Tales Of Grimea (24 page)

Of course, it had turned out later that the
two were set up to fail, and that a higher ranked student was
waiting to save them. Glint almost smiled at the memory of Maester
Seymore Jambe rolling his eyes that day. “Heya, Glint!” said Emilia
without looking up from what was probably a winning hand. As much
as Natalie loved playing cards, she was horrible at lying and
therefore always lost against her best friend.

“Hey, Emilia,” said the boy. He hadn’t seen
her for a while, since she’d spent this entire past month at home,
and he’d been in Hindshelm the month before. Her ruddy cheeks
seemed even more full than when he’d last seen her, and there was
certainly more meat to the rest of her than earlier. “How was
Ya’ab?” he asked anyways. He’d never been there, and her stories
were always a pleasure.

“Same old, buddy,” she replied lazily,
putting down a bad hand after Natalie folded. The redhead laughed
to herself as Emilia smiled in what Glint thought might be
politeness or plotting. He could never tell with that one. “Didja
have fun in your house?”

“Yeah, but my old bed is too small. I needed
to stay at an inn, what with the baby and all.” In fact, Glint had
worried that his family, now newly active parents, would not be
used to having a twenty year old Glint making a fuss around the
house with his new brother on top of everything else. Of course, he
hadn’t mentioned any of that to either of them, for he knew Horst
and Marie would have scolded him vehemently.

“Glint Stryger!” Natalie leapt from her
spot, her freckled face showing telltale signs. The warrior almost
poked her little scrunched up nose before he caught himself. “No
more hiding, where’s the portrait? I swear, if I don’t see little
Baldur soon I’ll talk to Mister Cole and you’ll be stuck eating
leftovers for a week!” Glint remained quiet for a few seconds,
unsure of himself. He’d managed to find a man to paint the little
boy, but he was so far away that their mother couldn’t come with.
Due to that, the youth had been forced to sit there the whole time
and hold his seven month old brother. It would still make her
happy, but… “Come by later,” he told Natalie, “I’ll give it to you
then.”

“Ugh, fine. This one here,” she said to
Emilia, “Has be-“

“Avoiding giving you the portrait despite
knowing full well how excited you are to see his little brother,
which is a bad move on his part because you are literally friends
with everyone he relies on to have his days function normally and
also because the two of you are barely separable at sword point,
let alone because of a forgotten gift which I told you he’s
unlikely to forget?”

“Well, yes…” Emilia was the only one who
could halt Natalie Hearth’s infamous cascade of words. Sung was
busy looking from the window while pretending not to peer at the
collection of stuffed animals the blonde haired girl kept on top of
her bed.

“You know how he is,” said the nineteen year
old, raising an eyebrow. Glint realized that she really liked dark
eyeliner, which he’d not noticed before. “Just let him be. You
three are literally some of the people I hate least, but calling
you all quirky would be an understatement.”

For a few seconds Glint was confused,
because he’d thought that Emilia enjoyed being with them quite a
lot, but then Natalie flitted over, fast as death, and hugged her
friend tight. “Awwww! I’ve always wanted to hear you say that! I
love you too, princess!”
What? But, that’s literally not what
sh- oh, I get it.

Emilia, although she didn’t seem
enthusiastic about the hug, turned a little to the side to face
glint in her seated position on crossed legs. She winked and waved
him over. At first he froze, then moved over to join them, heart
beating wildly. Sung joined in enthusiastically. The blonde girl
laughed, and even Natalie’s other roommates laughed from their
beds, where they sat. The four decided instead to take place on the
red yellow rimmed rug and play cards for a while, putting some fun
into it by allowing cheating if you aren’t caught. Emilia won
almost every match nonchalantly, although the tanned Sung managed
to use his overwhelming speed and dexterity to peek at her cards
while making her laugh a couple of times and sneaked a couple of
wins in that manner.

After lunch, which was comprised of multiple
types of meats and breads prepared by Mister Cole, Glint and Sung
headed over to the Inner Court. They made their way towards it,
crossing the front courtyards with its three stairways, passing
next to the many suits of armor hung along the walls. Glint tried
to read out the names as they went, for many of these had belonged
to members of Quicksilver who had distinguished themselves in
service or died in service. “Wish we could end up here someday,”
murmured Sung as they passed a suit of armor that had belonged to
the seventh master of Quicksilver. A portrait hung above it of a
rather feminine looking man, with a plaque below which read
Lord
Reta of Cornhill, dubbed Leadbite.
At the armor’s elbows,
thighs, forearms and sides there were grooves with what seemed to
be mouths sprouting out of them, teeth still looking sharp. The
chest plate had a demonic face on it, with another grinning maw
where the man’s stomach would have been. Glint shuddered, turning
his eyes over to admire Quicksilver’s choices in warm furnishing,
full of soft rugs and chandeliers and polished deeply colored wood.
“As long as we make the world a better place, I’d be alright with
being forgotten.” Still, the thought of fame was nice, and there
was no reason to give up one thing for the other just yet. The
warrior hadn’t forgotten the mission taken from Azrael Windslayer,
after all.

Being second and first rankers, the students
were given their own spot to train, although it was nothing as
impressive as the one granted to second circle warriors, and they
were supervised by one to boot. It was Maester Seymore, who
happened to have a headache that day and told the thirty of them to
simply split into groups of three and fight two on one, rotating as
they did. Sung luckily caught Ori heading their way out of the
corner of his eye and grabbed someone to complete their three, who
turned out to be Flait Leoreo.

Flait was a quiet sixteen year old with
brown messy hair, blue thoughtful eyes and a large frame. His
laziness was reflected in his fighting style if not in his ranking,
for the youth had been in the guild for as long as he’d lived and
was just as good as the rest. His father had died protecting
Quicksilver, and Lord Alfjötr hadn’t had the heart to turn him over
to family, and so had hid his entire existence from them. Glint
groaned, because he hated fighting against spikers, but didn’t know
much about the youth himself. “So,” he sighed, “Who should go
first?”

“I say old men first,” cheered Sung,
clapping Flait on the shoulder. The two were old friends. “What do
you say, buddy?”

“…Okay,” answered the giant of a boy. Glint
was not short, but marveled at the second ranker’s height. He
thought about releasing another sigh, but felt shy of the
newcomer.

Then all thoughts of sighing were gone, for
Maester Seymore looked around to make sure everyone was ready, put
a hand through his greying hair, then exclaimed, “Go!” whilst
clapping his hands. His gauntlets bearing the crest of a pitchfork
caused a sound like a thunderclap.

By the time Glint readied his stance, Sung
was upon him, a flying roundhouse kick almost catching the warrior
on the temple. Glint took it on his forearm instead, wind-milling
backwards as his friend and roommate landed on the stoned floor
multiple times, springing off it each time with another kick. The
boy leapt with a lightness that made him seem as if he could float
on air, and Glint worked hard to fend off his rapid attacks. One
got in and Glint’s vision went white with pain, for the strikes
came fans of lightning, an ability Sung was especially good at. His
anklets glowed a pure white, and clinked each time he left the
ground. After a couple of aerial blows more, the younger fighter,
who was slimmer than Glint, began to switch things up with smooth
sweeping leg transitions and lower kicks here and there, making him
seem like a an ice dancer one instant and a bird the other. His
bare feet hissed against the ground as he got faster, almost
overpowering the warrior with sheer speed, and his white cotton
tunic flapped. Glint’s ribs were hit a few times and he winced as
his body began to go numb.

As Glint blocked the kicks, he worked hard
to find an opening to turn. If he and his armor were allowed to
become one, his opponent would have no chance against him,
lightning kicks or not. The energy within him crackled almost
audibly, and his bracers sang in his ears. All of his attention was
on the younger boy, and suddenly he had a rhythm going. Before Sung
could change tactics, the warrior reacted, for he could tell a
lower left sweep would be followed by a straight leg aimed right at
his midsection. Glint chose to kick upwards, letting momentum carry
him upwards into a flip. The younger boy, a competent fighter in
his own right, was startled for a second, but that was more than
enough for Glint to get out of range, soaring backwards and away
for a few feet. In that time, he let his armor engulf him fully,
spreading like liquid metal from his forearms to his entire body.
As he landed, his barbute formed around his face, leaving eyes,
nose and mouth exposed. He breathed relief, for a storm ran through
his body and his metal and there was nothing to fear. Then a shadow
fell over him and the warrior realized that he’d miscalculated.

With reflexes boosted by his armor, Glint
rolled away like a blur just as a thunderous crash echoed where
he’d been just an instant earlier. Getting back to his feet, the
youth saw Flait get to his feet slowly, the rocky ground sunken and
destroyed for feet around where he’d attempted to land on Glint.
The warrior was outfitted from head to toe in large amounts of
metal almost black, and Glint could tell that the color was due to
impurities, unlike others. Such metal was less effective than the
warrior’s own purified silver, but Flait simply had absorbed so
much that it made the matter moot. Spikes rose from his shoulders,
and his gauntlets were especially thick, which explained the
destruction at his feet. The helmet was brick like and unadorned,
although it reminded Glint of a castle’s keep. The young man
wondered at the strength needed to move such a construct. His mind
raced and for a moment, he thought it was possible to lose to this
combo of dedicated strength and speed. Sung came then, now clad in
his thin ribbed ornate armor and boasting a metal staff in hand
which he used in accordance with his lightning and feet, but the
warrior relaxed after a few exchanged blows. Almost no one in the
first circle could boost armor like he could, and so he let the
lightning roar. He couldn’t shoot it or employ the energy like Sung
could, but the energy crackled deep in his bones and lent Glint
strength, speed, and raised his senses to superhuman levels. The
warrior could deal with his foe’s strikes much better than earlier,
and slapped them away with impunity, still retreating but confidant
in his abilities at last. His opponent’s lightning strikes could
barely be felt at that point, although his arms still smarted from
earlier. When his friend stepped back Glint went on the offensive,
conjuring a single bladed curved short sword from his left
shoulder. Immediately he went into a dance with it, spinning as he
went with most strikes coming from his foe’s left flank. As Sung
panicked and the wide spin turned Glint’s blows into a forward
moving tempest, his attention to the right waned. Seizing the
opportunity, the warrior stopped suddenly and reversed his spin,
stepping in with his left leg and rotating his hips. His left fist
smashed into Sung’s Armet with enough force to not only knock the
boy out cold, but also to send him flying a few feet. Glint didn’t
linger to hear the thud, for he was slightly disoriented and Flait
was charging him, fists ready to move with precision and
overwhelming force.

Luckily there was enough space between the
two of them and the nearest wall, and so Glint backed away from the
man, pulling out a second blade as he did. He used both to deflect
blows, employing the time in between them to whip at the behemoth’s
right knee. One particular strike was ill timed, and Glint
deflected it wrong. Pain blossomed in his right wrist, and he
needed to use some of his lightning for an emergency heal, wincing,
but powered on. Before they could reach the wall his opponent’s
blows had lost much of their weight and he had staggered to a halt,
still throwing punches and doing his best to ignore Glint’s
attacks. Still blocking, the warrior focused on the knee with
abandon, and eventually it touched the ground. At that point they
were the last group still fighting. “I… yield,” gasped Flait with a
raised pillar of an arm, and Glint plunged both of his blades back
into his chest before helping the man up. Those around applauded,
for some groups had finished early. Maester Seymore came over, his
hands glowing. He placed an arm on Flait and the man winced, then
sighed with comfort before letting his armor retreat back into an
ornate blackish shoulder plate with a castle engraved upon it.
Glint looked on in wonder, for Seymore Jambe had a wonderful
ability which allowed him to save many lives, but he never bothered
with removing the pain and discomfort associated with accelerated
healing. The grey haired man chuckled as he saw how far away Sung
was then said, “That ought to teach him that speed isn’t
invincibility. How hard did you hit him?”

“A few teeth, sir, but he was fast enough to
jump away. His jaw should be okay.”

The man whistled. “The bastard is too
talented for his own good. How about your own scratches?” He’d
noticed that Glint’s armor was still in place. The warrior
hesitated, for he remembered Sung’s aversion to harming others.
However, Maester Seymore’s look brokered no arguments. Many enjoyed
annoying the man, but all knew to listen when he was serious and
solemn, like now. Glint let his armor melt into his bracers and
shook the man’s luminous hand. Tingles flooded him, causing an
itch, but within a few seconds the pain subsided. “Tell him when he
asks, and thank him for a good fight,” bade the man from Glint, and
he nodded in return. Everyone knew how much Jambe cared for
Sung.