"I was just being nice to my Lord General's advanced age," Faalken retorted with an outrageous grin as he regained his feet.
"Keep talking like that, and you'll never make it to my age," Darvon warned. "Tarrin, I want to you spar with Azakar. The boy gets a bit smug with himself sometimes, and I want him to learn a lesson. Make sure you surprise him early on. I want him to learn how to size up an enemy."
"Yes, Lord General," Tarrin said with a bow.
"What keeps him from getting smug?" Faalken demanded.
"Allia," Tarrin and Darvon replied in unison.
Darvon called the massive young man over, and Tarrin was again impressed with his size. He was very tall, true, but he was also exceptionally well developed. Muscle rippled through his arms and along his bare chest and stomach, and he moved with a belying grace that warned Tarrin that he was much faster than he looked. The young man stared at Tarrin for a moment, but to his credit, he was not obvious about it, nor did he seem put off by Tarrin's obvious nonhuman nature. "Azakar, I want you to spar with Tarrin here," the Lord General said. "Full contact."
"Yes, Lord General," the young man boomed in a deep bass voice, bowing gracefully to him. He looked at Tarrin, looked at Tarrin's staff, then he raised his wooden practice sword. "I'll be careful, Sir Tarrin," he said calmly. His voice was not boastful, though his words said much about who he thought was going to win. And for that reason, Tarrin took no offense. Thinking one was going to win was very important when it came to fighting. If you didn't think positively to win, then you'd almost certainly lose. "I will do my best not to hurt you."
Faalken and Darvon broke up laughing, and Tarrin had to supress a grin. Azakar obviously had no idea what he was about to get into. The young man gave his two superiors a curious look, then he turned his attention on Tarrin and assumed a ready stance.
"You're not going to hurt me," Tarrin promised him in a casual voice, as he assumed a ready stance with the staff held in an end-grip.
"Begin!"
It took only two swipes. The first blasted the wooden sword aside, knocking the big man off balance, and the second took him full in the side. The breath wooshed from Azakar's lungs as he was carried off of his feet, to land heavily on his back in the sand nearly ten spans away. He slid another five spans, rolling over a few times until he came to a full stop. He didn't move for several seconds. Tarrin grounded his staff and calmly waited. He knew that he hadn't hurt the young man seriously, just bruised his ribs. Tarrin had struck rather carefully to ensure no bones were broken. The young man groaned and rolled over, then he sat up clutching his side. He gave Tarrin a wild look of shock. "H-H-How?" he managed to wheeze.
"Azakar, Tarrin's about twice as strong as you," Darvon told him with a grin. "This was a lesson, boy. A lesson about underestimating your enemy."
"A…wise lesson, it seems," he panted as the breath returned to his lungs. "You certainly…don't look…that strong."
"It's handy sometimes," Tarrin shrugged.
Azakar wobbled to his feet, then leaned over with hands on knees until he had his breath back. Then he picked up his wooden sword. "Now that I know what to expect, we can try again," he smiled.
"Don't fall into the same trap, boy," Darvon warned. "Tarrin's a very nasty opponent. When you fight him, you damn well better expect the impossible."
"I think my Lord General is getting a bit far afield," Tarrin told him with a smile.
"I think not. Now shut up and fight."
Tarrin bowed, and then engaged the massive young man. After about ten minutes, Tarrin had to admit that he was impressed. The big man was fast, he was strong, and he was smart. He was well trained. He never fell for the same feint twice, and he was excellent at guessing out the actions of his enemy. The problem was, Azakar had never seen many of the moves and forms that Tarrin used, so those guesses just barely managed to save his backside. He spent almost all of that time on a defensive footing, trying to puzzle out the Were-cat's quick, precise thrusts and strikes that seemed to come from impossible angles, all the while suffering from stinging slaps and jabs from Tarrin's staff, or light rakes of his claws, or impact from Tarrin's feet and paws. To his credit, he managed to protect himself very, very well. From the way he reacted, Tarrin was pretty sure that he'd sparred against Allia a few times. But that was Allia. Tarrin may have been trained by his sister, but his size and power meant that his own use of those forms was somewhat different. And many of his moves had roots in his Ungardt training. He slipped backwards a bit, then baited the young warrior into a classic trap, then a quick strike to the inside of the ankle from the staff knocked his foot out from under him. Azakar tumbled to the ground in a heap, collapsing over his lost foundation. He ended up on his back, with the tip of Tarrin's staff about a finger's width from his nose.
"Consider yourself educated, cadet," Darvon told him in a gruff voice. "No matter how good you are, there's always someone out there who's better. Never forget that you may end up facing a backwater yokel with a little stick, and he is capable of beating you."
"Yokel?" Tarrin demanded.
"I'm not talking about you, Tarrin," Darvon assured him, "I'm talking about anyone Azakar may end up fighting as a Knight. It's also good for him to learn that there are more weapons than just swords and axes."
"He is good with that little toothpick, isn't he?" Faalken remarked with a cherubic grin.
That toothpick whistled through the air like an arrow, until the point of it was about a span from Faalken's grin. To his credit, Faalken didn't flich. Tarrin was holding the Ironwood staff by the very end, straight out, and the sandy wood didn't so much as quiver as it pointed at the curly-haired Knight. "Why don't you draw your sword, Faalken, and show me just what kind of toothpick I'm holding?" Azakar, not being a fool, made an attempt to scramble out of the way, but Tarrin put a foot down on his back as he rolled, pinning him to the ground.
A whiff of scent and a flash at the edge of his vision was all Tarrin received by way of warning, but it was enough. With a swift twist and lunge, he slipped underneath a foot that was flying towards the back of his head. Allia landed on the far side of the prone giant young man, her short swords in her hands an an expectant smile on her face. "If I would have struck you, you would have deserved it," she teased, waggling the tip of a sword at him. "I thought at first that you were hopelessly out of form, letting me get so close to you."
It was a very important return for Tarrin, and for Allia. A return to the field, to the familiar surroundings and routines of sparring and training with his blood-sister, gave Tarrin a sensation of normalcy. He had two months of rust to shake off, but he was surprised at how well he did against her. They danced in the sand-filled pit of the training area for the entire afternoon, getting a new feel for one another. Tarrin's staff fended off Allia's two short swords for hours, as they shuffled and wove and slipped around, by, and through one another. Selani fighting was as much unarmed combat with a weapon as it was weapons fighting with an occasional kick. Allia could kick a man about fifty different ways, and her legs were as much weapons as her swords. But Tarrin had learned well from his sister, and his own feet struck out at her about as often as they touched the ground.