by Meagan Hurst
“You collect the oddest of things,” the Nialtian remarked in an absentminded tone as he turned another page. “But, as most of it is fascinating, I have decided to spend the time to investigate some of your more readable material.”
“Readable?”
“It’s in a language I know,” Sabaias drawled as he once again turned a page. He glanced up at her with his red eyes dancing. “You’re in a surprisingly better mood. I take it the Dragon managed to convince you to go out?”
It occurred to her then that between the heirs, the Dragon, the Shades, and the Rangers, she could pretty much kiss any privacy in her life goodbye. For some reason she had become the source of constant entertainment for the immortals, and she doubted that would fade soon; if she was lucky it would fade within the next millennium. Until it did, she could pretty much depend on everyone knowing what was going on in her life despite the supposed lack of communication between races.
“I am. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Have fun,” the Nialtian said in a human sounding way.
“Always do,” was her reply. She headed out before he could ask her anything about the book he was reading—which was a work she considered to be a reference and nothing more—because she was certain he would have questions. Sabaias was like Shevieck in that way; he always had questions.
Slipping out into the dark of the night, Z greeted the Rangers by name as she passed them, and found the hostility from the council gathering had already evaporated. Relief touched her, and she paused in her stroll to engage with her people. It had been years since she had. She wasn’t big into small talk—working with immortals had an effect on that—but she had gotten into the habit of accepting it and playing the game as best she could.
About an hour later, Z excused herself from the crowd and continued her walk toward the practice courts. Upon arriving, she glanced up at the moon and smiled. She still had about three hours before she had to be back to gather the others. Picking the outer practice court, she began the complicated set up of the training course she intended to use.
"Need a partner?” Ryedrin drawled from the edge of her court. “You look like you could at least use a second pair of hands setting up.”
Z glanced over at her former student and sighed. “I could use a partner who knows how to occasionally hold his sword correctly.” She waited to see if the immature remarks he tended to direct at her would surface, but instead Ryedrin adjusted his assortment of weapons and grabbed one of the bags she had brought from the main storage area.
“Are you going to do this again?” Ryedrin demanded with a hint of disgust in his tone. He had picked up a roll of heavy, three inch wire that she had gathered to train with and began to unwind it. “Haven’t you grown out of this habit yet?”
“It’s useful, and you have to admit it did wonders for your balance.”
“Zimliya, I couldn’t even stay on that thing for three steps in the beginning.”
“You were able to stay on it by the end of your training.”
“Until you started attacking me while I was on it!”
“There isn’t much point to the exercise if you can’t handle your balance while under attack.” Z took the wire from his hands and snorted as she eyed it. It was in good enough condition for her purposes, but she reinforced it with magic out of habit and to ensure it would stay safe. Unrolling and then cutting a hundred and ten foot long piece, she let the wire fall to the ground and headed over to her pile of weapons.
Picking up the bow and a specially designed arrow she gathered and then wrapped one end of the wire around it—spelling it to both strengthen it and keep it in place— before she glanced up at one of the tall, single poles with platforms that lined the arenas. She raised the bow, and in one smooth motion she fired and watched as the arrow lodged itself in the wood of the pole about twenty feet from the ground, just under the platform. Grabbing a second arrow she wrapped the other end of the wire around it, then magicked it, before spinning on the spot and firing it in another singular motion.
That arrow flew true as well. Once again it landed just under the platform, but this time it was the final piece to the puzzle; the wire was stretched taunt between the poles and Z smiled as she glanced at Ryedrin. “Still wanting to spar, O student of mine?” she teased as she grabbed a set of practice daggers and moved to the first pole that contained an arrow. “I reinforced both the wire and the arrows; the weight won’t affect them.”
“I distinctly remember telling you I would never undergo this sort of exercise again once I was an official Warrior,” Ryedrin sighed as he nevertheless took his position at the other pole. “I would like to survive to see thirty, if at all possible.”
“Then you shouldn’t have become a Ranger—especially not one of our Warriors.” Z tossed him an easy smile before grabbing one dagger in each hand and beginning to climb the pole. As this was a practice court that saw a lot of use, the poles were not as smooth as she would have preferred, but it added to the challenge; a knife could slip out due to a previous mark left behind. If she was lazy or careless, she would fall.
“I was fourteen at the time. I had no idea what you guys considered to be ‘training,’” Ryedrin countered. He began cursing a moment later and Z glanced over at him and bit back a laugh; he hadn’t considered weakened strikes from his daggers.
“Don’t forget these are training arenas—pay attention to what you’re doing. Be grateful you found out before you got up too high.”
“And you wonder why you have never been granted a second student,” Ryedrin huffed as he made his second attempt up to the arrow.
Z watched his progress critically from her arrow and turned around while balancing on it with ease. “Fifteen,” she called out.
“Fifteen?”
“Students the Council has asked me to consider. If you include the requests I have had in passing from parents, relatives, or the hopefully, ignorant student, that number jumps up to fifty-eight.”
“Fifty-eight people wanted to work with you?” Ryedrin asked in astonishment as he sat on the arrow with care. He was panting and sent her a dirty look. “Well, I could see that, but why haven’t you taken on another student then?”
“One was more than enough for me,” she admitted. “Why haven’t you taken on a student yet?”
“Ah, well I am not a master,” Ryedrin teased as he shot her a smile and stood up. He eyed the thin stretch of wire before him and groaned. “Remind me why I was stupid enough to agree to this again?” he demanded from her.
“You act like this is going to kill you. If you cannot survive a drop of this magnitude, then you shouldn’t be a Ranger. It’s harmless. Come on out, Ryedrin.”
When he didn’t move, she chuckled and stepped out onto the wire. It gave a little from her weight, but it was solid, and it moved in a rhythm she knew well. “I’m waiting,” she called.
“I am not coming out—attempting to come out,” Ryedrin amended, “until you provide something softer to land on.”
“Sand is softer than marble.”
“Not that much softer.”
Chuckling again, Z inclined her head and moved another five steps forward as the ground beneath the wire began to grow grass at an incredible rate. “Better?”
“You are such a bitch when you choose to be. Yes, though, it is a lot better.”
She waited for Ryedrin to inch his way away from the pole. It took him a while. Sighing as she stared at her former student, she waved him forward with her right hand despite the fact she was still holding a dagger at the ready. “If you’re going to keep me waiting I might as well train alone.”
“It’s been years since we’ve worked together and forgive me if I don’t train twenty feet above ground on a thin stretched piece of wire that is spread between two poles and is one hundred feet in length. Not to mention I am not an immortal.”
“I’ve been using this training method since I was fourteen.”
“Which is a
fter you started hanging out with immortals—I still consider that to be a point.”
“I don’t,” a third voice chimed in. Z smiled and glanced over her shoulder as Qualaris made his way in. His movements were the same swift movements she remembered and her eyes narrowed.
“You were faking your age earlier,” she accused.
“It is one of the advantages of being old,” he replied with a sharp smile. “Something you will never have to worry about.” He glanced up at them both and then focused on Ryedrin. “If you would stop complaining, she would probably let you off easy. The more you complain, the longer she will torture you before knocking you off the wire.”
“You approve of this?” Ryedrin demanded to know. His tone was incredulous, but Z could tell he wasn’t sure what to think about Qualaris’s willingness to fight and what it said about him.
“Who do you think was up on that line with her as she began to work out the kinks and increase her balance?” Qualaris wanted to know. “I may be old, Ryedrin, but only a fool lets him or herself get out of shape. You never know when we may need all Rangers—those untrained and those retired—to fight alongside those who are active Warriors.”
Ryedrin stared at the ancient Ranger for a moment and then sighed. “No wonder the older generation had such a short lifespan,” he muttered as he inched forward.
“Are you recalling that during that generation we were in hiding and reduced to fighting off bandits and Midestol’s forces without proper equipment because we couldn’t risk being revealed? Or are you implying our training methods were improper? You seem to have survived quite well under the training your received, and you’ve been through a lot more than I ever have. I believe your training was very, very thorough.”
“Not thorough enough,” Z sighed. “He is still soft when it comes to training.”
“You are such a bully,” Ryedrin complained, but he moved toward her with some speed and Z smiled as she stepped forward to parry his strike.
Taking it easy on him the first time, she let him keep his balance for twenty minutes before stepping forward quickly, dropping, catching herself on the wire, and flipping herself up behind him. The loss of her weight followed by its rapid return caused Ryedrin to lose his balance. He clearly had not remembered to compensate for the loss and gain of weight on an uneven surface; she’d have to work on that. If he kept that up, he would get killed and it would be a bad mark against her.
“The grass is not soft enough!” Ryedrin called from the ground as he emerged from grass that was just under five feet in height.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Z called down to him. “Are you coming back up or do I have to ask a ninety-two year old retired Warrior to join me in the heights.”
“If you knock him off like you did me you will kill him.”
“At my age that would be a kindness,” Qualaris observed as he smiled up at her. “You have an extra set of daggers, my dear?”
“Over on the ground where the rest of my stuff is,” Z assured him.
“Now I know where she got her crazy,” Ryedrin muttered as Qualaris grabbed a couple of daggers and began to climb the pole to her makeshift platform.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Qualaris replied with a shrug as he tested his balance. “Nice shot by the way, Zimliya. It’s four inches pass the head.”
“I would like to avoid being in the middle of a solid training session only to have the wire collapse,” Z pointed out as stayed where she was with ease.
“Seems like something to be preferred, yes,” Qualaris agreed before he watched her in silence for a moment. He waited as well as she did, but he also knew she would wait for days, so he moved first.
And fast. She smiled at his speed because it was so him; older or not he stayed in form, and he had the confidence to attack her in full. Bringing her daggers up to parry his movements she still pulled her strength even more than normal due to his age and her increased strength. He was as good as she remembered, and Z couldn’t help but fall into her old training routine. Fifty minutes later, though, she could tell Qualaris was losing his stamina and she broke through his defenses. Placing her left dagger at his throat she held her right at his heart and watched as he chuckled and let his hands fall to his sides.
“Haven’t lost your touch, have you?” Qualaris remarked in wonder. He was just a little out of breath, but he was drenched in sweat and Z was worried for him. She couldn’t handle losing one of her first teachers on top of losing her Guardian.
“Neither have you, and that’s more impressive, given your age,” she teased with a sharp smile.
“The older you get the more dangerous you become—ever seen what shaky hands can do when they know what they’re doing?”
“Your hands don’t shake,” Z countered as she offered him a hand.
“And I keep forgetting your tongue can be sharper than your steel weapons.” Qualaris glanced at her before smiling and leaping off the wire while Ryedrin let out a cry of alarm.
Z snorted and adjusted her position on the wire as Qualaris landed with ease on the ground below her. She glanced over at Ryedrin. “You coming back up?”
“Can’t we just have a normal training session? And don’t you want a break?”
She rolled her eyes. “Breaks are for the dead. If this was a war—”
“We would not be balancing on narrow strings of wire,” Ryedrin refuted. He sighed and glanced at the daggers he had sheathed while she had been battling Qualaris. “I cannot believe I am once again allowing you to torture me, but I am not about to let myself be proven weaker than a ninety-two year old retired Warrior.”
His climb this time was much smoother and quicker, but he was trying to prove himself to her, so he didn’t have the time to dwell on what he was doing. It had been an active way to train him when he had been a student; his ego often overrode his caution. Smiling as he reached her level, she began to talk to get him to continue to act without thinking about his actions too far ahead of time. She wanted him to think, but not to let fear override his movements.
He lasted an hour this time. The only reason she ended the fight was because Ryedrin was also out of shape, in her mind, and she didn’t want to inflict anything more than just a few bruises. At this point she recalled why she had taken him on as her only student, and she was more than a little tempted to have him join her when she moved to take back the Ryelentions’ lands—if he could hold his tongue around the immortals. Actually, she did have the option of gagging him. That thought had more than a little appeal, so she ended her match with him by a strike to his windpipe with the flat of her hand; hard enough to prevent him from complaining, but lightly enough to cause no permanent damage.
“I’ll meet you on the ground,” she told him cheerfully as she took the easy way down. Her landing felt a little off, but when she tested her right ankle, she found it was sound enough to bear her weight. As she knew she had landed properly, she assumed she had injured the ankle earlier and just not noticed the injury.
There was a loud thunk and then a groan from behind her. “Have you also forgotten how to land properly? Honestly, Ryedrin, what in the worlds have you been doing to keep up your training?” she asked as she glanced over at him. “Even Qualaris managed to make your attempt to come down look like weight falling from the sky.”
“Thank you for being such an inspiring and uplifting teacher,” Ryedrin grumbled as he limped into the clearing. “If we trained on the ground—like normal people—I wouldn’t be so far beneath your expectations, which are still unachievable for the average human being.”
“I managed.”
“And you are now the definition of normal? Well, then, none of us have any hope.”
Qualaris chuckled. “He’s got you there, Zimliya,” he told her when she glared at him.
“Then you two spar—I’ll be the critic,” she told them as she walked over to the pole she had so recently climbed and used her magic to call the arrows and the wire down
. “Unless you mind being critiqued by me, Qualaris?”
“Not at all my dear,” he assured her before glancing at Ryedrin. “How about it?”
“I feel like I got hit by a Dragon, twice. I’ll pass.”
“I’d recommend eight training sessions if you were still my student,” Z informed him with a scowl. “But since you’re not, I have no authority to demand you to see to your training. I will, however, tell you that if you do get yourself somewhat back into shape, I’d like to commission your services for the upcoming war.”
“Which one are you starting this time?”
“I never start wars, Ryedrin!”
“I can name seven, without even thinking on it.”
“I believe the term is ‘assist,’ Ryedrin,” Qualaris argued.
Z continued to clean up the practice court and leave the two to their bickering. She had learned long ago that it was best to let the Rangers argue with each other. When they finished, she would come back to the conversation and counter whatever they had agreed upon. It kept things interesting. A thought sent the grass back to where she had called it from, and she worked on smoothing out the court of all the footprints and scuff marks that had been left despite the fact most of the fighting had taken place in the air. Finishing up right as the argument began to slow down Z glanced passed both Rangers as a presence made itself known on the edge of her senses.
“Did you decide I was not to be trusted alone?” she asked the Dragon as he appeared with Sabaias in tow and Ashenira in his arms.
“No, but we have to leave soon and when you’re focused you forget things like time. I took the liberty of bringing you fresh clothing.” Nivaradros glanced at Qualaris and nodded once to him before raising a brow at Ryedrin. “Flying lesson gone bad?” he asked her as he glanced at the grass and dirt covered clothing her former student was sporting.
“Landing issues,” Z corrected. “We weren’t attempting any kind of flight.”
She moved to grab the bags of supplies, but Sabaias beat her to them and lifted both of them with ease. “I’ve got these,” he assured her before frowning at the other Rangers. “If either of you are coming, you should likewise consider changing your clothing.”