Tor kept to a good jog, which would have made the weapons master, Kolb, happy. The older man seemed convinced that anyone that couldn't run the length of the kingdom and back inside a month was incurably lazy. That no one had ever managed such a feat didn't stop the man from hinting it was the highest sign of worth for a non-combat oriented student like Tor Baker. Too little to fight properly most of the time, short and slender, the head instructor liked to pick on him a little. Running beat having the military students beat the snot out of him daily so Tor did it without complaint.

True, most of them didn't really try to hurt him on purpose when he was forced, again by Kolb, to take them on in practice, but they somehow always managed it anyway. Generally because most of them were freakishly large. Like the tall girl he'd just passed, what was her name… Petra? She always managed to hand him a piece of his backside when they worked together, which was more than a little humiliating. Worse, Tor kind of suspected that the girl went out of her way to be gentle with him compared to the others, pulling her punches and sword blows. He'd seen her easily drive men over seven feet tall and three hundred pounds to their knees more than once. That Tor was still alive probably meant that she was coddling him like a baby. He decided not to worry about it and grinned instead.

He was a builder, not a warrior. Maybe a real one now. Unless the build didn't work. Then he was just screwed.

Keeping his pace steady he made his way up the three flights of gray stone steps to the outside walkway that led to his room. It was decent sized, the room, nearly as big as the bedroom he'd shared with his four brothers before he left home. Had it really only been two and a half, nearly three, years? Rolph complained about the tiny space occasionally, but then his family was rich, some kind of merchant empire thing that involved a lot of famous and wealthy people. At least from what little his roomie had hinted at when he got tired, or had grabbed a little extra wine with dinner.