Read The Warrior Trainer for Free Online

comfortable with himself before he charges forth."
       Her words nearly felled him. For a moment he wondered if she teased him, then he remembered she was not the teasing sort. Nay, she was more the sort to torture a man just to see him break than to lighten a situation with humor. Ian scowled at her for what must have been the hundredth time that day. She would not break him—now or ever.
       She moved outside the ropes and started for the door. "I shall return when the shadows pass to the opposite side of the chamber. You may switch which foot you balance yourself on, but you may not get down from the log."
       "What kind of game is this?"
       "It is no game, I assure you."
       "I am here to train, not—"
       She held up her hand, stopping his words, but not the frustration and fury coiling through him. If the need for revenge did not consume him, and the safety of his clan were not so dire, he would leave.
       But if he left without her special training, how could he hope to defeat the Four Horsemen and their army? How many others would die? The thought kept his booted foot on the log. But it did not still his tongue. "You have a very strange way of training a warrior."
       She looked at him blankly. "This method has worked well over the centuries."
       "Your methods are arcane and ridiculous," Ian snapped, his voice hard and flat with frustration. "Perhaps that is why the Four Horsemen have not yet been defeated."
       She recoiled as if he had slapped her. Her face paled and pain crept into her wide green eyes. Yet a moment later, she drew a shell of aloofness around her. Without saying a word, she left the room. The click of her bootheels upon the stone floor faded as she went, until only a heavy silence remained.
       His words had hurt her, he realized too late. He found no pleasure in the thought.
       Ian studied the shadows of the training chamber, trying to ignore the deep ache that had settled in his shaking legs. He had never realized how difficult it was to remain in one position for so long. As Scotia had said, he had become more aware of the silence that surrounded him, accentuating the beat of his own heart. He'd also had plenty of time to consider his cruel statements. She might have bested him with her sword, but he had annihilated her with his words.
       The shadows had reached the opposite side of the chamber a while ago, and still she did not come for him. He would have no one to blame but himself if she left him atop the log forever, proving what he had thought all along. His foster father should have ordered Griffin here instead. His foster brother would have been the better choice to lead their clan and save them from the dangers the Four Horsemen posed.
       Just then, the soft echo of footsteps sounded and he straightened, intending to prove he had done as she had asked without revealing the strain it had put on his muscles. Ian looked up in expectation as a figure appeared. Only it was not Scotia, he realized with disappointment. It was the stout old woman he had met upon his arrival. Her crusty expression was enough to make him wish Scotia had come back for him instead. Another battle where he ended up on his back he could survive. A lecture from this woman he was not so certain.
       "Ye're free to leave."
       "I beg your pardon?" Ian asked, expecting something much worse.
       "The mistress sent me to tell ye to go home."
       She could not make herself any clearer. He had been dismissed. Ian jumped down from the log, less steady on his feet than he would have liked. "What about the training?"
       " ‘Tis obvious ye find any trainin' a waste of yer time." She gave him a hard look.
       Ian met her gaze. He deserved her contempt and more for acting the part of a brutish fool. He did not want to leave, he realized suddenly; not until he had completed what his foster father had set out before him. "I wish to train." He would not give up now, not when he had