Chapter Twenty One: Sparring I

It was a little bit over a half hour after the bandit camp raid, despite the fact we really didn’t do any raiding, and we had moved into the bandit’s camp.

It hadn’t taken long to move into the camp, especially with Julian obliterating everything within a mile radius if it got in the way. We were all tired by the time we got into the camp, especially me since dragging a one-ton wagon over dozens of miles will tend to wear you out, but the guys, opposite of my thoughts, then started to disassemble the camp and look around for stuff, and by that I meant George, then Damon as Julian said to go with him and help, Julian hung back with me.

It wasn’t that boring though waiting for them though, I got to rest and relax for a moment and taking my time eating my weight in rations; Julian probably did some reading. And couple stragglers came back, but Julian and I made very, very short work of them. It’s very easy to get rid of the bodies when your ally can burn them to ash and scatter them to the winds or have the earth open up to swallow them. Sure it may not be that great cost wise, but cost be damned that was fun to watch.

There are probably more bandits out there in these woods, but why go after them? We already have their camp, their leaders dead, most of them are dead, and those that are left are in such a minority it would be a bitch to track down and kill, especially since their skill and strength didn’t impress me at all. So, I stayed in the camp and kept relaxing. If they’re smart they’ll move on, if they’re dumb they’ll, hopefully, get killed.

Damon and George would come back every so often with arms full of loot and stuff. They’d put them in some of the empty crates in the back of the wagon, and then go back and do some more looting.

It only stopped when George came back with his smile gone, his cheerful face now blank with only a look of utter disgust in his eyes and his arms empty, even Damon looked a little shaken and off-kilter.

He walked up to Julian and said in the calmest, but most commanding voice I’d ever heard from him. “Burn it, burn it all to the ground.” There was no room for refusal in his tone.

It sent a little chill up my spine from the sudden change in character from George.

Julian looked at George with his half-lidded eyes and stared at him for a moment, then nodded. He beckoned George away and lifted his hand up, for a moment there was nothing then a ball of white fire surged up from his hand forming a great sphere of blinding white flames. Julian stared at his creations for a moment as if inspecting it, unbothered by the unnatural heat in his hand, then nodded again. The ball sped from his hand and then the camp was gone replaced by a flickering bonfire of magefire.

Julian had already returned to reading, Damon by his side his face a mask, and George stood watching the oddly controlled flames that only burned the camp, but left the walls untouched. His face stony and cold with the shadows of the burning fire dancing over his face creepily.

I choose to say nothing, partly not wanting to bother someone so close to snapping like George was about to, make no mistake I like fighting I don’t like hurting my ally's without reason, and maybe because I didn’t want to know what had caused this change in face with him.

So I did what I all ways do when something bothers me, I go to sleep. I went up into the wagon and grabbed Mud, who whined and snarled a bit before noticing that it was me, my sleeping mat and went to sleep. The last thing I remember before going to sleep is George saying something to Julian and him agreeing, but I didn’t care enough to listen to the crackling of the flames dragging me to sleep.

______________________________________________________________________

Waking up this morning I felt refreshed and whole; I had managed to sleep the whole night without problem and Mud hadn’t had any accidents.

Getting up I stretched and warmed my body in the early morning sun. Mud woke up with me, the mutt also did some stretching and warming his body too, almost like mimicking me.

Feeling awake now my stomach also woke up. So I turned my attention to the wagon.

Fishing around in some bags I grab some jerky, dried cheese and fruit. I heard a low whine from beside me and I looked down to see Mud had made his way onto the wagon. I couldn’t help but smile, so I toss a piece of cheese outside the wagon and watch him scramble after it while I sat down on the bed of the wagon and ate. When he came back he sits in front of me eating it and when he’s done he whines again, so I sigh and toss another piece a little farther this time.

I can’t help but smile when looking at Mud, the mutt was a far cry from when I first found him suckling on his dead mother, from a small, scrawny runt he’s a proud little wolfling mutt, and probably ten times his size and weight now. Whatever Carajou gave me it worked, I just hope Muds worth the effort to keep alive and the favors I owe that Sadist…

“Morning, Altas!” A cheerful voice rings out from beside me.

“Huh!?” I say in confusion and react throwing a hard piece of cheese in my hand, that was for Mud, at the source of the voice.

“You’re up-Ack!” The cheese hits George dead on in the forehead… and bounced off his face and he falls over with a thunk… Ooh, that gonna hurt when he wakes up. Mud then skips over and chases after the speeding piece of cheese.

I look to Mud for suggestions, but all he does is life his head from his trophy and look at me questioning and then go back to chewing his cheese as though bored with me. I sigh and go over to George.

I go over to George and check his pulse… It’s still steady and strong if a bit slower than it would be normally. He’s got a damn big lump forming on his forehead though. I lay him on the bed of the wagon, and go grab some medicine that’ll wake him up and speed up the recovery.

I check a couple bags then find it in the back.

I lift George’s head up and pour the medicine into his mouth and then put a canteen up to his mouth and pour.

He wakes up a moment later spurting and coughing.

He jumps back at my closeness twitchily.

“What just happened?” He says with a confused smile. Then his eyes zone in on the wrapper and canteen. “That required you to drug me awake?”

“You surprised me,” I say blandly.

“I surprised you?” His smile cramping. “You surprised me by knocking me out!” He says heatedly.

“Then you shouldn’t surprise me,” I say logically.

He opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it with a sigh. “Alright I’ll keep that in mind.” He then looks over at the crates. “Where's the food?”

____________________________________________________________________

“Argh!” George growls trying to tear into the jerky. “Come. On. You. Bastard!” George says.

This was the third thing he’s tried to eat after the hardtack and the hard taffy.

I didn’t say anything, I sat there smirking at him.

Then came a snap and Georges' head flew up with a piece of the jerky in his mouth.

He then spent the next five minutes chewing that piece and eating the rest of the jerky.

When he’s done he looked at me in horror. “I can’t believe you eat this all the time.”

“That why I told you, you should stick to the dried fruit.”

“Psst, a man needs meat in the morning.”

I nod. “Well that I can agree on,” I then saw he had another piece in his hands and a canteen. “Don’t worry it’ll get easier, and yes water does help.”

“‘Hank,” He says chewing on the jerky again.

Another five minutes later he was done.

“So where are Damon and Julian?” I ask, seeing as I didn’t see them sleeping in here… And in fact, George wasn’t asleep in here either.

“I imagine that Julian is still asleep in his house, and Damon is watching him.”

“House?”

George smirks at me. “Yeah, after you went to sleep Julian raised us up some shelter from the earth. He probably would have made you one if had asked.”

Curious, I left the wagon and saw that Julian had raised two houses less than a hundred feet away from the wagon out of the earth. Not very tall, one story at most, and not very pretty, just two half-spheres of plain grey stone sticking out of the ground, but they look sturdy.

A moment later Julian walked out of the left house with Damon walking behind him.

He came up to the wagon, and I held out a piece of hardtack and a canteen.

Damon ever vigilant yanked it out of his lord's hands before he could bite down on it, and looked at me angrily.

Julian looked at Damon and me, then shrugged, and gave Damon a look that pretty much said ‘Get me food or perish.’ Damon disappeared immediately.

Julian looked at me and mumbled quietly “G’mornin.” And summoned up a seat of earth from behind and table in front of him with a couple other seats and a canopy above the table.

I gave a nod and sat down, waiting to see what Damon would bring.

Noticing that I didn’t plan on talking, he gave a shrug and held out his hand and a book floated into it a moment later.

Damon came back soon with a steaming cup and a plate full of fresh fruit, a couple pieces of bread and some cuts of bacon and ham. He sat it down in a perfect form on his lord's earthen table. I almost started to drool looking at it. I look at Damon expectantly, he sneered and threw the hardtack at me. I caught in my teeth.

______________________________________________________________________

“What’s the plan today?” Julian asked finishing his plate.

“I want to get a good grasp on everyone’s abilities today, so let’s spar,” I said picking my teeth.

“I’ll pass, I’d rather keep my insides where they are,” George says nervously.

“I need to be in top form to protect my lord,” Damon said.

“Sure,” Julian said excitedly.

The other two looked at Julian with confusion.

“I need to practice my magic, annnd” He drawled. “We didn’t really get a conclusion from our first spar, did we?” A slight smile on his lips.

My grin felt like it was about to break my face.

I could practically feel George’s sigh, and Damons resignation, with how the rest of the day was about to go down.

______________________________________________________________________

An hour later, we had made some rules and a Julian had made a small ring for us to practice.

There are only two rules, if you get knocked out you lose and if you get knocked out of the ring you lose.

So there I stood on the south end of the ring facing Julian, the slender mage on the north end looking at me ready to take me down his magic rolling off in waves as he was preparing something big.

I don’t know if I’m going to win against him, but I’m not going to go down without a fight, and I’m going to have fun.

I let loose my Aura, blasting away the magic around me in a shimmering blast replacing it with a honey glow that then shrunk till it condensed around me almost in the shape of some wild mimicry of armor. But not quite, it was just barely taking shape.

Then we locked eyes, our different blues meeting each other. His icy blues meeting my dark blue-black. We smiled and it started.

He brought up one hand and kept the other behind his back. His one hand in front of him, his right, let lose a huge spring of fire that formed into a gigantic sphere that then exploded. Blinding light let loose, I covered my eyes and then it disappeared. I carefully lowered my arm in front of my eyes and saw what was left.

Shivers went down my spine at the two floating giants serpents made of flames. One wrapped around Julian protectively and the other was flying right at me.