Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 6ii

This one goes to MrsCosmopilite, who's been reading so fast, I'm struggling to get this dedication written before she gets to the last posted chapter. If you haven't read any of her work yet, then I strongly advise that you do. The world that she has created in 'Second' has a well thought out history with a hint of past technology that I guarantee readers will find intriguing. The humour that she writes with is subtle and beguiling, and her characters are all so appealingly real. Give it a read.

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Grifford sweated in the confining madriel armour, his head reeling from the near overpowering smell of cured tragasaur hide. The metal armour he wore for his arms training was heavier, but the hide madriel armour was more cumbersome, all parts of it being dense and triple padded. Even the gauntlets were clumsy things, so thick he could barely feel the heavy wooden training stick that Master Chen had pushed into his hand.

"Did you hear me?"

Grifford had to tilt his head far back to look up at his assigned Madriel-master, for not only could he barely hear through the thick padding of the helmet that encased his head, he could also barely see. The padding extended forward around his face, so that it seemed as though he was peering out at the world from a deep hole. A hole, furthermore, covered in a dome of metal crisscrossing bars.

"What?" he said, his own voice sounding muffled and distant.

Master Chen regarded him with the same dispassionate expression that had not left his face since Grifford had first set eyes on him. The Madriel-master was probably not much older than thirty summers, short and slight with hard narrow eyes.

"I said that under no circumstances should you use your training stick." He tapped the heavy stick in Grifford's hand with his own. "To strike your madriel with the intention of injury. We do not use pain to train our steeds. They are not javac and we are not savages from the north."

"What is it for then?" said Grifford, holding up his stick to look at it.

"It is for defence and for restraint only. Come."

The Madriel-master drew back the bolt of the arena door, pushed it open, and stepped through. Grifford followed, feeling clumsy in the restrictive padded armour, and they entered the arena, its roof open to the sky, and the sunlight slowly spreading across the dry earth of the floor. A stout wooden pen stood at the far end of the arena, but his chosen steed was not inside. Grifford had to look about the place before he saw it, lounging in the segment of sun. The beast looked up as they entered, first fixing its odd coloured eyes on Master Chen, then sparing the merest glance for Grifford before looking away once more.

"Your steed has a failing, Squire Grifford."

"So people have told me."

"His failing is in his arrogance."

"What!"

Master Chen shut the door behind them, closing it with another bolt. He pointed with his stick at Grifford's beast, which was still lying in the sun with its eyes half closed.

"If a male madriel does not perceive a thing to be a threat, then he will not pay it any attention. It is a trait prevalent in older beasts, but your beast is already displaying such behaviour."

Grifford gave a smile at that news, but it seemed Master Chen was not content to allow him any satisfaction.

"Your first task is to make your beast attack you."