Chapter 7 Divine Intervention Made Me Do It #3
“This is the training ground. It’s where you’ll find many of us when we’re not working.”
Corric lithely hopped the fence, not looking back to see if they were following. Assuming they should, Brune clambered over. He had an easier time of it than Niklas, who was still wearing his sword and bow.
“The soldiers,” Osmond called to them once they were safely on the ground.
His smile was bright. Not a hint of the man who thought they’d hurt Corric in the night.
Then, he’d been terrifying, a whirlwind of citrus scent and carefully timed punches.
Now, with the sunlight glinting off his hair and his blue eyes crinkled, he looked… harmless.
Stepping forward to meet them, Osmond rested a hand on one of the twin daggers sheathed on his belt. “I don’t think we ever formally met. Osmond Snow Tipped.”
“Brune.” He glanced back at Niklas, who looked like he had just swallowed something sour. “…and this is Niklas.” Neither of them had family names. At least, not that they knew of.
Osmond’s eyes lingered on the beta. Brune saw his nostrils flare as he tried to take in his scent. He doubted he could. Not with so many other smells being whipped up over the sunbaked sand.
The large alpha beside Osmond stepped up, hands on hips. It was apparent as he loomed over Brune that there wasn’t a thing about him that wasn’t massive—even his teeth. His cropped hair was dark with sweat and his voice was loud, too, as if his larger chest produced an echo.
“Henroen Large Fist,” he introduced himself.
Corric nodded toward both. “They belong to Chief Restrina’s inner circle.”
Turning his attention to a red-faced Niklas, Henroen glanced at the bow on his back. “You’re quite the archer,” he commented. “Despite your inferior bow.”
Niklas was a nervous man until it came to his archery. Something came over the shy beta, something Brune couldn’t describe, but when it came to wielding a bow and arrow, the man never faltered.
He pulled the bow off his back, eyeing it critically. “It’s served me well.”
“I’m surprised,” Henroen said conversationally, ignoring Niklas’s bristling. “Looks more suitable for kindling.”
If Niklas had fangs, they’d be dropped by now. Brune moved to say something, but Osmond beat him to it.
“You must be truly talented, to be so successful with an unworthy bow.”
“I…I wouldn’t know. That's all that was given to me.”
Osmond seemed to puff up at that, his chest expanding as he took in a deep breath.
“Then perhaps you can try some of ours? I’ll admit, archery is not my specialty, but I would be honored if you showed me.
” He didn’t wait for Niklas to answer, swinging an arm over his shoulder and dragging him toward the targets set up at the far end of the field.
Henroen just shook his head, smiling fondly. Brune wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with being separated from Niklas, and his alpha itched to see him so far out of his protection, but he had to remind himself that Niklas was timid, not helpless. He could hold his own.
“He’ll be fine,” Corric said, looking over Brune’s shoulder at someone. “If you’ll excuse me.” He didn’t wait for a response, skirting the group and jogging over to a broad man with dark curls hanging in front of his eyes.
Before Brune could make out anything else about the man, a large hand slammed down onto his shoulders. He was guided into the center of the field as Henroen cast a critical eye over him.
“Why did you choose a sword?”
Brune rubbed the back of his neck, feeling warmer under the scrutiny. “It’s what they gave everyone. I’m not very skilled with it, so they had me defending the archers.”
“Of course you’re not,” Henroen laughed as he squeezed Brune’s arm. “Look at you. You’re all top heavy.”
“What do you mea—AGH!” he didn’t finish his question before he was knocked onto his back, squinting into the too bright sun as he wheezed.
Henroen hovered over him. “You’re big, so you pack a solid hit. But you’re slow. You saw Bargrave fight Ridan?”
It was a rhetorical question. Everyone had seen it. Henroen didn’t wait for an answer.
“Bargrave knocked him around, but ultimately, he tired. Became slow. Ridan hit him with smaller, less lethal hits to wear him out.” He helped Brune to his feet. “It’s not about molding the warrior to the weapon, but about finding a weapon that extends the warrior.”
Brune had seen none other weapon. In Kaledonea, it was a sword and bow. That was what they were given. That wasn’t the case here. Chief Restrina wielded a weapon he’d never seen. Corric’s swords were slender and elegant. Henroen had an ax strapped to his broad back.
“I will never be as fast as Osmond,” Henroen said as he pulled the massive ax from his back.
Fur wrapped around the hilt in stripes with a delicate string of what looked like multicolored clay beads.
He spun the thing easily. “But I don’t need to be.
I only need to hold fast against him until I can hit him. Once.”
Turning, he swung the ax into the closest dummy. Even with a wooden center, the ax cleanly cleaved it in half. The top half toppled to the ground without even a splinter.
Smiling with exertion, Henroen hefted the ax to his shoulder. “Do you see?”
Brune stared at the straw spilled across the ground. “I see why we lost.”
That had Henroen laughing. Setting his ax down, he began coaching him. At first, confused, Brune was stiff and unsure. But as he began to see the fruits of his labor—a better defensive position, stronger hits—he stopped questioning why a man he’d stood across a battlefield from was teaching him.
Ruthless but endlessly encouraging, Henroen uncovered Brune’s poor training.
Starting weaponless, the bigger alpha wasn’t even breathing hard as he continuously put him in the dirt.
Over and over, Brune looked up at Henroen from the flat of his back.
Yet, he didn’t lose hope like he had back in Kaledonea.
There, his battalion commanders would scream at him. Calling him dumb, and slow. Useless.
“You’re not dumb,” Henroen said when Brune made a disparaging remark. “Do you think a dog is dumb because it cannot climb a tree like a cat?”
“No.”
“It’s the same.” he slipped the ax onto his back. “Artrax gave us all a different piece of himself because he realized what one of us needed, another had. We are dissimilar because we are meant to compliment, not copy, each other.”
It felt like Henroen had just hit him again. Even as Henroen invited him and Niklas to his hearth for dinner before leaving, Brune was still staring down at the patch of sand between his feet, trying to puzzle through what he’d just been told.
His commanders told him he was useless because he was slow with a sword. They told him he was worthless because he was born in the gutter. They told him his differences made him less.
But Brune was here, belly full, and they were dead. Casualties of their own greed.
Because that’s all it was, wasn’t it? Greed saw Krait trying to take Clansmen land for his own. Greed saw General Bargrave leaving the comfort of retirement to try to take an omega that didn’t want him.
Looking up, he could see Osmond and Niklas chatting animatedly.
A younger girl joined them, her soft gray hair, a near match for Osmond, falling from its braid.
She was eagerly placing an apple on a fence post, running back to watch Niklas hit it with his arrow.
She jumped up and down, shouting again, again before Niklas ducked his head and agreed.
This morning, he thought the Clansmen were coming to kill him. He suspected they’d really come to save him.
The last shadows of night were burnt away by the slowly rising sun when Brune stepped outside of his borrowed tent.
Everything was gray in the early dawn, the sun having not yet risen high enough to paint the land in color.
Mist clung to the ground, the last vestiges of moisture holding on before the heat became too much.
Brune stretched his arms above his head and relished in the feeling of a full stomach.
Last night, Henroen and his mate had invited them to their hearth.
Like Henroen, his wife was generous. She thought nothing of making extra food, telling them to help themselves until they were satisfied.
Small in stature, the beta’s personality more than made up for her diminutive height.
She was lovely and soft, fitting in well with her doting mate.
Henroen blushed when she teased him, telling the boys stories of the big alpha until the fire burned down.
She sent them away with the promise they would return, insisting she would rather cook for them than hear they starved. Brune remembered Henroen mentioning she favored berries. He would have to ask Corric where he could find them so he could bring her some in thanks.
Making his way through camp, he tried to keep his steps light so as not to wake those who were still sleeping. Osmond had come to their tent bright and early, dragging a sleepy Niklas with him to go hunting. The beta didn’t seem to mind too terribly.
But it left Brune awake, and he felt the urge to work off some restless energy. He slept well last night, and his muscles were still sore from the previous days, but he wanted to be better. Henroen had taken the time to teach him, and he wanted to show the alpha he was worthy of his time.
And maybe begin finding his place in the clan. He wasn’t quite sure where to start, so this was as good as any.
The training grounds were empty. Dew dripped off the wooden posts, splattering into perfect little divots in the sand beneath. Hopping the fence, Brune took up position in the center. Still having no weapon, he figured he would train the stances Henroen had showed him yesterday.
Sweat was just beginning to bead on his brow when someone shouted at him, “Foreigner!”
Brune turned on his heel, hands rising instinctively.