by Sami Dougish
I picked myself off the ground, and moved towards scourge. This time though, instead of trying to mount him immediately, I patted his back, and moved my and up to scratch him behind his ears. When I reached a certain point on his head, he rumbled happily deep in his throat, and pushed his head further into my scratching fingers. Despite being thrown around for the past hour or so, I smiled in amusement at his obvious display of pleasure.
While still scratching his head, I lead forward, and whispered into his ear, “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to treat you as an obedient mount, I know you are a proudful predator, and I should have taken that into account. I would be honored however, if you allowed me to ride atop your back. Could you do that for me?”
I don’t know how, but Scourge seemed to be able to understand me to a degree, and he opened his eyes, and looked at me. I met his gaze as I kept scratching, and a few long moments later, He dipped his head slightly, and I smiled in response, and moved back around to the stir up, I reached up, and grabbed the pummel on the saddle, and prepared to pull myself up. I took a deep breath, and gritted my teeth, as I pulled myself up. I hoped that I had read him right, and that he wouldn’t throw me off again.
I smiled broadly though, as he held himself still, and I now fond myself sting astride his back. I took a second to let out the breath I had been holding, before I leaned forward in the saddle, and reached out to pat the side of scourges neck.
“Thank you, boy, you do me a great honor to allow me to sit here.”
Scourge shook his head, as if to say he agreed, and I chuckled as I sat back up in the saddle. Well that was complete, I realized I had no idea how to urge him forward. I had seen many others ride horses but I hadn’t ridden any animal in my lifetime. I Had seen men astride horseback, using reins to guide their mounts, but this saddle hadn’t come with such, and I didn’t think scourge would appreciate such a device if I had a set anyways.
I experimentally applied pressure with my thighs, but nothing happened besides Scourge turning his head questioningly at me. I tried throwing my weight forward, but once again that didn’t accomplish anything. I tried lightly taping his torso with my heels, and received a light slap from his tail in response.
“Damn, how to I make you move forward bo-“
My words were cut short, as right after I said forward, Scourge began to pace forward. It wasn’t overly fast, but the sudden movement shocked me, and I had to quickly grip the saddle pummel to steady myself.
“Hm interesting vessel, perhaps the beast actually can understand you to a degree, maybe it has something to do with your reptilian nature, paired with our souls being tied. Dragons can communicate to almost any animal at a base level, but we shared a far deeper connection with any other reptilian creatures. I can see this being extremely advantageous as time goes on.”
I didn’t really pay much attention to what he was saying, as I was too focused on the moving spiteclaw below me. Curious to experiment, I whispered, just loud enough for Scourge to hear, “Take us around the enclosure.”
Just as I had told him, Scourge walked at a leisurely pace around the paddock. As he did so, I noticed that most of the stable’s hands, had come over to watch, and were pointing excitedly at us, as we moved around the enclosure.
Scourge moved with a graceful gait, his opposite leg moving along with his corresponding front paw, and I could feel his shoulders rise and fall under the saddle as we moved. This wasn’t hard at all, and I was curious to see how it felt when he sped up.
“Faster boy!”
I was expecting a gradual increase in speed similar to that of a horse, but I should have known better seeing how fast he had been in our fight. The moment I said faster, He sprung forward in a leap, and I felt all his feet leave the ground as we moved through the air. Not having expected the sudden leap, I tumbled off the back of the saddle, and landed painfully on my back.
“Ow!” was the only painful noise I made as I laid on the ground. My mood wasn’t improved by Raskorian’s thoroughly amused voice in my head laughing.
“Oh, very good Vessel! I have never seen such an impressive dismount before. Did you plan that, or was that just sheer instinct?”
My only response was an angry growl, which only caused the asshole to laugh harder. I picked myself back up off the ground, and looked over to where Scourge was looking over at me, with if I had to guess was a look of amusement. I had no idea how the spiteclaw managed to convey that with his hybrid features, but somehow, he managed it.
Muttering to myself I made my way back over to where Scourge was waiting for me, and said, “Ok boy, let’s try this again.”
The next six or so hours were spent with me, getting used to the agile movements of the spiteclaw. In the end while I wasn’t what you would call a competent rider by any means, seeing as there was no subject matter expect on spiteclaw riding present, I would take the strides I had made in riding him. His walking gait was easy, and comfortable, in fact it required basically zero effort to stay on his back during that pace. Whenever he sped up though, he would take a bounding leap, and run for the short distance allowed by the enclosure. I had fallen a good number of times trying to get used to that speed, but after a lot of hard work, numerous bruises, and a sore backside, I was now able to stay astride his back at his increased pace without having to use the leg straps.
Throughout it all, Scourge had shown an intelligence I hadn’t thought possible, as he seemed to understand everything, I said to him, and followed my directions flawlessly. While I enjoyed being able to direct him verbally, I had tried getting him to associate certain pressure’s I applied with my thighs to different actions. While he wasn’t still perfect at knowing what I wanted by my leg movement’s, he was far better than he had been when we first started.
When I finally called it for the day, I was exhausted, and despite having planned to leave today, I would have to push it back a couple of days. I had spent most of the day here, and would probably need a day or two more to continue Practicing with Scourge and I still wanted to get new weapons, and my coin before I left.
As I made my way out of the enclosure after saying goodbye to scourge, the stable hands had wanted to drag him back into his pen. I…Persuaded them to leave him to roam in the chained enclosure for now instead. I smirked as I thought about their reactions when I had done that.
At some point one of the stable hands must have told Orizmad that I had been training with Scourge, as he had joined the other people watching me and Scourge try and work together. He marched over to me beaming with a broad smile as he said, “Well shave my beard, and call me an elf, you actually managed it!”
My only response was a glare, and one phrase, “I want the coin.”
Orizmad didn’t even seem bothered by my response, and just said, “Of course you do, you grumpy bastard. One second”.
He must have anticipated I would want the money as pulled a small sack off of his belt, and passed it over to me. I grabbed it quickly, and opened up to look at the contents. I smirked as I looked at the contents of the bag. It was a hefty pile of gold coins, and I quickly dropped the pouch into the sack with the rest of my belongings.
“There Be seventy-five gold coins there, don’t you be telling people Orizmad doesn’t pay well you hear?”
I grunted in response, and asked, “You are a smuggler yes? Do you have any weapons for sale?”
Orizmad chuckled, and said, “Damn it man of course I do, I’ll take you there now if you wa-“
“Just tell me where, and I will go myself.”
“Orizmad grumbled, but still told me where I could find a stall that would have what I was looking for.
I quickly checked that I had everything I needed. My sack was getting way to full at this point, but I would fix that later after getting weapons. My weapons were all accounted for as well, except for the dagger I had thrown at Torn, I decided to leave that there just to fuck with the man. Once I was satisfied, I had everything I needed, I made my way
back out of the tunnel I had come from, and made my way back to the central cavern.
Once there, I moved off in the direction Orizmad had indicated. It was a small building off to the side of the main cavern, and I saw several wagons in front of the building, all of which had various weapons and such piled in the back. I wasn’t sure of this was a delivery, or an outgoing order.
I didn’t really care though, and instead walked over and banged on the door to the building. Several moments later, the door swung opened, and an angry looking dwarf stood there with a parchment held in one hand, and a quill in the other.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw me though, and but his angry demeanor only seemed to darken as he took me in.
“Well, I should have guessed that the person rudely interrupting my work would you! I have heard a lot about you in the past-“
I cut him off with a frustrated growl, and said, “I don’t care what you’ve heard or think, I’m here to buy several weapons, and Orizmad said you would be the one to see about that!”
The dwarf angrily opened his mouth to respond, but once gin I cut him off, “Why does everyone insist on talking and arguing so fucking much?! I don’t want to be around you, and you don’t want to be around me! Just help me out for a few minutes, and we can never see each other again!”
The dwarf shut his mouth angrily, and brushed past me, and said, “Fine, pick what you want from the wagons, and I will collect the damn coin once you’re done ya bastard!”
That suited me just fine, and I spun around, and went back to the wagons. I took out my remaining two daggers, and tossed them into the wagon, followed by the hammer and mace. I leaned the naginata to the side though, as I had no intention of getting rid of it any time soon.
I took my time looking through the weapons, while I saw many kinds of weapons I liked, I didn’t have really have the need to carry so many with me at once. It would be more of a hassle then benefit. Towards the back of the first wagon though, I found what looked to be a matched set of knives, that were sheathed in identical hide coverings. The pommels weren’t fancy, but crude and simple. That didn’t bother me though, I was more interested in seeing if they were well made.
I pulled the three blades out, and did a quick inspection. Each of them were made of some sort of blood red metal. I hadn’t expected that. I had seen other metals in weapons besides steel and Iron, but that had been on rare occasions in the arena. I tapped them experimentally with a finger, and they felt solid enough. Each blade was a different size. The largest was over a foot long, and was much more suited to a dual wielding fighting technique where the wielder would have longer blade in one hand, complimented by the smaller knife. It was similar to a seax knife, just slightly smaller. The second though was more normal sized, with a blade only six inches. It was made of the same red metal, and was just as perfectly balanced as the larger blade. The final one seemed to be made specifically to be a throwing knife. It had the smallest blade of the lot, measuring only four inches. The blade was different from the others, as this blades weight seemed mostly focused towards the tip. I knew that the added weight would help spin it through the air when I threw it. While I could throw most knives, they didn’t always hit there target accurately, and sometimes the hilt could end up hitting the target instead of the blade.
These hadn’t been the knives I was looking for when I first came looking, but I wanted them. Despite their plain outwards appearance, they had been well made, and I would happily keep these to use in the future.
I moved on to the other wagons, and in the first, almost at the very front was a flanged mace. The head of this mace was nearly as large as my two fists put together, and that wasn’t even taking into account the four hard metal ridges that ran up the sides of the mace. I reached for it, and hefted the weapon curiously. It was heavy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The shaft was made of pure steel, and had been dyed with some sort of darkening pigment if I had to guess. The grip was tightly wrapped with hide, and felt comfortable in my hands. Even better, I had a small disk at the top of the grip, which would be able to deflect swords, that skittered down the haft of the weapon. I slipped this weapon into my left loop, and decided to look for a new hammer.
This one was easy to find as well. It was in the same wagon as the mace, just further in. I reached over a couple of swords, and grabbed the shaft of the weapon. The damn thing was heavier the mace, and I would need to get used to its weight if I was going to use it on a regular basis. Then I remembered al I had to do was kill a few more people, and I could upgrade my strength. With that in mind, I looked over the weapon. Its shaft was made of a similar metal to the mace. The heads were completely different though. While the mace was round with flanges, this had a heavy head, that extended over six inches long that ended in a rounded off point. The other side of the hammer extended at a slightly downwards angel, and ended in a wicked metal point. I gave the weapon a few experimental swings, and was happy to see that it was similarly well balanced as the others I had chosen were. I pulled the mace out, and held the pair together, and gave them a few experimental swings, and found that decided that after I practiced with the pair for a bit, I would have to get accustomed to the difference in weight.
Satisfied with my choices, I made to move back to the dwarf, when something caught my eye. Near where I had pulled the hammer out, was a medium sized crossbow. Curiously, I turned back, and pulled the crossbow out. I had never used one of these before, as they hadn’t been allowed in the arenas except on certain occasions. While I knew that learning to shoot a bow, could take years to become proficient, the crossbow was far easier to use. I had seen several in use, and it was pretty straight forward. Shooters would pull the string back to a certain locking mechanism, and once locked in place, all they had to do was put a bolt there, and pull the trigger at the bottom.
I thought back to my inability to hunt when traveling, and decided this might come in handy in the future if I needed to kill game, or people in the future from a distance. I saw that there was a large quiver filled with bolts, and I grabbed that too. Curious to try it out, I gripped the crossbow, and with my other hand, I pulled pack the string. I was strong enough to pull it back relatively easily, and it made a satisfying click the string locked into place. I then reached down, and placed a bolt in the grooved area, where I assumed the bolt went. I then turned around and looked for a target. I settled on the door that led to where the dwarf had been working. I aimed the crossbow, and pulled the trigger. The string snapped forward, and the bolts speed away from me, and slammed into the door, quivering as the force of the impact sent vibrations through the bolt.
“What the fuck are ya doin?! That be my door!”
I didn’t answer the dwarf, and just smirked as I went over, and gripped the bolt as close to its head as possible, and with a hard tug, I pulled the bolt out, and placed it back in the quiver. I turned to the scowling dwarf with a smirk, and said, “These are what I want.”
I gestured at the new weapons, and still glowering, the dwarf moved forward, and inspected each of the items I picked. He scowled when he saw that I had grabbed the brace of daggers. My instincts must have been right, and they were probably worth quite a bit.
After looking over a piece of parchment in his hands, the dwarf growled out, “Ten gold.”
I didn’t even bother thinking before I said, “No,” I may not have much experience bargaining, but the naginata I had bought wasn’t even a quarter of that. I had no intention of forking over that much coin for these weapons.
“I will give you five,” The dwarfs eyes narrowed, and he snorted.
“Look here, I am not parting with sanguinium blades for any less than eight gold. Those daggers are worth a pretty copper, and that crossbow is compact yet powerful. Eight is the lowest I’ll go!”
“Well seven is the highest I will go,” I had a feeling he would argue with that price, as I was sure he was trying to overcharge me anyways as he didn’t like me. Sure enough, after a bit of
grumbling, the dwarf nodded, and I swung my pack off my shoulder, and pulled out the required gold. After that neither of us bothered to say anything else to the other, and we parted ways. Now that I had a bit of coin to spare, I decided to see what else I could get my hands on before I went back to my room.
Over the next hour, I found several large packs that could be attached to the saddle I had, and I quickly purchased those, to replace my overburdened sack I had been using. They had only cost me five silvers, so I didn’t bemoan the cost. I also figured I should get a water sack, and I bought two water skins, which I could use to fill up on fresh water whenever I was near a body of water.
Satisfied with my purchases, I made my way back to the guest room assigned to me. I considered trying to get food, but decided that I didn’t really feel like having to interact with anyone else today, so I settled on gnawing on a bit of the dried fish I had bought along with some of the hard tack. My sharpened teeth made shorth work of the food, and I decided to spend the rest of the day read, and maybe conversing with Raskorian. I had been more successful of late when it came to getting information out of the guarded dragon.
I pulled the large bear skin back out to the balcony, and with the soft breeze, I leaned back against the balcony, and spent the rest of the day, and part of the night reading.
Chapter 16
I slept relatively peacefully that night. I didn’t quite remember when I had fallen asleep, but I did remember I had been asking Raskorian about some nuance I had seen regarding the multitude of elven races. Figuring I would get back to it later, I rolled out from under the bear pelt, and stood up and stretched. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and I planned on getting an early start on training today. I could hear Raskorian snoring in my head, while I set about getting ready.