Week 2: Broken Oath - Part 2

The morning came and Lu still had the restrainer around their neck. They were woken up by the cadets starting their morning exercises before breakfast: Five kilometre run in full armour. The clanking of metal against metal and the voices of the kids complaining as they began the ritual was enough to wake Helvia as well. Together they walked down to the dining hall and got some breakfast: Bread, cheese and grilled mushrooms. It wasn’t much, but it was good enough.

“So what are the plans for today? When is the mage coming?” Lu asked while sitting down.

“We don’t have much to do. As long as you don’t go too far you can do whatever you want.”

“Ugh.” Lu clicked their tongue, looked to both sides and then leaned forward to whisper. “So I have an idea, what if you... Unlock this thing so I can practice some spells.”

Helvia frowned. “Do you think it is a good idea to just practice magic without a tutor like that? In front of everyone?” She turned her head to the entrance, where a group of cadets carrying wooden swords.

“Well it sure beats doing absolutely nothing.” The mage said shoving the lasts bits of toast in their mouth.

The dragonkin turned to them, with a mischievous smile. “I am afraid I am not allowed...”

“But...”

Helvia raised her finger, shushing Lu. “Stop interrupting me. I am not allowed to release the restrainer until a highmage or archmage allows it, and that is not negotiable. But I have a suggestion, what do you think about doing some sparring?”

Lu squinted their eyes, opened their mouth to protest but stopped before any sound came up. They thought for a second and leaned forwards to whisper. “Do you think they’ll let us?”

“I don’t see why not. We don’t lose anything for asking.”

Lu swallowed the remaining of her breakfast. “Alright! Let’s see if the paladins are as special as they say.”

After they both finished their breakfast they left and went to the back of the building they were in, to the inner courtyard. Most barracks in the empire had very similar layouts so neither of them had to ask where the training area was. Once they arrived to the patio Helvia had a quick conversation with one of the instructors there, who was watching over a group of specially young recruits practice with sticks as if they were spears.

After getting the man’s approval the paladin gestured Lu to accompany her to a corner of the patio where wooden replicas of multiple weapons were laid down in neat piles classified by types. Each of them covered themselves with some of the padded armour hanging nearby, which judging by the smell it seemed like they had not been washed in a while. At least it wasn’t actively wet and sweaty right now so both considered themselves lucky. Lu reached for one of the replica imperial swords, made out of wood and with some cloth padding on the edges and the tip, and lifted it up. Imperial swords were all the same shape, the blade was exactly one metre long from the cross guard to the tip and the edges were perfectly straight making the whole thing look like a very long triangle. The guard was a simple flat piece of metal (or wood in this case) extending about fifteen centimetres to each side and the handle, just long enough to fit two hands, was covered in leather. The replica felt almost exactly like a real one, except maybe slightly heavier. If the empire was good at anything, it was consistency.

“Did you practice much with the sword during your training?” Helvia picked up another sword, matching Lu’s, and started doing warm up swings. Up and down, with one and two hands, then angled, then sideways. Then using only her wrists, then waving it around in one fluid motion. “Or was it something you started to practice after you left?”

Lu matched her movements. “My instructors were very insistent on us practicing with pikes and spears, front-line stuff. But my... Caretaker at the time taught me how to use a imperial sword and I used to practice with some of the other guys in our free time.”

The dragonkin scoffed. “Well I have given my feedback that most of those training traditions are useless now anyways, our enemies don’t play by the same rules than us anymore. You need to be self-sufficient on skirmishes if you want to have a chance.”

“I am pretty self-sufficient I would say.” Lu stepped back and took a fighting stance.

“I will be the judge of that.” Helvia stepped back as well, legs flexed, her right side facing Lu and her arm extended, relaxed and confident. Her left hand was held behind her back. “Go when you are ready.”

Lu skipped forward and went for a quick stab to Helvia’s side. She was much larger than them and had more reach, but Lu was confident they could out-manoeuvre her. Helvia stepped to the side swiftly dodging and lowering her blade for a counterattack but a twist of Lu’s wrist caused the blades to clash just enough to deflect the blow and they took a step closer, getting into her space with one fluid motion and turned their stab onto a cut still directed towards the paladin’s side. She jumped backwards to dodge but before she was out of danger Lu had the chance to direct their blade up, hitting her in the wrist.

“Touche.” Helvia clicked her tongue and her slightly-lizdardly eyes narrowed. “Fast and aggressive, better than most.”

Lu tucked the sword to their side and bowed. “Thanks, I know.”

“Lets see if you keep that smile once I get warmed up.” Helvia threatened, getting back in her previous stance.

Lu lunged forwards again, but this time Helvia was ready, moving defensively to avoid the first few blows without ever attempting a counterstrike. After a minute of dancing around she managed to defect one of Lu’s blows with enough strength to create an opening and Helvia pushed her advantage striking forward towards their chest, but when the blade reached its destination there was noting there. Lu had dropped to their knees, leaning backwards and spinning around to strike behind her back and hit Helvia’s ribcage as they were facing away. The stunt had even caught the attention of the instructor and some of the other soldiers that were in the area.

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Helvia clicked her tongue again. “You only pulled that off because I am rusty.”

“Are we starting with the excuses already?” Lu laughed.

They both stood again ready to begin a new encounter while a small crowd was forming around on the edges of the courtyard. The next encounter finished in a similar fashion, Lu aggressively pushing their opponent until sooner or later the paladin made a wrong move and they could finish her off. It was not common to practice swordfighting in the shimuirian military, much less to the level displayed by the rogue mage and their jailer. Eventually, in one of their clashes Helvia made an aggressive move towards Lu’s head, which they then defected easily and moved to strike trying to finish the encounter just like all others before, but to their surprise Helvia was ready to deflect their counterattack and put her blade to their neck, winning an exchange for the first time. The large crowd that had formed cheered.

“Touche.” Said Lu. “You got lucky this time.”

“Are we starting with the excuses already?” Helvia teased, holding the blade with both hands and raising it above her head, the tip pointing towards Lu In a much more aggressive stance than what she had been using thus far. “I am all warmed up now.”

Lu did not manage to hit Helvia once during the rest of the morning. It became clear that the paladin had been humouring them before and now she was actually trying, either to impress the crowd, punish them, or just for fun. Lu was getting increasingly frustrated, her movements weren’t any faster, in fact the prisoner was still significantly quicker, and her strikes were not any stronger. However it now it felt as if Helvia was always ready for every move Lu could pull, anticipating their counterstrikes and parries, all their tricks and fancy movements rendered useless by sheer efficiency of motion. By lunch time, the mage was already exhausted, covered in sweat and barely not panting while Helvia seemed to not even be sweating. After their last clash and final humiliation at the hands of Helvia some of the instructors watching came close to talk with the paladin, asking plenty of questions about her training and style, about the paladin choice of weapons and many other things. Lu ignored all of them, dropped their sword and armour back in their respective piles and left to take a shower without saying a word.

*****

The rogue mage entered the lavatories, undressed and filled a bucket with cold water. As they turned the tab, the faith lines under the metal shone with a dim golden glow and hummed as water magically appeared at the end. Was the water being created with magic or merely being transported from somewhere else? Another mystery they could maybe solve at the university. It probably did not matter much anyways. Using a ladle and a wet rag they washed themselves before applying soap. They took a moment to trace the contour of the scar on her chest with their fingers. There was a new bump near their right hip. Had it always been there? No, that was new. It wasn’t the first time the scar had changed, or at least that it seemed to change. When they were a kid their dad had told Lu that the scar would grow smaller with age, or that as they grew it would seem smaller compared to their body, but it instead seemed to had grown with them, larger even, as if trying to engulf them. Three girls walked into the bathroom, loudly complaining about something Lu did not quite hear. The mage took one of the neatly folded towels on the side and covered themselves, leaving the bathing area to get changed. Walking past the girls they could feel their eyes fixated on their chest, on the scar, which filled Lu with shame an anger not at the fact that people stared at them, but instead towards the fact that they still cared about a stranger’s judgement.

Cleaned and dressed, Lu went to the stables and lied on the wagon. The mules were on a pen nearby quietly munching on some hay and most of the bipedal residents were in the dining hall. But Lu wasn’t hungry, they were way too busy re-living on every single clash of with Helvia before. What had changed? Was the paladin simply holding back to give them a chance? Fucking bitch. Lu had fallen for it like an idiot and gotten conformable, cocky even since they prided themselves in their fencing skills, but it was naive even for them to expect to somehow actually beat a fully fledged imperial paladin. What stung was not the defeat, it was the fact that she had waited for a crowd to form before humbling them. Assholes, laughing as if they were any better...

“This was my third guess” Helvia spoke jumping in the wagon as well. She was wearing no armour at all, just some loose cotton shirt and leather trousers, the green scales on the sides of her face and the back of her arms gleaming like emeralds under the sun. “You left without doing the debriefing, that is also an important part of training.”

“Well, you seemed busy talking with your friends” Lu sat upwards and stretched their arms. “Did you get enough praise for beating a dropout?”

“Are you upset? I did not had you for a sore loser.”

Lu clicked their tongue and rolled their eyes. “I am not, I just don’t like crowds. And we were not training, it was just a friendly sparring.”

“Does not mean you cannot learn something.”

“I am not interested, I have my own style.”

Helvia sighed. “Look I am not necessarily a good teacher so I am not going to tell you what to do. But I am a good fighter and I can tell you your weaknesses, so you can improve on your own style or however you like.”

Lu sulked for a few moments before answering. “Shoot”.

“You are exceptionally skilled, quick of reflexes and resourcefully. Your form, unusual but very consistent so you definitely know what your are doing.”

As Helvia spoke, Lu slowly turned to face her and raised one eyebrow. “You do not need to pity me like that”

“I do not. I very rarely give praise, much less when it is not deserved.” Helvia rested one hand on Lu’s shoulder, which they reluctantly accepted. “I mean it when I say you are better than most. It would be reassuring to have you by my side on the battlefield.” Helvia took her hand away. “That said, you are too good, too confident in your own skills and that makes you predictable.”

“What do you mean?”

“You start very aggressive to force me to make a mistake, and when I do you always take advantage of it. Because you are faster and have good form is really difficult to react to your movements, but I didn’t have to. Once I realised it I just started to leave myself open on purpose to goad you into the position that I wanted, and I knew I would not have to worry about you doing something else because you always take the best and most obvious route. Once I know which hit is coming I no longer have to react.”

Lu thought for a second, squinting their eyes. “So you were just baiting me?”

“Basically.”

“I knew it.” Lu said, a bit too loud. “I fucking knew you were playing me. I just... Thought next time I will get her for sure but I never did. I looked like an idiot.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, just learn what you can and improve for the next sparring.” Helvia smiled. “Be more patient, have a plan, think of what you are going to do if things don’t go your way. ” She tapped herself on the temple. “Your mind can be as good of a weapon as your blade, you have to put it to use.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Lu stood up and jumped out of the cart. “Anyways, plans have never been my forte, I prefer to just go with the flow.”

“Well, perhaps that has shown not to always turn out great” Helvia said, following Lu and gesturing and their neck.

Lu ignored Helvia’s remarks. “I am hungry now, let’s go.”

The paladin and her ward walked to the dining hall where Helvia continued their conversation. “Also I think it might be a good idea to rethink your choice of weapon, since you are not using a shield and your armour is also not very thick you could benefit from using a spear, or a two-handed”

“No.” Quickly cut the mage. “I like a one-handed weapon. I want to have one hand free to cast spells.”

Helvia laughed. “Is that even a thing? I thought most spells required a dance and song.”

“Well my dad could, and so did the inquisitor that arrested me.”

“But can you do it?”

“Not yet”