Chapter 59: Chapter 59 - Chapter 59: The Training - Part 3

Taking his own mace from the nearby weapon rack, he gave it a few practice swings before standing in front of Olivia again.

“Now, watch what I do. Then when you’re ready, I want you to copy it. It doesn’t have to be fast or strong when you do. You just need to get the movement of it down accurately.”

Getting himself into a stance, which he explained was well suited to using a mace, he performed a swing from the left, one from the right and then one from above, all of which were very simple.

He then moved on to a couple other different types of attacks, one of which was a quick hit with the pommel of the mace rather than the head and the other was a low attack which swept close to the ground.

“These are the basic building blocks you want to have ingrained in you. Like I said, every technique you learn going forward will stem from each of these in some way. They look simple, but are effective and will be used all the time when fighting.”

With the attacks with the mace done, he asked her to try as well. So, taking her Morningstar, she proceeded to follow the same pattern. But as soon as she started he jumped in having noticed problems.

“You want your feet planted a little wider and slightly more backwards for your left foot. Given your stature, you need a better footing to keep yourself from being knocked over by others and the momentum of the Morning star, like I said before.” He said before turning to Philly.

He had just gone through the whole section on stance, but it felt like she had forgotten it already. She would really need to practice to make sure she had this down to muscle memory.

At this point, Philly had managed to find the energy to stand up, and so Adan took her through some basic attacks as well. They were pretty much the same as the mace, aside from it being one handed, and the overhead and pommel attacks were replaced with a stab and upward swing from below, which Olivia cringed at when she realised where that attack would be hitting when in combat.

Philly then jumped in and did as he had, following the same moves, but like Olivia he spotted issues with what she was doing.

“You need to bend your knees some more, keep yourself agile and ready to spring forward at a moments notice. If you lock your legs that can cause all kinds of problems when you’re in a fight.”

Both took the advice to heart, sorted their stance and then got to work swinging. It was torture on the arms after those exercises, but thankfully, they didn’t have to go full steam ahead with attacking.

Like before, Adan walked around and pointed out any problems he saw with the swings. He mentioned when their arms weren’t bent enough to, or if they were bent too much, overextending their reach when they shouldn’t and if they ever came out of their stance among many other things.

He explained his reasoning for all the comments he made, one such being why it was a problem to move out of your stance. As Olivia saw it, it’s not like you can stand still in a fight.

“Of course not, but the hope is that when you are in a fight, even if you move, you will instantly put yourself into something akin to this kind of stance whenever you attack. Sure, you can vary things as you learn more, but if you try to attack without some grounding, the momentum from your Morningstar is just going to send you onto the floor or into someone’s sword if you’re not careful.”

He had similar explanations for all the things he pointed out. Olivia couldn’t verify them, but most made sense, so she came to the conclusion that he really knew his stuff.

As time went on, both got to a point where he couldn’t find much fault in what they were doing. Sure, he could nit-pick, but for a first lesson he considered that they were both in a good place.

“I think that is a good place to stop in terms of the offensive. Now we should move onto defensive.”

Walking over to the weapon rack he picked up the shield and brought it over to them.

“When it comes to defence, nothing is better than the shield. As far as I know anyway. But, with your weapons, it’s not something you are going to be using often. But a lot of people do use them, so I would recommend you learn how to as well. There may be a time you end up losing your weapon and can grab a shield of someone else.”

Handing the shield over to Olivia, she placed her Morningstar on the ground and put her hand through the straps on the back of the shield. It was simple enough to hold, and aside from the slight weight to it, felt quite natural.

“Now…defend!”

“Ahh,”

The next thing she knew, Adan had his mace in the air and quickly brought it down. Olivia was in a panicked state, but her primal survival instinct took over and brought the shield up to make sure she didn’t lose her head.

The resounding clang was deafening and the hit felt like it almost pushed her into the ground.

“Very good. Quick reactions.”

“You could have killed me!”

“I am a very skilled instructor. You don’t think I would have been able to stop that from happening.” He said as he walked over to Philly to hand her the shield.

“No, I’m good. I think I get the idea.” was her response as she tried to back away.

Olivia was sure that he was a very experienced instructor but could he have stopped the swing from hitting her. She didn’t know. And honestly didn’t want to find out.

“I’m not going to attack you like I did Olivia. Just see how it feels to hold it.”

Philly, had a very worried look on her face, understandably so. But Olivia. All she had was outrage. Not that she wanted him to attack Philly like he did her, it felt like a double standard, which annoyed her. It must have been his was of messing with her.

Philly did as Olivia did and held the shield. Barely though. The weight looked to be too much for her and she struggled to keep it up. Olivia had to quickly grab it in order to stop her dropping it and possibly hurt a muscle in the process.

“Sorry, I only have one shield, but at least you both know how to hold one if the need arises. Now, onto defending with your weapons. For the Morningstar, that will be easy. But for your dagger, not so much. Not impossible, but you need to be very skilled to be able to do so. But as an agile and quick attacker you will be focused more on dodging attacks than blocking them, so I will show you how to do that.”

To start, he showed Olivia how to hold her Morningstar to block in different angles, where you mainly use the shaft of it to catch a sword. Mainly they were all the same, it just depended on the angle the incoming attack was coming from that dictated which way you would block.

Once he taught her those, he left her to, like with the attacks, ingrain them into her mind. They needed to just be reflexes rather than a conscious thought of, ‘oh I need to defend’, so she continued to do each of the movements.

He then moved onto to Philly, showing her how to dodge attacks. It was all however down to reflexes and required constant practice for it to become second nature, to know which way to move depending on which way a sword was coming. He took her through the different ways she could move to actually dodge a blade, along with how to regain your footing after the dodge. It sounded simple, but in reality, was quite complex and needed a lot of focus to get it right.

They continued to practice blocking and dodging, but the sounds of footsteps behind them, forced them to stop.

“Ah, that’s the next group. Sorry, but that’s the end of the session.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

It had to end sometime, but before they left, he gave them a final few words on what to do next.

“For all those exercises I taught you, you should do those a few times a day till you can’t go further. Over time they will help improve you physical abilities considerably, which will make attacking and defending a breeze. For the swings and defensive measures, keep practicing them. The more you do it, the easier it will become and the better prepared you will be if you find yourself in a battle.”

With that they both started to clean up the weapons and area for the group coming. Philly went to hand over the dagger, but Adan told her to keep it.

“You can keep it to use for practice. But you may want to buy one yourself that feels better to hold for when you actually end up in a fight. If you would like more training, myself and Mariella should be without students around the same time each day, for the rest of the week, so if you fancy another lesson, so feel free to drop by. ”

“Thank you, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“I will too,” replied Philly.

“Good. There’s still lots to learn. And I have to say it’s been …odd teaching a Half-Orc to fight. It’s not everyday you get a chance to do so.”

With that, they had to head off. After picking up the basket with the creature in they walked the way they came and Lyrika journey over herself, her lesson ending as well.

“How was it?” Olivia asked.

“It was great. I feel much better using a bow now. Still a lot to learn, but I manage to hit the target a lot more just from today. ”

“That’s great.”

“How about you two?”

“Well aside from being sore and exhausted, it was good too. He mentioned possibly coming back for more sessions. Do you fancy that as well.”

“Definitely”

Heading out of the training grounds, they passed the next group, who as expected gave her a wide berth. A couple of the men in the group did try to walk up to then, a look of lust in their eyes when they saw Lyrika and Philly, but they were held back by the others.

“Where to now?” Lyrika asked, seeming to have gone back to her usual self after the training.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time we learnt what this little thing is.” Olivia said as she held up the basket.

“Ouch,”

Which she quickly lowered once her sore muscles started to throb.