Training

His muscles ached as if they were being stretched, over and over again, beneath the weight of living. His face was red and filled with blood. His hands were white and stuffed with splinters. A tower of black stone, protruding violently from the earth like a finger, stared at him eye-to-eye and cackled at his suffering.

Crack

Crack

Again

Books could not help him here. Memory does not pump blood through his arteries. History does not empower his arms and legs. The fastest mind in the world could not quicken his reflexes. He was neither sage nor messenger, neither hero or villain. In these woods, he was only a man out of place and stuck in time.

Crack

Snap

Pain

Again

A pedigree of survival and violence did little to bolster his efforts here. Fire, lightning, and the infinite horizons of elemental knowledge did not soften the callouses that were growing on his thumb, nor did they ease the discomfort and shame felt with failure.

Crack Crack Crack

Again

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, depositing hours of upturned dust and grime from his linen sleeves onto his cheek and beard. He can’t ask for help. He will never ask for help. He learned to live without it, and he won’t today.

Crack

Snap

Again

The stone laughed. Uproariously. A jagged and vicious maw dripped venom, green and gross and reeking of graveyards. It fell and turned the earth to stone. The same stone.

The stone won again.

What you’ve done here is admirable, child. Truly. You’ve given your friends a little more time to contemplate the weight of your actions. I hope they remember that when the end comes.

Crack

Snap

Again

Ambition is a funny thing - ain’t it, ‘Master Shade?’ You plot your way from slum to slum, digging out of the muck and the fuckin’ slime of this city, and in the end it all goes to shit anyway.

Smack

Thwack

Crush

Thud

Clatter

An omen fell from his hands, clamoring on the ground. Blood ran from his brow. Birds flew from the trees, escaping the roars of anguish that rippled from the clearing.

The stone stood boldly, tall and onyx. The man crumpled before it, growing from the pool of sweat beneath his hands. The moon had begun laughing, too.

With two careful hands, the man reached for long, grey and twisted piece of wood beneath his feet. It was warm in his hands, having siphoned the spirit from his body. It had stopped speaking to him long before the sun went down. It was no more than stick in his hands now.

Crack

Rip

Tear

The linen gave way to his shoulders and elbows. The effort of pursuing success forced the sacrifice of his clothing. The man removed the tatters that clothed him still and felt the moonlight chill. He felt the tracks of sweat on his back freeze in place over his shoulders and ribs, distorting the images of the inkwork that speckled his lean frame.

My oh my! Augrima smiles on us today! Must be a special bloody occasion for the veritable mastermind to bare himself. Who knows, maggot - maybe it’ll help. Maybe that shirt is holding you back from truly mastering the art of combat. Maybe it’s your friends, eh? Ever wonder if maybe you’re more trouble than you’re worth? Or if they’re like little weights on your boots, pulling you down and down and down, into the cold and dark.

Thwack

Thwack

Whoosh

Thwack

Crack

Crack

He stopped and contemplated the wood. He felt how he held his weapon against his body. He watched the zephyr he had spun up from the dirt die down and drop the leaves and pine needles slowly float back toward home. He felt good. It felt right. The omen spoke to him again and gave him power. It gave him hope.

You people keep surprising me. In all I’ve done, in all I managed in such a short time, I never fully had a handle on the limits of hope. I’ve laid villages to waste, ripped life from scores of people, and have witnessed sins unimaginable. My brain is seared by the fires of wickedness, but your capacity for aspiration manifests shock nonetheless. What is your aim? Will you conquer? Will you raze? Will you be a wicked man?

The man breathed deeply. He hated the breath, the reminder of mortality. He wished to escape the physical and find the real, blue energy that built the boundaries that separated a man from his limits. He wanted to be without limit. He wanted to crush the stone.

Crack

Thwack

Crack

Thud

Crack

Yeah, go ahead, mate. Break it. Knock this little rock over. Topple it, yeah.

Crack

Crack

Thud

Ah, look at you. Gonna start cryin’, mate? Come on, let it out. Let’s see a little honest work for a change.

Thwack

Thwack

Thud

Well, ain’t this pitiful. Wields a bit o’ power, a little eons-old potential in the palm of his hands, and now he’s whackin’ a bloody rock with it. Think you’re trainin’? Think you’ll be a warrior? Think you’re truly wicked? COME ON!

The winds spun and wound. The trees bent and ripped themselves from the dirty and bowed to him. The moon went dim as the staff lit itself in blue-white power. The forest became a silhouette. The man became a vessel. The staff sailed through the air and tossed up the detritus of a wood as old as time. It landed on the stone and did not stop.

CRAAAAAAACK

The top half of the stone figure before him flew through the air and split a tree down the middle, both halves splintered and peeling away. The man was bent forward, his hands shaking on the shaft of his weapon. The edges of each end glowed red, arcing lightning like a bowstring. He stood straight, feeling the staff in his hands like an extension of his form.

“Truly wicked.”