Waking God: Rising

Khaller took a sip of ale, then another sip. I could feel his compulsion to just drink everything left in the tankard. But he willed himself to stop. From my observations, he'd drink large amounts right before he said something that unnerved him greatly and took sips for more milder events.

As far as I could tell, he hadn't lied a whole lot so far. He never told us what happened to his mother, but he was still talking, so maybe he would at some point. I also wondered how many of what he said had been filler. He was a genius of sorts, but a genius of combat. I didn't know if he had a perfect memory like me.

He hadn't once stuttered or seemed to forget any important details. Adding to the fact that he was drunk as well. I forced my suspicions to the back of my mind and focused on him as he continued.

"I skipped a part of the story. The events leading up to meeting the Ail Bringer might be of some relevance to you. Unless you want me to skip it?"

"Tell me," my mother said.

Khaller nodded and continued.

"We went to the guild one late evening, Kosher and I, to look for available work. But the woman in the office told us we were on standby. There was a big job coming. She couldn't tell us what it was or when it was happening. Secrecy was of great value to its success.

When we quizzed her about how we were going to earn wages, she said the guild would cover the costs of our basic needs until the job was done. And when we were done, the pay would be substantial enough that it would be worth it.

She gave us a card with the guild's stamp on it and said we could use it whenever we wanted to purchase anything. She also warned us that if we spent recklessly, the guild would know, and all unnecessary spending would be deducted from our wages after the job was completed. I couldn't use it to gamble anyway, and Kosher couldn't use it to pick up ladies. Both these activities needed up-front cash.

He did use a lot for ale and food, as did I. When you're that young, the concept of the future wasn't something you concerned yourself with. Deducting from our wages wasn't a threat as far as we were concerned. We didn't mind at all.

"The woman also told us to better ourselves at sword fighting and horse riding. Being from the slums, we'd never been opportuned to fight with a sword or ride horses. The guild provided us with lessons for both. Then she sent us on our way. Our sword fighting tutor was a small man with brown hair and a broken nose.

We called him 'Master' because we never knew his name. We asked once, and he told us 'none ya business.' So sometimes we called him Master None Ya Business. He was a fairly decent swordsman. He taught us the basics of fighting: how to block and parry, how to strike, and also not to over-extend, and footwork. It was quite enjoyable.

Soon enough, I grasped the basics, and with my prediction talent, I got significantly better than him. It took a week for me. And if you thought that was impressive, Kosher, he was even worse. I was a decent swordsman that compensated with my talents, but Kosher, he became something of a master. Master called us demons, said he'd never seen anything like it and fucked right off. Said he had nothing left to teach us."

"So instead, Kosher and I sparred. Sword fighting was different than hand-to-hand combat. In sword fighting, you didn't need to get so close to your opponent, and the damage you could do was a lot more. I kept up with him, but it was clear he was head and shoulders above me in skill. He was...quite literally a monster."

I chuckled inside; a monster calling another a monster, a monster's monster. Like a shark to a whale.

"Then we practiced horse riding. In this, we were equals. Equally shit. Our fighting talents did not extend to horse riding. The requirements for horse riding were the opposite of our best skills. You need to go hard and rough when fighting, but with a horse, you needed to be soft and gentle. The damned beasts kept throwing us off their backs.

We needed to learn patience, and that was an extremely difficult task for us who learned most things quickly. Eventually, we got decent enough that the horses no longer threw us off their backs. That, we did on our own. When the horses walked, we were a little stable. Problems began when the horse broke into a trot.

The constant up-and-down movements were difficult for us to balance. We kept swaying and falling off. Being on horseback was impossible. If we didn't fall off by ourselves when the horses broke into a sprint, we'd be thrown off by the horse when we gripped their reins too tightly. We gave up on ever learning to run on horseback and just focused on walking and trotting. The gods help us if we ever needed to run on horseback during the job.

"And all our lessons were being taught in a wide and free part of the town, yet we were terrible at it. We dreaded to imagine being on horseback in the forest where there were trees and branches. The mere thought made us shiver. And for the first time in our lives, we had no self-confidence in our own ability. It was a weird and helpless feeling made even worse by the fact that we couldn't massively improve our skills.

Improvements came in small and sometimes near-negligible increments. At first, we judged our progress by how hard we fell. Then by the lessening degree of how frequently we fell.

"We slowly got better, but not nearly fast enough to be decent riders in time for the job, whenever that was. We were also taught some geography. We were told how big the forest was. I don't remember, sorry. But I remembered we were told the journey would be easier when we left the forest.

Beyond it was the Silk Roads; there was more security there, and the roads were wide, with little hiding place for bandits. We were also taught how to read maps and how to navigate the forest. Apparently, it was easy to get lost if you didn't know where you were headed. Unlike major roads, there was nobody to ask for directions, and sometimes the forest looked the same, so you couldn't even trace back your steps, so our knowledge was crucial, especially if we were lost or separated from the caravan for whatever reason.

Kosher found this to be a bit more interesting than I did, so he absorbed a lot more of the lessons than I did."

"It was about a month before we got the call. A senior member of the guild came to find us. I was at the tavern, and Kosher was whoring in the pleasure house. We went to go find him. After barging into several rooms, which earned me several curses, rightfully so, I found Kosher.

He was in bed with three ladies, none of them lacking for his attention. It was interesting to witness. I only ever bedded one woman at a time, two if I was completely drunk and daring, but never three. You'd have to be a madman for that. Kosher was a madman.

"His sex, tongue, and hands were all at work. The women's moans merged together to create a symphony of pleasure. It was hard to tell if it was just the sounds of practiced whores or if Kosher was truly that good. Seeing how unnaturally good he was at almost everything, I'd wager he was that good. It took everything the senior guild member and I had to drag him from the bed and out of the pleasure house. The bastard was strong."