Smash it Real Good (fic)

Welcome to the Warder Yards. This is the place for Warder and Trainee roleplays. Informal non-training interactions take place here, as well as some extended role plays.
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Welcome to the Warder Yards. This is the place for Warder and Trainee roleplays. Informal non-training interactions take place here, as well as some extended role plays. Yet these events may take place at any area of the Tower, and sometimes outside of it, since the images to the left merely serves as inspiration towards the sceneries of your stories. Channelers are always welcome, and might even find his or her bondmate through the threads that are displayed below.
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Matty
"The Path of Daggers"
Posts: 964
Joined: December 16th, 2015, 8:19 pm
PC: Murdock Mather, Keeper of the Archives
SC: Nathaniel Carridus, Asha'man (Blue)
TC: Maever Donovan, Asha'man (Yellow)
Location: Plain of Lances, UK

Smash it Real Good (fic)

Post by Matty » April 15th, 2017, 12:18 am

Nathaniel Carridus Since coming to the Grey Tower, Nate had never been especially skilled with a sword. He'd gone through the motions, and he knew enough to not slice his own foot off, but that was the extent of it.

But since everything that had happened, there had been some changes to Nate, some more obvious than others. There were aspects he cared not to admit, and others were just downright odd. One of those was his inclination to use the sword. He tried it though, he gave it a very good go. He'd been a Drin at one point and he was determined to know how to use a weapon that wasn't just Saidin, so it was most frustrating to find that the fit of the handle in his hands wasn't right, that the act of slicing his opponent felt so bloody foreign now. The sword forms came to him through a fuzzy fog that made his limbs heavy and his feet slow.

Nate put his practice sword back in the barrel and gave his instructor a bemused look. "It's just not working sir," he said, keeping most of the frustration from his tone. "It isn't as natural as it should be. I don't understand why. It's all... heron in the mountains goes to prod the enemy just a little bit or something, it's just all... fancy dancing."

His teacher was a small, thin man who could move deceptively fast. He stood there, arms folded, looking all the way up at his Dedicated student, before nodding to himself. "I've been speaking with Suraki Gaidin," he informed Nate. "We both think that you may more more suited to a... sturdier weapon."

"A sturdier weapon," Nate repeated, tying his long hair back into a messy bun. "A longsword is by no means flimsy, sir."

"They are not to be sniffed at," agreed the Gaidin, "However, this may be more suited to your current fighting style."

And that was how Nate ended up having his first lesson in the warhammer.

Suraki Gaidin was a stern faced Borderlander with years of experience etched onto his face, and a tough body of a man who had survived wars, and could pass on that experience. He was waiting for Nate when the Dedicated went to his first lesson, a portion of the yards set out with training dummies and a few different sorts of hammer for the man to try. He shook Nate's hand in a vice-like grip, stronger than Nate realised he would be.

"Good morning sir," he said, flexing his fingers.

"Nate, good morning," The man said gruffly. "This is the warhammer. You pick it up, you hit with the bigger end, and you make sure your opponent doesn't hit you before you knock their head off. Is that clear? No fancy dancing to be seen here. This isn't an art. You don't learn forms to show off. You hit hard, and you do it before you get too tired."

"Er." This was all a little abrupt for Nate, who just blinked a few times at his teacher. "I... understand." He was waiting for the other boot to drop, for there to be some sort of catch. Suraki Gaidin nodded to the hammers on the ground nearby. "Pick these up, see what feels good in your hands. You need a two handed grip and remember, when you start swinging one of these it isn't going to stop until you hit something or you use a heck of a lot of strength. Let's give it a try."

Nate took one of the larger hammers, earning a nod from the teacher, and he hefted it in both hands. Light, but it was heavy. Even just standing there holding it, it was cumbersome and obvious. Nate tested its weight, and took in the size of the hammer head. One thing Nate knew: He did not want to be on the receiving end of one of these.

Suraki Gaidin adjusted Nate's grip along the handle, made sure it was comfortable, and then his instructions were simple: "attack."

Nate advanced upon the nearest dummy with a gleam in his eye and an excitement he hadn't felt with the sword in quite some time. This buzz only grew as he lifted the hammer and brought it down with no finesse, only aggression and a growl low in his throat, smashing the dummy to the floor with a thud that seemed to reverberate through Nate's whole body. Light, that felt good. It felt right. At his teacher's insistence, Nate went on to hit the other dummies, taking them down with broad sweeps, or coming in from low down and striking upwards. The most satisfying was raising it overhead and smashing it down though, definitely the most fun and it made the loudest noise when he struck. By the end of hitting those few dummies Nate was panting and he set the hammer down to remove his coat, aware of just how much more work it was to fight with such a heavy weapon. I could get used to this, he thought.

Suraki Gaidin knew he had a new student, even before extending the offer. Some men fought with precision and finesse; others liked to be given a weapon and told to go for it. From what the Yellows had told him, it seemed the latter approach was quite cathartic. "Now then Dedicated, if we are to make a serious go of my training you, then you need to follow my regime." Suraki made sure he had Nate's full attention before he gave him instructions. "I am going to treat you like one of the new Jival who have shown an interest in the weapon - I want you to carry it with you for a week no matter what you're up to. You can carry it in your hands, though you might want to get a strap to tie it to your back, but if I see you leave it alone for anything short of a bath or sleeping, then you can go back to learning the sword. You will eat what I tell you to eat, and you will come to the Jival training I run in the morning. Understood?"

"I... yes sir, I understand," Nate nodded his head vigorously, opting to not mention the fact that he'd chosen to not become a Warder, so doing the Warder training seemed a little silly. But there was something right about this weapon, something he hadn't found with the sword. It was less foreign; it felt more like home.

But for the next week Nate soon learning to loathe the hammer. It was bloody heavy, especially when you took it on an early morning run. It was even heavier at the end of the day when he was performing his chores. It took half a day to get it strapped to his back, but even then it was not at all light and a few times the man considered just... going back to the sword. But whenever he did, a small voice reminded Nate that it would be far less satisfying to use a sword than it was to imagine he was mulching a Darkfriend's face into the ground with a warhammer. Before he knew it, a week was up and Suraki Gaidin was more than happy to continue helping Nate train with his new weapon. From his diet, to when he trained, to what callisthenics he should be doing to help improve his strength and stamina, Nate was an attentive student and he wanted to do well. There were lessons not only on how to smash people to pieces, but also how to parry with the shaft, how to use the weight of the hammer and its resulting momentum to the best advantage, how to handle multiple opponents... the hammer had some drawbacks, and Nate was aware of this, but he made good progress.

It took maybe a month before Nate stopped feeling the burn from carrying the hammer everywhere. He still felt it there of course, it was hard to ignore, but as his training advanced, so did his exposure to the hammer, and as a result his body adapted. He'd always been strong of course, but Suraki Gaidin's regime had Nate's arms and shoulders bulking, his broad profile naturally accustomed to the weaponry but still adapting to better manipulate the heavy weight. He walked with more of a swagger, unintentional but a side effect of moving his new bulk; more than ever Nate was aware of his size, but there was little else to do but own it and hope it wasn't some aftereffect from what happened in Viadulo.

"Training the hammer is difficult," Suraki Gaidin told Nate at their most recent lesson. Nate stood there really, hammer to hand, coat removed for the training. "One hit and the fight is over. One hit, and you can have a man killed before he even hits the ground. Accidents happen - but the nature of this weapon is such that there is very little room for mistakes. So we're going to go and practice on people you can hit - we're going to assist in the efforts against a seige to the west of Tear. Some bandits allied with the Seanchan have been ransacking the area and they need some Grey Tower justice throwing their way. How does that sound?" Suraki Gaidin met Nate's gaze, "do you think you can kill a man?"

Nate nodded his head just the once. He knew he could - again. Quick and painless, and this time it would be as himself. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be, sir. I am ready when you are."
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------ Murdock -------------- Nathaniel --------------- Maever -------

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