Sparta sat next to the sleeping Lance, the morning after the capture of Gabrial's company, quickly flicking the joysticks of his remote, owning the rest of the crew with his MORS sniper rifle and 1911 forty-five calibre pistol. None stood up to him CoD; advanced warfare. He was completely unstoppable. Lance mumbled something, and without looking up from his game, Sparta picked up a clay cup from his left side, where a table stood and poured it's steaming, translucent-yellow contents to fall upon Lance's exposed back.
His shoulder-blade skin had been completely shredded, of the fifty or so square centimeters of the blades, four or five were covered with skin, and they were split into infinitesimal shapes and sizes. Sparta swore as the break allowed an infidel to sneak in a kill. Lance groaned awake, then wished he hadn't the pain in his back was..... fading.
'Sparta..... What day is it?'
'Tuesday. A-day-and-a-half since you were knocked unconscious by the biggest asshole in town.'
'He wasn't just the biggest figuratively, but physical- Is that a TV?'
'Shh. Smuggled it in three seasons ago. Couldn't live without my Xbox.'
'How do you get internet here?' asked Lance, trying to scramble into a position that favored his back and allowed him to watch Sparta properly.
'I have absolutely no idea, but it works like a dream.' said Sparta. It drew a snort of laughter from Lance, sending throbs through his back. 'Do you think you're strong enough to stand?' asked Sparta leaving the CoD game completely now.
'Not yet.' said Lance, his stomach letting out a grumble that resembled a thunderclap closely. 'Got any food here?'
Sparta stood and walked into a different part of the cabin, pots and pans clanging around, and then Lance heard a meaty smack, and smelt the most wonderful smell he had ever smelt. It was the smell of Sparta's "Special Marinade."
Lance, one side of his face pressed against a pillow and the other looking about hungrily, thought he could smell the juiciness of the cut. Sparta placed the plate on the table in front of Lance (Sparta seemed to have an endless supply of small tables) and Lance, ignoring the protests from his back, tore in to the thick round cut of meat in front of him. He didn't care that he had no knife and fork, he used his hands, and he tore at the succulent cut with gusto that belied his injuries. His teeth lengthened a little, becoming more fangs than teeth, and his fingers and ails longer. He tore and gnawed at the piece of juicy flesh in front of him, and for a moment the world stopped turning. there was nothing but him and his meat. Then it was over, and all that was left was a small bone, picked cleaner than a carcass left by vultures.
'How do make meat so nice?' asked Lance wiping marinade and grease off his face and laying back down.
'Special recipe.' said Sparta with a wink. 'Haven't anyone who can resist it.'
'It's definitely something. After that, I think I might try and stand.'
Sparta put his arms underneath Lance's shoulders, and trying to touch his back as little as possible, helped Lance lift himself from the lounge. It had worried Lance that ever since he came to Avalon he Didn't heal as quickly as he had on Earth. Lance stood shakily, and after a second Sparta released him. Leaning on the couch, Lance took a few steps, and grew more confident. Once he had established that he was OK to walk -albeit quiet slowly- he went around the cabin and saw the other room inside.
It was just shelves and a fridge. That was all that was in the second room. The contents of the shelves varied between books on herbs and surgery to beakers filled with bright green liquid and pot plants that looked rather tentacular.
'What are the plants?' asked Lance.
'Different plants do different things, but I'll save the two-hour speech I normally provide by saying that they all heal different types of injuries. Would you like a tour of the camp?' said Sparta.
'Let's see if I can make it around the camp.' said Lance, leaning on the back of the couch.
'If you're going to feint, tell me-
'And you'll catch me?' finished Lance.
'I was gonna go for I'll be ready to laugh, and if we were on earth i'd take a video.'
'You actually come from Earth?'
'You think Xbox is in Avalon?'
'Fair enough' said Lance, struggling to wrench his boots into position without agitating his back. 'Where on Earth?'
'English originally, but then my mum walked out in 2011. Dad's greek so we went back to Greece.' said Sparta, and Lance realized he could hear traces of a cockney accent.
'Siblings?'
'None'
'I'm sorry.'
'So am I, but if she didn't then Dad would've waited to tell me about all this,' he gestured around him with his hand 'Werewolf blood always seems to tear families apart.' said Sparta absentmindedly.
'So it would seem.' said Lance, walking tentatively out the cabin door. Sparta wasn't far behind him.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Nathaniel paused to catch his breath.
The lower levels of training, which most wizards received, focused completely on spells, incanting them and later staff fighting. The higher levels, which he was now completing, focused on physical condition, holding your breath -for longer incantations-, and completing tasks without magic.
Wizards were classed with levels, lower levels being six and lower, while the higher levels reaching to fourteen. Wizards above level ten were few and far between, only two wizards have been proven to have completed level fourteen training alive. Each level had it's own training regime, which had to be completed to advance. The quickest ever advancement through levels 1-5 had been three days 17 hours and 36 minutes, but Cumquat the Clever died after attempting to complete the first six levels of training consecutively, that is, without resting for more than half an hour inbetween regimes. The second quickest record had just been demoted, and Nathaniel would have tried to best Cumquat the Clever, but Alise had insisted that he rest. It hardly lessened his newly-found ego that he held the second-quickest advancement through the lower- and mid-levels of wizard tutelage.
Arid red sand and rock stretched as far as he could see, but Nathaniel knew that behind the mound two or so kilometers ahead of him there was a rivulet of the best water he had tasted. A riverbed of sand in earth meant murky water, but here, in the middle of an unknown desert in a world that welcomed Nathaniel as a father a prodigal son, it held life, refreshment and nourishment. It was not something to be missed. He increased his pace, eager for the water.
It was his seventeenth day into the test, and he had fourteen days of rations left. It was mandatory for thirty days survival in the desert, without outside help. He had fourteen days of rations left, an unfortunate desert lizard crossing his path made for a tasty variant to his normal dried Caragor, which Nathaniel had been told was a wolf with rhino-like hide. He didn't care what it looked like, it tasted so staple, so base, that eating with less than seven other vegetables and several types of seasoning was like eating cardboard. The desert shrub named "Dunegrass" had made the dried Caragor bearable. Nathaniel had no doubt that he could finish the desert survival part of the level six exam; the part the worried him was how bored he was getting. Absentmindedly he picked up five stones, reached into the tempest of energy within him, and started to circle them around his head as he walked toward the tributary.
