A Place to Belong - Chapter 18
#19 of Malakye's Story - Part 1 (A Place to Belong)
Chapter 18 of 'A Place to Belong'. Malakye asked Aceh for help, now it's time for Aceh to help.
As you may have noticed I'm posting pics with a chapter of the story below, each of the pictures are a commission I've gotten from various artists of characters from the story and I'm still requesting more.
If anyone fancies doing a picture or piece of fan-art from the story using any of the characters or places then they are welcome to do so, let me post the pics with the story and I'll give a link to your user-page when I use it.
All the pictures I've used so far and more are available to be viewed in my gallery with info on the relevant artists that drew them for me.
I'd like to give a big shout out to 'Roderick the Rhodesian Ridgeback' (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/zizixmp3/) for proof reading my story. He's a great fur with a big heart and I can't thank him enough for doing all he's done to help with the story,
You may notice a few words have been highlighted and an explaination of what it is is given, these are words that only exist in this story and are there to help you understand whats happening, these descriptions only appear the first time they are used and won't appear in future chapters but soon I will be posting an encylopedia of sorts contain all of these word and more allowing you to discover many things about the world that may not even appear in the story. If you feel like I've missed a word then please let me know and I'll make sure to add it to the chapter and/or the encyclopedia for future reference.
Chapter 18
I was woken by someone shaking me. I blinked several times before my vision focused enough to see Aceh crouched next to me, his massive frame taking up most of the wagon I was in.
"Time to train." Aceh's deep voice reverberated through the small space we were in. I simply nodded and began to ready myself, both mentally and physically, for some gruelling training that would most likely leave me sore for several days. Stepping outside I saw that dawn was still yet to break. The sun was merely minutes away from making an appearance over the horizon, and the sky was a beautiful combination of red and orange. I was captivated by the view to say the least, but a quiet growl from Aceh drew my attention back to him.
"Oh, sorry." I said, walking over to him. He didn't reply back.
"I will train you in the martial combat known as Tiger Palm." Aceh said, his voice still sounding strange to me. "Tiger Palm is based on counter attack. Good for defence. It doesn't matter if your enemy is big or small, Tiger Palm works the same."
"Okay."
"Now do as I do." Aceh stood beside me and got into a stance which after some trouble, I was able to carefully copy. The stance seemed to revolve around having a good sturdy base, feet wide apart, knees bent, and the right foot a step further forward than my left. My right arm was bent at the elbow, making my forearm rest in front of my chest, and the palm of my paw was facing away from me. My left arm on the other hand was placed firmly against my side, so my forearm pointed directly ahead of me; the palm of my hand pointed directly upwards.
To say the least I felt a bit uncomfortable in this position, I knew from my little experience watching the wolves training back in the village that you could tell how aggressively someone would be attacking by their stance. That's when I realised that the wolves had a very aggressive nature when it came to the attack and were always on the offensive. The training back then was basically about overpowering your opponents into submission; I even doubt that any of the wolves would have an idea of how to perform a defensive technique like this one, I certainly wouldn't have.
"The point of Tigers Palm is to deflect your enemy's attacks and throw them off balance." Aceh explained, not moving a muscle. He simply stared ahead of himself like he was facing off with an opponent.
"From this position you can easily dodge or deflect your enemies attack." Aceh continued this time, slowly stepping forward, swinging his right arm to the side and bringing his left arm up to the same position his right arm had been and then repeating... elbow bent, palm facing upwards.
I copied him the best I could; his slow pace allowed me to keep up. We continued like this for a while, stepping forwards and then each time reverting to the starting stance. After a while I began to visualise an opponent rushing at me. It was a very simple and basic manoeuvre that would throw your opponent off balance and create an opening for you to strike back at them.
"Your enemies will not always attack you the same way." Aceh said, stopping his motions; we had walked a small distance from the camp. He never broke his stance. This time instead of stepping forwards he stepped backwards immediately dropping his right arm and bringing up his left to the same position his right had been in; I had called this the Guard position in my head.
"If you wait for your opponent to strike you, you can see how he will strike, by doing this you create distance and allow yourself time to switch positions to perform the best counter attack."
He was right, I could see it all in my head, visualising my enemy attacking so that my current stance would be ineffective. Aceh and I continued with our slow movements, drilling them into my head so they would become instinctive. I knew that this was just the beginning, the beginning of a long hard training session and that they would only get harder from here.