Karen smiled and had him walk with her towards where the practice weapons were kept.

“So… I was thinking that since you can't run and that's what you normally practice doing, right? Since you can't do that, let's work pells and lifting stones for strength, then we'll do an intense sword and knife drill and maybe head out to the range so that we can practice there for a while.”

That would be different at least, since he'd never been out to the range before. Kolb didn't even let him practice with a bow and arrow, claiming that it would probably be wasted anyway, since no one used them any more to fight with and the aiming system for everything else was just so different.

Karen, it turned out, expected him to be some kind of weapons expert it seemed, and came at him like he was one of the combat giants. He barely managed to hold on and had to resist trying to run away at least three times. They fought first with knives, and then swords, standing face to face, without moving their feet at all. Without dodging it was a lot harder not to be killed by the girl than normal. Not the practice kind of killed, the actual dying kind. She didn't hit him in the leg at least. Just everywhere else.

“Now, it's about three miles to the range, I don't know if we can get a wagon out, so… do you think you can walk it?”

Uhg. He could, Tor was pretty sure, but it would ache. The three miles out wouldn't be so bad, but coming back, that would not be fun. He told her this, hoping she wouldn't just think he was a wimp. He smiled. Really that should be, he hoped she didn't think he was more of a wimp. She probably had his measure pretty well already after all.