James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Then look for the honor at the end of the task," he said formally.

"Always," he said. "You have the bearing of a warrior, and your features cast you as Ungardt. Or partly. Do you know the Ways?"

"I was taught by my mother. This," he said, holding up his paws, "is something that happened a bit later."

"I have never faced an adept of the Ways," he said. "I would be honored to take the field against you."

"I don't fight purely in the Ways as much anymore," he chuckled ruefully. "My best friend is Selani, and she trained me in the Dance."

"Then you have received some of the best training there is," the Vendari said. "The entire world respects the fighting prowess of the Ungardt and the Selani. My honor would double to face you."

"I came out here to challenge you anyway, Captain," Tarrin said with a grin. "I've never faced an adversary your size before. I thought it would be a good learning experience for me."

"Then we will both profit from an exercise," he said sagely. "Would you prefer unarmed combat, or armed?"

"Both," he smiled. "Full contact."

"I would not want to hurt you," he said in concern. That drew some laughter from the Knights.

"You're not going to hurt him, Captain," Faalken promised. "Tarrin's alot tougher than he looks, and he packs quite a wallop. He could probably pick you up and throw you."

"I don't doubt it," Binter replied. "I have never faced one like you before, so it is best to expect anything. That way you do not suffer a nasty surprise." He took his hammer back from Faalken. "But if you want a full contact exercise, then I would be honored to give it to you."

"Just watch that stick of his, Captain," Faalken said as the pair moved into the sand-filled area used for sparring. "He's very nasty with it. And be careful. He's got alot of nasty little tricks."

"The staff is a very effective weapon, Sir Knight," Binter said calmly. "It is not often used because it can be ineffective against a heavily armored opponent. But when both men are unarmored, it is a very dangerous weapon."

"I'm glad someone appreciates my taste," Tarrin said with a laugh. "The Knights have been badgering me to give up my staff and take up a sword."

"Tarrin, if you used a two-handed sword, you'd be an absolute nightmare," Ulgen told him. "With your strength and speed, nobody would even want to get within ten spans of you."

"I have had so much trouble with that," Binter grunted. "Hold on."

"What?" Tarrin asked.

"We do not use 'spans' in Wikuna," he said. "We have a different system of measures. Ten spans is roughly a quarter over eight feet."

"Feet? What a strange term," Tarrin said. "What is a foot?"

"It's a bit longer than a span," he replied. "A foot has twelve inches, where a span has ten fingers. A finger and an inch are almost exactly the same length, so we use them as the base to convert from one system to another," he said, holding two of his huge fingers apart at the length of a finger. "You use finger, span, longspan, and league. Those terms in our system are inch, foot, mile, and also league. One of your leagues is four longspans. One of ours is three miles, and oddly enough, they're precisely the same distance. So we try to use leagues when dealing with Sennadites."

"I thought everyone used the same system," Tarrin mused. "Even the Selani use spans and longspans."

"Probably because they learned it through contact with you and the Empire of Arak," he replied. "The Arkisians brought that system from Arak when they broke away from the Empire, and it spread through Sennadar. The Wikuni and many kingdoms on the continents of Sharadar and Godan-Nyr use the same system, and there's another that's widely used on the continent of Valkar."

"You're very learned, Captain," Tarrin said in appreciation.

"The wise soldier learns as much as he can," he said, almost chanting from a learned passage. "The wise warrior will survive much longer than the strong one."

Tarrin had to give the Vendari a great deal of respect. Their ways of fighting mirrored the Ungardt and the Selani. Perhaps the three cultures had all stumbled upon the true secrets of the ways of the warrior. Both the Ways and the Dance preached self defense over starting fights. Both held high the ideal that their forms were learned not to create aggression, but as self defense against aggression. Despite their serious ability, the Ungardt were not aggressively expansionistic. They colonized islands in the northern reaches of the Sea of Storms, but didn't make war on their neighbors.

"Very true," Tarrin agreed. "Where do you want to begin?"

"Armed," he said with a smile, hefting his hammer.

They squared off against each other, Tarrin holding his staff in the end grip, and Binter holding his hammer by the very end of its handle. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"I'm ready," he replied. "Let's go."

As the Knights looking on expected, the first few minutes were nothing but the pair feeling each other out. Tarrin tested Binter with light jabs and swings, keeping the massive Vendari out of reach and on guard with his longer weapon. He showed to be smooth and deceptively slow, but the ease of his movements told Tarrin that he could move much faster than he appeared. He was trying to bait Tarrin into thinking he was slow, a tactic Tarrin had used himself a time or two.

Binter was the first to give over feeling Tarrin out. He lunged in with shocking speed, hammer leading, but Tarrin had been expecting such a move. He twisted out of the path of the hammer easily, turning in a way that a human wouldn't be able to duplicate, almost with his shoulders facing behind him as he ducked and weaved himself around the hammer's carved head. He turned to the side, and his tail lashed out like a whip, striking the Vendari in the backs of his ankles. Tarrin's tail wasn't as strong as the rest of him, but his inhuman strength gave the limb enough power to easily beat a Knight in arm-tail wrestling. That power swept the very heavy Vendari's feet out from under him, and his shoulder slammed into the ground with a thud that Tarrin felt under his feet.

Binter laughed as he sat up, snaking his own heavily muscled tail out from under him. "I was about to do the same thing," he said. "I didn't think that such a small, dainty tail could do something like that."

Tarrin swished that tail back and forth behind him, giving Binter a smile. "It's the longest limb I have, so it would silly of me not to learn how to use it," he said, reaching down with a paw and helping the Vendari back to his feet. He flicked his tail over his shoulder and halfway down his chest, until the tip came to rest just above his navel. "It gives me alot of reach at my flanks, and makes sure anyone coming up from behind has something to worry about."

"You learn well," Binter said respectfully. "Always know yourself. Now, let us continue, and this time I won't underestimate your snake of a tail."

Binter didn't try anything dramatic again. They engaged in a good, heavy workout, sparring against one another at a furious pace that made the observing Knights a bit dizzy. Binter was powerful, but just like Allia, he was fast . Tarrin was awed that someone so huge, so massive, could move with such viper-like speed. But unlike Allia, Binter's blows from his hammer packed an incredible punch, driven by his huge, heavily muscled frame. Tarrin was bleeding from two hits from that hammer after about five minutes, strikes heavy enough to tear his skin, while Binter had some blood coming from his snout from where Tarrin had whacked him across the muzzle. He was very big, and Tarrin found that he had to adjust many of the forms he used to deal with someone that had such a long, long reach, and the speed to close the distance in a hearbeat if he tried to back out of reach of Binter's weapon.