He sounded pretty confident and grinned as he put up a shield promptly. Andrew saw a puff of dust where Ciccone had extended his chield to the ground in front of himself, but to Andrew, it didn’t look like he had dug them in very far, if at all. When the Corporal flicked his wrist and sent the push spell, Ciccone barely budged. Then the Corporal did more of the thrusting motion with his left hand, sending what Andrew could feel was a lot stronger push spell at Ciccone, who staggered backward, and Andrew could tell the man’s shield was gone.

“Damn!” Ciccone muttered.

“Right, Nguyen, you’re up.”

Nguyen took a solid, braced-looking stance, obviously trying to brace his shield, and again Andrew saw the tell-tale puff of dust indicating the man had anchored the ground. Corporal Sanchez studied Nguyen for a second and bypassed the light push, going straight for the heavy push first up, this time. Nguyen staggered in much the same way Ciccone had done, and once more, Andrew could tell the man’s shield had collapsed under the pressure of the Corporal’s push.

The Corporal nodded at Nguyen before he turned to Andrew and van Hooton. He studied the two of them for a moment before pointing to van Hooton as the next one to be tested. Van Hooten held up a hand in a stop motion.

“I can sort of do a shield, Corporal, but I doubt mine’s anywhere near as strong as any of the other guy’s shields.”

“That is sensible of you had to admit, Private. Put up the shield you can anyway so I can at least see what I’m working with.”

Andrew could hardly tell that the man had put up a shield at all, his magic was so weak, and after studying van Hooton for a few moments, the Corporal took his head.

“We’re going to have to spend a lot of time working with your shields, Private van Hooten.”

He frowned and then turned to Andrew.

“So, Harris. You ready?”

“Yep, Corporal.” Andrew followed the others and braced his shield without actually sticking it in the ground. He figured if the others hadn’t done it, they must have been told not to do it. Probably a training method to build up their shield skills. The Corporal went straight for the strong push as he’d done with Ciccone. Andrew was tempted to say something smart arse like, whenever you’re ready when the push failed to have any effect on his shield but decided not to. Corporal Sanchez studied him for a moment, then nodded.

“Good shield there, Harris. Right. Now we’ll do mental shields. Mental shields are just as important as physical shields against the people you will be facing as they specialize in taking control of people and making them do what they want. Not only will you need to shield yourself, but hopefully, with training, you’ll be able to throw at a mental shield that protects everybody in your near vicinity from these arse holes.”

He paused and looked around at the men standing in front of him.