7.9

Save for a few heavier than normal storms, winter was as quiet as always. Jewel made her rounds of the Village, checking in with the new Headman to find out which households were in most dire need of her flame or ability to march in all manner of cold and wet weather without harm.

It was quiet but for one change.

Father and Bromthil had the footmen training on every clear day. And Alexander and Jewel had their schedules shifted to join them.

Alexander’s training was in bow, endurance, strengthening and sword.

Jewel’s training was quartered into kinds. Alternating and intermixed as weather and availability of time of the others involved allowed.

For the first, she was in the courtyard to face off ten or more men at a time in a melee. Held back from flying higher than the fortress walls.

As before the rules were that any touch by either her or the men upon her was to count as a mark against them.

Jewel rarely came out of those sessions with less than fifty marks against her, but she had slowly been climbing to at least deliver almost half again as many against the footmen.

The second kind was Jewel’s least favorite, but Father had been insistent that it be done.

It started with as many able bodied bowmen were available (Father and Alexander included).

After they were gathered all would string up with the fastest draw short bows available and let loose volleys of the plain wooden shafts of training stele at Jewel.

For the first five days of the exercise she had been allowed to counter them however she wished and to face the direction from which they were shot.

Blasts of Wyrmfire had been her first instinct, but Jewel soon found that she could not actually keep up either bursts of breath or a continuous stream long enough to defend herself adequately from the literal rain of wooden missile raining down on her.

After that she had tried using her wings to push them off course, but even that had been insufficient over the constant barrage. Some stele made it through despite the turbulence either by Father calling for a change of angle or a just simple sheer quantity.

On the sixth day Jewel was ordered to turn away from the lines of archers. Which Jewel also found unfair but Father overruled.

She had only just managed to bring the marks against her down to seventy-six hits (counted by a combination of Murial’s watchful eye and charcoal from the burnt wood stele heads leaving sooty signs on her scales).

But that mark count climbed into the hundreds after that. It was significantly harder to dodge and deflect blows she was not allowed to look at and anticipate beforehand.

The Third and Fourth kind of training days were less embarrassing and frustrating in some ways. But in others they were worse.

While in the melee and the archery practice Jewel was constrained from taking aloft, the third and fourth kinds of training were in the air.

The Third was target practice, but of a kind Jewel found far more finicky than even spindle work!

Father would fly with her, then fire one of his own training arrows into a particular tricky spot for Jewel to hit.

Usually amidst the naked branches of the forest.

Then she was expected to strike exactly what the arrow had with her Wyrmflame and nothing else!

There was no one to witness or disappoint but Father in this training but every shrub, tree branch or rock she even touched with her Wyrmfire would bring stern looks and gestures in Flight Cant.

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“Squire’s arm.”

“Captain’s head”

“Brother’s Leg”

Jewel knew what he meant. If she had to use her flame and missed like that it was not rocks, shrubbery or branches that would be turned to naught but ash.

It was potential friends, footman, allies, kin.

Squire, Captain, Brother.

Smithson, Bromthil, Alexander.

The reminders every time that if this had been a real battle she might have maimed or killed one she cared for.

That training was the worst of the four. Made tolerable for the time with Father but awful as well.

The Fourth form of training came in as a close second.

It was similar to the Melee and the Archery practice combined. But there were no dozen or dozens of footmen against Jewel.

It was only Father and Zephyrvam.

And whereas the melee and archery were relegated to the ground and Jewel’s wings proverbially clipped.

Here it was in the open sky.

Jewel now just ten winters old against her Father and his skill in Archery and Flightcraft.

They were still training arrows. Light young wood still soft with life, unhardened or headed with metal or stabilized with fletching. Merely carved into the shape of an over long and thick Stele.

But for all the accommodations to make the shafts of pointed wood less lethal.

They were still being fired from Father’s full Gryphonbow.

And just as assuredly as it would do Jewel no harm but a temporarily stinging bruise that did not make it hurt less.

At middle range, Father’s keen eye and bow were a threat.

Outpacing the pair was impossible for Jewel as the Gryphon could fly faster.

Then there was Zephyrvam himself to contend with as well.

If Jewel kept her distance or tried to flee, Father would draw the Gryphon into altitude faster then Jewel could raise herself and then strike from above with punishing lances of wood.

But if they closed?!

Zephyrvam had four talons and a massive beak to contend with.

He was not as maneuverable as Jewel but there was quite a lot of her for him to try and snatch, claw, bite or kick in diving passes.

They closed and parted and swept by each other as she attempted to muster herself and her Wyrmfire to defend.

Both in pressing and shoving her body through the air or lifting abruptly but also more aggressively.

In place of her full fire Jewel used a sudden flashing burst. Bright enough to sting the eyes, maybe singe a bit of hair or feathers but otherwise harmless.

Enough to make them wary and act as a ‘mark’ against her Father when she managed to bathe him in the white flares.

No one was there to keep score except Father and Jewel, but she could count on one foreclaw the times she caught him in her ‘fire’. And she could feel the bruises that accumulated in their spars when he or the Gryphon got her.

The disparity was obvious and her stinging flesh was more than enough reminder of her failures.

Father always was gentle with her afterwards. Zephyrvam, too, did not bite or claw as hard as he could. He preened over her scales and crooned and nuzzled when they were no longer sparring.

They were both trying to be as gentle and accommodating to her inexperience as they could. The footmen both in the melee and archery also tried to not overly strain her. But it was clear that Jewel was greatly outmatched on land and in air despite their efforts.

And as her Father told her the first day of Training.

They needed to be as harsh as possible so she would learn as quickly as possible.

He loved her, he would do everything to protect and train her for the War to come.

And this was part of that.

She could see past his bravery, see how much fear there was in his eyes. Jewel could taste it In his sweat on the air.

Father had hardly smelled calm or happy since they met with the Countess Bathory.

Jewel knew he worried despite how he looked or sounded amongst the Footmen.

Jewel did not complain or wince or limp if she could help it.

It was important that she put in everything she could to her training.

For her Father.