“Ha,” Kegohr chuckled. “An elementalist and a wild. What will you add to this merry band, eh, Vesma?”
“Shut up, idiot,” Vesma said as she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.
“Wild?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“Like you don’t know,” Vesma said.
I thought about what the term might mean and answered confidently. “I get it, a natural talent. Someone who learned to Augment without a guild.” I shook my head. “Am I wild?”
Vesma palmed her face. “Of course you’re not a wild! Wilds have to be half-breeds. It’s the melding of two different kinds that makes their natural magic grow stronger. They can even create their own techniques. You ever done that? Are you a half-breed who’s hiding a tail or scales?”
“No,” I said, suddenly aware how little I knew of the Seven Realms.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kegohr said. “So, how’d you learn those wood techniques, then? You don’t look like you were a member of a wood guild.”
“I had a teacher, a really good one. In fact, I haven’t even been inside a guild house before. I’ve only been learning for a few months.”
The moment I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake. The whole point of guilds was that they were meant to control who learned to Augment. A tutor could get into real trouble for teaching in the outside world.
“That’s banshee shit,” Vesma said.
“Excuse me?”
She was starting to grind on my nerves with her look of disdainful judgment.
“I’ve seen you channel in class,” she said. “That’s not a few months’ training.”
“Maybe you’re overestimating me.” I decided to turn her words to my advantage. “Maybe I’m not as effective as you think. Maybe you’ll pound me into dust once we get fighting.”
Her eyes narrowed. I could tell she saw the hook in my words, but she couldn’t resist the bait.
“Lying is dishonorable,” she said. “I should hurt you for that.”
She unfolded her arms and walked out into the center of the arena, beckoning for me to follow. Kegohr stepped aside as Vesma and I faced off against each other.
Now that she had my full attention, I noticed details that I hadn’t before. Her body armor was scuffed by years of use, its buckles adjusted to better fit her. The vambraces, though moulded with fine spiral images, had become worn over time, dented at the edges from many battles. These were hand-me-downs, relics of a small, poor clan.
I raised my fists into a fighting stance and bounced on my feet as I readied myself for action. Vesma stood perfectly still, hands raised with palms open, watching, waiting.
Suddenly, her hand lashed out, catching me by surprise. She struck the side of my arm. There was a moment of pain and then, a feeling of numbness where she had struck some nerve.
I stepped back, arms still up protectively, though one of them was almost useless while I waited for sensation to return.
Vesma darted forward with her hands flashing out to left and right. I dodged one, blocked the other, and saw her kick coming just in time to jump over it. Then, she was back, still as a statue, watching me.
“You’re stronger than you look,” I said. “Maybe you will manage to give me that beating.”
“Less talk, more fight.” She leapt into the air, leg extended in a kick straight at my head. I stepped aside, grabbed her ankle with my good hand, and dragged her down. A smile touched my face as I used her own momentum to fling her to the ground.
Even as she hit the sand of the arena, she twisted and used her legs to sweep mine out from under me. I hit the dirt face first and rolled away. I spat grit as her elbow collided with the place where my head had been.
I tried to grab her before she could get up, but she snaked away and sprang to her feet. I leapt up too and we stood facing each other, me bobbing and weaving, she still as stone.
This woman was as strong as I was and just as fast with her fists. But my tutors had deliberately given me an advantage before I came here, and I was more than willing to use it.
I took a deep breath, drew into myself, and found the peaceful state where the Vigor could flow. I pulled it down through me, into the earth and then, back up.
Recognition flashed across Vesma’s face a moment too late.
A pillar of planks burst from the ground, not in front of her but beneath her feet. She yelped as the wooden pillars sent her flying in a spray of sand. Almost as fast as they had appeared, they disappeared back down into darkness, and I went to stand over her.
“Still think my story’s banshee shit?” I grinned.
Something slammed into my back. It felt like being hit by a brick wall, a solid mass that sent me tumbling through the air and crashing to the ground. Kegohr looked down at me with fangs glinting at the corners of his smile. His whole body glowed red, and even his patches of fur were tinged with crimson.
“You might not be a wild,” he said, “but I am.”
“Bring it on.”
Pulse pounding with the thrill of the fight, I leapt to my feet. Kegohr approached, looming over me like a mountain of blazing muscle. I could feel the heat radiating from his body as the power of fire flowed through him.
Kegohr swung at me with his massive fists, and I ducked the first blow that would have caved in my skull. I stepped back from the second, and the hot wind of its passing brushed against my face. I grabbed hold of his arm with both hands and tried to twist it around to throw him off-balance. But his natural strength, Augmented by the power of the element, made him all but immovable.
Unlike the fire spirit, Kegohr’s skin actually burned when I touched it. I winced as
