Current Story – Jillesha

Character – Ryworn

Role – Major

Stage Directions (Day 3) –

Train with Wellath

Wellath was the swordsman who had been present for the test yesterday.

I found that out when Prince took me to him the next morning for practicing swordsmanship. My teacher did not look very happy to teach me, but sighed and threw a sword my way anyways, complete with a forced smile. I tried to catch it on time, and even got my hands on the handle, but it slipped due to the weight and fell on the ground.

“I’ll leave you two to it, then!” Prince joyously said before disappearing into the tents.

Wellath came towards me and picked up the sword. Then, he went back to the rack and put it in its place. I kept watching, but he did not move further. He was still looking at the swords, as if in deep thought. After some time, he picked one of them and pulled it out. He walked back up and handed it to me.

It was a bit lighter, but still not good enough for me to be able to swing it properly.

“We’re gonna have to get one made for you.” He declared before taking the second sword and putting it in the rack too.

“Sorry for that.” I apologized.

“Huh, why?” Wellath said, “It’s none of your fault that you got picked. For now, go to the armory and get one of the wooden swords. It’s been a while since anyone used them, but they should still be sturdy.”

“The armory?” I wasn’t aware of the existence of such a place.

“The tent with the yellow top. It’s close to Kaisel’s.” He said and pointed in the general direction that I knew Kaisel’s tent to be.

I thanked him and ran away towards the place in search of the armory.

Through all the practicing mercenaries, and the tents, I ran while looking at how they were swinging their swords. I was going to be asked to do something similar, I had no doubt. After some time, I got to Kaisel’s tent and started looking around for the tent with the yellow top.

Inside his tent, I could hear Sylvia’s voices. She seemed to be arguing about something, since it seemed quite loud. I had no business interfering; it would probably end up being something related to learning magic anyways. So, I tried not to pay too much attention and kept looking for the armory. Around half a minute later, I found the tent.

The flaps were open, so I stepped right in and looked at all of the different swords and pieces of armor that were just lying around. In terms of space, it was as big as my tent, but since there wasn’t a bed in here, it seemed quite open. I stumbled around a bit, and even got a small cut on my ankle as I tried to find the wooden swords. I pushed the armor just lying on the floor aside and tried to look for them in the corners of the tent.

I was pretty sure that I was making a lot of noise, but eventually, the annoyance of not finding it kept piling up. Wellath was probably waiting for me in the training grounds right now, angry at my inability to do even this. I grunted and continued to look.

Suddenly, I felt someone behind me. I immediately turned, and saw that it was Typhen.

“What are you looking for?” He asked.

“The wooden swords. Wellath asked me to use them.”

“Ah, I get it.” He walked in, and I gave him some space. He bent down towards the left corner, and dug up a bundle of wooden swords from under some more armor. He threw it at me, and thankfully, I caught them properly. He stood back up and kept looking at me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I wanted to invite you to a hunt.”

“A hunt?”

“Yeah.” He said, “There’s this beast that’s apparently been terrorizing a nearby town. They want us to handle it, and Master Hess suggested that we should take you too. She wants to see how quick you will learn.”

“Uh,” I looked at the wooden swords. He probably got the idea.

“That is indeed a problem.” He cleared his throat, “But the beast doesn’t harm humans, so a bit of a delay shouldn’t be too bad. They’ll just lose a pet or two at best. I’ll ask master to talk to Wellath about it. Whenever he thinks you can go, we will go.”

“Are you sure about that?” I was hesitantly laughing, “I can’t even hold a real sword.”

“Don’t underestimate our blacksmiths. You’re going to get a special one from them, aren’t you? I can guess. Just practice with these and put your trust in them.”

“Yeah, sure!”

He nodded and left the tent.

At first, I had been scared that he had found out about last night. But apparently Sylvia hadn’t told anyone yet. That’s what I had expected of her, so I felt happy. It had been very stupid of me to just speak like that, but she had handled it well. If Typhen were to find out, he would probably drag me off into the forest and threaten to kill me too…maybe.

For then, I left the tent and went back to the training grounds.

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“Took you a while.” Wellath told me as he took the bundle of swords from me.

“I got a bit lost. Sorry.”

“Come on, now. Can you stop apologizing already? Stop it!” Wellath almost shouted.

I almost instinctively replied like that once more, but managed to stop myself. He would probably throw all the wooden swords in the forest out of anger if I did that.

Wellath pulled one of the swords out and gave it to me. It was much lighter than I expected, and very easy to move. I gave it one or two random swings in the air, and my teacher looked pleased.

“That’s how a sword should normally feel.” He said, “I’ve given an order to the blacksmiths, so they should be on it soon. Till then, let’s just use these and get started on the training.”

He took one of the wooden swords out too, and swung it around three times. It was much faster than I had been. If the other swords were normal to him, this probably did not even feel like it had any weight.

“What do you know about sword fighting, Ryworn?” He asked, “Don’t try to make it too extravagant. In basics, tell me what sword fighting consists of.”

“Attacking and defending?”

“Good.” He said and started balancing the handle of the sword on his index finger, “That’s all it is. As simple as that. The rest of it is the swordsman, and nothing else. The way you use the concepts of attacking and defending and bend them to your will, to make them make sense to you, is what it means to use the sword. There’s no right or wrong way to wield one. As long as you can satisfy those basic concepts in a fairly useful manner, you can fight. Of course, there are pre-set styles that you might train to use, but they mean nothing when you’re on a battlefield.”

“I’m not I understood that last part.”

“I mean that when you’re surrounded by crying, shouting, blood and guts on all four sides, with five enemies coming at you at once, ready to die, then styles and technique can certainly help you. But it is very rare to be able to remember things like that and use them in such a situation. You would have to be rid of all emotion to think so clearly in a war. It is impossible for human beings to do. At that moment, all you will do is regress to your basic instincts of swinging a sword around like an uncivilized madman.”

“So, uh, what do you suggest?” I asked.

He twirled the handle around his finger, caught the sword in his hand, and pushed it forward, attacking me. I brought my sword up to block it. The wood clashed, and mine went flying away. I ran behind and picked it up.

“I mean that I am not going to teach you what my teacher taught me, or what his teacher taught him. I’m not teaching you movements and patterns like Hess or Kaisel would. I’m trying to transform your basic, animalistic swordplay. You can’t block like that, no matter what happens. What I’m going to do is mold your way of carrying a sword to the extent that even if you regress to this non-style, you will be able to save your life quite easily. And of course, take the life of an opponent when necessary. Once you’re done with that, you can go and learn all those fancy, useless forms and styles if you want.”

I stood with my sword ready once more, and he made the same push with his weapon. I tried a slightly different way of blocking, but the sword flew away from my hand anyways. The difference was that it had landed a bit closer this time. I picked it up once more and got back into position.

“We’re going to keep going until you can block this attack.” He said, and launched his sword at me once more.

Just as he had promised, that went on for quite some time. Every time he attacked me, I tried to change the way I was holding my sword. Every single time, the sword flew in a different manner, speed and direction. I tried to take note of all the differences and see which one caused the least deviation from my position. And then, like playing some rogue-like, I kept changing my ideas ever so slightly, in the hopes of blocking it and getting a good hit for once.

In the end, it took around four hundred and fifty or so tries for me to finally be able to block the sword. Even then, mine did twist a little bit, and the part where the blade would have been, hit the top of my hand. Wellath told me that it wasn’t even close to perfect, but seeing that a lot of time had passed, he allowed me to go back to my tent after keeping the wooden swords back in the armory.

While doing that, I made sure to keep them right at the top of the pile so that I could find them easily the next morning.

A person I hadn’t seen before brought dinner to my tent. Apparently, the mercenaries did eat together, but if someone stayed in their tents, they sent dinner like this. The reason I hadn’t gone out was because I was way too tired to do anything after the practice. And along with that, I did not feel very comfortable sitting with those people yet. I did not even know most of them.

Of course, I would never get to know them if I just stayed in my tent, but hopefully something would happen soon and help me mingle a bit better. I wasn’t that good at just going to people and starting to talk.

Anyways, I had my dinner and laid down on my bed again. My arms felt uncomfortable and stiff no matter where I put them. It was really annoying, and it messed with my head. I grew frustrated.

That’s why the flaps of my tent were shaken and I heard, “Hey, it’s Sylvia.”, I replied in a slightly aggressive manner.

“Whoa, alright. I’ll come back tomorrow.” She spoke.

“No, wait!”

I stood up and opened the tent. Once my arms slumped back down after doing so, she turned and laughed.

“Oh right, you got stuck with Wellath. Don’t mind it too much, he’s really good.” She pulled me outside and gave me a pat on the back. Last night, I hadn’t been able to feel completely sure if she was fine with me now, but this confirmed it. She held no grudges for now.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

It did seem like it was close to two o’clock already. At the same time, I did not hear a lot of commotion, so it probably hadn’t gotten there yet.

“How do you tell the time?” I asked in as ambiguous a manner as possible.

She looked up, “The stars.”

I nodded. It made sense. That day, even Olbert had looked up at the sky before confirming that we did not have time left. I guess he was looking at the sky to tell the time.

“It feels so weird having a term to call them with.” She kept looking up, “Usually, we’d just say ‘the sky’. But we would be referring to the white dots anyways, so I guess this is more accurate now.”

She was enamored by them for whatever reason. Actually, no. I definitely understood it. After coming to this place, even I had found a greater appreciation for them. There was just something about looking up at the night sky.

“And uh, we’re going to Kaisel’s.” She answered my original question and kept walking.

“Oh.” I said, “Also, how come Typhen calls Hess ‘master’, but you don’t use the same word for Kaisel?”

“Because he’s stupid and I’m not?” She smiled.

“He’s stupid to respect his teachers?”

“Kaisel’s not my teacher. Neither is Hess Typhen’s teacher.” She seemed a bit offended, “They just tell us stuff and give us information.”

“That’s called teaching.”

“Shut up.”

We reached the tent.

She opened the flaps and stepped right in. I followed.

Kaisel was sitting on his chair, sipping on some tea.

“Two more minutes.” He said, “You can sit.”

Me and Sylvia sat down on the bed and started waiting as he kept drinking his tea, looking at the two of us. Nothing happened for those two minutes, which made feel quite awkward. All I could remember was what had happened in the morning, and Sylvia had been shouting at him for some reason. It couldn’t have been a very large argument, considering that Kaisel had shown himself to be a very calm person till now.

Then, after some time, Sylvia left the tent and went out. She came back after a second and nodded her head before sitting right where she had been before.

“Right.” Kaisel looked at me, “Ryworn, if you don’t mind losing these twenty-three minutes, every single day, I would like to use that time to teach you magic.”

“Y-you’re serious?”

“Well, Sylvia had to convince me. But I have to admit that your performance yesterday intrigued me very much.”

“Yes.” My reply was instantaneous.

It had been wonderful to use magic back then, even if it had been for the smallest time. I did not mind losing this time at all. There wasn’t anything I did during it anyways, so at least this allowed me to get better and have fun doing something I wanted to.

Sylvia smiled with glee as Kaisel stood up and put his empty cup of tea down. He pulled out the same gloves from his pockets and gave them to me. Then, we got out of the tent to start the training.