The Lesson - Part 2

*Sigh*

"She had to say something. Of course she had to say something." Octavia thought to herself.

There wasn't much doubt about who called out "Don't miss", but now that Sylvia did, Octavia felt it was her obligation to hit the target and hit the target well, just to make Sylvia eat those words.

Looking over she saw Sylvia off to the side, now speaking to the Guard Captain Edwards.

"My Lady, may I ask why you are here? It is dangerous to be around the soldiers and knights in training."

"Don't worry, I will stay out of the way. I just came here to watch my good friend train."

He continued to try and get her to move away from the grounds, but Sylvia was having none of it.

Turning back to the target, she made sure to check she was still in the same position and aiming correctly and as far as she could see, she was. But as she readied herself, she couldn't help but think she was missing something.

Then all of a sudden, the cool breeze caressing her face made her realise what it was. The wind.

She needed to check the strength and direction of the wind. While she didn't have any modern equipment to do this, the flags dotted around the castle were pretty good indicators of it.

While she had no experience with a crossbow or how to judge how much to adjust due to wind, she did the best she could, changing her aim to the side slightly, hopefully compensating for it.

And then, she took the shot.

…

*Thunk*

"…"

"…"

"Looks like I didn't miss."

The bolt sliced straight into the straw target as she had hoped. It was by no means a bullseye, but good enough that it caused Sylvia to stand there with her mouth open. While she likely stated "Don't miss" as a joke, given Octavia's lack of experience she probably didn't think she could hit it on the first try.

How wrong she was.

"Nicely done. Are you sure you have had no training with the crossbow?" Edwards asked. He had given up on trying to persuade Sylvia and had returned to overseeing the training.

"No, none at all."

"Well, I think we have more than enough to get started on training."

Octavia was a little offended by that, given how well she did. But once the training started, she realised how little she knew.

Guard Captain Edwards continued by just watching her and the other recruits firing at the targets for a few more shots, a couple of which Octavia missed. Thankfully, Sylvia said nothing about those, where she just stood there watching her train.

Had she said something else, Octavia would have been tempted to put the crossbow in her hands to see how she would do. Not very well she imagined.

Once they had fired several shots, Edwards then critiqued all their performances.

He went to each of the recruits and told them about half a dozen things they did wrong, of which Octavia couldn't believe there were that many, given that hardly any of them missed the target. But, they all just nodded their heads and got back to work.

Then was the time for Octavia, who was standing before him, rubbing her arm from the pain she received from repetitive crossbow firing. Given she was new and had not been training for however many days as the other recruits had, he was not as …stern about his comments compared to how he was with the recruits. But he did have a lot of them.

He took her through her stance, ensuring she was in the correct position to deal with aiming, recoil, mobility and reloading. Even though she had a massive tail rather than legs, being the professional he was, he was able to give her good feedback on the proper way to handle the crossbow and how to orient herself with her tail.

Next came reloading, as that was life and death on the battlefield. If you miss your shot, then how fast you reload can save your life. He talked about the technique for reloading fast, the position of her arms as she did so, the best location for her bolts and much more.

But the main thing was actually firing the shot. While it is life and death for whether you can reload fast enough, it is also the same for whether you hit the target trying to kill you first. Improvements to her aiming, her grip, and bracing of the weapon, were a few of the many topics he went through. He even briefly went over adjusting your aim based on the wind, but it was clear there was a lot more left on that topic.

After he went through it all, Octavia knew she would have to come back for more training as there was no way she could correct all of it in one go. This was going to be an ongoing thing, where eventually it would just be muscle memory being used when aiming and taking down a foe.

Working on some of what he stated, she did try to fix some things. She got slightly quicker at reloading and she hardly felt pain when she fired, but there was still much more to work on. But, this would have to wait for another day, as the next bell chimed.

"Ok, recruits. That is the end of your crossbow training. You may now proceed to your next training session for the day. Octavia, please follow me and I shall take you to your next instructor."

"Thank you."

The recruits headed off into the courtyard in different directions going to their next training session. Octavia realised she had been so focused on learning that she had not even spoken to any of them. In the next lesson, she decided she would learn their names if possible.

Following Guard Captain Edwards, they travelled in another direction within the courtyard and eventually came across a woman in knight's armour sitting on a tree stump. She sat there leaning against the pole of the halberd she held. Several straw dummies littered the area, all damaged in different ways, but they held strong.

"Knight Commander Althea, may I present to you Octavia, who is here for training in her… unique weapon and close quarters hand-to-hand combat."

The Knight Commander who looked like she was bored out of her mind, slowly looked up once she was addressed, and looked over the group. She paid no attention to the guard Captain, proceeding to just eyeball Octavia up and down. She then quickly shifted to the weapon she was holding, raising her eyebrow at that and then looked over at Sylvia.

"I see. Knight Commander Jeremiah mentioned you would be here for training. Thank you for bringing her here, Guard Captain Edwards. I shall take it from here." She replied as she made her way to stand.

With that he saluted the Knight Commander and headed off into the groups of training knights and soldiers, leaving Octavia and Sylvia at the mercy of the new trainer.

The woman was nothing if not intimidating. While she had the same armour as Knight Commander Jeremiah, she somehow looked more imposing compared to him.

"So, what are you? I've never seen a beast-kin with a snake tail before?"

This question managed to surprise her. Neither Knight Commander Jeremiah nor the Guard Captain had asked her directly what she was, so this was the first of the soldiers and knights to ask.

"I-I'm what's called a Lamia. Ma'am" Octavia replied. She quickly added the ma'am as a show of respect as she felt like it was needed, given what she felt when looking at this woman.

"A Lamia. That's new. Anyway, you're here to learn how to use your weapon, right? I must say, it's very interesting. I've never seen anything like it before. If anything, it looks like a more lethal version of the Halberd. May I see it?"

"Oh, er of course." Octavia quickly slithered over and passed the weapon to the Knight Commander, before heading back a few paces.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sylvia look down and slowly shake her head, which confused her.

"Did she see something that annoyed her?" Octavia wondered. "It's not that infatuated knight again is it."

But she didn't get to wonder too much longer, as the next thing she knew she was on the floor holding her arm.

"Ahh, what the-"

"Let that be a lesson to you. The first of many. Always look after your weapon. It's yours and yours alone. Unless it's for something like repairs, never give it to anyone… Now, get up. We have a lot more training to do."

Thankful it was not her head that was hit, she was able to stand up again holding her arm all the while and glaring at the woman as well. Althea had stabbed her pole axe into the ground next to her and was currently watching her as she rose, a smirk on her face as she saw her facial expression.

"Good, good. You are quite the interesting girl. I think we are going to have some very fun lessons together."

Octavia's expression was held firm as she listened to her new instructor where, as she did, she took her pole axe back into her grasp and held it tight.

"I will train you hard on how to fight with a weapon like yours, it should be pretty similar to using a halberd. If I'm feeling nice, I might just think up attacks specific to your weapon. Oh, and you should be very grateful that you got me as your instructor for this sort of training. Since none of the new recruits wanted to learn from me, you get me all to yourself. Isn't that nice?"

"Yeah… it's just perfect."