“Sometimes it is far more frustrating to only be able to watch while unable to interfere than it is to lose.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire, in his later days.
“So who’s winning?” asked Elfriede from where she stood next to Reinhardt. Since the champions were fighting a good thousand paces away from them, they were well outside Elfriede’s range of perception and she couldn’t really tell much from the loud cheering from the soldiers around her.
“Pretty even so far, I would say,” replied Reinhardt who was watching the duel through the spyglass function of his eyepiece artifact. He had a clearer look than most since only the leaders had spyglasses to watch the fight more clearly. Such fights would have probably been done closer to both armies if the two sides were more familiar with each other’s customs, but since they were from very different nations in this case, it was just the smart thing to do to stay well out of arrow range.
“I think the old Duke’s champion is having trouble catching up,” commented Erycea who was looking through a spyglass she intermittently gave to Alycea every now and then. “The Imperial champion is light on his feet and keeps his distance really well. He knows how to make good use of that glaive of his, too. His strikes keep getting blocked so far, but it only takes one slip-up…”
“That’s the thing when you’re dueling someone. You always have much more room to work with in most cases. If we were in a battle, we rarely ever have room to dodge around like that, too many people around us we have to take into consideration,” noted Reinhardt with a solemn nod. “Duke Banitu’s champion fights like a soldier, but his opponent is fighting like a duelist.”
“I would have normally sent out a Warforged blademaster for this sort of thing, but Nunez kind of took all the survivors with him back then, so I had to make do,” commented the old Duke who clearly overheard their conversation. No real surprise, as he was not far from them and they weren’t making any attempt to not be heard either. “The next generation we’re raising are still far too young and unskilled for any deployment.”
“You are aware that at this rate, your champion will likely lose, no, Your Grace?” Reinhardt asked back to the old Duke. “He is most likely an outstanding soldier and warrior, but he’s clearly unfamiliar with duels like these. The Imperial champion is making full use of his reach advantage and agility to tire him out so far while he hasn’t been able to get a proper hit in himself.”
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“Cazor is a distant nephew of mine, yes, so I am aware of that. That said, the boy has some tricks up his sleeves as well, so we will have to see if this Imperial could deal with that or not,” replied the old Duke with a shake of his head before he turned back to watching the ongoing duel. The situation had yet to change, with the Kolitscheian champion staying on the defensive as the more nimble Imperial champion circled around him and struck with his glaive.
Then all of a sudden, the Imperial champion stumbled as his foot landed on a sidestep.
The Kolitscheian champion naturally made the most of the opportunity and rushed straight towards his opponent with his shield held firmly before him and his other arm cocked back, ready to deliver a powerful blow. While the Imperial champion managed to regain his balance before too long, his opponent had closed in within that short time, and a vicious swing of the axe soon followed.
Left with few options, the Imperial champion blocked the blow using his glaive’s shaft. The axe’s blade bit nearly a third of the way into the hardwood shaft, driven as it was by the force of the devastating blow, and the impact forced the Imperial champion to take a couple steps back as he was unable to completely negate the forces involved.
Only for him to find that the ground where he stepped back onto was a step lower than he thought and stumble yet again.
By that point, it was obvious to Reinhardt that the stumbles were not due to careless mistakes made by the Imperial champion, but was something Cazor from Kolitschei had engineered to happen. The Kolitscheian champion was most likely the same as Reinhardt, a man born with the earth Affinity but with middling skills and mana, nowhere near good enough to become a mage.
Much like Reinhardt, Cazor also clearly discovered ways to use his limited mana to play dirty tricks on his opponents. Reinhardt himself often used his Earth affinity to do the same, to create small bumps or depressions his opponents would then stumble upon or trip at. It was not the sort of trick looked upon highly especially amongst the higher echelons of society, but it was not uncommon amongst mercenaries like him.
It was a touch of a surprise that the Kolitscheian champion also used such “dirty” tricks, but given the grin on the old Duke’s face, neither the champion nor his Duke clearly cared less about it. They had been beaten down enough to know that every little advantage they could get was to be grasped on and never let go.
Faced with the suddenly treacherous terrain beneath his feet and the onslaught from his opponent, the Imperial champion fell on the backfoot in turn. His glaive was broken into two uneven halves after he blocked several more of Cazor’s blows, as the latter took every opportunity he could to land those blows where he made the first one.
After a few strikes Cazor ended up chopping straight through the hardwood shaft and left a visible gash on his opponent’s armor, though the armor did its job and spared the man wearing it from actual injury.