soul can only shield. No one knows why. Soulshields are the strongest shields of any element. Heartstrikes are the strongest strikes.
“Lifestrikes cannot deal damage: instead, they heal any living being they hit. Deathshields cannot deflect or disperse any force, either physical or magical, but they can damage whatever attempts to pass through them. Lifeshields are strong, though not as strong as Soulshields. The same is true for Death and Heartstrikes. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand. It’s possible to hurt an enemy with a Deathshield?”
“Yes,” she answered patiently. “It’s possible to inflict injury with a shield of any element, except for Life. Death is just the best at it. The main takeaway is not that you can hurt enemies with your shield, but that you cannot protect yourself with it. You will need to rely heavily on your allies for that safety.”
She squinted at him, ensuring he was taking the lesson to heart. Joseph gulped. He had assumed Deathshields would work the same as any other shield. Not being able to protect himself would be a massive hindrance.
“Luckily, you have a Soulsworn friend,” she gestured to Lauren. “Her shields will be strong enough to make up for it.” She paused turning to the girl.
“You understand what I mean, now? You’ll need to fight your fears, or your comrades will be put in danger. You have the ability to provide incredible protection for them, but it won’t mean anything if you flinch every time you’re attacked.”
Lauren wiggled one booted toe, staring at the ground. “Yes, ma’am. It’s …it’s hard though. I never wanted to be an awakened.”
Teal’s expression remained stony. “We don’t always get what we want in life. You must learn to make the best of it. Now,” she said. “Let’s get to it. Both of you, form shields.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
She strode a small distance away and turned, waiting on them. Lauren raised her hand, and an opaque, silvery shield sprang up. It was a flat disc, about three feet across, aligned with the plane of her palm. It swirled as it formed, then suddenly snapped, rippled, and became still.
Joseph focused on the mana inside him, the pool of cold, inexorable energy sitting in his navel. He coaxed it into motion, directing it towards his hands. It responded smoothly, flowing though his pathways. The mana pressed against the insides of his palms.
Now came the difficult part, the part where unawakened found themselves stymied. He pictured in his mind’s eye the shape he wished the mana to take. Then he nudged it, forcing it past the membrane that was his skin, and out into the world. He grabbed it with his will, controlling it, shaping it, defining its strength and limitations.
Black energy, slightly translucent, flared outwards from a central point in his palm into a five foot wide disc. He concentrated, and it stabilised, the energy flowing into it calm and controlled. Though the centre of the disc was solid, it became sparser near the edges, the energy resembling thick cracks in the air that slowly divided out into finer, hairline fractures. Joseph could feel the energy in the shield was consistent, though, despite the aesthetic of the shield.
Joseph was surprised. It was his first time actually utilising a spellform, and he had expected it to be more difficult. He had not wanted to practise without supervision. Doing so with an element like Death was asking for trouble. Now that he had done it, he wondered what he had waited so long for. It was easy.
“Good,” Teal said. “Got it in one.” Lauren glanced over at him with a frustrated frown. Teal stepped closer to his shield.
“Good control, very good size. You must have a decent mana pool there.” She inspected his shield for a few moments longer, then stepped back to her original position.
“You can stop now.” Lauren and Joseph’s shields both dwindled and disappeared as they stopped feeding mana into them.
“Good, that was good for a first try,” she told him. “We’re going to have a bit to work on with your shields though, Joseph. As they don’t actually stop any damage, you don’t need to hold a traditional shape. We’ll work on adapting it, changing its shape, hopefully even get you to the point where you can project it forwards a way before you leave. Just because it can’t protect you from damage directly doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a deadly impediment.”
“Now, let’s see a strike. Lauren, work on your shielding for the moment. Try and make it as big as possible.” Lauren nodded with a determined look. It seemed her perfectionist personality hated not being the best at something, even if it was dragonrider-related.
Teal came to stand beside him. She gestured to a series of enchantments etched in concentric rings outlined on the nearest wall of the room. “Throw your strike at that. Try to hit the centre. Start small, and we’ll work up from there.”
Once again, Joseph reached out to his mana pool with his mind, directing it to his hands. This time, he gathered just a bit of mana in his right hand, then held it up, aiming it at the target. He visualised the form it would take, then pushed the small bit of mana against the membrane, trying to create the sense of pressure, of tension, that he had been taught. Once he could feel the mana straining to release, he gave it a shove.
A finger-thin bolt of black energy flickered from his hand, striking forwards and hitting the target off-centre. The enchantments flared yellow, and then slowly subsided.
The bolt had looked similar to his shield, almost as if the air itself had a fault in it, and Joseph’s mana had torn down it, widening it. It was not perfectly straight, jagged bends in the strike making it seem almost like black lightning.
Just like lightning, tiny off-shoots had trickled out from the main strike at points. This was due to his mana control. It was much easier to direct the shape of something, like a shield, when it was still in connection with your body. For strikes, the caster had to direct in the moments it was still in contact with them, and after that, some loss to the environment occurred as the mana tried to disperse.
“Very good, Joseph. Excellent control,” she said. Joseph heard Lauren huff from behind them. “Nothing worse than a Deathsworn with no control. Now, try again, and put a little more mana into it, this time.”
Joseph tried again, and again, each time putting more and more mana into it. As he got used to throwing the strikes, he became more accurate, and even hit the bullseye once. Eventually, he also managed to get the enchantments on the target to flare red, too.
“Heavens, Death is strong. I’ve only seen Heartsworn recruits go red so fast, and only a few of them, at that. Great work.”
Joseph just nodded at her. His mana pool was almost empty, and he felt enormously fatigued.
Teal grinned at him, the first such expression he’d seen on her. It looked odd, like a dragon pretending it was a cat. “Tired? Good. I’m going to run you ragged every day ‘til we leave. We have far too little time to get you ready. Now, I think your friend Lauren could use some help. Wouldn’t do for you to be the only tired one, would it?”
Teal wandered over to one side of the room, and returned with a wooden sword for him, a replica of the cutlasses that riders traditionally used.
“Go smack her shield with this. When it breaks, let her reform it, and then do it again.”
Joseph approached Lauren. She was already facing him, a determined expression just visible on her face through the silver Soulshield she had interposed between them. Joseph jogged the sword in his hand, finding a comfortable grip.
“Ready?” he asked her, and Lauren nodded.
He struck out at the shield, chopping at it overhand. It felt like attacking a padded wall. All the force in his attack simply bled out, and the attack was stopped cold.
Lauren’s composure was a different story. When the attack hit, she flinched, stumbling backwards a step, and losing concentration. Her shield flickered, guttering, before reasserting itself after a few moments into a perfect, flat pane again.
Joseph leapt forwards, stabbing this time, but once again, the shield rebuffed him. He swung overhand, once, twice, and then threw a wild cut crossways at the midpoint of the shield.
Lauren let out a squeak at the barrage, and the shield faltered and dropped. Joseph pulled his next swing well short of her as it passed through empty air, but even so, Lauren flinched again, pulling her arms up in front of the sword and cringing.
Joseph heard a small sigh from behind him. “Lauren, your instincts aren’t bad. It’s natural to feel afraid of being hurt. But they’re leading you wrong, now that you’re awakened, and if you keep listening to them, you will get an actual injury. Or worse, one of the people you’re supposed to be protecting will.”
Lauren listened to her, head down. Her cheeks were flushed red.
“That instinct to pull your arms up? To put them in between the attack, and your body? That’s what we need to work on. Your shield is a much more effective block than your arms ever will be. We need to create the habit of putting your shield in between yourself and an attack. If you can learn to trust that it will hold, then I’ll consider my job done. You can do this.”
Lauren looked back up at them, some determination creeping back into her features. Teal turned to Joseph.
“Joseph, your sword work is atrocious. Have you ever swung one before? Heavens sake, you look like an old woman flailing at a mouse with a broom.” Now it was Joseph’s turn to study his feet. His cheeks burned.
“I don’t have time to fix that before you go, that’s for sure. Just try not to flail so much. You don’t have to pull the blade back so far before every strike. Try to start each motion closer to your body.
“Right, are you both ready? Again, then. Start slow, this time.”