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In the land of total darkness, it became a little easier. Perhaps the daily training had tempered his character a little, but Ajax was already looking forward to Skirk teaching him how to use weapons. As she herself said, none of human weapons was a problem for her.
“Hey, kiddo!” Ajax heard the most annoying and most inflamed voice in the whole world.
“Master! What will you teach me today?”
Skirk pulls a grin over her face. Ajax clearly saw it and wanted to erase it.
“Tell me, have your eyes already adapted to the dark?” a direct question required an equally direct answer.
“Yeah, master!” said the teenager, “I see on your face something that clearly does not suit you!”
“You're insolent, kiddo,” Skirk grinned, “Prove your courage with your actions.”
Before she could finish her sentence, Ajax jumped off and dashed in the direction of the girl. She only allowed him as close as possible to her, then dodged in one light movement and lightly hit him on the back. Ajax lost his balance from this movement and fell to the ground. Without giving himself a second to relax, he immediately jumped up and again tried to do his plan again. However, again everything ended on the ground, with the only difference that the heel of his master's boot pressed him to the ground.
“I see you have become bold in your actions. Good. I will teach you how to use weapons.”
Trying to turn his head in the direction of the voice, Ajax repeated twice, “Really? Really?”
“Sure.” With that, she stepped back, allowing the teenager to get up.
“Here, take it,” she threw something at him. “Your first weapon.”
“What is it?” Ajax looked in bewilderment at the object, “And the sword? Master, I want to be like you… So that the monsters fly away for a kilometer. You messed something up, I don't want to fight like that...”
Skirk looked sternly at the teenager, who instantly stopped complaining.
“ A bow. Allows you to fight without approaching the enemy, respectively minimizing the damage received. The perfect weapon for a beginner like you.” She then added, “Be grateful, kiddo.”
Ajax pouted. He wanted to learn how to fight in a crowd of monsters, as Skirk did, but instead he was given some kind of bow that does not even allow him to approach them.
“Well, well. Don't cry, kiddo. If you learn how to use a bow, then I'll teach you how to use the rest of the weapons.”
The first day of future endless hard archery training began. If he had known in advance that a wooden arc made of a stick with a bowstring was the last thing he would be able to master, then every day he would be inundated with questions about the correct stance, battle tactics and so on.
At first, it seemed to him that the arrows lived their own special life. The ceiling, the place on the left half a meter away. However, Ajax then believed that hitting two standing targets was the beginning of the art of shooting. Although the joy of this was overshadowed by the screams of Skirk.
“Don't rot your back! Watch your hand, kiddo! Stand still!”
After offering a break, she explained again and again how to hold a weapon correctly.
“Remember, kiddo, the bow stretches with the muscles of the back, just like you stretch in the morning. Ideally, the pulling hand should just hold the bowstring and not strain. What you're trying to portray is not at all clear to me. Once again! Fifty targets in a minute!”
After a couple of days of training, there was no noticeable progress. Ajax was ready to change weapons for another one. Skirk did not share his aspirations.
“Master, I've become better with shooting. I can hit ten targets already! Isn't it cool? Maybe we'll move on to sword training…””
Skirk, half listening to the teen's tirade, was thinking out loud, more for herself than for him.
“After so much effort, no improvement. Maybe he's hopeless as an apprentice? Or maybe, in a real fight, he will start using the knowledge that I am trying to hammer into him.” She stood up, which made Ajax worried.
“Where are you going master?”
Without turning around, Skirk ordered, “Wait here and continue to train, I'll be back soon. With a gift for you.”
After a while, she really came back. Clutching some kind of monster resembling a dog in his hands. The monster convulsively tried to escape, but the death grip did not allow it to do so.
“So, kiddo. You can consider this a test task. You screw up and get kicked out of my apprentices forever.”
Ajax nodded, realizing exactly what the test would be.
“Conditions: kill this trembling little animal, using all the knowledge that you have mastered. And also, don't let it get close to you. Its bite will not only hurt.”
With these words, she threw the rifthound in the direction of Ajax.
Feeling free, the rifthound chose an easy target to attack. Twisting, it tried to touch the teenager with its paws and claws, but he only jumped away from the place where he was standing, taking the stance that the master taught him. Without giving time for a second attack, he fired an arrow. A miss.
“Don't bend your legs! Keep the distance! The bow is an extension of your hand! Don't be nervous! Hold still, kiddo!” Skirk commented on his every move, giving advice on the course of the fight.
She was shouting something else, but Ajax was in his own world. His arrows behaved unpredictably and flew nobody knew how and where.
“What are you doing?!” with annoyance Skirk pulled out an arrow that flew right under her feet and forcefully threw it back at Ajax.
He barely dodged and it seemed for a moment his eyes lost focus. However, he immediately increased the distance between himself and the rifthound, pulled the bowstring and shot straight at Skirk, who caught the arrow with her hand. An angry look was thrown at the apprentice, who was also looking at her. The curved corner of his lips told her that the shot was more than intentional.
“Oh, you little one! Well, hold on!”
The test fight turned into an entertaining fight. The three bodies moved independently of each other. There were no allies in this spontaneous battle, everyone for himself and against everyone. Ajax became even more interesting, he almost fell in love with this atmosphere.
For Skirk, on the contrary, it became more difficult to analyze and evaluate the combat training of her apprentice. He seemed to treat the fight like a game. The initial nervousness passed, as did the attempts to get into the right stance. He was fast and agile.
The monster interrupted the fight first. Seizing a fleeting chance to escape from the encirclement, it froze for a second, and then in one movement jumped over Ajax's head. Without stopping, it dashed into the darkness before the other two realized its plan.
Ajax was trying to catch his breath, “Mam-master, the monster has escaped. Is this a failure?”
Skirk thought about it. The teenager ignored all the subtleties of techniques, anchor points, stances… But at the same time, in a completely surprising way, he continued to shoot. And only the monster's natural speed and her own agility did not give him any chance of hitting.
Okay, apparently, he really has a fighting talent, there were simply no worthy opponents for his brilliant manifestation.
“I didn't pass?” Ajax repeated the question.
“Let's just say you definitely failed, but I'm kind today, so I'll give you another chance. Be grateful, kiddo! And now, go ahead, I'll teach you how to track down runaway dogs.”
Looking at his master, Ajax was sure that that rifthound would have to play a little hide-and-seek today.