Chapter 4

Tama and her fellow cadets had survived their first six months of what is called Basic training at the Trueshot Scout and Ranger Academy, most students just called it justifiable homicide of instructors if they were given the chance. The instructors had learned to ask what Tama could already do before trying to force her to do things their way and only their way. They now had a class that might prove to the instructors that Tama is only mortal and not all knowing, or at least that is what they hoped would happen.

The Class title, Mana access and management 101, taught by Mage Han'mere.

Tama had thought that this class would be fun. She had not been able to show any of her talents at school so far. What she had not expected was the two-week long lecture on the sources, types and properties of mana. Once the Mage, Han'mere had finished with the opening lecture series, all the girls had reached the point of wanting to take him out and hang him head down in the swamps. Sadly, as always, forbidding the use of force against the instructors was still the policy. So they had to endure his slow steady droning and fight the sleep urges in hot, humid classrooms.

( ****Think of Ben Stein on Valium ****)

When the day came that he did finally start the lessons on accessing the power, he made it clear that only when he wanted them to reach for the power were they to do so. He would be with them controlling the flow of mana in case they lost control and risked harming themselves. When he made that announcement to the class, Tama felt a cold stabbing in her guts, the one that said he wants to lock you out, you must fight him. The voice deep in her mind tried to convince her he was dangerous to her, to stop him in anyway possible. Tama told the voice to shut up and go away, she would deal with him in her own, less than lethal way.

Han'mere started with the girls that seemed to have the greatest problems of mana control every morning. Tama had seen what the matron had been writing every morning. She was noting the reactions of the girls to being startled and scared every morning. Tama soon had them getting up and the barracks ready thirty minutes before first call, putting an end to that treatment. It took three days for him to reach Tama, when he did so, he handed her a small steel dagger.

He, in a snide and condescending voice told her, "I want you to go over to the practice dummy, try to open your flow through the dagger. Once you have the power flowing, stab the dummy and release what ever power you have managed to dredge up all at once."

Tama looked at him as if he were a strange form of life that had no connection with the reality of what was about to happen. She looked at the rest of the class and quietly hand singaled them to get under cover in a hurry to avoid shrapnel damage. She had told them of some of the training she had already had and her ability to do very serious damage to a target if she let it all hang out. The girls quickly flipped several of the tables they where sitting at on there sides and ducked down behind them and covered their ears. Han'mere looked at this activity and snorted in derision, "You have nothing to fear, this girl is inept at best, as she has never exhibited the slightest bit of power in her time here at the school."

Tama suddenly realized that they had mistaken her tight control as having no power at all. She stopped, turned and looked at the instructor in disbelief, "Inept you say Instructor Han'mere? You had better take cover or risk getting hurt by flying shrapnel." He snorted again and ignored her warning, waving at her to begin. She did stop and retrieve her cloak and wrapped it around herself. She hoped it would provide her a little protection from the explosion that was about to occure in the classroom.

Tama reached in and linked to the lightning strike ability she would use for this demonstration. As she started to draw on her power, she felt something interfering with her mana pool access. She looked inwards at her workbench and saw a phantom hand blocking the access points to her mana. 'So that's your game, you are tampering in a dangerous place you old fool, ' she thought. She brought up a mental dagger and quickly stabbed the hand, it vanished as she heard a cry of pain from Han'mere.

"Instructor Han'mere, I will warn you once and only once, try and tamper with my power flows again and they will be mopping you off the ceiling for a month, just as the Vampire Lord Mayong Mistemoore found out the hard way." With a sudden scream of rage, she spun and drove the dagger deep into the dummy and released the full charge of lightning strike through the dagger and into the straw and cloth dummy. The blast blew her across the room into one of the over turned tables, stunning her for a moment, and Han'mere was blown out of the now missing door. Her cloak had a number of large splinters in it, but none penetrated enough to hurt her.

Several proctors had come running at the sound of the unexpected explosion thinking there had been an attack on the school. They arrived just as Han'mere was getting slowly and painfully back to his feet. Tama had quickly shaken off the blast, she and her classmates went about restoring the tables and chairs to their normal places. When the staff entered the room, Han'mere started ranting in a low voice to the head of the department that the Arrowmark girl had attempted to kill him.

"Han'mere, I think you have failed to read the report that was sent to every instructor in the school about that young lady. Did you read the dossier on her and her history of power usage instructor Han'mere?" he asked in a tone that said, "I know full well you didn't, so you deserved this lesson."

"I most certainly did not read that worthless report." He confirmed. "Those reports are always wrong, making claims to power usage that are never true and never giving enough information on the true ineptitude of the wood Elven brats you keep sending me to teach. On top of all that, she stabbed my hand!"

"Really, did she now, may I see the wound?" The Proctor was starting to lose patience with the over the top arrogance of the High Elven that thought he was the true gift of the gods to the world.

"She did it in the mental realm when I was blocking her mana flow to challenge her ability to draw power as part of her test," he huffed out in anger.

"You attempted to forcibly block her mana flow Instructor Han'mere? Is that what you just said? I would say she taught you a painful lesson then," replied the now smiling proctor, it was not a friendly smile.

"Yes, that is what I said and meant. I needed to find out if she had any ability at all. According to the matron she has not once exhibited any mana effect whatsoever since she arrived at the school." Han'mere was starting to sound plaintive as a bit of a whine had started to creep into his voice.

"Han'mere, did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, Cadet Arrowmark has the tightest control of her mana and abilities this school has ever seen? That she controls it, to prevent things like that," pointing to the shattered dummy, "From happening by accident?"

"No, I did not, nor will I accept that a mere child could have that level of control without my formal training," snarled Han'mere. He was losing his patience with the supposed knowledge of the staff of this school.

The Proctor turned to the students, "Cadet Arrowmark, come here please."

Tama stood up and approached cautiously, expecting to be in serious trouble over her blowing up the classroom and the practice dummy. "Yes sir," she asked quietly.

"Cadet, would you be kind enough to explain how you control your mana and abilities to such a fine degree please."

"Yes sir. When I was six, I suffered accidental exposure to one of the deadly cursed SoW totems. It caused a massive mana surge in me and I started losing control of my inherent talents right away. Master Eaglesclaw needed to be summoned right away to begin my basic control training at that time. Between him, my father, Elder and the Green Brothers, they taught me a way to lock my talents down and to focus and control my mana. If they had not been able to do so, I would have been killed very quickly from my out of control mana flow and randomly activating abilities."

"Amateurs, not a single true user of the power in the lot, and one of them a mana cripple as well," Han'mere sneered in disdain.

The Proctor suddenly felt a surge of energy building and saw the cadet's eyes had taken on a green glow and her hair was beginning to show signs of real flames. He was not going to put up with any of that behavior on his watch. "Cadet Arrowmark! Stand down and return to your seat right this instant. Han'mere, report to the Headmasters office now, you will wait there for my arrival. I have had enough of you arrogant insolence."

Tama, shocked by the sudden forceful command, dropped her power build up. She did stop for just a second to give Han'mere a hard look that said, 'I will neither forget nor forgive that remark about my father and friends.' She returned to her seat and concentrated on locking her abilities back to their normal standby state. Han'mere on the other hand was not willing to accept being pushed and ordered around by a mere proctor. Not that it mattered, a few seconds later Headmaster Jordan arrived with several school guards at full run.

The Headmaster arrived expecting to see burned out corpses and the room in flames. He knew who was doing the build up just by the feeling of it. "Proctor, what the hell is going oh here, every mana sensitive inside two miles felt that massive power build up, what is going on here." He looked around and saw Tama sitting in her seat with the slightly dazed look he had seen on her face before, it was like that on the day he had nearly been fried by her from to Mistemoore's interference.

The proctor faced the Headmaster and gave preliminary report on the events as they had transpired. Jordan looked at Han'mere and said, "One of the rules involved in mana training in this school Han'mere is to never interfere with the use during sanctioned training. You have not been made properly aware of the power that young lady possess and can safely wield. I am, I have seen and felt it first hand and nearly paid for the viewing with my life." He looked around the classroom, spotted what wanted in the far corner.

"Tama, would you be so kind as to retrieve that broom in the corner and show Instructor Han'mere what you call unrestricted floor sweeping, just as you were doing the day I first met you in your home village at the woodshop."

Tama looked at him in surprise then got a wicked smile on her face. She knew what he was asking. She glanced at her class mates then asked them, "Could you please pull all the tables and chairs to the sides of the room then step outside for you own safety."

After seeing the damage she did to the dummy, they quickly did as she asked and fled the room. Tama picked up the broom and activated her abilities as need to do what she needed to do, clean up her mess. As an added touch, she fed a little power to an aspect of her being that made her hair appear to turn to flowing flames. Seeing it was not as impressive as she wanted, she ramped up the power flow and her hair started waving on its own as the flames appeared to burn. She went to the back most corner and started moving back and forth across the room, creating a low swirling cloud of fast moving dust and debris ahead of her. Soon it had miniature whirlwinds in it as her speed picked up. Jordan saw that this cloud would cause serious harm if it hit anybody so he had all the students and staff back well away from the door to the classroom.

Once she reached the front of the room Jordan called for Tama to stop, it took a moment but she slowed and finally came to a stop near the door and the cloud of dust, sand and hay quickly settled. She slowed herself back to real world speeds and took several deep breaths. She had felt the strain this time since she had not used her abilities in over half a year.

"Now Han'mere, do you begin to have a clue as to what she was about to do to you for insulting her father and dearest friends and mentors. What she did to the dummy is what she did to Thadius Thornbreak when he nearly killed her mother and captured her. She used a rock Han'mere, not a dagger, a rock. She forced enough power through that stone to cook him through. If the proctor had not stopped her, you would be very, very dead right now."

He addressed the students, "If you would, please return the class room to its normal state." Turning back to Han'mere, "You on the other hand need to learn about your students, that is what the files we create on them are for. Those files are written to prevent issues like this from happening, and sadly, it has happened once already on a lesser scale in the archery class. Oh yes, One more thing, if I ever hear that you actively interfere with a students ability to access their power during the lesson, unless it is to teach how to overcome such interference, I will have you sent home to Felwithe in disgrace. I am being perfectly clear Han'mere?"

"Yes sir."

A loud crash jolted Captain Arrowmark out of her sleep and the sad, unpleasant dream. She attempted to sit up quickly, but her ribs and leg stopped her from moving more than a few inches at a time. She let out a low groan, turned her head in a slow, careful manner to look daggers at the nurse that had woken her so abruptly.

"Sorry about that Captain, didn't mean to wake you. The pan slipped is all. You go back to sleep and finish healing up. Magic is good on soft skin and muscles, but bones just don't heal fast no matter what we do."

"I am quite well aware of that nurse. Now I have a few questions for you."

"Ok, I will answer what I can, what do you want to know?"

"Did they destroy the Drakota's body as I ordered before they brought me in?"

"I wouldn't know anything about that ma'am. I work here in the clinic and that is all. I can tell you this though; word came back this morning that the Drakota nest has finally been cleaned out of all the remaining eggs and sitters. The heavily armored infantry had to destroy 1246 eggs. They had several dozen cases where they ended up causing the eggs to hatch and had a series of big running battles across a fair portion of the forest floor. But they did it, and that ends the primary Drakota threat to the Elven, Fay, and the Dwarven."

"Any word on the Fay folk in the Wood, did they survive the fire and smoke?"

"No word ma'am, no word yet on the condition of little folk as yet that I have heard. I am being remiss in my duty, are you thirsty or hungry ma'am?"

"Some water would be fine for now nurse. You know something, I don't even know your name and you have been standing guard over me for a week."

"Is that all that is worrying you? You can call me Jilly ma'am, nurse Jilly." The nurse stepped out for a second then reappeared with a pitcher of water and a mug.

"Well nurse Jilly, it is a pleasure to meet you. You do your profession honor."

"Thank you ma'am, here is a pitcher and mug. Just ring the bell if you need more. Dinner meal is in three hours, think you can wait that long?"

"I suppose I can. I guess you have others to look after and care for, so I will not keep you here any longer."

"I will check on you again shortly as is required."

Nurse Jilly finished her checks and chores and left the room smiling. "At least she isn't trying to kill us now," she thought to herself. "For these last two months it was dangerous to get near her if she was startled at all, and the worst part is she doesn't even remember doing any of that stuff."

Silor had finally been released from porting and shuttle duty when the new bell transit system came online and proved safe and reliable. He knew his main job now would be to deliver several bells deeper into the Faydark, hopefully even to Kelethin, if the platforms where still there. Since he had some free time, he headed over to the new city hall to check in with the now retired council President Jordan. It was a hoot to watch when he told the oldest members to take the job and shove it.

He had returned to the Glenn's to see to the full planning for the Greater Faydark recovery efforts. Still, it would take years to get the tree cities rebuilt and move those that wanted to return to the wood. Many of the Elven had decided they did not want to move again and had settled permanently in their new homes in the Butcherblock Mountains.

Silor arrived at Jordan's office and went in. "Hey there old man, how's it going?"

"Didn't anybody ever teach you to knock kid? What is it Silor, you never just drop in to visit."

"Well, I am here mostly to let you know the transit bell is set up and working. Travel to and from the docks is just a bell ring away now. I also need to know if the contact group has returned from the Greater Faydark. I have the bell for Kelethin with me and it needs delivering."

"I am sorry Silor, no word yet from them. I was hoping to hear back a few days ago, but nobody has come out yet."

"They could have run into trouble with Orcs or undead somewhere along the line. It is wild down there on the floor now, nothing like when we lived there."

"That is a possibility, but I hope not. What else is there you want to know."

"This is a bit more personal."

"Tamalain?"

"Yes. What are your plans for her. She has been through hell and needs time to recover her mind as well as her body."

"No need to fear or worry about her, I have a nice little plan that will keep her happily tied up for the next two or three years."

"Two or three years, this must be some plan."

"Oh it is my boy, it is. Once the healers decide she is ready to start her physical training, she is going to spend six months just working her body over. I want her back to the level she was at before the calamity. The next stage will be a compressed crash course on years three, four and five of the Rangers school. She never had a chance to finish her advanced skills courses. It is a miracle that she was able to deal with the Drakota at all."

"I can see she will just love this plan. Are you ready to try and keep her from killing the instructors? Word got around after a few incidents during the first year."

"No danger of Tamalain going off the deep end. She will know up front what is going on and will behave accordingly, at least I hope she will. I need her trained to take on a long term security mission. She will head up the Drakota tracker squadron. There are reports of dragon raids on the herds of the Meat Beast further out. Nothing major, just one or two meat beast lost at a time."

"Oh I can see she will love that, she seems to have a real dislike for the Drakota. Last time I visited she was upset about the loss of her Faysteel armor. I suspect it was the loss of her bow that really hurt her though. That was the one she made before she went to school, in fact you were the one that showed her what was wrong in the design. She wants to get out and make a new bow, and find a way to get suited so she can go hunting. I like your plan better. She just isn't ready to go out yet."

"That is good news Silor. Come with me for a few minutes, I want to show you something that must not reach her ears under any circumstances." Jordan led Silor to a storage room and opened the window covers. He lifted a dust cover off several objects along one wall. An armor mannequin and weapons rack where revealed and Silor saw a type of armor and weapons that were the rarest of all types. "Dragon scale armor and Dragon bone weapons. These will be hers once she is ready to go out, not before. I have a Fayiron set and basic gear for her for the training portion of her recovery."

Silor slowly approached the armor suit and gently touched it, then quickly drew his hand away as he felt a threat against him. The feeling told him this armor had already been bound to its future wearer. "How did you manage to bind it to her Jordan, that takes an act of will on the part of the holder."

"She did it herself when she took the Drakota down. She beat it with an act of will that made it hers by default. The crafters had to be very careful while working the materials."

"I bet they did. She will love this stuff when she is ready for it."

"In time my boy, in time. Now I need to get back to that office and continue to untangle the paperwork hell she created over ten years."

"Good luck on that Jordan, she was glad to escape it. I will be at reception in my quarters if you need me."

Silor returned to his room and Jordan to his work when one of the people he was expecting arrived. It was the old taskmaster himself, B'rill, sometimes referred to as the Drill, but never to his face.

"You called, I came, what's up boss."

"I have a special job for you. A real hard case, she will be released from the healers in a few days and will need to be driven harder than she can imagine to get back into shape in six months. After that, I hand her over to the former senior staff from the academy to ram three years of schooling into her in eighteen months."

B'rill just stared at him coldly before commenting. "Probably some smart assed little brat of a rich family paying for lessons the kid will never use, right?"

"Nope, not even close, here is a clue. She turned out to be your worst nightmare come true as a first year."

The look that grew on B'rill's face at the revelation was one of rage, not fear as Jordan had expected. "You joking, you want me to improve her over what she already has? She was deadly enough before the fall, and you want to improve her?"

"B'rill, she went one on one with the Drakota Lord and won the fight, barely. She did it even though she was ten years out of shape thanks to the office job I dropped her on."

"She takes down a mid level dragon and you say she needs training. What kind of fool do you take me for Jordan. No way, no how could I train someone with her skills."

"Damn it B'rill, it nearly killed her before she got a lucky hit and caused it to blow its own damned head off. She has spent the last three months in a damned coma and has only really woken up in the last few days. She needs a complete rebuilding after what happened to her. She needs you to push her back in to shape."

"Lucky you say, how bad was she hurt then."

"You want a complete injury rundown, well here it is. Her Upper left thighbone broken, two ribs broken right side, right lung slight puncture, a severe concussion, left arm slashed open shoulder to wrist down to the bone, second and third degree burns over her entire scalp and neck. Bruising and abrasions over her entire body from being smashed into a cliff face. Her Faysteel had been melted from several near misses, adding more burns to her back. We ended up having to cut the armor off her in sections. Yet, despite all this damage, she performed a tumbling jump and put her sword through the back of its neck, rupturing the flame tube. Once it was dead from blowing it's own head off, she destroyed its eyes, took all its claws and teeth for herself, and was limping back towards town before the ranger squad arrived and helped her. That is how tough she is. I want her back to her true peak, as she was that first day of school."

B'rill did not think about it after hearing what had been done to her and was still able to fight on. "When do I start, I will need a gym and a running route that will challenge her ability. Also, she will be mana restricted, I will not allow her to use power to assist in this program."

"That will not be a problem, here are your orders and your quarters. She should be released from the medics in three more days. That should be enough time to get a basic setup ready for her."

"More than enough time, I will see you later, lots of torture planning to do." He left the office whistling a tune that had a serious feeling of fear projection built into it. The students would hear it and run away in fear. He noticed several folks flinched when they heard it. "Good, the fear effect still works," he thought with an evil chuckle.

As predicted Tamalain was released from the healers care three days later. She slowly limped back to her old quarters as her left leg was still very weak from being broken and the muscles damaged before the healers could set it. When she entered the room, she noticed that it was clean and dusted. "Well at least the staff didn't forget about me. They would not tell me how long I was unconscious at the Healers. I know some time has passed, but how long," She thought. On her bunk was a new chain mail armor set. Just by looking she could tell it was Fayiron. It was nowhere near as good as her old set, but it would do until she could purchase better. In her cloths cabinet she found that her old leathers had been repaired and the leather refreshed. On one shelf she found what was left of her Faysteel set. It had been cut off her after she had finally passed out from the shock from her wounds. Entire sections she could see had been melted into a solid mass of fused links. It was worthless scrap metal. She would see if a smithy would be able to salvage the metals.

She slowly and painfully made her way to the nearest mess hall and had a real dinner for the first time in weeks. She found she couldn't eat as much as she would have liked, but she did eat. While eating, she noticed that she was being observed by a hooded figure in one corner of the room. She knew she was not in any condition to fight, so she decided to ignore the watcher for now. When she returned to her room, she found her work out clothes that she had bought and used only once just before everything started coming apart.

She tried them on and found them to be so loose that they almost fell off her. Looking in a mirror, it told her a sad story as to why they were so loose. What she saw caused her to break down in burning tears, all her years of hard years of work and care were gone. Her body was nearly skeletal she was so thin and weak looking. As she sat on the bunk feeling sorry for herself, a small ball of rage began to build in her mind. Soon it flared into an inferno and she screamed in a primal roar that brought a guard to her door to inquire if she was all right or needed help in some way.

"I am fine," she called back. "A sad reality has bitten me in the ass and I am not happy about it, I will try to keep it down."

"Yes ma'am, just checking is all. Have a pleasant evening," said the guard through her closed door.

Tamalain sat on her bunk and tried to stop feeling sorry for herself. How long had she been out while in the healers care. Why wouldn't they tell her what she wanted to know, was it as bad as that? Then the thought of the seasons hit her and she smacked her forehead and called herself stupid. She quickly started to pull on her exercise clothes to go look at a few tree's when there was a solid knocking on her door.

"Hold on, I'll be with you in a moment," she called out wondering about whom it might be now. Once dressed in her shorts and tunic, she opened the door. When she looked out, she was shocked at who it was that was standing there. "B'rill? Is that you? What brings you to my doorstep? Come in, please."

"Cadet, or I should just call you Tamalain now, I have been asked to get you back into shape." He looked her up and down, seeing what Jordan had not seen fit to tell him. "Now that I see you, I am going back to Jordan's office and kick his ass. He wants you back up and in top shape in six months. No insult to you Tam, but three months in a coma plus the amount of work done to repair you has wrecked that wonderful body of yours."

Tamalains head came up in surprise and she sputtered, "You just said I was in a coma for three months?"

"Yes, thirty eight days in the deepest part, then you were in and out for two more months. It is only the last week or so that you started to remember who you are. Tama, you were a totally messed up wreck from what I have been told. Several of the clerics didn't have much hope that you could or would ever recover."

Tamalain sat back down on her bunk and stared at the floor. "That is why they wouldn't tell me how long I was out and how bad it was. I must have nearly died from my wounds," she said in a dejected voice.

B'rill knelt down in front of her and cupped her face in his hands and began speaking. "I was sent to torture you back in to condition, but that has changed. I will have a little chat with Jordan. It will take well over a year to get you ready for any advanced schooling he has planned for you."

Tamalain looked at him and started to cry, "What can I do, I have no strength at all. Just moving the chain tunic to the drawer was almost more than I could handle. I ate, but I couldn't eat much, I was full after just a few bites."

"Tam, listen to me, you need time to finish recovering. I have some exercises I want you to do several times a day. They will help heal and strengthen the damaged areas in you leg. That will be our first priority. Now, do you feel up to a short walk with me?"

"I, I think so. Just standing makes it hurt from the hip to the knee on the outer thighs, the groin muscles are sore as well." She slowly stood and he watched she favored the left leg. He could see the area that had lost so much muscle tissue from the bone tearing into it when it broke and shifted.