The Northern Noble is a Grinder (Chapter 7)

The Northern Noble is a Grinder (Chapter 7)

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Commissioned by Sivantic

Wordcount: 2500

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Fighting against wolves proved to be another test.

A test of enduring pain.

“You’re not weak anymore! Stop acting like it. Their teeth will scratch, their claws will tear, but it’s only pain! Endure!” I fought with Alice back-to-back. We elected to bring nearly a whole armory with us, much to our teacher’s amusement, and he permitted it. Now we were in a veritable battlefield. A broken portion of a forest turned into a clearing, broken halberds every few feet, and both blood in corpses of numerous wolves in every direction. Some of the blood was ours. “You will heal… as long as you survive!”

He loomed over us now, unlike all our other battles, in full armor and with hovering blades at the ready. Like an idol of metal suspended in the air, he looked upon us while we fought with everything that we have.

“The next pack is here!” He declared and with barely any growling or roars, the next pack of wolves was upon us.

They were the size of ponies and covered in matted fur. Eight burst from the ground, their strength and power allowing them to dig through it with ease. Six more bounded off stumps of trees and bared their teeth in mid-air. The first eight tried to go for our legs to pin us down. The other six tried for our arms or weapons. The next twelve surged towards us just seconds behind them in a loose circle and surrounding us with multiple vectors of attack.

Their teeth were as strong and sharp as steel, their hides as tough as iron, and their tactics were equal to that of trained hunters working in concert.

Alice and I cut through them all in less than a minute.

I caught one with my bare arm, and I gritted my teeth through the pain of fangs finding purchase into my skin, but not my muscle. Swinging the beast around, I slammed it against the one coming for my leg. Weight and speed turned into blunt force and the two creatures cracked and broke against one another, without me needing to break skin. With my spare hand, I swung the top of the halberd I grabbed like an axe and cleaved straight through two wolves coming at my left. Meanwhile, in front of me, four pairs of jaws were going for my vitals, I had no choice but to call upon my magic.

It was a mere ‘push.’

Magic used by children to prank one another, or to train one’s ability to ‘hit’ targets with magic.

I pumped power into it, and aimed the ‘push’ downward, and the rest of the creatures coming at my side were turned into pulp against the ground.

Crushed in an instant so finely that all innards were crushed into a single mass, while bone shattered, and hide and pelt spread out like a deflated balloon.

I glanced over my shoulder for a second after dispatching my foes.

I needn’t have.

Alice used the spikes of two halberds with skill, finesse, and speed that I couldn’t match. All her foes were dead with a spike through their skulls, which pumped wind magic into their brains to turn it into mush.

In the back of my mind, I recoiled at the terrifying attack.

Right here and now, I admonished myself for not having a similar method of killing these wolves.

“Alrighty, we need to relocate. That’s the first hundred dead here. Five hundred to go, so that you both get your three hundred each.” Pieces of metal came forth and turned into hands. He grabbed us and excess armor turned into chairs. The first time, I’d found it difficult to fly through the air in such a manner. Simply seated on some metal as the frigid wind flew past us. Now, I scrambled for my pouch and desperately started to eat after getting my hands clean with magic.

The winds howled, air rushed past us, and I felt discomfort.

But I was changed.

The cold barely bit at my skin.

The loudness of rushing winds barely irritated me.

Not a single shiver went up my spine as I was flown above vast, frozen treetops.

By the time I finished pushing food down my throat, the wound on my arm was already healed.

We flew for barely a few minutes, before we descended again, and he once more scattered the scent of prey throughout the land.

I got to Alice, and we quickly moved to the nearest tree to cover at least one of our flanks.

“I will need you to teach me how to use daggers. I am having to take wounds because of my lack of ability.” I did my best to address Alice as I would a servant. It was important for me to maintain my position in battle. Or, rather, that was what I was taught. Now, in the depths of the wintery north, I struggled to do so. It felt like a waste. So many words when fewer would be enough. “It will, of course, have to wait until we survive these trials.”

Alice’s smirk was evident in her response.

“Of course, my lady.”

Four words and her part was done, and she could rest easy for a few more seconds than me.

As howls reverberated through the woods, I prepared myself to endure another onslaught, and bared my arm in preparation once more.

I had many concerns, desires, and wishes regarding my life. My former fiancé needed to be stopped before he destroyed the empire. I wished to protect my family and my few friends. I desired power so that I will never again be helpless in the face of others.

For the next few hours, however, my deepest desire was armor.

I will never be without any again.

However, just as I was ready for another battle, I found a chill running down my spine.

And, for a brief moment, I found an arrow right about to pierce my eye.

Then, everything moved at once, nearly too fast for me to perceive.

But I did.

Everything outside of a circle that surrounded myself and Alice was torn apart. The arrow before me shuddered and shook and came apart into thousands of slices. Metal and wood turned into slowly fluttering petals in the air. The snow on the ground suffered the same fate, turning into a fine mist that began to dissolve in the air. Evaporated before my eyes, turning into slices of bark, then pulp, and then heartwood, and then eventually bark once again.

However, in some places where I had though there had been nothing, I watched with horror as people covered in magic appeared.

And, they were not spared the fate that befell the trees.

I forced my eyes to close, and for my senses to cease focusing, and suddenly everything turned into a madding din of screeching metal and wind for a moment.

Then, it all stopped, and when I opened my eyes… there was no longer any snow, any trees, and any assailants being flayed alive around us.

Instead, in our desolated surroundings, there was myself, Alice, and Lord Trelawney in his hulking suit of armor holding a person by the neck.

“He’s a native. One of their hunters. Probably looking for prey and they noticed the two of you, but not me.” Lord Trelawney’s voice was… bored. Even after the annihilation that he unleashed that left only where I and Alice untouched, his breath was not even strained. In the free hand of his armor, something was moving faster than I could see without concentrating, and it closed shut after a long moment. A sensation of danger that I had not noticed faded with the sound of that arm closing. “I’d thought they’d sent someone interesting, but it’s just a regular hunter.”

Crack.

Without a hint of hesitation, Lord Trelawney killed the man, and tossed him aside.

The same power he used to devastate and tear apart our surroundings engulfed the body before it could reach the floor.

It was turned into little more than dust.

Dust composed of flesh and bone.

“Sorry about that, let’s go to the next hunting spot.” He sighed and looked at us both. My fear must’ve been evident on my face. He just shrugged the shoulders of his armor. Then, he made a gesture. Bows and arrows descended from the sky along with some long knives. “Do either of you know how to use a bow? The ones they use can imbue arrows with magic. Pretty decent weapons.”

Alice found her tongue before I could.

“I do.”

“Alrighty.” In an instant, the tension faded as I watched Alice get three quivers full of arrows and a bow made of some sort of white wood. Indignation filled me, then, as he gave me the knives. “You said you wanted to learn how to use them, right? No time better to learn skills than while grinding. Hop to it, princess.”

With that, as though he didn’t turn a section of forest into a scar of upturned land in an instant, he lifted us up again to ferry us to another place.

After that, we still had much more blood to spill.

…

I ate like a madwoman when I returned. The table had been filled to the brim with meats, breads, and vegetables roasted slowly while we were away. After wiping myself clean, and after putting on clothes rather than equipment for killing, the moment I saw the food… I was unable to keep myself calm. A fierce hunger spoke from my very being, and I feasted without care along with Alice.

When I became cognizant once more, I had to use two table napkins to clean my face and a servant came forward with a bowl of water to let me cleanse my hands of muck.

Lord Trelawney’s only reaction was to raise a glass my way in greeting.

“Welcome back. Glad to see you’re not starving any more.” He was having a modest meal for the first time. Rothway’s fund came through, and my father had been notified of my progress and compensated Lord Trelawney’s household properly. He had also sent a tailor and plenty of textiles along. The staff all had new clothes, and there had been more than enough to spare for their children as well. The tailor was absolutely enamored with the thought of supplying the whole of the castle and then the surrounding village. “I think you had a question for me, before your stomach took over?”

I made sure my face and hands bereft of blemish or detritus, then I cleared my throat.

Just as I opened my mouth, my stomach rumbled.

All of that consumption had merely changed me from starved to hungry.

Thankfully, the table was still full of hearty, roasted meats, and vegetables.

“Excuse me for a moment.” I helped myself and got another platter full. Meat, vegetables, and glass of water. I rotated between the three of several bites. When my stomach was no longer grumbling, or burning everything, I ate like some sort of furnace, I addressed Lord Trelawney once again. “I meant to ask you about the magic that you used to defend us against the ambush after our first engagement. I have never seen anything like it.”

“You have. It’s just ‘Manipulate.’ I use it all the time. It’s how I do practically everything.” I blinked at the frank admission. Manipulate was another form of magic used to learn at an early age. Push allowed one to use magic to ‘hit’ something from a distance. Manipulate was the next step. To encompass an object with force and move it in the direction you wish. “I use it with metal dust and water from the air.”

He held up his hand and from a pocket on his person came a small pouch. Metal dust flowed out of it and glinted off the lights from the chandelier above us. For a moment, they seemed beautiful. Little stars suspended perfectly in the sky. Then, he called upon water in the air and captured the dust, and a chill went down my spine as it turned into a string as thin as hair… and began to move at such speed that a constant ‘thrum’ reverberated through the air.

That ‘thrum’ I realized was the same sound made by a sword being swung, but made incessant.

I understood what I had seen earlier today.

He made numerous rings around us, set them at incredible speeds, and then spread them outward as a wall of continuous cuts.

A shiver went up my spine as I realized that with my increasing power, that I will be able to do the same in the near future.

“You’ll need practice. A lot of it. Power alone isn’t enough. Try it with sand and water first. Bonus points if you can separate water from sand. Oh, and start with a thimbleful first. Too much and you’ll probably use too much power and die.” Lord Trelawney casually relayed how close to death he came learning the skill he demonstrated. He noticed my surprise and simply shrugged. “You could die trying to learn how to use a sword or any other weapon without the right precaution. It’s similar enough.”

I wanted to argue, but after experiencing his strangeness the last few days, I decided against it.

When he spoke on such matters in that manner, it was useless to argue with him.

Instead, I asked another question.

“The ones ambushing us… why were they there? I believe that you’re mounting numerous reprisal attacks on them.”

I almost expected Lord Trelawney to shrug at my question regarding the attempt on my life.

Instead, his answer was more terrifying.

“We were on the outreaches of Djin’s Snowcrop, which is usually fought over by two different clans of indigenous peoples because wolf pelts are highly valued. The hunters come from either of the two fighting for the land. They saw you had steel weapons, so they ambushed you. They didn’t notice me, so they died.” He displayed intimate knowledge of his enemies, before callously stating that he simply killed them.

Territorial disputes over a resource were common back home, but they rarely devolved to blows, let alone such savage assaults as they one he displayed. Before I could commiserate with the situation more, however, I reminded myself that the people of this land earned the enmity of Lord Trelawney by killing his family. There was no way I could convince him to find any peaceable solution… and it was not my place to advise him to do so, either. I was his guest and student. Nothing more nor less.

So, I accepted his answer and made a proper request.

“Lord Trelawney, please be more mindful of our future excursions. I do not wish to be ambushed again by the peoples of this land, or have to kill them in self-defense.”

Thankfully, he gave a sharp nod at my words.

“Got it, princess. Don’t worry. My curriculum doesn’t involve them, and I’ll teach them tonight that my guests are off limits.”

The smile he gave after his words was a sickly sweet one… but I was surprised to find myself relieved rather than afraid upon seeing it.

Despite his power and strength, and our very recent meeting, I surprisingly found him easy to trust.