The screams and shouts combined with the sound of metal clashing with the wooden shields was extremely disorienting even for me who was still huddled up inside the wagon, but the soldiers themselves who were fighting outnumbered against the ‘bandits’ didn’t fare much better. The people who attacked us did not fight in a disorganized manner, with a clear formation being taken in the main fight which was going on in the front. The ones who rushed in from behind meant that the guards who were protecting us were even more outnumbered, and as the first man fell to a sword stabbing into his flank I decided to do something about this.
While I had my doubts on whether these were bandits or something else entirely, it was entirely clear they attacked us with the intention of killing the guards, and perhaps some of the students too. While I didn’t particularly care very much what happened to most people we were traveling with, I definitely didn’t want to see Max and Louis hurt. They had learned swordsmanship for about the same period of time as I did, but they never put in more than rudimentary effort into the task. In addition to that, we didn’t actually have any weapons with us, we were traveling light reliant on the knowledge that the soldiers around us would be able to protect us from any dangers we might encounter.
This might have been true in the massive convoy we traveled in on the way here, but this theory was being proven false right this moment when yet another man fell, but this time he managed to take one of the bandits down with him. There were still nearly twenty of them, and I knew that if there was any chance of coming out victorious in this fight, I would have to strike now while they were all focused on killing our guards.
I leaped off the wagon, just before some of the students around me tried to grab and restrain me from such ‘foolish’ action, and made my way as fast as possible towards the body of the first guard that fell. The bandits only realized that something was moving behind them when I was already a few paces away from the guards body, with my hand already reaching for the discarded blade on the floor. This sword was similar in length and weight to the one I would usually use in my right hand, so I thought that even with the absence of my short sword in my off-hand I’d be able to put up a fight at least against two of them. I took off the cloak that I had been wearing, and dropped it in the ground so that it wouldn’t hinder my movements, in preparation for the fight which was now approaching.
One of the bandits broke off from the main place of combat and approached me, and thankfully no others followed behind him. The bandits must have seen me and my young face as a foolish youth who wasn’t sensible enough to sit and wait for his inevitable fate. The man moved much slower than I did, his body was weighed down by vambraces on his arms, greaves on his shins, and pauldrons on his shoulders. He also had only a longsword in his right hand, and nothing else in his left, just like I did.
The absence of a shield made me confident that even if he was superior to me in sword fighting experience, he would definitely not be able to prevent an attack from reaching him if I used one of the basic forms of Sylrift.
About ten paces away from me he picked up pace and prepared to strike me with a diagonal strike from my top left down to my bottom right, a standard attack that I recognized from Ironguard swordsmanship, although done with a slightly shorter arming sword, so the man overextended himself and his timing was a little off in relation to his movements. I leaned into his attack and parried with my longsword downwards, aiding his sword's momentum which meant that it got lodged firmly in the ground, which I followed up by pushing him away from me with my left hand.
The bandit didn’t manage to hold onto his sword due to the unexpected push, which meant that the man was now standing still about four paces away from me, unarmed. His figure, although comparable in size to mine, was much less intimidating without a weapon. I didn’t have time to think about the next move, so I reverted to instinctual movement, and performed a fast and aggressive stab straight into his chest, turning my body to aid the penetrating force of my sword.
There was surprisingly a lot of resistance to being punctured in a human body, which disturbed me a little but I dismissed those thoughts as quickly as they came, and re-focused myself knowing there would be more fighting to come. This was the first time I had killed a man, and had I had a choice I would have chosen not to have killed one my whole life, but this choice was robbed from me by present circumstances.
The man who I had fought screamed as my blade reached him, which drew the attention of some of the bandits who were still engaged in fighting the guards. They didn’t see the fight we had from the start, but only its conclusion. Noticing that I had just retracted my sword from their comrade-in-arms, and his limp body falling backwards onto the ground, they realized their folly in only sending one man to take care of me.
They barked some words between one another, after which I was met with three armed men approaching me to quickly take care of the nuisance. Fighting three men is a lot harder than two, so even though my first thought was to flee I reasoned that even if I did I wouldn’t get far if I had to take Max and Louis with me. I retreated backwards to the place where a sword was still stuck in the ground, and picked it up with my left hand. While I usually fought with a short sword in my off-hand, a similarly length longsword would have to do, as fighting outnumbered when you only had one hand engaged and no armor was an unreasonable feat.
I had to avoid exposing myself at any point as without armor I would be out of the fight if even the slightest attack was let through, even worse if my legs were hit and my movement would be even more restricted than it already was. The three men with two having swords and shields, and one using a spear pushed me back steadily, towards the direction I had originally come from. I had thought to make this fight a war of attrition, to make them tire themselves out with their heavier loads while I only wore my travel clothes, but the closer we got to the wagon where the rest of the students were hidden, a scene of one of the soldiers breaking off from the fight and taking a hostage appeared in my mind.
I had so far only used the strength of my body and the sword skills I had learnt to fight, without revealing the fact that I could use sorcery in conjunction with the sword strikes. If I revealed that I had magical aptitude, then there was no doubt that the Jenusians would never let me out of their sight just as the students at the magisterium lived. If that was the case, then my plan to escape would become infeasible, so if I were to fight these brigands with using my full strength then I would have to make my escape immediately afterwards, before news could reach the Jenusians.
My decision was essentially made for me as we got close enough to the wagon that the soldier with the spear who was keeping a slightly larger distance from me than the ones with swords, had the thought to take a hostage and began making his way around me towards the wagon. I couldn’t let him reach it so I parried a stab and a slash with each hand, before willing a massive gust of wind to make its way towards the faces, and consequently the eyes of the bandits, giving me a slight reprieve.
The men instinctively shielded their eyes with their shields, after which I willed the wind to aid my running towards the spearman, who still had not realized that I was coming. The man was about five paces away from the wagon when my sword reached his back and I stabbed him aiming for the bottom part of his left lung. He wore a crudely made breastplate which meant I had to aim carefully to avoid the armor, and I also had to make sure to stab in a place where a bone wouldn’t impede the penetration effectiveness, so I avoided his spine.
The man screamed even louder than the previous one did, and tumbled down on his side wheezing all the while with blood coming out of his mouth. As I turned away from him deeming his ability to threaten the students to have passed I saw shocked expressions on the faces of the two bandits I had revealed my hand to.
“I thought you said these cunts weren’t Magi! What the hell was that Telman!?” Asked the one on the right.
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“Shut your trap! We can still win against a baby-faced brat like him, hey you we need some help over here!” Shouted the one on the left, giving orders to the rest of the bandits which caused a few more to begin making their way to us.
I didn’t want to find myself fighting even more outnumbered than I was, so I broke out into a sprint, with the wind at my back adding to my speed, aiming for the leader on the left. The bandit put up his guard almost perfectly as far as Ironguard swordsmanship was concerned, which made me change my target at the last moment to the bandit on the right. When engaged in a fight with the soldiers before, my doubts were cemented about them being part of a more disciplined and organized force than just being random bandits. They fought in formation, while staying true to the same basics that Janis’ had taught me over the past few months of the Ironguard school. This actually made my task a lot more difficult, as if I were to fight bandits who were a lot more disorganized and chaotic there would be more openings for the aggressive-style of Sylrift to show its worth.
The bandit on the right saw my approach and attempted to guard against defensively just as his leader had, waiting for the arrival of more fighting men. His guard however had a gap near his legs, with either fear of death or inexperience making him raise his shield slightly higher than he intended. I make a slash with both swords from bottom right to top left, with the sword in my left hand hitting his shield with great force, while the one in my right which was lower cutting cleanly through the bandit’s left knee and his right thigh.
This wound wouldn’t kill him immediately, but I thought it would be enough to limit his movements and prevent him from aiding the others when I fought them. I turned, intending to take the leader out of the fight before the others got here but the man had actually retreated towards them, robbing me of the opportunity.
I spared a glance at the guards to gauge if they were capable of fending off the others who were still fighting with them, and counted only seven remaining on their feet, still fighting a similar number of opponents. The bandits in front of me formed up both in front of me, and tried to flank me from the left and right. The leader must have noticed that I had the desire to keep them away from the wagon, so he decided to threaten my flanks so that I couldn’t charge in like I did against the one who was still lying on the ground, crying in pain.
While annoying, this move did make sense as they now knew that I could use sorcery while fighting, and the most reasonable way to fight against Magi was to swarm them before they could kill you. Unfortunately I knew not a single spell, so I would have to still rely primarily on the teachings of Gaspar to get through this situation alive.
I could already feel my breathing becoming heavier, the addition of extra weight from a second longsword a contributing factor to my stamina being lesser than usual. The first few exchanges of the bandits striking me and me parrying or dodging felt more laborious than the previous fights I had, and even the odd gust of wind that forced them back a few paces didn’t offer me much breathing room. This couldn’t go on forever, I would eventually run out of strength to parry a stab sufficiently, or cast another gust of wind to come save me from a bad situation, so I decided to let one of the less dangerous attacks through and make a counterattack.
The double-wielding Sylrift style was aggressive, but it also placed heavy focus on disarming your opponents owing to the extra sword added to the equation. A spearman on my left stabbed at me aiming for my side, and instead of parrying I decided to move slightly forwards while turning to him, and force the wind in front of me to rush backwards, throwing dust into the eyes of the men behind me.
Showing your back was one of the biggest mistakes one could make when fighting, which was repeatedly drilled into me by both Janis and Gaspar, but this was only assuming the swordsman had no other means to prevent attacks from hitting his behind. I closed my eyes, hoping to avoid the same dust I willed to go behind me, and using the last seen position of the spearman to my left I decided to slash with both swords from left and right, and try to deal as much damage to him as possible.
I felt a searing pain in my left side, which while painful made me happy that I avoided enough to avoid being hit in the gut, and then felt my swords make contact with something in front of me. I opened my eyes once more and saw that while the sword in my right hand had been stopped by the pauldron on the bandit’s left shoulder, the one in my left made a clean cut across the spearman's neck.
The death of a third bandit at the hands of a ‘baby-faced youth’ made all but one of the bandits more timid in their attacks, no longer applying as much pressure on me as before. Their leader, however, became even more determined to end me with his own hand, infuriated by the fact that his incompetent subordinates would fall to one as inexperienced as myself.
It became a game of ‘try-not-to die’ to the bearded leader, while taking out the other bandits at moments of opportunity. I managed to fell two more of them, a swordsman wielding a longsword and no shield, and one wielding an arming sword and a shield before help arrived from the guards who emerged victorious of the bandits in their fight. There were only five of them who came to aid me, but it was enough to mop up the brigands who were tunnel-visioned on fighting me.
The bearded leader, Telman, managed to kill one of the guards on his way to death, which meant that after a fight that at most lasted fifteen minutes four guards and I stood over his body, breathing heavily from our exhaustion. All five of us had some form of wounds, with the bleeding in my left side not getting any better and I feared I might become light headed at some point if it wasn’t stopped.
I was trying to steady my breathing when I heard Max speak to me, with all the students having left the wagon, deeming the situation as safe once more.
“Hey are you alri-” He attempted to ask, before Louis butted in with his own comments.
“LEON! You could actually fight like that? No wonder you always beat me when we sparred!” Louis ran up to me, and gave me a hug filled with gratitude.
I winced and grunted with pain as he squeezed me, before Max was able to pull him off me with the aid of the leader of the guards. The man then put a hand on my shoulder and sincerely thanked me for my aid, before he told me that I was to come with him to get my wound treated. I didn’t mind accepting his help in this regard, as I had no clue how to treat a wound from a spear myself.
I walked on unsteady feet towards the wagon with our supplies, which was when I noticed some of the stares of my schoolmates. The attention that I had brought upon myself was unusual, with many of their stares not filled with contempt, but rather with fear and astonishment. It was understandable, who would have thought that ‘Leon’ could fight against a bunch of grown men, and kill five of them in the process.
The dread from taking a human life hit me as I saw the bloodied rag soaked in some strong alcohol which the leader of the guards personally used to clean my wound. The people I had killed were living things, and while I could separate the act of killing something like a goblin with that of taking the life of a sentient being such as I, it was not possible to do so now. I fought back tears, which threatened to make themselves known to others, and the head of the guards placed his hands on both my shoulders when he was finished bandaging my wound, and gave me comforting words.
“What you did today was worthy of a hero. Don’t concern yourself with the taking of a life that was intent on doing the same to you, take solace in the fact that you saved not just yourself, but also all the rest of us who might be dead if not for your actions” He calmly stated, before giving me a pat on the shoulder and leaving me to process my thoughts.
I must have spent about ten minutes trying to find fault in the man’s words, but my mind finally felt calmer and clearer when I accepted that this was not Earth, it was a different world. The morals and ethics here were different, and the struggle for survival supplanted any lofty ideals I might have held before. I would have to adapt myself and integrate fully into the way the people of Euphelia thought, if I didn’t want to be ‘eaten’ whole.
In consideration of the other students, only the guards and I cleaned up the battlefield, not bothering to bury the bandits but taking the effort for the eight soldiers who died in the fight. There were twenty bandit corpses in total, with all of those who attacked having died in the attempt. It was nothing short of a miracle that twelve, well I guess thirteen could fight off 20 opponents and emerge the victors. I ate dinner that night at the same fire with all the students and the guards, where they promised that they would get us back safely to Krilos, calming the fearful students who thought they wouldn’t survive a further attack.
The head of the guards, a man named Borus, spent a long time inquiring about where I had learned to fight like that, and if I was mistakenly placed in this group since he clearly saw me using wind sorcery to fight the bandits. I avoided giving any concrete information saying that I just liked sword fighting so I trained more than the others, and that I wasn’t trying to use any sorcery on purpose. I played it off in a similar way to how Gaspar unknowingly used sorcery by saying it was just a feeling that led me to being able to influence the wind, not something I could replicate if I asked to do so now.
Before I ‘went to bed’ that night I spoke at length to Max and Louis trying to answer any queries they might have, of which there were a lot. Max was being the more responsible one of the two, asking me about my injuries, and giving me words of comfort regarding the act of killing for one’s own survival. Louis was of a different mind, his attention focused on the fact that if I could fail the aptitude test and still be capable of sorcery, then perhaps he too could become a Magi.
The stress of the day’s events eventually caught up with them, and after finding themselves tired we all called it a night, with my roommates snores confirming the fact that they had been taken by sleep. I couldn’t fall asleep like them, however, so I made my way to the corpses of the bandits and pillaged off all of the money, a sword belt and sheath, and a longsword I would need for what I would do next.
Right as the night sky was brightening, I went out to the supply wagon wearing my cloak. The guard who was on night watch duty greeted me, and when I informed him I was only hoping to get a drink of water and some food he eagerly handed me the requested items, trusting in the words of a man who he fought side-by-side with.
I drank as much as possible, before eating a little bit of bread, and storing the rest in a pouch I pilfered off of the leader of the bandits. I excused myself with the excuse that ‘nature calls’, and made my way to the forest where I originally noticed the bandit’s approach.
I looked back one last time at the encampment, where my friends were still deep in slumber, and bid them goodbye for the last time in my mind.