“It was far from uncommon for highly skilled people to fight each other one-on-one while their respective side’s soldiers kept each other away from the impromptu duel. Such cases were partly due to the pride held by the nobles who often were the participants of such duels, an partly because at times, the combatants were just so skilled that for a common soldier to attempt to intervene would just result in their death and little more.” - Excerpt from “The Vagaries of Warfare” by Maxim Stavros Odenlos, Military Scholar from the Clangeddin Empire, circa 443 VA.

“I guess she really had changed for the better since she had that kid,” thought Grünhildr as she spared a glance at where Elfriede clashed against the knight who wielded the long, slender blade. In the past, Grünhildr recalled the way how Elfriede would have fought like a beast and went for the jugular without a care for her own well-being, with only her skills being what kept certain death at bay.

Nowadays, she was more careful and measured, as she took note of what her opponent could do first before she charged in and struck. While her ferocity was little different to back then, she was no longer as uncaring for herself, something Grünhildr thought was a good thing. A change she noticed since her old friend had her child. Probably the thought of having someone who would truly be sad if she was to be injured or killed helped temper her over time.

Grünhildr herself fought with the same sort of ferocity grown through many battles of life and death, her bulky form moving with a litheness that seemed unreal for someone built like her. She had kept her opponent completely on the backfoot, as his favored fighting style ended up being useless against her, and he could do little but focus on defense at the moment.

Much like Elfriede, Grünhildr was one of the best warriors in the Company, with no little part thanks to her rare affinity and her skill with it. Since she had always relied on the void coating of her blades to cut through things rather than the actual blade or weight of her weapons, Hogarth had asked if she would have favored a lighter weapon with a wider blade instead, since the heft would be of no matter anyway.

Grünhildr had agreed back then, and Hogarth had crafted her new weapons out of another design they found on the foreign book Elfriede’s weapon was based on. What she wielded nowadays looked more like a pair of short spears, a full meter each with spearheads on either end, with a crescent-shaped blade much like what Elfriede had on her handguard built below one of the spearheads.

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She could use it as a handguard or a brass knuckle with a sharp edge if she were to grip the weapon there while still using it like a short spear, or she could hold it by the other end and use them like axes, the way she did now. Hogarth had even edged the blades and spearheads with mithril as well, which allowed her to use them judiciously even without her magic as an aid.

As it was, her opponent’s large, bladed shield was likely enchanted to resist magic to an extent, which was the only reason her blows had not cleaved it asunder as of yet. Even so, more and more cuts and gouges formed on the surface of the shield, as the void-clad blades of her weapons struck the shield relentlessly.

While she kept her opponent on the backfoot throughout the fight, it was practically a stalemate, as Grünhildr couldn’t breach her opponent’s defense either, until a while later she got an idea to turn the tables.

After she made her opponent parry a blow from her left-hand axe, she stabbed down with the spearhead just below her grip on the other hand. The void-coated spearhead found an already weakened section of the shield and pierced through, roughly by the middle, and the pained scream from her opponent told Grünhildr that she had guessed right.

She violently yanked her weapon’s lower end to the left and right, which elicited more screams from her opponent, before she hooked the left side of the massive shield with the underside of the crescent blade of her weapon and pulled it away.

It moved out of her way this time.

Her opponent failed to keep hold of the shield because she had mangled his left hand with her previous strike just now. His armor was clearly not as well-enchanted as his shield, as her spearhead had pierced through it and severed three of his fingers before it carved deep into his hand.

Despite his hand’s condition, her opponent still tried to fight back as he went for a short sword carried on his belt with his one remaining healthy hand. Unfortunately for him, Grünhildr was faster and kicked that hand hard with her steel-toed boots. The resulting impact made a crunching noise, and she saw how two of his fingers seemed twisted and broken as he screamed in more pain.

Then Grünhildr kicked the knight’s chest and made him lay on his back, as she pointed one of her weapons’ spearhead straight at his throat, the entire spearhead coated with the jet-black sheen of void magic, which promised nothing but oblivion should the knight try to resist.

The knight beneath her feet seemed to have understood his predicament, as with obvious pain, he raised his mangled hands and raised them up in a gesture of surrender. The rest of the matter was no longer Grün’s to worry about, as a couple of mercenaries that had stayed back to support her and Elfriede came over and quickly tied up the knight to be taken as a captive.

After all, she heard the knight was the son of a Duchess, and those sorts always had a healthy ransom on their heads, best taken alive rather than dead for that reason whenever possible. Such ransoms were later divided between the Company - who facilitated the prisoner trade - and her as the one who caught the prisoner should it be agreed upon.

Her job done, Grün took another glance to see how her old friend was doing, and was delighted to see that she was just about finished as well.