Sprints

This wasn't sprinting.

This was a fucking mountain.

Not a slope. Not a hill. A jagged, uneven, merciless beast of rock and ice.

Thirty minutes in, and Wes' lungs felt like they were burning from the inside out. Each breath clawed at his throat, raw and sharp, as if the freezing air had turned to shards of glass.

His legs ached—no, screamed. Each step uphill felt heavier, slower, his muscles locking up, trembling from exhaustion. His body was failing, but stopping wasn't an option.

Sprint up.

Tumble down.

The fall was just as brutal as the climb.

Rolling, slamming, scraping against jagged rock. The cold bite of the ground against his bruised, battered skin. Over and over again, until his body felt more like a collection of wounds than a person.

And rest?

Rest was standing in the freezing wind, arms shaking as they held a boulder overhead.

Each recruit had a rock, different sizes for different bodies, but they all hurt the same. His shoulders felt like they were being pulled apart at the seams, his arms locked up, his grip weakening. His fingers were so numb he could barely feel the weight anymore, just a dull, crushing pressure in his bones.

Four groups of ten.

And if one person wasn't pushing themselves to the limit?

The whole group paid.

Wes' back stung, a fresh welt burning across his skin.

There were slackers in his group.

Xavier had been placed with him too, and Wes could feel the glare he was giving them, the same glare Wes himself had been throwing at them for the past hour.

But after a couple of hours, there was no thought. No focus. No strategy.

Only movement.

His vision blurred, his body a machine running purely on will.

He refused to stop.

His body wasn't his own anymore—it was just something to push forward, something to keep moving, no matter how much it screamed at him to stop.

His feet pounded against the ground. He wasn't even seeing straight anymore.

So he just ran with his eyes closed.

And then—

A crushing blow to his abdomen.

A shock of pain tore through him, white-hot, breath-stealing.

His ribs compressed, his diaphragm locked up—no air, no control, just an explosion of agony tearing through his body.

His legs buckled.

His balance shattered.

And then he was falling.

Tumbling down the slope, his battered body slamming into the ground with sickening force.

Wes gasped for breath, but nothing came.

His lungs spasmed, his stomach twisted, pain flaring up his spine, down his limbs. His entire body locked up in protest, nerves screaming.

Azhok stood at the top of the hill, watching him with a grin.

"I didn't even try to hit you."

Wes forced air into his lungs, choking on the breath. Every inhale was a knife between his ribs.

"But fighting with your fucking eyes closed is a bad idea."

Azhok raised his hand, and the others immediately stopped.

No one fell over.

No one slumped.

They had learned what happened when you did.

The orc's voice was steady, but there was no humor in it anymore.

"You're not here to condition. You're here to fight."

He jabbed a finger at the mountain.

"Right now, your fucking opponent is this hill. Running up it with your eyes closed is stupid."

A slow pause.

"You don't fight with your eyes fucking closed."

Wes wasn't the only one who had done it.

But he was the one who had been made the example.

He tried to push himself up.

His arms trembled. His core spasmed.

The blow had been devastating.

Azhok's grin stretched wider.

"I want 100 Iron Breakers from each of you."

Wes' stomach dropped.

Iron Breakers.

A brutal exercise. Start in a squat, slam your fists into the ground, explode into a push-up, then throw your legs forward into a sit-up, punching at the peak. Then do it all over again. And again. And again.

Core. Arms. Legs.

Pain.

His muscles locked up before he even started, the ache already deep in his bones.

But he dropped into position.

First rep.

His abs spasmed.

Second rep.

His arms barely caught his weight.

By the tenth rep, his body was refusing.

By the twentieth, he was seeing black spots.

Then—

The lash.

The whip cracked across his back, fire searing through his skin.

His breath hitched.

"Hurts, does it?" Azhok sneered.

Wes clenched his jaw.

"Maybe the goblins will let you heal up before they kill you."

The orc's laughter was brutal.

A taunt.

A challenge.

Something inside Wes snapped.

Pain burned through his entire body, exhaustion pressed down like a weight trying to bury him.

But he pushed through.

He refused to stop.

This was Gra'zuk.

And this was only the first three hours.