Path of Dragons 14 - Chapter 23 - Sparring

The practice spear whistled through the air, slamming against Elijah’s unprotected head.  Stars danced all around him as he collapsed to his knees.  “Ow,” he muttered, reaching up to feel a growing lump. 

“You’re really bad at this.  You know that, right?” said his nephew, the slightest of smiles turning up the corners of his mouth.  He twirled the practice spear almost lazily.  It was a mistake of perception, as Elijah had discovered.  Miguel never did anything without purpose.

Not on the battlefield.

Or in the practice arena.

His reputation was well earned.

“One second,” Elijah muttered, using a finger of his soul to deactivate the runes on the training collar he wore.  It was an incredibly strong piece of equipment that served to weaken him to something akin to a low ascendent.  It also blocked his spells.  But it couldn’t stand up to the power of his mantle, and it deactivated after less than a second.  A moment later, the soothing vitality of Wild Resurgence flowed through him, mending his concussion as well as a handful of other bruises he’d incurred.  It also refreshed him.

For good measure, Elijah healed his nephew as well, though he didn’t really need it.  Elijah had barely managed to touch Miguel during their training.

“You know you could just unlatch the collar.  You don’t need to do…that.”

Elijah shook his head as he withdrew his soul.  Immediately, the runes snapped back into place – like a door closing – and the weakness returned.  “It’s good practice,” he remarked, twirling his own spear.  “Which is the point of all this.”

Over the past month, Elijah had made significant progress on most of his goals, though in some cases, not in the way he’d expected.  He still hadn’t started on his new staff, but he’d made plenty of plans. 

He’d also spent some time in Ironshore, just immersing himself in the city’s culture and reacquainting himself with his friends.  Kurik was still Kurik.  Carmen was a lot mellower than she’d once been.  And Biggle was still obsessed with Alchemy to an unhealthy degree. 

But the biggest change came from Miguel.

Academically, Elijah understood that his nephew was in his forties.  That on Earth, he would have been considered middle aged.  But psychologically, he wasn’t prepared for what that really meant. 

Especially considering that Miguel was a father now.

He and Hope had only recently chosen to have a child, but at times, Elijah found himself marveling at the reality of it all.  He still found himself thinking of Miguel like he was still the teenager he’d left behind, even if it was obvious that he wasn’t.

In addition to becoming a father, Miguel was also a pillar of the grove’s community.  He was in charge of their combatants – the Hartwood Sentries – and he took that responsibility to heart.  He also spent much of his time training the new recruits. 

And now, many of those trainees watched their current bout.

Elijah told himself that repeatedly losing to his nephew was part of his plan to show the grove members that he wasn’t as scary as his reputation suggested.  But that was probably more of an excuse than anything else.  In truth, he was just a technically inferior fighter.

Sure, if he could use all his abilities, he’d easily win.  Miguel couldn’t keep up with that.  But with those abilities restricted and his attributes reduced, Elijah found that the tables had been turned. 

It was good for him, though.  It forced him to concentrate on mechanics and technique, rather than instinct, resilience, and overpowering spells.

He darted forward, his spear lashing out.  Miguel met it with his own, sweeping it sideways and knocking the strike aside.  Elijah followed it up with a spin that earned him a wooden blade to his kidney.

He hissed, diving forward.

“Don’t turn your back during a fight,” Miguel chided.  “Save the spins for dancing.”

Elijah ignored the pain in his back and reset his feet.  Then, he stepped toward Miguel, the cadence of his footsteps well-measured and in control.  He separated his technique into separate strands of thought.  One for his footwork.  Another for strategy.  A third for his hands.  A fourth for positioning.

He attacked.

Miguel blocked the strike easily enough, flowing into a jab with the butt of his spear that very nearly took Elijah in the stomach.  It flowed past his dodge, while Elijah snapped off a blistering combo that put his nephew on the back foot.  He retreated.  Elijah’s pace increased. 

They moved so fast that, to an outsider, the spears blurred.  The clack of wood against wood filled the air, punctuated by sharp exhales of exertion.  Sand sprayed with every step.  It kept going for long minutes until, at last, Elijah made a mistake.

He overextended, largely because he was accustomed to having better dexterity.  And that earned him a descending strike from Miguel, who’d turned his spear into a club.  The blow hit with enough force to send Elijah sprawling into the sand.  An instant later, he felt the sharp tip of the spear’s blade at the nape of his neck.

“I win.”

“Yep,” Elijah groaned, rolling over.  He closed his eyes and took a second to catch his breath.  “Decent improvement, though.”

Miguel nodded.  “You’re still really bad.”

Elijah opened one eye to see his nephew grinning down at him.  In that expression, he saw a hint of the old Miguel.  “Guilty,” Elijah agreed.  “But constant improvement is the name of the game, right?”

Miguel reached down and helped him up.  “Can’t argue with that.”  Then, he looked around and saw the children.  “Get back to work.  Show’s over.”

They scrambled to obey, pairing off into their own sparring groups. 

Elijah reached back and unfastened the clasp of his collar.  Taking it off brought immediate relief, which elicited a deep sigh.  “I don’t know how you wear those things,” he muttered, already healing himself.  “It feels wrong.”

“Good training, though,” Miguel stated. 

Elijah shrugged.  “Can’t really argue with that.”

He’d made incredible progress over the past few weeks.  More than anyone could have rightly expected.  Partly, that was due to Miguel’s abilities as a teacher, but it was also because of Elijah’s advanced mind cultivation.  His body cultivation also made it much easier to internalize the various techniques.

Elijah glanced around at the training grounds.  Due to space limitations on the island, it had been built in Ironshore, and it was connected to the city’s Martial Academy.  Sometimes, students would come together for mutual training sessions, which fostered a significant aura of competition among them.  There were also frequent tournaments for the pupils, culminating in an end-of-the-year competition where the victor was given various awards.

The space itself was just an oval about the size of a football field, and it was covered in sand.  They even had seating available, though those stands stood empty for the moment. 

“Thanks for the training,” Elijah said, clapping his nephew on the shoulder.  “I might not be able to do it again for a few weeks.  I’m starting my carving project today.”

Miguel shrugged.  “I’ll be here.”

There was a hint of bitterness about that, and Elijah could recognize the source well enough.  Miguel wasn’t afflicted with quite as strong of wanderlust as Elijah, but he still had trouble sitting still.  However, with a new baby, he was tied down for the time being.  He still trained.  He still patrolled.  But he clearly would have been happier if he could run a tower or two.

The chances that Hope would allow that were very slim.

After saying his goodbye, Elijah transformed into the Shape of the World Serpent – creating chaos among the students – and flew away.  It only took him a few seconds to cross the strait, and he landed in the center of the grove less than a minute later.  Much to Nerthus’ chagrin, his arrival disturbed a few plants.

“There is a designated arrival zone for a reason,” Nerthus complained.

“I know.  But it’s way over there,” Elijah responded, gesturing vaguely to the eastern side of the island.  He did so while wearing a grin, which only served to frustrate Nerthus even more.

The spryggent just shook his great head and mumbled something under his breath.  A string of flowery compliments, surely.

Elijah ignored his friend and headed toward the ancestral tree.  It was much, much larger than it had been when he’d left for the Labyrinth of Dead Gods.  Probably a quarter of a mile tall.  According to Nerthus, that was by design.  The tree needed slow and steady growth if it was to reach its potential. 

That definitely wasn’t a dig against Elijah’s strategy with Treebie, which centered around the notion that bigger was always better.

In any case, the ancestral tree had grown quite a bit more energetic as well.  Partially, that was a result of the Primordial Loam and the other natural treasures Elijah had brought home over the course of his adventures, but it was also a natural consequence of his rising power.  As he went, so did the grove.

The side effect of that was that the atmosphere was infused with his essence, with his particular flavor of ethera, and so completely that it was difficult for even mortals to ignore.  

That was why he’d left the branch he’d taken from Treebie leaning against the ancestral tree.  In a perfect world, he’d have left it there for decades, but Elijah was far too impatient for that.  He wanted to get started on the project sooner rather than later, so he’d decided to do so after only a month.

And the end of that interval had come.

He picked the limb up and inspected it.  It was relatively straight, but he knew he would need to do some work there.  Maybe seven feet, which was more than long enough for his purposes. 

Without further hesitation, he retreated to the beach where he immediately got to work building a large fire.

The first step was to straighten the limb, which would require quite a lot of steam. Thankfully, Elijah had plenty of experience with that.  The limb itself only had a single problematic curve, so he expected it would be a relatively quick job to get it into proper shape.

To do so, he left the limb on a pair of rocks that raised it a couple of feet off the ground.  Then, Elijah placed a large kettle containing a few gallons of water on the fire and waited for it to come to a boil.  Once it did, he removed it from the fire and directed the steam toward the bend he wanted to fix.

When it was moderately pliable, Elijah put a bit of pressure on that bend.  The steam was only somewhat uncomfortable, and he was more than capable of maintaining that pressure for as long as necessary.  Gradually, the piece straightened out, and he set the kettle aside.

Now, it was just a matter of holding it in place until it dried.

While he waited, Elijah closed his eyes and focused on Nature’s Design.  It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for – microbes living within the wood.  In most cases, curing would eliminate most bacteria or fungi living within a piece of wood.  That was not what Elijah wanted, though, so over the past month, he’d taken great pains to keep the bacteria within the limb alive.

It wasn’t easy.  There wasn’t much moisture in the limb.  But he managed it all the same, mostly by altering the way it grew.  Now, the bacteria had become as much a part of the wood as it was a separate thing.

From a biological perspective, it didn’t make much sense.  But with ethera and Nature’s Design, that didn’t really matter. 

As the wood dried and finalized its new, straighter shape, Elijah forced the bacteria to grow according to his plans.  In a lot of ways, it resembled his work in Druhmor, but he also incorporated some other rune designs he’d recently learned from Carmen.  She’d even given him a book to study.

Probably to keep him from bugging her while she was working.  Still, it was helpful enough.

The bacteria responded to the touch of Nature’s Design very quickly, but it still took a couple of days to cover the entirety of the limb’s interior.  Only when he’d finished did Elijah open his eyes and take a look.

From the outside, the limb appeared very similar to how it had looked before he’d begun.  Just grey-blue wood shot through with milky white crystal.  But inside were thousands of tiny, living runes that Elijah hoped would change everything about his next weapon. 

But now was the time to get started on the real work.  Now, it was time to carve.