Flaming Hawk and Silver Sword(Cain Ddraiglyn's arrival and Soldier training)

[Sylvirci]

Cain walked quietly through the streets of Tear and noticed that people who saw him kept the heads down. Do they fear us still, even after the amnesty? He thought worriedly to himself. He continued to walk through the crowd for a while and finally asked where men seeking the amnesty were suppose to go. A young boy who looked like he had fallen upon hard times offered to lead him for a silver penny. So Cain flipped the boy one of his few remaining silver pennies and followed the boy.

 

The boy lead him through the city but he didn’t really pay attention until they stood before two men dressed in long black coats. One had a silver sword in his collar and the other had the sword and a red and gold dragon on the other collar. Seeing the military bearing of these two men he grew bold and announced his channeling of fire and his wish to accept the amnesty as well as his desire to learn to control it.

 

From there it was a rush of a portal opening and going through it. The hustle into a building used to house the Soldiers being trained to wield Saidin. The explaining of how and when he had channeled. Finally the learning to call it at will. That was the hardest as he had already started forming a block. He learned that at first he had to be totally relaxed to use the Power, but over the course of a week he managed to break it. He channeled while he grew increasingly angry with not being allowed to eat hot food unless he cooked it with Saidin, couldn’t do his chores unless he channeled them done and being yelled at constantly if he failed.

 

It was rough during the first few weeks and he came close to burning out once. It was the day before he received his silver sword pin. He honestly thought he received it because of the near burn-out. He was training with Saidin and a sword at the same time. It was quite a sight to see a man, or in this case a young man, wielding a flame sword made of Saidin and sparring with it against a Dedicated who also had a flame sword. The sparring was going quite well but as he neared the end of his strength, the Dedicated decided to see how far he could push Cain. He demanded that Cain use a weave he had only seen done a few times, the weave was known as Shielding. Cain had never done it as it was above his skill and the Dedicated was channeling which made it even more difficult.

 

Concentrating on keeping the weave of fire for the sword and his forms to avoid the other’s sword, he channeled spirit and worked the weave. It was hard and he banged against the others flows a few times before grabbing as much as he could hold and then pulled more before being able to slam the shield into place. Tying off the weave he barely had time to let go of Saidin as his body started burning up in a fever. He collapsed and lost consciousness before he even hit the ground.

 

When he awoke he was taken before a group of Asha’man and given his Silver Sword pin and promoted to Dedicated. Then his training took on whole new meaning as he worked twice as hard then he had as a Soldier. Exhausted from the promotion and tougher training regimen he collapsed on his bed and fell fast asleep with thoughts of what was in store for him tomorrow.

 

Cain Ddraiglyn, Dedicated