Chapter 181: Harder to Move

Arthur remembered Morwenna’s promise about ten minutes into Combat Conditioning, mostly because he kept catching her looking over whenever he finished a drill.

She clearly hadn’t forgotten.

Morwenna had them hauling weighted canvas bags across the hall, sprinting back between carries, then pairing off for resistance and balance drills. By the time she moved them onto the mats, sweat was running into Arthur’s eyes and half the class had stopped talking.

His legs still burned, but halfway through the drills Arthur realized he wasn’t dying nearly as badly as he would have a few months ago.

Morwenna paired him with Emily for one of the resistance drills.

For the next drill, Emily clipped into one side of a padded resistance harness while Arthur braced behind her. Her job was to cross the marked strip. His was to keep her from getting there.

Emily went first. Arthur braced himself, but her first shove still knocked him backward a full step.

He caught his balance, dropped his hips lower, and set his boots before she drove into him again.

This time he held.

Emily stopped for half a second and looked at him. "Huh."

"What?" Arthur asked.

Emily immediately hit him harder.

Arthur lost several feet, his boots sliding backward across the mat. He recovered, dug in, and actually managed to stall her out right before she reached the back line.

When they switched, Arthur drove forward. Emily took the hit expecting to stop him easily and got driven back far enough that she had to reset her feet.

She laughed, resetting her stance. "Okay. Again."

Morwenna watched from another pair across the room without saying anything.

Later in the session, the partners rotated and Arthur got Felix.

Felix planted himself, and Arthur drove into the harness.

Felix barely moved.

Arthur adjusted his grip, lowered himself, and tried again. He got maybe an inch for the effort.

Felix looked unbearably pleased. "You’re never moving me."

Arthur looked down at Felix’s stomach.

Felix immediately looked offended. Arthur used the distraction to change his stance the way Morwenna had been teaching them, dropping his center of gravity and finally forcing Felix backward half a step.

"That didn’t count," Felix said.

Arthur ignored him and kept pushing.

Across the hall, Morwenna made Cedric restart a carry after catching him standing badly. Leon got sent back to the beginning of a lateral drill when he tried to muscle through it, while Alicia finished hers cleanly. Emily nearly launched a third-year out of the marked ring before Morwenna yelled at her to keep him inside it.

Near the end, Morwenna brought back the same grappling-ring exercise from their last session.

Arthur got two ordinary students first.

The first guy tried to rush him right off the whistle. Arthur stayed upright, sidestepped the momentum, and turned the guy cleanly out of the ring.

The second student was heavier and nearly dragged Arthur across the chalk before Arthur got his feet back under him. He fought the guy for another few seconds, turned him at the edge, and shoved him out instead.

Only when the second student stepped out of the ring did Arthur realize he hadn’t used a skill once.

Morwenna stayed outside the ring and watched.

When Morwenna finally blew the whistle to dismiss everyone, students started dragging themselves toward the changing rooms.

Emily grabbed her water bottle, noticed Arthur wasn’t following, and remembered.

"Oh. You’re staying."

Arthur looked toward Morwenna. "Apparently."

Emily wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt. "Dinner?"

"If I survive."

Emily nodded. "Fine."

She turned and headed for the doors. The hall gradually emptied out, leaving Arthur and Morwenna alone on the training floor.

Morwenna picked up one of the canvas bags and tossed it onto the equipment pile.

"How much stronger are you?"

Arthur lowered the bottle. "That’s what you kept me here to find out."

"Yes."

Arthur honestly didn’t know. Numbers were one thing; actually trying to stop Morwenna from throwing him around was another. Earlier in the year, she barely had to try. The last time they’d grappled, he’d at least made her work for it.

She pointed toward one of the weighted sleds near the wall. "Move it."

Arthur looked at the iron frame. "That’s your scientific method?"

"Move it, Vance."

Arthur got behind the sled and drove it across the floor, the metal runners scraping over the mat. He had barely reached the other side before Morwenna dropped another iron plate onto it.

Arthur pushed it back.

Another plate landed on top.

He looked at her. "You’re enjoying this."

Morwenna was already reaching for the next one. "Keep moving."

Arthur laughed, grabbed the bars again, and immediately regretted encouraging her.

By the next few passes, the joke had stopped being funny. Arthur’s shoes slipped whenever he drove too hard, his arms had started shaking, and every trip across the hall took longer than the last.

Morwenna barely looked at his face. She kept watching his feet and back, waiting for his form to fall apart.

On the sixth pass, Arthur got halfway across the room and stopped.

"Done?" Morwenna asked.

Arthur looked at her. That pissed him off enough to get his boots moving again, and forced the sled the rest of the way to the wall.

Once Arthur finished, he leaned against the wall and tried to get his breathing under control.

Morwenna picked up his water bottle and tossed it to him. "I read the Bracken report."

Arthur knew exactly which part she meant. The crawler that had gotten on top of him before he could make enough room for the bow.

"You survived," Morwenna noted.

"That usually is the goal."

Morwenna ignored him. "You got the crawler off you, but you wasted time trying to make room for the bow first."

Arthur took another drink.

"There wasn’t much room."

"Exactly."

Morwenna held out her right arm.

"Grip test. Wrist."

Arthur closed his hand around it.

Morwenna slipped out almost immediately.

Arthur frowned and caught her again. This time he tightened his grip before she turned, forcing her to work a little harder before her wrist slid free.

By the next try, he knew what she was looking for. The moment Morwenna started rotating her arm, Arthur shifted his hand with her and locked down. She couldn’t simply twist free this time; she had to step closer, drive her shoulder through the movement, and break his grip properly.

Morwenna flexed her wrist once.

"Again."

Arthur sighed and grabbed her wrist again.

Morwenna walked onto the center of the grappling mat.

"No skills. No mana reinforcement."

Arthur rolled his shoulders and followed her onto the mat.

Arthur had barely settled his stance when Morwenna caught his jacket and went straight for the same turning throw she’d used on him last time.

Arthur recognized it. He dropped his weight, stepped with her instead of against her, and stopped the throw dead.

He got just enough time to feel pleased with himself.

Morwenna changed her grip before Arthur could adjust and dumped him hard enough that he ended up staring at the ceiling lights.

"Still hate you."

"Get up," Morwenna said.

Arthur got up knowing the first throw was bait now. When Morwenna came in, he blocked the first grip. She tried to hook his leg, but he pulled it clear, got around her waist, and drove his weight forward.

Morwenna gave ground for two full steps before planting her back foot and twisting into him. Arthur nearly went over, caught himself with one hand against the mat, and shoved back before she could finish the throw.

They grabbed shirts and fought for position, boots scraping across the mat whenever one of them found enough room to drive forward. Arthur managed to keep his feet through one turn, forced Morwenna to reset on another, and started thinking he might actually have her.

That was when she caught him trying to overpower a bad angle and dumped him onto the floor again.

Arthur got up breathing hard. Morwenna wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist.

At least he wasn’t the only one working anymore.

On the third attempt, Arthur stopped trying to beat her technique with his own. He waited until she committed to moving his weight, and then he went with it. When Morwenna turned to throw him, Arthur stepped through instead of resisting, caught her balance moving in the wrong direction, and drove forward.

They went down together, Morwenna hitting the mat first. Arthur landed awkwardly across one of her arms and actually managed to hold her there before she twisted free, shoved him onto his side, and got back to her feet.

Arthur rolled onto his back, grinning. "That counts."

Morwenna offered him a hand.

"It counts."

Arthur grabbed his water again while Morwenna started putting the training straps away.

"At the start of the year, if something got inside your bow range, you were in trouble," she said.

Arthur drank. "Comforting."

"You still are." Morwenna continued before he could complain. "Just less trouble."

"Your strength isn’t the problem anymore," Morwenna said. "You can fight back now, and that’s making you stubborn."

Arthur frowned. "Meaning?"

"The crawler. Your first stab hit shell, and instead of getting clear, you tried to muscle it off."

"I still killed it."

"And it still clawed you."

"You don’t need to become Emily," Morwenna told him.

"Thank fuck."

"You need enough close-range work that reaching you stops being an automatic advantage."

Morwenna started gathering the loose training straps.

"Next week, you’re moving up for the resistance drills."

Arthur looked toward the corner where Felix usually trained. "That sounds worse."

"It is."

Arthur left the training hall after a long shower and arrived at the dining hall late.

Emily watched the careful way Arthur sat down. "Well?"

Arthur pulled food toward himself. "She spent the afternoon putting me on the floor."

Emily kept eating. "Sounds about right."

Arthur started filling his plate.

"I got her once."

That got Emily’s attention. She looked over properly. "Seriously?"

Arthur grinned. "About two seconds."

Emily laughed. "Still better than last time."

Dinner carried on. Felix wanted to know exactly what the advanced group entailed, Cedric ignored them because he had homework due in the morning, and Chloe arrived halfway through the meal. Arthur focused on eating because he was starving.

When Arthur got back to his room later that night, he opened his inventory and took the Necrotic Dagger out.

Arthur turned the Necrotic Dagger over once in his hand, then set it beside Whisperwind instead of putting it back into storage.

He left it there.