After the two Klingons had left, Nethis mused: "Well, seems we have to wait for more building materials. Our master is low on money. It also means, we have to emphasize on organizing our own food." Unfortunately, he was right with his assessment. Useless to add more than: "Hmmm", and a disgruntled face!
Odron came back in the afternoon again and dropped off the equipment Achot had ordered him to get. The oncoming week, I provided Nethis with basic training. I also spent considerable time to find a good running trail, but all roads and trails were kind of dead end. Friday however, I discovered a dear trail. Running on the road towards the creek, then turn left at the perimeter of the forest, walk along the edge of the meadow and one hit the dear trail. The dear trail ran through the forest for about 3-4km until it came out of the forest bordering another meadow again. One had to follow the edge of that meadow westward and after 1km it hit a farm road, which connected the farm with a number of meadows and fields. That farm road led back to the farm after about 5km. In lack of anything better, it had to suffice as a running trail. I guessed it was maybe 10km long. I loved running anyway, it always gave me the sensation of freedom, but with the new running shoes it was twice as nice.
The sleeping bags made the nights a lot more comfortable and I saw the envy in the eyes of the farm slaves, all lacking such luxury.
That night, before I fell asleep, an idea popped up in my Vulcan brain and urged me to bother Nethis: "Nethis!"
Already sleepy, he replied: "Yes, 'ethl tits!"
"You know, my mom used to bake our own bread. It is not utterly difficult. My thought was, that instead of the farmer buying bread, we could bake our own. The money the farmer spends on bread, he would just have to spend on flour and salt. It would probably give us 1,5-2 times the amount of bread. What we would need is an oven. Do you think you could build one?"
"An oven? I never built an oven before." After some seconds he continued: "What I would need is mortar. We might be able to collect broken bricks on a construction site."
Next day we talked to the farmer and he was willing to try it. A sack of mortar was but a little investment. As Nethis had said, the foreman of one of the bigger construction sites, allowed us to take the broken bricks, which we uploaded into the farmer's aircraft. Using an old bucket, I mixed the mortar with a wooden plank and my bare hands. Nethis first built a foundation out of stones from the creek. The farm slaves had to drag them here and they complained heavily about the exhausting work. On the foundation, he built the actual oven. In lack of a trowel, Nethis had to use his bare hands to apply the mortar. Building the oven took us two days and on the third it was time to try it out. The days before, I had already started to make sourdough, which was ready now. The first batch of breads, was not really a success. They were eatable, but the taste and the form left a lot of room for improvement. The farm slaves were not utterly happy after all the hard work they had to pump into the oven project. Never mind, that Nethis and I had invested a lot more time in it. However, after two weeks, I had the hang of it and the bread was not only looking nice and tasting well, it also provided us with about double the amount of bread than before. Still, the only one thanking me for it was my own stomach. Bastards. My Klingon Mutant demanded revenge. As I was the master of the flour, I made bigger breads for myself and Nethis. As my mother taught me: If you get a gift, say thank you. Say thank you even if you wanted something else, lest you never want to get anything from that person again. If you give a gift and no thank you is coming back to you, never give that person a gift again, because your presents are obviously not welcome.
A week, after master Odron had left us, Achot started to train us. On a Monday morning, was our first lesson with him. With a solemn undertone he bestowed us with his expert wisdom: "One of the most important matters is, that you have the endurance to push through the whole entire length of a fight. There are many gladiators, who focus on weapons technique and strength only and forget about endurance. Then they physically fall apart, when they cannot overthrow their opponent in one of the first rounds. So --- small, soft Vulcan fledgling, how is it with your endurance?"
That lecture was already boring for me, nothing new. I thought about spitting out on the ground to provide my opinion about this lame start of the training, but Vulcan logic made me not do it. Gahris had always made stamina a major training objective. With a bored gaze I just raised my shoulders, not knowing how to exactly answer Achot's question.
"Fine, 'ethl tits, you know a running trail out here?"
Woah, Achot remembered my name. My boredom grew bigger and I just gestured in the direction of the creek.
"Still got attitude? Well let's work that one off then. You lead!"
Without another word, I began to run at a mild speed. Nethis started to fall back after about 3km and we had to further slowdown. Achot's face expressed dissatisfaction with Nethis, but he did not say anything. By the time, we came back to the farm, Nethis was fully worked up, while I was hardly breathing hard. Next part of the training commenced in the courtyard of the farm, because we did not have any other place, which was big enough. The courtyard was not very inviting. Animal excrements were in many spots, so it was very advisable to memorize these spots and not step into them or worse fall into them accidentally. In the courtyard of the farm, Achot made Nethis perform basic sword strikes with a stick, then he turned to me and handed me the long stick: "You know the Kwaan-form?"
I nodded and he commanded: "Show me!"
As commanded, I performed the form with the long stick as I had learned it. Achot did not make a satisfying face, but simply said: "Fine, now repeat, this time slower."
We went through this procedure a couple of times, until my movements were so slow, that it got pretty difficult.
Still dissatisfied with my performance, Achot made a gesture to hand him the long stick. Then he did the Kwaan-form like in a slow motion movie. When he finished he returned the long stick to me: "Now you try to do it that slow!"
Qu'vathl (fuck), that was difficult. Try to do a step in slow motion. You really have to keep your balance. Then pushing the stick out in slow motion, required a lot more power than doing it with moderate speed. It also required more coordination. Meanwhile Nethis was getting tired and took a break.
Seeing it, our trainer ordered me: "Continue with the form in slow motion." Seconds later Achot was with Nethis again. Unfortunately for Nethis, his unauthorized break did not last very long. Now our trainer made him continue with his practice and corrected his movements.
The slow motion movement was continuously eating on my stamina, getting me bored on top and I longed to do something else. When Nethis eventually performed his basic sword movements to Achots satisfaction, he called me over to them. Man was I relieved! He took the long stick off of me and commanded Nethis: "Do the basic moves in slow motion!" As ordered, Nethis continued to do the sword form with one of the short sticks. While Nethis was busy, Achot stood on one leg and held the long stick out horizontally with one hand only, right at its end and above his head. After 2 or 3 minutes, Nethis was through with his form and Achot handed me the long stick back. "Nethis repeat the form", was his command. He turned to me again: "'ethl tits, do exactly what I have done!" Fuck, it was bloody hard and I could not hold the stick out for more than a minute, just using one hand. He made us do it again, then we were granted a break. Nethis was pretty much finished and I as well felt it. After half an hour break, he instructed Nethis to watch us and he made me parry his sword attacks with the long stick. All of it in slow motion. There was no speed and no force in his attacks, the difficulty was keeping my balance and doing my moves with precision. Achot continuously corrected my movements. He required precision. Once he was satisfied with my precision, he had Nethis attack me. When he was satisfied with Nethis attacks, he replaced him again but put more speed and force into his attacks. He continuously increased his speed and force, still watching over the precision of my moves.
Meanwhile, we had spectators. The farmer's family and the other slaves were watching us. Achot continued to increase the speed of his attacks, but slowed down a bit, every time he was not satisfied with the precision of my moves. His speed was a real challenge for me now. Keeping a sword fighter at bay with the long stick usually was not a big problem for me, but Achot's speed and technique was a problem. When I did not hit him while he was still out of range of his sword, he entered infight and he was utterly good at it. It must have been around noon, when he called today's session complete. He handed Nethis all the weapons and looked at me: "'ethl tits, do you have enough strength for another run?" Sitting down and relax was really tempting, but I did not wanted to give Achot the satisfaction of having exhausted me completely. "Sure, why not", I proudly replied. Kind of expecting this answer, he gestured me to lead again. The training had worn on my power reservoirs and the new round, was draining me. Once we reached the farm road, which was the last stretch I had real trouble keeping up with the tall Klingon. For each step he had to make, I had to make two. Being a small gladiator with just one heart was so unfair. Back in the farm, I was catching my breath, I was done. The Klingon however looked as he could still go further and in fact, he did another round. He wanted to show me that I was nothing more than a Vulcan fledgling.
The training continued for the next 4 weeks each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 4 hours each time. Achot was a proud Klingon asshole, he treated Nethis and me like life stock and thus I did not like him, actually I hated him. For him I was either the Vulcan fledgling or the Pahtak, but I had to admit, he was an excellent fighter and trainer. I thought, Gahris had really taught me a lot, but Achot would get me to another level. Odron showed up during our training session on Friday (4 weeks after the training had commenced) and he addressed our trainer: "Achot, when can we get the two into the arena?"
Achot raised his shoulders: "Well, 'ethl tits is ready for medium level fights, but she has no real weapon."
Odron made a face: "They need to bring in money, I cannot afford real weapons right now."
"I don't know, how that should work. She can just go in with the long stick, but the odds she will lose are high. Only hits with the edge of the blade do bring considerable points, but the long stick does not even have a blade."
An idea had built up in my mind for some time: "Master Odron, how about Nethis and I do fully rehearsed fights?" We can do them with blunt weapons, it would not be a problem.
Achot cut in: "Is not a bad idea. Every arena wants to be able to show rehearsed fights as an intermezzo."
In fact, every so often, a fight in the arena is utterly boring to the audience. This, when the fighters got to worn out and neither one can really turn the fight to his favor or when the one fighter who was supposed to lose, proved considerably better than his opponent, but instead of taking the victory, he has to prolong the fight for nothing. In such cases, the intendant was happy to raise the satisfaction of the audience again with a rehearsed fight. Obviously, the audience knew about this strategy and could quickly tell, if the fight was rehearsed, but when the rehearsal was thrilling, they still liked it. And such a rehearsal, could make the audience happy again after a boring fight. The intendant needed to drag people into the arena and when people went home, they needed to be satisfied and happy, otherwise they might visit another arena next time. Qo'nos was different to some other planets, which only had one arena. Qo'nos had a great number and people could choose.
Monday, Achot came back to the farm with a choreography for us. He explained it to me and I knew, it was a thrilling choreography, but also difficult. It took us two weeks until Achot was somewhat satisfied with our performance. From that point on, we had rehearsed fights in an arena at least once a week. Odron, was really happy, that money came in now. Then after three months, Odron received a request from another school to fight me. Not knowing what to do with it, Odron showed the request to Achot, as he had no experience with that sort of thing and after having studied it, Achot commented: "Well, it is not a bad proposal, however, I suggest, you propose, instead of the victory being predetermined, 'ethl tits will use the long stick. That way, it should be easy for his gladiator to achieve enough points to win, but spares you the need to get an expensive weapon. "
What a shite suggestion, was my thought, but what could I do? I did not have a better idea.