“AGAIN!” the voice shouted from the side. I rushed toward my opponent. He was a stocky man, nearly as wide as he was tall, with a shaved head and a mean, jagged scar over his forehead and down to his nose. I had a wooden club in my left hand, and a padded shield in my right. I swung the club so fast that the wind howled like a thunderclap had exploded next to me. My enemy suddenly stood a few inches farther away from me than I had thought, and my strike missed his ugly head. I braced myself as I felt the pommel of his wooden sword slide underneath my chin, and his right knee crash into the back of mine. The sky spun and the ground smacked into my back. My body was used to punishment, and the screams of pain coming from my spine quickly silenced.

“AGAIN!” the voice screamed. I jackknifed to my feet as my opponent stepped back, allowing me some room before I began my assault again. His face was full of cocky self-confidence. I wanted to wipe the smirk off of it. I repeated my earlier tactic and obtained the same result. This time he put considerable strength behind his takedown and I flipped a full circle, with my face breaking the fall. I pushed myself up and spit out a cup's worth of blood. The scarred-faced man cleared his throat and a wad of spit landed on my shoulder.

I was sure everyone heard my teeth grind together.

“AGAIN!”

I ran at the stocky man, swinging out the club in my left hand. I was aiming to take off his head, like I had the previous time, the time before that, and the three times before that.

Perhaps I was stubborn.

He stepped back. But instead of my earlier tactic, I let go of my mace about the time my arm approached center mass. It flew the required extra inches. The unpadded haft smashed into the man’s face and produced a shower of blood, teeth, and outraged shrieks. Then the side of my shield smacked straight into his neck, below his chin, but above the lump. I expected him to go down after that, but he didn’t. He swung his sword horizontally at my head so fast I saw only the motion of his arm and not the speed of the blade screaming through the air. Somehow I ducked underneath it and rushed him.

My shoulder met with his hip, and I grabbed the heel of his right leg with my free left hand at the same time that I lifted. He now had one leg to balance on, and I had produced enough momentum to tip him off kilter. He went down with a loud crash as my weight pushed his store of air out of his stomach.

I got a few elbows into his face before strong hands yanked me off of him. Struggling at this point would just make matters worse. I hoped I had killed him, or I’d have to watch my back during training. I groaned inwardly at myself. My temper had taken control of me and I would probably be punished now.

There were six of them holding me when I stopped struggling. They were all dressed in the same drab gray loose fitting pants and tunic. Our heads were shaved, exposing bruises, scars, and wounds that hadn’t healed yet today.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Elven approach. I didn’t remember his name, but he was the one in charge of our training. His voice was ingrained in my mind from the hundreds of times he screamed orders at us throughout the day. He stopped within grasping distance and looked me up and down, his cold gray eyes an odd complement to his silvery hair. If I wasn’t being held right now by my training mates, I would have reached out and snapped his neck. I wanted to slowly break every bone in his body and listen to him scream with each one. He turned to regard the man on the ground who was struggling to breathe through a broken face and collapsed windpipe. The Elven let out a long sigh.

“You almost killed my best slave.” He paused and inspected the ground. Then he bent down and tore off a single blade of grass that seemed to be growing higher than the rest. Our training grounds were perfectly manicured by dozens of human slaves each morning, and I suspected that my Elven trainer would complain to his counterpart that managed the gardeners.

“Idiot. You belong to me. I will decide whom you kill, whom you don’t kill, when you eat, what you eat, when you shit, and what you wipe your ass with. Do you understand, human?” He looked at me. I managed to hold my temper. I wanted to tell him that I would shit on his face and wipe my ass with his hair if my companions would let me go, but I did not want to die today.

Instead I just glared at him, which probably wasn’t much better than voicing my feelings.

In a slow, jerky motion his sword came out of his scabbard. He meant to make the thrust quick, but I could see it happening in agonizing slow motion. The tip of the blade separated the thin threads on my tunic and penetrated my belly, cutting through the muscle and stomach, and digging into my spine. If I wasn’t being held up, I might have dodged, taken the sword, and rammed it down his throat. As soon as the sword connected with the nerves my legs stopped working and I slumped in my companion’s grasp. I didn’t make a sound as I continued to glare at him.

“Take him and his training partner back to the bunk, then report back here. You will all train without food and sleep until they both join us again.” They groaned and two of them hoisted me up off the ground. We were all strong, and could lift almost ten times our bodyweight with ease. Only one of them needed to carry me, but they all accompanied me to the barracks.

Out of the prying eyes of our masters.

Where the real punishment would start.