Chapter 82 – differing perspectives (Patreon)

She woke the following morning to the prodding of Losq’s foot. “You’re missing breakfast.” Was all he had to say to dissolve the final few threads of sleep that lingered over her mind. Unfortunately, the images of pastries the idea of breakfast had come to conjure for her during her time in Whatzakt, also dissolved away as she remembered that she was back home.

She ended up adding a touch of her spicy oil to the undersized portion of steamed fish that made up their morning meal to liven the flavour a little. There wasn’t anything she could really do about the moss though.

If it wasn’t bad enough that it’s bland, now there’s even less of it than before I left…

It took her a lot longer than it should have to re-don her leathers in preparation for her day with Elder Blonc, and she was certain that she’d made at least a few mistakes in doing so, even after going over it several times to check.

She left for the training grounds when it became a choice between being late or giving up looking for mistakes, accompanied by Plk who was heading to the mages side of the space. Her brother continued to ask questions now that he didn’t have to compete with the rest of the clutch for her attention.

He was both curious and incredibly amused that his smallest sibling was going to be training with the warriors. If anyone looked at the bunch of them and needed to pick out the fighters amongst the clutch, he was certain that she’d be firmly the last one anyone would suspect. Of course, the rest of the clutch knew better. No one wrestled with Kori. She cheated. The tip of Qot’s tail never did grow back right after she’d bit it when they were younger.

He’d been on the other side of the cavern from the warriors for the last year while he was training, so had seen many different ways they trained off in the distance. Weapons, armour, one on one or group sparring, even how to treat wounds and the basics of field healing. That final one finally peaked Kori’s interest.

“Wait, they teach the apprentices how to heal?”

“Yeah, though just things like wrapping bandages and a lot of things not to do.” He grinned as he said the last part. “Their lesson on the things not to do when trying to keep your squadmate from bleeding to death was a lot longer than the one we got. They didn’t need to spend nearly as much time telling us not to wash a wound out with dirty water or that the torniquet went above the wound, not directly on top of it.”

“But… that’s… how…” Kori stuttered, unsure if she should be insulted that they trained them like they had rocks in their heads or outraged that she was now, sort of, one of them.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll go slow enough for you to understand.”

Either his comment or the large toothsome grin he bore, or both, probably both, earned him a smack on the shoulder. And though her might was ‘pitiful’ by the standards of some, it was still enough to send her magic weilder sibling stumbling into the wall of the tunnel they were in.

Her outrage at the teasing boiled over as she started in on him. “I don’t need lessons from them if they’re doing it like that!” She retorted. “I saved a trader’s life when we were attacked, you know? Had to help keep his insides, well, inside, while my salve and suspensions did their work.” She shuddered at the image her words had recalled, kneeled next to Aef with her hands covered in his blood, unsure if he would live or die.

The heat in her voice was gone when she spoke again. “Maybe I do need to learn how to treat the wounded better though…” There was an awkward silence while they continued onward, they were nearly at the great hall and their destination was just a short ways from there.

Interrupting the pause, Plk redirected the conversation to end the silence between them. “So, is Blonc going to train you or hand you off to one of the drill masters like the rest of the apprentices?”

Kori paused and tilted her head a bit as she thought, stopping in the middle of the tunnel to the consternation of others heading to their own duties. “I’m… not sure?” She answered, “He taught me last night with the armour,” pointing down to her patchwork leathers, “but I don’t know if that was just because it was late in the day or if he’s going to do it himself…” Her voice trailed off, now uncertain of what was to come next for her.

Not wanting to linger in the hallways, Plk pulled her along to resume their walk. “Well, no use wondering when we can just get there and find out, is there?”

That was all it took to get her moving and redirect her pondering back to where it had been since before she even went to sleep the night before, the ‘what’ of what she would be doing today mattered much more than the who she’d be doing it with.

Of course, Plk wasn’t just going to let the matter of his sister claiming to have saved one of the trader’s lives go. But after the look on her face he’d at least wait until they were back in the brood chamber that evening to broach the subject again.

They arrived at the training grounds around the same time she’d always gotten there during her six months training with the mages. And by the look she received from the impatiently waiting Elder standing a dozen meters from the entrance scowling at her, she was certain that was a mistake.

“You’re late.” He gave her leather jerkin a look over. “And the buckle on the left is out of place and too loose, if you wear it like that with all the running you’re about to be doing you’ll end up with a sore before the days even half over.”

Out of all the options she’d come up with involving getting smacked with training spears or forced to take off and put back on the leathers for hours again, running had definitely not been what she thought her day would consist of.

“Running?” She asked cautiously, trying to gloss over the mistake in the armour.

“Did I mumble, Apprentice?” Blonc’s tone was not one she’d heard him use before, she’d heard him angry, happy, annoyed, and even drunk, but this wasn’t any of those. He’d taken on an air of command, a bearing that made it clear he thought, correctly so given the circumstances, that he was in charge.

Kori was taken aback by the shift from the Elder, her reply coming out as more of a squeak than she had intended. “Uhh… no?”

“Then fix that armour and get moving. Ten laps, around the far pillar and back around the one here.” He ordered.

Kori gawked at the far pillar, it was at least two hundred meters away, maybe as far as three hundred, and he’d just told her to run it ten times.

His scowl just deepened as the youngling hesitated. “Now, Apprentice.” His tone making it clear that this wasn’t up for conversation.

Somewhere in all of this, Plk had apparently slipped away. Kori hadn’t noticed when he’d gone, just that when she’d looked to where he had been for support, she found that she was by herself. She quickly adjusted the offending strap, noting that, as Blonc had determined with just a glance, the way she’d had it the edge of the buckle would have rubbed against her scales.

Once she had the issue corrected, she took off in the direction that he’d instructed, only to be surprised when Blonc himself began running alongside her. Though to call the barely brisk walk he was maintaining to keep pace a run would be a bit of an exaggeration.

“Is this all you’ve got, Apprentice?” He said mockingly, “I’ve seen Matron Kles run faster.” That wasn’t even an exaggeration, he had. He didn’t bother to mention that it was a few decades ago while she chased a rather rambunctious hatchling that was trying to escape a morning lesson. And definitely not that said hatchling had been Blonc himself.

The comments kept coming as they ran, pushing her to go a little faster, telling her to straighten her posture, berating her for making “more noise than a herd of blind badgers”, and various other comments she wasn’t sure if they were intended as motivation or if he was simply in a bad mood. About halfway through her ten laps when she was already breathing hard was when the comment that nearly sent her tumbling head over heels came though.

“If you’re this bad now, how are you going to handle it when training begins.”

She skidded to a halt, at least briefly until she was met with a “Keep it moving, cave-snail” and brought it back to a jog.

“What do… you mean…” she eked out between breaths, “When training… starts?” She really did trip that time, having turned her head to look at Blonc instead of where she’d been going.

He spoke while he reached down to help her back up, no sign that he’d even begun exerting himself “Exactly what I said. You didn’t think we’d started already, did you?” His grin was downright malicious. “This is your punishment for being late, I’m going easy on you this time but it won’t happen again.”

How was this going easy? I’ve already run at least two kilometers and I’m not even done my fifth lap…

As his grin widened even further, Kori had the odd feeling that he knew exactly what she had been thinking.

“Better pick up the pace youngling, you’re already an hour behind and I’m not letting go of ya until we’ve had our full day of training.”

Just like the night before, Blonc was a kobold of his word. Once she’d finally managed to complete the laps that he had begun referring to as their “warm-up”, things got much worse. Though the first part at least let her recuperate a bit.

It began with weapon selection; this was usually a week-long process for the new apprentices. They’d take a few hours each day getting the feel for a weapon and then move on to the next. Kori’s introduction to the preferred armaments of the Emberscale clan was neither a week long nor contained the breadth of options they had gotten.

It began with them walking along a line of practice weapons and to a repeated chorus of “No’s” from the Elder. A sword took too long to train, a mace more upper body strength than she’d ever have, even the staff, a weapon she already had the mastery Skill for was dismissed over her objection. Staves were awkward to carry around in the tunnels and if she didn’t plan on using it as a rune inscribed focus like the mages eventually did then there really wasn’t any point in it.

It was Kori’s suggestion that drew their search to a close, she’d remembered that Imelda had mentioned she should pick up a knives Skill as it made preparing herbs easier. Though her recommendation had been one related to cooking. In fact, she was fairly certain that the herbalist had specifically said that the combat knives, but not daggers, Skill would work, but that it was harder to adapt to her needs.

“What about knives?” She asked, getting a thoughtful look in return while she waited for a reply.

He nodded approvingly before finally giving her an answer. “Dagger mastery could work for you; you’re not going to be in the thick of it but it’d be something easy to keep on hand if you’re in a pinch.” He gave her an appraising look up and down, one she was beginning to get very familiar with and that she knew usually preceded a snarky comment about her size.

To her surprise, Blonc continued in the same tone like he was solving a puzzle. “Doesn’t rely much on Might either, more on Finesse, so it’ll help you train up that too.”

“Um, Elder?” Kori spoke softly as she interrupted his considerations. “Not daggers, knives.”

He almost immediately waved her concern off. “Daggers are better, the point is centered and they’re balanced for thrusting as well as slashing. Knives are tools, they’re only sharp on one side and the balance is all wrong. Sure, they work, but why use the lesser option when you can use a dagger?”

She couldn’t really refute his point, as far as someone only planning on using it for fighting, it probably was the better option. For someone like her who intended their knives to be stained with the remains of chopped plants rather than creatures though, the knife was a far superior choice.

Now she just had to convince him of it. “Well… my work includes cutting up lots of stuff, and like you said I won’t be in the thick of things, so if I can train one skill that works to defend myself and to create with, then that’s the better one, isn’t it?”

Though he could see her logic, Blonc wasn’t one to give up his position so easily. “Then take daggers and use that for your salves and whatnot.”

The conversation went back and forth like that for some time, Kori insisting that she couldn’t use daggers for various reasons, like sometimes needing to put force on the back of the blade when cutting hard roots, or not being able to get as clean a cut because the shape of the blade wasn’t really meant for doing things neatly or tidily.

Blonc responded with workarounds, alternatives and even suggested a few less common forms of daggers that she could use for one purpose or the other. And that was when he finally gave her the upper hand.

She tried to keep the smug tone out of her voice; she didn’t want him to be stubborn and dig in his heels. Which was not at all what she herself was doing. “So, you’re saying I should get a different blade for chopping herbs, something slim and flexible, another for harder materials, which I’d need to keep one side blunted so I could apply pressure, another, with serrations, for things I can’t risk crushing, and then yet another if I ever need to fight with it?” While she was fairly certain her point had been made, her final remark was probably the only argument she had needed to make. “Plus, I’m pretty sure Har already purchased a decent set of knives for the workroom…”

He was just about to retort, perhaps to agree, but probably to refute her assertion that too many weapons was ever a bad thing, when she made her final comment. “I… suppose if he’s already bought them…” It almost sounded like the intimidating warrior was pouting, but that was definitely something Kori would never point out to anyone.