Kegohr lunged at me, arms wide as he tried to grab me around the chest. Instead of backing away, I stepped into the move and slammed my shoulder into his body. He wasn’t tossed to the ground, but my attack had made him stagger a little. It gave me just enough time to dive past him at waist height and fall into a forward roll that brought me back to my feet a dozen paces away.
“Tiring yet?” I asked. “It must be hard work dragging all that muscle around.”
Kegohr laughed. “It must be hard carrying anything on those spindly limbs.”
He rushed toward me, but this time, I had a plan. Drawing once again on the power of wood, I sent it arcing through the dirt so that a pillar of planks shot up in front of him. He slammed into them with a thud that echoed around the arena.
With a single heaving movement, Kegohr sidestepped the pillar, only for me to fling another one up in his face. We did it again and again, walls shooting up whichever way he went.
“Guess I’ll have to go through them!” he called out.
There was a crash as the latest plank pillar trembled. Another crash, and a huge, flaming fist burst through and knocked planks to the ground. He pummeled at the wooden blocks until they collapsed in a heap of splinters and ashes.
“What else you got?” he asked.
I raised my palms and launched a volley of thorns. The wooden shards split the air and punctured his skin. He looked almost comical, like a gray porcupine, and I even heard Vesma stifle a laugh. As the thorns stood quivering in his thick skin, Kegohr looked down and shook his head.
“You need to keep practicing if you want that to hurt me,” he said. “Size matters.”
“But sometimes, it’s what you do with it that counts.”
I summoned a pillar of planks again, not in front of Kegohr but beneath my feet. I shot into the air and launched toward the giant. I reached out, wrapped his thick neck in both my arms, and took him to the ground. The air ejected from my lungs as his full weight landed on top of me, but I kept my grip around his neck. I contracted my muscles and blocked the air running through his windpipe. His hands scrabbled to remove me as he grew desperate for breath. I continued squeezing while ensuring I wouldn’t kill the guy. Finally, he reached out with his right arm and tapped the dirt. I released him, and he let out a wheezy chuckle.
Vesma scowled in a corner, but Kegohr recovered after a few moments and held out his hand to me.
“Nice meeting you, Effin.”
“Nice meeting you too, buddy.” I clasped his hand.
“How touching.” Vesma rolled her eyes as she joined us. “I bet you’re friends for life now.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kegohr said. “But not like me and you, Ves. Nobody can catch up on all those years.”
“Big idiot.” She rolled her eyes again, but she couldn’t quite suppress her smile. “We should go rest now.”
“It’s not that late,” I said. “How about we find something to drink instead, raise a cup to new friends?”
“Little idiot.” She frowned at me. “Don’t you know about tomorrow?”
“What about tomorrow?” I asked.
“Rutmonlir is taking us to farm our first fire beast cores. You need to be completely ready. Unless you want to wind up dead, that is.”
Chapter Eight
The mountainside above the guild house was an expanse of scorched dirt and bare stone. Few plants grew here, and those that did were short, hardy things with tough leaves and no flowers or fruit. The air was warmer than it had been when we started the trek up here just after dawn, a dry heat that left me longing for a cool drink and a rest in the shade.
Master Rutmonlir was not going to let us rest. Seven foot tall and wrapped in muscle, he stood at the mouth of the Ember Cavern as he looked down at us with piercing black eyes. Guild rumors suggested there was monstrous blood somewhere in Rutmonlir’s heritage, that he hunted monsters out of shame at the dark streak within him. He certainly looked the part, a hulking brute of a man in a ragged leather jerkin, his skin darkened by the sun, his beard and hair a wild tangle bound with rough twine. In normal circumstances, he towered over everyone except Kegohr. Today, looking down the slope at us from on top of a boulder, he seemed more like a monument than a man.
“Who knows what this place is?” He jerked a thumb at the wide cave mouth behind him.
Hamon and Vesma’s hands shot up. She waved her arm as though she was a sixth grader who wanted the teacher to pick her, and she let out a loud groan when Rutmonlir nodded to Hamon.
“It’s an entrance to the Ember Cavern,” Hamon said. “A vigorous zone guarded by the Radiant Dragon Guild.”
“That’s right,” Rutmonlir confirmed. “We contain the creatures that spawn from its arcane heart, and harvest their cores while we’re at it. Who knows what sort of beasts we’ll find here?”
Again, Hamon and Vesma were the first to raise their hands. This time, Rutmonlir picked Vesma, and she shot the other initiate a satisfied smile.
“Ember sprites,” she answered. “They grant the Flame Shield technique. And scorched salamanders, for Untamed Torch.”
“Right again. Ember sprites are nippy fuckers, not powerful but fast. They swarm as thick as fleas on a cat’s ass. You don’t want to get caught out in one of their nests.”
Rutmonlir continued. “Scorched salamanders though: each one of them’s a menace by herself. They’re hard to find and tough to kill, but it only takes three of their cores
