(Sorry it took a while, but I've been a little busy.)
The armour worn by Sarafan, despite being thick and chunky, was almost as light as a feather. The chain mail weight considerably more and at first Ewoden didn't think he'd been able to even stand up. Eventually, he got used to the pull on his muscles and found he could move around quite easily in it. The armoury of the Stronghold was a large room, the walls lined with shields and rows upon rows of swords, pikes and other cruel looking weaponry. A corridor lead out of the room on the far hand side, a Sarafan knight standing in the entrance way on guard. A number of the bald sorceress', who Ewoden was still not used to seeing stood around the outside of the room.
Ewoden's group stood directly in the centre, admiring the handy work made by a smith on an impressive looking suit of armour that stood on a small pedestal in the centre of the room. It resembled Malek's armour, but had larger bracers attached to the cuffs. Malek himself was with them, momentarily giving an expert eye to the craft man ship of one of the Sarafan swords, looking up and down the white blade carefully.
After a bath, which was another thing Ewoden was new two, the Sarafan women had given them new clothes in exchange for the dirty rag's they been wearing before hand and then herded them into the armour, were servants measured them up and gave them new fitting suits of armour.
Ewoden found himself looking over his new helmet continuously. He had a steal mask over the mouth and nose, and a metal rim just above the eyes forming a visor not unlike Malek's. He hadn't put it on yet, but he decided to refrain from doing so until he was in training. His armour, excluding the helmet, consisted of the robes he wore under the blood red chain mail, the chain mail itself and the armoured plates over his chest, thighs and cuffs. The bracers of both arms was thick and made of some alloy that he couldn't place. A gold highlight ran along the outside edge of the silver metal plates, engraved with small runes.
Ewoden couldn't put the felling into words as he looked himself over, for the first time in his entire life, he felt powerful. There was probably no other word to use, the armour made him look so much like the guards in the mines that he couldn't help feeling elevated above all those Meobius had not withdraw from Willendorf.
Malek had said nothing since they arrived in the armoury, he stood there, examining the swords of display keenly with an expert eye. When he got to the end of the row of blade, he picked up the last one and held the hilt tightly in both hands, the sword seemed to shine in the light.
Without warning, he swung around and smashed the sword against the wall, the noise tearing through the room, heralding an astonished silence. Crakes like delicate lines in spider's webs ran across the blade's length before it shattered and transformed into a shower of white shards. Malek held up the broken hilt, before he made an unimpressed sound and tossed it over his shoulder.
"Sorceress, have the black smith responsible for these low grade weapons decapitated."
The leader of the Sarafan army was a psychotic maniac.
"We'll have to start with archery then." He added, reaching for a bow made from bone marrow and a sack full of arrows, lined with feathers from eagles. As he made for the door, he made a gesture with his right hand and imminently, the Sarafan women began handing out Bows and several arrows to the stunned new recruits. Ewoden took his almost in a daze, his eyes still fixed on Malek as he marched out into the courtyard. Once they all armed, the sorceress' herded them outside. They quickly formed into a silent line behind Malek, who had his back to them. The courtyard was a section of land on the other side of the stronghold from the lake, closed off by a large wall that ran around in a oval from the right hand side of the Stronghold to the other. A large set of gates, leading to a trail through the forests was on the far side. Several sets of targets, each one a stuffed sack dummy hung from gallows like structures made from wood stood at alternating distances away. The air was cold and the wind whipped at there faces; Ewoden, who was no expert in archery could tell that this was no fine weather for the practice. The wind would simply blow the arrow off course
Malek shoved the blunt end of his large pike into the ground so e hand a free hand and within seconds, had an arrow flying through the air toward the nearest target. It slipped through the sack, embedding itself directly in the chest of the dummy, defying the wind, who howled in protest. "When you shoot a vampire, hitting in the arm or leg isn't going to do diddly squat." Malek explained. "You want to take them down, it has to be a kill shot first time, either in the heart or in the brain." He turned around and pointed toward the recruit standing next to Ewoden. "You, up here." The young man, who was probably only a few years younger than Ewoden himself stammered for a moment before obeying. "Let's see I you can hit the head." He added, gesturing toward the dummy with the arrow in it's chest. Rather clumsily, the boy raised the bow, the arrow's feathers clenched tightly in the tights of a fist around the string. When he left go, the arrow shot forward, but then slammed directly into the earth a few feet away.
Malek, who did not seem impressed, smacked him on the back of the head and told him to take his retake his place. "Come on then, you." Ewoden nearly breathing when the Sarafan general pointed directly at him. He didn't make the mistake of loosing his composure and quickly stepped up. He'd seen archers shoot before so he knew the pose. It was back when he was about ten, one of the slaves had tired to escape, but one of the guards, an exceptional archery put an arrow in his back. He held the bow forward, the first two fingers of his left hand clutched around it, the rest giving support to the thumb.
Whimpering slightly, he proceeded to put an arrow on top of his forefinger, resting the arrow end against the string and then gently pulling back until he could fell the tension build up, the point on the arrow nearly resting on his flesh. He closed on eye, lining the tip of the arrow up with the area, roughly, where he thought a kill shot to the head might take place.
With a roar he released and the arrow soared forward. To his disappointment however, it swerved slightly thanks to a gust of wind and embedded itself in the neck. Ewoden paused, waiting for the smack on the back of the head. Instead, Malek simply grumbled something and said that it wasn't a too bad attempt.
After that, the recruits lined up in rows of three and on Malek's order, they fired at the target. It continued on for a good few hours and it was probably sometime into the evening when Ewoden felt he had acquired mediocre skills with a marksman type weapon. He'd hit the heart of the first target several times, and on one occasion, although he put that down to luck more than anything else, managed to put an arrow through the head of another target that was at least a good few hundred feet away. When Malek finally called a end to the training, the field was littered with arrows. Very few had, apart from Ewoden and some others had actually hit the target. Malek was not extremely annoyed and so no one dared to say anything as they went to retrieve the arrows.
Malek was about to reenter the armoury when he felt something. It was avery familiar sort of feeling, one he'd felt before countless times. He shuddered, retracing his steps quickly, pulling his pike up. He clasped his weapon in both hands, waiting slightly. The new recruits didn't pay much attention to him as they putt the arrows back into the sacks, lightly chatting to themselves. Suddenly, the air itself seemed to be imbued with it's own will power, forcing Malek down onto the ground with a blast of white energy. Confusion instantly ensued, chaos reigning as panic gripped them all as one by one they where all floored by some invisible enemy. Ewoden luckily had been pushed over by some other recruit was so whatever was doing this missed him.
Then, a soft laugher echoed through the air and suddenly a strange, green figure emerged from the shadow, standing directly on top of the wall surrounding the courtyard.
"You!" Malek growled, forging himself to his feet. Staring at the green skinned figure, who simply stared back with a defiant grin. "First of Audron's scum!"
"Nice to see you again too Malek." He chuckled, before looking past the angry Sarafan commander toward the group behind him, who were standing around dumbfounded. "You must be jesting me." The vampire reared back his head and laughed. "These school boys are the Sarafan's new recruits?" Suddenly, Ewoden realized who their mysterious vampire visitor was. The green skin, bat like ears and spikes of green hair on both sides of the chin. Yellow piercing eyes. Even down in the mines, the slaves knew of this being. Vorador, one of the oldest vampires in Nosgoth and the first human to be turned by the titan Janos Audron. "Standards have slipped." Malek tore his pike up from the ground and with a battle cry charged toward him, preparing to slice the vampire down the middle with the blade. Vorador simple grinned, side stepping to avoid the slash, before dealing the Sarafan knight a kick to the ribs.
Both fell down to the floor and at once a vicious fight ensued. Malek wielded his pike with skill the likes of which Ewoden could only stand in awe at, the speed, the agility and focused power was incredible, but it wasn't enough to combat Vorador's speed, which allowed him to slip through Malek's melee.
Finally, Vorador finished the battle by head butting the Sarafan leader, forcing him down onto his backside. He grinned, before jumped to the side, grabbing one of the nearest new recruits and effortlessly tearing his head off. Ewoden was transfixed in horror, he'd seen blood before and did not consider himself at all squeamish, but he left his stomach turn itself inside out at the fountain was pouring from the now headless body, the head itself now half hidden in the grass. The others seemed to back away in terror, some screaming despite of themselves. Vorador seemed amused by the death, the terror and horror he was forcing on them. He quickly sipped some blood from the corpse, before tossing it nimbly into Malek, knocking him down again.
"I look forward to seeing the rest of you fools on the end of the blade." He said with a blood ridden smile, before leaping backward onto the wall and then backwards again in the evening darkness.
"Come back here you bastard!" Malek roared, his armour covered in blood, shoving the dead body off him.
Ewoden was detached from the world. The gore of what had just happened hadn't sunk in, and the chaos around him seemed dulled and far. He was no stranger to death, he had seen many a man die in the mines, but never like that. There was something, almost poetic about the way the vampire dispatched his victim. He did it with such ease, even while his attention was else ware, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him.
Meobius watched with disapproval as Malek stamped around yelling curses in unmatched rage from the window of his personal chambers. "Idiot." He muttered, turning away.