There were no goodbyes, there were no adieus, and there were no farewells.
Everyone was just a little too peeved at the world to do so.
For his part, Niklaus wanted to eliminate the new High Council; he had put his hopes into the likes of Khalim and Maffer Dragonhand, and they had betrayed him, his father, and everyone who had fought for their cause.
Sasha wanted to eliminate Mephisto: it was at his behest that she fought in Hell's Civil War, and had been exiled to Sanctuary along with the Prime Evils. Andariel's appearance meant that she had sided with the Three again, exposing a ploy in which Sasha had merely played a part.
Sarah wanted a clear shot of the Council's emissaries who had sent those midget demons at her. If that meant she might end up taking potshots at the High Council, so much the better: she herself had been in support of the new council.
Ulfgar seemed universally not upset at anything; despite everything, even in the middle of pitched battle, he seemed at ease, and usually had a bawdy joke in reserve for the most inopportune moments.
Usually these bawdy jokes came in the middle of pitched battle (a rather inopportune moment, one might add), when one had to resist the temptation to groan in pain so that their opponents would not get a lucky shot in.
In truth, however, only Niklaus had to resist the urge to groan. Sarah, their Rogue companion, never seemed to smile, but only favored them with cool professionalism or at most dry sarcasm. During the near-constant conflicts in the wood, she only became increasingly cooler, drawing and releasing arrow after arrow into the foes that attacked them.
Niklaus had to appreciate the Rogue's skill with her bow. She was able to send arrows with frightening accuracy, passing them over Niklaus' shoulder to startle an enemy into blocking, opening him up for Niklaus to slip in a fatal thrust.
Although he appreciated the distraction to his foes, the constant stream of arrows whizzing by his ear was more than slightly disconcerting.
Coupled with the fact that Sarah wore a cloak with a long hood that she always pulled down *over her eyes* before shooting, Niklaus found his heart beat rise just a little more than absolutely necessary.
Yet her arrows went unerringly into their foes and not into her comrades, and Niklaus, however rattled, was beginning to accommodate the constant whiz of arrows around his him.
Something that all three noticed was the increase of aggressive animals in the wilds. While things like rabies were not unknown, a quill rat (usually coming up to mid-shin) that came up past the knee and sported two foot long quills and attacked as if possessed was somewhat unusual.
Add a propensity for forcibly expelling said quills towards...anyone...and it was enough to make them take a perturbed notice.
As if that were not enough, the landscape itself seemed to change, grow darker and more sinister. Night fell menacingly, and daylight seemed to fear the shadows it created.
As if to remedy its newfound phobia, the sun began hiding behind clouds, casting the land in perpetual grey tones.
Ulfgar constantly sniffed the air these days, and Sarah began retreating within the folds of her hood more often, and was rarely without a nocked arrow.
On the way to Kalladan, Sarah began instructing Niklaus on the ways of the bow and the finer points of its use. She taught in hushed, hurried tones, as if afraid of being overheard.
Niklaus had felt the same sense of dread creeping into the land that had forced Sarah under her hood, but expected practical, hands-on teaching. On the contrary, his education involved extended periods of sitting on his behind listening to bullfrogs croak and a stream trickle over pebbles. While Sarah whispered seeming nonsense into his ears.
It was maddening.
With his eyes closed, Niklaus could hear much better, but with the approaching darkness, he was fairly confident that he much preferred seeing his surroundings and telling definitively what was around him. Instead, with his eyes closed, he found himself imagining what was around him, and found these fantasies much more disturbing than reality.
Sarah never told him what the purpose of this exercise was, and so he was left to sitting in various weather (usually cloudy, but increasingly rainy days) feeling his sore behind, wet head, and growing agitation.
It was the priests and monks who sat in true meditation, learning the mental discipline necessary to summon forth raw holy energy and vanquish foes without the use of a sword.
Paladin, by contrast, prayed to Heaven to bless them and that was about it; hence, meditation was really only a means to an end.
Thus Niklaus was only mentally disciplined enough to get from one undead to the next, and it required the kind of discipline brought on through physical exertion.
Right now, the only thing exerting anything was his butt so that it wouldn't fall asleep.
Additionally, Sasha was completely unused to any kind of discipline, be it physical or mental, and she was rapidly developing caged animal syndrome.
Or perhaps "raBidly developing caged animal syndrome" might be more appropriate. Regardless, she was less than silent at expressing her displeasure.
As a result, Niklaus found himself being driven to distraction on three fronts, by Sasha's constant caginess, Sarah's constant nonsensical speeches, and his own impatience with the whole process.
He had been under the distinct impression that he was learning to shoot a bow, and not learning to sit on his ass in the cold worrying about what was over his shoulder.
Sarah noticed that Niklaus was having trouble concentrating. Without a word, she rose to her feet. From behind her, she drew a short rapier and aimed it at Niklaus. Bewildered, he stood and drew his own sword.
"Use whatever skill you have at your disposal, and attack."
"Finally!" Sasha screamed, and the Aura of the Fanatic bloomed around Niklaus as Sasha vented her frustration at the prolonged inactivity.
Sarah was extraordinarily unperturbed. She merely pulled her hood down at the fury of the Aura.
Niklaus slashed in, trying to pull his punches, but Sarah darted out and back in, and Niklaus found himself nicked across the stomach. Sasha screamed in rage and Niklaus tried something a little more complicated.
Sarah passed through a weaving Silence as if she was fog and Niklaus sported another scratch.
And another.
And another.
By now Niklaus stopped pulling his shots, and they strove against each other in earnest.
Rather, Niklaus strove; Sarah simply ducked, wove through his attacks, and nicked him again and again.
Niklaus braced and Silence twitched, yet while demonic foes may have at one time fell in scores from this strike, Niklaus slashed only air.
By now Niklaus was trying every parry and counter he knew (which was rather extensive) and yet despite it all, Sarah would simply dart around him as if he were a novice and nicked him time and time again.
Desperate to score a touch somehow, he launched into a full Charge, planning to pin Sarah against a tree.
It was wholly fortunate that he was able to stop after the first stride, for Sarah's point placed itself in front of his Adam's apple and didn't waver.
Even Sasha was stunned out of her BloodLust as Niklaus saw his reflection in the polished steel of Sarah's blade.
"And what did we learn?" Sarah inquired.
Niklaus responded with a well-thought-out raised eyebrow.
Suspiciously, it looked very much like a stunned and baffled raised eyebrow, but with a rapier blade at his throat, if she had interpreted it as Niklaus had a painful venereal disease he would have let it slide.
Interpreting (correctly) that he couldn't figure out how her blade was a hairs width from a vital body part, she stepped away and sheathed her sword.
"Firing a bow is simple, all things considered. Even the Amazons on Philios can fire a bow with decent skill, although their strength requires prayers to their gods.
"Paladin ignite Auras through prayers to Heaven, and even the Northmen pray to their ancestors before going into battle. Watch Ulfgar next time and see if he doesn't.
"The sisterhood prays to the Sightless Eye, yes, but, importantly, all sisters have their own Eye that sees far better those squishy things in your face. That is the technique taught to the Rangers: how to see without sight.
"In fact, some of our sisters will go so far as to stare at the sun to blind their eyes, so that they may open their Eye even further. It's effective, although far from required."
Niklaus stared.
Sasha stared.
They (mentally) stared at each other for a minute.
Sarah waited patiently while the staring went on, and dumbly, Niklaus sat back down. She smiled.
Now he was ready.
-------------
The training went on as they continued their journey towards Kalladan. While Niklaus and even Sasha bent their minds to understanding how the Sightless Eye worked, they found the entire process extremely vexing.
Niklaus exploded out of his sitting place once again. He simply couldn't get it!
Sarah sighed. Her student was earnest, it couldn't be denied, and even showed a slowly emerging Eye.
However, she had marked faster progress from a corpse in rigor mortis. For some reason, he just wasn't getting it.
All of the Rangers who had come to her had been impatient, as this one was, convinced of their own superiority. The sparring match had proven just as effective then as now.
But while her other students had achieved success, he just wasn't getting it.
Sarah blew an irritated sigh, and determined that another approach should suffice.
Namely, she and Ulfgar would hunt him.
As in try to kill him.
And he couldn't ignite any Auras, for Sarah feared that to do so would attract the attention of any neighboring demons.
Sasha found that ironically funny.
And so Niklaus found himself alone, armed only with Silence, in a strange countryside, with demons afoot, one friend and one teacher hunting him specifically.
"Joy," Sasha said as unjoyfully as possible.
They stood in silence, listening intently to the forest.
"Well, at least if we're going to die, you probably won't have to worry about your soul," Sasha said cheerlessly.
Niklaus started coldly at that. He was responsible to Sasha on that count, and couldn't just let her die.
With nothing better to do, Niklaus sat back down and tried to meditate. He was to the point where he could sit and not get a sore butt anymore, for all the good it did him.
It would make a good epitaph: He could sit on his ass for hours. Too bad the demons wiping him off their feet didn't care.
That might have been too long for an epitaph, though. Maybe: Look! I can sit! *Squish.*
Niklaus cleared his head. Thinking like that sure wouldn't help much.
"'Cos sitting around with a blank expression is so much more productive," Sasha interjected.
She wasn't helping much either, for that matter.
"Well, I'm sorry, but this shit bores the Hells out of me. And that's saying something! Why don't we get off our ass and hunt the hunters? It'd sure spice up the game a little."
"The purpose of the exercise is to survive what would be a sneak attack."
"But you know they're coming!"
"It's a good idea to assume that you're always subject to attack."
"If you're always subject to an attack, go out and blast the shit out of the attacker!"
"That would be messy. And unhygenic."
"'Never stopped me."
Tuning Sasha out, Niklaus fell into a meditative trance. Honestly, he could sympathize with Sasha; he didn't like the idea of being hunted by his own companions.
However, he felt that if he was going up against the High Council, he would need every ability he could muster, and if Sarah could teach him about the Sightless Eye, so much the better.
As before, he reflected on the things that Sarah had said to him. A lot of it hadn't made sense; every once in a while, however, something would come out that would be familiar.
At one point she had mentioned the rhythm of combat, and likened it to a dance. Niklaus was familiar with the simile, but had found that in battle, dancing was slightly out of place; there was only room for hacking and chopping.
Dancing was usually reserved for one-on-one combat, and a soldier rarely went one-on-one.
Nevertheless, he meditated on Sarah's seemingly nonsense rambles. As he recalled Sarah's voice, it lulled him further into a trance; his senses simultaneously dulled and sharpened to his surroundings. He heard the forest around him, with the various hoots and snuffles of its inhabitants as they went about their daily lives.
He heard other things as well: in the distance, he heard the distant wail of something sinister, something not of Sanctuary.
Or worse, something that had once been of this world, twisted beyond recognition by the unnamed dread they all felt.
Fortunately, nothing happened for a while except for the occasional breeze that blowed through the clearing. He heard the wind brush by the trees, rustle the leaves and pass by Sarahs' booted calf.
Wait just a damn minute! Sarah's booted calf?! Yes, it was Sarah's, he could see the red leather that marked her as a Sister.
With closed eyes?!
In that moment, Niklaus engaged in the greatest fight in his life: to keep his eyes closed.
Somehow, he knew that Ulfgar was poised behind him. He knew that Ulfgar had concealed himself and Niklaus couldn't have spotted him. Ulfgar had two knives pulled, holding them in one hand. He knew that Ulfgar could throw both knives accurately, and that Ulfgar had aimed for him.
Sarah moved.
Ulfgar winced, then moved.
Niklaus didn't move. Something told him to not move, to stay put, even though certain death bore down on him.
Something within.
It wasn't Sasha, though: she was screaming at him to get his shiny ass out of the way.
He heard the clang of intercepting objects, and knew that it was a knife and an arrow intersecting neatly and flying safely away.
In fact, the arrow and the knife met a handbreadth behind Niklaus' ear, and the missiles went their separate ways, missing Niklaus entirely.
Then Niklaus moved.
Silence flashed in the stillness as Niklaus drove into the brush ahead of him. Niklaus felt Silence stab through flesh, and the quill rat that was stalking him twitched spasmodically in its death throes.
Sarah and Ulfgar stepped out of concealment as Niklaus cleaned the blade and presented their next meal.
"You just died," Sarah stated, as cool as ever.
"You just missed," Niklaus replied.
"Oh? And how did you discern that?" Sarah inquired even cooler.
"I saw you aim away."
Sarah and Niklaus regarded each other coolly for a minute before Sarah nodded in cool approval.
"For just a moment, your Eye opened. Now let's work on getting it to stay open, shall we?"
After that, the lessons came easier. Niklaus found himself able to fend off Sarah and Ulfgar at the same time, without anyone pulling their punches. The three of them began training in earnest, readying themselves for the fight they knew was coming.
-----------------
A month later, a roving band of thieves made their arrogant way across the port of Kalladan. Few dared to cross their path, as they were responsible for a fair share of murders, never leaving enough evidence for the authorities to lay the blame on them.
They had spent the better part of the night pulling aside drunken travellers who made their bleary way from tavern to inn, and had made a rather profitable night.
They were about to turn in for the night when they saw the perfect hit: a lone man (wealthy too, for the sword they saw protruding from his cape) and a deep hood. The man staggered down a dark alley, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he tried to navigate the alcoholic fog.
Apparantly, the fog was thicker than a stew.
With a collective grin, the thieves made their way towards the staggering sod.
The two strongest made their way directly behind the drunk and prepared to strike him down with their clubs.
They were promptly struck down with their clubs.
Niklaus smiled confidently, and closed his eyes to ~see~ the thugs bear down on him.
He felt them approach, heard their footsteps appear. They are almost close enough...
The swordsman reeled as a giant fist slammed into his face, knocking him back and stunning him.
Quickly, Sasha lit the Aura of Frost and the thugs found themselves suffering from a sudden case of midsummer's hypothermia, a very rare and confusing condition.
Three went down from severe frostbite and the rest of the thieves decided to cut their losses and run.
Ulfgar and Sarah stepped out of the shadows to evaluate his work. Ulfgar looked visibly impressed with Sasha's Aura.
Sarah was less so.
"You're getting better, but your previous training is interfering with your Eye," she said critically, "you're still having trouble using it successfully. Obviously."
Niklaus looked downcast. Sarah grabbed his chin and forced his eyes upwards.
"Look at it this way, you're progressing."
The three of them vanished into a genuine fog to seek an inn for the evening before making their way to Lut Gholein.
Everyone was just a little too peeved at the world to do so.
For his part, Niklaus wanted to eliminate the new High Council; he had put his hopes into the likes of Khalim and Maffer Dragonhand, and they had betrayed him, his father, and everyone who had fought for their cause.
Sasha wanted to eliminate Mephisto: it was at his behest that she fought in Hell's Civil War, and had been exiled to Sanctuary along with the Prime Evils. Andariel's appearance meant that she had sided with the Three again, exposing a ploy in which Sasha had merely played a part.
Sarah wanted a clear shot of the Council's emissaries who had sent those midget demons at her. If that meant she might end up taking potshots at the High Council, so much the better: she herself had been in support of the new council.
Ulfgar seemed universally not upset at anything; despite everything, even in the middle of pitched battle, he seemed at ease, and usually had a bawdy joke in reserve for the most inopportune moments.
Usually these bawdy jokes came in the middle of pitched battle (a rather inopportune moment, one might add), when one had to resist the temptation to groan in pain so that their opponents would not get a lucky shot in.
In truth, however, only Niklaus had to resist the urge to groan. Sarah, their Rogue companion, never seemed to smile, but only favored them with cool professionalism or at most dry sarcasm. During the near-constant conflicts in the wood, she only became increasingly cooler, drawing and releasing arrow after arrow into the foes that attacked them.
Niklaus had to appreciate the Rogue's skill with her bow. She was able to send arrows with frightening accuracy, passing them over Niklaus' shoulder to startle an enemy into blocking, opening him up for Niklaus to slip in a fatal thrust.
Although he appreciated the distraction to his foes, the constant stream of arrows whizzing by his ear was more than slightly disconcerting.
Coupled with the fact that Sarah wore a cloak with a long hood that she always pulled down *over her eyes* before shooting, Niklaus found his heart beat rise just a little more than absolutely necessary.
Yet her arrows went unerringly into their foes and not into her comrades, and Niklaus, however rattled, was beginning to accommodate the constant whiz of arrows around his him.
Something that all three noticed was the increase of aggressive animals in the wilds. While things like rabies were not unknown, a quill rat (usually coming up to mid-shin) that came up past the knee and sported two foot long quills and attacked as if possessed was somewhat unusual.
Add a propensity for forcibly expelling said quills towards...anyone...and it was enough to make them take a perturbed notice.
As if that were not enough, the landscape itself seemed to change, grow darker and more sinister. Night fell menacingly, and daylight seemed to fear the shadows it created.
As if to remedy its newfound phobia, the sun began hiding behind clouds, casting the land in perpetual grey tones.
Ulfgar constantly sniffed the air these days, and Sarah began retreating within the folds of her hood more often, and was rarely without a nocked arrow.
On the way to Kalladan, Sarah began instructing Niklaus on the ways of the bow and the finer points of its use. She taught in hushed, hurried tones, as if afraid of being overheard.
Niklaus had felt the same sense of dread creeping into the land that had forced Sarah under her hood, but expected practical, hands-on teaching. On the contrary, his education involved extended periods of sitting on his behind listening to bullfrogs croak and a stream trickle over pebbles. While Sarah whispered seeming nonsense into his ears.
It was maddening.
With his eyes closed, Niklaus could hear much better, but with the approaching darkness, he was fairly confident that he much preferred seeing his surroundings and telling definitively what was around him. Instead, with his eyes closed, he found himself imagining what was around him, and found these fantasies much more disturbing than reality.
Sarah never told him what the purpose of this exercise was, and so he was left to sitting in various weather (usually cloudy, but increasingly rainy days) feeling his sore behind, wet head, and growing agitation.
It was the priests and monks who sat in true meditation, learning the mental discipline necessary to summon forth raw holy energy and vanquish foes without the use of a sword.
Paladin, by contrast, prayed to Heaven to bless them and that was about it; hence, meditation was really only a means to an end.
Thus Niklaus was only mentally disciplined enough to get from one undead to the next, and it required the kind of discipline brought on through physical exertion.
Right now, the only thing exerting anything was his butt so that it wouldn't fall asleep.
Additionally, Sasha was completely unused to any kind of discipline, be it physical or mental, and she was rapidly developing caged animal syndrome.
Or perhaps "raBidly developing caged animal syndrome" might be more appropriate. Regardless, she was less than silent at expressing her displeasure.
As a result, Niklaus found himself being driven to distraction on three fronts, by Sasha's constant caginess, Sarah's constant nonsensical speeches, and his own impatience with the whole process.
He had been under the distinct impression that he was learning to shoot a bow, and not learning to sit on his ass in the cold worrying about what was over his shoulder.
Sarah noticed that Niklaus was having trouble concentrating. Without a word, she rose to her feet. From behind her, she drew a short rapier and aimed it at Niklaus. Bewildered, he stood and drew his own sword.
"Use whatever skill you have at your disposal, and attack."
"Finally!" Sasha screamed, and the Aura of the Fanatic bloomed around Niklaus as Sasha vented her frustration at the prolonged inactivity.
Sarah was extraordinarily unperturbed. She merely pulled her hood down at the fury of the Aura.
Niklaus slashed in, trying to pull his punches, but Sarah darted out and back in, and Niklaus found himself nicked across the stomach. Sasha screamed in rage and Niklaus tried something a little more complicated.
Sarah passed through a weaving Silence as if she was fog and Niklaus sported another scratch.
And another.
And another.
By now Niklaus stopped pulling his shots, and they strove against each other in earnest.
Rather, Niklaus strove; Sarah simply ducked, wove through his attacks, and nicked him again and again.
Niklaus braced and Silence twitched, yet while demonic foes may have at one time fell in scores from this strike, Niklaus slashed only air.
By now Niklaus was trying every parry and counter he knew (which was rather extensive) and yet despite it all, Sarah would simply dart around him as if he were a novice and nicked him time and time again.
Desperate to score a touch somehow, he launched into a full Charge, planning to pin Sarah against a tree.
It was wholly fortunate that he was able to stop after the first stride, for Sarah's point placed itself in front of his Adam's apple and didn't waver.
Even Sasha was stunned out of her BloodLust as Niklaus saw his reflection in the polished steel of Sarah's blade.
"And what did we learn?" Sarah inquired.
Niklaus responded with a well-thought-out raised eyebrow.
Suspiciously, it looked very much like a stunned and baffled raised eyebrow, but with a rapier blade at his throat, if she had interpreted it as Niklaus had a painful venereal disease he would have let it slide.
Interpreting (correctly) that he couldn't figure out how her blade was a hairs width from a vital body part, she stepped away and sheathed her sword.
"Firing a bow is simple, all things considered. Even the Amazons on Philios can fire a bow with decent skill, although their strength requires prayers to their gods.
"Paladin ignite Auras through prayers to Heaven, and even the Northmen pray to their ancestors before going into battle. Watch Ulfgar next time and see if he doesn't.
"The sisterhood prays to the Sightless Eye, yes, but, importantly, all sisters have their own Eye that sees far better those squishy things in your face. That is the technique taught to the Rangers: how to see without sight.
"In fact, some of our sisters will go so far as to stare at the sun to blind their eyes, so that they may open their Eye even further. It's effective, although far from required."
Niklaus stared.
Sasha stared.
They (mentally) stared at each other for a minute.
Sarah waited patiently while the staring went on, and dumbly, Niklaus sat back down. She smiled.
Now he was ready.
-------------
The training went on as they continued their journey towards Kalladan. While Niklaus and even Sasha bent their minds to understanding how the Sightless Eye worked, they found the entire process extremely vexing.
Niklaus exploded out of his sitting place once again. He simply couldn't get it!
Sarah sighed. Her student was earnest, it couldn't be denied, and even showed a slowly emerging Eye.
However, she had marked faster progress from a corpse in rigor mortis. For some reason, he just wasn't getting it.
All of the Rangers who had come to her had been impatient, as this one was, convinced of their own superiority. The sparring match had proven just as effective then as now.
But while her other students had achieved success, he just wasn't getting it.
Sarah blew an irritated sigh, and determined that another approach should suffice.
Namely, she and Ulfgar would hunt him.
As in try to kill him.
And he couldn't ignite any Auras, for Sarah feared that to do so would attract the attention of any neighboring demons.
Sasha found that ironically funny.
And so Niklaus found himself alone, armed only with Silence, in a strange countryside, with demons afoot, one friend and one teacher hunting him specifically.
"Joy," Sasha said as unjoyfully as possible.
They stood in silence, listening intently to the forest.
"Well, at least if we're going to die, you probably won't have to worry about your soul," Sasha said cheerlessly.
Niklaus started coldly at that. He was responsible to Sasha on that count, and couldn't just let her die.
With nothing better to do, Niklaus sat back down and tried to meditate. He was to the point where he could sit and not get a sore butt anymore, for all the good it did him.
It would make a good epitaph: He could sit on his ass for hours. Too bad the demons wiping him off their feet didn't care.
That might have been too long for an epitaph, though. Maybe: Look! I can sit! *Squish.*
Niklaus cleared his head. Thinking like that sure wouldn't help much.
"'Cos sitting around with a blank expression is so much more productive," Sasha interjected.
She wasn't helping much either, for that matter.
"Well, I'm sorry, but this shit bores the Hells out of me. And that's saying something! Why don't we get off our ass and hunt the hunters? It'd sure spice up the game a little."
"The purpose of the exercise is to survive what would be a sneak attack."
"But you know they're coming!"
"It's a good idea to assume that you're always subject to attack."
"If you're always subject to an attack, go out and blast the shit out of the attacker!"
"That would be messy. And unhygenic."
"'Never stopped me."
Tuning Sasha out, Niklaus fell into a meditative trance. Honestly, he could sympathize with Sasha; he didn't like the idea of being hunted by his own companions.
However, he felt that if he was going up against the High Council, he would need every ability he could muster, and if Sarah could teach him about the Sightless Eye, so much the better.
As before, he reflected on the things that Sarah had said to him. A lot of it hadn't made sense; every once in a while, however, something would come out that would be familiar.
At one point she had mentioned the rhythm of combat, and likened it to a dance. Niklaus was familiar with the simile, but had found that in battle, dancing was slightly out of place; there was only room for hacking and chopping.
Dancing was usually reserved for one-on-one combat, and a soldier rarely went one-on-one.
Nevertheless, he meditated on Sarah's seemingly nonsense rambles. As he recalled Sarah's voice, it lulled him further into a trance; his senses simultaneously dulled and sharpened to his surroundings. He heard the forest around him, with the various hoots and snuffles of its inhabitants as they went about their daily lives.
He heard other things as well: in the distance, he heard the distant wail of something sinister, something not of Sanctuary.
Or worse, something that had once been of this world, twisted beyond recognition by the unnamed dread they all felt.
Fortunately, nothing happened for a while except for the occasional breeze that blowed through the clearing. He heard the wind brush by the trees, rustle the leaves and pass by Sarahs' booted calf.
Wait just a damn minute! Sarah's booted calf?! Yes, it was Sarah's, he could see the red leather that marked her as a Sister.
With closed eyes?!
In that moment, Niklaus engaged in the greatest fight in his life: to keep his eyes closed.
Somehow, he knew that Ulfgar was poised behind him. He knew that Ulfgar had concealed himself and Niklaus couldn't have spotted him. Ulfgar had two knives pulled, holding them in one hand. He knew that Ulfgar could throw both knives accurately, and that Ulfgar had aimed for him.
Sarah moved.
Ulfgar winced, then moved.
Niklaus didn't move. Something told him to not move, to stay put, even though certain death bore down on him.
Something within.
It wasn't Sasha, though: she was screaming at him to get his shiny ass out of the way.
He heard the clang of intercepting objects, and knew that it was a knife and an arrow intersecting neatly and flying safely away.
In fact, the arrow and the knife met a handbreadth behind Niklaus' ear, and the missiles went their separate ways, missing Niklaus entirely.
Then Niklaus moved.
Silence flashed in the stillness as Niklaus drove into the brush ahead of him. Niklaus felt Silence stab through flesh, and the quill rat that was stalking him twitched spasmodically in its death throes.
Sarah and Ulfgar stepped out of concealment as Niklaus cleaned the blade and presented their next meal.
"You just died," Sarah stated, as cool as ever.
"You just missed," Niklaus replied.
"Oh? And how did you discern that?" Sarah inquired even cooler.
"I saw you aim away."
Sarah and Niklaus regarded each other coolly for a minute before Sarah nodded in cool approval.
"For just a moment, your Eye opened. Now let's work on getting it to stay open, shall we?"
After that, the lessons came easier. Niklaus found himself able to fend off Sarah and Ulfgar at the same time, without anyone pulling their punches. The three of them began training in earnest, readying themselves for the fight they knew was coming.
-----------------
A month later, a roving band of thieves made their arrogant way across the port of Kalladan. Few dared to cross their path, as they were responsible for a fair share of murders, never leaving enough evidence for the authorities to lay the blame on them.
They had spent the better part of the night pulling aside drunken travellers who made their bleary way from tavern to inn, and had made a rather profitable night.
They were about to turn in for the night when they saw the perfect hit: a lone man (wealthy too, for the sword they saw protruding from his cape) and a deep hood. The man staggered down a dark alley, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he tried to navigate the alcoholic fog.
Apparantly, the fog was thicker than a stew.
With a collective grin, the thieves made their way towards the staggering sod.
The two strongest made their way directly behind the drunk and prepared to strike him down with their clubs.
They were promptly struck down with their clubs.
Niklaus smiled confidently, and closed his eyes to ~see~ the thugs bear down on him.
He felt them approach, heard their footsteps appear. They are almost close enough...
The swordsman reeled as a giant fist slammed into his face, knocking him back and stunning him.
Quickly, Sasha lit the Aura of Frost and the thugs found themselves suffering from a sudden case of midsummer's hypothermia, a very rare and confusing condition.
Three went down from severe frostbite and the rest of the thieves decided to cut their losses and run.
Ulfgar and Sarah stepped out of the shadows to evaluate his work. Ulfgar looked visibly impressed with Sasha's Aura.
Sarah was less so.
"You're getting better, but your previous training is interfering with your Eye," she said critically, "you're still having trouble using it successfully. Obviously."
Niklaus looked downcast. Sarah grabbed his chin and forced his eyes upwards.
"Look at it this way, you're progressing."
The three of them vanished into a genuine fog to seek an inn for the evening before making their way to Lut Gholein.