Two days after Fuyuko's sparring session with the champion trainees, Bellona waited with anticipation as her 'prey' came to where she and Xarlug waited. Helena had agreed to this little training bout on behalf of her trainees and had passed on dires to Amrydor and Yugo to head here at dawn.

  "Oh bloody hells, of course it's her." Yugo's curse was sweet music to her ears. This was far from the first time they'd met as the temples and monasteries regurly cross-trained with each other.

  While Bellona had never been in charge of their training at an anizational level, she had been in charge of specific training sessions that included the pair. What made them especially fun to 'torture' was that they could both take just about any regimehrew at them, even if her had yet to best her in a spar.

  "Hello boys," she said with a grin, "it's good to see you again. But it seems someone has beeing in trouble with girls again already." Her gaze nded on Amrydor, whom she noted had caught up to her i.

  Amrydor returned her look with a steady gaze of his own as he replied, "We've worked that out and there will be no problems there, Champ- er, Lady Bellona." Despite his bravado, Bellona retty certain that she caught a hint of a blush on his cheeks. The youth had grown both tall and wide of shoulder, drawing the eye of more than a few irls his age or older.

  "Hmm, we'll see. Amrydor, Yugo, I want to introduce you t, who will be helpih your training this m. Xarlug, please meet Trainee Amrydor and Trainee 'Yugo', or so he is called."

  Bellona had heard that Yugo often had authorized absences, now she knew why. It had been obvious enough that he'd been a noble's son going inito for whatever reason, she just hadn't expected him to turn out to be Prince Gou.

  Said prince looked pained as he said, " we please not py with names? I am quite happy to leave things as they have been."

  Amrydri his friend and said, "I'm just amused that Fuyuko called you out on it so fast. It took me years to figure it out, and I had to stalk you first."

  "Alright you two," Bellona said, "enough of that. Xarlug, you get to start with Amrydor here si seems he's finally picked a favored on and it's a polearm. I'll see if Yugo here has learned anything since I st ran a training session for this lot."

  She'd always had an edge on both boys, being three years older than Yugo to begin with and having the advantage of the faster maturation of orcs. Amrydor's height a had him most often training with people older than him, but it also meant that Bellona had even more years of experien him.

  As it was a training session rather than a straight spar, after each tad csh they separated, and critiques and suggestions were given. Bellona was satisfied that Yugo's growth had mostly kept pace with her own, leaving them with about the same gap in power and skill as before. However, she was also not taking advantage of her elemental skill set, yet. This was about bat teiques and o stay focused on ons and footwork.

  After about an hour, she called their first break. All of them could use it, even in the slower pace of a training session there was still plenty of exertion. It would be far too soon if this was a stamina-building exercise, but alertness and energy were needed for learning.

  Bellona leased with how both of these young men were shaping up, but she wasn't going to let them off the hook yet. Once everyone had their wind back, it was time to switch partners. She'd been keeping an eye on Xarlug and Amrydor, and while Xarlug had the overall advaheir training session had been closer to equals as each had teiques to teach the other.

  Now it was time to find out how well Amrydor faired against axe and shield.

  As it turned out, fairly well. While his war scythe wasn't as good at thrusting as other polearms, the curved bde could also maneuver around shields easier and attempt to hook them out of the way, and the young man had the strength and agility to keep her from knog the longer on out of the way readily.

  A polearm's greatest weakness was its slow speed. If you fully it to a swing and miss, it's very hard to recover quickly. Amrydor chose not to it his full strength to a swing, tent to probe and attempt to work his ast her defenses rather than trying to overpower her.

  For most people, she'd find the approach timid. But she knew him, and he'd always been a patient fighter. Now that she khe nature of that strangely seretle aura, Bellona couldn't help but think of it as the patience of death. All things e to it in time.

  Well, almost all things. People like Gil and Satsuki defied that expectation. Nor would the boy's patience be enough to overe Bellona's defenses. "You're strong, but not strong enough to avoid itting to your strikes." As she spoke, Bellona demonstrated her point by spping the war scythe with her shield at the same time it came sweeping in. Without having itted his strength to the attack, she was able to knock it away and give herself the opening to move in and strike with her axe.

  He adjusted in time to block with the haft of his on, which was certainly better than nothing, but Bellona shook her head as they reset for another exge and said, "That works here, but we're both using wooden ons. Try that in battle with live steel and you are likely to have the haft broken in one or two strikes."

  Amrydor frowned and then sighed, "I know. There's something else I'm missing, maybe some fine adjustment to the shape or suaybe it's a teique I haven't figured out. It feels right overall, but there's a lot of refi left."

  Hmm. Bellona checked an idea with Mordecai and then said, "If you delve, Mordecai ehat there's a series of variants for you to try. Most of them will be normal dungeon structs like these are, but by the time you are really pushing yourselves he believes that he have your ideal ization figured out."

  "Oh? Huh, that sounds nice. But, um, I'm supposed to be training with Fuyuko."

  She s that. "The girl meet you at any of the rest points and train with you there. There are shortcuts for a reason and she knows how to travel the warrens. You're here primarily to get training, so that's your first duty."

  "No." His denial was ft and hard, which surprised Bellona. "My first duty is to proted help others, always. I believe that there is no one else here who help Fuyuko in this specific issue as well as I , though I am willing to be proven wrong."

  A moment ter, Amrydor seemed the tone which he'd spoken to her in, and he cleared his throat before he said, "Er, but, um, your reendatios me do both, so, um, thank you Lady Bellona."

  Bellona started ughing and Amrydor's look of sternation did not help her stop, but she recovered before too long and gave him a grin. "Oh, I've always liked you, but that erfect for a future champion. Absolutely and unabashedly sincere in its delivery. Also, we had already drawn Mordecai's focus this way, so he heard your ent."

  She took a moment tanize what she'd just been told. "He'd like you to know that you are almost correct. He ot reproduce your exact aspect of death, though with a bit of work he put more energy into a general-purpose aura aspected with the cept of death. Fuyuko's training would indeed go better with you. However, Cliodhna probably produce a very simir aura to yours, if she so chooses."

  Amrydor shivered and asked, "Just who is she, anyway? I felt weirdly helpless in front of her, but it didn't feel scary until after she'd left."

  Bellona shook her head and said, "Not my pce to talk about that one more, and no, I don't know what e she might have to you. Now, back to training! Head over to the fehere, Mordecai created a sele of variants for you to try out."

  When Bellona was satisfied with the progress of their training she called for a pause and gathered everyoogether to discuss the training so far and exge thoughts and observations. They'd been doing this sort of training long enough to know how to give feedback of their own, especially for each other, and were not afraid to ask questioher.

  After that, it was time for a bit of fun. Well, fun for her at least. "Alright," Bellona said as she cracked her ned stretched, "here's the deal. If you two make a good enough showing, you get to have dessert with your lunch. Do detly, you at least get good food. But if I am too unimpressed, I'm going to feed you stale bread and dry cheese."

  The pair eyed her suspiciously befng at each other.

  "You know," Yugo said, "I've heard some rumors about her cooking, but I haven't had a ce to find out the truth."

  "Well," Xarlug interjected, "I don't know about your rumors, but I verify she makes the best food I've ever had." He headed to the outside of the ring and added with a smile, "But I admit I might be biased. She wooed me with her cooking."

  Funny, that's ly how Bellona remembered it going down. She gave him some side eye but the uant man just wi her. Fine, she'd deal with him ter. "This is going to be a full spar, so I want to see everything you've got. Two on one, and I am fully expeg to e out on top."

  Young men were easily riled sometimes, and it made her happy to see the spark light up in their eyes. This was going to be iing.

  When the spar started, Amrydor took the lead attad used the long reach of his on to engage her shield in an attempt to create an opening fo, who was trying to e in at her side. But this was a full spar and almost all powers were oable. Instead of wood tag wood and briefly stig from the impact, the tip of his war scythe met her angled shield and a briefly jured coating of polished stoh ahinner yer of slick ice.

  His tip slid off to the side, guided by her mao twist toward Yugo.

  Both of them disengaged without hitting each other and paused as they tried to uand what just happened before they attempted atack.

  Bello her elemental maniputions subtle at first, but after several minutes Yugo tried to hit her with his lightning breath attack. Instead of dodging it, Bellona created an aretal that coated her her shield and the across the back of her shoulders to guide up the haft of her axe. bined with her owal trol of lightning, she was able to guide most of the bst through that ard aim the wild energy toward Amrydor.

  Most of it. She could feel a few spots where tendrils had made their way beh the padding under her armor, but the pain was minor and ignorable for now.

  The maneuver had caused the tight bst to disperse into a wider but less inte, so while Amrydor was able to avoid most of it, he still caught the edge of it. He swore as his leg briefly went numb and unresponsive, but retained enough posure to force himself into a roll that sent him away from her a him e up on one knee while his leg recovered fun.

  Yugo smiled widely and said, "So I heard correctly, you are Marked. I hadn't heard what , but I'm guessing something elemental. Metal and lightning at least, hmm, Amry, expey element until we figure out her set."

  "Oh, I'll tell you my set," Bellona said sweetly. That made Yugo visibly nervous and she took delight in telling him, "Everything."

  "Frozen hells," Yugo responded as she unched her attack. The earth under her feet had shifted to give her an ideal surface for her leap and the wind helped unch her toward him, whirling as fire bzed over her shield and axe.

  He dodged, but she hadn't been expeg to nd the blow directly. Her attack carried through into the ground which then exploded into a burst of fire and stone shraphat he could irely avoid. The speed of the spar picked up from there, but Bellona still had the clear advantage. For ohing, she could judiciously add stoo the edge of her axe when she had a hit on armor, increasing the force of the impact as stone gave less than wood.

  Usial on an attack would have been closer to a live steel spar than she was fortable getting into with these two.

  They were good, and as the bad forth increased in iy she could feel their wills and spirit focus and sharpen to the point that the wood in their hands was more dangerous than sharp steel in the hands of an inexperienced warrior.

  But she'd had plenty of practice against that thrice-be-damned Mordecai and all of his bsted tricks, in addition to the wide variety of inhabitants she'd been both training and training with. Yugo's strikes were fast and his hands would often blur during his attacks, but she could still read his attacks while trag Amrydor.

  Meanwhile, Amrydor had started to develop a teique with his war scythe. The bde began drifting oddly and it wasn't always where it seemed to be, but it wasn't quite enough to keep Bellona from dodging or defleg the attacks.

  The spar ended after Yugo attempted a rick that didn't quite ght. She saw him swallow hard just as he leapt at her, and lightning bsted out of his elbht wheruck out at her in a double-hatack. The burst of speed and power made his strike nd solidly against her shield instead of letting her deflect it as she normally would.

  All of his wooden cws shattered against her shield, and even with her reinfort of earth aal, Bellona's shield cracked in half from the impact.

  But instead to follow up his attack, Yugo leapt back with an oath and began ripping off the metal parts of the armor on his arms. Bellona could smell scorched hair and skin and could guess what had happened.

  "END!" she called out as she dropped her axe and shield and rushed over to help. The metal of his armor had eled too much of the lightning without proper trol and overheated, burning him even through the hide padding.

  After they'd gotteal off, Bellona cooled down his burns before applying a healing prayer to make sure the burns were reduced to superficial skin damage. She deliberately did not quite heal him all the way.

  "Idiot, trying a stunt like that without practice. I'm not sure I should let Fuyuko near you two, the girl gets enough bad ideas on her own." When she was done cussing Yugo out, Bellona sighed and shook her head. "Well, you earned dessert at least, but there is another price. Yoing to practice that trick all afternoon, just without the armor."

  At Amrydor's snicker, she whirled toward him. "Oh, don't think yetti off either boy. I couldirely make out what you were doing, and I suspect you aren't sure either, but I figured out ohing: it's tied to your aura. So yoing to maintain your full battle aura while you drill with the war scythe variants."

  A battle aura was mostly about projeg one's spirit and will into the area around you. While most did not have a distinct aspect or sensation the way that Amrydor's did, they all took energy to maintain. It was going to be exhausting to maintain for that long.

  "Now e on, we're going to eat first. Yoing to need a lot of food to power through this. Oh, and Yugo, I've got some elemental salts you might want to try. Just don't try any of them other than the one I hand you. If you don't have a handle on the elemental energies they be bad for you, and you don't have the trol to handle more than a light dash of lightning salts."

  She certainly didn't have any 'death' salts. Ice/cold salts seemed the closest, but not quite right, so she wasn't going to give Amrydor any of them for now.

  Zagaroth