The long, green Gladesword glowed in Saul’s grip, a shimmering weapon made of pure power.
Broad, beautiful, and immeasurably sharp, the sword shone as if made of molten glass. Green light came bright from the blade, and an arcane green mist flowed in the sword’s wake as Saul moved it through the air.
Opposite him, Zorea held her Soulstone sword with equal skill. The Soulstone Sword of Kryll Myr was an ancient blade Zorea had inherited, along with her knowledge of the long-lost old-world magic.
Zorea breathed in sharply though her teeth as she took a few steps back, and Saul pressed his attack.
“Control your breath,” he warned her as he cut toward her with several swift blows, and she defended. When their blades met, the flame enchantment in the Soulstone sword clashed with the magical edge of the Gladesword. Fire magic clashed with Glade magic, creating a shower of green and yellow sparks between Zorea and Saul as they traded blows, lighting up their faces with an eldritch glow like a magical smith’s forge.
Zorea slipped under Saul’s guard and darted her blade toward him. There was a look of triumph on her face, but Saul was ready for her. He moved deftly back, then left, then forward and past her before bringing blade up to stop a mere six inches from her throat.
Her sword hung in the air where he had been a moment before, far too low to defend against his killing blow.
She froze, and they stood there for a moment, still as statues, before Saul moved his sword away, and the two of them stepped apart, lowering their blades.
“You still need to watch out for your enemy’s tricks and your own overconfidence,” Saul instructed Zorea. “You’re too quick to assume you’ve gotten the better of your opponent. A fighter must always be on the lookout for a trap.”
She nodded once, frowning, then asked. “What else?”
“Your breath. Control your breathing, and you control your emotions. Lose control of your breathing, and you lose control of everything else. Also, you need to work on your footwork. This kind of fighting is all about using your reach to keep the enemy at bay until you’re ready to strike. Did you see the sequence of steps I used to move past your lunge and under your guard?”
Tight-lipped, Zorea shook her head, causing her dark, sweat damp hair to fall loose from its braid across her pale face. Irritably, she pushed it back from her coal black eyes. “I didn’t see,” she said. “You’re too fast, and I was trying to keep my eyes on your sword.”
“That’s right,” Saul said, permitting himself a smile. “A fighter needs to watch her enemy’s blade, but gaining the positional advantage is all in the footwork. I’ll show you a couple of drills you can practice, including the move I just used on you and one you can use to counter it. Then, you can practice and, next time, you can try it on me.”
Saul was a master of the longsword, as well as of every other weapon you could name. A crack shot with a bow, an expert with longsword, shortsword, and dagger, and unstoppable with a spear and shield, he had spent years honing his craft. He’d come up from the gutter to become a mighty general, the most successful conqueror, and leader of men the world had ever known.
That was before he’d been reincarnated back in time into a new body. As an old soul in a new skin, he’d kept the intellectual knowledge of his old mastery, but months and years of steady work had been required to bring his new body up to speed with the understanding that his mind still held.
Nearly three years had now passed since his rebirth in the depths of winter, far north of where they now stood. Saul’s physical progress was excellent. He had trained Zorea and Brand, his two young students, in weapons and tactics. That had helped him rebuild the shattered body he’d been reincarnated into, regaining his own old fighting abilities as he did so.
But Saul Kramitz wasn’t just relearning his mastery of weapons and tactics. At the same time, he was starting from scratch to relearn his mastery of magic.
“Hello, you two,” a voice called. “Still sparring?”
They both looked around and saw Brand approaching. He was a well-built, handsome youth, beardless, and as dark-haired and dark-eyed as Zorea was; as all native Xornians were.
He approached them, smiling, and darted in to kiss Zorea on the cheek before she could move out of the way. She glared at him, but Saul saw the smile that flickered across her lips as she did so.
“Are you winning?” Brand asked Zorea playfully.
“Saul is winning,” Zorea answered, curtly.
“The goal of training is progress not winning,” Saul reminded them. He reached up and wiped the sweat from his brow, pushing his own mop of pale, sandy hair from his forehead as he did so. Unlike the native Xornians whose land he was now living in, he inhabited the body of a fair man from the southern regions of Keldor, the continent south of the Xornian borderlands where they now were. This new body had taken him some getting used to at first, for in his old timeline he’d been a stocky, dark-haired fellow. With time and training, he’d gotten accustomed to his new body, and had even begun to like it.
For all its initial flaws, the body did come with one particular advantage. In his old timeline, he’d been in his mid-forties. Now, he inhabited the body of a man in his early twenties, physically only a few years older than Brand and Zorea themselves, though he’d kept the mind and knowledge from his previous life.
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“Are you finished working on building the new well today?” Zorea asked Brand.
“I’ve set up Marcos Flint and the others and left them to finish up the internal walls,” Brand said. “The work isn’t done yet, but I thought I’d leave them to it and come to join you. I’ve missed our training sessions the last few days while I’ve been working on the building projects.”
Saul looked up at the sun where it hung in the blue sky above the red stone of the Thane’s Tower of Jillin. It was approaching midday, and the town of Jillin was full of bustling activity. Here, around the back of the Thane’s tower, however, they had some private space in the small courtyard, and they had made this their training area.
“How about some magic practice, then?” Saul asked. “I think we can leave the swords for the moment. Are you up for that, Zorea?”
“Let’s give it a go,” she said with a smile.
Saul opened up his System options and brought up the information for the Squad that contained Brand and Zorea.
System: Squad active
Fire Squad: Brand and Zorea
Saul Kramitz, Leader
Personal Inventory: Level 5
Potions: 4 of 10
Weapons: 3 of 5
Outfits: 0 of 4
Brand of Harkin’s Holdfast:
Squad Spells:
Firebrand (1 of 1)
Inventory: Level 3
Potions: 5 of 6
Weapons: 1 of 2
Outfits: 0 of 2
Zorea the Healer:
Squad Spells:
Healing Flame (1 of 1)
Inventory: Level 3
Potions: 4 of 6
Weapons: 1 of 2
Outfits: 0 of 2
As they were all in the same Squad together, they could all see the options as Saul looked through them. The System interactions manifested as lines of silver script that flowed smoothly across their vision, visible to the Squad but invisible to anyone who did not have the magic.
“We’ve leveled up as you’ve made progress, Saul,” Brand said, “but we’ve still not got any new spells.”
“Give it time, Brand,” Saul said. “The best way we can get new Squad spells is to keep practicing the magic!”
They all agreed with that, though they also agreed that the way to make more substantial progress was to actually fight some enemies. Saul and his magic leveled up with use, and the Squad magic was no different. However, while practice delivered rewards, fighting for real was where the progress was at.
Without any enemies to fight just at present, however, they settled for sparring.
For the next hour, they practiced together in the courtyard, sending blasts of magic back and forth between them. Saul was particularly interested in the way that his Gladesword was able to catch and fling back magical attacks, and he caught Brand’s Firebrand spell again and again, sending it crackling across the courtyard to disperse in the air.
Zorea’s Healing Flame spell acted not only as a healer of wounds, but also as a regenerator of energy. As Brand became exhausted, she sent her spell toward him to boost him, and he was able to dive back into action, casting spell after spell toward Saul’s enchanted blade.
By the end of the hour, even with Zorea’s magic, they were all tired. Saul called a halt.
“Let’s take a rest,” he said. “You’ve both come on nicely, even without any real enemies to fight. When you first got the magic, you both struggled to aim your spells accurately, but that’s much better now. I feel that the strength of your spells is greater as well. Come on, let’s go see what progress the townsfolk have made on the construction of the new well.”
They headed off into the village, but before they had gotten very far at all, a lad from the town rushed up to meet them.
“Master Thane, sir?” the boy said, breathless, addressing Saul.
“What is it, lad?” Saul asked.
“Marcos Flint asks to see you as soon as possible! He’s at his house.”
Saul glanced at Zorea and Brand. There was something in the lad’s scared eyes that suggested trouble.
“We’ll go at once,” Saul said, and the lad hurried off, back toward the town center.
They moved through Jillin quickly. The town had been almost derelict when they had arrived, but now it was a bustling, busy settlement. Saul and his friends had removed the curse that had been laid on the place. The townsfolk—who’d been under an enchantment—had moved back in and set to work rebuilding straight away.
That was three months ago, and now Jillin was a thriving settlement, almost unrecognizable from the ghost town it had been when Saul and his friends had first arrived here. It was becoming a center of industry and trade in the borderlands, and new people were moving in all the time to add to the population. This had meant new buildings, extended farming land, more timber for construction, and a new well for drinking water had all been needed. The people of Jillin had been busy, and Saul and his friends had been happy to help them progress.
Soon, they arrived at their destination, the home of the town elder, Marcos Flint, on the southern edge of town by the edge of the main road.
Marcos was a big, heavily bearded Xornian, intelligent, uncompromising, and well-respected in Jillin. During the dark years when the town had labored under the curse, he had held the population together as much as he could. Now that the curse was removed, he had thrown himself into the rebuilding works with a will, taking the lead as Jillin grew bigger and more prosperous than it ever had been before.
“Ah, Saul, there you are,” he said in his rumbling voice as they entered his humble house. “I’ve received some worrying news that requires looking into. I thought you’d want to know at once.” Despite Saul’s official rank as Thane of Jillin, Marcos always treated him informally. Saul was happy with that and always returned the compliment.
“What’s up, Marcos?” Saul asked as he, Brand, and Zorea all sat at Marcos’s big table.
“I’m not sure exactly,” Marcos said, “but I was speaking to one of the woodsmen who was out near Sprite’s Corner, a few miles north of here. The man had gone there to assess the potential of harvesting some of the timber from the woods up there for building. He came back frightened, saying he’d seen something unsettling near the old standing stones at the top of the hill.”
Saul frowned. “Sprite’s Corner?” he repeated. “I’ve not heard of the place. What did this man see?”
“A ghost,” Marcos said, “or at least that’s what he told me. He was up the top of the hill near sunset last night, and he said that there were three or four tall, black figures moving around up there. Tall, wraithlike figures with red eyes. When he went closer, they vanished, but I don’t like the sound of it. It may be nothing, but I have a feeling…”
“We’ll check it out,” Saul said immediately. “At sunset, you say? And he didn’t see the figures until after dark, I guess?”
“That’s right,” Marcos agreed. “They didn’t come out until after sundown. You think there’s something to it? Not just a nervous man’s eyes playing tricks?”
“I think we can never be too careful, Marcos. There are strange forces moving in the world, and of all the traps a man can fall into in such times, complacency is perhaps the most dangerous.”