Chapter 30
Finn spent four hours that afternoon and evening sprinting across a seventy metre-wide field before working his way back with all manner of agile dodges, dexterous phantom-counters, heavy slashes, precise thrusts, fast ripostes, and extremely nimble dives, all to a crowd that grew in a size that topped fifty candidates, and twenty-five trainee-mages.
By the time that he burned out the last reserves of his rage, he’d long since missed the proper meeting-time set by his new caster-friend Ruthie… but that didn’t matter in the slightest, since she was a part of the cheering-section. So after a quick bath, which, for the Aegis candidates meant a cold-water well and a wooden bucket, he went in for a somewhat-late meal, and finally dragged himself back to his lodgings.
Waiting for him in his room was the mischievous Gail. The proper one with the braids, not the man-child with the double chin. She happened to be twenty, and so very, very flexible. When she finally slipped out of his bed at an hour past mid-night, he was beyond exhausted, and passed out all too easily.
He was then woken up at dawn by Bailey, or Braden? Barkley. Bradley. That was it. Anyways, after dragging his arse to get dressed in the same gear that he had trained in day before, this time with his frontal piece of mail under the leather jerkin, he reported to the perverted mage-physician Patrick for his Cleanse. Then, after breaking his fast in the dining-hall, he followed the other candidates to the training grounds, slipped into one of the numerous rows of hopeful-combatants, and was now raising his brows towards the three late-thirties or early-forties-aged, fully-armoured male Aegis instructors at the front of their assembly. “Sorry?”
“You’re going to fight us. One at a time. We need to better understand your techniques, and how we can set a training regime that will benefit you.”
The long-haired companion slowly pans his gaze around, and catches sight of a number of confused expressions. Apparently this type of thing didn’t happen that often. If at all. Which was probably understandable. Though not to him. He was just as at-odds with the request as the rest of the candidates…
“Come on, son, step forward. Everyone? If you could please arrange yourselves in a wide circle, and take a knee.”
Clearing his throat softly as the other little warriors scramble around like rats, the wiry swordsman is finally afforded a clean look at the men he was to face, and lets out a slightly pained sigh at the sight. The first had a massive halberd leaning against his right shoulder, the full length of which was probably three feet taller than his six-foot height. He was wearing the typical white shirt with silver-embroidered triangle that identified him as a member of the Aegis, and there was a glimpse of inter-woven mail underneath. The man looked pleasant, with a somewhat jovial circular face and perpetual smile of kindness or confidence, and a shaggy head full of short, salt n’ pepper-coloured hair.
The second male was extremely tall, perhaps six-foot-eight, and all-too-wide shoulders that could probably swing his pair of broadswords around at a speed faster than most people could register. He was as similarly-garbed as the previous, though with a large moustache and massive mutton-chops below a stern, un-wavering glare.
Third up was a foreign man, Asian maybe, standing all of five-foot-six, and dressed in a slick-looking orange shirt that went down to nearly his knees. His pants seemed to be made of the same material, only in black, and he wore odd little slippers instead of shoes of boots. Even his hair was an oddity, as his black mane had been tightly braided, and he wore it wrapped three times around his neck. But the small smirk under a tiny moustache hinted at the confidence he must have to stand beside two proven Knights…
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Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
