Chapter 2: My path to travel. Part 1.
The morning air was warm, dank, and heavy with that fog of war I had mentioned earlier, so my trekking had to be done at a slower pace than was typical that day. The loaner horse I was utilizing was not of the best quality, yet strong and loyal he was to a fault. The rocky trail that we traveled was uncharacteristically level, and our pace allowed me a bit of time to think of what the day was bound to bring.
Where to start? The Grounds of Hellinbrachyn? The group of squires that I would lead? What would the other Knight Instructors be like? And the Mages? The MAGES!!
I had failed to think of them till that moment... The "magically inclined" Wing of Hellinbrachyn was filled to the brim year after year with at least five scores of the lot. I was never "inclined" to study the "finer" arts of war...
The sword arts, Shield arts, Bow arts, Axe /Hammer arts, and especially the Spear arts were more than enough for me. I preferred to let nothing take away from the purity that was physical combat. Human to Human. The test of years of accumulated skill and good old-fashioned training. Why would we want to taint that with spells and wards?
To each their own I guess. I did my best in those days to just not judge others.
Live and let live and all. In war times that is often for the best...
Every year 500 students would flock to the gates of the 5 Grounds spread out over the land. A Ground was a place known for its special goal-oriented courses and trades. In this land of ours, each child had a choice to make when they reached 10 years of age. It is by no means an easy one, as it will change and become the defining choice of their young lives. Parents are urged to avoid influencing their child's choice by law, as it must come from the heart. Mine was more so... Coerced by fate...
But that is a story for another time.
The Grounds were known as:
(in no order)
Juriyalett:
The Athenaeum Of Worldly Tomes.
Tri-Lore:
The Echelon Of The Elements.
Junt:
Coterie Of The Blade.
Hellinbrachyn:
School Of Squires.
And last but in no way least,
Crowhaven:
Of The Shifters.
I guess I should start with the Ground of my choosing.
Hellinbrachyn was not just any ordinary training school or learning facility, it was the Ground of most renown among any other Ground known to human or Fae kind.
This Ground was in no way more unique than the others. It was not famous for its looks, nor its alumni like a few of the others. Its renown came from the fact that it offered the best of not only Squire classes and courses aimed at forging the most reliable of Knights But there were also just as many intricate courses and options for Mages. To keep it short, Hellinbrachyn produced some of the most talented B.T (Battlefield Tacticians) Warlocks, And Sorcerers per decade. Second only to Tri-Lore in its production of the latter two named fields of profession. Hellinbrachyn was a strange balance of worldly might and unworldly magics.
Tri-Lore was known for one thing and one thing only: Magic. Of all kinds. But mostly the top 3 arguably most practice:
Black.
-Combat Curses
White.
-Healing spells
And Arcane
-Situational Hexes.
Year after year aspiring young mages flocked to this Ground, with hopes set higher than the clouds and dreams just as airy yet very possibly attainable with the right amount of dedication, and in some strange yet not unheard of cases, luck.
Stories for another time. I know I say this a lot but we have plenty!
Juriyalett.
What a sight to behold. I can't easily describe this Ground with simple words, but boy will I try! Juriyalett was one of the eldest of the 5 Grounds founded within our illustrious queendom. Its grand spires and temples of intricately forged dwarven steel and glass could be spotted from miles off into the surrounding forest, long before one with an untrained, foreign, or wary eye could make out what it truly was. Each of the 4 towering spires was filled with shelves, tables, closets, and rooms lined to the brim with nothing less than the largest, most complete, and more so most profound collection of books, scrolls, tablets, spell tomes, and individually collected papers and essays known to any and all species on our continent. And if that wasn't impressive enough, its attending Educational Scribes were known far and wide for their unmatched knowledge and studiousness. Scholars and E.S from both Juriyalett and Tri-Lore were known for their love of collaboration among their students since their corresponding fields had much to offer one another in terms of "educational exchange." Students from Juriyalett would offer their unparalleled access to any and all of the material any aspiring Tri-Lore student would need in order to come up with their most creative of combat tricks and spells, while in exchange the Tri-Lore students would teach the Juriyalett "bookworms" how to USE some of the knowledge that they so eagerly and so often absorbed with so little as an afterthought. Magical brawn in exchange for Intellectual Brains and vice versa. An equivalent exchange if ever I heard of one.
Junt.
What more can I say other than
69% dropout rate...
To be a Swordsman means dedication.
And the occasional lost digit...or two. There are countless stories documented (and not) of eager and unskilled young Myrmidons losing body parts not very long into their first month. Scars and bruises seem to be some sort of trophy to most of the senior class, with many of the upperclassmen sporting custom-made light armors that purposely leave these battle-damaged areas exposed, daring their adversaries to strike at these supposed "weak spots" a fool-hardy choice to witness if I might say so myself. One of the C.I.'s (Combat Instructors) just so happens to be a really good friend of mine. I have seen his scars. Well... the ones that tend to hang around, Another story for another time.
Bear with me.
Crowhaven.
This Ground is one of the more mysterious of the 5. The art of shape-shifting is (from what I hear) rather painful, yet lucrative in more than just combat situations. The yearlings who choose this Ground all seem to be the rather... eccentric type. This is the Ground with the most...restrictive prerequisites among the 5 as well.
Entry level Omnibiology.
Entry-level Human/Fae Medics.
and a choice between either Elixir Crafting or Potions Production.
This is why I tend to stick to the basics of good old-fashioned melee. It is a hell of a lot less complicated to simply run a man threw with a blade, or crease his skull with a blunt instrument of war in my "professional" opinion. But again, to each his own.
In all of my years of conflagration, I have come to witness many outcomes to many battles, duels, and skirmishes and I can tell you this much: The strongest of arms can be quickly crippled by a simple spell, true. Yet just as often have I seen what would appear to be the grandest of Mages fall to one well-placed swipe, feint, or jab of well-trained swordsmen.
This is why the choice of training matters so much for the children whose time has come to choose. It is often said that if one were to live by the sword, then surely the odds are much higher that they would find their end to something of the sort.
That saying is well past outdated these days.
It was at that point that I recalled that I had an important meeting to keep besides having to be at the rendezvous mark by high noon. I tightened the straps on my light armor and accompanying gear and urged my mount into a bit more of a haste.
I was to link with a companion of mine. Admittedly it had been a while. And even more admittedly he was more "family" than "companion". An old training partner turned best friend if ever I knew one. Having grown up with our respective villages so close meant that we could meet and train often.
His sword-based style was heavily offensive, and forward which made for a perfect counter in fact to my more so defensive, and reactive spear training.
His name was Himora. His mother and mine had been fast and close friends back in the day, and our father's stories were even more deeply intertwined. Mine hand his both having served in the RKG or "Royal Kings Guard" as it was known before it was non-ceremoniously "converted" to what is now known as the "Queens Shield" We grew up together and much of our early days were filled with conflict and strife. Watered down words for "war" and "devastation"
But today's reunion was a positive one. A day that I had waited quite some time for in fact. We had spoken in the past about this chapter in our lives. The part where we would eventually be free of those long days at war. Years of battle after battle now lay behind us, and a future in the field of education was how we had both agreed to not only apply but contribute all that we had learned in those times of war and death to the future generations to come. Our goal was not to prepare these youth for some inevitable war but to thoroughly educate them on the best methods of avoiding having to go to war in the first place.
The Queendom of Naeri and its 5 Grounds were dedicated in whole to the idea of avoiding war by educating its public from a very young age in the study of not only war itself but of its deep history and its many many causalities. I was proud to be a bearer of that ideology and banner, as was Himora.
An hour or so had passed as I rode atop my mount in a strange cloudy vigilance.
I would come to crest the hill on which he and I were set to meet this afternoon soon enough. My musings of the Grounds had affected my perception of the passing of time, as the path I had taken that morning was notorious for its lengthiness. The sun sat high in the sky as my mount slowed its pace marking the start of the accent. This hill was one that I had climbed many a time in my youth. From its apex, a greater part of the Northeastern quarter of Naeri could be surveyed. Long, deep valleys crisscrossed the region, and at its very Northernmost point sat the 5 Grounds. As I came within an eyeshot of the top I came to realize that Himora was not there just yet, as behind as I had figured I was, he must have been that much more off the mark this morning.
I brought my mount to the side of the hilltop and hitched it to one of the few trees that lined the hill crest providing it with not only a source of food, for the trees were of the fruit-bearing sort, but a spot of shade as well. The climb had not been kind to the aged nag, but we had made it. I drew from my sacks a hunk of bread, a skin of pure water, and a smaller hunk of smoke-dried heifer. I would have breakfast and await Himora, he couldn't be too far off.
Unbeknownst to me, it would be this very spot that would mark the beginning of one hell of a semester. I supposed that this morning, I was in the right place at the right time.
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