Black Heart Chapter Eight

"Today, we have a little treat prepared." the butler declared, smirking from his position standing on top of several crates that had been prepared. "This was intended to wait until you were at least ten years of age, young master, but both the construction and your training proceeded ahead of schedule. Well, it is a small enough matter to go ahead of the plan, I suppose."

"I'm ready!" Adrian declared, waving his sword in the air.

"Oho, I'm sure you are, young master." the butler chortled as he waved a hand in the air.

A small arena had been constructed for this purpose. A pit dug out of the ground, shallow but wide, with sand and gravel in the bottom to encourage quick drainage in case of weather. The walls were lined with planks hammered and nailed into place to both support the dirt enough to prevent it collapsing and serve as a negligible thigh-high ring of fencing around the top. Some lengths of wood stretched further up, allowing a 'roof' of stretched and waxed fabric to be secured in place so that it would take more than a little rain to leave the pit soggy. To Malicia's rear, the sole ramp leading downward was blocked off with a wooden gate that could be barred shut, as it had been once they were inside.

The pit itself was only the height of a man deep, so in a case of unforeseen disaster the guards could leap over the fencing and into action. The butler was already present for that scenario, though, and in any case it was unlikely that the prepared targets would be able to turn the tide. Their main purpose was to instead push or kick any targets that attempted to scramble out and over the walls back down into the pit. Malicia didn't anticipate that they would actually need to serve that function. Not when she was down here, visibly unarmed bait.

With a cutting sound as it spun through the air, one of the guards tossed a hatchet for the butler to pluck out of the air, twirling it around his hand for a moment before it came to a stop.

"Young master Adrian, do keep in mind the importance of utilizing technique to create and maintain space when you are fighting against multiple opponents." the butler said, taking a moment to fit in one last lecturing comment. "Miss Malicia... may I ask you to kindly refrain from destroying the young master's training material ahead of schedule?"

Malicia struggled to bite back a scathing comment as, with a chuckle, the butler brought the hatchet down onto a rope near his feet.

There was a clatter as, lacking the tension holding it together, the boxes containing the day's 'training material' fell open one by one as the severed rope was pulled loose and out by the weight of falling wood and metal.

Goblins were inside.

One of the rare... No, that was a bad term. Rather, one of the unusual kind that could only be called F-rank in their base forms, goblins were individually a non-threat. Fully grown, they were about the size and level of ability of an untrained child of Adrian's age or younger.

The actual grade of threat was determined more situationally than that, because there was never just a single goblin. Most often, if it appeared that way then the individual goblin was a trap.

They formed up in groups for their protection, at which point the comparison wasn't a grown man against a child, but a grown man against an arbitrarily large group of children armed with knives and which were generally careless of their lives when charging or ambushing an enemy, all always certain that it would be some other goblin that was cut down as the rest closed in to dig their teeth and heavy, sharp nails into the vulnerable spots. Sometimes they would have weapons, typically heavy bits of wood or chipped stone blades.

They weren't naturally hideous creatures, as the ones produced in Dungeons could attest to. A ground-bound subset of fairy-kind, and typically with the hints of glamorous appearance to match a weaker fairy, with hints of a predatory and hungry nature hidden in the gleam of their eyes, the glint of their fangs, and the stalking gait that they fell into in such domains. It was the ones outside of the dungeon that came to mind when young people were warned of Goblins, among some other monsters that were traditionally of the sort that would look for an opportunity to capture and make off with those they ambushed if any opportunity arose for it.

These were true to that form, weathered and twisted by hard living and starvation since their birth, no doubt with the occasional bout of forced cannibalism in the lean times adding the rigors of sickness and internal decay. A far cry from how monsters in a dungeon were almost always in fine health and sound of body unless there was a situational reason for them to be otherwise, these hissing and hooting creatures by this point seemed to have more in common with feral and rabid monkeys with broken teeth and patchy fur than anything that could be found in a dungeon.

Boxed up in groups of three or four, there were more than a dozen of them in total that had been prepared for Adrian's trial battle today, enough that a fresh adult swordsman should need to take some care in ensuring he was not surrounded as he carefully picked them off one at a time... Never mind one of Adrian's age. And some of them had knives as well. Copper ones, beaten cheaply together and given a crude edge, but knives all the same. It was in seeing this sort of thing that Malicia was forced to wonder if the butler actually liked Adrian all that much, really.

Ah, but of course. The goblins would not all be testing Adrian's defense by charging him together. Malicia was here, more appetizing prey than the boy with the sword, and thus their attention was divided. In theory, of course, Malicia was not here as bait but in the same role as ever. To heal any wounds that Adrian might take and support the young swordsman. In practice, however, it was damnably hard to get in close enough to heal her adopted brother when he was making wide sweeps of his blade to ensure that no goblins tried to push through and actually reach him!

Malicia spared the butler a bitter glower as she ducked and tumbled out of the way of the few goblins that had bypassed Adrian rather than trying to go through him, kicking one away and hearing fabric tear as heavy claws hooked into her dress from the attempt to find and grab hold of the limb before she pulled it back. The butler just waved at her, the bastard, keeping most of his attention focused on Adrian precisely cutting the little beasts apart one at a time.

Still. Not untenable. Not even something that the butler could be censured for, when it was to be expected that at some point adventurers would face scenarios such as this and he was, of course, right there to jump in in case anything went wrong. Malicia simply had to avoid being pinned down. As long as she kept moving, the goblins were too weak to present a significant threat to her. Individually. As long as she wasn't pinned down. She was more worried about the chance of-

One of the goblins slipped around in the shadow of another, momentarily breaking line of sight and managing to surprise Malicia as the first was kicked away only to reveal the lunging second.

Her body reflexively responded, foot stomping down to brace on the ground as her left fist drove forward. And as though the thought had prophecied the result, Malicia could feel ribs snapping and giving way, the jagged and broken ends driving into the beast's lung. The bubble of satisfaction at the feeling popped instantly as realization followed. Had she killed one of Adrian's targets again? No, no, it was still alive. A pierced lung would not kill immediately.

Malicia's next actions were driven by a slight panic for the thought of needing to miss dinner again over a small slip-up such as this. Her left hand pulled back as she stepped forward, following after her blow quickly enough that she could reach out with a snatching right hand and grab hold of the goblin's ankle before it could be flung away.

She circulated energy into it.

While carrying a victim, Malicia wouldn't be able to dodge or retreat as effectively. That meant she would have to stand her ground and drive the goblins back, rather than keeping distance from their pursuit by running. She also couldn't let go of the one she had damaged, lest she lose track of the thing and find out that it had died. This would in most cases make driving off the rest more difficult, but there was a practical solution to be had here.

Malicia swung the goblin around like an ungainly club, battering another out of the air as she continued to circulate energy into it. The poor handling almost certainly worsened the creatures injuries as rapidly as the circulation of energy healed them, but the important thing was that it would not die of the mistreatment. After three or four further bludgeonings of attempts to pounce and break through Malicia's guard, the goblins that had elected to pursue her fell back to reconsider their approach.

Or, perhaps, it was the way that she had begun giggling and somehow couldn't force herself to stop that had done that. All the same, a little space had been cleared, and so she slammed her patient into the ground.

Its screaming and flailing was annoying, so one hand set to the beast's throat and crushed it. There was a unique feeling of the cartilage giving way with wet, fleshy pops as the beast's nails scratched at Malicia's forearm. She ignored that. The circulation of energy was fixing any wounds that it could inflict in that way faster than the feeble clawing could keep up. Her other palm was on the site of the initial injury, focusing the direction of energy as much as was possible with this method of healing, the same way that the presence of her hand on the goblin's throat was seeing that swiftly repaired... ah. It sucked in breath through the un-ruined passages and she mercilessly crushed the beast's throat once more to keep it silent and hopefully prevent too much attention from being drawn her way.

She didn't need to keep this up long. The ribs didn't need to be in fantastic condition, Malicia just needed to make sure that the beast wasn't drowning in its own blood. A few moments more would do that, and then with the throat functioning properly once more her work was done. She stood up and hurled the goblin into another like an oversized rag-doll, knocking them both to the ground as she prepared to resume dodging to the best of her ability.

For some reason, the little monsters elected to instead backpedal and make for the walls, as did some of the ones that had not yet committed to lunging at Adrian.

Ah. Malicia was still giggling. It was drowned out by Adrian's joyful battle-cries, but all the same she took a deep breath and composed herself, forcing the wide smile away and into a calm non-expression as the guards pushed them back down the walls with the butt of their spears.

It was not long afterward that the last of the goblins, their morale broken and fighting like cornered rats as they were, were put to the sword and the process of disposal began.

"Miss Malicia." the butler called out after she patched up the few scratches that Adrian had suffered from, but before she could slink away to go change her clothes into something less shredded and bloody. "I will require a word with you after supper."

With great force of willpower, Malicia managed to not audibly click her tongue in frustration.