Blade Dancing in the Moonlight

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

Day 55, Spring of 511 A.V.

Beads of crystalline sweat meandered down the girl’s soft cheeks, gathering at her sharply-angled chin before splashing into the moonlight-colored sand beneath her. The young woman could see her breath materialize in front of her, a plume of ghostly steam repeatedly refreshed by her panting chest. Every breath was labored; every gasp for air only reminded her that she was severely outmatched and sorely inferior. The revelation was sobering, but her years as a squire had been, if nothing else, a true and poignant lesson in humility. There would always be someone better; there would always be something more to learn. Fortunately, there was no one in Syliras more determined to intake from her predecessors’ wisdom and experience than Aurelia Whitethorn.

Thrusting her head forcefully to the right to swing several blonde locks away from her blue eyes, Aurelia steadied the dented, kite-shaped shield in front of her. She could feel her right arm sagging beneath its weight, the bittersweet result of continuous maneuvering and successful blocking. Her opponent’s torrent of heavy blows had practically numbed her hand into submission, but she had held on to the battered shield with every ounce of vigor and resolve that flowed through her veins. She was the proud daughter of a Syliran Knight, and her adversary would learn – as he had many times over the years of their mentor-mentee relationship – that hers was a stubborn constitution.

As her opponent’s sword rolled off the convex surface of her shield, Aurelia lowered the guard and surged out from behind it like a cornered lioness protecting her cubs. Her long sword flashed wildly in the peering moonlight, its gleaming edge cutting a swath of silver through the black fabric that was the night sky. For the millionth time that evening, her blade eviscerated thin air. In that regard, at least, she was quite accurate. She seemed to have no difficultly spilling the bowels of her imaginary opponents. Unfortunately, they neither counterattacked nor attempted to dodge.

“Patience, patience, patience!” Her adversary angrily rebuked. His silhouette was faintly visible against the backdrop of the glittering Suvan Sea. “You’re being too hasty. Don’t waste your energy on petty things. Every attack should have some purpose!”

A curtain of sand exploded in front of her as her mentor charged across the cold beach in a violent rush. The tiny particles rained down upon her shield and molested her flowing golden hair, but they were the least of the young girl’s worries. She spotted her mentor’s enormous bastard sword as it descended from its apex in a furious swipe that could have cleaved a wild boar in two equal parts – the young squire’s victimized shield could attest to that. Squinting through the makeshift sandstorm and fearing that another parry would break her hand and fracture the bones in her forearm, Aurelia sidled to the right a split second before the foreign blade slammed several inches into the grainy battlefield and sprayed another swarm of sand into the air.

Reeling for breath, the young squire intuitively knew that she had no time to waste against her superior opponent. She noticed the rare opportunity before her and punched the face of her shield upon the middle of the overly extended bastard sword, effectively pinning the weapon in place and preventing her mentor from heaving it upward for another strike. Grinding her jaws together determinedly, she drew her long sword back and shot its tip over the tangled mess of steel at her adversary’s enameled breastplate.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

A shower of orange sparks suddenly illuminated the night as Aurelia’s blade connected against something tangible. Glancing through the curtain of glowing embers, the young squire saw the edge of her sword shrieking against the outer portion of her mentor’s spiked gauntlet...and slowly being turned aside. His strength far exceeded her own, and she felt him easily shrug away her long sword with another great push of his lobstered hand. What’s more, the bastard sword trapped beneath her shield stirred ominously, resisting the beach’s gravitational pull and prepping for another earthshaking strike. “A clever plan,” her Patron Knight grimly applauded. “But you brought yourself too close. You never want to fall into your opponent’s reach, especially if he’s much bigger than you.” The stalwart man punctuated his statement by punching his gauntleted hand towards her in a closed fist.

Gasping in surprise, Aurelia ducked and maneuvered her shield frantically in front of her, consequently freeing her mentor’s bastard sword in the process. She tucked her head behind the kite-shaped guard as the seasoned knight’s fist slammed into the beaten metal with the force of a titan. The sheer strength of the attack sent her skidding backwards, her grounded heels drawing two parallel lines in the sand – it was a small price to pay to avoid a broken nose and a pair of black eyes. Aurelia’s slender shoulders bobbed vigorously as she huffed for breath, each intake of cool air filling her lungs with newfound energy. She ignored the throbbing pain in her chest. Her mentor had always told her that victories were first won in the mind and then on the battlefield. If she capitulated to her body’s yielding impulses now, she knew that she would already have lost.

“Don’t tell me you’re done. Come on, Aura. I know you’ve got more than that,” the older knight firmly goaded.

Another wisp of translucent air danced from her pale lips, a byproduct of the cold. The young squire shook her head defiantly and raised her sword and shield in response, which elicited an approving nod from her armored counterpart. Indeed, she had more than that. The last several years could attest to her unwavering resolve. She was not a Syliran Knight yet, but she had spent every day and every night living, breathing, and eating the Syliran lifestyle. Theirs was a spirit of indomitable courage and tenacity; they found means of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable. She would find a way.

Aurelia lunged at the Patron Knight as he collected his bastard sword in a traditional two-handed grip. The sheer size of the mammoth blade would have hampered the speed of an ordinary man, but her adversary was a seasoned soldier who had learned to compensate for the weapon’s substantial weight. A perfunctory glance to her slender long sword reminded Aurelia that what she lacked in brute strength, she gained in speed. It was the only asset that her mother’s lithe bequest had imparted to her for combative purposes. There were times when Aurelia wished that she had inherited her father’s towering physique and robust stature, but that had never been meant to be. The gods had conferred upon her what they had, and she had learned to make the most of those gifts, even if they were not always apparent.

Her left hand shot out with a dancer’s grace, propelling her long sword at her Patron Knight’s chest. When his bastard sword elevated to bat away the measly jab, Aurelia withdrew the feint from its extensive reach, twisted her hips to the left, and slammed the edge of her rotating kite shield into the side of her adversary’s weapon. She watched her mentor’s enormous blade veer harmlessly away from her. The surprise that manifested upon the old knight’s bristly visage was a minor triumph in itself, but Aurelia was far from done. She had gained the upper-hand for the moment, but that was all it was – a moment.

The Patron Knight would recover soon. She needed to act quickly.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

With her shield poised in front of her, she dug her heels into the pliable sand and rammed into her unbalanced mentor. Metal screeched on metal as the dented guard collided against the man’s glossy breastplate. Even with her tiny shoulder tucked behind the shield to bolster the attack, though, she might as well have attempted to tackle a brick wall. The Patron Knight barely budged beneath the unrehearsed shield bash, and although she could feel him staggering backward, his back foot planted strategically in the sand to prevent him from tumbling over. Aurelia mouthed a soundless curse. Her father had shown her the shield bash a thousand times when she was younger, but the technique required strength and leverage, neither of which her supple figure possessed in accessible abundance.

A flash of glinting silver out of the corner of her blue eyes forewarned her of the bastard sword’s imminent return to the equation. Giving the Patron Knight another forceful shove with her shield to create some distance between them, Aurelia swept her long sword low at her adversary’s knees as if she were using a scythe to level a field of wheat. Her fingers were curled loosely around the blade’s leather-bound hilt at first, tightening an instant before contact to stay true to the weapon’s intended trajectory – exactly as her father had taught her. However, her long sword fell several inches short of the formidable knight’s greaves, instead crashing into the man’s awaiting bastard sword, which he had interposed between them during the interim. “I thought I had you,” she said with a half-grin. The expression faded gradually as the Patron Knight braced himself and pushed his weight against their locked weapons.

“You have the potential to be good –no, even great, Aura. But it will take you more than natural athleticism to get you there.”

Although her mentor’s overpowering demonstration of strength provided her with little time to marinate on his words, they sliced her more deeply than the edge of his blade ever could. His subtle review resonated with undeniable truth. For years, Aurelia had relied upon her inborn talents to excel in areas that others had encountered difficulties in. Long sword. Shield. Spear. Horseback riding. She had proven to be a quick learner of the aforementioned arts, but unsurprisingly, it had not taken long for her to plateau. Young boys she had once easily throttled grew to become men - bigger, faster, and stronger than she ever would be. Where they had grown barreled chests, she had developed breasts; where they had acquired trunk-sized thighs and calves, hers had remained slender; where they had developed facial hair, she – Aurelia dismissed the latter thought immediately. While she was grateful that the gods had not cursed her with a vile beard (she had hated her father’s because it pricked her every time she kissed his cheek), she most definitely would have enjoyed the other assets that her male counterparts wielded.

A stubborn glimmer sparkled in the woman’s ocean-blue eyes. She knew that he was right. No matter how much time passed by, she would never have the advantage of size or strength. She needed to use a weapon far more superior than those she would not ever have: her mind. As the Patron Knight prepared to bowl her over with his immense carriage, Aurelia pretended to push back with her sword against his. She step-sided a second later, allowing her armored mentor’s inertia to throw him forward in an awkward stumble. Their weapons screeched loudly as Aurelia disentangled her blade from his bastard sword and punched its crossbar at an angle beneath the seasoned knight’s closed helm. To her genuine surprise, a shrill ding echoed across the silent bay like a hammer ringing a bell on a quiet night.

Her cross-guard struck an inch beneath the old knight’s chin, tilting his helmet at an odd angle and misaligning its horizontal eyehole. Luck could not have been more favorable to her at that moment, but as her father had always told her, luck was what happened when preparation met opportunity.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

With opportunity knocking on the horizon, Aurelia withdrew her sword-hand and guided its edge in a silvery arc behind the blinded knight’s right poleyn. Her Patron Knight would never see the rear attack coming, literally. Her blunted practice weapon clanged undamagingly against her mentor’s resilient armor, but the force of the blow upon the tender body part caused the mighty soldier’s leg to buckle forward. She watched him stumble to one knee, his bastard sword grazing the sand as he lifted his gauntleted hands to readjust the twisted helmet on his head. A triumphant smile glittered across the young woman’s visage like the countless stars that dotted the night sky. “Cutting” her mentor down had been like felling a thick sequoia with a butter knife – incredibly difficult and rare. When the accomplished knight finally turned his helmet around see through its visor, the flattened tip of Aurelia’s sword was waiting for him at his gorget.

“Good,” the veteran soldier stoically replied. “I see that you’ve taken at least some of this old man’s lessons seriously.” The young squire grinned in response, retracting her sword from the knight’s personal space as he lumbered to his feet. It had taken Aurelia months to learn that a sword was more than its razor edge. The pommel, cross-guard, and grip could all be used as weapons. In fact, her mentor had insisted once that she practice against him with the hilt of her sword alone. That particular exercise had resulted in more bruises in one day than Aurelia had endured in a lifetime, but it had been a prudent lesson about resourcefulness.

“I’ve always taken your lessons seriously, Ser,” Aurelia lightheartedly replied, removing her helmet and shaking her long golden curls free from their steamy confines. The cool breeze from the Suvan Sea was refreshing against her fair skin, chilling the smattering of sweat that grazed her forehead and cheeks and flirting with her blonde tresses. “It’s just not always easy to put them into action.” Her head dipped in an honest nod.

“And that is exactly why we practice,” the old knight thoughtfully added. She watched him retrieve his bastard sword from the sand and sling its dull edge over his shoulder. “One more time from the top, Aura, and then we’ll call it a day. You still have a lot of work to do, but you won’t get there in one night.”

Practice. Her mentor had called it that for the past three years since she had become his squire. Aurelia would have lied had she claimed absolute contentment with that status, but the regulations were there for a reason, and she knew that they had been imposed for her own good and for the benefit of Syliras. It would be at least another year before she was eligible to be ordained for her Knightly Quest, and even then, there was no guarantee. She would go when her Patron Knight deemed her ready for the trials that every Syliran Knight needed to overcome to be accepted into the prestigious Order. The mere thought of riding off into the sunset to slay some mythical creature excited her to the core, but the enthusiasm in her deep blue eyes faded in the shadow of her helmet as she set it back upon her head.

“One day. One day I’ll get there,” she vowed under her breath. A perfunctory glance towards her mentor, who was preoccupied with retrieving the shield that he had deposited somewhere in the sand, informed her that he had not heard her. With a heavy sigh, Aurelia fished her right wrist through the straps of her kite shield and balanced it over her forearm. The heavy, practice long sword slouched in her tired left hand, but she stubbornly hefted it back in front of her. Her father had always told her that the breakdown of one’s stance was the beginning of one’s broken mind.

Rolling her shoulders beneath the burdensome pauldrons that sat atop them, the young squire cocked her head from left to right to loosen the growing tension in her neck. While she recognized the timeless utility of helmets, she hated wearing them. The joints of the metal plates bit and tugged at her wayward strands of hair, and the smell – gods, the smell was awful. But for the fact that her armor would have anchored her to the bottom of the Suvan Sea, she would gladly have jumped into it to rid herself of her own stench.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

She returned her long sword into the dull scabbard that hung from her right hip, the finely-oiled sheath silently welcoming its only tenant home. Flexing her callused fingers within the steel gauntlet that encompassed her left hand, the young squire stepped away from her Patron Knight and returned to the other side of the beach, where she recovered the sand-speckled spear that her mentor had disarmed her of earlier in their duel. The lengthy, steel-bladed weapon was much heavier than her practice long sword, but Aurelia had grown accustomed to its weight over the past several years. She was not as proficient with it as she was with a regular blade, but her Patron Knight had insisted that the spear’s advantageous reach would prove useful at times, particularly when she was engaging opponents who brandished comparable long-ranged weapons.

“Are you ready?” the old knight asked, his baritone voice echoing against the inside of his closed helmet.

Glancing at the experienced warrior’s upraised sword and shield, Aurelia nodded firmly to signal the commencement of their last duel this evening. Clutching the spear at the middle of its shaft, she led with a vicious stab at the knight’s gleaming breastplate. As the triangular-shaped blade neared his armor, Aurelia tightened her grip and tensed her thrusting arm to maximize its power and transfer the force of the blow from the spear-point to her larger opponent. Its blunted tip ricocheted off the curve of his intervening shield, veering upwards and perilously off course. The seasoned knight subsequently stepped into the parry, sliding his shield underneath the awkwardly angled pole-arm to guide it higher into the air, which essentially left Aurelia defenseless beneath it.

Sensing her immediate danger, the young squire retreated a few steps to disengage from her precariously close mentor. He had always taught her to return to a neutral position whenever she suspected that her safety would be needlessly compromised, and her current predicament appeared to fit such a description. Unfortunately, it was clear that her Patron Knight had no intention of letting her retreat so easily. She watched him shuffle his solaret-bedecked feet across the sand, easily covering the same distance in less time than it had taken her to backpedal away from him. “You’re not going anywhere,” the Syliran Knight warned.

It was true. With her spear trapped inelegantly atop her adversary’s shield, Aurelia had two apparent options: surrender the spear entirely or devise a way to liberate it. She chose the latter option. Wrenching the spear to the left, she watched it tumble over the ridges of the old knight’s kite shield and hopelessly out wide. Her adversary obviously recognized her vulnerability due to her spear being too far out to the side as his bastard sword swept in a horizontal line from left to right across her chest. Considering their close positioning, there was no way that Aurelia would be able to retract her spear in time to parry the oncoming blade, but the young woman had not been without a plan, even if it was a risky one.

She lifted her shield in time to intercept the heavy blow, which sent a shockwave of pain reverberating along her right forearm and up her shoulder. The sound of sword on shield was reminiscent of crackling thunder, but Aurelia only heard her own voice. Gasping in pain, for a moment the young woman wondered if her entire limb had been dismembered from her body. A fearful glance through her half-helm confirmed that her arm was still intact, but the numbness was already beginning to wrestle for control over the entire right side of her body. She managed to resist its overpowering influence, but it required every ounce of her willpower to retain the sensation in her fingertips.

Fortunately, her ploy had seemingly worked. As her Patron Knight’s sword slammed into her shielded right side, she used the momentum of her descending spear to sweep the protracted weapon’s shaft back around from the left and towards the soldier’s unguarded hip. The attack, if successful, promised only a small bruise at most, but Aurelia needed every advantage she could get if she was going to last for long against her far superior opponent.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

Her spear rebounded harmlessly off the old knight’s thick armor, sending a rolling shiver along the weapon’s elongated shaft and up her desensitized arm. Aurelia clenched her gauntleted hand around the weapon and pulled it back. Her counterattack had proved ineffective, but it had nevertheless purchased her the greatly needed opportunity to withdraw her spear from her Patron Knight’s shield-trap and return to a neutral stance. Pivoting to the side, Aurelia stepped away from her mentor and started to circle to his left, the opposite side on which he carried his enormous bastard sword singlehandedly. Having lifted the cumbersome weapon before, Aurelia knew that that was no simple feat that her Patron Knight demonstrated. She could not even begin to imagine the requisite strength needed to replicate such an impressive task.

Ordinarily, Aurelia would have opted against approaching an opponent from his shield side (and the Syliran Knight would have agreed with her reasoning as he had imparted that crucial lesson to her), but given the bastard’s sword exceptional girth and extensive reach, the blonde-haired squire knew that she had a better chance of scoring a hit past his shield than trying to clear the wide-sweeping strokes of the Patron Knight’s weapon. Earlier in the day, she had seen how her mentor had brilliantly used his instrument’s superior size to fend her off and prevent her from closing in on him. Still, slipping her spear past his wide shield would be no walk in the park either.

Aurelia jabbed the spear low at the seasoned knight’s left knee, fully extending her arm to keep her distance while steadying her aim. As expected, the Patron Knight engaged her attack with a low parry from his shield. She watched his visor-lowered head shake as if the move had been too predictable. It had been too predictable, but it had also served as a measuring stick to gauge the old knight’s responses. Grinning internally, Aurelia stepped forward and rammed her spear towards the soldier’s midsection, just beneath the chest-portion of his breastplate where the various plates joined together. That attack, too, encountered only the steel wall of the Patron Knight’s shield.

“Petty attacks won’t get you anywhere. You’re being too obvious,” the old knight sternly reminded, the inflection in his tone rising as he raised his bastard sword and brought in a cleaving vertical arc at her.

The young squire nimbly step-sided to the soldier’s left again, a tactic that allowed her to conserve her energy and stamina while promoting safety at the same time. Once her Patron Knight’s sword fell safely past her waist, Aurelia lunged at her opponent with another series of calculated thrusts at his midsection. Every time her spear connected against his deftly-placed shield, she retracted it momentarily, only to resend it again and again at her defending adversary. Her weapon was lighter than his bastard sword, permitting her to constantly waylay him like a stubborn viper striking an elephant’s heels.

At first glance, her tactics might have seemed wild and futile. She continued to drive her spear into her Patron Knight’s shield to no avail, and he appeared to be equally flabbergasted with her exhausting strategy. What the old knight did not realize, though, was that Aurelia started to angle her thrusts higher and higher. Every time she pulled her spear back for another round of attacks, she bent her knees, lowered her center of gravity, and stabbed upward, essentially forcing the tough soldier to lift his shield higher as well to avoid being struck in the face. Blunted tip or not, the weight of the spearhead was strong enough to reduce one’s mind to mush if hit in the head enough by it.

More importantly, her barrage of spear thrusts, conjoined with her continuous circling to his left side, negated the advantage of his devastating bastard sword. One could not hit a person who stayed out of reach, after all.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

Her latest spear thrust at the old knight’s helm lured his shield high – too high. Aurelia spotted the enormous opening beneath the upraised shield, an opening created because of her crafty, albeit tiring, methodology. She feinted high one more time, shooting the spear-tip at her Patron Knight’s helm. However, before she made contact with his blocking device, she redirected it downward instead, hoping to score a solid hit against the abdominal region of her mentor’s breastplate. To her disappointment, her Patron Knight saw through the ruse and twisted his hips backward at the last moment. The head of her spear glanced harmlessly off the older man’s armor, drawing a superficial line across the hardened plate.

“Good!” the Syliran Knight commended, swinging his hips back around to front his shrewd student. “You’re learning well. Remember, you don’t have to defeat an opponent with a single hit. Most of time that won’t happen, so chip away at your enemy’s defenses until an opening presents itself.” He finished his statement with a brutal stab from his bastard sword, one that Aurelia easily registered in time to counter. She twisted her right shoulder in front of her, effectively inserting her shield in place to deflect the oncoming sword. As its dangerous tip neared her, she punched her kite-shaped guard outward at an angle to avert the bastard sword’s frontal course.

Rotating her hips one more time to swing the shield back to the right, she seamlessly fished her small hand completely through its two straps so that the shield was now riding closer to her elbow and hanging from her arm. It was not the most comfortable position to fight from, but it was more preferable than flinging her shield aside. With her right hand no longer occupied, she secured it near the bottom of the spear in a firm two-handed grip. Aurelia had been trained to fight with both spear and shield in hand, but she preferred using two hands when operating the long-ranged weapon as it fostered greater control and thrusting power, both of which she would need against her Patron Knight if she was going to send him home with more than a few dents in his regal armor.

“Interesting. You would sacrifice defense for greater offense?” the monotone warrior asked – no, equivocally observed. He did not indicate whether he approved or disapproved of Aurelia’s change in strategy, but the young woman detected a hint of surprise in his tone. Her Patron Knight had never been one to voice his opinions directly. He preferred letting his blonde-haired student explore creative strategies and learn from her mistakes and successes alike. For the most part, she tended to gather a lot more from the former.

As her Patron Knight lunged forward to attack, Aurelia poked her spear at him, using both hands to extend the weapon’s reach and steer the thrust at his chest. It encountered his interloping shield once again, but the counterattack served the purpose of foiling his thundering charge. That was when Aurelia gracefully advanced, driving her spear upward at her mentor’s helmet. When it clanked against his parrying shield, which temporarily blocked his vision, she planted her right foot forward, swiveled her right hip in front of her in the process, and swept the bottom end of the spear beneath her mentor’s upraised shield and landed a kissing blow against the side of his knee.

The spear-turned bludgeon smashed into the Syliran Knight’s left poleyn, one of the vulnerable spots on the body that her mentor had always told her to target. There were the other obvious regions like the neck, the armpit, the groin, and the head, but those had been relatively inaccessible due to her teacher’s iron-like defense. Before she could follow through with another attack, though, the seasoned soldier danced back and delivered a wild, horizontal swing that forced her to retreat lest she sustain another numbing blow from him.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

Having learned from her previous parry that blocking a bastard sword directly resulted in painful consequences, Aurelia settled for retreat instead and opted against aligning her shield with the wide arc of her mentor’s horizontal slash. A gust of wind subsequently batted at her fair-hued visage, combing through some of her golden curls and passing through her open-faced helm. She watched the enormous blade steer clear of her personal space. Once her Patron Knight’s gauntleted hand crossed over his body, the eager squire lunged forward again to renew her previous assault from afar with her longer spear. One of the first things she had learned as a squire was that in any type of combat situation, it was always advantageous to attack after an opponent fully committed to his or her swing.

Gripping the middle and bottom portion of her spear with her left and right hand, respectively, Aurelia bent at the knees and stabbed its blunted tip beneath her mentor’s shield to poke at his lower abdomen. Her spearhead rattled against the bottom of the Syliran Knight’s mechanically-descending shield, forcing its lower half to yield slightly under the brunt of the long-ranged attack. Even as her weapon connected against her Patron Knight’s guard, she could feel him pressing forward with it to prevent her from following the jab with a successive thrust. It was no small secret that her mentor (and many other Syliran Knights) advocated a strong offense in lieu of a good defense, and Aurelia had naturally adopted that mentality as well. The key to avoid being hit was to prevent one’s opponent from ever attacking at all.

The only problem, however, was trying to stop a charging hulk of a man accoutered in full plate-mail armor.

Aurelia instinctively withdrew her spear from her mentor’s shield and drove her arms forward again to slam the weapon back at his midsection. Grinding her heels into the dirt to augment the strength of her attack, her mailed fingers curled tightly around the pole-arm’s shaft to steady its tip and prevent her mentor from shouldering its point aside. Once again, the seasoned knight absorbed the assault with his wide shield and tried to shrug the narrow weapon away with a heave of his great sweeping arms, but the young squire fortunately managed to stop the spear from being wrenched from her callused hands.

Her Patron Knight was upon her a second later, his bastard sword rising overhead and swinging downward in a vertical slash that could have split a small boulder. Aurelia’s legs pumped vigorously beneath her in an evasive backpedal, using her longer spear as a measuring stick between them to thwart her stubborn mentor from continuing his charge lest he get impaled. Unfortunately, her Patron Knight was quicker than he looked notwithstanding his heavy armor. As his bastard sword grazed the earth, he guided it in a backswing against the side of Aurelia’s spear. Even with both of her hands gripping the shaft, the young woman’s spear stood no chance against the strength and momentum of her opponent’s larger weapon. Both bastard sword and spear connected in a terrifying screech of metal, and the sheer force of the impact sent slivers of pain up Aurelia’s hands as she tried to hold on to the trembling weapon and stabilize it in a weak parry against the bullying bastard sword.

Her mentor had expected as much.

Any elation that Aurelia might have experienced at blocking the sidelong slash was lost as her Patron Knight slid his bastard sword down the length of her spear. Had she the time, Aurelia would have pulled back to dissuade the sword’s ominous descent at her gloved fingers, but her adversary’s weapon was far too long and close for that tactic to work. Thus, she responded in the only way that common sense dictated: she begrudgingly released her spear to the cold sand.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

A curse of frustration slipped from her dry lips as her spear thudded to the ground. Panic quickly replaced her disappointment, however, as her Patron Knight charged her with another horizontal cut of his great sword. Aurelia instinctively punched her right hand forward, using the inertia to maneuver her kite shield down her forearm and into her awaiting grasp. Her fingers closed urgently around the shield straps a second before the knight’s sword closed in on her. Unlike her previous block, though, the blonde-haired woman jutted out her elbow behind the shield to catch the incoming blow from an angle instead of absorbing it directly with her right hand. Her adversary’s strike sent another shiver of pain rolling through her arm, but it was noticeably less severe than the last time.

She placed one foot behind the other frantically and repeatedly to separate herself from the wildly charging knight, who continued to advance on her with a flurry of swings. Aurelia avoided them when she could, but when the option was not available, she tucked her head behind the large shield, flexed her shoulder to brace for the impact, and heaved the guard in front of her to avoid being cut to pieces. Her left hand immediately shot to the long sword strapped at her right hip, curling around its leather-bound hilt urgently for protection. Unfortunately, her mentor’s relentless charge complicated her efforts and forced her to focus on defending herself for fear that failing to do so would cost her even her shield.

Running out of alternatives, Aurelia waited for her mentor’s sword to pass before strategically advancing a step to attack. She had considered punching a mailed fist at her opponent’s fully armored body to catch him off guard, but that foolhardy decision would likely have resulted in, at the minimum, a set of broken fingers, and at the worst, a severed arm. No, her mentor had repeatedly taught her to turn every parry and dodge into an opportunity, and that was exactly what she planned to do – it was the only thing that she could do now.

She swung her right arm violently across her body, holding tightly onto her shield straps and sending the tapered bottom of the guard-turned weapon at the Syliran Knight’s neck. Unsurprisingly, the man lifted his own shield to block, but that particular response substituted for what could easily have been another slash and purchased Aurelia the rare time she needed to fumble for her blade. The weapon screamed from its scabbard as she pulled the long sword free, its gleaming edge hissing eagerly for battle as it scraped against the sheath’s sides on the way out.

“Well done,” her mentor congratulated. “You’re learning to turn everything at your disposal into a weapon. That’s absolutely imperative if you want to survive. Your enemies won’t wait for you to draw your sword. Unlike us, they do not share our sense of honor,” he firmly explained. His tone was neither gentle nor mean, but rather, a simple reminder that the Syliran Knights were the light of the world, a society far more advanced in mannerisms and civility than any other found throughout Mizahar.

Nodding in understanding, Aurelia rotated her sword in several sweeping circuits to adjust her hand to the blade’s weight. It was far lighter than the spear that she had wielded earlier in their duel, and it was her favored weapon as well; it had also been the first instrument that her father had taught her to fight with. Circling to her Patron Knight’s left side, the same side on which he brandished his shield, Aurelia studied the old warrior’s posture. He turned in place to face her, making it difficult for her to find an opening in his iron defense.

[Aurelia Whitethorn]

Her mentor had no plan to wait for her. She watched him bury one foot beneath the sand, using the tip of his sollaret to dig a small burrow in the battlefield. Aurelia thought the gesture odd at first, but when a curtain of sand suddenly assailed her from below and showered her face and eyes with microscopic missiles, the young squire knew the source of the attack. “You cheated!” she cried, lifting her kite shield on instinct as the shadow of her enormous opponent closed in on her. Unfortunately, she parried in vain, for the tiny particles had already stealthily slipped past the defenses of her mouth and eyelids. It was the latter mischance that proved costly. Tears welled in her eyes as she tried to open them to no avail. She watched her Patron Knight’s sword catch the moonlight as it drew a diagonal cut from her right shoulder to her left hip.

Desperately leaping backward, Aurelia lifted her right arm above her head, essentially inserting the kite-shaped shield in the clobbering sword’s pathway. She managed to parry the crippling slash, but the strength of the direct blow knocked her shield arm down forcefully into her own chest, causing her to stumble precariously to the ground. Groaning as her back hit the sand, she felt her half-helm slip from her head and roll uselessly away from her over a few mounds of sand. “You cheated!” she accused again, her tone betraying surprise and outrage. Whatever happened to the honor of the Syliran Knights? She had a mind to pose that bitter question to her Patron Knight, but she had other matters to concern herself with, namely his overhead cut that was trailing towards her.

“Like I said, not everyone shares our sense of honor. You have to be ready for anything,” her Patron Knight apathetically replied as if he had read the question off Aurelia’s stunned countenance. Watching as the bastard sword moved to split her down the middle in two equal halves, the young squire rolled to the left at the last second, mainly to position her shield on top of her to defend herself against the deadly attack. As his blade slammed into the sand, Aurelia frantically uncurled her right arm in a backswing towards the ground to smash it atop the old knight’s sword. With her shield in between her gauntleted hand and her mentor’s pinned bastard sword, she was duly aware that he could not use his weapon to harm her from that awkward position, which meant that the moment was ripe with opportunity again.

As the golden-haired woman countered with her shield, she also swiveled her hips so that she was facing upward and guided her sword-hand over her body to slice at her Patron Knight’s lower calves. The attack was not life threatening, but she knew that if she could slip an attack in behind his ankles, then she stood a good chance of returning to her feet. The plates of a knight’s armor tended to be thinner and weaker at the feet to provide for mobility and flexibility. Her mentor’s plate-mail was no exception.

Her Patron Knight’s sudden retreat indicated that hers had been the correct response to her dire situation. “Crafty,” the old knight commented from a few yards away after landing from his backward leap. Aurelia wasted no time scrambling to her feet. Her long blonde hair flared wildly about her slender shoulders, although some of the shiny tendrils clung irritably to her forehead because of her sweat.

“That was still a dirty tactic,” she grumbled disapprovingly. Without warning, she sprang at her Patron Knight with a wild chop at his enormous frame, using her weight and the momentum of her descending arm to boost the assault. Her sword scraped a vertical line upon his judiciously lowered shield, but as soon as her attack failed, she swung her arm from right to left in a sidelong swing that incidentally drew a perfect cross upon his guard. She opted against seeking out any obvious holes in his defenses (there usually were none), instead swinging her left foot forward and connecting the bottom of her boot in a fierce kick at his still-raised shield. To her surprise and presumably her mentor’s own, her heel collided with the shield at an inside angle, batting it dangerously out wide. Her blue eyes widened in disbelief even as she seamlessly lifted her arm and hacked her long sword down at his outstretched and exposed elbow.