Sarah had already started picking out daggers from the weapon racks while Liam was giving pointers to her brother. She paused for a moment and held up a weapon that looked like a dagger but was extremely wide and had one curved edge. “What is this?”
“Beastblade, half dagger, half cleaver. The weight gives your chops a bit of extra oomph when the meat you are trying to cleave is still moving.”
She placed the oversized dagger back, “Is throwing ok?”
“It’s fine, I doubt you’ll be able to hit me, but if you do, make sure you aren’t aiming for the eyes. Same rules as before, 1 round without mana, 1 round with.”
Just like with Mahs he gave Sarah three attempts to break through his defenses. She lunged with two daggers at him, first attempting to throw him off balance or force his guard away with feints to allow a second slash through. This was foiled as he simply dodged her flurry of slashes without even raising his sword.
She then attempted to break through his defense by throwing her daggers. The first aimed center mass, something that would be too difficult to effectively dodge and would force him to parry. When he managed to parry both the thrown knife and the follow up strike just as easily as he dodged previously, she aimed the second knife at his instep causing him to pull his foot back, shifting his balance for the first time.
Before she could take advantage of this, he swung his sword and slapped the wrist of the hand that was reaching to pull out one of the backup daggers. She pulled her hand back and started to take a stance again only to receive a second blade slap across her cheek.
“The slap means the first part is over girl. Now show me what tricks you have.”
She smiled as she pulled out the dagger she was previously reaching for and grabbed a second off the ground. Unlike her brother who relied on his single spell, she had three spells ready. The first pulled mana in as a simple augmentation to increase her speed. The second, created a cloud of smoke at her feat that soon concealed her completely. Liam gave a “hmm” of approval and quickly leapt backwards a few steps. He couldn’t see what she was casting for her third spell, but he was increasing the space between them so he would have more time to react.
When she came running out of the smoke cloud, there were four of her moving at tremendous speed. All of the images looked and moved identically at the exact same times in a diamond formation. It took a fraction of a second for Liam to pick out the target. He made eye contact with one of the four Sarahs that were running at him and raised his sword for a counter attack. Thane thought at this moment that she might actually get him.
He swung the flat of the blade down, probably aiming to bruise the head or shoulders of the girl he locked eyes with, however, his smile disappeared as the sword passed right through the image. He heard the skidding sound of Sarah coming to a stop behind him but couldn’t see her. He frantically turned around as Sara lunged forward to strike. Realizing he couldn’t parry or dodge this blow properly, he bent his knees backwards 90 degrees, barely using his left arm to keep himself from pratfalling on the dusty training grounds. The moment her strike swung at air, he was already twisting his body and legs, wrapping her in a leg lock before giving one last twist sending both of them to the ground.
They kicked up a cloud of dust as they hit the ground, their legs were tangled together, but he was on top and had his sword pointed at her neck.
“Not bad, that’s how you trick someone in a fight. Did you seriously calculate fake eye contact for an image to get in my blind spot? It was like I was sparring with the House of Shadows again, you might have got me if I was a bit less experienced. I say we stop here, If we continue I’ll have to use my own mana, and you don’t want that.” The two untangled their legs and stood up, “I got no advice for you girl, the way you fight is too specialized, go talk to Onyx for pointers if you can ever find her. If you need any help with the basics or form, let me know.”
Kisha was up next and she used her own wooden shield and grabbed one of the training long swords. The first part of her fight went as expected. Her style with a sword and shield was too defensive. She attempted to throw off his balance by shoving and smashing him with her shield, but without mana enhancement the difference in strength between her and the older and much larger man was too much to overcome. She lasted longer defensively than either of the twins. She was proficient in using both sword and shield to block and ward off blows. After a few blocked swings, Liam seemed to make a game of it. Thane could tell that each strike and feint became faster and faster until Kisha could no longer keep up and she received the same slap across the cheek the previous challengers received.
“All right now girl, come at me full strength. Lets see if one of you can get me to use mana today.”
Thane gathered a bit of his own mana in an attempt to see what Kisha was going to do. She layered two enhancements, strength and perception. He was a bit surprised she didn’t go for strength and speed in order to really try to overpower Liam, but he soon realized what she was doing once she reached in her pocket and tossed a bunch of small objects over the training field.
“Impressive”, Liam said. “You’re able to hold two enhancements at the same time at such a young age. But what did you just spread over my training yard?”
Bart, who was standing next to Thane, asked, “What did she toss out there?”
“Seeds” Thane replied.
With her enhanced strength, Kisha was no longer worried about being able to overpower Liam, so she charged straight ahead, shield first, towards the man. The raised shield served a second purpose, to block the view of her mouth as she chanted another spell to take advantage of the trap she had laid.
Rather than completely dodging it, Liam accepted her charge. He switched his sword to his left hand and placed his left foot back to brace himself as her round wooden shield collided with a metal bracer on his right wrist. He kept his eye on her sword as they circled each other, deflecting a few swings as she tested his defenses. With the magical enhancements, the smaller girl now had the advantage in strength and it took bracing and footwork for Liam to keep himself upright as Kisha pressured him.
It only took a second for that footwork to be lost.
Once Kisha had finished her spell the dozens of tiny seeds erupted into masses of entangling roots and vines. She backed off and began to circle around to the left as the roots did their work. His right and left leg were completely entangled and she had circled around to his open right side.
For the first time he looked worried, Kisha charged him with both sword and shield ready, and he barely managed to free one of his legs in time. He let out a loud grunt as he pulled his right leg free and twisted his body. He brought up his sword to parry and grabbed the shield with his right hand but that only made his situation worse. As soon as his foot was back on the ground it was entangled once again, and now that he had grabbed her shield, she triggered her second trap.
More tiny roots and vines erupted from her shield to wrap him up and in a flash they had crept up his arm. She had been overpowering him with strength, both his legs and one of his arms were now useless. With his last free hand he dropped his sword and pointed his palm towards the sky. At first Kisha thought he was going to surrender until she heard him shout.
“Qua ur ircum eg!”
-Burn everything around me!-
A pillar of fire erupted around Liam, and Kisha jumped back before the flame could touch her. She took several more steps back as the magical flames spread across the ground like a carpet. When they faded, the yard was empty again save for the two fighters. The seeds that she had scattered all over the ground were now ash.
Kisha was pondering her next move and Liam was standing upright with his body turned so his left side was facing her. His sword was back in his right hand, pointed at the ground, and his left arm was extended towards her, open palm facing up. Thane could sense the mana tingling in the air and he knew Liam had one more spell ready to go, and was just waiting for a chance to release it.
When Kisha reached into her pocket and tossed out another handful of seeds, Liam curled his fingers up towards the sky and a wall of fire erupted upwards, consuming her seeds in mid air.
“Do you have anything else?”
Kisha bit her lower lip in frustration, and shook her head, she was so close to winning.
“Your problem is obvious, you spend a bit too much effort on defense, and when you can’t overpower your foe you need another backup plan that doesn’t involve seeds. You should at least take pride in the fact that you are one of only a handful of people that have made me use mana for this test, even if I didn’t have to use any body enhancement.”
Thane was the last up. He had no idea how he would be able to beat this guy. Thane never really relied on tricks, he always focused on skill and strength. What was he supposed to do against someone who obviously was far above him in both. Liam hadn’t had to use any body enhancement yet, he would probably be even more of a terror if he did.
As Thane was racking his brain trying to figure out what to do, someone else interrupted them. “Mind if I test this one?”
“Oh, the high and mighty paladin wants to challenge the new guy? Why are you so keen on taking this boy on?”
Thane looked up at his challenger, the blonde representative Lance was already checking the training weapons on the rack. He wasn’t wearing his heavy full plate armor anymore, instead having a much lighter breastplate that looked more ceremonial than functional. “I need a question answered.”
“Fine, but if he really is the toughest of the bunch you’d better watch yourself, he may surprise you.”
“I hope so, if he’s only at the same level as his friends then this won’t be much of a fight at all.”
OK, now I need to knock the crap out of that pretty boy, Thane thought.
Lance tossed around a few long spears in his hand before settling on one that seemed appropriate. “So what weapon do you specialize in?”
“I don’t really have a specialization, I use swords, spears, greatswords-”
“You fought those bandits with a spear right?”
“I had a spear and an old halfsword I use for-.”
“Are you fine with a spear then?”
“That’s fine.”
Lance tossed him the long spear he was holding and picked a new one. Liam backed off once the fighters were ready. “All right, you two can just skip the warm up, feel free to use mana at the start. Go whenever you are ready.”
The two men stared each other down as the mana entered their bodies, each with his spear pointing at an angle towards the ground. Like Kisha, Thane could hold two enhancements at the same time, he increased his speed and strength hoping to end the fight quickly. Unlike when he charged up everything with his “forbidden” technique, his mental perception and reflexes were not increased. It made it difficult to keep up with the speed he was moving sometimes, but he couldn’t just use that technique whenever he wanted to.
Thane moved first, lifting the spear up with a quick thrust to the center mass of Lance, it was quickly parried by his opponent and countered with a horizontal sweep that hit nothing but air when Thane jumped back. They began to circle each other like predators and conducted similar exchanges two more times until Thane grew impatient.
He completely changed his stance, choking up on the spear until he held it by the middle completely forsaking the spear's extended range in order to attack with both the sharp and blunt ends. He lunged inside his opponents attack range as fast as he could, spinning the spear in his hands to confuse which end had the spear tip. He knocked away his opponent's spear with the blunt end before stabbing with the speartip aimed at his chest. There were four more quick exchanges with Thane alternating between blunt and sharp ends of the spear. Face, shoulder, stomach, and neck, each blow was lightning fast and barely parried or dodged by Lance. When the last blow was dodged he performed the maneuver he had practiced with Castor dozens of times before, with the opponents attention drawn up, strike the knee and sweep his leg out from under him.
Lance, however, did not lose his balance as expected. Instead he felt a heavy thud as his sweep smacked against the shaft of Lance’s spear, it was almost if…
Thane jumped back, barely avoiding the counterswing and he found himself at a distance again, after he put in so much effort of closing it. The confusion on his face must have been visible since Lance was quick to speak up.
“Yes, “ Lance said, “I knew exactly where you were going to swing. Anyone familiar with the style would know exactly what you were planning when you follow the training moves so closely. You lack real combat experience.”
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