by Ryan Johnson
Valverno coughed more blood from his mouth and still little ounces of blood dripped from his nose. He slowly moved his hands and legs at first, to make sure those were still attached to his body. Then he moved his wing that helped his upper, half-torso get him from the ground.
I haven’t seen the end of it and at this point, I might as well stay as a mortal, he thought. Valverno wanted to speak but the blood spitting from Valverno’s mouth made him think otherwise of not taking.
Now, he felt the need of water. He was feeling thistly from his physical pain and loss of blood. He felt a bit on the fainted side. He just sat up and stayed where he landed and didn’t bother getting up. He only breathed for what he went through, and he felt a great thirst for water,. However, he was in a mountain range, and no idea where to look for water.
After a long while he took the time just to sit and kept his eyes closed, he reopened his eyes and weakly stood back up. He felt fainted enough for him to collapse, but he still stood up. His blurred vision saw the other trainees still combating each other with their fists. Valverno turned and limped away, still coughing out small droplets of blood.
He sat down by the closest mountain wall for him in order to keep a distance from the other trainees. So, his face wouldn’t have to get stepped on from any foot that’d cause more damage to his already-injured face.
Valverno leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, and he felt the need for a great sleep and a deep slumber.
Valverno woke to a loud whistle blowing from across the land. He woke suddenly he banged his head against the wall his head laid across. The sound was loud and firm it echoed through his ear and felt his brain was being squeezed. The sound echoed close near him like a chicken crocking at dawn’s first light.
“Alright, up and at ‘em,” said one of the Amazon warriors, with a deep womanly voice. One was standing in front of him, and she looked like a giant from the Valverno viewpoint. “You’re waking late. You have been sleeping since yesterday, and now we are in the middle of the afternoon.”
The hybrid shook his head in disbelief; he slept through a full day and night and straight into the next day. The feeling he felt from the weather was mildly warm, and it would mean he slept sometime into the afternoon.
He leaned his back forward, and he felt a great numbness aching from his legs crawling into his spinal cord. His nose remained hurt from the night before, and his could still taste the sogginess of his own blood. His injuries haven’t fully healed, and he was expected to keep with the other trainees. Valverno breathed softly before slowly standing up, and his wing shivered if it was cold.
“You move slower than an infant learning how to crawl. Get moving along, you small specimen. The other recruits already have a head start, and they are at a river east from here, and they are surely there by now. If not, then in the next few minutes.
“You’re in last place. If you don’t want to be in last, then you should be going. Otherwise, you’ll have little choice in the matter to keep up; in other words, you will have to choose forfeit.”
“Not if I say otherwise to forfeit,” said Valverno, limping on his feet. With a lift from his hips, he leaned his back upward and straight on his scaly legs.
“Ready to give up?” asked the Amazon.
“Not your life. I had worse.”
“Just what kind of worse? You basically ran through open terrain and made a rock roll over a ridge and barely made it through a training course containing fists and violence. Just what kind of worse have you been through?”
“I’ve been shot through,” said Valverno, pointing on the deep scar he showed in his chest. “This shot should have killed me. It was directed to my beating heart, and the shot should have killed me. But I survived.
“And I’ve been underwater, which is according to the nose of a demihuman, for seven months. And not to mention I had a woman I life die in my arms, along with three more lives I could have fathered. That is the worse I’ve been through, and I managed to survive it all. What kind of mortal can withstand that kind of pain and still move on?”
The Amazon remained silent.
“I did. I fell and lost my humanity, and I got shot through the chest for it. I should have died from that. But I survived. And it will mean I will keep surviving until I have reached my ultimate goal: the Shadow King Lusìvar. I don’t need your approval to keep going forward or to start quitting. I suffered much, and I still kept going. I will keep going and onward and so on.”
Valverno shook his body and tail and wing. All his muscles ached and could barely move an inch with much strain on his body. “And just the other day, I saved Freyya’s kids from a rockslide and fought off a rare lion beast myself while others just watched as I did the work. And I certainly don’t need to be told where the other recruits are, ‘cause I can smell the scent of lizard and womanly hair.” Valverno’s nose, which was he found hard to breath from the dried blood, slightly picked up the scent of the other recruits and followed after the scent.
Valverno limply followed after the scented trail. He could softly breathe through his mouth and maintain a slow yet steady speed. He trailed through the range of sandstone mountains and found a flat land for him to walk on and follow the scent at the same time. The scent led him to a valley of small canyons.
He soon was finding a sudden change to the mountains, and he was coming across a maze of razor sharp mountains with strange rainbow-striped colors. A few spots covered tops with greenness with brown, yellow, and redness striped on the walls of rock. Such stripes swirled horizontally across each hill and sharp, pointy, rocky wall.
Valverno had never seen such a wonder of an earthy landscape. He thought of Isla Maeli was all a lifeless wasteland, but seeing the different-colored landscape around him is making him think otherwise.
He trailed through the terrain just as the day was turning into a late afternoon, when the sun was brightened from a low point from the western horizon. And in the dead of the landscape, he felt a warm wind blowing from the south and through his shoulders.
The warmth of the breeze brushed against his face, and his hair blew in the air. His mouth could feel the wind gushing, if he was tasting it. The warmness his skin felt and the smoothness his tail slivering on the ground remained him of Geraldus’ village. In the all the seasons he spent in the village were somehow bringing back the memories he had of the village.
He continued to walk forward as to remember what happened in the distant past, which will fade into a distant memory and one day may forget about. Valverno still had an idea of what the future will hold for him, but he knew for certain he wasn’t dead. There was a still a chance for him to fight against Lusìvar and rid the land of the Titans.
Valverno lost his senses when he pondered in a deep thought he needed up bumping into a wall. He hit the rock hard he tumbled and took a stumble to the ground. He grunted and crunched his teeth in order to prevent a loud roar from echoing throughout a canyon he had entered.
Valverno shook his head and gazed at the canyon’s narrow walls stretching up high as a mountain. Before he ended up losing his focus, he found himself at a dead-end point and turned his eyes around to see where he mistook a step.
The terrain of mountains was behind him, and a maze of canyons is what Valverno entered. He was entrenched by the warm weather he didn’t take notice he walked into a ravine that sucked him into a maze of canyons. And he was at a dead-end point he was going have to walk back and trail his footsteps. Valverno got back to his feet and walked again. His body still ached and went aching all over again after his stumble, if his body was suffering an entire stomachache. He walked to where an opening that led to another trail through another canyon.
Along the canyon’s interior walls, many pillars of rock reaching high like the canyons’ walls stood like mounds. The bases were thin, if they had been thinly carved from the bottom and stretched ou
t wider as the each pillar rose higher. Basically, each pillar was thin and had less rock formation on the bottom and rose higher with more rock in each pillar’s width.
For nearly an hour, Valverno was lost through the long maze of the canyons. Worst yet, he had lost the scented trail from the recruits. He grunted in frustration he lost the trail. If he only hadn’t daydreamed, then he would be in such a bizarre place. And he was losing daylight.
For the time he spent retracing the steps, he stopped and looked at the canyon’s walls. Instead of walking through a maze, he decided to climb the walls and reach for the top. Valverno latched his dug the claws of his fingers to the wall and reach. But as he rose a few feet into the air, his ears picked up the sound of a rushing river; he did feel the need to drink from his blood loss.
He decided to climb later and drink what water he needed and fill his body with water. Valverno slid down and followed the echoing sounds of the river’s current. He followed it through a narrow canyon.
In no time, he came across a long range of a rushing rapid river through a mountain range. The river’s rapids rushed downhill and any attempt to swim would easily drown any swimmer.
Valverno dipped his legs into the water’s shallow ends. After enduring so much pain and a long dreary walk, he let his face fall into the water. His face was feeling refreshed. He started to drink what he could with every mouthful his mouth would guzzle.
The water felt fresh to drink and cool enough to bathe.
In a matter of seconds, Valverno lifted his face from the water and shook his head. The time he felt fainting died when he guzzled down water. All the numbness his muscles gravely ached eased from the flow of water, and the stench the skin of his human torso was draining away.
He dripped his hands in water and splashed hand-filled water in his face. Then he would use his red-scaled fingers to reach into his nostrils to get out any dried blood and made him breathe easier again. There was dried blood over his face it would have been difficult to remove from his skin. With the water, it was easy to rid of the dried, red liquid he didn’t need painted over his human face or torso.
He spent several minutes getting all the excess dried blood from his face and within his nose. When he was done, he drank even more water from the river and gulped down every mouthful his mouth gulped like stuffing his mouth with food.
Valverno gasped after taking his hundredth gulp of water and breathed through his nose and mouth. “Finally, I can breathe and maybe find the scent I’ve lost and catch up to the others. And that way I could—” He gasped so suddenly his face found plunging him into the water, and it wasn’t his doing; something pushed him back into the water with his face first.
Valverno struggled to get his face out of the water, he couldn’t breathe underwater and something was forcing him in. He had his guard lowered an enemy snuck from behind, and his arms had no grip to get his face out of the water. Then he felt a strange flicker on his back and forced him deeper into the water. And suddenly his body mass was forced out of the water, and he quickly gasped for air he breathed into his lungs.
He felt his right arm being tugged outward and dragged onto dry ground. Then the force stopped, and he felt himself lying on the ground, painting for air. His eyes caught sights of one Tokagehebi standing near the hybrid’s head.
“That’s a result of what could have happened, if you don’t pay attention,” said Okinawan, who was the Tokagehebi standing near Valverno’s head. “A small mistake can lead to the greatest devastation, so someone needs to be aware of their surroundings at all times, even if they are sleeping.
“But it took you look enough to join us, even the distance from the terrain we’ve been for two days. The terrain you bounced a rock over and roll over a ridge. That was impressive, but not impressive enough if you don’t commit into doing the impossible. And all your muscular system I’ve seen with my lizard eyes was badly broken like a system of broken bones, but you still managed to walk all this way on your own with no help. I just wonder what kind of specimen you are.”
“One of a kind, Tokagehebi,” replied Valverno.
“Not only a hybrid, but a wiseass, huh,” said Okinawan. “Either way, we are here at the spot: the training spot.” Okinawan walked passed the hybrid lying on the ground and walked to the river. “Here is the spot is another training camp.”
“What is it this time: fishing or drinking?” asked Valverno, leaning upwards and standing back up. The numbness his muscles were still aching and he was still weaker than he was before he drank water.
“You think we’re here to do some fishing or some drinking? No! We are here to do some more training, and we’re going to be doing it on this spot. And here, we are far from the settlement, so don’t try to go to crying to your mommies if you get greatly hurt. If you get hurt, you are now your own.
“If you know how to survive in the wild, then surely enough you would be able to survive on your own. That is, if you don’t lose your sense of ability of knowing who you still are. In other words, people living out in the woods for so long and alone will end up losing their minds, and their memories of themselves and become wild beasts. But we are not here to talk about that; we are here to train over this river.”
“Um, what sort of training are you talking about?” asked Ívarr.
Within a second of Ívarr’s question, wooden pillars fell from the sky and landed into the river. Dozens to hundreds fell cover the canyon’s cliffs and landed standing straight up in the river. In no time, the pillars were aligned in a straight line, starting from the opening Valverno and the other recruits stood and lined down river.
“What would you expect, Ívarr?” asked Okinawan. “A walk over the water? Impossible! No one can walk on water, unless you have wings that can make you fly and try to make your feet touched the water’s surface.”
Suddenly, everyone turned their eyes to see Valverno. The hybrid didn’t need to feel panicked; he’s the only specimen among them to have only one wing. He did have two wings and did once fly, but never attempted to try to walk on water with one flapping wing.
“As to this part of the training, you have to hop over all these pillars aligned across the river down to a waterfall at the end,” said Okinawan. “And after that, you’re going have to jump and latch your arms to the wall and make it back here. So, this is a test to see how much of a ninja you are: a stealth fighter with a great flexible. And just so you know, the walls are…”
“That is easy enough,” said Ívarr, taking off without having to hear what the instructor had to say. Ívarr leaped from the area the other recruits stood and jumped on the first pillar, which tilted over to the next pillar.
“… very slippery and could make you fall to the river and slip over the waterfall,” Okinawan finished after Ívarr took off.
Ívarr proceeded to jump to the next pillar and jumped onwards like a professional acrobat in a circus tent. Ívarr jumped over the many of pillars, and he soon got to the end of the canyon. He saw there was a narrow waterfall dripping a long edge and poured down a fair distance.
Then he jumped on the last pillar, which tilted toward the waterfall’s edges and jumped to the wall as Okinawan said to. Ívarr grabbed onto the wall, but he had failed to realize the wall was slippery. Just in the same situation with the pillar with the spear, Ívarr slid down from the wall and there was nothing to grab on to.
Then suddenly, he felt himself being grabbed, soaring across the canyon, and landed back at the group of recruits. “How did I end up back here?’
“Because I carried your tail back here, small fry,” said a man’s voice.
Ívarr looked and saw it was Halvdan.
“Halvdan? What brings you over?” asked Okinawan. “Worried to about my new recruits? It is not like you to tendering to my weak recruits.”
“I don’t give a damn about your recruits,” argued Halvdan. “I just here to
watch these ‘recruits’ embarrass and humiliate themselves in front of a professional.”
“Professionals? What do you mean professionals?” Ívarr snapped, standing back on his feet and looking in Halvdan’s eyes. “I’m a professional when it comes to fighting. I didn’t know the walls would be that slippery or wet.”
“Tch,” puffed Halvdan. “Little babies with broken brains, I call you all.” Then Halvdan leaned and jumped over the aligned pillars. When he reached the last one, which tipped toward the waterfalls, he jumped onto the canyon wall. He made no failure into climbing on the wet canyon wall and made his way back to the line, and he did it as he lifted his legs to kick from the wall. He landed back with the other recruits and gave them a disgusted look. “And that’s how you do it”
“Um, how?” asked Ívarr.
“By using your own brain and eyes and body parts you have,” answered Halvdan, with an impatient tone. “Not just your speed and brute muscle, newbie. I had always a bad feeling your arrogance would try to be the death of you. To think you would rank as a number one student who’d never thought of throwing a rock over a ridge.”
Everyone glared at the hybrid again, knowing full well which of them knew who Halvdan was referencing.
“I’ve been following you guys everywhere, and you all have been losing to a single hybrid that has been sleeping for five months. You all had more time, which is months or years, to master these methods being thrown at you, and you’re all getting your tails cut off by a single hybrid that managed to master a strong will in one day. How shameful fully experienced recruits are getting easily beaten by an inexperienced hybrid. He barely deson’t have any strength at all. How shameful!”
Then Halvdan turned away from Ívarr to look at the hybrid standing in the middle of the crowd. “How about you? You think you can do this without falling in the water?”
“Has much as I desire, I can’t,” replied Valverno.