Chapter 3 Training with Moor & Da

Aside from my apprenticing and schooling in towne, my training with Moor started when I made my eleven-year-end. I met him the sun following Da’s eleven-year-ender gifting to me, and in a manner of speaking could be said to be part of it. Da had gifted me my Schäaken board and pieces that year and explained to me after he’d presented it, 

“Arias lad, in proper trainin’, there is the mental, the physical, and the spiritual. This board, I’m hoping will teach you a bit of the mental part of it.” 

He touched the side of his head. I scratched mine.

 “But there be four parts to that as well. There be the book learnin’ part as ye are getting at the schoolhouse with Mæster Ræbbe, and the doin’ part, as you’ll get from ‘prenticing out to Mãamel Bræder the healer, and the Miller and the Saddleryman and the Smithy, Argo. Then there be this board here that I’ve gifted ye and will be playin’. That’ll be the logic and the thoughtful part.” He gestured to my new Schäaken board that I began standing the pieces upon.

 “And finally, there is a mind toughness to it all. I’m spectin’ a man from my soldierin’ time to be calling in a sun or two. And he’ll be trainin’ ye on both the brain strength as well as the body strength that ye’ll need to be learnin’ as you’re coming of an age.”

“Four parts of this and three parts of that, it sounds more like maths, Da!” 

My mind wasn’t having it. Mayhaps my mind was having a weak sun of it.

“Da, I understand the book learning and appreciating all of it, but I can’t figure the meaning of the brain toughness part,” I admitted.

“Aye, lad, well that can be the most gruelin’ part of it to learn.  It means learnin’ to conquer yer fears I reckon. Stand your ground no matter the consequences and ye knowin’ it’s goin’ to be hard on ye,” Da tried to explain. “It’s hard to explain but that’s why there’ll be the teachin’ of it. And Moor will have the way of it. You’ll be seein’ soon enough.” 

Sure certain, Da’s friend Moor arrived on the morrow’s morn, just after sunrise and he did a lot of hugging and backslapping and the such with Da.  Though a small man compared to Da, he held his ground to the backslapping and that alone said a great deal about him. To my thinking, he had a peculiar way of dressing, though. His clothes were all in grey. A great cloak of grey, tunic and trousers of grey and even gray boots. I did not say anything about this to him.

Da introduced us as we sat for a morn-meal of eggs and honey buttered bread and rashers of bacon. Moor tucked into it with gusto, later leaning back on two legs of the chair, crumbs falling about as he finished off the last butter and honey biscuit. Da saying my first real day of training would start even now and I was to do as Moor told me. 

Moor eyed me, head-to-toe, and slapping crumbs from his hands, falling back forward on his chair, said “Let’s run.” 

I knew I could do that.

So, we ran. Moor didn’t talk, he just set a pace and expected me to keep with him. When he reached the forest, I was glad as the running would be easier there than in the tall grasses of the pastures, grasses dragging at our ankles. Except that Moor didn’t make it so. He took paths over logs and streams and even high boulders I needed to climb. And he near never stopped. We ran until the sun climbed to its highest, pausing briefly at streams to quench the thirst is all. We barely had time to catch a breath and he would be off again without speaking a word. 

After a while, I could not keep up any longer and I slowly fell behind, but would not stop. The woods were familiar hereabouts, and I knew he was headed back to the cottage. But after a time, I saw him no more as my running became more to a jog. Moor did not wait on me.

When I finally made the cottage, Moor and Da were finishing the eve-meal and both were looking fresh and reminiscing about this and that. Da had me wash and fixed me a trencher of stew. And I just wolfed it down. Moor went out to sleep in the barn loft that night and I would be glad to get to my cot.

“Arias, lad, fancy learnin’ to play a round of Schäaken?” He pointed to the board and pieces.

“Nay Da, if it is all the same to you,” I simply said. He could see the exhaustion in my face, no doubt. 

“On morrow’s eve then,” he said, squeezing my shoulder and sending me on my way.

Moor stayed at our homestead for two fortnight that first trip. Each morn’s sunrise, after I finished my homestead chores, we’d run. The first few morns were brutal. My body too stiff for me to even move. But as I loosened up a bit, by chores’ end, would be ready to go. And we did. We ran every morn, at the dawn we would start and by highest sun, we were still not done. Moor never said anything during our runs but would sometimes query me afterwards.

“Did you see the snow owl watching us as we passed? That rattler eyeing us close at the great dead oak, ‘twas within striking distance when we passed, were you aware?” 

“Nay, I did not see it, was it really so close to strike?” I’d honestly answer.

I would do all I could just to keep pace with him. But, if he’d seen these things, why had not I? I found myself paying closer attention on our runs, determined to be able to answer his queries on our return. After a fortnight, able to keep more apace and no longer sore as I rose at sunrise, I found myself taking note of our surroundings while running.  One morn I said as much and Moor just smiled. He picked up a long branch that Da had apparently stripped and planed mostly smooth.

“This is a Bo-stick. When you learn to carry it, I’ll train you to use it.” He tossed it to me. He said nothing more and started our run with a Bo-stick of his own in his hands. The 

stick was not light and it was as tall as me.  I almost did myself grave bodily harm as we ran carrying them. In the forest, I nearly knocked myself out. I took many blows to my body as the stick would hit trees as I ran by. It would hit a branch or tree trunk and swing back to bash me in the leg or body or head. Ahead of me, Moor had no such problems. I observed how he carried it and tried hard to mirror his moves.

Recalling those days as an eleven-year-ender came freely to mind now. Da had some laughs over them as well. Fond memories he called them. But my stamina increased and I learned to wield the Bo-stick most effectively. Moor’s training continued over the years. We trained with more than just the Bo-staff, but it is what we concentrated most on. That and what he called Hæ-Kæ-Dœ, which were tumbling and striking techniques that kept an opponent off balance and easily disarmed and disabled. When Moor showed up at our homestead, mayhaps three times in a year’s passing, he would stay two fortnights or more and we would train. When he was not with us, Da would become my training opponent.

As I grew into my fifteen and sixteen-year, I found that they would train me in earnest, with Mãamel Bræder having to come to our aid with her healing craft.  Early on, she spent most of her time with me, but as I grew stronger and quicker, Da and Moor suffered as well. They smiled when this happened in some dark glee, I thought.

When I passed my thirteen-year-end, Da crafted a wooden training opponent for me. He took a log the length of a grown man’s torso and augured a hole through it at shoulder height. He pounded a thick branch through it to play as arms. Finally, he fashioned legs into it in a like manner. Moor painted red spots upon it as targets. At knees, hips, shoulders, ribs and head, he marked it. I would use tumbling and striking techniques to land blows only at the painted target points. Each morn I would do a training routine upon the log man. As I became more adept at this, Moor again changed the rules.

At fourteen-year-end, Da and Moor crafted a second log man and hung them each from a long Elven-vine rope from a high timber beam within the barn. First, Moor let swing the log man and instructed me to strike the target spots as it swung fore and back. When I had mastered this, they would swing the two log men at and across each other’s path and Moor taught me to use Hæ-Kæ-Dœ tumbles to move within the log man arcs and still be able to strike only the target spots. 

At first, left bruised and beaten, with time I conquered this as well. I found that if I used Mãamel Bræder’s Chẽ-Song and Calming lessons, I could reach a state of immense concentration.  In the Calm, I was able to sense the log swinging motion behind as well as afore me and my strikes became more accurate. After I started using this method, Moor stared in amazement and proclaimed me the best fighter he’d ever trained and mayhaps the best he had ever faced. He asked me what had changed.

“How is it you’ve increased your swiftness, and accuracy so suddenly?” 

“I’ve added Mãamel Bræder’s Chẽ-Song and Calming methods afore I start. I find I can transition into the state almost immediately after many suns of practice with her. The log men appear to swing in a slower motion, and I can sense them at all times.”

“Ho, Arias, please show me. And I hope this old hound can learn a new trick.”

“Ètœn did not say that his Effie had taught you such a thing. I’ve heard tales of a technique such as this but I’ve never known anyone who could instruct me. In this, Arias, the student has become the Mæster. To think, here she has been, all along,” sighed Moor.

Also adept at throwing blades, Moor made this a part of my instruction as well. He would shout, throw his blade into a knot of a tree, with me matching his throw, all as we ran. Da was also an excellent thrower and when Moor was not with us, Da would do the schooling. He had noted me becoming more proficient at using my left hand and arm as well as my right and had me depend more on my left at sixteen-year. He would use the swinging log man and had me target with the Bo-staff in my right hand and throw to a target with my left.

When Moor was not with us, Da would help me train in other ways as well. When we did not visit towne, my lessons were what oft times occupied my sun after morn chores. I would run for a good while and return to more training with Da.  This had become my regimen and I came to anticipate and relish the challenge that Da and Moor had put upon me.

Da was a master bowman and though I had not a mighty bow such as Da’s, I have had a strong and stout hunting bow from age thirteen-year onward. Da has taught me to train my eye with my hand and he has made me build my strength to the task by having me do naught but draw and hold the heavy bow and keep it taut till my arm shook violently with the strain of it. And, like Moor, he has me repeat and repeat.  With time and practice, and Mãamel Bræder’s Chẽ-Song techniques of concentration, Eventually, I became able to hold as long as Da. This, a great accomplishment, if you could see the strength of Da.

“’Tis good…. You are learning a bit,” said Da. “But this is just the first part.” 

Then, likened to Moor, Da would add a challenge.  

“Ye must be swift as well as strong with the bow, lad, to catch your target afore it moves or bolts and might ofttimes catch you unawares,” he would say.

Besides training with the bow, Da took up my schooling with a short sword, as well. We didn’t actually use real short swords though, my training consisted of use of wooden short swords. Da taught me to move both defensively and to offense. He showed me feints and double feints and then triple feints. He taught me to read my opponent’s eyes, not his hands. He’d be hard and relentless on me, leaving me bruised and exhausted. But I took Moor’s advice to heart as well and used my quickness and the concentration Mãamel Bræder’s Chẽ-Song had taught me. With it, I now could hold my own and even strike back sometimes at Da’s relentless attacks.

By my sixteen-year Da said, “Ye grow more quick and stronger every meet, Arias, I believe even now you can stand up to most any and the best among the King’s soldiers.” 

Pride did fill me to hear this from Da. But still, he did not lessen our drills.

My horsemanship had improved enormously since Da had gifted me my horse, Paint. He was a formidable mount, but he also had become a strong creature friend. I’d come to distinguish a difference betwixt my human friends and my creature friends. Though there were exceptions in both cases, on the whole, my connections with my human friends was foremost a connection based on strictly spoken communication, whereas with my creature friends, a very strong empathetic and emotional bond is clearly most strongly present.  I could clearly sense their feelings and wants and they, even more so, knew mine.

From the very first moment I came in contact with Paint on my fifteen-year-end, I sensed his inner strength and rebellious nature. An independent soul even as I fancied I was. Da taught me methods of training my new horse and Paint learned quickly. He was of bloodlines that had produced Da’s great warhorse Bregœ after all. The mare he sprang from, likewise a strong filly from the southern reaches. But more than that, Paint seemed to want to please me. I took great pleasure in letting him run of his own free will. Many a time I would give him rein and let him carry me where he might, reveling in his power and spirit as we would travel on unexpected paths and open pastures.

Riding atop Paint became a natural thing to me, and unlike my first attempts to hold a bow and loose an arrow upon a horse, Paint and I rode together with ease. He would anticipate my needs and even help me to my task.  As such, my skills with training atop Paint became an easier task. A quick whistle and Paint would come and he would learn most any task I set to him with an ease about it, learning most things in but one attempt.

As I neared my sixteen year-end and though Da and I would oft hunt together, we also would spend time apart. I would travel further into the forest and mountains, sometimes being gone for three or four suns at a time.  Hunting, fishing, or just adventuring. I also practiced diligently and regularly all the lessons from Moor and Da and Mãamel Bræder. I was not really aware of my life being anything out of the ordinary, though my towne friends did nothing of the like. I lived the life of a retired soldier’s son and thought this a normal thing. I often thought my towne friends led frightfully docile and boring lives with little contact with wilderness and adventuring, but I imagined that my life not so unusual to families that lived in other homesteads such as ours. Mayhaps, I was wrong.