War of the Races - The Verdant Realm

Chapter 3- The Guardian

I moped around for the rest of the week, wishing Silvain would hate school so much that she would come running back home to me. I never stopped missing her, but as the days progressed steadily, other things began taking more and more of my attention away from focusing on my loss. One such thing was my father, Summerset Vale, who began by getting me up early one morning, “Come on, son, it’s time for you to learn your place as the Lord’s heir to this farm.”

Though mother and father had the habit of calling the Valeland the farm, in reality, father owned several million acres, or a county in the northwest of whatever continent we were on in this new world. There were about fifty thousand alfar and two hundred and fifty thousand animal families, and the Valeland was considered a small Lordship. There was only one city, Valeheim, and it was centrally located in the county. It was also where all the alfar lived, while the animals lived throughout the countryside in small villages called kottrheims.

As soon as Summerset closed the door, I rolled out of bed with Bastet right behind me. She was, of course, eager to accompany me as my shadow while I, in turn, shadowed my father all day as he went about the business of running the Valeland. As part of my schooling, he taught me economics, management, and politics while Mama taught literature, history, and theology. Once I turned twelve, she also started testing me for any aptitude for magic. Then, when I turned fifteen, my mother and father handed me over to Andra and Leandra for self-defense and weapons training.

It was strange at first because I had only ever seen Andra as the household butler, but the reality was that he was the Master-at-Arms among the animals while Leandra, Andra's daughter, was fathers magistrate.

Leading me through the training yard, he led me to the armory, and once inside, he took me to a room where there was every conceivable weapon stored in boxes or in racks. “Master Viridian,” He said in a commanding voice, “From this day forward, I will be training you harder than I would any of my enlisted men. I will train you so hard that if and when the day should arrive that you need to utilize my training, you will defeat your enemies and, most importantly, survive.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“Good,” He said with a nod, “Then today I want you to pull out every weapon in this room. Swing them around. Test them out on a few of the dummies. I want you to find the weapons that feel right in your hands, and here’s a safety tip: keep the sharp pointy end pointed away from your body. I’d hate to come back and find that you’ve killed yourself in some ridiculous manner.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered again.

He gave me a curt nod, and then he left to attend to other business. Walking around the room, I started with the long knives. I remembered reading so many fantasy books about heavy armored knights with swords and shields, knife-wielding rogues and damsels, and dual-wielding rangers, and as I put myself in my imaginary heroes’ shoes, I tried a variety of different weapons, but nothing felt right. I even picked out two scimitars and pretended I was my favorite goodly drow for about thirty minutes, but even those didn’t feel right.

Turning in a full circle, scanning the entire room again for something that would resonate with my spirit. In a far corner, on top of a box near the armor, I spied a pair of gauntlets. Walking over, I looked at them more closely. They were steel-coated with silver and decorated with gold filigree, very much in the alfar style. These gauntlets weren’t the standard armor; no, these were reinforced and padded down the forearms to the elbows. There was a plate to protect the back of the hand with serrated knuckles like claws for breaking bone, ripping, and tearing. With shaking hands, I started buckling them on.

I was having a difficult time when Leandra suddenly appeared at my shoulder. “Would you like me to help?” She purred in a husky voice.

I jumped nearly out of my skin from fright, then as my heart slowed to a more normal pace, I answered, “Yes, please.”

Leandra smirked as I turned to her, and as I held out my arms with my palms turned up, it was interesting to watch her much bigger hands deftly work the belts and buckles and tighten the gauntlets until they felt like they were a part of my arm.

“You want to make sure you get them good and tight before you use them,” Leandra said in almost a whisper, “Otherwise, they will shift and expose you to attacks; you could bruise or break your arms, or worse.”

“Um, thank you,” I answered.

“These gauntlets are not the weapon,” She continued as she cinched the final buckle and then turned my hands over so that she ran her fingers across my armored forearms. Then she pointed her finger and poked me in the chest. “You are the weapon. To use these properly, you will have to train your entire body in martial fighting techniques. Hone your skills until you are the blade that cuts down your enemies. Otherwise, you will most likely only get yourself killed.”

"I understand," I answered, accepting that I was going to need to learn martial arts. I had always wanted to learn karate, kung fu, or judo in my previous life, but never got around to it, and then eventually lost interest.

“You will have to train hard,” Leandra reiterated.

“I will, I promise,” I answered.

“Okay,” She purred with an almost sinister smile, “It turns out my father will not be training you now.”

Turning away from me, she walked across the room and took off a wide belt she’d been wearing as part of the tack of her station, and then she found a pair of gauntlets and began strapping them on. It was while she was putting on a leather gi that she looked towards the door and yelled, “If you are going to hide and watch Bastet, you might as well come in and learn how to protect your Lord.”

My eyes opened wider in surprise, though I shouldn’t have been; she was always shadowing me. I turned to look at the door, and sure enough, a second later, Bastet stepped into the room. She came over to me and dug around in the box my gauntlets had been lying on. When she found a pair, Leandra helped her put them on before she found two more Gi and told us to put them on. Once we were ready, she lined us up behind her and began slowly teaching us the first forms of her martial arts.

“All cats excel in the Tiger’s Claw Art,” She explained, “It centers us and allows us to make quick, short jabs, kicks, and the use of our claws while never losing our balance. As an alfar, you will be able to master all the martial arts, and as your father’s son, you will need them.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“You will find out soon enough, young Master,” Leandra purred as she shifted to another stance, and then continued, “Once you have mastered my training, I will bring in different masters to train you in the other styles.”

“How will you know when I've mastered your training?” I asked as I watched her shift into yet another stance.

“You will have mastered my training when you fight me to either a draw or defeat me,” She answered firmly.

I was stunned. Leandra towered over me, and she outweighed me by at least two hundred pounds. How was I ever going to be a match for her?

Still, I could feel the ball of magic in my stomach uncoiling. It stretched out inside me like a cat stretching after a long nap, and then I could feel it moving inside. My arms felt lighter and my legs stronger, and the gauntlets felt like they were a part of me. I was a cat, I was a lion, and my gauntlets were my claws!

Every day, I trained with Bastet and Leandra in the mornings, and then in the afternoons, I either studied with my father or mother. I found it fascinating to see how Father used Andra and Leandra as liaisons with the Pridelords of each village surrounding Valeheim. It was amazing to watch the honor he commanded, even though he was relatively short by comparison to them, even though he was of average height for a villralfar, standing five feet tall, while Andra and Leandra stood head and shoulders taller than him. They seemed to smile easily and spoke respectfully despite both of them being so thickly muscled that they each seemed capable of breaking my father like a twig if they wanted to.

I pondered this for a long time as I went through the rigmarole of schooling and training for the next eight years.