Demon-hunter students

[moonshadows]

“The greatest asset of a demon hunter,” the slim woman said, “is not force, but speed.”

Nine prospective students watched her as she paced gracefully back and forth; six male, three female, one of them human. Two of the males were orcs, one a troll. She had high hopes for that one. Of remaining three, the kaldorei, two were clearly built for power while one was as slender as the two kaldorei women. All of them watched with silent curiosity. They had been told that the master would train them personally, but only if they proved worthy. To that end they had expected to be met by one of the others – perhaps the one called Altruis, who had returned from Outland – but this slight female figure, even with black horns curling up from her temples, was not what they had expected. For one, she was clad in the barest of coverings – hardly more than straps securing and obscuring her breasts, a loincloth with delicately embroidered flaps that fluttered enticingly, and simple bindings around her wrists and above her delicate hooves.

“Armor does little good against demons,” she continued, gesturing with her own discreet talons. “Anything thick enough to offer protection does so at the cost of movement. The best defense is not getting hit in the first place, which means speed.” One warglaive, lavender and fel-green, appeared in her hand, and she gestured with it as though it weighed no more than a dream. “Speed to attack, speed to block, speed to dodge. The master chose me to instruct you in your first lessons because you would not believe this coming from anyone else. Over time, you will build strength and add force to your blows…but if you do not have speed, you are a target.”

“Shan’do,” one of the bulky night elves said hesitantly, “how are we to lift the blade without strength?”

Instead of answering, she beckoned the human woman forward and handed her the glaive before backing up several steps.

“Wow, it’s so light!” The woman gave a few experimental swings, eyes wide, before handing it back.

“A good weapon is not a burden,” the half-demon said firmly. “It is an extension of your body. Your practice glaives will be unenchanted, dull, plain metal – but they will be light. And you will learn speed.” Her eyes, burning green, raked over them and she smiled. “You don’t believe me. Altruis? Two sets of practice glaives and the ink, please.”

The demon hunter that stepped forward out of the doorway was everything the students had expected – long, powerful legs, a broad chest, and a black cloth covering his eyes. Cradled in one heavily muscled arm were four dull silver warglaives, while the other bore a crystal jar of ink and a brush. One by one the half-demon painted the dull edges of the blades with red ink, each glaive set on nothing where it hung obediently until all four had been painted. Then the jar and brush were sent flying smoothly back through the door, and the glaives plucked from the air.

“Dance pattern,” she said shortly as they faced each other. “Do you want the beat?”

“Yes please, Lady Jentessa,” Altruis answered, his voice deep and velvety.

A strange, alien instrument sounded from nowhere, marking a simple beat while a female voice chanted melodically in some demonic tongue. The two demon hunters exchanged blows in time with what was undeniably music of a sort, blades clashing in ritual rhythm that was both slow and deliberate at first before gaining speed and complexity. The students watched warily, not seeing the all-important speed but not wishing to interrupt. Suddenly, they paused and the unseen voice wailed as the music reached a bridge. When the chorus began, both fighters erupted into a blinding flurry of motion. It was obviously a pattern they had practiced before, but the larger, stronger night elf was visibly retreating before the lightning-fast strikes of the lighter female. Then the second verse emerged, and they returned to the studied, slower motions. The troll’s eyes narrowed as he recognized them as the same pattern from before, and concluded that the faster strikes were no doubt also the same – a true test of speed rather than cognitive thought, pure reflex and muscle memory.

A second time, the unearthly wailing of the bridge heralded the impending chorus. A second time, sparks rang as the relentless rhythm nearly drowned out the music and the unseen singer. When the chorus ended in an echoing wail, they separated. The half-demon’s lilac skin was marked in two places with vibrant red ink. Altruis, although wearing leggings, was bare above the waist and his own soft purple skin bore nearly a dozen false wounds where his blades had not been swift enough to ward off hers. It was all too easy for the students to imagine those red lines as cuts which, even shallow, would quickly tire and incapacitate a fighter.

“I built muscle over the long centuries,” the deep velvet voice said sternly, “and can cleave through a demon’s skull in a single blow. But I made the mistake of allowing myself to grow soft and slow. Lady Jentessa learned from the master directly less than a dozen years ago, and for all my thousands of years of experience she has surpassed me because of her speed. Although I, too, learned my craft from the master, I would fear to face him now. He has grown in strength as much as I have, more so, but he has not lost the slightest bit of speed.”

Smoothly, she picked up the thread of the lecture. “I was younger than any of you when I began my lessons, and the master held back nothing save to allow me to rest when my endurance flagged. A single wrong move would have killed me.”

Watching unseen from the tower, Illidan Stormrage flinched away from the memory of her young body dropping bonelessly to the rubber floor, his blade passing through where her head had been a heartbeat before.

“Speed,” she repeated firmly as Altruis retreated with the practice glaives, “is the greatest asset of a demon hunter. You will learn the basic routines from me, and when you have mastered those, one of the master’s former students will work directly with you on more advanced lessons. You will learn the magical aspects from the master, much later. By the time you think you are ready to face the master over live blades, you will be experienced enough to reconsider the wisdom of doing so. Understand this,” she said, her voice suddenly unrelenting as a storm. “He was reviled for ten thousand years because of what he learned and taught to others, and it is only at the urging of the High Priestess that he has accepted students at all. He would much rather be spending his time teaching his other students the secrets of the arcane, but he recognizes the need for more demon hunters in the world. Your behavior will determine whether or not there will be a second class.” The wings which had been bound by magic, invisible and intangible, appeared now and spread proudly wide. “If any of you have reservations about being taught by a half-demon, now is the time to turn and walk away with your honor intact.”

One of the orcs, the green one, thumped his chest firmly with one fist and left without a word; the troll and the other orc closed ranks silently.

“We the Mag’har are indebted to Lord Stormrage,” the brown orc said calmly, “and you share blood with the Warchief’s Champion; there is great honor in being taught by you.”

“Be aware,” Illidan said from where he now hovered behind them, his great wings beating slow counterpoint to her racing pulse, “that your teacher is my Champion – and my wife. Everything she witnesses, every word and act, may as well have been performed before me. She speaks with my authority, and my judgment is final.”

One of the kaldorei females thought with some wistfulness that if she’d been in the High Priestess’s place, she would not have chosen Malfurion. The other, having suffered the sting of rejection from her family when she forsook the Temple for this, felt a sudden spark of kinship. The two bulky males measured themselves against him and came up short, resolving to focus on speed; the slender one noted the shape of his hips and guessed that a much younger Illidan Stormrage would have had the same build as he. The Mag’har was filled with respect, while the troll saw him as a kind of loa to be cautiously worshipped. All acceptable.

Illidan came to rest lightly on the packed earth of the courtyard, smiling softly at his new students, a gentle dam holding back memories of pain. “Welcome to Eldarath Keep.”