Prowess and Will (Elaniver)

[Angmor]

The weather was strangely mild that day, at odds with the normal heat of the Surdan sun. It was a good day to be outdoors, which therefore meant that the sparring field outside the second wall of Borromeo castle was much more crowded than usual. The air was filled with the sounds of groups of men either drilling with their blades, sparring together with various weapons, or honing archery skill against straw targets.

Taraak noticed none of this.

He waited, arms raised in a fighting stance, feet spread, knees slightly bent. His eyes were locked with that of his opponent, each waiting for the other to make a move, neither willing to be the one to begin the fight. Taraak didn’t mind. He knew for a fact that he was more patient than these men. After nine years of training, he thought to himself, he had better be. He did not need to look over his shoulder to know that the other two fighters had taken up position on either side, orienting themselves at the points of a triangle with him at the center, far enough to be out of arm’s reach, but close enough to take a swing with their longswords when the time was right. All three were armored with light chain mail and leather caps, and carried small round bucklers. Taraak himself was armed with an unsharpened tournament dagger he had taken from the rack, and dressed only in his normal dark tunic and breeches, having finally consented to doff his cloak and shoulderbag. He did not see why they had insisted on that point. After all, a real enemy would never give you the time to rid yourself of encumberments before a battle, so why should he train like they would? Still, he did consent that it would make the coming fight easier. At last, he caught the metallic sound and a grunt of effort that signaled that one of the men behind him had lost patience. At that sound, all of them moved at once.

Taraak whirled, twisting to avoid the coming thrust even as he did. The strike clove the air, missing him by several inches. Although he couldn’t see them anymore, he calculated that the the other two would be converging… now. He channeled the momentum of his spin into a roll, hearing both swords pass above him as he did. He leapt upright a few feet away, to the right of the closest soldier, out of reach of the rest. The man, despite the sudden maneuvering of his opponent, did just what every instinct told him to do, swinging his sword without regard for the proximity of his target. Swift as thought, Taraak dodged inward, intercepting the man’s arm with his own. Before his opponent could slap it, Taraak slashed his unsharpened blade across the back of his neck below the protection of his helm, scoring the first ‘kill’.

The man however was not likely to noticed immediately, so Taraak added a swift kick for good measure, knocking the man on his face in the packed dust of the field. Although he hadn’t intended it, the soldiers fall also caused one of his comrades to trip over him, putting one more momentarily out of the fight. Taraak had just enough time to be gratified by this fact before the third man was on him, hacking and thrusting too fast for a counter attack by his much shorter weapon. He was forced onto the defensive, dodging and slipping furiously, placing himself just out of reach with strategic steps backward. While most of his attention remained firmly on the next reaction, the next dodge, the next block, he couldn’t help but come to a realization. Here, in the middle of a fight, even simulated, he found a sense of clarity that he found almost refreshing. Here, he was no longer a man haunted by the visions of his past, a man never at ease with who he was.
Before throwing himself beneath another slash, he saw the second man finally extricating himself from his ‘slain’ companion, soon to be rejoining the fight. He smiled grimly. Yes, Here, he was simply a man stripped of everything but the will to survive.
And survive he would.

[/blockquote]

[Elanzaros]

Elaniver sat in a calm and relaxed state, his back resting against a wall as he surveyed the many warriors trying there hardest to prove themselves better than one another. The large man relaxing against the wall couldn’t help but chuckle at some of the work he was seeing in the sparring grounds, some of it was simply shocking, something that he wouldn’t dream of allowing himself to do. There was one fight however that was definitely catching his eye, several men against one and the one was definitely in control of the battle. His amused smirk turned into one of attention, watching as the man twirled and dived, he was impressed. Not exactly amazed, but definitely impressed by this man. He watched very carefully as he looked out for things that he could learn from, things that he could also perform. He even got to his feet from his slouched position, leaning against the wall with his war hammer hanging loosely from his belt as he watched the man break his opponents ranks down to two men.

He was really getting into this fight when he felt a large weight walk into him. A man from a gang of soldiers who Elaniver hadn’t seen before had been walking in a widespread formation as though drilling in the sparring area and one of them had just walked into Elaniver. The man stopped and looked at him angrily saying loudly, “watch where your going cant you see were drilling?” Elaniver raised an eyebrow at the man and shrugged saying, “if you usually walk into stationary objects when you drill then god help the struggle against Galbatorix.” He paid the man no more attention as he tried to continue watching the fight he was studying. His studies were once again interrupted however as the man appeared reluctant to go about his business. He forcefully turned Elaniver back to face him and said angrily, “We don’t fight with drilling techniques. We fight with the strength of our backs. Perhaps you need proof of this.” The other members of his small drilling team had gathered around him by now, confronting Elaniver who stood staring at a point some way above the mans head with a far away, bottled up look. He abruptly opened his mouth and said, “fine.”

Elaniver unhooked his war hammer and calmly rested it against the wall he had previously been lounging against, the sun glancing off of its Dwarven runes as it tilted into the building. Elaniver wasn’t wearing a shirt; he made a point of not wearing a shirt at all. He had never really seen the use of such a garment as if it was cold, then one small sheet of material wasn’t going to do you much good against the winter frost. He walked out into the sparring area, not too far away from the man he had been previously studying and held his arms out to his sides in a beckoning motion. The men laughed and also dropped their weapons and armour, slowly encircling Elaniver with boasting leers etched onto their features. “6 on one, and how will the winner be decided?” The man asked as the circle closed around Elaniver. The man they had trapped seemed to jolt out of a reverie as the man spoke. He appeared to have just been further examining the fight going on next to them. “Your out when you cant get back up again,” Elaniver said calmly, shaking his neck and shoulders. The men seemed pleased with this decision and went into a fairly basic fighting position that Elaniver didn’t like the look of. He waited calmly for the inevitable rush and his head hung towards the floor in a very relaxed position. The men took an intake of breathed and launched themselves at Elaniver, each with a different fighting style. Elaniver reacted by throwing his bulk at one of the men’s legs. He toppled into the strikes his comrades on the opposite side of Elaniver had thrown as one man turned and swung a fist at Elaniver. The fist closed the gap between it and Elaniver’s jaw quickly but was abruptly halted by Elaniver’s arm, which swung up to block. Instead of returning the punch Elaniver simply poked the man in the eye hearing a satisfying cry of pain as the man recoiled and his hands flew to his face allowing Elaniver to swiftly grab him by the hair and belt and throw him unceremoniously away from him, not really aiming for anything in particular. He glanced at his trajectory to see that he had landed in an uncontrolled roll, next to the man he had just been studying and his fight. His eyes snapped back to his own business however as he beckoned at the remaining men with gritted teeth. Muscles glistening in the sun.

[Angmor]

The strangest things can conspire against you in a fight. As Taraak completed placing a kick into the first man’s torso, a flying object from beyond his focus careened into him, knocking his legs from under him any laying him out on his back before he really even had time to realize what was happening. The only thing that saved him was that his opponents didn’t really know what to make of it either, causing a split second of indecision of which he made instant use. Still on his back, he locked his feet around the first man’s ankles and twisted, bringing him down beside him. Before the man could regain his wits, Taraak slashed him across the throat with his blunt knife, scoring another kill.
That left one.
Of course, that one was currently bearing down on his floored body, sword raised. The first man instantly forgotten, Taraak rolled, his last opponent’s sword putting a furrow in the ground where he had just lain. Taraak leapt nimbly to his feet, knife up and ready.

In the brief lull that followed, Taraak was at last able to spare a glance at the object that had knocked him over. Strangely enough, it was a Varden soldier, looking rather dazed as he was helped up by the man that Taraak has just 'killed'. He contemplated that it would probably take a considerable force to give such a man such velocity, but the thought was drowned out by the calculations for dodging his final opponent's strike.

Now, contrary to most of the epics and ballads that Taraak had read, in which lengthy duels were seemingly mandatory, fights in his experience were always won or lost very quickly. As he ducked under the wide slash, he dodged inward, inside his opponen’ts guard.Seizing the sword arm just below the wrist, he spun around behind the soldier, the momentum of his spin driving his knive hard into the back of his neck, inducing an oomph of pain. Still wary however, Taraak jumped back, not wanting to receive a retaliatory chunk of blunt metal against his stomach.

He needn’t have worried. The man dropped to his knees, spluttering in disbelief. “How did- How did you do that?” Taraak relaxed, jamming the useless blade into his belt. “Practice.” He said mildly, offering his hand to help the man up. Next time you’re faced by someone like me, keep your strikes a little closer to your body. That stops me from getting in that close.” As the abashed soldier got to his feet, Taraak was aware for the first time of the great clamor somewhere behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, his sight was greated by what appeared to be the most unusual sparring match he had ever seen on the field. He had seen elves and dwarves and even Riders here, but none were quite as emphatic as what was unfolding a short distance away. The fight consisted of five of the younger infantry soldiers against a man that carried a passive resemblance for a large boulder, but considerably more mobile. Immediately Taraak was watching and evaluating. Already he could see that the five… four, he amended, didn’t have a chance. The enormous man had both guile and trained skill to back up his brute strength, even if nothing short of a ballista could bring him down. While not exactly graceful in all he did, he was definitely precise. He realized finally that the flying object that had so unceremoniously intruded on his sparring match, who was currently being attended to by the other two men Taraak had beaten, had probably been launched by this man.
“I guess you’re not the only one who can dish it out around here.” The final man said as he brushed himself off. Taraak nodded wordlessly, watching to see how it would play out…

[/blockquote]

[Elanzaros]

Elaniver saw the four remaining men start to encircle him again, he doubted very much that they would try and rush him all at the same time as they just had on the basis that that clearly wasn’t going to work. It was coincidentally the tactic that Elaniver would have used in this situation, but he was now interested in what the men would do now that their main tactic had failed. They had to have a plan B, they couldn’t just storm off into a fight without having a plan B, Elaniver wouldn’t if he could help it. He noticed as though from a great distance that the fight he had been observing had ended and judging by the fact that the man he had been learning from was still standing and some of the men he had been fighting were still getting up. He thought that it was a fairly safe bet that he had won. This strangely spurred Elaniver on to do as best as he possibly could in his spar. Determined to show this man who was now observing his fight that he could dish out punishment as well. He snapped hi attention back to the circle of men and kept on turning every now and then, trying his best to keep all four of them in his sights at the same time.

He saw one of the men move out of the corner of his eye and immediately turned to him. His fist held up in preparation to strike. As the man came into his sights however he retreated away from Elaniver with a triumphant expression. It took Elaniver a moment to work out exactly what they were doing but as soon as he felt movement behind him he turned his head and thrust his elbow out into an oncoming man’s cheek. The man’s torso jerked away from him at the impact and Elaniver reached up to the man’s hair and moved out to the side as he threw the man past him into the first man. He had barely an inkling of time before another man threw himself at Elaniver.

At a complete loss as to what to do he compromised by throwing his palms forward in a push that sent the airborne man to a halt and falling through the air. Elaniver felt a blow to the back of his head as he pushed the man away and assumed that the fourth man had taken action. He was jerked forward by the force of the blow and was confused enough to find the man he had used as a weapon being stepped over by his comrade who threw a punch to Elaniver’s jaw. Elaniver jerked away trying to find some space. He jerked away just enough to jab out a fist at one of the men’s ribs; he heard a thump as the man fell to one knee spluttering. He heard the next man charging and looked up to see his fist raised. He didn’t think long enough for something pretty he simply dropped abruptly down to one knee and flung his entire arm up quickly. The arm hit its mark as Elanivers broad forearm went crashing up into the man’s groin.

As the man collapsed writhing and spluttering to the floor he noticed that he had more than enough time to ready himself and so drew a prepared fist back. He saw the man he had pushed out of the air charge at him with a shout and encouraged him to arrive until he let the fist fly. His bigger arm span making sure that the fist met with the man’s jaw before he reached Elaniver. The man kept on going despite being horizontal and landed flat on his back, his eyes shut. Out cold. Elaniver relaxed slightly as he looked around. He noticed the man he had used as a weapon starting to get up and so walked over to him and picked him all the way up. He casually drew back a punch and let fly making the man collapse easily. He turned around just in time to see the man he had punched in the ribs charging. He crouched down suddenly, catching the man by the waist and lifting him up into the air. Wrapping the man’s legs around his stomache he pivoted o one foot and slammed him back first into the ground. He gave an ‘oomph’ and rolled onto his front to lay still.
The last man stood there facing him, clenching his teeth and breathing heavily. Elaniver growled and threw his head back, the hair leaving his face as his muscles bulged in an intimidating roar. The man returned the roar and charged. Elaniver didn’t bother charging against him he simply reacted by raising his foot to kick the man in the gut as he arrived. He measured up the man as he tried to get back to his feet and once he was upright he stepped forwards and drove the inside of his forearms into the mans chest hard. The man slumped over onto his back his legs carrying him over making him roll over onto his front when he hit the floor.

Elaniver stood up high above the men and roared at the sky with a glare in his eyes. “I am ‘The Game’!” He shouted at the sky as men applauded his efforts. He then looked around to the man he had studied once with a nod before going over to each man and helping them back up again once they came round.

[Angmor]

The thing that struck Taraak the most as he watched the fight happen was that the man’s fighting style was so different from his own that he almost found himself flinching with every blow. The man was top heavy, he barely moved at the waist and knees, and he made no attempt to move or evade incoming attacks. His strategy seemed to revolve almost entirely around hitting them as they were about to hit him.
And yet, it worked.
His reach was significantly greater than all the men he was fighting, as well as height and weight. With the power he was putting behind his blows, when they went down, they tended to stay there. And this was without a weapon. If he was using that enormous warhammer that he had spotted leaning against the wall, he had no doubt that this would over a lot quicker, and a whole lot messier.
"You really should challenge him when he's through." Said the man he had beaten, who was still standing beside him. Taraak thought about it. He had never actually had an opportunity to test his skill against someone so large. It was tempting, but he decided against it. From the looks of what he had done to his opponents, Taraak could easily break or fracture something trying to succeed where they failed, and he didn't want to be stuck around Aberon until he healed enough to be sent on a mission.
"No, thank you very much." He said, reaching down for his cloak and shoulderbag. "I choose life."
Providing dramatic emphasis to his statement, the huge man smashed his foot into the gut, sending him to the ground to be finished off with a swift blow.
The man beside Taraak shook his head in admiration. "Well, I suppose that makes sense. At any rate, I'll be seeing you." With that, he saluted and walked away.
I Doubt it.

[/Color] Taraak thought idly to himself as he adjusted his cloak over his shoulders, already planning what he would do next. Probably spend the majority of the day in the library, reading whatever caught his fancy. Although after a year here he had committed a goodly portion of the volumes to memory, even his perfect recollections of them could not measure up to the feeling of actually physically reading them. So fixed was this goal in his mind that almost didn't notice the sight that caused a prickle on the back of his neck.

As Taraak watched the man begin to help up the defeated, a glint of steel caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. With alarm, he saw that one of the first soldiers to go down had drawn a dagger from somewhere, and was raising it for a throw. The expression on the man’s face clearly indicated that this was not done in the spirit of friendly competition and sportsmanship. It had to be a stupid hothead wanting to get even, in whatever way he could. Although his bad throwing position would probably only wound his target, it was still a pointless waste. Of course, the huge man was facing away, and there would be no way to alert him in time.
There was no more time for thought. Without the input of his brain to tell him just how impossible this was, his arm came up, the blunt tourney knife held loosely in his fingers. With the barest of moments to aim, he threw the blade with all his might, aiming for the soldier’s forearm, hoping to interfere with the throw.[/size][/blockquote]

[Elanzaros]

Elaniver heard an intake of breath and a thud to the side of him, he turned his face towards the sound, intrigued by what had just happened. He was confused at first, a man lying in the dirt clutching hold of his thigh. His eyes travelled however to see that a knife protruded from his thigh, blood gushing forth. His eyes widened in surprise and anger as his head jerked back to one of the men he had just beaten, he was holding onto his wrist and scowling in shock at where the knife had just gone. He looked at the man he had been evaluating and saw his stance, Elaniver’s mind quickly painting a mental image of what must have happened. He saw one of the crowd behind the man roar and shove the mystery man into the fighting area almost into Elaniver. He stood there, staring into the eyes of the man, wondering exactly what they were going to do next. He heard roaring from an over-reacting crowd on all sides and saw the man who had thrown the knife charge at the man he was now having a stare down with. He raised his fist rather threateningly next to both of their heads and pulled the man out of the way, landing the punch straight to the middle of the mans face, hearing his nose shatter as he flumped onto the floor unconscious. He let go of the other mans shirt and glanced around at the increasingly violent crowd before staring at him again, a blank expression on his face.

Elaniver glanced from one side to another at the restless crowd, one of the members of the crowd shouted at the man he was once staring at, “you trying to kill one of us? What starts in the fight ends in the fight!” His words were met with cheers and nods of agreement. Elaniver had personally never heard that as a rule before, it was just something that was globally accepted in order to keep people from killing each other after fights with one another. A way to let off steam. This was silly to Elaniver however; if this man hadn’t obstructed the knife then it would be sticking out of Elaniver’s back and to Elaniver that was far more important than any unspoken rules of the sparring area. Elaniver glanced at the man who had just shouted and wanted to retort that maybe they shouldn’t be crowding round the area and maybe he shouldn’t have tried to kill Elaniver. But he didn’t for fear of making things worse, he muttered to the man next to him saying. “Never thought that I would wish for a knife to be in my back. But you managed it. Congrats,” a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he clenched his fist. Wondering what would happen from the restless crowd of people surrounding them both.

[Angmor]

It was all over in a brief moment. Taraak's blade smacked into the disgruntled soldier's forearm, sending the throw wide, just as he had hoped.
Things went wrong from there.
The wildly thrown knife whirled almost majestically through the air, Taraak's adrenaline enhanced eyes able to watch every single rotation before it buried itself into the thigh of a bystander. Apart from the man's cry of pain, an immediate hush of shocked disbelief fell on the field, lasting about as long as it took for them to notice Taraak, his arm still extended from the throw. It took him a second longer to realize that every eye had turned to him, and another to work out what the situation must look like from an outside perspective. When his conscious mind finally caught up with what his subconscious had already worked out.
Oh...

[/Color]

Before he could react, he found himself being pushed and jostled and by a suddenly angered crowd, into the site of the previous melee. He was so bewildered that he did nothing to resist, simply shifting his weight and steps in accordance with the assaults on his balance. He stopped short just as the great frame loomed up in front of him, casting him in sudden shadow. He met the man’s eyes automatically, but strangely, he found no anger there, simply a blank scrutiny from an equally blank face. Almost before he could ask himself why, his attentive hearing caught the sound of sudden movement over the sounds of the suddenly angry crowd, causing him to tense toward the sound…

Before he had a chance to get his guard up, the huge man grabbed the front of his tunic and yanked him effortlessly aside even as his other arm shot up, connecting solidly with the face of the man Taraak now realized had launched himself at him. The man’s fist immediately halted the young infantryman’s momentum as solidly as a mountain would a raindrop, and he collapsed senseless to the ground with blood streaming from a practically flattened nose. By now every eye on the field had turned toward the spectacle, every man adding his own noise. At that moment a voice rose up above the rest, and it took him a moment to realize it was directed at him.
“You trying to kill one of us? What starts in the fight ends in the fight!”
The voice said, stating the unspoken rule of all sparring matches. Tell him that. He wanted to say, but decided against it. While his general profession was to stay out of the limelight, he had been there enough to know that confrontation was a bad idea in these sorts of situations.

With that thought, his instincts broke through his puzzlement, and he was in control again. His eyes began roving, looking for some way out of this whole fiasco. If he was able to escape, people would be asking around for his name for a few hours, then forget all about it. “Never thought that I would wish for a knife to be in my back.” Came a deep, almost growling voice from over his shoulder, almost making him jump. It was the sort of voice that he could almost feel rumbling in his chest. “…But you managed it. Congrats,” Taraak thought he detected a slight mocking tone from the man, which was strange considering what had just happened.
“Well, I figured that getting one hothead drummed out off the army wasn’t worth a man’s life, although I might be wrong on that score.” He murmured back. Honestly, you’d think a man would be more grateful. “How about helping me think a way out of this, huh? We’re both under the hammer here.[/size][/blockquote]

Done! At last!

[Elanzaros]

Elaniver heard a murmured response and couldn’t help but chuckle slightly, if he would go down to one knife in the back then to him, he didn’t deserve the title of ‘living’. Always trying to set targets as high as possible and if there weren’t any possible then he would simply make hay and go for the impossible instead. Elaniver glanced in the direction of the wall where he had left his war hammer and wondered if he could batter his way through to it. A Dwarven war hammer would be something of an advantage in a situation like this. He momentarily cursed himself for fighting hand to hand instead of with weapons, that way he would have his hammer with him now and that would buy them time. Many people had already seen Elaniver’s skill with his war hammer and it wasn’t a pretty sight. He didn’t bother fighting fair and he certainly didn’t bother fighting at a set pace. He liked to dictate what pace a battle would stay at.

He heard another murmur behind him and rolled his eyes slightly, at that moment in time there was only two thoughts that could spring their way into Elaniver’s head as he was far to busy keeping a firm eye on the surrounding crowd of yelling and shouting men. One of them was pummelling his way out and the other was where to hit the multitude of anger. He paused for a moment, wondering if he would get away with laying out the man behind him and carrying him and himself out of the crowd which would no doubt warm to him after that. They would get out of the situation for sure. But he wondered if the man would be offended by the fact that he would have to be punched for them to get out. “Well.” He said thoughtfully out of the corner of his mouth so that only his companion could hear him. “We could either batter our way through…”

One man broke free of the crowd and charged straight into a waiting Elaniver who sharply brought his foot up into the man’s groin. Another man threw himself at the pair followed by another; he didn’t pay much attention to the second, as he seemed to be going for his companion. To the first he simply stopped with both hands o both of his shoulders and thrust his forehead straight into the man’s nose, feeling a crack underneath his skull. He pushed the man over, wincing slightly at how hard the man’s head was but shook himself slightly to get his bearings back. “Or. I could lay you out and carry you out so that they would let us by...” He glared at the wall where he knew his war hammer was once again. Almost willing it to come to him despite knowing that it wouldn’t. “Or. We could get over to that wall where my hammer is…up to you.” He said, his fists clenched as he glared around at the surrounding crowd.