"End it!" My voice bounced off the stone walls of the makeshift training hall, cutting through the heavy breathing and shuffling feet of the more-than-fifty exhausted recruits standing before me.

  "Ruh-roo!" Fluffy cooed from my shoulder.

  Reaching up, I scratched the back of the little dragon's neck as the Reclaimed—the name for the citizens who'd returned to life when we'd cleansed the ruined city of Caer-Elath-Sylnareth two months before—ended their forms and snapped to attention. He'd been my training partner ever since I'd decided to start this little class of mine, which had grown far beyond my expectations.

  "Sir!" the recruits shouted as they planted their spears into the stone floor.

  Near the back of the first row, a large, round man in the back was dry heaving into his training uniform.

  I decided then and there to incorporate more conditioning into our training schedule.

  Halfway up the third row, a woman was mid-yawn when she noticed me glaring at her, squeaked, and stood board straight. "S-sorry!"

  With a lingering glance, I walked past.

  Another woman was somehow slouching while standing at attention.

  While many personalities could be shaped into great fighters, people who lacked a good work ethic were hardest to shape.

  A halfling woman in the fourth row was teetering on her feet. It looked like the only thing holding her up was her spear.

  Definitely more conditioning.

  In the fifth row, a stout dwarf had fallen to his knees and was pulling at his training shirt, venting the literal steam pouring off of his skin.

  "Goddess..." I shook my head and kept walking. Aside from the pre-dawn run around the city, which took about an hour, we'd only done an hour of calisthenics, an hour of strength training with some weights I'd had the dwarves of Tinker Town make for us, and an hour of forms. We hadn't even gotten to sparring yet, not to mention the two hours of meditation we were going to do after lunch, followed by some stretching and some light afternoon training before dinner.

  What was so hard about that?

  Walking to the first man in the second to the last column, I saw that the row leader's eyes were fixed to the ground. In fact, he hadn't stopped looking at the ground once since we'd started training today. I looked for any obvious tells that something was wrong with him, but there were none. He seemed perfectly fine, if a little pale. Was it nerves? He had absolutely no reason to feel self-conscious. He moved well and showed up every day, day after day, and trained his heart out. That's why I'd put him at the front of his line.

  As I looked him over, I saw that, far in the back of the training hall, Renard had cross his arms and was eying me like a hawk. He did that a lot these days. Nearly every day, in fact, ever since he and Varga had come to the City Under the Big Tree, which was the nickname Vral and I had come up with for Caer-Elath-Sylnareth after a night of drinking Breskaya with Vral and the goblins. Tristan said it was another one of our bad names for things, but I rather liked it.

  As usual, he was standing against the back wall of my training hall and watching me teach. He never said anything, so I hoped that meant I was doing a good job. He was probably the best fighting coach I'd ever had, after all. Nearly every strategy that I used was modeled after his methods, with the touch of the patience I'd learned from studying under Arden in the temple's scriptorium three years ago.

  Pulling my attention back to the present, I realized I'd been staring. Pretending like I'd been deep in thought, which wasn't exactly wrong, I said, "Recruit."

  "M-milord!" He shouted, his eyes lowering even further.

  "Step forward." I stepped twice to offer him some distance from the others. When he followed, I lowered my voice, put my hand on his shoulder, and said, "Is everything alright today?"

  For the first time that morning, his eyes trailed upward and almost met mine. "Y-yes."

  I exhaled slowly, giving myself to remember his name. Calaen. That was his name. I managed to learn most of the names of my recruits since I'd started training them a month ago. With their lives so... completely, utterly, impossibly screwed up, I wanted them to know someone saw them. "Calaen. What's wrong?"

  His eyes found the ground again and grew misty. "My, uh... my daughter, she came back to me two days ago. My old neighbor found her wandering the streets, crying her eyes out. She brought my girl home in the evening."

  This wasn't the first time one of my recruits had found a missing family member, and it wouldn't be the last. "I'm glad she's with you again." I patted his shoulder before lowering my hand. "Have you gone to Na-Ya or Ro—uh, Ro-Saleh for supplies and registration?"

  He shook his head. "Yes, sir."

  "Is there anything else we can do to help for now?" Besides everything, of course. There was so much to do and not enough of us to do it.

  He shook his head again and let out a half-breath, half-sob. "It's just... when I last saw her, she was in my wife's arms. But my wife..." He wiped his cheek. "She's not here."

  I plucked the spear out of his hand. "Go home to your daughter, my friend. You can train another day."

  "B-but—"

  "Now." I gently pushed him toward the double doors at the back at the hall. "Tomorrow's another day."

  Slowly, he padded his way to the back door, took off his training gear, and exited.

  When he exited, I shook my head and made my way to the last row. There, at the head, was Falwell, the little halfling man who'd fallen desperately in love with Urik, the former goblin boss of the Black Ear mercenary band, was standing as tall as ever, his eyes ablaze.

  Urik had absolutely destroyed the man in nine straight duels so far, and he still had a long way to go before he actually had a chance. Still, despite losing so badly to her and nearly dying three times, he wasn't getting discouraged at all. Oh no. The man was more motivated than ever. In fact, he showed up to every single training and outworked everyone other recruit by a mile. He even unlocked his class already. He was a fighter, just like me.

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  If ever someone doubted the power of love, I'd only have to point them at Falwell.

  "My lord!" The halfling shouted when he saw me considering him. "Am I moving well today?"

  I nodded to him. "Falwell, you're looking great out here. Excellent work." I couldn't help but feel pride at his growth. When he lost that first duel again Urik, he pleaded with me to teach him everything I knew. I agreed, so we started training. In doing so, we started pulling others into our training, and before long, my classes were fifty strong and growing. It was entirely because of him that Caer-Elath-Sylnareth's city guard was growing.

  "Thank you!" His voice cracked as he stood board straight.

  "Keep up the great work," I said before continuing on to the last two rows.

  Before I made it a step, he asked, "May I have permission to challenge Urik once again, my lord?"

  I wanted to tell him no. That he wasn't strong enough or skilled enough yet to take her on. But when I looked over my shoulder and saw the absolute fire in his eyes... "I'll let her know this evening."

  "Know what?" The very same woman asked as she walked into the training hall with her sister, Berik. They'd been helping Vral with repairs in the eastern district. If they were here, that meant something had gone wrong. Again.

  Falwell's posture finally faltered when he heard her voice, and his cheeks turned bright red.

  To his credit, Urik's ears were turning red, too, as she approached us.

  "Hey, girls," I said casually. "Who needs me today?"

  Berik snorted. "All business today, huh, boss?" With a grin, she added, "I can't say that's a bad quality or anything, but you should cut loose a little more often."

  I knew where she was going with this. "Oh, I'm sure you all would love that, wouldn't you?"

  Nodding, her grin grew. "I mean, you were pretty fun the other night. I never thought I'd see you cut loose like that."

  I suppressed a grin of my own. "It did get a little out of hand, huh?"

  She cocked an eyebrow. "A little?"

  As a way to get closer to the former Black Ears, Tristan, Vral and I had spent the evening drinking far, far too much Breskaya, the lethal black liquor made by goblins, with them. Until the goblins jogged my memory after my two-day hangover subsided, I'd remembered essentially nothing from that night. Even now, after hearing the stories and piecing things back together, it was all mostly one big blur.

  "I'm sure it was quite the show."

  The goblin walked up to me and bowed, followed by her sister, whose eyes never stopped trailing over to Falwell. "None of us can wait for next time, boss."

  "Oh, you'll have to wait for a while." I rubbed my forehead. Breskaya was lethal. "So what are you two here for? Who needs me?"

  As I spoke, Urik shifted subtly to her right and covertly extended her pinky out to touch Falwell's. At the touch, both of their blushes grew even deeper.

  "Falwell."

  "Sir?" He asked, his hand shooting back to his side.

  "Go to the back and grab some gear." I nodded to Urik. "You go with him. You're doing another practice match before I let you carve him up again."

  "Boss!" Urik shouted, beaming.

  Falwell smiled at her before weaving his fingers through hers and pulling her to the back, where they started yanking some padded gear on.

  "They're such idiots," Berik whispered.

  "It's cute," I replied.

  "Yeah, yeah. I guess." She blew a raspberry.

  "Does it bother you?" I side-eyed her.

  Slowly, she nodded. "You know, it's always only ever really been me and her. I guess I never thought my kid sister would ever fall for someone. Maybe I'm just a little jelly."

  With a laugh, I waved my arm out across my recruits and said, "Hey, you never know. Maybe the future love of your life is in this room with us right now."

  One by one, she looked at each of the Reclaimed before muttering, "Yeah, no."

  "Too green?" I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. And not green enough."

  Ah. She wasn't like Urik or Vral. She was into her own kind. That was fair. "One day, maybe other tribes will come settle here, too."

  After nibbling at her lip for a good ten seconds, she whispered, "They'd better."

  "Sounds like someone's catching the love bug," I sassed. "It's hard not to. There's a lot to go around."

  She snickered. "Oh, we all saw your love on fully display the other night."

  "Yeah, uh, sorry about that." While I didn't rememeber it all, what I had managed to remember was that, at some point, Vral and I got into an argument about who could break more bricks with our fists. We argued for over an hour, and somewhere along the way, Tristan's competitive streak came out in full force, too. The goblins decided to put it to the test, so they grabbed as many old bricks as they could, and we got to work shattering bricks with our fists.

  The thing was that, in their drunken haze, the girls had forgotten about my [Stoneshatter] skill, and the bet was that the losers of each round of bricks had to strip. Unfortunately, in my own drunken haze, I'd also forgotten that I had that skill, too. So, after a couple dozen rounds of brick breaking game, the three of us were covered in dust and butt ass naked. Apparently, being all nasty, we decided to run to the marsh, where bathed in the moonlight, then wrestled a marsh monster who tried to snatch Vral. After that, we ran to an old waterside hut, where we apparently proceeded to get it on. Loudly. We even shattered the rear wall of the hut at some point.

  All I knew was that, when I woke up, I was pinned down by a ceiling beam, I had two beautiful women in my arms, and I was the most hungover I'd ever been. Vral later admitted that she'd planned the whole thing since, in her words, "We all work too damn much and don't get to bang it out enough anymore, damn it!"

  I wasn't complaining or anything.

  I let out a soft chuckle before realizing I'd let the class stay idle for far too long. "Hold on one sec." Pulling my sensei face on, I glared at the class and shouted, "Forms! Starting with Sunfire! Go!"

  Half of the class jumped while the other half started flowing through the movements.

  "Move as one! Otherwise, you'll be running until nighttime!"

  "Milord!" the entire class shouted before they started flowing somewhat passably through the Sunfire Path form for the fiftieth time that morning.

  I watched the recruits' movements for a few moments before looking back down at Berik. "So, who needs me today, anyway?"

  "She's too damn stubborn to admit it, but Vral's in over her head today."

  "What happened?

  Berik's red eyes trailed up to mine. "You know that busted bridge in the east district?"

  "Yeah." It had collapsed a month before. While we'd been able to cobble it back together, it wasn't exactly strong. Luckily, Khadrel, Davik, and Elise had decided to come visit from Galden a week back, and they brought Thokrim and around a dozen dwarves from Tinker Town to help with our repairs. Unfortunately, the dwarves had been spending nearly all their time completing more pressing tasks since they arrived. "Did it collapse again?"

  "Sure did."

  I sighed. "How bad is it?"

  "Another wagon fell into the river, and no one's strong enough to pull it back out."

  I looked at my class, then back at her. "Alright. I'll go."

  Just then, Renard kicked off the back wall, marched his way up one of the rows, and stopped in front of me. "Boy. Go do what needs to be done. I will be taking this class in your stead."

  Despite being old, the dwarf had hearing like a damn bat. "Are you sure?"

  He nodded. "You've done well, but there is much I can teach them. However, they will not listen as well if you are here."

  My heart nearly burst at the praise. He didn't really... do... praise... "Okay. Thank you, sir." I bowed to him, then plucked Fluffy off my shoulder and put him on Renard's. "It's time for sparring. Work them hard."

  He merely rumbled in response before stepping past me. "Grab your gear!"

  "Roo!" Fluffy thrust his paw into the air.

  As one, the class rushed to the walls and started pulling on their gear just as Urik and Falwell approached us.

  "You two! Find your spots! It's time to duel!" The old dwarf's voice caused some dust to fall from the old stone ceiling.

  "S-sir!" The would-be couple shouted in unison.

  "She said she'd gut me if I snuck off to find you, so don't say anything, yeah?" Berik said as I took a step toward the doors.

  "Then why don't you stay in here? That way, Vral won't find out you were with me." I nodded at Urik and Falwell. "Plus, you can give me the report on how they do later."

  "Yeah, that sounds good." She bowed, then walked backward and sat against the nearest wall. "Just make sure to not let it slip."

  "Don't worry. I'll tell her I got an anonymous skitterslink." I nodded to her before walking across the training floor. When I reached the double doors, I slipped out of the training hall and onto the cobblestone streets of Caer-Elath-Sylnareth just as Renard shouted, "Begin!"

  sick. This flu was no joke. The fever was endless. I'm still pretty sick, but with Dayquil, all things are possible. I'm back at it this week.