47 Beast Master Training

The next few days were brutal. Every one of us was put through intense physical training; I had already been working out with Master, so it wasn't so bad for me. Until combat training started, that is. Sometimes it was one on one sparring sessions, and other times we would be put into the middle of a circle and be forced to fight off multiple attackers. The latter exercise would often end in the person in the middle being beaten pretty badly, having to be healed by a Cleric.

At night my squad would work with the weaker members and each other to build some type of teamwork. We tried to learn each other's abilities and fighting styles so that we could cover each other if we needed to in battle. The real issue was Nate not only was he terrible at hand to hand fighting, but he could only summon one creature as well, and it was a small rat.

"You have to earn the animals respect or kill it to add it to your summons. That's how we imprint." He explained to me one night after the training for the day was over. He was letting his little summoned rat scurry all over him and make a nest in his hair.

"So how'd you get that one? You kill a rat?" I asked. The boy blushed deeply before responding.

"I fed it..." I understood now. He'd never killed a beast before. That helped me make up my mind. We would have to go hunting. Unfortunately, that means I would have to ask Laurec for permission. But if that's what I had to do to keep this kid from dying as soon as we stepped foot into battle, then I would. I told Nate to wait for me where he was while I went to talk to the Platoon Sergeant. His tent was farther away from ours, closer to the Lieutenants tent. I stood outside the tent and announced myself before being allowed to enter.

"What do you want, Sheargin?" The grumpy sergeant asked me. I stood in front of him and made my request to go hunting in order to strengthen my squad member. He wasn't happy to be allowing me to do anything outside of his plans, but having a Beast Master in a platoon was extremely rare, and Laurec didn't want to lose a valuable commodity like Nate in the first battle. So we were allowed to exit the training area as a squad to go hunt magical beasts in the area.

I had Grace and Altsoba take the lead as they were tanks. The two assassins and Sarah were in the trees acting as scouts. Derek and Laura were in the middle of the formation, and Tim, Nate, and I were taking up the rear. I didn't know what type of creature we would be facing today, but I gave the others the instructions to make sure not to give the killing blow to whatever it would be. Nate had to be the one to do it in order to get a summon from it.

"Do you have any skills that might be helpful in our search?" I asked the young boy.

"Yes, I have one skill for that; it's called Call of the Wild." He responded. It seemed pretty self-explanatory, but I had him explain the skill for me anyway. "Well, when I activate the skill, it's supposed to be heard as the mating call for whatever wild animals are in the area. I mostly just get squirrels and bugs when I use it, though, cause I don't usually go out whenever my party went hunting. They told me I was too young." I couldn't help but agree with that statement, I didn't even feel comfortable having Laura out there, and at least she was in her middle teens.

It seemed like a cruel joke to have a twelve-year-old boy come to a world like this where he was forced to fight monsters and become a soldier. Still, he was here now, and he had to become stronger in order to fight with us and not die. I told him to go ahead and use the skill. Nate took a deep breath, and I could see a small orange light well up in his throat. 'I wonder what type of magic that is.' When he opened his mouth, a series of strange sounds came out from low pitches to high; there were even some clicks and whistles in there.

After about thirty seconds, the boy stopped making sounds. We all stayed perfectly, still not making any sounds as we waited for something to happen. It didn't take long for us to notice the strange way the smaller animals were acting. Squirrels and other rodents began coming out of the trees to take a look at the thing that had just called them to mate. Snakes came out of their burrows, and birds lighted themselves on trees close by. So far, I didn't see any big game, but this would be a good opportunity to get him to practice.

"Sarah," I called up into the trees. "Pin down one of the larger snakes!" I turned to Nate about to tell him that we would be practicing on the beast, but his face looked like it was about to cry.

"Please." He began. "Please don't hurt the animals. I can earn their respect. We don't have to hurt them." At that moment, it hit me once more how young this boy is. His kindness hadn't been tainted by life yet.

"Are you sure you can do it?" I conceded; I don't know why, but I wanted to save as much of that kindness for him as I could. But at the same time, I needed to instill in him that we were going to be counting on him in battle soon. "If you can earn the animals respect and imprint on it that way, then good, but just know in the upcoming war we need you to be able to fight. You have to protect yourself and help protect us the same way that we will do for you, ok?" Nate nodded his head, wiping the tears that had been welling up in his eyes.

He replaced that crying face with a look of determination. The boy started walking slowly to a large snake. That same energy came welling up in his throat again as he focused on just the one animal. This time instead of lots of different types of sounds, there was only a small whispering sound coming from the boy. The snake seemed entranced and began moving towards Nate. I was worried for a second that it might attack him, but Tim reassured me that snakes would coil if they were about to strike.

We all watched with bated breath as the snake and Nate moved towards each other. When they got just a few inches from each other, Nate bent down and offered the snake his hand. The serpent's tongue flicked in and out quickly as it got used to Nate's scent. Shortly after, the snake began slithering up the length of his arm and coiled itself around its neck. I was about to rush over and try to help Nate out of its grip, but the Beast Master held up a hand and stopped me.

In front of him, there was now a transparent copy of the snake in front of Nate, and the real one began to move again. It made its way back down the arm until it met face to face with its spiritual counterpart. The two serpents moved around each other and interact. The more they spent time together, the more solid the spirit became. It was no longer transparent but instead was a lightly glowing solidified form. The real snake lost interest shortly after this and slithered back into its burrow.

Nate pulled out his whip and cracked it once in front of the animal. "Return." He commanded, and the spirit serpent did just that. It quickly approached him and looked as if he disappeared into the boys' body. Nate made his way back to us with a smile on his face.

"I told you I could do it!" He was practically bouncing in excitement. I chuckled a little bit at the boy before agreeing with him.

"You sure did, but what exactly did you do?" I was very curious about this boys' abilities. Nate shrugged his shoulders.

"I just explained that I was a friend. I used my skill, Natures Understanding. It doesn't let me really talk to them, but I can get my point across, at least." He smiled up at me, and I tousled his hair slightly.

"Well, you did good. How about we continue on and see if we can get you a few more friends, huh?" This seemed to make the boy even more excited; we spent the rest of the day like that. He would use call of the wild to draw the animals to us, then we would pick on for him to try and tame, and he would do his best. He was successful sometimes. Other times he wasn't. But it was simple for us to defend him from animals that wouldn't be tamed by him.

By the end of the day, he had a few snakes, and a silver winge falcon, a couple of canaries, a boar, and most impressive of all, he managed to get a stag with large antlers. It was a very productive day, but he was worn out by the end of it. I wound up taking turns with Tim carrying the sleeping boy on my back until we made it to the training area.