Steel And Flame (Book 1) (31 page)

“I’m getting used to it, and I like this sword.  Only
it makes it a little awkward when I adjust for the next blow in the combos.”

“Let me see that.”

Dietrik stood and took the sword, experiencing the
same problem as Marik.  “If you have to turn it anyway, maybe you can use it to
an advantage.  Let’s see…”

He raised the sword, turning the blade, letting the
guard pass his wrist without meeting it.  After a few practice movements, he
turned back.

“Watch this.”

He swung the sword forward in a quick strike, then
raised it to deliver the follow up blow.  Dietrik turned the blade so as not to
hit his wrist with the guard, then suddenly moved his arm in a new gesture. 
While bringing his elbow closer to his body, he continued twisting his wrist,
turning it into a horizontal slash at the level of a foe’s head rather than his
torso.

“That might work,” Marik admitted.  “The blow is
certainly coming from a different direction than it looked like at first.”

Dietrik returned the sword, adding, “It might.  Your
wrist is turned almost as far as it will go, though.  A hard blow in the wrong
place might break it.”

“I’ll see what I can do with it.”

They were thinking of returning to the barracks when a
voice interrupted.

“I been waiting for this.  Those pricks won’t
interrupt a
training
match, will they?  You little snots got this
coming!”

Beld had found them.

“Why do you have a problem with me, Beld?”

“There’s no place in the best for punks like you. 
Dellen should have knocked you off that rock and been here with us!”

“Haven’t we been here before?”  Marik stood to face
the man who had plagued him for eightdays on end.  Strangely, he no longer felt
apprehensive.  What he felt was a weariness at having to step carefully around
his new home because of one dumb giant holding a grudge.  “You and your
halfwits over there want to settle up?”

“That’s right, smartass!  The old man isn’t here to
save your scrawny neck this time!”

Dietrik whispered furiously, “Are you sure you know
what you’re about?”

“I think so,” Marik hissed back.  “Are you going to
back me up?”

“Of course, mate!”  He looked at Beld advancing on
them and added, “Though you’ll owe me a good meal and several rounds if we pull
this off.”

“Let me try him myself first.”

“There might not be anyone left for me to back up
then!”

“I needed that.”

Beld stopped ten feet from Marik.  He pulled free the
giant blade strapped to his back.  “Isn’t a fake one this time!”

Marik drew his sword.  “Beld?”

“What?”  The larger man paused.

“Have you been to the chirurgeons’ wing yet?”

“You think you got what it takes?  That’ll be the
day!”  Beld’s control over his temper today suffered worse than when they had
first fought.  Marik thought he could put that to use.  “Now!”

This time he prepared for Beld’s surprising speed. 
Beld came at him swinging the claymore, his massive strength adequate for the job
of controlling the huge weapon.

Marik leapt in an instant, dodging away from the steel
monster.  If he tried to defend himself, it would damage him through sheer
blunt force.  He needed to avoid the blade as much as possible, blocking only
when left with no other choice.  The power difference between their two weapons
was so great he needed to employ the same strategy Nyla had described for
rapier use.  Again and again he nimbly dodged.  Beld grew increasingly
furious.  Seeing the rage coloring the giant’s face boosted his confidence.

He finally felt ready after an entire winter of
nervous tension.

*        *        *        *        *

Dietrik watched his friend dodge the first blow, ready
to jump in and help.  He knew Marik wished to swim this current alone until he
asked for assistance, so Dietrik bounced on his toes, wincing as the giant
sword missed his friend by a hair’s breadth.

So far Marik managed a fine job of holding his own. 
His friend’s skill had grown at an astonishing rate, forcing Dietrik to work
much harder than he had ever anticipated to keep pace.  While only a handful of
years older than Marik, his pride stung enough at the thought the younger man
might have the greater talent.  They had stayed apace so far…except Dietrik
often wondered if Marik worked nearly as hard at it as he.

He took Beld’s challenge now with admirable grace. 
From his movements, he must have reached the same conclusion as himself and
wished to avoid making contact with the mammoth cleaver.  Beld was so quick
with the huge weapon that the usual weaknesses were greatly reduced.  Trying to
dash in behind the arc might be suicidal, especially since Marik was known to
use that trick.

It left him few opportunities to counterattack, being
in awkward positions, but it saved him from the hard impacts through his mail. 
Besides, blocking such a huge weapon could turn your hands and arms numb, which
would be a disadvantageous turn of events.

The two drifted from the shacks while their fight
continued.  Beld swung with horizontal slashes for the most part.  Dietrik
watched with interest, deciding the overlarge blade tended to limit the strikes
you could successfully employ.  An overhead blow crept into the mix from time
to time, keeping Marik from capitalizing on the regularity of the other swings
as he scrambled to keep his head from being split apart.

Beld’s two lackeys followed as they wandered around
the training area, as did Dietrik.

“Come on, lad!  You know you can do this!”

Marik concentrated too hard to respond, which was too
bad.  Beld apparently had a short temper.  A well placed insult might blind him
further with towering rage.

Though time seemed to stretch while the two fought,
only a few minutes must have passed in truth.  Marik had done an excellent job
of staying beyond Beld’s reach.  The effort required to continually swing the
heavy weapon had begun to take its toll on the large man.  Dietrik noticed this
at the same moment Marik switched tactics and went on the offensive.

Watching him work amazed Dietrik, who remembered well
the trouble his friend had encountered against this man during the entrance
trials.  After a bit of talk from the higher ups about weapons and a few
eightdays of practice in these training fields, Marik took on his former foe
with apparent ease.

Beld’s muscles were already strained from his own
onslaught.  This sudden flurry of attacks by his agile opponent forced him on
the defensive.  Marik began with a left slash to the torso which Beld deflected
upward, followed by a southwestern strike toward his neck on the rebound.  A
pair of thrusts followed in quick succession, though the blade Marik wielded
was not strongly suited to such attacks.  The claymore knocked the first thrust
aside but the second came too close behind the last to reposition the large
sword.  It grazed Beld’s mail when he wriggled to sidestep it.

Angered, he lashed out with his fist at Marik’s face,
who dodged the blow.  Previous experience must have suggested he watch for such
an attack.

Beld left himself open for a moment with only one hand
on his hilt.  Unfortunately, Marik was unable to recover from the dodge fast
enough.  He remained off balance, unable to capitalize on the fragmented
defense.

Dietrik kept an eye on the other two the whole time. 
If it looked to them as though Beld would be defeated, they might jump into the
fray and change the equation.  He watched Marik launch a series of attacks, one
he recognized from their practice a short while before.

His hand firmly gripped the rapier’s bone hilt while
he split his attention between the fight and Beld’s friends.  Despite the cold,
sweat ran down the back of his neck.  Tension ran high, and so did the stakes,
but Dietrik was having
fun!
  The army never offered any excitement at
all.  Dietrik thanked his patron god for the insights that had prompted him to
leave it behind.  Already in the short time since arriving, life had been far
more entertaining than during both years in his division combined.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik could tell Beld had started to slow down, and
wondered why.  They had only been exchanging blows for a few minutes.  Surely
the big man’s stamina could hold out longer than that.  The first time they had
fought had lasted longer than this.

True, they had been wielding wooden weapons that, no
matter their weight, could never replicate a real sword beyond a certain level
but Beld had showed no signs of slowing then.  Were there other factors in
effect here?

Marik backed off momentarily to get his bearings.  It
startled him to see how far they had strayed from the shacks.  Surely they
could not have come so far already, could they?  Perhaps they had been fighting
longer than he thought.

Oops!  Beld’s catching his breath.  No time to admire
the view.

He pressed his attack, instinctively adjusting his
angles, grip, speed and direction, launching into a different combination of
blows.  Beld had proved to be surprisingly inept at dealing with it the first
time.  Marik bet the man learned slowly.

Side slash to the torso from the right, rebound
upwards, curve and return the blow from the northwest.  Blocked and stopped,
point thrust once, now again.  Almost got him!  Pull back and switch,
accelerate into the southeast slash.  Dodged!  Keep up the speed, shift the
weight to the other foot, rotate the arm and
—yes!

The flashing strokes directed the blade onto an upward
path.  Marik rotated his sword into a downward strike that Beld was unable to
avoid.  His blade crashed into Beld’s shoulder, the mail protecting him from
the sword’s edge.  Except the blow’s force resulted in a severe loss of
mobility through his left arm.

Beld almost dropped the sword he clutched in both
hands as he struggled to maintain his grip.  Marik would disallowed him time to
recover.  He stepped forward quickly to land a hard strike with his pommel
against Beld’s unprotected head.  The dull thud rolled back his eyes and his
body slumped to the ground.

Marik mentally congratulated himself while he wondered
why the fight had been so much easier than expected.  Then the twin shouts from
Beld’s friends caught his attention.  They were angry and wanting to advance,
their quest for retribution hindered by Dietrik, his thin sword standing
between them and their target.

“Now, now boys.  Fair’s fair, but two on one is going
a little far, don’t you think?”

“Move it little man, ‘less you want the same!”

“Hmm, a tempting offer, to be sure.”  While Marik
quickly stepped forward to stand by his friend’s side, Dietrik answered the
query.  “Yes, I think I will have a taste.”

The two shouted in rage rather than responding with
words.  Marik found himself confronting a huge threat bearing a horse killer
sword for the second time that day.  He began his evasions anew, worried
because he had already fought far longer than he must have realized.  His own
stamina surely could not hold out much longer.

*        *        *        *        *

Dietrik enjoyed fighting the gits they had been
avoiding for eightdays.  Having to stay away from them had gotten under his
skin in the first place, though he’d carefully avoided letting on to Marik, who
had not seemed ready to face their challenge yet.

He adopted a similar strategy to Marik’s by letting
the fellow he faced wear himself out with his own weapon before moving in for
the kill.  The difference in his strategy lay in the weapon he held.  Rapiers
were built for speed and thrusting, two capabilities that helped immensely in
the current situation.  After stepping back to avoid a wide swing, he could
easily reverse direction and thrust inside the man’s guard.

The attempts to dodge the thrusts quickly sapped the
strength in the giant’s legs.  Soon he bore several small cuts along his limbs,
each oozing small bloody rivulets.  None were deep, yet they looked bad,
unnerving his hulking enemy with the sight of so much of his own blood. 
Dietrik’s foe slipped after one last attempt to dodge the rapier’s liquid
movements.  He landed hard, then held up a hand to Dietrik in surrender.

“Maybe the next time you fellows get itching for a
brawlabout, you’ll look elsewhere then?  Good!”

Dietrik turned to see that Marik still faced his
second adversary.  Worry suddenly touch him with icy fingers; Marik seemed to
be running low on energy and had been backed to the point where his feet
entangled with the unconscious Beld.

He charged to aid his friend, loudly crying out,
“Avast-hooooo!”

The startled giant glanced over his shoulder to find a
grinning maniac descending on him.

Dietrik was
really
having fun!

*        *        *        *        *

It ended soon after.  The simultaneous front and rear
assault quickly brought the last foe down, as unconscious as Beld.

“Avast-ho?”

“I sort of allowed myself to get caught up in the
moment,” Dietrik admitted sheepishly, though his broad grin still split his
face.

“I suppose so!  Hey, you!”

Dietrik’s sparing partner looked sharply at them from
examining his wounds.  He exhibited no fear but seemed wary all the same.

“I think you need to trot over to the chirurgeons’
wing and get help for your friends!”

The idiot scowled at him, making no move to leave.

“It’s up to you,” Marik shouted to end the one-sided
conversation.  “Let’s go.”

“Yes, let’s.  That’s worked up quite an appetite.”

“I want to find a place to sit for awhile.”

They left the field and crossed the short distance
between the Fourteenth’s and Fifteenth’s barracks.

“I think we’ve both improved to the next class level. 
You didn’t make any mistakes against Beld the Ox!”

“They were there.  I’m still not used to this
long-armed guard.  It interfered with the sword strokes I was trying for.”

“It did not show at all.”

“It worked out all right, but only because Beld has
the brain of a donkey.  I need to improve my speed; I missed a couple openings
because I was too slow.”