His eyes opened slowly, blinked a few times, then began to focus. In front of his face, almost touching his nose, was a piece of green material. It was very smooth and rippled in the slight breeze. An orange light flickered somewhere close by and the sell of wood smoke hung in the air. Another smell too was present. Meat, roasting slowly over the fire. He moved slightly, struggling against a blanket someone had wrapped tightly around him. His head spun and a nausea filled his stomach.

“Careful now, it took me quite a time to get that food in there.”

He complied, moving gingerly, one part at a time until he was upright. He was in a tent. At the opening sat a small man tending a fire, over which was suspended a rabbit, a squirrel and a small fish.

“Come, eat a little. Drink too, but slowly now.” The man gestured, waving his hand in the direction of the food and holding up a water skin with the other.

“Where am I?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and stretching out aching limbs.

“In the forest. Do you not remember?”

For a long moment he racked his brain, chasing elusive thoughts around what appeared to be an empty head. “I don’t really remember anything.” This didn’t seem to be a problem, so he moved slowly out of the tent and over to the small fire. After a few sips of the water and a bite or two of the fish, he began to take more of an interest in his surroundings.

They were indeed in a forest, mostly spreading oaks with a good few evergreens. The fire pit looked well used, and a supply of dry wood had been stacked at the base of the nearest oak.

The man was shorter than he, small for an adult male, and looked to be about forty or forty five years old. His face was round, his nose small and his dark eyes had heavy lids that drooped slightly. His skin was a brownish colour, but with a sort of yellow tinge. From the very the top of his head sprouted a thick pony tail, wrapped in what looked like a black bandage, right to the tip, which came to the middle of his back. The rest of his head was shaved smooth. He wore several layers of loose clothing, thin material, but lots of it, mostly grey or dull green. The canvas pack he carried on a shoulder strap was next to him, with the two sticks protruding from the top.

“You have a name, I should think.” The man said, smiling somewhat sadly.

“Yes,” he began, but was unable to recall what it was. “But I can’t seem to remember it.” He shrugged and continued with his meal.

“There is no surprise to me, you have been sick many days, very sick, so.” He pointed to a hole that had been dug several paces away. It was longer than he was tall and a little wider.

“What’s that for?” He asked between mouthfuls.

“It is for the burial of yourself, should my healing skills have proved inadequate.” The man studied him.

“Oh, that’s thoughtful. We don’t do that though, we Pyre the dead.”

“Yes, I have witnessed such, but this is somewhat impractical within the spreading branches of trees.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.” He shrugged again and started on the squirrel.

“My name is Ishula Yen Gyanes. A person should always have a name. If you don’t remember your own I will call you Gryph. It means, in my language, white tiger cub, well the full version does, but I think just the Gryph part will serve. It does seem appropriate. Yes?”

“Yes, fine.” Said the newly named Gryph.

“And not to worry about the memory. I have studied these things, and it is my understanding that memory will return, either a little at a time, or all in one rush, triggered by some incident or action. A smell even, or an object.” He smiled.

“I do remember something, I think.” Gryph said between mouthfuls.

“Yes, it is so?”

“Yes, I remember you. You were flying around hitting soldiers with those sticks.” He pointed to Ishula’s pack with the remains of a rabbit leg.

“Ah, the very last thing you witnessed. But flying I wasn’t.”

“Can you teach me to do that?”

“I can teach you many things. Why is it young men always choose those things like fighting?”

“I need to learn how to fight,” Gryph said, wiping his hands on the shirt he wore.

“Need? Ah, a strange choice of word for a young man. Want, I have heard many times, Need, that is rare. First of course you must rest. You must learn to walk before you can fly.” He smiled widely at Gryph.

Gryph stood and began to pace around. He was very weak, but then he had never been strong. After a few laps of the camp, he found himself exhausted and was forced to lay back down in the tent.

“You sleep for a while, let the strength return. I will get more food, as I see you have eaten all we had.” Ishula picked up the small pile of bones from where Gryph had sat and carried them from the camp. Gryph was asleep before he was out of sight.

He awoke again to the smell of food. Cautiously this time, he raised his head and looked out of the tent. Ishula wasn’t there, but a large eel had been skewered and set to cook over the fire. Slowly he made his way over to it and sat carefully on a short log. The eel wasn’t fully cooked, but the odour of it was making Gryph ravenous. He tried to be patient, telling himself it would taste better if left longer. But it was no good, his stomach was growling loudly, and his resistance was fading.

As though reading his thoughts, Ishula returned to camp then, moving silently between the trees. “Ah, good, you awake again and are hungry. But that fish is not yet ready. Here, have this for now.” Ishula tossed a small green apple to Gryph. He missed it and it landed on the ground between his feet. Quickly he picked it up, cleaned it on his shirt, and ate it in four bites, leaving the tiniest core.

“Ah, well, better have another then.” Ishula handed him another and ate one himself.

“So, today you will walk around the camp again, yesterday it was three times, today it must be six, or more if you can, but not too many.”

Gryph nodded, not taking his eyes off the eel as it sizzled over the heat.

He managed eight times around the camp, before almost falling into the tent and straight to sleep.

The next day he did ten laps, but in wider circles, and managed to stay awake after. The food continued to arrive, everything from fish to snakes, rabbits and squirrels, and all manner of birds of different kinds. Sometimes, there would be fruit, apples and pears and some berries, all barely ripe this early in the year, but welcome nonetheless.

Over the next few days, Gryph wasn’t really counting, he managed more and more laps. Ishula then had him running, then carrying stones of increasing weight. Gryph noticed that has he got stronger, the food changed. Less meat arrived, more greenery, stalks and roots and leafs he didn’t recognise.

“Where do you get all this from, and why is there no meat?”

Ishula smiled broadly. “Ah, I was beginning to wonder if your mind had gone too far. At last you are beginning to care. You know, a healthy person would have asked many questions that first morning. Many questions. For instance, how I found you? Who and what am I and why am I helping you? No?”

“Yes, fine, go on then.”

Ishula sat by the fire opposite Gryph and fed a few small sticks into it.

“I found you quite easily, mainly because I have never smelled anything so bad in my life. I have a particularly good sense of smell, and so it was no trouble. But also you had flattened the grass, and ripped some of it up. I thought perhaps that you were dead of some plague, so I didn’t come too close. Then of course the soldiers arrived, and their questions explained the odour. As for the next few questions, they are probably one and the same, and would take a lot of telling. Let it be sufficient for now to say I, and those of my sect, am a scholar searching for knowledge, but also a tutor, wishing to share that knowledge. I wish to learn from you, and about you, and also to teach you. This I cannot do if you are dead.”

Quickly changing the subject, Ishula looked closely at Gryph and said, “I think now you are ready to travel. You can walk and carry, that will be sufficient for now.” He looked at Gryph expectantly.

“Where are we going?”

“Ah! Yes, you are well, or at least in the vicinity.”

“What does that mean?”

“Vicinity? It means close by. And we are going to a place I know, I have friends there. You have enemies nearby, and I think we have stayed here too long already.”

“And you can teach me how to fight as we go.” Gryph said, with the nearest thing to emotion Ishula had yet seen in the boy.

“Indeed I can. I will teach you the things that can be taught by voice as we walk, and the things that must be shown when we stop.”

“Good.”

“Why is it so important to you to fight? You seem very certain, yet have no memory.”

“I don’t know why, I can’t really remember, but when I think about it, I get a burning feeling here.” Gryph touched his stomach.

“Ah, then what I said is true, you have memories in your head, and soon they will reveal themselves, I am thinking.”

“Let’s hope so, it’s so frustrating not even being able to remember my own name, or my past life.”

“You may wish them away again when they return. But try to remember, it is these things that happen to us that make us who we are. You would not be you without these events.”

Early the next morning Ishula woke Gryph and began to break camp. Gryph roused himself as the tent was removed and rolled into a surprisingly small package. The fire was doused after a quick breakfast of cooked cereal of some kind and the embers trod out. Gryph winced as Ishula stamped his bare foot into the fire, but the small man didn’t seem to notice. Ishula then gestured towards the grave he had dug.

“I think you had better fill that in. It is a danger to other travellers, but it may also get you thinking, which can only be a good thing.”

Gryph nodded, moving cautiously over to the pit. It was quite deep, Ishula had done a thorough job. But Gryph set to, scraping the soil back into the hole with his hands and feet. He was sweating by the time he had finished, but it felt good to have laboured, to feel his heart thumping and the satisfaction of a job well done. As he stamped the soil down as flat as he could get it, he did indeed think, as Ishula had said. If it wasn’t for the skill and kindness of this small man, he would be lying under there now, with Ishula treading down the soil. The life he had from now on was life given by another, how could that debt possibly be repaid?

And what of his previous life, would his memories return, and be as terrible as Ishula had hinted? Ishula had only been able to tell him that he had found him naked, covered in filth and sores and with a raging fever. And that soldiers were after him, soldiers with red and orange colours. He shook his head, it was all a mystery to him.

When Gryph had asked him, Ishula had been modest about what he had done. Saying only that he had cleaned him up, removed the insects from his skin and treated his wounds with a few herbs. The fever had been the worst, and Ishula had a lot of trouble curing it, or keeping him alive whilst he cured himself. Some of the wounds had also gone bad, and Ishula had treated them with a poultice he himself had invented, a mix of various herbs, fungi and chopped up pieces of a greenish lump of cheese he had bartered off a peddler. Well, Ishula had said, it was better than eating the stuff, did he know where it came from? The little man had pulled a face and Gryph had laughed for the first time in days.

With the grave filled and all their possessions packed away, Ishula and Gryph left the forest and headed east along the road. Ishula had taken the precaution of dying Gryph’s hair with the juice from some dark berries, and had cut it short. As he had also lost a lot of weight, which he was slowly regaining, and his skin was still patchy from the infections, Ishula hoped Gryph wouldn’t be so easy to spot. As an added precaution, they kept to the edge of the trees, ducking amongst the trunks whenever they spotted other road users.

They made slow progress this way, but it gave Gryph more time to heal, and gave Ishula plenty of time to do his favourite thing; talking. Whenever they were awake, walking, cooking, making and breaking camp, Ishula talked. He told Gryph about his homeland in the north, how it was warm all the time. Warm and wet in the winter, warm and dry in the summer. He told of how his country had invented something called “science” and another thing called “community” which meant everyone had enough and no one went hungry. Only three times in the day did Ishula not talk, when he slept, when they hunted and when he sat with his eyes shut and thought about things, which he called meditation. And, apart from the odd snore, at these other times he was unnaturally silent.

Gryph tried to listen to it all, tried to remember everything the small man told him, but despite not really remembering anything else, it was very difficult to keep the knowledge in his head.

But when Ishula talked about his fighting style, which he referred to as empty handed fighting, Gryph was rapt with attention. And when they went hunting, when Ishula would throw a stone at a fleeing rabbit or squirrel and hit almost every time, Gryph would stare wide eyed and slack jawed with amazement. The most impressive was when they were walking quietly through the forest one day, looking for water. Ishula suddenly took a strange step to one side, crouched down and stood with the body of a snake in his hand. The small man carried on walking as though nothing had happened, leaving the head of the snake crushed on the ground and the body in his pack for cooking later. The whole incident from step to pack was so quick Gryph doubted his eyes, until supper time and the smell of roasting snake meat.

They had journeyed for about ten days, along the east-west road, then along smaller roads, when Ishula decided Gryph was well enough to begin learning a little empty handed fighting. A few patrols of the orange and red clad soldiers had sent them into hiding, but the last time this had happened was five days ago. Occasionally, other soldiers would ride by, dressed in plain leather armour or chain mail. These too he avoided. The few villages they came across, Ishula stayed away from, leading him in a wide circle around them. Once when they emerged from hiding, Gryph asked Ishula why he hid, after all he could probably take on a whole room full of soldiers and still win. Ishula stopped and studied the boy a moment. Then said simply, “you have much to learn.”

Now they had stopped in a small meadow just off the road. It was screened on all sides by trees and had a small spring just to one side. Food was plentiful, mainly because Ishula, so consequentially, Gryph, would eat almost anything, and there was plenty of room to move.

“We will start,” Ishula began, standing near the centre of the meadow with Gryph facing him, “with the question you asked of me some days earlier. Why do we hide when we are so obviously so much better at fighting than the men who seek you?

“I will tell you. First, and very importantly, no man is as good as he thinks he is. I have but two eyes, which face forever forwards, I have but two hands, no matter how fast they be, I have but two legs, no matter how hard I kick. Picture in your mind a mighty warrior, in the prime of his years. His arms as thick as tree trunks, the mighty sword in his hand dripping with the blood of a thousand men slain in battle this very day. Suddenly, his eyes glaze over, his knees give way and he falls to the ground. A quarrel protrudes from the back of his neck. In the distance, is a tiny slip of a child, barely strong enough to pull the trigger of the heavy crossbow leant on the body of his father.”

Ishula paused from his dramatic tale to judge the effect. He couldn’t have been more pleased. Gryph’s face was by turns rapt, deeply thoughtful, then finally nodding in comprehension.

“Good. In other words, always watch your back. Secondly, we hide for the sake of the soldiers themselves, who after all are not your enemy, but merely are working for him. These men and women have families, to fight them may mean to kill them. Do not mistake me. I have killed people, and no doubt will do again, but only when necessary. Thus, that which I will teach you comes with a responsibility. We fight only when there is no other way. And I mean exactly that. A man doubting your parentage in a tavern is not a reason to fight. After all, name calling and lies do not hurt, unless you let them. Knowing you can beat a man is often enough. Do not let pride stir you to action. You must learn to be humble, you must respect another person, understand they may have different opinions to you, different ways of life. Different is not wrong, is not better, just not the same. I can tell you from my own experience how boring the world would be if we were all alike. Now, enough talk, let us prepare.”

Gryph had thought Ishula was going to talk all day, and was startled when the small man suddenly began to run around the meadow.

“Come Gryph, do as I do.” Ishula called over his shoulder.

Wondering what this had to do with fighting, Gryph nevertheless began to follow him, and copied everything he did, including running backwards and jumping over imaginary hurdles.

Gryph managed one and a half circuits of the meadow, small though it was , before he was forced to stop, a splitting pain in his side and his lungs on fire. Ishula carried on around until he was level with him. Ishula wasn’t even sweating, and his voice was even as he spoke.

“Come on Gryph, we have only just started. This is getting our blood flowing for the real thing.” Off he went again.

Half-heartedly, Gryph began to follow, a fast walk more than a run, but was soon uneven able to do this. He flopped down in the cool grass and watched the clouds drift across the sky. A small face smiled down at him, the top knot dangling down. “I think we are having enough for today. Now we will rest, and tomorrow we will try again. It is a good place to teach, but I think we must move on. I will not be happy until I have delivered you to the place of safety.”

Gryph was too breathless to ask where they were going, although the answer would have been the usual, “you must be patient, and you will see.”

After a mixed evening meal of grasshoppers, some herbs and roots, and a large fungus Ishula pulled off a tree, they settled down to sleep. As always, it was Gryph who got the small tent, whilst Ishula slept wrapped in a blanket just outside.

The next morning Gryph was allowed to sleep late. The sun was fully up by the time Ishula woke him. “Come young person, there is much to learn. You are well rested and should be fully up to today’s lesson.”

He was allowed a quick breakfast of steamed roots and a few herbs, a drink of the cold spring water, then he was off around the field again. Ishula led him at a gentler pace, and stopped before he was completely out of breath. He was then led through a series of bizarre moves that his tutor said was to increase blood flow to his muscles, which would burn away the sleep from his body and stop him hurting himself.

“What has all this to do with fighting anyhow?” Gryph asked when Ishula allowed him a brief stop.

“Have you ever seen a fighter who is thin and breathless?”

“Well, no, I suppose not.”

“Those soldiers, where they, perhaps, out of breath, or stick thin?”

“No, of course not…”

“And I.“ Ishula interrupted, pulling open his clothes and stripping to the waist.

Gryph gasped. He wasn’t covered in rippling muscles, bulging all over, or had arms like tree trunks. But every muscle was visible, defined. Honed and toned to perfection.

“But it is not just strength you need. Without muscles you are too weak to fight, too much and you become slow. You must breathe also, without strong breath you too become weak. Then you must become strong within, something too many warriors forget. Often the battle is won by the last person still standing, not by the one with least injuries. Also you must consider balance, speed, agility, all things that cannot be taught. I can teach you how to strengthen each one, but only you can do. So come. Do.”

The wisdom of Ishula’s words spurred Gryph on. He tried extra hard, and was surprised to complete three laps around the meadow before collapsing in a heap. He was tired, but in a good way. His blood pumped hot under his skin, a tingle of something he hadn’t felt before surged around his body.

After a good long rest in the shade of a tree, and a whole rabbit as a treat, Ishula pronounced him fit enough to have his first lesson in combat. Gryph almost flew to his feet and dashed after the small man.

In the middle of the meadow Ishula had trod out a wide circle about fifteen of his paces across. The grass had been flattened and all visible stones, branches and other hazards removed. Ishula led a very excited Gryph to the centre.

“Now, stand facing me. Good, now, see, you are this wide.” Ishula held out his hands a body width apart.

“Now, stand sideways. Good, now see, you are only this wide.” He did the same again, this time his hands much closer. “By the simple method of turning side ways on you have reduced the target area. See?”

“Well, yes, but how am I supposed to reach you with this hand.” Gryph gestured with the hand furthest from Ishula.

“Simple.” Ishula said. His foot came around in a blur and tapped Gryph lightly on the chest. Before he could think about defending himself the foot was back where it started. “You move.

“Now, first move, I think, is to punch. Young people, they like to punch I find, very aggressive. So, stand like this, front leg bent slightly at the knee, back leg also, but a little more. Arms loose, not tense, bend your elbows, no, a little more. Now when we punch, we punch not from the shoulder, but from the hip. More strength that way. Now do as I do.”

Ishula stood next to Gryph and began slowly punching the air in front of him. Ishula looked very impressive, very dangerous. Gryph was only a danger to himself.

“You must look ahead, do not look where you are punching. Look your enemy in the eye, that way he will not only see you are serious, but he will not know what you intend. Good. Now we do the same with the feet. It is a strange thing, but in many lands that I travel, it is considered cheating to kick another man. How strange. The object of the fight is to win, there is no honour in lying on the ground beaten. If you consider the fight dishonourable, do not fight.”

So the pair kicked and punched their way around the circle until Gryph could go on no longer. They rested in companionable silence, sipping spring water and nibbling on small berries and raw roots. When the sun had moved down towards the west a small way, Ishula said it was time to practice again. Gryph was tired and already aching, but he didn’t complain. They went through the kicking and punching routine again, until Gryph had to stop.

“Ishula,” he said between deep breaths. “What about armour, you can’t punch armour surely?”

“So, I see you are thinking the hows and whys of fighting. This we call tactics. Now, the armour which is called plate in your tongue is probably not something you will be wanting to punch. But so, the plates are in separate pieces and therefore have joints. These joints can be attacked with the stabbing of the fingers, instead of the punch. Leather too. Mail is a little more yielding. Also remember a punch might do no damage to a man directly, but knock him off his feet, and he is hurt, and vulnerable.”

“But if I punch metal, won’t it hurt my fists?”

“Indeed, so you must harden them.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It is mostly painless, starting lightly. We will begin later, when your skin is healed.”

“But surely you can’t punch someone hard enough to knock them over, not if they are covered in iron plates.”

Ishula walked over to the trees and came back with a thick branch.

“Now, see.” He put one end of the thick branch on the ground and held the other. “So.” Ishula took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it as his hand struck downwards. The branch broke in two with a loud crack.

Gryph was speechless, his eyes wide.

“That is the power you too can summon, it is all within you, it is merely a matter of technique, and practise of course.”

“Show me your hand!” Gryph demanded. Ishula help out his hand. There was no blood, no bruise, and no axe anywhere in sight. ”And you can teach me to do that?”

“Do not be misled. I cannot teach you to punch through armour, and anything I can teach you will take much practise to be even competent enough not to hurt yourself. There are however a few twists and tricks I can teach you, fairly quickly, that may help you. We will I think, set aside a few moments of the day for such training.”

“What, like now?” Gryph asked, a slight note of pleading in his voice.

“So, yes, you have trained hard today, a few simple moves, then we rest.”

Ishula took up position in the centre of the circle and held out his arm. “Now, Gryph, take my wrist, grab it as tight as you can. One hand to start.”

Gryph walk over and gripped Ishula’s arm as tight as he could, gritting his teeth with the effort.

“Ready?”

Gryph nodded. With a quick twist of his arm Ishula was free. There was no speed or effort required, just the right movement.

“Again, this time I will be more slower.”

Gryph took hold again. Slowly, Ishula moved his hand up and around Gryph’s wrist, pulling against the thumb. No matter how hard he tried, his finger slipped through Ishula’s wrist and between his thumb.

“Yes, but you are a lot stronger than me, and when I get my strength back you won’t be able to do it.” Gryph complained.

“Not so, it is a matter of technique, not strength. I agree it is not perfect, and perhaps a small child would have trouble with a large man, but mostly it works. See, hold out your arm and I will show you.”

Gryph pulled up his sleeve and Ishula took a firm grip. “Remember, twist from the wrist and then the elbow. Quickly, but smooth. The trick is in the twist not how fast you do it.”

The man’s palms were rough and hot, his grip strong. His heart rate soared, a flush of heat forced a sweat across his forehead and down his back. His head swam, his pulse began to thud in his temples. Then suddenly a charge ignited in Gryph’s head. The wall that held his memories locked away vaporised, every detail crashed back into place with an almost physical thump. He screamed, he flailed his arms, he stamped and kicked his legs, lashing out at the loathed and detested monster that stood there. Fear and anger welled from the pit of his stomach, flooded his body and filled his brain, driving him to the edge of insanity.

There was a momentary pain, a sting of heat barely felt, then nothing.

Next Chapter: Chapter Five - Ishula