Chapter 72: Effeciency

He remembered Orven’s hand against his shoulder, the embarrassing ease with which the man had put him on the floor, and Ava correcting the way he twisted during movement drills.

Frost shifted his feet and turned the shield instead of hauling it straight back.

The hook slipped free.

Before he could congratulate himself, the creature struck at him again. He managed to catch the blow, though the force sent a dull ache through his forearm.

Nessa’s spear darted beneath its raised limb, this time finding something softer.

A harsh squeal broke from the creature.

It turned sharply towards her, forcing her to withdraw, but the movement exposed its side to Frost. He saw the narrow gap between two plates, hesitated, then drove his sword towards it.

The point went in.

Not far, but far enough that the resistance suddenly changed.

The creature jerked, wrenching the blade sideways before Frost could pull it out. Pain tugged through his wrist, and he nearly lost his grip.

"Back!" Corin shouted.

Frost stumbled away as the broad shield slammed into the creature’s front. His sword came free with a wet scrape, leaving a dark smear along the steel.

For a moment, he could only look at it.

"Frost!"

He raised his head.

Corin was holding the creature’s attention again, though the claw battering his shield made it clear he couldn’t simply stand there forever. Nessa moved to strike, but the beast kept turning just enough to bring its thick shell between them.

Frost swallowed and stepped back into place.

This time, when its forelimb rose, he caught it higher on his shield and pushed upwards. It wasn’t enough to lift the creature, but it forced the limb away from its body and exposed the joint beneath.

Nessa saw the opening.

Her spear drove in hard, and Lyne moved at the same time, cutting at one of the nearer legs. The creature sagged to one side. Corin pressed forward, keeping it from turning, while Nessa withdrew her spear and thrust again beneath the front of its shell.

Its legs scraped wildly through the sand.

They stepped away cautiously, watching until the last movements stopped.

Frost’s breathing sounded terribly loud in his own ears. His forearm ached, his fingers were tight around the sword, and there was sand inside one of his boots despite the careful fastening. He looked at the dead creature, then towards Ava.

She approached without any sign of alarm.

"Well?"

Ava looked at Corin first. "You let it hold your shield for too long. If you can’t move, the others have to work around you."

He nodded, lowering it slightly.

"Nessa, your first strike was rushed. You saw a target and took it before checking whether you could reach the joint." Her gaze moved to Frost. "And you stopped watching the creature."

"I know."

"Knowing afterwards is easy."

Frost couldn’t argue with that. He looked down at his blade again, feeling the slight tremor in his hand now that there was nothing demanding his attention.

Ava noticed, though she didn’t comment on it.

"You did move when Corin called," she continued. "And you kept the claw up long enough for Nessa to strike. Remember what worked as well as what didn’t."

Frost glanced at her, a little surprised.

She was already turning towards the others.

"Check yourselves, clean your weapons, and recover that arrow. We’ll continue once you’re ready."

Corin released a long breath and rolled his shoulder. Nessa crouched to inspect her spear, while Jarek walked towards the patch of sand where his arrow had landed.

Frost wiped his blade with the cloth from his belt, taking more care than he had expected to need.

There was no excitement rushing through him, or any sudden feeling that he had become a warrior because he had managed to stab something.

Mostly, he was relieved that everyone was standing and that his arm still moved when he asked it to.

But when Corin adjusted his shield and stepped forward again, Frost took his place beside him.

They hadn’t gone much farther before something occurred to Frost: Apart from the beast itself, no one had used a rune.

Frost had been too occupied with keeping its claws away from his face to notice at the time, but now that he thought about it, the absence seemed rather strange.

"Why didn’t any of you use runes?" he asked.

Corin glanced at him. "We didn’t need to."

Frost looked down at the scratches along the edge of his shield. The creature hadn’t seemed particularly harmless while it was trying to pull him apart, though he supposed the others had handled it considerably better than he had.

Ava spoke from behind them before he could ask anything else.

"Rune essence is a valuable resource. You should use it sparingly, when the situation actually requires it."

Frost turned his head towards her as they walked.

"Even during training?"

"Especially during training. You need to learn how much you can manage without relying on your runes to carry you through every fight."

She gestured towards the stretch of beach behind them.

"That creature was weak enough for the five of you to kill using your weapons. Spending essence on it would have made the fight easier, but it would also have left you with less for whatever came afterwards."

Frost considered that for a moment. Most of the evolvers he had worked with used runes quite freely during their hunts, though perhaps he hadn’t spent enough time paying attention to when they chose not to.

He had usually been waiting for a triagram to appear so he could study it, after all. Watching someone kill a beast without one hadn’t been nearly as interesting to him.

"So we save it for something stronger?"

"Or something you can’t deal with safely using mundane means," Ava replied. "If you judge that an enemy is weak enough to dispatch without runes, do exactly that. Save your essence for a foe worth spending it on."

She looked at him.

"You’ll need to learn to make the same judgement eventually on the field. Sometimes, you may need to spend days, weeks, even months on the field, and soon, you realise that you spend far more essence than you recover. Of course, all this will only be applicable once you can actually use runes, that is. "

Frost gave her a flat look. She had been doing quite well until that last part.

"I gathered."

"Good. Then perhaps you’ll remember it."

Corin smiled faintly beside him, though he seemed sensible enough not to join in. Frost shifted the shield on his arm, feeling the dull ache left by the earlier impacts.

"What about getting hurt?" he asked. "Surely, taking a few injuries to save essence could leave you worse off."

Ava’s expression grew a little more attentive.

"Of course it could. That’s why I said you need to judge the situation. Conserving essence doesn’t mean standing there and letting something tear your arm off because you’re determined not to use a rune."

’So its all about efficiency...’

"If you need an ability to protect yourself or someone else, use it. If you lose control of a fight, don’t wait until you’re dying before deciding the enemy deserves the effort. The point is to spend your essence sensibly."

Frost nodded.

"Besides," he said, "if you use a rune every time something gets close, you don’t get much practice dealing with it when you can’t."

"Which is why Orven keeps hitting us with sticks," Corin added.

"He hits you more because you keep making the same mistake," Nessa said.

Corin looked mildly offended. "I make several different mistakes."

Lyne let out a quiet laugh, and Frost found himself smiling as well.

It was easier to relax when the others could speak so casually after a fight, though he made an effort not to let the conversation distract him from the ground ahead.

Ava seemed content to let them continue.

They followed the beach until the smooth sand gave way to a stretch scattered with stones and broken shells.

The footing became firmer in some places and more treacherous in others, with shallow pools gathered between the rocks.

Frost watched Corin step around a dark patch of weed and did the same, remembering how little it had taken to disturb his balance during their first exercise together.

A scraping sound came from their left.

Nessa raised a hand, and the group slowed.

Another of the shelled creatures was working its way out from beneath a low overhang, its forelimbs dragging a broken shell towards its mouth.