Chapter 26

He arrived a bit of time to spare. Classes in practical combat were held on a large, open field located a little outside the actual campus town. As Raiel stood off to the side by himself, students began to gradually trickle in from various direction, having come from the dorms or their previous classrooms.

As they arrived, most of the boys and girls sat down to warm up, stretch their joints, and prepare for the lesson. Seeing as they very likely were more experienced with such classes than him, he did the same and followed every movement they made. The spoke energetically in their small cliques, gossiping about this and that, not noticing Raiel’s observant stare.

The flexibility of their bodies was quite a sight to behold, a few of them able to bend backwards and touch the flat of their feet on the top of their heads. Any attempt from Raiel to do similar exercises was quickly met with pain and difficulty breathing, which reminded him both of the fact that his body was not fully healed, despite what he might wish, and that he had a long way to go before he could do anything nearly as impressive.

None of the faces present on the field seemed familiar to him, and until Clavic Maledes sauntered onto the field along with Duhen and Hector Huntley, he thought it would remain so.

Neither of the three boys seemed to realize that Raiel was staring at them as they made their way onto the middle of the field, where they, like most of the other students, began their own warm up routines.

The disfiguring injuries Raiel had inflicted upon Clavic’s face were definitely noticeable, even with a short glance, but the twins had been right when they said that, as soon as he saw a healer, it could easily be written off as the cuts and bruises gained during ordinary training.

Another couple of minutes went by, before Clavic looked up and spotted Raiel’s gaze. The look he sent was icy to say it mildly, and Raiel hoped he could avoid a big confrontation in the middle of class. That would not be a very helpful addition to his plan to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

Fortunately, Clavic made no move to approach or call out to Raiel, and instead went back to his quiet conversation with the Huntley twins. Would he seek revenge some other time, with less people around to see it, or had the result of their previous fight made him more cautious towards Raiel?

To be honest, Clavic and the twins had been about the furthest thing from his mind in the past few days, and although Raiel was perfectly aware that the people who backed Clavic were powerful indeed, that one boy just seemed so insignificant in the face of everything else he was worried about.

When the instructor showed up, she immediately clapped her hands together loudly, instantly silencing and drawing the attention of all students assembled on the field.

“Sit down, we’re stretching.” she said with a clear voice. “Then, sparring.”

So, what everyone had been doing so far was just a pre-stretch stretch? Seemed a bit excessive.

Together, they sat through a series of stretches demonstrated by the instructor, much like the ones they had already done. When they were finally done, and Raiel could feel the burn in all of his joints, the instructor ordered them to dorm lines, facing each other.

“Time for some one-on-one.”

Most of the students drew swords made of wood, while a few had long sticks or shorter wooden blades to simulate a variety of weapons. Somehow, Raiel had expected everyone to use real weapons during training, but this actually made a lot more sense. It would certainly help make sure that the children didn’t die by accident. Apparently, he was the only student without a weapon, and the instructor was quick to notice.

“You!”

Raiel turned to see the woman march briskly in his direction, eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face.

“Are you the one?” she asked as she came to a stop in front of him. He was a bit taller than her, but then again, he was pretty sure he had grown a bit in recent days.

The confusion with which he hesitated must have been obvious, because she quickly snapped a follow-up.

“The one from the attack on Horoth’s class.”

Raiel’s stomach sank when he understood what she was talking about. He could only hope that Horoth hadn’t revealed anything about him to the rest of the staff on campus.

“… Yes.”

“Understood. Where’s your weapon?” she immediately asked.

“Uhm, I don’t have one yet.” He should probably have realized that something like this would be expected of him. The events of the past few days had kept his mind quite occupied, not allowing much else to matter. And even if he had known, he wouldn’t have been able to afford in.

“Go and grab on from my bag of spares over there,” she said, pointing to the pile in the corner of the field, where the students had left their stuff. “then get back in line and get ready.” She spun on her heel and went to yell at a guy who had what she apparently considered a less than satisfactory stance. Raiel dreaded what she would think of his stance, or rather, his lack thereof.

The different lengths of polished wood clunked together as he grabbed hold of the bag to go through his options. Quickly, he realized that he really didn’t have a single clue about what to look for in his choice of weapon, so he went for the first and best sword he could find. He doubted the one time he’d held a sword could be counted as experience, but it was still better than nothing. At least he could throw it in a pinch.

With a growing feeling of anxiety in his stomach, Raiel watched as his place in the line shuffled ever closer to the front. His grip on the cloth-bound haft on the wooden blade was sweaty, and he had to resist the urge to break the blade in two and toss it to the side. Unfortunately, no matter how much he wanted to, going bare-handed would not do at the moment.

On top of that, any obvious use of infusion, such as enhanced speed or strength would certainly draw all the wrong attention to him. He had never actually fought while consciously holding back all those instincts that told him to just let loose, and he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to resist giving in.

He took yet another step closer to the front, yelps of pain ringing out across the field as the students fought. Everyone wore some sort of protection, usually in the form of thick, sturdy leather. A few had even brought a variety of metal armor, which hung on their shoulders, legs, or wrist, with which they occasionally managed to block a clanging blow with.

Before he realized it, the guy in front of him walked onto the designated sparring area, meeting a girl there, who came from the opposite line. After sizing each other up for a few seconds, the boy charged.

Now, Raiel could see the person who would be his opponent. A tall, lanky boy, who carried two swords, one of which he rested on his shoulder in a position that looked anything but relaxed stood in the front of the line. He had an expression of boredom carefully painted on his face, but Raiel could tell by his posture and the way his eyes flickered from one place to the other, that he was nervous. Well, that made two of them, at least.

The match quickly ended when the boy screamed and clutched his knee as he went down. The girl threw her weapon down and stepped in to help him to his feet. With the support of her shoulder, he limped off the arena to sit down in the grass. That seemed like nice comradery, and Raiel watched them speak quietly, the boy showing a small smile at something the girl had said.

When he looked back, the lanky boy had already made his way forward and stood waiting for Raiel to do the same. Without wasting any more time, Raiel tightened his grip on the borrowed practice sword and marched onto the field.

“What about his arm?” the boy asked the instructor who stood to the side, observing the duels.

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked thoughtful for a moment before giving her answer, “Mmh, avoid it if you can, but…”

“Understood.”

Raiel looked down and realized what the boy was talking about. After the healer had tended to his wounds, the broken arm had healed remarkably, and there was no longer any real need to keep it in a sling. He had, however, decided to continue to keep it bandaged, just to remind himself not to use it by accident, if nothing else.

The other boy looked to their instructor with a questioning expression, and she quickly nodded in respone, “Begin.”

Immediately, the boy dashed towards Raiel, his swords raised to deliver the first strike. In an impressive display of coordination, he crossed his arms over his head as he ran and aimed a backhand strike at each of Raiel’s sides, forcing him to jump back in favor of blocking.

Following, the boy struck again, this time in a deliberate attempt to hit Raiel’s bad arm.

He glimpsed a smirk on the boy’s face as he tried to raise the correct part of his blade to block the strike. A misjudged positioning of the wooden weapon caused a deflection rather than a straight block, the other boy’s sword sliding down the length of Raiel’s blade, grazing his thigh with a painful slap.

“I said avoid it, you dimwit!” the instructor shouted from the sideline.

Raiel’s opponent’s smirk seemed to only deepen at the scolding, but he stabbed at Raiel’s midsection instead of going for the arm again.

Even as he jumped back, the strike grazed Raiel’s side. It was difficult to get used to the unnaturally long reach a person with a sword suddenly possessed, and he constantly had to consider his every move extra carefully. He could only consider himself lucky that the training weapons were made of simply wood, and not the sharp tools of death they would use in real battles. He was, however, beginning to figure out the sword’s range.

The combined difficulty of using an unfamiliar fighting style and refraining from letting any of his natural power leak out, consciously forcing himself to slow down reactions and movements made him look absolutely pathetic. That his opponent was being an asshole wasn’t exactly helping either.

The boy followed Raiel around like a wolf chasing prey as he harassed Raiel with constant and unrelenting jabs. The complete lack of sword skills made any real retaliation a distant dream, and even though Raiel could perceive the attacks aimed at him with no problem whatsoever, the point of his blade simply never seemed to be exactly where he intended for it to be.

Despite the obvious gap in ability between the two boys, the lanky boy’s flurry of jabs and slashes soon became increasingly desperate as his strength gradually drained from his body.

“Stay still and fight!” the tiring fighter hissed, his eyes shining with badly suppressed anger, when his slippery opponent once again jumped out of range. This strange boy seemed to be completely inexperienced in combat, yet he had quickly grasped the lanky boy’s style and kept him from getting in any match-ending hits.

Staying still was about the last thing Raiel was going to do, and he vaguely realized that the other students had begun to notice drawn out the fight was becoming.

One of Raiel’s big advantages was showing itself with painful apparency as he continued to dance around the panting boy’s strikes without any real signs of exhaustion. Despite the furious onslaught, having two swords did not seem to make the tall boy twice as fast or effective. In fact, the two blades occasionally clacked against each other, hindering their paths towards their target.

Suddenly, the lanky boy started to topple over forward, his foot caught in an awkward angle and Raiel immediately seized the chance and dashed in, sword low and ready to crack a blow into the other boy’s ribs. A moment later he realized his mistake, as he saw that that annoying smirk had crept back onto the boy’s lips.

Too late, he saw the twin swords fling up from behind his opponents back, rushing towards his face. Raiel felt the instinctive rush of energy flowing through his body, his panicking mind having made decisions before he himself had a chance to think it through.

Raiel planted a foot in the flat grass beneath and kicked himself backwards with all his strength. Despite having thrown his head back, the tip of one blade still managed to cut a shallow gash in his cheek, reminding him that the practice swords, despite being wooden, could still deliver a real punch.

As he fell backwards by the momentum of his own kick, he did the only thing with the sword he could think of. He threw it.

Almost in a kind of slow motion, the dull weapon spun through the air and connected with the bridge of the lanky boy’s nose with a hollow, toe curling crack.

Raiel’s opponent let out a shrill scream, his palm flying up to cover the injured nose, tears forcing themselves from his eyes. Sitting on his ass, Raiel observed blood seeping out between the boy’s fingers.

That had been… effective.

“What the fuck?” the bleeding boy yelled in rage.

“What?” Raiel asked, unable to grasp the problem. He had won the match, right? Why was his opponent the only one to whine about it?

“You can’t just throw your weapon like that, you idiot!” the boy retorted furiously while he tried to keep the blood inside his body by sniffing vigorously.

“Why not?”

“It’s against the rules!”

Instead of answering, Raiel looked to the instructor, who was doing her best to keep her laughter in check and failing miserably. He shot her a questioning look as she snorted mirthfully at the sight of the abashed boy with the bloody nose.

“He cheated, right?”

She quickly regained her former demeanor and looked the lanky kid straight in the eyes, her eyebrows raised.

“If this had been a real fight, against a real person, who really would kill you given the chance, would you still think it unfair to take actions such as that. If he had missed, would you not have seized the chance to finish the match now that he had been disarmed?”

The boy said nothing, his hand still covering his nose as his eyes seemed to show that he understood her point, but did not want to accept it.

“From now on, tactics such as throwing weapons or other such actions will not be allowed. This is, after all, a class in combat. Perhaps later, we can delve into desperate moves like disarming yourself in the middle of battle.” she said, shooting Raiel a pointed look, to which he tried to respond with an appropriately sheepish look, “This time, however, was a good lesson to everyone here, that a real enemy does not always fight and move as predictably as we would like them to.”

Raiel felt many eyes rest on him, and he silently cursed himself for getting himself into this situation, in which he was most certainly being noticed. The instructor walked up to him.

“Very creative and surprising.” she said, a smile crossing her face, “But, don’t do it again.”

Raiel could only nod his agreement as the woman stood back up straight. As she walked away, the presence from the woman, that Raiel had felt shrunk until it was no longer there. It was not like the aura Tali exuded, but rather something else. With his sensitivity to those mysterious energies, Raiel could tell, that the pressure he felt from the instructor was not a product of her abilities with infusion, but something he wasn’t confident he could identify. He did, however, know that it made his spine tingle and his blood run a little colder.

She left him wondering in the middle of the field, until someone yelled for him to get the hell off, so the next matches could begin.

He went to queue up in the back of the line, like the others had done. Judging by the reactions around him, no one seemed to really care about his fight. That in turn meant, that the others, in all likelihood, had not noticed his accidental infusion in his reaction to the surprise attack.

He breathed a sigh of relief, that his guise as a somewhat normal and harmless teenager was still unaffected and intact.

He returned his attention to the battlefield, where he would seek experience in human fighting styles and tactics. The advantages the sword brought to a fight were quite evident to him, and the dismissive opinion that had previously dominated his view of such handheld weapons had definitely changed. If that lanky boy had been more skilled, a Raiel with no active infusion running through his body would have stood no chance against the positive whirlwind of strikes those two sticks could potentially unlock.

That inevitably lead to the dreadful thought of Tali and her doubtlessly formidable strength when she wielded that terrifying spear she carried around with her.

Raiel promised himself to be more careful when it came to those subconscious bursts of infusion, and mentally prepared for the ordeal it would be to start combat training from scratch.