Keldras awoke to find his hair standing at a crazy angle.
He reached for his comb and received an unpleasant shock at his fingertip.
It had been like this since dinner last night.
He picked up the comb and straightened his hair.
A couple of strands slowly rose back up.
He brushed them down again, but to no avail.
Pulling out a strip of fabric, he tied his hair back, and that seemed to do the trick.
Reaching for the door handle earned him another shock.
Keldras sighed.
It was going to be a long day.
Hmph.
After breakfast, Keldras headed to the training yard.
He still intended to visit the Coliseum this week.
However, he needed to keep his specific training path a secret, so he had been sticking to strength training while he was there.
“I can’t help but think it’s too soon for you to spar with me, little brother,” Garrok said, a hint of worry in his tone.
“It’s fine,” Keldras replied.
Garrok looked doubtful but followed him into the yard.
The two brothers’ weapons were compatible.
The older brother wielded a glaive—a heavy, curved blade mounted on a five-foot metal pole.
The back of the blade had serrations designed to catch and disarm an opponent’s weapon.
Garrok was currently using a wooden training version of his preferred weapon, while Keldras used a heavily blunted halberd.
He needed to become accustomed to its weight.
They began immediately.
Garrok wielded the glaive one-handed as though it were weightless, knocking Keldras heavily in whichever direction he attempted to intercept the blow.
Keldras tried to parry as he had before, but Garrok simply twisted the glaive, catching the halberd in the serrations and wrenching it from Keldras’s grip.
Garrok sighed.
“I’ll tone it down a bit.”
The next exchange carried significantly less force.
Keldras managed to deflect several strikes while maintaining his preferred distance.
Garrok attempted to close the gap, but Keldras kept his spacing.
Then he lost his footing on a rock.
Garrok closed the distance in an instant, reversing his grip and sweeping Keldras’s feet out from under him with the haft of the glaive.
Keldras lay on the dirt, staring up at the sky while his head filled with laughter.
“Can’t just focus on your opponent. You need to watch your footing,” Garrok instructed, pulling him back to his feet.
The entire morning repeated much the same.
By the time they finished, Keldras’s training outfit was caked in dirt, and he had managed to barely graze Garrok only twice.
Keldras lay on the training ground, breathing heavily.
“We should probably call it a day. You still have to go to the Coliseum later. Can’t have you getting too beat up,” Garrok chuckled.
He bent down to help Keldras to his feet.
The moment their hands touched, they both received a slight shock, causing Garrok to pull his hand back.
Don’t you think that’s enough?
Keldras thought inwardly, followed by an exasperated sigh.
Silence.
He pushed himself to his feet.
Garrok gave him a questioning look, but Keldras simply waved away what was likely to become another comment.
At the Coliseum, Keldras found himself completely isolated from the rest of the training group and was relegated to practicing alone against training targets.
As he worked through the basics, he mentally replayed his morning spar with Garrok, searching for mistakes.
Lost in thought, he failed to notice when another trainee stacked a pile of equipment behind him.
When he stepped backward to gauge his distance, he tripped over it and landed hard on his back, dropping his weapon.
A few nearby trainees burst into laughter.
“Well, it seems you found where your kind belongs, maggot,” the leader of the group mocked.
Keldras rose, dusted himself off, and turned to face the offender.
“Infantile,” he said icily, without the slightest hint of emotion.
The orc’s face turned red as he prepared to answer, but Keldras simply turned away and ignored him.
He left early, heading for the baths.
As he walked past one particular stall, he extinguished the fire heating the water before continuing on to enjoy a long soak.
While drying off, a shrill scream erupted from the stall.
Keldras noted the suppressed laughter around him.
On his way out of the arena, someone stopped him.
“Hey, I’m going to be traveling for a couple of weeks. Make sure you don’t skip training in the meantime,” Valdax said.
“Understood,” Keldras replied flatly.
During their brief conversation, the Weapons Master stormed over.
“Did you extinguish your classmate’s bath?” he demanded angrily.
Keldras merely glanced at him.
The Weapons Master stepped closer, then noticed Valdax standing beside Keldras.
Valdax met his glare with a pleasant smile, his hands folded neatly behind his back, as far from the sword at his waist as they could be.
The Weapons Master’s jaw tightened.
Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Valdax watched him leave.
“That’s my son.”
At dinner, Keldras piled mostly meat onto his plate.
Stop this childish behavior already.
I got you extra meat, so let it go, he thought inwardly as he slowly lifted a piece to his mouth, allowing its aroma to drift upward before taking a bite.
Neither the smell nor the flavor registered in his own senses.
Saphira ate sulkily through the first few bites, but her chilly mood gradually warmed.
“You’ve improved a lot this week,” Garrok acknowledged.
Keldras nodded.
“Final day. I’ll push you into using more strength,” he replied confidently.
Garrok smirked.
“We’ll see.”
Garrok opened with a high strike.
Keldras easily deflected it while maintaining his ideal distance.
Garrok attempted to catch Keldras’s clothing with the glaive’s serrations.
Keldras responded by hooking the base of his axe around the glaive and pulling, causing Garrok to lose his footing and stumble forward.
Keldras immediately followed with a swing of the haft toward Garrok’s legs.
Regaining his composure, Garrok leaped over the strike and answered with a backhand arc aimed at Keldras’s head.
Keldras jumped backward, narrowly avoiding the swing while thrusting the halberd forward.
The spear point arced toward Garrok’s abdomen.
Garrok sidestepped the thrust.
It was a feint.
Keldras stepped forward and hooked the lower loop of the axe head around Garrok’s ankle before pulling with all his strength.
Caught completely off guard, Garrok lost his balance.
He grabbed the glaive with both hands and drove its blade into the ground to keep himself from falling.
Garrok smiled.
“Well done, brother.”
Keldras looked down at the disturbed dirt around Garrok’s feet.
He hadn’t won.
But for the first time, he’d forced Garrok to defend himself seriously.
Various scenes from Chapter 5 in this artwork, i’m pretty happy with it https://i.postimg.cc/CxCV8TD4/VOL-1-CH-5.png