Stiff and sore, Rufus limped out of the practice yard in pain, but satisfied. He massaged his right wrist a little after he returned his practice blade to the quartermaster and waited on the edge of the pit for a moment. Dozens of pairs of Swordsmen filled the training area, kicking up the sand with each step and twist as they duelled back and forth under the watchful eye of the drillmaster.

"Footwork, footwork, footwork!" the grizzled bear of a man bellowed for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. "If you wanna fight with a blade you need the kind of balance that would make a dancer shit with envy! Perfect steps. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. Morrison! Get your arse up and square off. I don't want to hear complaints you mewling sack of sick! Don't say shit until you move your damn feet properly!"

Rufus watched with a smirk he didn't bother to hide as Calan, the former silver ranked Slayer and current swordmaster of the Blue Steel academy, descended on the poor unfortunate who had pissed him off this time. The man was brutal in word and deed. The men and women who dropped into the Pit, the sand floored training yard given to weapons practice, were pushed right to their limits. If he didn't have a reputation for turning out high quality graduates, nobody would put up with it.

His emphasis on footwork was especially grating to many of the newly Awakened sword specialists.

Once Rufus had gained his class, he'd been obsessed with his sword. He didn't feel complete without it in his hand. His swordsmanship skill had practically sung to him as he took the blade in his grip, turned his wrists at precise angles, swung his arms with momentum and felt the satisfying cut of the blade through the air. Only once he started training here, Calan had forced them into weeks of foot drills. The man was obsessed with footwork and didn't let them touch a blade until he was satisfied they could move properly.

Rufus had adapted faster than most, due to the few things he'd managed to pick up watching Magnin as closely as he had. The few times the master swordsman had practised where anyone could watch him, Rufus had seen how carefully and how much focus he put on his feet, often putting down his famed sword to step through motions with nothing in his hands.

If the Century Slayer could focus on his feet, Rufus could certainly do the same.

"You still rubbing that wrist? Maybe this time you'll guard properly you daft bastard."

Rufus grinned as his training partner approached.

"If you weren't such a low and dirty snake I wouldn't have to be on the lookout for those cheap tricks," he countered.

"Cheap tricks?" Pewar placed a hand on his chest as he feigned a wounded expression. "You simply fail to understand my genius. Not surprising, I can't expect much intelligence from a blacksmith's son. Your sword is like a hammer, straight up and down, no grace at all."

A flicker of anger sparked in Rufus' chest at the mention of his father, but he pushed it down. Pewar didn't mean anything by it, the two often exchanged words after training.

"Now who can't appreciate good technique? You're just jealous my sword does something you never can: get to the point."

"Touche, my muscle bound friend, touche."

The two looked back at those poor saps still in the pit.

"Calan is going extra hard today," Pewar observed, "the man looks infuriated."

"Oh, he's pissed," Rufus said. "I've no idea why. I don't think anyone is doing especially poorly today."

"He might just be trying to see if anyone will break."

Rufus turned to his partner with a brow raised.

"Give up and quit," Pewar elaborated. "I think he wants to weed out anyone who he doesn't think is mentally tough enough. A crude but effective way of making sure everyone who graduates is capable of absorbing an endless amount of vitriol."

"If they can't handle this, they'd never make it as a Slayer," Rufus shrugged and the two began to make their way out of the training area and back towards the dorms.

"Not everyone who gets the Swordsman class wants to be a Slayer, as well you know," Pewar rolled his eyes. "Just because all of you halfwits dream of being Magnin Steelarm doesn't mean I have to."

"You'll be a crap duellist."

"Rubbish, and you know it."

"If you didn't want to be like Magnin, why travel here to train? You know damn well almost every school in the West bases their methods on that man. You could have stayed north and trained up there."

"An unfortunate side effect of having every martial Class in the province worshipping the one swordsman," Pewar sighed, "is that you end up with extremely capable trainers. As much as people don't like to admit it, the finest schools for training sword based classes are here in Kenmor. If I'm going to be the best, I need to be trained by the best."

"Aren't there better and more respected schools in Central?"

"Run by the finest Blademasters alive, yes. My family might have money, but they don't have that sort of money."

"Fair enough."

The two walked in companionable silence the rest of the way as they allowed the cool air to dry off their sweat. A wash would be needed soon, to remove the grit and sand that still clung to them, but for now Rufus was content. He may not have gotten everything he wanted when he left home, but he got enough. He was here, away from his useless prick of a father, training to fulfil his dreams. He felt as if his life had finally started.

He trained hard, dedicated himself, and soon he would be able to get out into the field to start killing rift-kin. From there it was only a matter of time until he was a full Slayer.

And Tyron would be dead somewhere in a ditch.

"I'll see you later Pewar," he said as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. "I'm going to drop in on Laurel."

The other man pulled a face.

"Really?" he shook his head. "No accounting for taste."

Rufus' smile became lopsided.

"She's an old friend," he said, "I promised her dad I'd keep tabs on her."

"Uh huh. Go on then. I'll see you in the morning."

With a final wave Rufus turned and walked a new path, away from the boys dorms and off to the girls. At first his stride was long, and confident, but as he passed by more and more smirks and pitying glances from the female residents, he grew more hunched and downcast. By the time he reached Laurel's floor, his head was down and a storm was brewing in his eyes.

As expected, Laurel's door was locked, though it wasn't hard to imagine why. Passionate moans and the slap of skin on skin could easily be heard through the solid wood, and even down the corridor. Rufus snarled as anger knotted his muscles before he started wordlessly pounding on the door.

"Fuck!" he heard Laurel curse, followed by rummaging as he continued to slam his fist into the wood.

A minute later he heard her voice on the other side of the door.

"Alright, Rufus! Stop being dumb for a minute and I'll open it."

He clenched his teeth and stepped back, giving space for the door to swing open. Laurel was revealed, her hair dishevelled, face flushed, still sweaty from her exertions, dressed only in a shirt that stopped midway down her thighs. She stared at him, irritated.

"What?" she said.

"Who's inside?" Rufus grated.

"Is it any of your fucking business?"

"Who's. Inside?"

"Fuck. Off."

The two stared at each other, anger simmering in both of them before a male voice called from inside the room.

"Hey don't worry about it. About time I made myself scarce anyway." A tousle haired blond man, skinny and mousy looking, stepped forward with a wry smile on his face and his shoes in one hand. "I'm Jer, nice to meet you."

He held out his hand to Rufus for a second and let it hang there while the Swordsman made no move to reach for it until he let it drop with a shrug.

"Alright then. Nice to uh, see you Laurel. I'll catch you next time."

With a wink and a thumbs up, Jer brushed past Rufus and made his way quickly down the corridor before he disappeared around the corner. Laurel sighed.

"Well, you might as well come in then," she said.

"I don't recognise that guy," Rufus observed quietly as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Don't think I've seen him around the Pit."

"How could you? He's a Mage in training."

"A mage?" Rufus nearly spat.

"Why not?" Laurel smirked, "they're good with their hands."

The archer sat on the bed, her legs crossed, the heat of anger still in her eyes as Rufus breathed out and sank into the lone chair in the room. The dorms didn't have much space for each student. A cot, a chair and a table were the limits of the furnishings provided, everything else the student needed to provide for themselves.

With the money he'd taken from his father, Rufus had been able to enrol and get a few items for himself, but Laurel's room was still extremely bare. She'd had almost nothing left over after paying her fees, and wouldn't accept any help from him.

The two stared at each other for a while longer until Rufus broke eye contact and Laurel sighed.

"You need to stop doing this Rufus."

"Doing what?" he said.

"This. Coming to my room all the time. Getting angry every time I'm with somebody."

"You know people think we're a couple, right? The girls in this dorm snigger at me every time we walk past."

Laurel brushed her hair back irritably.

"Well I'm not the one telling them that. We aren't a couple, and we never have been."

"We haven't?" he muttered.

"No," she said, frustrated. "I'm still your friend, Rufus, and I'm still willing to team up when we're done here, but we haven't ever been a couple. The sooner you get that into your head, the happier you're going to be. I'm not going to be tied down, by anyone, understand?"

"I'll have to, won't I?"

"That's right. You have to."

A knock came on the door.

"Laurel! Get your pants on. There's an emergency gathering in the quad," a girl, another resident, called through the door.

"Perfect timing," she rolled her eyes. "Get out so I can get dressed. I'll see you there."

Dismissed, Rufus left, still frustrated, angry and unable to properly express himself. The quad sat in the centre of the four dorms in Blue Steel, an open grassed area for the students to relax or gather for announcements. Someone had probably been caught stealing from the cafeteria and was about to get their head kicked in and expelled.

When he made it downstairs, he found most of the residents already gathered, talking amongst themselves, bored and uninterested for the most part. It looked as if several had come from interrupted classes. Some of the sword students had clearly still been in the pit when the call came through, covered in sand and dirt as they were.

A few minutes later Laurel rushed up behind him.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked.

Her steps were so silent he didn't hear her approach at all, but managed to restrain his jump when she spoke.

"Nothing yet. Looks like it won't be long though."

He pointed to the headmaster gathering with several other staff near the raised platform on one end of the quad. Most students seemed to notice at roughly the same time he did, the level of chatter dimming quickly to a low mutter until finally the aged head of the academy stepped onto the stage. Another veteran silver ranked Slayer, Ruth Finnar had a long and successful career as a battlemage fighting in the toughest rifts the Western province had to offer. Her appearance commanded the respect of all the newly Awakened students and an instant hush fell.

"I won't mince words with you," she called, her voice easily carrying over the crowd. "Runners have come and brought word of a disaster to the northwest. There has been a break at the rift near Woodsedge."

Rufus immediately clenched his fists as worried voices broke into chatter around him. A break was a rare event, especially one so close. Foxbridge wasn't far south of the border keep. It would be directly in the line of the monsters. He glanced toward Laurel, but her expression was bland, as if this news had no effect on her.

The head held up a hand to restore quiet.

"High ranking Slayers have been dispatched to blunt the spread of rift-kin, but there is a shortage of personnel. We lost over two hundred good Slayers from the local fort as they sacrificed their lives to allow others a chance to escape."

It was a dangerous job, and everyone here knew it, but that didn't mean the loss of so many didn't have an impact. Slayers were the strongest, bravest, and most capable of all. Two hundred shouldn't just die, for nothing.

"It's very early in your training for you to be in the field, but this is a dire situation that needs to be resolved quickly," the head continued. "As such, the Academies have been instructed to send out student teams to support the more experienced Slayers in cleaning up this outbreak and protecting as many people and as much land as possible. Only when the kin have been found and exterminated will the villagers and townsfolk be able to get back to their lives."

Rufus threw a hand up and called out.

"Do we know what happened to Foxbridge?" he called desperately.

The moment he spoke up, others began to call out the names of towns or villages to the West of the capital. The students here had come from all over the province and many were filled with worry for their families.

The battlemage silenced them all with a glance.

"We've had no word on any town or individual. If you want to ensure that your people are safe, fight hard once you get out there."

"Can you believe it?" Laurel whispered, an excited gleam in her eye. "We get to go out and fight already? We'll get so many levels!"

"What about your father?" Rufus hissed. "Aren't you worried he's alive?"

She snorted.

"My father can take care of himself. A heck of a lot better than he ever took care of me. He'll be fine."

"Before you depart here," the school head continued, "you must speak to your head trainer, who will have further details on your deployment. This matter is urgent, and you will be sent out before the day ends. There is also this…"

She reached into her pocket and drew out a piece of paper with a portrait drawn on it. Rufus' breath caught in his throat.

"It is believed that the unusual rift activity and sudden destabilisation are the result of foul play. Several witnesses who survived the disaster, including experienced Slayers, have identified this man, the Necromancer Tyron Steelarm, as being near the rift leading up to and at the time of the break. A reward has been issued for the capture of this criminal, a hundred gold sovereigns. Dead or Alive."

Urgent whispers broke out amongst the gathered students.

"Obviously I know who this is. The Magisters have informed us that Magnin and Beory themselves have volunteered to find their wayward son and bring him to justice. You need not have any fear of reprisal."

She leaned forward.

"I have to emphasise. This individual is dangerous and may well be capable of manipulating rifts. If you see him, I expect you to act swiftly and decisively. Cut him down."

She swiped through the air with one hand.

"We can sort the rest out after he's dead."