Chapter Six

 

 

Kalexis was no longer on the nest with him—somehow she managed to get up without waking him up.

He removed the quilt, and to the best of his abilities crawled out of the warm spring-loaded nest—standing or walking over it required an act of balance he didn’t think he was capable of right then.

There were cinders in the chimney, so he placed the rest of the wood on it. He still had to check around the house to find a stack, or he would have to get an axe from his bedroom and make some himself. He was under the impression that it had to be a nice day outside... but when opening one of the doors of the entrance he was pinched by a cold breeze. Not thinking that leaving the door open would ever get rid of Kalexis’s smell, he closed it, got himself fed, and dressed before setting off to figure out where she was.

He thought that he would need to keep that place nice and tidy—coming in and out of the house she left dirt over both the stone floor and the animal skins laid over it, and there was a rotten smell coming from the bones and strips of meat lay over the shiny black board table. After he brought the quilt upstairs, he found a broom, sponge, and some cleaning products in the cupboard under the sink. Letice was not joking when she said that living there was the equivalent of being back on Earth, only this time Marco didn’t want to start off by forgetting about chores and seeing that place turn into a mess.

There was no note left for him and so he assumed that Kalexis and the rest of the training group didn’t mind if he had breakfast. He busied himself finding eggs and toast, making himself a cup of tea as well. Leaving the eggs to cook themselves, he quickly went downstairs to throw the animal remains outside and clean the table by swiping it with the wet sponge. He could smell the frying and when he made it back up it was time to turn the eggs and butter the toast.

Marco poured himself the cup of tea with water he boiled in an electric kettle, served his eggs on a plate he brought to the table he just cleaned. He was chewing a mouthful when, to his amazement, a white outline qwerty keyboard appeared under his right hand.

So that table really was a touch-screen computer, asking him to input a line of command. He paused in looking at the white characters on the black keys—he wondered what to type in, and what would happen if he did.

Sipping his tea he entered the word Earth and tapped the Enter key. It was fascinating how the table could tell at which angle he was sitting—other than not reacting when he previously cleaned it—producing an image of Earth and the Moon right before his plate of fried eggs. He never seen such clear picture—its resolution gave it incredible depth. The Italic peninsula was partly covered by clouds, as small as a finger nail over the globe floating beneath the thin glass of the dining table. The touch-screen keyboard was still there, but he wasn’t too sure what to type and so resumed eating. He was discomforted when the multimedia stereo played out a recorded female voice.

“Earth, currently known as Hive Fifty-Four A. A life bearing planet on the outer ring of the Milky Way, Earth was first observed by the Zigs during its later stages of life formation, becoming a renowned site of cultural sampling under the Reserve Planet Act. It was connected to the clandestine movement of cultural interference at the beginning of its human civilization. Only two decades after the human information revolution, the human race couldn’t defend itself from the Kronian. When all ramparts of joined alien-human resistance were terminated, the construction of five mega hives altered the face of Earth.”

The voice stopped, and the image of the planet changed from what he remembered it to be to what it supposedly looked right then. All land was either brown or black, and the oceans were pale blue. Marco could tell there were installations on the Moon when an ominous space station—attracting mean cogs—came into view. The Kronians left very little to nature and layered the landmasses with enormous cities that were like icebergs in stretching much further underground. It was a spectral vision of how his world changed throughout all those years he spent in hibernation. The female computer voice resumed the description, but Marco had that one thing on his mind—cultural interference. He wanted to know more, so he entered those words and the image of Hive Fifty-Four A was replaced by a postcard. It appeared by his teacup—he touched it with a finger and by holding it down he dragged it around his almost empty plate and to where he could see it. On it, four little aliens wearing biohazard suits stood for a group shot with over twenty much taller African nomads.

“Clandestine cultural interference movements formed in the Milky Way as a result of the enforcement of the Zig Nature Reserve Act. Subsequent studies determined that sightings and encounters lead to deep repercussions in the development of primitive people’s myths and religions.”

It was certainly interesting to know, but Marco resumed his breakfast. He thought they could already be testing him, and that he might be late—but he didn’t indulge in that line of thinking, trying to just enjoy his food.

He was excited—and reasonably fearful—about beginning his training with those masters. There was talk of monsters, but no one specified what else his training involved other than making him become proficient with any of the weapons upstairs.

Even though Kalexis’s armor was still hanging on the rack by the door, Marco decided to put his own on. Rather than being fashioned from leather, it was made of a very light and strong synthetic material. It came with kneepads, shin-pads, shoulder pads, a cup, and everything else needed to wear when getting beaten up. He especially liked the grip-fast boots with the iron tips.

He never handled a sword before, but had some experience with a composite bow—that was why he didn’t struggle to string the one hanging over his bed. He wanted to carry a short sword as well, so he worked out how to fasten its sheath to his belt.

He grabbed a buckler. There were larger shields in his bedroom, but Marco felt they would be cumbersome if a lot of walking or running was involved. With a little foresight he packed a backpack with a bottle of water and got some bread and cheese from the fridge, not forgetting to wear the hide helmet before heading outside with bow and quiver over his back, sword sheathed holding the wood and iron buckler in his left hand.

When his eyes adjusted to the sun shining over the valley, he spotted Kalexis running down from the utmost line of trees.

In seeing him she increased her pace, helping herself with her wings to slow down when she got to Marco.

“You geared up!” exclaimed she, grinning in excitement.

“Aren’t you going to wear armor, too?”

“Not for a while. I’ll just watch your training for now.”

“Where are we going then? And can I ask you where you’ve been?”

“Hunting,” replied she, casually.

“Any luck?” asked Marco, and she nodded.

Together, they started walking up the mountain. He wanted to ask her if she could spare him the effort of trudging up the path that brought them close to the summit. But out of pride he didn’t. He finished half of his bottle of water as the temperature under the clear sky rose slightly, and it had to be around midday when he and Kalexis saw the rest of the group with Gianluca and Letice at its head.

Marco was realistically strained after that trek, so he sat on a boulder with his drinking water in hand. Gianluca was out of breath, while beside him Letice was as fresh as a morning rose.

Everyone was there, Gon and Yvala, Quin and Rex, R’kek, Tael, and finally Iugid and Vashim. But Marco only got up when he recognized purple Satkhela in her brown robe.

Everybody else sat down to take a brief moment of rest on that rather steep field near the crest of the mountain—the stretch of forest Kalexis pointed out the previous day lay many hundreds yards below, as they were well above the altitude at which trees could grow. The sun was strong but the wind was insistent and sometimes made it hard to hold a conversation—yet Marco had one with Satkhela while everybody else gathered around to listen.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you, Marco, but I’m happy you accept the reasons that bind you here. Since your training is about to begin, I’m here to remind you of a few important things. Even though all the monsters and obstacles you will face are controlled by me, that doesn’t mean they’re safe. You must be very careful both in training and during the trials.”

“So you and the Elder really are the same person. Why did you come to me in this form?” asked Marco.

“I don’t think the old man could walk up this mountain,” she said, looking straight at him before gazing at the others gathered there. “I also carry an important message for everyone.”

She made sure to have their attention. “I support those who think we underestimated our enemy,” she said. “It is getting closer to us, and that is why Marco has to be trained quickly. If for any reason should we lose you, we will attempt to recover you—but we will need time to do it. It will be up to Marco to survive the challenges until we can retaliate—it may equal a difficult war.

“That’s why you, Marco, need to master both unarmed and armed combat while improving your physical resistance.”

He found that to be quite amusing. “I have nothing against learning, but how am I going to train my real body inside this virtual reality?”

“If you train your mind to endure, your body will follow once you wake up,” replied she, becoming very stern. “Once again, never expect my monsters to spare you only because I control them, or they wouldn’t serve you in training. Accidents can happen even under the strictest of supervisions—if you die here, we might have to take you out permanently, losing your chance of continuing with the training.”

“More brain damage, that’s just awesome,” Marco told her, but she had nothing more to say other than goodbye. He couldn’t wait to discover what the training involved as some started to stretch even though they warmed up with the climb.

Kalexis really stood out. She sat with her belly over the spiky mountain grasses, closed her eyes and just enjoyed the wind.

Marco was a little disconcerted. Nobody was wearing armor or had weapons like he did, and now that Sathkela left he asked Gianluca about it.

His friend was still sitting down in the field beside the backpack he carried up there. The wind got stronger—usually Marco managed to keep his long hair out of the way, but right then it was blown all over his face.

“What are we going to do?” he asked of Gianluca.

“They’re going to train you, that’s what.”

Beautiful Letice—who had her red hair in a tail—heard Marco and stopped her exercise to come his way. She was wearing a sporty shirt and shorts, her armpits and breasts just barely darkened by sweat. “You can take your armor and weapons off, you won’t need them today nor tomorrow.”

In hearing that Marco turned around to check on Kalexis and found she was smiling cunningly in his direction—she had him carry all the unnecessary gear for the sake of exercise. When he faced Letice again she explained it for him.

“For the next two weeks you will come up here, in any weather, to train. You will at hand to hand combat with Iugid, he will teach you. You must learn how to incapacitate your opponent when he is on top of you, turning your body into a weapon when it’s all you have.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you,” said Iugid from a good distance.

“It may be the most difficult skill to master,” continued Letice, “but having an understanding of unarmed combat is fundamental if you want to survive on the experimental planet. There you may have a chance to retry, but any of your failures will result in the death of people like me—I’m hoping you’ve realized that by now.”

Marco looked at her cross-eyed thinking she was crazy—did she even consider the size or prowess of Iugid? Marco bet even Quin could kick him down the grassy side of that hill, while his saurian mate Dod wouldn’t have found it hard to fling him around as he would with a mace! What Marco dearly hoped was not to be turned into a pulp by the end of the day. Iugid—the blond alien with the elongated face—a world champion of martial arts—was over six-foot tall and in excess of twelve hundred pounds. A hundred and forty pound Marco wouldn’t stand a chance, yet he didn’t have to be asked again to remove his armor and weapons so they could begin.

Some were still stretching, some reviewed complex throws when everybody stopped to watch, forming a circle on the side of the hill with Marco and Iugid in the center.

“Let’s not use the terrain as an advantage for the time being,” said Iugid.

“You mean, we will stick parallel to the mountainside?” asked Marco, all eyes upon him.

“Yes, now let’s put ten yards between us.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Kalexis is here to take you back in case you get seriously injured, but I doubt it,” said he. Iugid held his strong arm straight out and opened his palm in Marco’s direction. “Go now, take your place.”

Iugid assumed a defensive stance, his legs at a solid angle, his arms ready to defend both his head and chest held in an offset position. “Come at me with all you got,” he said.

Marco slowly started to advance on Iugid, who didn’t look at him—rather straight through him—in that silence marked by gusts of wind. Having very limited martial arts experience, Marco thought that any attempt to penetrate Iugid’s defense would fail miserably, probably resulting in his face meeting the spiky grass—or worse any of the small rocks.

Iugid stopped Marco on his tracks. “You’re doing it all wrong! You have to shift the weight on your feet—gradually!”

“And why is that?” asked Marco, dumbstruck.

“So you can enter a defensive stance if you need to! Let me show you, as it’s very basic stuff I thought you knew.”

While the others practiced unarmed combat, Iugid spent the rest of the afternoon working on Marco’s footwork. The martial arts champion was patient in showing him, and they moved to the basic attacks and how to execute them correctly, things like how to throw a punch by charging it through an elastic torsion of the body.

Marco’s arms got sore when he started practicing parries with them. Iugid was throwing a slow, though random, sequence of punches and kicks that sometimes landed. The odd faced instructor was feather-weighed when delivering, and Marco was thankful he didn’t knock him out.

At the end, he thought his trainer was pleased with how he was making progress. Marco was so concentrated that only then—when taking a break—he noticed R’kek and Tael were no longer with them. Everybody else but Kalexis and Gianluca were sparring, and Marco was impressed to see at what level. He could tell their hits left bruises when landed, though everybody fair-played. Gianluca passed him some of his water while he watched Yvala fighting Letice, the latter not being a Zig show protagonist yet a very capable martial artist.

The furry, long-legged alien was making use of kicks to keep Letice away, but Letice was good at dodging and parrying the flurries. Then Letice got a hold of Yvala’s kicking leg to swipe her standing one, driving her down into a grapple.

After a snack, Marco worked on how to block and throw—he didn’t express he was glad that Iugid wasn’t speeding up the execution, nor getting irritated by having to show him multiple times before he managed to replicate a move in sparring.

The wind was still blowing with the sun lower in the sky, and Kalexis spent all that time up there just looking at Marco train without ever having something to do or to say. Iugid finished his five-hour lesson explaining how to break the neck of enemies he pinned—it all came down to blocking and seizing the limbs to remove the leverage points.

“It’s all for today!” he exclaimed, releasing Marco from the ground. “Tomorrow we’ll go through that all over again. You should study theory, but only after you master the basics.”

Tired and bruised, Marco had to wear his armor to bring it home. Everybody packed up and left—he couldn’t wait to dine, rest and retreat home with Kalexis. She offered to carry him down, but Marco refused as much as he refused Gianluca’s offer to eat together at the villa.

“No worries, I’ll let you two enjoy some alone time, then,” he said with a smile, walking beside Marco down the path. Kalexis was right behind them. “But do you mind if I drop by after eight?”

“Not really—I was planning to eat, shower and try out my bed.”

“Tael wants to work on your archery in the evenings, whenever you can. We’ll bring the target and stay over for just a few hours, okay?”

Since refusing was out of the question, he accepted. It must have been a few hours before dinner when, by their private residence, Kalexis and Gianluca said farewell to the others who all resumed down to the villa. Marco didn’t linger to take off his armor. Gianluca arrived with olive skinned Tael minutes after Marco finished eating. Kalexis got up from her comfy nest beside the fire and went out with him to assist the archery training. A moon very similar to Earth’s dimmed the dark though clear sky, and Gianluca brought some torches. He placed one to shine by the target, and then lined up the others to cover the thirty yards that separated it from practicing Marco.

He wouldn’t be lying if he said he was tired after the long day, but he still pleased Tael by putting arrows consistently on target. He blamed the bow for being particularly good, but at the end of the evening he could say that Tael was happy with what he saw.

Gianluca and Tael then said goodbye and went back to the villa. After admiring the landlocked valley and its pretty lake, Marco headed to the near house. Kalexis was waiting on the grass by the path cutting through the field—when he reached her she gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“You did well.”

“I’m done. Can’t wait to sleep by you.”

“Just sleep?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I can do otherwise,” he said, starting to walk back along with her.

She laughed. “I’m not pretending a performance, Marco, you performed enough already. You’re so pretty when you sleep, you know... I just love to clutch you.”

Marco opened both doors to the single room on the first floor. “If you insist,” he said. He threw small pieces of wood on the cinders, rested with her. He removed his evening clothes and she covered him with her wing. Her body heat gathered in the bubble of air in which Kalexis trapped him. He couldn’t sleep right away—he gently caressed her, dozing in the pleasure of intimate company.

 

The following two weeks went more or less to his liking, for a change. He always slept with Kalexis—sharing the pleasure had something special to it, still Marco wished he could try it out for real one day.

Most mornings he cooked his breakfast alone. A few times she got up with him, but others she vanished when he was deep asleep. On a couple of occasions she didn’t assist his training up in mountains, making him guess she didn’t want to go on an empty stomach.

Evening archery with Tael continued as well, and in that case Kalexis was always there. Tael wanted to see how he handled firing the bow while stepping backward and sideways, and since Marco never did it before he had to work on his shifting posture, and found how training in low light had him rely on more than just his eyes.

He was also improving with Iugid—the humanoid was still going easy but faster, making it almost impossible for him to land any hit. Marco was getting more effective at blocking, once managing to bring Iugid down—without having to be walked through it.

Vashim the Fourth, famed swordsman, always practiced unarmed combat with the others. By the end of the second week he explain his role in the training. From the day after Marco would still fight with Iugid, but no longer near the ridge. Everyone would train by the lake before accompanying him up to the forest for his first trial against monsters.

Without mercy for his long digital hair, on Iugid’s suggestion Marco cut it very short. He was covered in sweat when he spoke to Vashim. The sky was overcast and the wind blowing particularly strong, gray peaks and ridges all around. “Will I be fighting the monsters bare handed?” asked Marco, putting both his palms on his sides.

After the four hours training, Vashim was unaffected as always. “I want to find out how you handle a sword. But you can choose a club or an axe if you prefer,” he replied. “You will work on the spear once you are proficient with any of those three. It takes a long time to master blocking with two-handed weapons, so you better take an average sized shield with you.”

“I start to see the point of unarmed combat,” replied Marco, looking forward to it.

“If you are ever disarmed, your body must become the weapon.”

“I wanted to be a veterinarian,” said Marco, “but I am really starting to like this.”

 

The following day was the first in which he had the pleasure of a slow awakening with Kalexis—all the way to the end of morning, after an always early start to their days.

“I think you should have a bath,” commented Marco, crawling away from her nest to get up on his feet. “Would you like a mug of coffee?” He loved preparing Kalexis coffee when he had a chance, but not always got to. There was a simple explanation—because of their physiology, Araks preferred to eat live prey when they had a chance. Before the Kronian war forced them to alter that habit, it was customary—even for an Arak accountant—to start the day early with a catch. Araks built cities around natural preying grounds since the beginning of their peaceful civilization and never stopped until the war. Marco believed it after watching a three-hour documentary about it on TV.

“Yes, please. I’ll hunt later today, come down with you to the lake for a swim, then—I can’t wait to see how you fare.”

Marco went upstairs to get himself ready for a new day of exciting challenges. He armored himself, as protection would serve him on that day. He picked the same sword of day one and, instead of a buckler, chose a shield as broad as his forearm. Kalexis was already outside when he walked out the house, where she told him to leave the bow.

Together, they walked to the shore of a lake that Marco—being as busy as he was—never had a chance to visit. It was muddy, with purple flowers blossoming on the bramble close to it—but on the shore and under the cold water, the pebbles and stones were smooth. He saw the awaiting party from quite a way up before he got there. This time everyone had modern looking armors, and edged weapons certainly as sharp as Marco’s medieval short sword.

They were waiting for him. Vashim came up to him along with Iugid, Kalexis already having left for a dive. Among the colorful group Marco also spotted Satkhela—she had not been present during the rest of his training. Iugid asked Marco to put his shield down, so they could do some unarmed practice, with the only differences to the exercises being they both wore light armor and swords were attached to their belts. Marco was halfway through his routine when Vashim interrupted them.

“That will be all,” said the gray alien, then with both hands removed his silvery longsword from its leather sheath. He may have been small—his weapon long though very light—but he looked intimidating nonetheless. “Now you will learn how counter and parry with your sword. Pick up your shield, and get a feel of what it is like to block with it.”

Marco had just the time to do so when—totally out of the blue—Vashim charged him holding the longsword high above his head.

Marco drew his sword and raised his wooden shield to intercept Vashim’s silvery blade before it split his skull in two. The blow reverberated through the shield and down his arm, all the way to his shoulder. His senses heightened by the training, Marco used his short sword to protect his legs, blocking the low swiping attack that immediately followed.

Vashim didn’t stop after the clang and made Marco back up to block a series of hits all aimed at his head. The master was becoming intentionally repetitive, giving Marco the chance of delivering a kick to the chest.

Vashim rolled back on mud and spoiled his kimono. “That’s good enough,” he said, getting up.

Marco was surprised by how practicing with Iugid helped him in that instance—but he realized that opening was given only to see how long it take him to snatch it.

Vashim explained how his stance was fundamental when fighting the monsters—if he was aggressive, he could easily intimidate the foes. On the other hand, if he ever felt insecure or fearful the monsters would become much stronger. Vashim described them as devilish creatures that wielded axes, clubs, spears, and swords.

Marco was expected to take up to fifty of them to pass the test, so moving to a more advanced stage of training. It wasn’t the end of the lesson as he learned to defeat a shield wielder, either by a kick on the shield itself or through faints aimed at disabling the legs.

Vashim insisted Marco always aimed at the head and used the enemy’s instinct at its disadvantage. It gave him the opportunity of testing what throwing around the weight of a short sword was like. After being shown all basic hits and blocks, it was Iugid to tell Marco to be less rigid on his toes and use the same movements they practiced together in sparring. This made him more agile and spontaneous while fighting Vashim, with everybody being quite impressed by his improvements.

Once the session was over, Gianluca brought some lunch for Marco. They munched it sitting on the cobbles of the shore and looking out and onto the clear surface of the lake—the air was fresh, and the view reminiscent of northern Italy. The only difference was that Gianluca’s villa was the only one there, a truly spectacular setting and great company he enjoyed more and more every day.

Kalexis asked Marco if he wanted to go for a swim with her—but he had to decline because he just had two chicken sandwiches. She puffed, grimaced, and pulled out her tongue before running into the lake.

Watching the big splashes she made, Marco thought about how they would double up on the experimental planet—if they ever had to take on the deadly challenges and the fearsome creatures engineered by the Zigs.

He then saw Kalexis submerge herself, and it took a while for her horned head to break through the smooth surface of the lake over a hundred yards from the shore.

While the others resumed their weapons training, Vashim asked Marco to take an hour to mentally prepare himself before he was accompanied to the entrance of the forest. He tacitly knew he would be going in alone. Quietly taking in the landscape, Marco developed a certain amount of apprehension in knowing he could really become an instrument of death at the service of the human and Arak race—he never thought he could be called for such important task in life.

When Kalexis returned to emerge dripping wet, she had to be surprised by how he had no eyes for her, being very concentrated and thoughtful. She sat down beside him, and like him stared out and to those waters, silently enjoying her partner until it was time to go.

 

Marco and Kalexis were at the head of the party, followed by Iugid and Vashim, with Dod and Quin behind them. They first walked up the path through the cut grasses and cleared trees of the park, then the same way to the training spot where he learned the basics of unarmed combat.

This time they moved further away from Gianluca’s villa and to the edge of the high patch of forest Kalexis pointed out two weeks before. He was asked to wait on its limit while the others behind him—Sathkela included—moved ahead and entered the forest.

Knowing the importance of the psychological factor, in the past two hours Marco alienated all of his concerns. The hardship of being one of the few survivors of the destruction of Earth, the ups and downs of his relationship with Kalexis, the atrocities committed by advanced civilizations that lost their minds, so to focus and be more reactive.

Vashim was shaken by fear when he took a hold of the sides of Marco’s hide helmet. The little gray alien smiled looking at him right in the eye. “You are a warrior ready for battle,” he affirmed, his voice trembling. “The enemy deserves no mercy, though it may ask it of you. Never spare it, as it will stab you in the back. Kalexis and the others are invisible—they will watch and intervene if they have to. Now go.”

 

Marco held his shield high and his sword low. It was quiet, his steps crunching the dry branches fallen off the pine trees, forming a roof of needles that absorbed part of the sunlight.

He didn’t look back, making his way across the slope, scanning all around. He didn’t have to wait as many of them appeared from behind the trunks, coming from all directions, giving him a start. He never bothered to check on the monsters—Vashim’s description wasn’t enough to prepare him.

Horrible grins with sharp teeth, pointy little ears attached to comparatively small heads. Their ape-like bodies were naked. They wielded rough weapons, swords, spears, axes, and a few also had bucklers—black hooves instead of feet, and defined muscles beneath their vividly colored skins. They encircled him—those devilish midgets weren’t coming to taste his steel, screaming wildly doing two-foot high jumps on the spot. Once again the training with Iugid proved useful, as Marco would contend enemies coming from both above and below, and knew how to use the terrain to his advantage. Yet he really wished for his bow—he would have nailed one or two as they paused to taunt him like that.

They closed the distance, moving from trunk to trunk. Marco feared they would try to rush him all at once, with more red, yellow, and blue figures popping from behind trees up and down the forest. He shouted to the top of his voice, charged the nearest one.

Afraid it was about to be smith by Marco’s fury, the demon-like foe screamed and scurried behind his spear-wielding friend.

Marco broke his charge not knowing how to punch through—keeping away from the monsters he watched them growl, their eyes like black pinholes. He was flanked by sword and axe-wielding demons, and couldn’t turn to check if any were coming up from behind. Unsure about how to contend a spear, he ran up the hill, intersecting two coming his way. One of the demons charged Marco spinning its rugged sword over its head. Being below the demon, Marco parried easily. Then he brought his sword down at a forty-five degree angle, wedging it deep into its shoulder.

Blood squirted as the blade was extracted, and the demon collapsed with a shriek. The other demon closed the distance with a jump, and Marco blocked with his shield, having to swipe his sword out to divert the spear lunged at him from his side. It snapped its wooden stick, and Marco stabbed the demon in the face. It folded up and bled out the hole in its head while he controlled his other opponent, pushed against it to throw it out of balance. He succeeded, knocking the monster on its back over the dry needles that carpeted the ground, and drove his sword through the gristle between its ribs.

Six of the monsters had him surrounded. The forest was crawling with them, but they were scattered and he could see a way through. Before he could make his way up the woods he was stopped by a blue sword-wielder. Marco’s simple attack was blocked, having to step back to avoid the rapid counter. He hesitated—and saw four demons formed a line close behind him.

Betraying fear, he had to use his shield to parry a much harder hit. When he stepped up to confront the demon, it blocked his sword by holding up its own with both clawed hands. Marco exposed his flank and received the demon’s blade on the left side of his chest. It didn’t cut through the armor pad but he felt all the pain—while the force of the blow dissipated through his muscles, bones, and internal organs. It was with profound vengeful hatred that Marco cut a deep groove across that blue demon face. He didn’t finish the monster, letting it squirm, holding the hilt of his sword where he received the blow while getting away from the advancing line.

He was injured, but the adrenaline kept him going. Turning around he could see them running as they covered the clearing, hiding behind the trees. More of those disgusting creatures were making their way down the woods ahead of him, closing in on him. If he kept going the pain would eventually stop him, and then he would lack the steam to face even just one.

He played a daring card, turning around to charge the newly formed line. Using the downward slope to move faster, he flanked them and they were slow to react. He neutralized the sword on the far side, confusing it with a feint, then came down hard on the head of its wielder. With his shield, Marco stopped a spear from driving a new hole through his groin, covered the distance with a jump and killed his opponent on landing. When he extracted his sword from the neck of the demon, the axe-wielding one beside it was startled and caught out of guard, close enough for Marco to knock it down with a kick.

The demon at the other end of the broken line ran away, and all others in the forest stopped advancing—Marco howled and shouted curses, fighting the pain coming from a few cracked ribs. Not wanting to give up, he chased those that were fleeing. Running made the pain become almost unbearable, and when he stopped because of it he realized all of the monsters were gone.

Satkhela—rather oddly controlled by the same entity behind the Elder and those devilish beings—came walking through the pines in her brown baggy robe. She was pleased. “You did better than I expected, you scared them off.”

“Why didn’t you hit me any harder?” asked Marco, not too pleased. “They could have killed me if they kept coming.”

“But how many more of them would have died?”

Even though in pain, Marco laughed. “Isn’t killing me the only thing they want?”

“No,” replied Satkhela. “On the experimental planet these monsters raid and kill, but they are easily scared off if someone stands up to them. I didn’t expect you would make it. You may already be prepared for your next challenge.”

“I need to heal up first,” said Marco, and she smiled and took care of that—luckily for him, that was realistic enough for his brain to tolerate. After being cured, he saw the others come up to him—the test was over, so he placed his sword in its sheath. He was told to take the rest of the day off. Why not, in the end he trained for two consecutive weeks and deserved it. Vashim and Iugid congratulated him, having nothing against letting him and Kalexis just be together—and he knew that would be until she had to leave him to go hunting again.