A Hero must report all earnings to the Hero’s Guild and pay one fifth of those earnings to the Hero’s Guild.

   -Hero’s Guild Book of Rules

   Rule # 2

      Feral looked down on the Will, lying peacefully beneath his blankets. The boy was in for a very rough week and Feral thought it was almost a pity to have to wake him but he also knew how much worse it would be if the boy wasn’t properly prepared for what was coming. A week wasn’t nearly enough time to truly train anyone but there were some very simple, if brutal, things he could teach Will in that time that would hopefully keep him safe.

   “Boy,” Feral said and bending low he pulled back the boy’s covers.

   Will’s eyes opened at once and he only needed a few moments to wake fully. As soon as he was aware of Feral his face lost all signs of sleepiness and he smiled eagerly. He was about to begin talking, no doubt to express his excitement, but Feral motioned for him to remain silent.

   “Follow me,” Feral whispered and he led the way out of camp.

     They’d marched several miles to the north the previous day and set up their camp on a narrow stretch of land between two massive stone slabs forming a ‘V’ along the North and South sides of their camp. They appeared to have once been a solid land bridge spanning a narrow chasm but time had worn away their middle until they’d broken and collapsed. The East and West sides of their camp faced dense groves of pine trees and so they were quite out of sight from anyone.

   Feral led Will up along one side of the broken stone. It was a slippery climb but not so steep that such a climb was impossible. Feral stood at the top and waited for Will who struggled to find proper handholds and slipped a few times but nevertheless made it to the top before too long.

   Sunrise was still about an hour away and the pale ribbon of sky in the East was growing steadily brighter. There were no signs of the Western Realm from their vantage point and Feral doubted very much that any of the scouting parties would venture this way. There was very little in the way of settlements on this Northern side and so the Western Realm had little to fear in this direction. Any real opposition was more likely to come from the East and the the South.

   “I’m not a cruel man,” Feral said as soon as Will had caught his breath, “but I only have one week to train and prepare you for what’s to come and if we’re going to succeed in taking those cattle then we will have to act as soon as this week is over. That means you only have one week to learn as much as you can if you want to have any hope of surviving.”

   Will nodded solemnly and Feral hoped the boy would, indeed, be ready when the time came.

   “There’s much that I could teach you,” Feral went on, “about combat and strategies and stealth, but there’s no time for most of that. Instead I will be teaching you how to survive, and more often than not that will mean teaching you to do things that are both terrible and disgusting. These first techniques you’ll be learning are ones that I generally avoid using since they are designed to cause extreme and lasting pain rather than a quick death, but they are nonetheless effective and easy to master.”

   Will was clearly growing uncomfortable but he did not protest or interrupt as Feral lead him further into a grove of tall pines.

   “We’ll start with unarmed combat,” Feral said as they passed the first few rows of trees and entered a secluded clearing. “I expect you will be reluctant to practice what I’m about to teach you but I will not accept any hesitation. In battle, if you hesitate you will die.”

   Feral had hunted through the previous night in order to prepare for the morning’s training and he had succeeded in tracking down and killing three mountain goats. He now had the goats propped up with some cut branches in such a manner that they stood on their hind legs and were roughly the height of a grown person. Will didn’t look particularly repulsed at the sight of them but Feral knew he hadn’t yet fully explained to Will what he would be doing.

   “You don’t have the strength yet to overpower a trained soldier,” Feral began, “But  there are weak points in the body that require hardly any strength to wound. We will be starting with the eyes.”

                                                                                  *

   It was nearing midday when Feral and Will returned to camp. Riven and Skemm were busy checking their gear and making sure everything was in good repair and ready just in case they were discovered. Will was visibly pale and he kept rubbing the wash cloth Feral had given him over his hands again and again. Feral doubted Will would feel like his hands were properly clean for some time.

   “How are you two doing?” Skemm asked with concern when she saw Will. “There’s some boiled grains by the fire pit and some honeycomb in a cloth beside it.”

   Will waved silently his acknowledgment but went instead to his bedroll and sat down, staring at nothing in particular. Feral grabbed a couple of bowls and filled them with the steaming porridge.

   “Where’d the honeycomb come from?” Feral asked to break the awkward silence that had fallen on their camp.

   “Riven found it,” Skemm stated absently and then added with greater concern, “Are you okay Will?”

   “Yeah,” Will said in a hollow voice, “Just…just tired.”

   Skemm was clearly unconvinced but Feral shot her a stern look when she began to move as though she would go to Will.

   “It’s my week to train him,” Feral warned her quietly, “and he doesn’t need to be coddled. He’ll be fine,” Feral added at last in an attempt to calm Skemm’s concerns.

   It was going to be a difficult week for Will, in more ways than one, but Feral knew it would be better for Will to get over the shock and horror of battle now so that he’d be less likely to be overwhelmed when the real fighting came.

   “Here,” Feral said to Will, sitting down beside him and handing him one of the bowls of porridge.

   Will was still pale but some color was beginning to return to his cheeks. He glanced down at the bowl and then looked away.

   “Your body needs food,” Feral said, “and you need to learn how to take care of it even when you don’t feel like it.”

   Will didn’t move right away but after a while he slowly reached out, picked up the bowl, and began to eat. His hands were still a little shaky but as he ate the shaking lessened.

   “Is real fighting so…messy?” Will had clearly been wanting to ask his question for some time but was too shocked to ask it until now.

   “Sometimes, yes,” Feral told him, “But sometimes it’s worse.” He knew that wouldn’t comfort Will but knowing the truth was more important. “When you’re done eating,” Feral said as he stood back up, “meet me again in the clearing.”

   Feral gulped down the rest of his porridge, wiped out the bowl, and placed it back beside the fire pit.

   “How’s it going?” Riven asked Feral quietly before he could leave camp again.

   “The boy’s done everything I’ve told him to do,” Feral said with a shrug. “He doesn’t complain either.”

   “That’s good,” Riven said, “though he might benefit a bit more if you would call him by his name.”

   She left before he could respond and Feral stared after her until he suddenly became aware of Will standing beside him.

   “I’m ready,” Will said and together they climbed back up out of their camp. Feral was glad to see that he’d regained almost all of the color in his face even though their break had only lasted a few minutes.

   Once they were back in the clearing Feral pulled a small length of charred wood from his pouch and began marking places on his head, neck, torso, arms, and legs.

   “We’ll leave hand combat alone for a bit,” Feral said and Will visibly perked up. “These places,” he pointed to the charcoal marks he’d made, “are the bodies weak points you will want to focus on for armed combat. If you can pierce or cut a person in any one of these points they will die in moments. Some of these places are protected by the bones in our bodies and, more often than not, soldiers will protect them with armor. A trained soldier will know these locations and will aim to strike their opponent there. Most real fights are over and done in a matter of seconds with no more than a couple of blows from each opponent.”

   Feral picked up a straight length of wood he’d prepared the night before and handed it to Will.

   “This is your primary weapon but do not trust it to win any fights for you. It’s only a tool and it will only behave as well as you wield it. Most opponents you will be facing will expect you to be unsure of yourself and to either strike out wildly or else to hesitate and give them an opening. If you do either you will die.”

   Will’s discomfort began to return and his brow was now so deeply furrowed that Feral wondered if he would give himself a headache from the strain.

   “But we will use their assumptions against them and turn it into an advantage for you,” Feral said to console Will. “You will only be focusing on learning three strikes with the sword and you will be drilling them over and over again throughout this week. These three strikes are nothing fancy but they are highly lethal and effective. Even if you aren’t able to kill your opponent it should sufficiently injure or distract them that you will be able to either get away or else land a second, more lethal strike.”

   Feral picked up a second length of wood and gripped it tightly in both hands, showing Will how to hold it and how to stand. Will followed his example and, after some minor corrections and tweaks, Feral nodded his approval. The boy had some skill at least in learning quickly and taking corrections.

   “You lack the strength to be able to cleave through armor so the strikes I will be teaching you are thrusts that aim for areas not usually armored. You will need to practice these to build your accuracy and to learn how to put your full strength behind it. The first is a thrust to the neck.”

   Feral demonstrated the motion, again using one of the goat corpses as a practice dummy, and Will copied him.

   “You are aiming for this mark here,” Feral pointed to the mark he’d made on his neck just to the side of the center, and then made a similar mark on the light fur of the goat. “Even if you’re off by a little, as long as the strike hits the neck your opponent will have little chance of surviving. If your aim is correct they will bleed out in moments and…it will be a terrible sight. I recommend you not watch it should it happen.”

   Will nodded and Feral could see the boy’s legs were beginning to shake. Feral took a deep breath. He needed to teach the boy so much and there was so little time.

   Feral caught himself as he continued to think of Will as just a boy. It was so much easier to think of him in that way, just as it was easier in a fight to think of the enemy as simply an enemy. Remove their humanity and you could do almost anything to them without concern, but Will was not an enemy and Riven had been right about Feral needing to call him by his name. If not only for Will’s sake, but for his own.

   “Will,” Feral said at last and hated how foreign the boy’s name sounded in his ears. “War is brutal and terrible and only glorious in stories or to those who revel in butchering others. You’ll need to find your own way of dealing with it or else the memories of what you’ve done and seen may come to haunt your dreams, or even your waking moments.”

   “How do you deal with it?” Will asked, finally breaking his long silence.

   “Riven and I use humor,” he said, “Not humor about the brutality of combat,” Feral added hastily, “just humor with one another. It’s not a perfect solution but one that works well enough for us.”

   Will turned his focus back to the goat in front of him and tightened his grip on the stick.

   “Go through the motion slowly, Will,” Feral instructed him, “You’re body will learn better that way and you will be able to strike with greater accuracy and speed later on.”

   Feral and Will spent the remainder of the day drilling the strikes Feral taught him. By the end of the day Will was extremely tired, but Feral could tell he had grown in confidence. Not every day this week was going to be so easy physically for Will, but none would be as mentally taxing as this first day.

     With any luck, Feral thought, the boy…Will, would at least be prepared mentally for when the fighting started and that was really the biggest hurdle for anyone to overcome.