Author's notes:

Hello and thank you for taking your time to read through my story. This is the first time I seriously try to write one of my stories, so any kind of feedback, good and bad alike, is highly appreciated. English is not my first language, but I hope my writing is clean (enough). But please, I personally hate grammatical errors, so if you spot any (WHEN you spot any!), please notify me to fix them.

Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter IV: First Encounter

Martyn kept clenching and unclenching his fists. It has been more than a month since the last time he held a hammer and the calluses on his hands had all but disappeared. It made his hands feel soft, unnatural, weak.

He pondered about going to the smithy, but it was far from here, near the eastern walls. And, even thought they have stopped locking his door after one day since the duchess had paid him her visit, the one time he actually ventured outside was almost a disaster.

Martyn sighted as he recalled the incident.

He was walking behind the big building, his body still stiff and sore, trying to avoid places with a lot of people. The few times he crossed paths with anyone, he was met with glances full of either spite or contempt, and he welcomed neither.

He heard a whistling sound, and an instant later, something sharp nailed him on the back of his head. He felt his blood trickling over to his shoulder as he looked at the bloodied stone that had landed on his feet.

A few meters behind him, a bunch of children were laughing as they pointed towards him. He tried to ignore them, to move away, but a few of their voices reached his ears.

"...Haha, look at the dumb barbarian, he doesn't even understand what happened..."

"...how could he? The only magic they have is their shamans, and I've heard that..."

"...he's probably a slave or something..."

"...even as slaves they are practically trash..."

He looked at the pack of children that were mocking him. They didn't wear the white robes he had seen everyone wearing. Instead, they were dressed in light leather armor and had a white tabard over it. At most, they were forteen, fifteen, years old.

Even if he was a guest here, he still had his pride. And he decided to teach them a lesson. As he approached them, he narrowed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and he clenched his teeth, trying to appear as intimidating as he could. He let his mana flood out of him, knowing that his eyes would glow white as he did so.

For a second, they stopped laughing, but immediately thereafter, instead of the children running away, the laughter increased.

"...is he a shaman?..."

"...look at him, he thinks he is a mage..."

"...so weak..."

As he reached within five meters of them, a slim blonde kid, barely fifteen years old, stepped in front of his peers, like trying to shield them from him and made an overly exaggerated bow towards him.

"Forgive my friends Mister shaman, one of them mistook you for a garbage bin and thew his litter towards you. But if that hurt your honor, I'm willing to duel at his place in order for you to restore it."

The snickering and the laughter became even louder as the child, called Evan from what Martyn could piece together from all the muttering around him, procured a blunted sword and turned it, handle first, towards him.

Martyn could see that the passersby either outright ignored them, or stayed in the sidelines, watching, and sporadically joining in his ridicule. What infuriated him more, was that with his mana sight he could easily see that the child in front of him had indeed a stronger aura than his... but if this was a sword fight, there was no way he could lose, he towered nearly two heads higher than the boy.

Looking back at the incident, he realised he should have simply walked away. He should not have let himself be goaded into action. Winning a fight versus a kid, wouldn't restore any of his damaged pride. But he didn't. Instead he replied.

"I'm not a shaman. A shaman would have killed the lot of you already. But I accept." He said

Evan threw the blade towards him and picked a second one from someone behind him. He smiled and bowed again towars him.

"Since we were the group responsible, I'm giving you the advantage. Come at me when you are ready."

Martyn wanted to finish that parody of a fight as quickly as possible, so he exhaled, and bursted forward, a single clean hit on the chest should have sent the boy flying.

Instead, he saw, almost instantly, a magic circle appearing in front of the Evan's chest. The boy accelerated to an inhuman degree, and Martyn's eyes were barely able to follow him as he rushed directly next to him. As he bypassed him, he saw the circle of a second spell already being formed directly on top of the Evan's training blade.

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He twisted his neck, trying to follow his opponent's movements, only to see the blade rapidly swinging down, hitting him squarely behind his knees. He let out a scream in pain as he lost any control of his legs. As Martyn fell down on his knees, Evan had already made an, almost complete, round around him. Martyn tried to turn his head, to keep his opponent within his sight, only to see the boy's blade swinging once more, hitting him right in his swordhand's wrist, sending his blade flying as the pain overtook him.

The laughter around him had changed to cheering and the boy's face had distorted into a smug visage of contempt. Evan stopped right in front of him, and as he looked down on him, spat on his face.

"You barbarians are all the same. Worthless."

You simply just never stand idle in front of your enemy. Martyn realised that his opponent was just a kid. Someone who had never faced any true danger.

"That's what the citizens of Oros used to say when barbarians, like me, paid them a visit" He answered back.

The child's smug face changed to one filled with rage as he swung his blade. With his good arm, Martyn grabbed Evan's arm by the wrist just before the blade struck him in his face. He saw the boy's enraged eyes looking towards his own fallen sword as Evan was trying to make the sword fly towards him, similarly to what he had done against the Grud. 

Martyn smiled as he finished his own spell, negating any sort of pain from body. He instantly rose up, and headbutted Evan right in the nose. Blood spluttered from the boy's broken nose, and along with his screams of pain, Martyn saw that whatever Evan tried to do with the second blade had already fizzled. 

Martyn's right hand, free from the pain, had already formed a fist and was travelling towards his opponent's face when something made him freeze in place. He felt like a million hands were holding him in place, unable to move even an inch.

From behind him, he heard a clear, male, voice.

"I officially declare this duel over. The winner is, clearly, the barbarian"

A man fully clad in metal armor, with a bronze dragon emblem on his white tabard came into view and positioned himself right between Martyn and Evan. He casually opened Martyn's fingers around the boy's wrists, picked up Evan and moved him a little further back, and positioned himself, once again, right in front of Martyn.

As deadly silence reigned around them, the knight dispelled whatever was holding Martyn immobile, and looked him straight at his eyes.

"And you, barbarian, I don't know what you are doing here, but do you think it's prudent to mention Oros around here? A city razed and burned to the ground by your people? A city where every man was slaughtered? Every woman..." His stare, cold as ice, as he left the sentence unfinished.

Martyn looked at the man in front of him. Despite the knight being a head shorter than him, Martyn felt himself breaking in cold sweat. It wasn't how effortlessly he walked in his heavy armor, nor the pommel of the greatsword that protruded behind his back, it wasn't even the fact that this man could immobilize him without him being able to resist at all, it was his eyes. Eyes that told him that the man in front of him had fought real battles, killed real people. Eyes that could easily kill him depending on his answer. Eyes of a true warrior.

"I wasn't at Oros myself. Hell, I wasn't even born back then. But I was losing, and I was losing solely because he was a faster caster than me. I figured if I could disrupt the boy's concentration, if I could anger him, then I had a chance to win. And everyone knows that mentioning that city's name is bound to get your people's blood boiling."

"..."

"Correct" the knight broke the silence as he shouted for all to hear. Slowly, he turned around, looking every single kid straight to the eyes, and then pointed towards Evan.

"Evan was faster. Evan was stronger. Evan had more experience AND he had the element of surprise. He was winning, and he could easily win even against a dozen of barbarians like this one." He said as his finger darted towards Martyn.

"...And yet" He continued, "If this was a real battle, Evan would have died. He would have left his squad vulnerable and open to be butchered as well. And why?" He pointed towards a kid in the back.

"..."

As the kid stared with a blank gaze, his face pale, devoid of blood, the knight continued.

"He would have died because he lost himself in his emotions. He would have died because of a stupid remark. You CANNOT fight if your emotions get the better of you. I've told you countless of times: you have to kill your emotions in a battle, or die a pig's death."

"I hope this little dogfight of yours stays stuck in your little brains for all eternity, because I couldn't have taught you better myself. You will never become true spellswords unless you first become cold, calculating, machines of death."

"And as for you barbarian" He said as he turned towards Martyn "You are correct that most of us will respond to an insult about Oros. So... I would suggest you find a corner to hide and not insitgate any further... problems in this academy."