Special lessons for the advanced kids, probably. They were all good at least. Way better than he was, from what he could tell. Though it could be hard to tell, since they all just looked like anyone in front of them should die. It was intimidating, even from a distance. Tor waited for a lull in the efforts to approach. It was polite, plus, really, he didn't want to be killed by mistake, if one of them tripped or something.

Freaking giants. Always looming over properly sized people like him the way they did. Well, he was a little short, only five-four, which wasn’t tiny once you got out of the major cities, but wasn’t tall even for his home village of Two Bends.

Three vast students tried to eviscerate Kolb with swords all at once, the man struggling to hold his own the whole time. The combat students were good, about ten times better than Tor, at least, and while none of them could equal the head instructor alone, they worked together well, pressing the man into exhaustion, and then, finally, moving in for the “kill”.

Laughing Kolb surrendered and held his right hand up.

“Take a break and make sure to drink some water. This heat's bad enough without sunstroke.” He spied Tor and looked down at the splint on his leg, then at the paper in his hand, a nice cream colored envelope.

“Tor! You haven't crippled yourself for life have you? Come to resign?”

Tor shrugged with one shoulder.

“Nothing like that. I get the splint off in about a month. It got broken when I dove head first into a middens. Anyway…” Tor took a deep breath.

Kolb walked away, over to the water barrel.

“Walk with me then, or hobble as the case may be. Now, tell me why you were doing a damned fool thing like that? Head first into a middens? Some kind of a dare? A drunken bet? Not going to be a habit is it?”