The place where the mercenary band was encamped was surrounded by a simple wooden fence, which while not being able to serve as good defense against a human opponent would do enough to deter wild animals and some of the less dangerous beasts. Al led me through the clearing in the fence that was closest to the western gate of Verorum, within there were at least a hundred people visible outside the set up tents, and presumably even more than that within them. My surprised face at the amount of men in various states of undress and armor must have shown, and it led to Al clearing up the misunderstanding; it wasn’t just his group camping here but the others who were staying in Verorum for one purpose or another.
The Backhand Blow camp was not that spacious, with thirty or so tents of various colors, with no sign or color to indicate that they all belonged to the same group. Seeing Al return with an unknown face made some of the men who had nothing better to do to approach us and begin asking both myself and Al questions.
“Who’s your newest sacrifice Al?” Asked a muscular man who must have been at least double my age.
“Just a potential recruit, I brought him here to see if he’s good enough” Al answered with a smirk, which immediately aroused some noise from the surrounding mercenaries.
“Did you hear that you lazy shits, Al was gracious enough to bring us some entertainment!” Replied the same muscular man, who must have held some position of authority in Backhand Blow.
His words were met with cheers, after which the crowd of a few dozen ushered both myself and Al towards an empty patch of ground that had visible signs of use. I decided to maintain at least some level of cordial conversation with Al, since he at least seemed to be an amicable individual on the surface.
“Is this the place where you guys train?” I asked, gesturing with my eyes to the ground.
“Haha train? I suppose that’s a word for it, this will also be where you and I have our friendly spar. You said originally that you fought with two swords, I hope you don’t mind me using what I’m comfortable with as well?” Al laughed, before asking his question.
“Sure, it would only be fair” I shrugged, I didn’t exactly get the same kind of vibe of a chiseled warrior from Al as I would from Gaspar the swordmaster of Grant the knight.
I took off my cloak, and left it on a bench next to where some of the mercenaries sat down to witness our spar, and although I had a nagging thought at the back of my mind that it might be stolen, I reasoned that after months of wear and tear this cloak wouldn’t be worth keeping anyway.
I walked confidently to what I thought was the middle of the clearing, so that I would have ease of movement in every direction, and turned to where Al was still getting prepared for the spar. He was speaking animatedly to a man who did not have the look of a soldier, and also moved on unsteady feet, as Al finished speaking to him he also walked off to the place where the other mercenaries had gathered with a limp, which was quite unusual.
I hadn’t put much thought into what would happen to mercenaries were they to suffer some injury ‘on the job’, but Al steered my thoughts in the correct direction by informing me that he was the person responsible for dealing with wounds, so he made sure he was ready and nearby. This was surprising to me as I thought that we would be sparring with wooden weapons, but to that Al laughed and asked if I was willing to pay to have disposable weapons made, as it was not an expense he or the mercenary band would be willing to take on.
It seems he was intent of testing my skills with actual weapons, as opposed to practice ones which was not exactly the kind of thing I would be willing to do on a whim, but the silent pressure of expectations from both Al and the other mercenaries treating this as ‘normal’ must have muddled my mind as I relented and began inquiring as to the other rules of our spar.
Al said that they would spar in the usual way they would test recruits, strikes that would not cause loss of limb or serious injury were allowed, but all others would have to be stopped near the point of contact. He said that since I was wearing leather armor on my upper body and on my shins this would mean that he would target my armor specifically, rather than trying to ‘go for kill’. He also suggested that although he had a chainmail shirt protecting his upper body, that I should be careful of powerful slashes and even more so of powerful stabs, as those would render it but an obstacle.
I agreed to his conditions and immediately unsheathed my swords and took on a balanced stance of the Sylrift form with my left hand holding my short-sword sword backwards and my right hidden behind my body with my longsword closer to the ground.
Al had a pleased expression on his face seeing the speed at which I went from defenseless to armed and ready, and he likewise picked up a slightly longer wooden heater shield in his left hand, and unsheathed his longsword with his right.
His stance was unknown to me as it seemed to protect less of his body than the ones I knew from the Ironguard school, but I also knew that I never learned all of them so I couldn’t rule out it being an intermediate or advanced one either. His shield was much more ‘in my face’ than when I would spar against Janis or my schoolmates, and it seemed to me that his style of fighting would use the shield offensively as well as a means to defend himself.
Al shouted at me that our spar had begun, but made no efforts to approach me first. If this was the standard way in which recruits would be evaluated, or if this was just a quirk of his swordsmanship style I did not know, so I decided to ‘test the waters’ a bit and made a slash that would clearly hit his shield, while being ready to retreat at a moment’s notice.
Al must have seen through my intentions as he also advanced forwards, realizing my slash was not a serious threat, trying to come closer into my personal space. That would not have been ideal for me as my short sword in my left hand would not fare well against a well placed strike from my opponents longsword.
I held back my slash with my longsword as much as possible, and changed it at the last moment to a stabbing motion so that it would make contact with Al’s shield and hamper his approach. Since his heater shield was quite large he must not have been able to react to the changing attack in time and my strike came at his shield unexpectedly, although due to the fact that it was not a stab from the get-go, it didn’t manage to lodge itself in the wooden shield and just glanced off to the side.
While that attack did not end up harming Al in any way, it did slow him down which allowed me to reposition, where the cycle of me attacking and Al defending and attempting to counter attack began anew. It went on for a solid five minutes with both my swords getting involved in the attacking and defending motions, but with no attacks actually managing to land exactly where I wanted them.
I retreated slightly and tried to think about how to break Al’s defense, since my usual method of trying to expose a weakness didn’t seem to be working. Al must have been giving me some leeway as his ‘junior’, not trying to force an attack on me while I was thinking. Whatever Al’s swordsmanship school was, it was one that focused heavily on counterattacks, and since I was making retreats and approaches during our spar quite often, I would tire myself out much earlier than Al would.
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Instead of trying to use Sylrift’s great advantage in offense, I decided to switch to a strategy of being close enough to Al that it wouldn’t matter if he could block an attack or not, and then see if he would take the initiative to go on the offense.
This decision proved to be a prudent one, as I finally managed to provoke Al into an attack, since I had moved close enough to his right side where my short sword would have a shorter time to reach his body than his longsword mine. His attack came fast and strong, and as I parried it to my left with my longsword I began to think that perhaps Al too was experienced enough to use sorcery to augment the strength of his strikes and his movements. Although Al didn’t have the build of a pushover, he was a few centimeters shorter than I was, and from what I knew of commoners in this world their nutrition was nowhere near sufficient for a strong body to materialize during their formative years.
Since my off hand was having a hard time getting involved in the action, I changed my sword grip to a standard one, and decided to try and lodge my short sword in Al’s shield, which would allow me to break his still unyielding stance. Al somehow saw through my plan, which he later told me was due to me focusing my eyes on his shield which was a lot less threatening than his sword.
After managing to lodge my short sword in his shield with a well placed stab, I was forced to retreat due to a very wide and threatening slash he responded with, which left me with only one weapon as opposed to the usual two. He then used his sword-wielding hand to take my short-sword out of it, and threw it to the side out of the dueling area, preventing me from retrieving it. The fight kept on for a while longer at the end of which I was panting very heavily, not being able to adapt well enough and break Al’s strong defense. On a more positive note, I never exposed myself enough for him to land a hit on me, and while I was extremely tired I was still uninjured.
Noticing that the fight was going nowhere, as it would only end up with one of us(presumably me) getting tired out, and being unable to keep up, he graciously offered to end the fight in a draw, which I accepted thankfully. All throughout the fight the mercenaries to the side were cheering as if this was some kind of spectator sport, and the laughs at my expense when Al threw my short sword out brought back some unpleasant memories from my time at school.
The first thing I did after bowing in thanks to Al was rush to where my sword was still lying in the ground, not taking any chances should someone dare to take it for themselves. After securing it safely in my sword belt, along with the longsword, Al came up to me and offered me a drink out of the same waterskin he was using. Even though the threat of germs and the water not being entirely clean was still there, the tiredness I felt from going toe to toe with him overwhelmed thoughts of self-preservation and I finished off all of the water that he still had left. After quenching my thirst, I excused myself to retreat my cloak which was folded undisturbed among many other mercenaries who were speaking of either my spar or my prospects of actually joining the band.
Al then invited me to sit on the same ground we had fought on, and explained the particulars should I choose to join up with them. He said that I would be provided with as much drinking water as I needed, along with the same kind of meals that the rest of the mercenaries got, which was one in the mornings after dawn, and one more in the evenings before dusk. Anytime a mercenary contract or guild commission was accepted, 30% of the proceeds would go to the leadership of the mercenary band, while the rest of the 70% would be divided based on one’s duties and position within the band.
He said that the band had around 200 members, and to start with I would be put in a squad where there would be 9 others, one of which would lead us on commissions. He said that situations in which the whole mercenary band would be able to obtain a contract were very rare, so the majority of time was spent doing commissions, but the one thing he said was absolutely forbidden was banditry.
I had already heard back in Strus that some mercenaries would alternate between being mercenaries and bandits depending on their current circumstances, but Al said to me with a threatening voice that if I were found to be a ‘bandit’ in any of the territory they passed through, the leader of the band Lydon, wouldn’t hesitate to turn me in to the guards for the reward.
I nodded to show that I understood what he was saying, but Al reinforced that message once more by saying that it has happened before and that I shouldn’t take the leader of the band lightly. While the thoughts of there being some big tyrant in charge of this band did dissuade me slightly, the thought of not having to worry about food and being able to spar against someone as formidable as Al in the future did entice me greatly. He said that the standard term of service was six months, and should I wish to leave after that period then there would be no trouble with the guild.
Some basic rules had to be followed within the band, but they boiled down to just using common sense and not immediately resorting to violence should something happen. Feeling some hunger in my stomach, due to eating my last meal the previous evening, I accepted Al’s offer and we went over to the mercenary guild together where I completed the process of joining Backhand Blow without too much fanfare.
All I had to do was come there with Al, show them my wooden placard with my name ‘Lev’ and the number on the bottom, after which the clerk asked me once more if I wanted to join Backhand Blow, after I said yes, the clerk informed me that I would be counted among the members of Backhand Blow for a period of six months, and that nothing else was needed which meant we could head back to the camp.
After seeing that I had officially joined up the other mercenaries dropped some of their previous vigilance, and the friendly ones even walked up and introduced themselves. I asked Al which ones would be part of the squad I was in and he said that the squad which needed recruits was out on commission for a week already, and would be returning either today or tomorrow. He invited me to sleep in his tent for the night, and I accepted, not even caring what state it was in since it was a preferable alternative to the tavern floor.
Since Al didn’t seem to be particularly busy I asked him about what swordsmanship school he learnt and he laughed and said that he and most of the other members of Backhand Blow had studied the ‘elite Warthog school’. I was confused as this was not a swordsmanship school I have ever heard of, but the image of an angry pig charging at me certainly matched my experience of fighting Al.
He then clarified that it wasn’t unusual for me to have not heard of it before, since it was created by Lydon the leader of the band. Although he wasn’t quite sure of the exact place this school originated, he did say that he was certain Lydon was somewhere in the ‘hinterlands’, although my mind too blanked at the name.
He explained that the hinterlands were as far away from the seas on Euphelia as anywhere else, and the accent one speaks with remains strong even if a person from there learns a more commonly spoken language, such as Rahlian. Lydon spoke with such an accent, and he refined his own swordsmanship for years as a mercenary before establishing a band with some of his comrades a few years ago, and even though some people that have learnt it’s basics have left the band before, it was nowhere near as popular enough for a layman to know of it.
He then asked me what my swordsmanship school was, saying he hadn’t seen anyone fight with it before, and I was happy enough to tell him about its unusual origins. At the mention of Yas, Al looked at me with a disbelieving expression, before his eyes settled on my skin.
“If you’re searching for a darker skin tone, then you would have to search for my teacher” I said with a smile.
“That explains it, but you’re from Jenusia then? How’d you end up out here?” Asked Al, now curious about my background after I joined up.
“I’m not from Jenusia, and I’m not quite sure where I’m from actually, but I learned to speak Rahlian there so I guess that’s where my accent comes from” I lied, hoping he wouldn’t delve that much farther into this.
“Yeah you best get rid of it, and quick, at least until we move camp. You’re not gonna make too many friends speaking like that around here” He advised, before continuing on with his thoughts.
“But your swordsmanship is truly dangerous, and to think that you’re still young! If some of the others in our band fought you they would not have come out of it with just a damaged shield and a tired body” He complimented, which raised my spirits greatly.
I had fought against him only using swordsmanship, without using the wind to aid my movements as I usually would when I practiced. This had shown me that I still had a long way to go swordsmanship wise, but knowing that not even my full strength could impress Al was good enough for me. Whether this was genuine or just him buttering me up didn’t matter in the end, as it was inconsequential.
“You were tired?” I asked, focusing on his latter comments.
“Of course, although I could still have fought you for a good while longer. This is the minimum for our band should we be contracted to fight in battle, and you better catch up with the rest of us when it comes to stamina!” He advised, his eyes showing no sign of that being a lie.
“Since it’s still a while before our helpers make dinner, how would you like a brief introduction to the Warthog school?” He proposed, and although I was still feeling sore from fighting him earlier, I accepted.
Since I didn’t have a shield of my own, he said that he would lend me one of his spares, which was nowhere near combat ready but would have to do for practice. It looked as if it had been through more battles than even Gaspar, and some of the edges were uneven due to wear and tear.
Al ran through just one basic form with me, which included how I would have to center myself, which felt very limiting and unacceptable if I were to fight like a Sylrift swordsman should. After practicing these forms for a bit, and then taking a break, he proposed we should have another spar before dinner so that I would remember these forms and how they are meant to be used in combat.
The spar did not go anywhere near as well for me, as the weight of the heavy shield and my stance being unusual made me much slower, near the end Al managed to injure me, although not with his sword or shield. When I dodged one of his slashes from my top left to my bottom right, his sword lodged itself in the ground which presented a clear opening for me to use. But before I could capitalize on it, Al did the unthinkable and let go of his sword and struck me with his backhand on the face.
It was a truly disorienting move, and as I regained my senses on the ground I saw Al had already pulled out his sword from the ground and stood over me with a content expression on his face.
“Now that you know the origin of our name, you are truly a mercenary of our band” He laughed, which somewhat dampened the pain in my cheek.