Hunter Or Huntress

Chapter 20: Recruit

If nothing else, Tom’s little demonstration had earned him a wary respect from everyone, especially Rachuck who almost seemed a little timid after his near-death experience. Nevertheless, it had clearly also convinced Nunuk he needed to start his time with the guard, even with his reduced sleep schedule, his day was starting to get quite full. But doing something that wasn’t intellectual in any way would be a nice change of pace.

So now he was making his way to the armory where he was supposed to meet Rachuck, he had all his combat gear, and Kiran riding along, of course, Tom had promised to bring him along.

“We go fight”

“No Kiran, no fight! Learn'' Kiran was clearly excited, Tom wasn’t sure if the guard would let the little one stay, but if not there would surely be trouble he thought. Kiran might be three, but damn he had spirit.

As Tom opened the door he found five dragonettes waiting for him including Rachuck, Anchor, Balethon, and Kokashi. The last one introduced themselves as Herron. Tom knew there were two more but they were likely sleeping following their turn on the night shift.

“Hi, nice to meet you” Tom had been practicing his greetings, even if he had met most of them before, it was the best one he had.

“Welcome Tom” Rachuck straightened, looking more like a proper soldier. He walked over giving Tom his hand and pointed to a table in the middle of the room “equipment”

Sweet! Tom thought, so far everything he had seen the dragonettes use had been high quality handmade. As he made his way over to the table it was clear though this was more like training equipment, there was a one-handed sword, it was of the same general design as the others he had seen. It had a straight double-edged blade that tapered at the tip, clearly meant for thrusting into an opponent. The blade was dented and a bit discolored, clearly having been extensively used and repaired many times before. There was a belt scabbard for it, along with a hodgepodge of random armor pieces.

“We not know what fit,” Rachuck had explained as Tom was examining the various pieces.

He had begun testing out a few things. The gauntlets looked like they might fit, along with the shoulder pads, Tom had no clue of the proper terminology. The breastplate too, but he was wondering if it would be smart, to replace his existing armor.

“Have this” he went, taking off his vest, pulling out the ballistic plate in the carrier. “Stop rifle”

The dragonettes had gathered around inspecting the piece. “Small” Kokashi went, picking up the plate and placing it in front of his chest.

“But strong” Tom tried to assure “No stop bullet” he went knocking in the breastplate

“But stops sword or arrow” Rachuck had retorted,

“True, uncertain” Tom had gone holding up the two pieces of armor.

“Hold things, help hide” he concluded taking the vest, “need, camouflage, other” Tom didn’t know what the draconic was for that one.

“Make better hide” he went trying to explain, pointing at the shiny pieces of metal then to his green and black pattern uniform.

“You want to smudge pure and beautiful steel?” Balethon clearly didn’t like Tom’s suggestion, they must really like pure things. Come to think of it, they wore white when they could, their armor was shiny. “Ohhh, like shiny!” Tom was feeling quite proud of figuring that one out until he looked down at himself, “Arh” was all he'd said. “Sorry home if soldier shiny die quick”

“Why would clean armor kill a soldier” Rachuck was clearly puzzled by this

“Easy to see, easy to shoot” Rachuck seemed to understand rubbing his chin for a while.

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As Sapphire sat in the kitchen helping with that evening’s dishes along with Balethon, the guard had suddenly burst out at her.

“He wants to deface our armor Saph! Cover it with paint”

“Well, he does seem to take the whole color scheme very seriously, even his sleeping bag has that strange pattern”

“You don’t understand, he brought paints for himself too, he smeared his face in black and green warpaint! He looked like something you should kill on sight”

“If he is your enemy I think you are correct in that statement. you saw his little demonstration.”

“Yeah, he claimed on his world you hide when in battle. Otherwise, you die. He does not fight with honor, even from a distance. It seems no one from his home does.”

“Would you, with weapons like that?”

“No I guess not, but he isn’t home! We need to convince him to fight like a proper warrior, otherwise what happens if”

“If some vargulfs attack” Sapphire interrupted “They won’t care. Besides, Nunuk would never allow him to go off to fight a war or something, she needs him here.”

“But still he showed us how his people fight, they dig holes in the ground and mounds of dirt to hide behind. We can’t have him do that, even against beasts of the night. If anyone finds out we will be branded as cowards!”

“I think any observer would be more interested in how the beast just fell over dead in front of them, to be honest,” Sapphire tried her best to be reassuring, But the guard had a point, perhaps they should find out if Tom could fight with honor.

“I hope you are right,” Balethon concluded, getting back to his washing up, but clearly not convinced.

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It had become abundantly clear to Tom that everything he knew about warfare was abhorrent to these people. They seemed more show fighters than soldiers in his eyes by now.

They didn’t want to get their armor dirty, they didn’t want to hide from an enemy, and they seemed very fond of duels, and formation fighting.

Well at least if the same was true of the enemy Tom wouldn’t have much of a problem dealing with them. But his concerns about what would happen if the bad guys, whoever they might be, got their hands on firearms had only grown. They honestly seemed like the kind of people who would consider ranks of muskets a good idea. ‘Jesus Christ’ Tom thought to himself.

They had also begun training him in sword fighting, with and without a shield. At least they were competent in that regard. The fact Tom had no clue what he was doing probably helped though. He was being tossed around like a play doll in the ring, Rachuck, in particular, had been ruthless. Tom thought that was fair following what he had done to the guy. Still, the swords hurt like hell even if they were blunted.

Tom had managed to fit some of the odd armor pieces mostly to his arms, which were seemingly similar if a little broader than the dragonets. It helped a lot with the pain, as he was hammered again and again, by his far superior opponent. He had begun to figure out the basics though, the painful crash course was a good teacher.

He brought up his blade again, settling back into the stance Kokashi had shown him in-between bouts. Kokashi had taken it upon himself to teach, the guy seemed friendly. Tom had answered in a whistle a few times, prompting a smile from the guard, Tom wasn’t gonna let the guy forget he thought he was a songbird anytime soon. That had simply been too hilarious.

Tom and Rachuck began circling each other, eyeing each other, Rachuck seemed to be breathing heavy. Tom was getting a little winded but not too bad, Tom elected to try and tire his opponent rather than beat him outright. He began circling faster, switching direction moving forward to the point Rachuck took a swing, only to retreat tempting Rachuck to follow him.

It wasn’t elegant, but as he yielded the initiative Rachuck eagerly took it, clearly trying to prove just how much better he was. Tom was constantly on the defense by now, constantly retreating, trying his best to maintain the range. Rachuck was clearly enjoying his show of superiority, he could herd Tom around as he pleased.

Tom got ample use out of his shield, even if Rachuck still got a swipe through every now and again. If this had been a real fight he was likely dead. That didn’t matter though, this was a training duel, and more to the point this was now a battle of attrition. Rachuck had taken his bait, the constant offense and sword swinging had taken its toll. The guard began to slow and just as Tom thought he was about to call for a break, he went on the offensive. Tom couldn’t match the guard in speed or skill, but Rachuck was obviously tiring and beginning to slow. Rachuck still managed to parry every thrust Tom made but gone were the swift counters, which had caused Tom so much pain at the start.

Tom kept up the constant barrage, still being careful not to leave his own defense off too badly, even badly exhausted, Rachuck still managed to get pretty close to landing a hit a few times, but so did Tom. With every parry the Dragonette was getting more tired heaving for breath by now. Tom was sweating hard and panting, but without the ability to sweat Rachuck must surely be overheating badly. Tom got his answer as the Dragonette finally started losing his composure and dropped to his knees, leaning his hand gasping for air. Tom walked up and placed his blade on Rachuck’s shoulder with a little tap.

“You, dead” there was silence from the guards before Kiran burst out “Yay Tom!” and made a small celebratory growl.

It took a while and some water before Rachuck returned to his senses, clearly having been pushed far beyond what seemed like a good idea to Tom’s mind at least. He felt a little bad about that, but it wasn’t like he could have won fairly, and the guy hadn’t called for a break.

“How did you do that?” Rachuck had demanded.

“Endurance” Tom had tried shrugging. His limited vocabulary bitting him for this one “see wet” Tom held up his arm to show it was covered in sweat. “cool”

“You didn’t pour water on yourself, how are you wet?”

“Sweat” Tom tried in English, he had no clue what the Draconic would be for that. “make water”

“You make water to cool you down? I.. whatever.” Rachuck was clearly accepting his defeat at the hand of the distinctly inferior swordsman.

“You, still better” Tom had tried, the dude didn’t deserve to be this down about it, he had killed tom at least a dozen times if not more, Tom had only managed the one after all.

“No he dead” Kiran had joined in from the table where he had taken up residence.

“I got him one” “he got me many, he better” Tom had protested the little dragonette seemingly not agreeing, curling back up. “He dead”

“We need to train you” Rachuck had gone, “Anchor your turn”

Well shit, thought Tom. Sure he could beat one of them in endurance, but he was outnumbered five to one and it looked like his own tactic was about to be used against him...

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Sapphire was back at doing the dishes, it was one of the few jobs she could help with. Today it was Kokashi's turn to help her.

“You should have seen it, he just kept going. He drove Rachuck to the point he just fell over from exhaustion.”

“Then Anchor went at him and he just tried the same stunt again.”

“I’m betting that went well.”

“Yeah… Anchor just ran him into the ground and hammered him till he could hardly move.”

“Yeah he is good, old Anc, doesn’t like playing by other's rules,” Sapphire said giggling.

“But still the guy kept going, it was almost like the pain just spurred him on. He just kept coming. Eventually, he even started to tire out Anchor. Tom even managed to wrestle him to the ground one time, putting him in an arm lock on the ground. He might look weird but he is strong.”

“That is almost unsettling to think about. Well, I guess you got your answer to whether he can fight with honor then.”

“Yeah, in the end, Rachuck had to call off the fight before they killed each other. I don’t know if I would call it honorable. Tom fights to win, anyway, he can. It was an awesome spectacle though.”

“You do know it’s not very nice telling me how awesome something was, that I couldn’t come down to see.”

“Why n... Ohh right. Stair sorry… Get Tom to carry you down, he takes the stairs anyway.”

“Sometimes I honestly don’t know if you are joking or not.”

“Why is that? Afraid you are too heavy?” That last one was both deliberate and uncalled for Sapphire thought, as Kookashi stormed out the kitchen with flying cutlery trailing close behind.

“Come back here arsehole! I’m not finished with you!” Ohh, he was going to pay for that, she thought. Looking back at the still unfinished dishes he had left her with...