He made a few friends in the guards outside of Teral, but they wouldn’t talk to him about anything he wanted to hear. If they knew why he was here they certainly weren't talking. They all seemed to have been informed beforehand to not speak about certain things. He didn’t blame them for their silence on the issues, as Sam was nearly always with him, and he was sure that was the biggest factor for their silence. About 15 days after getting the larger bed, his level of stress had reached an extreme point. He was a healthy 18 year old young man. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't have taken much to get his engine running. The inability to deal with his sexual frustration was almost driving him insane, and starting to overpower the overwhelming loathing he had for this place. This morning he felt like he could explode and really wanted to hit someone and have someone hit him until he couldn't stand up anymore. Today he decided to start to train with the guards in sword fighting.

What made his mind was waking up entwined with Sam. He had been having a seriously erotic dream about him and Jenn, and the dream was really getting good when he woke up. For a moment he was disoriented and confused Sam for Jenn, and the waking world for a dream. He nearly crossed a line before coming to his senses, the shock of what almost happened was like a bucket of ice water poured over his head. But while he felt shame and disgust and embarrassment at his near tragic mistake, part of him, the heated hormone driven part was screaming in the back of his mind in an ever louder voice to keep going. 'Don't stop'. That 'she wants a baby anyway'. 'Who cares what you do to her, she's a slave.' The horrible thoughts running through his head didn't seem so horrible this morning, 'I mean what would you expect falling asleep naked in a man's bed'? 'Even if she cries rape she's just a sl...' It was at this point he really woke up.

His horror at the thoughts running through his mind nearly turned into a self hating spiral of despair. He gently left the bed and tucked the blanket up under her chin. Dressed quietly and left the room. He never hated himself before, but shockingly he was starting to find he hated himself and who he was almost as much as he hated this horrible place. This truly is [hell].

What really made him ill was even while making his way down to the large hall, he was still rock hard. Part of him still wanted to go back and wake her up. So he changed his destination and found his way to the toilet. He didn't bother with the mask of liquor. He wanted the atrocious smell to flagellate his mind. He emptied both his stomach and bladder, then made his way to the mess hall. He used the liquor to wash his feet, hands and mouth, then headed over to the main assembly hall. His head was in a daze but he knew he needed to do something.

The gathering/training hall was well lit, there was a type of crystal on the ceiling which seemed to catch and reflect the torchlight in a way that brightened the room up fairly well. He had spent a lot of time in this room working out and watching the soldiers train with swords. The air was just as foul here, if not worse, thanks to the fact the ventilation was poor, and this was a place a lot of sweat was shed. This room also tended to be rather hot and loud. Still it was one of the few places he didn’t feel claustrophobic. It was also one of the few places Sam rarely followed him to. Right now he didn't want to see her. He felt dead in his heart.

Looking at the men sword fighting, he spoke up with words he put together into a sentence. “I want learn um… fight with sword. Help?”

A number of the men stopped fighting, and turned to look at him. He knew his accent was poor so they probably knew who spoke. What he didn’t expect was the number of enthusiastic smiles which greeted him.

Before he knew it 10 men volunteered to help him. Figuring more was better than none, he accepted them all. He was shown to some practice blades to pick out. They didn’t use wooden or padded weapons just blunted. Which meant some type of armor as well. Learning to put on the layers of armor took almost an hour by itself. It didn’t help that nothing really fit him well. He was simply far too big for the armor. Finding a sword was easier, he wasn’t sure about a shield but they convinced him to use one, so he soon had a shield as well.

The shield was heavy, and he realized quickly it used mussels he did not normally train. Being a bit of a history buff he had some assumptions from their equipment that the men were primarily mounted soldiers. The shields were large kite shields, from what he remembered of history, this was mostly a mounted design. Foots soldiers preferred long rectangular shields that could reach their feet, and short weapons for stabbing, or no shields and pikes or other long arms; if not that they tended for lighter shields because footsoldiers had to walk everywhere, caring a huge heavy shield would not be fun. Heavy curved shields with tapered ends were for directing away blows when on a mounted charge. They had limited utility in a line of battle for foot soldiers. The swords were designed like medieval longswords, they had a thin double edged straight blade, and like the name suggested were long; a solid 30” or so. Too long for a regular foot soldier with a shield, long enough for horseback.

There were other weapons but for now he needed to see what felt right. Taking a few swings with the sword he frowned, and thought back to the last time he held a weapon.

When he was a young kid his favorite and youngest uncle came back from Okinawa. His uncle was a bit flaky, and left for japan after graduating college to learn martial arts and how to fight with a samurai sword. The rest of his family disapproved of the uncle, but he remembered being just a little kid in love with cartoons and action heroes. The idea that his uncle was studying to be a samurai just was too cool to his 2nd grade self. So when his uncle came back from japan and opened a dojo he simply HAD to join. He begged his parents and they relented.

So he studied martial arts for 4 years until his mom got sick with cancer and his uncle closed the dojo. Part of the instruction was fighting with wooden sticks. The sticks were sized about the size of a long knife, and he was taught to fight with two of them. His uncle liked calling his style Okinawan karate. But the truth was, his uncle’s master took and created the style from a number of different martial arts.

He liked watching MMA too, yet he never seriously considered trying it. He was too much into hockey and frankly, he wasn’t close to his uncle’s best student. Having failed promotion exam after promotion exam. He got discouraged and mostly half assed it. What he knew was enough to destroy an unskilled bully, but not enough to threaten a real fighter. A truth he learned painfully when he was 16 and stupidly fought a drunk college student. The college student was 5” taller and 60lbs heavier then him. Worse, he was a trained and serious boxer. The only reason he didn’t lose his life in that fight was because the boxer was too drunk to see straight, and he wasn’t beneath fighting dirty. A knee to the groin gave him the win, though that “win” came at the price of a broken nose, orbital bone and a trip to the hospital.

Coming out of his reverie for a moment he knew what he learned from his uncle would probably be a detriment. He never learned to fight with armor. And he never learned to fight with a long weapon; having never advanced to the level necessary for classes on the katana. He was also really out of practice. After the dojo shut down he simply never practiced martial arts again.

Clearing his mind, he looked to the crowd of filthy small armored men and forced a grin. “How to fight?”

The thin asshat Teral said “FIGHT!”

Frowning, he suspected what Teral meant. And sure enough, the first man approached with his shield high, knees bent and shield leading, sword down and out of sight behind the shield.

Bending his own knees, he squared off with the man, trying to copy his stance, though he couldn’t see the sword arm well enough to know how it was held, he figured the point would be pointed toward his foe, as holding it point down would make for a rather long slow swing. Jerhal, he thought the other man’s name was, suddenly swung the blade, stabbing out from behind the shield. He raised his shield in defense and managed to ward the sword off, though it broke his stance badly. The stab had hit his shield awkwardly, and twisted it in his grip badly.

The sword swung horizontally before he had a chance to rebuild his stance and cracked him up alongside the helmet he was wearing. The ring of metal and the sharp blow, staggered him. The men were laughing, as he staggered to the left, as another strike came in stabbing straight for his throat, at the last moment he jerked the shield up and knocked the sword away. [FUCK] he cursed in English, and started swinging his own sword as he rebuilt his stance, it was a simple overhand blow, but it was performed as he learned with the wooden stick all those years ago, a blow aimed right for the foes left temple, right above the ear. He missed as the man smirked and jerked back away from the strike.

However now that he got him to take a step back he pressed forward and slammed his shield into Jerhal’s shield and swung the blade again. Soon he had taken charge of the pace of the fight. His superior reach, height and strength really gave him some natural advantages in a sword fight, though his foe was crafty and slippery like an eel. He also was infinitely more familiar with the reach of his own weapon. The look of surprise faded as Jerhal seemed to begin to get a good feel for how he was fighting.

The battle was decided when he tried to bash shields again to muscle Jerhal back against the wall, at the last moment Jerhal took the blow with his shield but spun out from behind it causing him to stagger forward half a step and overextend, quick as a cat Jerhal’s blade came whistling for his exposed back, it was pure instinct that stepped in and saved him from a bad injury to his back, as he dropped the heavy shield and continued the spin toward his right and brought the longsword up to parry the blow.

However, while he did succeed in blocking the blow, it went poorly, as the parry was performed mostly blind, he misjudged the height of the blade and took it flush to his sword hand, shattering most of the bones in his right hand. His sword hit the ground in a clatter of metal as he screamed in pain and doubled over the ruined hand. The men there were all trained soldiers, and had seen what happened. They all knew the injury was serious. It was a horrible mistake made by an amateur. The blood soaking through his gauntlet told him all they needed to know. He was horrified by the extent of the pain. It shot straight through to his shoulder, telling him bones were shattered. The amount of blood was no joke either. He simply couldn’t feel his fingers apart from his thumb.

He couldn’t keep the cries of pain stifled, and tears were streaming down his face. It hurt so badly. Worse than anything he had felt before. Worse than spraining his ACL. Worse than breaking his ribs. Worse than breaking his foot. This was on a whole other level. The pain pounded with his heartbeat. It shot up his arm with every small motion. It seemed endless. He feared very much he had just become a cripple. This type of injury probably would be hard for a modern hospital in the USA to repair. Just thinking about how his hand was hit he wouldn’t be surprised if every bone in his right hand was shattered.

His adrenaline was starting to kick in, objectively he knew that, when the pain started to fade a bit. It was still horrific, but it was no longer mind numbingly terrible. He saw a shadow approach, glancing up with tear filled eyes, he saw it was one of the mages with the moons on their forehead who had summoned him. The man was wearing a brown robe, and hand grey in his hair. While he was filthy, he was far cleaner than most of the humans here. He reached out and placed a hand on his head. And closed his eyes. A blue light suddenly sprung up around him, and the feeling of being dipped in icewater spread throughout his body. As the feeling passed a strange sensation over his right hand hit like a wave. It felt like the hand had been dipped in lava then ice, then the pain was gone before he could even tense.

Deeply fearing the crushing pain returning he actually didn’t move for 10 or 15 seconds, then he very cautiously moved his fingers to find no pain at all. Ripping the gauntlet off his hand he stared and the hand, smeared in blood yet perfectly intact and functioning.

He had a stunned expression on his face. He knew he must look like an idiot, as he looked at the mage in surprise. The mage spoke in the native language, “If you are learning the sword, I or another will be here in case of accidents from now on.” Was what was said, though really he barely caught the words.

Standing up, and feeling sick to his stomach at what just happened. He walked over to the armorer and looked for better gauntlets. Protecting his hands would be a priority from now on.