For his own sanity, Vir had learned long ago to ignore the pained groans that left Maiya’s lips during each massage. He felt genuinely bad for hurting her, but the feeling that came after the massage was pure bliss.
Whoever had to massage second always drew the short end of the stick—the massages were so effective that it often sent them right to sleep. Staying up after a massage was a monumental challenge in its own right.
“Alright, Maiya, I’m done,” he whispered, wrapping up with the massage.
She didn’t hear him. Her soft snores told him everything he needed to know. Yet again, she’d nodded off before massaging him.
He gently scooped her up and lifted her onto his bed. Maiya wasn’t exactly heavy for a girl, but the exertion still caused him to burst with sweat, forcing him to go back to the shower to towel off. The prudent thing to do would be to lie down in his warm, soft bed, and drift off to sleep like Maiya and Neel already had. Then he eyed his chakrams, reflecting the light of the dim Magic Candles. He knew at that moment that any choice he had in the matter was gone.
Vir picked up his disks and headed out.
The night was young, and there was training to be done.
What he didn’t notice were the two pairs of eyes on a nearby dune. Tracking his every movement.
The same pair that spied on his arrival at Riyan’s abode watched him even now. Whenever he stepped out onto the sand, and every time he returned, the two figures in white robes logged his actions, diligently reporting back to their master.
Patiently, they watched… And they waited.
22THE AKH NARA SENDS HIS REGARDS
Under the starlight of a chilly desert night, Vir threw his chakrams and his chakris at the tree above Riyan’s abode.
He hit, he missed, and then he collected them all to throw again.
The biting cold served as excellent motivation to keep him active—the moment he stopped, his cooling sweat made him shiver and freeze. The metal chakrams didn’t help, sucking the heat out of his hands at an astounding rate. Without Riyan’s half-finger gloves, Vir’s hands would have frozen hours ago.
But even with the gloves, his fingers still touched the disks, forcing him to stop and stick his hands in his armpits to warm up. Of course, when he did, the rest of his body cooled off, forcing him to walk a tightrope between exertion and rest.
The effort had been worth it. Just a day after receiving the chakrams from Riyan, he’d become proficient enough to hit his targets at thirty-five paces away… Most of the time.
It wasn’t enough. Vir craved more.
He imagined himself surrounded by bandits. He saw himself sailing through the air, launching chakrams at multiple enemies, midair, upside down. In his delusional fantasy, the opponents ringing him had all collapsed by the time he’d landed.
Reality was not so kind. Whenever he attempted to do anything even remotely flashy, he was either met with injury, or made a fool of himself. Thankfully, nobody was watching.
Or so he’d thought, until a pair of blue eyes stared at him from the darkness, just fifteen paces away. A wolf, and where there was one, there were always more.
Vir froze. Fear flooded his body, triggering his fight-or-flight response. His heartbeat quickened, enhancing Prana Vision.
He quickly scanned the hill, finding nothing. No prana signatures. It really seemed to be just this one animal, all by its lonesome.
Then he noticed the beast’s protruding ribcage. The animal barely had an ounce of fat. It was starving.
That made him a little sad, but any sympathy he had for the animal evaporated when the wolf howled and charged him. Vir could almost feel its hunger as saliva flew from its maw.
There was no way Vir could flee. It was a hundred paces to Riyan’s front door, and the wolf was too fast. It’d be on him before he’d even gotten halfway.
Luckily, he had several lethal flying weapons in hand. And eyes that told him exactly where the wolf’s heart lay.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he launched a chakram at the beast.
The wolf saw the incoming disk and swerved, but even if it hadn’t, Vir didn’t anticipate the wolf’s trajectory well enough—it would’ve missed either way.
He threw his other chakram, but that one also missed.
“Grak it!”
The wolf continued to close the distance.
Now he only had a single chakram and three chakris remaining.
What’s wrong with me? he thought. He’d hit the tree just fine. Why couldn’t he hit the wolf?
Vir began lobbing the smaller chakris. The first missed. As did the second. The third made contact, bouncing off, its blunt training edge barely nicking the beast’s hide.
“Badrakking thing!” Vir cursed. Was his last remaining chakram even sharp enough to be effective? He had his doubts, but now the wolf was upon him.
Time had run out.
Vir adopted a combat stance, forced to use his chakram as a bladed melee weapon.
The wolf leaped into the air, aiming for his throat… but Vir’s Kalari training hadn’t been for naught.
He crouched and twisted, just enough to avoid the wolf’s open jaw. He sliced upward with his chakram, aiming for an artery that flowed through the beast’s belly.
The wolf yipped as Vir’s chakram met flesh. He was just as shocked as the beast, not having expected the bladed disk to penetrate its hide.
His surprise made him hesitate. Vir clucked his tongue as the wolf darted away, eyeing him warily, its blood dripping onto the sand.
He’d lost the opportunity to press his advantage, all for a minor injury. The chakram hadn’t penetrated the artery he’d been aiming for. In fact, all it did was make the starving animal angrier. It growled and shuddered and glared at him.
In close quarters, the wolf had every advantage. Its powerful jaw could rip through Vir’s neck, and its claws could easily mangle his limbs. How many times would he have to injure the wolf before it gave up and ran away? How many more encounters could he survive without being injured himself?
Not once did he think about killing the beast. He simply wasn’t good enough to pull that off—trying for a lethal strike may very well result in his own death.
The wolf leaped, and once again Vir adopted a defensive Kalari stance, his legs spread wide with his weight on his rear leg.
But this time, his enemy was smarter.
Just as Vir swung to intercept its attack, it changed directions, zigzagging the final few paces to throw him off.
The tactic worked. The wolf bypassed his attack entirely. He was defenseless now, and there was no time to do anything other than guard his face and neck.
The wolf took a vicious swipe, tearing through the skin on Vir’s forearms.
“GAAAAAH!” Vir screamed.
Searing heat shot through his arms, threatening to double him over in pain. Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them back. He couldn’t allow his vision to be compromised in the middle of a battle.
It’s just pain. You can handle this. It’s just pain! Nothing more… he told himself.
The wolf mounted him, pinning him underneath. Unlike when Vir performed the same move on Maiya earlier that day, the wolf simply didn’t have the weight to keep him down. Vir slashed his chakram at the beast’s soft underbelly and rolled to the side, throwing the animal off.
But not before the wolf took several more swipes to his face and shoulder, rending his skin open in several places. Rivulets of blood traced red lines down his face and arms, soaking his hands red.
The moment he stood, the beast was on him again, unrelenting in its ferocity. It gnawed his pants, sending him crashing back to the ground.