“Master wouldn’t let me draw my sword on a wooden man,” Yerin said with a shrug. “If it didn't bleed, it wasn't good enough training.”
“I suspect that, in a few years, you’ll have drawn enough blood to satisfy even your master. No need to start too early.”
Yerin looked pleased by the compliment, but Lindon was wondering what exactly the Underlord had planned for them over the next few years.
Eithan moved on. “These dummies are more than wood, you see. They are moved by small constructs inside, and are used to practice basic steps in combat.”
Yerin's face fell, her disappointment clear. Lindon perked up.
She might not need such simple instruction, but Lindon was looking forward to his turn in the circle of wooden men. He was lacking in many areas, and hand-to-hand combat was one of them. As an Unsouled, he had been encouraged to practice the simple exercises of the Wei clan, but never trained for a real fight.
Eithan strode over to the podium at the center of the control circle, pointing a finger at Yerin while moving his other hand over the podium. “I know how you feel, but be patient. I'm making a point.”
The air between Eithan's hand and the podium rippled. The smaller circle around Eithan lit up white, then the light flowed into the bigger circle. Soon, the entire barn was lit with pale runelight.
Suddenly, one of the wooden dummies spun on its axis. A previously invisible circle of runes lit up on its left arm—green—then in its lower torso—blue—then on its face—white. The lights faded away in seconds.
“Hit the circles as they light up. Simple, isn't it? If you do it correctly, and your strikes carry enough madra, the circles will stay lit instead of dying out. When all three circles on all the dummies remain active at the same time, you have won.”
Air rippled between his hand and the controls again, and a deafening chime sounded from all the dummies at once. They each spun in place, and the three circles on their bodies continued to shine instead of dying out.
Eithan stepped away from the controls, though the circles in the floorboards remained lit.
The dummies stayed bright for a handful of seconds, their three rings shining, before finally going dark.
“Yerin, if you wouldn't mind demonstrating for Lindon how the system works, I'd like to see you defeat the dummies. As quickly as possible, please.”
Yerin stepped between two of the mannequins, tucking her sword-arm closer to her shoulder so it didn't catch on a wooden head. “I just have to hit them when they light up?”
“In the correct timing. If you miss one, the target will go dark again, and you'll have to start over.”
She nodded, approaching a dummy. “How do I start?”
When she stepped closer, a green circle of runes lit on the wooden plank it used as an arm. Before Lindon had fully registered the light, Yerin had already struck it dead-center. The arm swiveled back from the force...
...and the other arm came to life, swinging at the back of her head.
She caught the blow with her left hand, striking at the dummy's torso with her right in the instant the blue circle appeared. The wooden man bowed in the middle to deliver a headbutt, but she sidestepped as though she could see it coming, her sword-arm whipping forward to strike the white circle.
Before the chime sounded, signaling that she'd beaten the first dummy, she was already stepping up to the second.
If Lindon hadn't attained the Iron body, he wouldn't be able to catch her movements. The three strikes would have looked like one motion. He'd seen his clansmen punch through walls and dodge arrows, but he'd never seen anyone move so quickly, so easily.
Not up close, anyway. He'd watched Yerin fight before, but when she was in an actual battle, her movement seemed...rougher. More natural, somehow. This was smooth and practiced, like she was executing a routine for the hundredth time.
“This is her first try?” Lindon asked, as Yerin stopped a separate strike with each hand while delivering a kick that lit up a green circle. She'd taken down three dummies already.
“This much is expected,” Eithan said, examining his fingernails. “Jai Long could clear this course with his eyes closed.”
Lindon slipped his hand into the pocket where Suriel's marble rested—a transparent orb about the size of his thumbnail with a single blue candleflame burning within. Its warmth comforted him, reassured him.
Eithan flashed him a smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The heavens are on your side.”
Lindon started. Did Eithan know about Suriel? Lindon wasn’t particularly afraid of the story getting out, since no one would believe it anyway, but how had Eithan found out? Had Yerin told him?
Could the Underlord read minds?
“…because the heavens sent you to me,” Eithan went on. “That’s nothing if not a miracle.”
Slowly, Lindon let out a breath.
The eighteenth chime sounded, and all the dummies glowed softly. Yerin slid backwards and came to a stop in the center, her breathing a little ragged.
“Fifteen seconds,” Eithan announced. “Not bad for your first time. The dummies are set to delay you more than injure you, but after a week or two, you'll go through this like wind through a forest.”
“What's the fastest I can get?” Yerin asked.
“Twelve seconds is the minimum the script can handle. When you reach that, I'll have a better one built.”
Yerin crossed her arms. “How fast is yours?”
“An excellent question. As I said, I grew up on a course very similar to this one, but recently I had the Arelius Soulsmiths build me a course set for two seconds.”
She waved a hand at the surrounding dummies. “You could clear this in two seconds, if the script let you?”
Lindon's eyes widened as he tried to picture that, but Yerin looked skeptical.
Eithan laughed. “Couldn't your master do as much?”
“You are not my master,” she said with confidence.
He'd already moved over to the controls, and the colored circles on the dummies died down as the circle reset. “I am not, and I'm sorry I never got the chance to meet him. There aren't many who know him in the Blackflame Empire, but he has quite the reputation in the outside world.”
The outside world. Lindon hadn’t even seen the Empire yet, and he was already impatient to reach beyond it. The world Suriel had shown him was impossibly vast, and Eithan had seen more of it than anyone else Lindon had met. That alone was enough to make him thankful he’d joined the Arelius family.
The Underlord gestured to the circle. “Lindon. Pretend that I have given you this task to prove yourself as a new member of my family. Act as though these are not training dummies, but enemies, and I have tasked you with our defense.”
Lindon looked past Eithan's smile. There was something hidden in those words, though he wasn't sure what. Nonetheless, he shifted the way he thought about the training circle.
If this were a real life-or-death scenario, he’d need more information.
He walked around the edge, glancing at the dummies. As he'd expected, the target circles weren't invisible; they were simply sketched lightly in the surface of the wood and difficult to make out at a distance. The dummy was ringed with other such scripts, carrying instructions and power from the circle on the floor. He'd have liked to look at the constructs within—even if he couldn’t understand how such advanced devices worked, he at least might learn something.