Tate breathed hard and shook slightly from the intensity that had been his previous run. At this point, he'd gotten so used to the course that he had stopped thinking too much about the dangers of it. He'd gotten complacent. When he started his sprint across the middle rods his foot had slipped. He'd found himself falling and had just barely managed to grab the rod with one hand.
He'd hung there precariously, his shoulder screaming at the force it had just been subjected to. He was hanging over thin air, nothing between himself and a thirty-foot drop onto hard ground. He'd pulled himself back up to the point where he had both hands on the rod and was holding his body above it with his arms locked and the rod hitting his waist.
His first thought had been to somehow rotate his body to be able to put his feet back on the rod and try to leap to the next one, thereby picking up his stalled momentum. Very quickly he decided that the option was not good. His arms were already shaking and to be able to lift his body further much less engage his core enough to lift his hips back and up to be able to bring his feet to level with his hands seemed risky. There was also balance to consider. No matter what he tried he'd only have one shot.
He made a split-second decision. Gripping the rods tight in his bandaged hands, a habit he'd begun doing daily to try to minimize the damage to his palms. He threw his hips backward and let his body drop. He swung on the rod and once he'd reached the end of the arc he pulled his legs up and then dropped them quickly creating more height on the backswing. When he reached the end of that arc he piked his hips before thrusting them forward. He repeated this sequence three times before he felt ready to attempt it. On the upswing of the fourth time he let go of the rod, eyes fixed on the next one. He reached for it, and for one moment he felt sure he would make it. His fingers touched the wood...and then slipped off.
With a jolt in his chest, he realized he was falling. He closed his eyes to brace for the impact.
It never came. He was jerked to a stop midair. He opened his eyes to see that the claws of Akashaw had snagged his shirt. He was dangling about six feet off the ground. The dragon let him down and then shimmered back into his human form.
That was how he came to be gasping for breath and shaking while three of the Royal Guard looked on with varying expressions.
"Will you really break if you fall from there?" Koda asked curiously.
"Yes, he will," Lou said seriously, not even giving the youngest dragon time to make light of it. "I've told you he will and he will. A drop like that could cause damage to his organs and bones."
Akashaw looked up at the course they had made two weeks ago and thoughtfully said. "I think I could do it."
"Go try then, I want to see that." Romin said with a laugh.
Akashaw looked at Tate who was still bent double. "Watch this human." He said cockily and with a smirk, he went to the start line.
Tate didn't have time to say anything much less thank him for the save a moment ago before he was off. He watched the long queue of the dragon's black hair streamed out from behind him as he ran faster than was possible for a human. He didn't stop like Tate did to throw anything but just ran at breakneck speed through the first part of the course. Then he got to the rods. He confidently flung himself out the window and started running across them. Everything went well until it didn't. He misjudged the same rod that Tate had fallen on. The only difference? He dropped 30 feet.
He landed with a harsh thud, but he landed on his feet. He turned his head and looked at the spectators. Romin and Koda were trying not to laugh out loud and Lou and Tate could only stare.
Akashaw stood up straight and looked forward. "Well then..." He walked back to the group looking above their heads the whole time. When he stopped he glanced at Tate then back at the course. "Get back to it, human."
Tate nodded and started to walk back to the starting line.
"I'll catch you if you fall so don't worry." He heard Akashaw say to his back.
He smiled a little but didn't turn around.
He ran the course five more times, after that one incident he didn't have any other major issues. His main problem at this point was the daggers. He'd been practicing day and night and had gotten better, but to really do this course right he couldn't just be okay at throwing daggers, he had to be a master at it.
He'd been informed a few days ago by Bezhar that the dragon whose time would be used as a benchmark would be an unranked poison type. Meaning he was a dragon that was not in a combat position within the Nest. It had been decided that using this dragon would be the only way of giving Tate a fair chance at it with his human limitations. As he already knew he had to beat the time the dragon achieved in flight or at least not be over the time for than one quarter of the total time.
At this point, he really wasn't sure if he could do it. He also had to fight another dragon with a talon, again he'd been informed that the dragon that had been selected as his opponent was a younger dragon in the dragon's Defense Core. Someone who had not had as much experience with the human wield weapon to try to even out the disparity between a dragon's strength and a humans, despite Tate being acknowledged as an experienced user of the weapon.
The Quillintine had been set for three weeks from today. He was feeling the pressure of becoming competent enough in this task to make him nervous. This was just the first trial, the first test he'd have to pass to be able to get a shot at him and Lou returning home. He'd been told nothing of what trial the dragons faced after the Quillintine, he hadn't had time to look into it that much.
If they were as difficult as his current situation he wondered if this was even possible. He couldn't think like that for long though, he had a responsibility to keep trying until he could go no further. Lou was counting on him.
After he'd done with his course training the dragons disappeared and it was only he and Lou left while Tate threw the daggers at the target closest to the ground over and over again. Most of the time he hit it, but a good number of those times the weapon struck but bounced off. The rest of the time he completely missed the mark.
"How are you supposed to become an expert in something that takes others years of focused training to achieve?" Lou finally said.
Tate extended his arm and flicked his wrist again, another dagger flying to the target. It hit, but bounced off, "I don't know. All I can do is try."
Lou watched him for a while longer before getting distracted and looking up a the spectators in the sky.
Tate had stopped noticing them. When he'd begun running the course along the parapets he'd stopped paying attention to them since they no longer landed there while he was running. Now that he was done and was doing training on the ground two had settled on top of the wall to quietly observe.
Tate didn't know who they were, but they showed up often. Maybe he knew them, but there were only a handful of dragons here that he knew what they looked like in both forms, and they were all members of the Royal Guard.
"What do you think they are doing?" Lou asked finally. He'd long since gotten over his innate fear of the wild dragons. He knew they could hear him but he asked anyway.
Tate shrugged. "I have no idea, I don't have the time to worry about them. I've got to squeeze out every bit of training I can."
Lou made a humming noise never taking his eyes off them. "Tate!" He gasped.
Startled at his sudden outburst Tate missed his target and then glared at him. "What?"
"Look." He hissed, he didn't point but motioned upwards with his eyes. Tate followed the look.
On the parapet, the two dragons had taken on their human forms. It was too high to make out much of them but Tate could tell one thing. One was a male and the other was a female. He wasn't sure that he knew either of them. Even from here, he could see a light blue tint on the male's head. The female from what he could see had golden hair, and it looked long, at least from their faraway vantage point.
He couldn't see them clearly but he could sense that they were staring straight at him. A shiver went up his spine and he got goosebumps. He shook his head and looked away. He hoped they would leave soon, something about them felt odd to him. He didn't want to look at them again, but now that he had it was a concentrated effort not to look up. Finally, he gave in and looked back, only to see two dragons flying up and away. One was the same light blue as the male and the other some shade of light tawny color that must have been the female.
He stared after them for a moment unable to help himself for some reason. When they were just dots in the sky he was finally able to come back to himself he looked at Lou to find that Lou was still looking up.
He tapped his shoulder. "Let's spar for a bit, shall we? I need a change of pace."
Lou lit up, "Great! I'll go get the swords!" He ran off to the table the dragons had set up with daggers and talons, although Lous still referred to the latter as swords.
Tate chuckled as he watched his enthusiastic former apprentice.
He needed to focus on something else for a while, something he was good at, or he was going to start losing hope.