Chapter 2
My mother and father squared up against me as we found a nice, desolate area in the woods to train.
"Now, we're not going to hold back," Thorin said, hefting a large battle axe onto his shoulder. "Getting too used to people holding back in practice only makes for mistakes in an actual battle."
My father was a giant of a man, typical for the Borrson Clan, even if he was an outcast. His dark hair was braided back, and he had managed to find a T-shirt that fit his massive frame, though he currently wore a pair of torn jean shorts.
I turned slightly to see Simone with cotton balls stuck between her toes as she worked on her nails in the corner. "You good?" I asked her.
My first woman was still wrapped in her illusion of being a blonde-haired scantily clad nun that had become her default. Though, on more than one occasion, I’d touched her and found the clothes were an illusion, too.
She was a genius when it came to people and had created a religious cult around me after the Rapture, the Mul Branova—an organization of women drenched in blood, as most of them had gained a class based on my own, with strong defenses and regeneration as well as blood-themed magic.
Simone gave us all a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, I won't let any of you actually die. Just please, nothing that would disintegrate limbs. It's a pain to grow them back entirely from scratch." Simone went back to painting her toes.
"Of course, we're only using bladed weapons," my mother said, swishing her sword through the air.
I could never quite tell when she was angry these days.
Perhaps it was because it had been so long in my memories since I'd lived with her, or perhaps she had just changed that much with the re-inclusion of my father in her life.
But I was fairly certain she wasn't actually that upset, at least not with me.
Simone looked up from her toes. "I rarely have time to take care of myself like this back in the citadel. I love my Mul Branova, but it's become a lot to manage, and living with them all really just never gives me a break. Well, save when Bran—"
My mother held up a hand. "Please spare me your escapades. I'm sure they are simply legendary, but a mother only needs to know so much about her son's married life."
Simone chuckled. I had a feeling she had pushed on purpose to mess with my mother.
I would have to keep an eye on these two and make sure that Simone was not stirring up too much trouble.
While I certainly wasn't in need of a mother anymore, she was blood, and I’d do my best to maintain a good relationship with her.
"I'll heal through most injuries anyway," I said, squaring up against my two opponents.
After I had shown my father my stats, he was insistent on testing my capabilities for himself, and my mother thought herself long overdue for teaching me a proper sword technique.
I huffed and prepared to fight. I had to admit the child in me was a little excited to show her that I was more than capable of dealing with most situations.
"On you," I said, gesturing to the other two.
Thorin didn’t hesitate, coming in hard with a horizontal swing of the axe and his full weight leaning in behind it.
Even with my greater strength, that hit wasn't the kind of swing that was smart to take on an opposing blade. Instead, I just barely kissed my sword to his axe and dove to the side.
His swing went wide, and my mother swept in as I was rolling out of the way. Her much lighter, but no less sharp, blade came right up to my ribs before I twisted to take the strike far more shallowly than it would have been.
"You were open," she said, nicking me and stepping back as Thorin came charging in.
I had to avoid rolling my eyes. Now I knew how they were going to do this exercise. My father was going to swing with the heavy blows while my mother came in with far more precision while I was forced to react.
"This isn't fencing," I growled. "It's not worth a damn if the hit is that shallow."
I met my father's axe and snapped a kick at his ankle, but his stance was rock-solid. It was more like kicking a wall than another fighter.
My mother came in from the side, and I let her blade scrape along my hip until the apex of the swing's strength was gone, then bodily slammed myself through her swing, knocking her back and to the ground.
"What a reckless, uncouth way to fight." My mother scowled.
Meanwhile, Thorin assessed me, rubbing his chin as my mother got back to her feet. "Effective. Who taught you?"
"An orak," I said. "They're bigger than humans." I shrugged. "Probably bigger than most things, so they often fight with the assumption they have superior weight. Even then, there's an entirely different stance for monsters."
"Interesting," Thorin said, rubbing his chin. "I don't suppose we could get a chance to see that?"
"Why would we have him practice it further?" my mother asked. "It's a barbaric, dangerous fighting style. One that's going to get him killed because he pushed said recklessness too far."
Thorin seemed to have a different opinion. "You can learn how far to push it, or not push it, with enough practice and experience."
"I'm always happy for more practice," I said, lowering my stance and ready to commit to another round. My father grunted in appreciation. Meanwhile, Elle seemed far less interested.
"I do think we should scrap his whole style for something more appropriate. But I suppose if he's anything like his father, he's quite stubborn when it comes to something like his fighting style," my mother grumbled.
There was a moment of tension between the two, like an old argument bubbling to the surface. Thorin looked to the side, and I knew instantly that my mother had won whatever decision had just been on the tips of their tongues.
"I suppose it has some merit," Thorin said, pivoting.
I really wanted to point out just how quickly he folded, but I didn't want to get too caught up in whatever marital bickering might occur. We’d come out here to practice. I’d come to see how they fared just as much as my mother wanted to test me.
It was odd. In her eyes, I would always be a son. Yet five hundred years, much of it without my mother, had made me more a leader than a son. We both came at this with the intention of testing the other.
"Then show me. But I won't be standing idle for it," I said.
In a strange way, I wanted to seek my parents' approval. Perhaps, instinctually, every child did. But in the present moment, that approval needed to be won through unusual and perhaps far more brutal means than usual.
I went on the aggressive, swinging for Elle. My Bloodiron Blade stretched out as she attempted to dodge back.
Thorin had no interest in letting me reach her and stepped in to catch my blade.
An axe was a wonderful weapon in the right circumstances.
It was heavy and, when swung, could easily outmatch the sword with its weight alone.
But defensively, the axe was far inferior.
It was too heavy, and the effort to block wasn't necessarily worth it in the long run.
It had a bigger face and could function half as a shield as a result, but it was not a very effective shield.
And because he would protect his partner, she made an easy way to push him on the defensive.
My blows came in steadily. Not daring to let go of my winning tempo, I went hard into him while my mother swept to the side, her faster fighting style doing its best to pressure me.
The trick was that I was prepared to simply ignore her.
My Bloodiron Blade was for Thorin, and I would simply use my body to absorb my mother's strikes.
Taking a sword to the shoulder, I squeezed it against my clavicle and twisted to force it out of her hand.
"Reckless!" she shouted.
I twisted until I got a kick in her gut as she tried to hold onto the sword, sending her flying before I dropped her sword to the ground and stepped on top of it.
"It seems to be working for me," I replied.
Simone waved a hand without looking up from where she was bent over with her tongue out in concentration, and golden light restored the scrapes on my mother’s arm.
Elle fumed and pulled another blade from her spatial ring.
"You will fight very few people who don't carry a spare," she said as she pulled the next blade free.
"Disarming me is a losing trade," she said, and she examined the amount of blood coming down my shoulder, "and you've lost a lot of blood. "
I shrugged and wiped it away to reveal uncut skin beneath. "Looks fine to me," I said and pressed my father back again, much to my mother's clear frustration.
No mother would like a style that let their son get so injured in the process, but it was something that fit me and my skill set extremely well.
"Reckless," she growled, but it didn't matter.
I was pressing my father back and keeping him on the ropes, which wasn't easy.
He was giving as good as he took. He understood the game of going after my mother to keep him on the defensive, and as a result, he had become increasingly brazen, so much so that I would dare call his fighting style the more reckless of the two of us.
My mother hissed as my father and I clashed together roughly enough that the ground boomed and dust scattered from our collision until it hit a barrier around Simone as she protected her wet toenails.
"The answer isn't to fight more recklessly." My mother swept in close, her blade raking me along the ribs, only for me to turn my head and slam the flat of my forehead right into her nose.
She stumbled back, and Thorin threw himself at me to stop me from taking advantage of her being stunned.
The result was better than I'd hoped to achieve.
My mother was down, and without her distraction, facing straight up against my father, I had a significant strength advantage that I pressed immediately, slamming him back, raising my sword high overhead, and crashing it down on his axe hard enough that even his defense wasn't enough.
As he fell to a knee under the blow, I heaved and smiled at both of them, with perhaps a little more cockiness in it than I needed.
"Simone," I called.
She looked up from painting her toes, only to blink, smile, and then, with a wave of her hands, surround Elle in a golden mist that fixed her nose in an instant.
"Sorry about that," she said. "Making sure I don't get any of the paint on my cuticles is always so hard, and these little tiny brushes aren’t what they used to be," she said, going back to her toes with her tongue stuck out in concentration.
"So frustrating," Elle said, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping some blood clear.
"Good shot, Son," Thorin said, clapping me on the shoulder. "But I do have to agree with your mother." He said it more like he had to agree with her than he did agree with her, which made me chuckle.
"I heal quickly enough. Small blows like that shouldn't be my concern. Instead, I should be using them to my advantage. An enemy would love to trade a lesser wound for something like getting my shoulder, and when it comes to trades, I can come out ahead by a mile if I'm careful."
My father tensed his jaw for a moment before he shook his head. "He might be more stubborn than me, Elle."
"Yeah, well, if that's the case, then we'll just have to practice. I suppose you missed out on all those nights of flashcards, Thorin, so here's your way to make it up," Elle said, stepping back and drawing her blade again.
The big lug tilted his head slightly at the word "flashcards," and I stifled any response. Some days, I wondered how the two of them got along as well as they did. My father was at times as dense as a sack of bricks, and I meant that kindly to bricks.