The Sigil Blade (6 page)

If he had opted to accept Seoras’s advice, he would have selected one of the two arming swords. He had extensive experience with all of these weapons, but it was to a knight’s blade that he had without question devoted the most training and study. Instead of choosing one of these simple straight-bladed battlefield weapons, or the dueling sword or back sword, any of which were ideal single combat weapons, Edryd settled on the falchion. Seoras would think he chose it because it was the most expensive looking sword, jeweled and finely gilded, with a greater weight in steel than some of the others in combination. However, the curved blade gave it poor defensive characteristics and also made it weak as a thrusting weapon. Functioning less like a sword and more like a long edged axe, the heavy blade would make you tire quickly. It was a mounted soldier’s battlefield weapon, good at splitting armor or a helm, and it was of an exceptional quality that would have been fit for a general, but it was not something suited for use on foot in a contest of skill.

All those weaknesses aside, Edryd felt confident that he could use it in combination with his superior strength to good advantage. It was simple to wield, requiring no mastery of any particular technique, so he could use it well without revealing the extent of his combat training. If Seoras could be taken off guard, or if he lacked a fraction of the skill he had claimed, he was going to be under pressure. If not, Seoras was going to have an easier time of it, which was fine, given that Edryd intended to allow the man to have a clear victory.

The reassuring weight felt good in his hand as Edryd claimed the curved weapon and took a few experimental swings. It was a well-designed sword that could bring to bear a tremendous amount force on the cutting edge.

“I find that the quality of a contest often benefits if there is a compelling source of motivation,” Seoras commented. “Care for a wager?”

“I don’t have money,” Edryd said, rejecting the suggestion.

“These wouldn’t belong to you then,” Seoras countered, producing two large gold coins from a pocket somewhere in his dark black robe.

Edryd’s face flushed. That answered what had happened to the coins, if not when or how Seoras had come into their possession. “I would appreciate your giving those back to me, now,” Edryd said, demanding the return of his property with poorly restrained anger in his voice.

“These coins represent a small fortune. An Innis is not the sort of place where you can expect to safely carry such things around in your pockets. I would feel badly if something happened.” Seoras said all this as if he were not doing just that himself, carrying around Edryd’s ‘small fortune’ in his pocket.

“I can take care of myself,” Edryd insisted, passing over the fact that the two coins now sitting in this man’s hands clearly demonstrated otherwise.

The contradiction between Edryd’s words and his present circumstances was obvious, and Seoras said as much. “Were you as capable as you claim, you would never have been so easily dispossessed of all your money within a few short hours of your arrival on this island.”

Edryd was in a weak position to argue, but it wasn’t the sort of correction that you took evenly from the person who had stolen your property. Seoras had wanted a motivated opponent. Now he had one.

“I won’t wager, but I will be taking those back,” Edryd said.

Seoras smiled. By his estimation things were going well. “I understand not wanting to stake your money,” he relented. “How about something else—if you defeat me, I return your money and acknowledge the better man, submitting to whatever punishment you would like to impose. If you lose, I accept you as a student, and you will then remain here until such time as I have taught you all that I can.”

“That isn’t going to happen,” Edryd refused. He had no desire to have anything more to do with Seoras once he recovered the money. “I will settle for taking back what belongs to me. Stand ready,” he ordered.

Seoras stepped back and grasped the top of the sheath where it hung at his right hip as he brought his free sword hand up to undo the clasp on his cloak, letting it fall completely to the ground before grabbing onto the hilt of his weapon. He pulled the hilt upward revealing a few thin sharp inches of bright oiled steel beneath a dull grey steel crossguard, and then, watching cautiously for any reaction, he slowly continued to expose more of the blade. The steel looked exceptionally hard and sharp, but Edryd suspected it would also prove to be quite fragile.

Irritated by his opponent’s slow approach, Edryd became impatient. Without waiting for Seoras to finish clearing the weapon from its sheath, Edryd stepped forward with his sword in a raised position ready to strike. He wasn’t seeking an unfair advantage, he was just anxious to force the issue and make Seoras finish drawing his weapon. It was a less than honorable tactic though, which did grant to Edryd, who needed to take and keep the initiative, an early edge with which to achieve a dominant positon.

Seoras had his weapon free in an instant, quickly raising and positioning the blade on an almost level plane, ready to shield the imminent attack. Edryd aimed his downward vertical strike to connect near the end of his opponent’s weapon, where it would generate leverage that would maximize the stress on the blade as well as on the opposing combatant’s grip. If the blade were as hard and brittle as Edryd guessed, it might just break.

Seoras took a half step back as he absorbed the impact of the strike. As soon as the momentum of his swing was stopped, Edryd raised the heavy sword and hammered down again and again in a succession of heavy blows. Seoras’s sword held up to the onslaught, but he was being pressed back with each impact. Edryd continued his simple unrelenting attack, delivering quick powerful strikes that Seoras would be able to block but not deflect. He had Seoras completely on his heels, blunting the attacks but unable to manage any sort of counter. Soon, Edryd would pull one of the strikes and bring his blade in down under his opponent’s guard and… and do what? No conditions had been set. He could tap Seoras with the flat of his blade, unfasten the man’s coat with a precision cut, or even draw blood by inflicting some sort of superficial injury. He was certainly angry enough to do the latter without feeling any remorse, but would that even end the fight?

Edryd was intently focused on Seoras as he continued to strike, trying to pick the right moment, when he caught something in the man’s expression. Seoras was on the defensive and giving ground with each attack, but he was not under pressure. He actually looked distant and bored, calmly watching Edryd expend energy, analyzing the attack with near indifference, and waiting on an inevitable feint from his opponent. Edryd chose a new strategy. There was only one sure way to end a sword fight; well, there were many ways, but only one of those didn’t involve injuring the enemy.

Edryd shifted the angle of his follow-through as his next strike impacted Seoras’s weapon, rasping the falchion down the length of his opponent’s long blade with as much strength as he could bring to bear. Seoras was genuinely surprised. Performed with a lighter blade, or by a weaker opponent, the technique would have been ineffective. It would be blocked harmlessly by the other sword’s crossguard. It was going to work here though; Seoras would not be strong enough to maintain his grip when the hilt of his sword was struck directly with this much force.

Seoras made a quick decision. It could not have been one born from training or past experience. No school of swordsmanship would have ever taught an adherent to drop his only weapon in a fight. Seoras did though, as if he had never trusted the blade to begin with. With the resistance suddenly gone, Edryd’s swing leapt wildly out to the side. Seoras stepped in close on his left leg and trapped Edryd’s sword arm as he tried to return it into position. Seoras immediately followed this by striking Edryd in the chest with the palm of his hand. The impact doubled Edryd over, forced him off his feet, and sent him sliding backward in the gravel.

Edryd, eyes shut tightly, gasped in pain where he lay as he tried to refill his lungs. He was not unused to taking punishment from strong opponents, but he had never felt something like this. Had he thought that he had an advantage in strength over Seoras? The man was impossibly strong. Edryd opened his eyes but he could not focus. His head was spinning. A dark shape advanced toward him. The shape, now standing over him, seemed to pause for a moment. Edryd could feel something in that pause, something he had also experienced when Seoras had struck him a moment ago. Acting on an unconscious compulsion, Edryd rolled to his side, out of the way of an attack he had not actually seen.

Scrambling onto his knees while ignoring the pain in his body, Edryd tried to locate Seoras. His vision was still blurry. He could make out two indistinct figures at the edges of the square, but he could not see Seoras at all. As his vision began to clear, his eyes resolved upon on an object a couple of feet away. It was the falchion, with its blade buried a foot and a half deep in the earth where Edryd’s head had just been only a moment before. Seoras stood a few paces away, his pale face almost as calm as ever, yet not quite able to hide a dwindling measure of unspent fury still smoldering in his dark azure eyes.

“I yield,” Edryd managed weakly.

“Not yet, I am not satisfied,” Seoras responded, refusing to accept the concession.

“I am done,” Edryd protested as firmly as he could.

“You have not shown me what you are capable of,” Seoras insisted. Edryd was not sure whether this meant that Seoras thought he had untapped potential, or whether he had recognized that Edryd had been holding back. Clarification came soon enough.

“We will continue until I am persuaded you have treated this seriously. If you fight with anything less than your full ability, I will leave you with a mark that will remind you that you should not have taken me so lightly.”

Edryd stood up and walked slowly over to his weapon, and began gently levering the sword loose, thinking Seoras had already kept that promise. He could feel the damage from the impact he had taken in the chest, and he knew that it was going to bruise badly. Taking a moment to examine the sword once he freed it, Edryd discovered soft gouges scarring much of the length of the weapon where it had contacted the gravel when it had been plunged into the ground. The blade bore stains from the moistened earth and dozens of small notches where it had struck the hardened metal of Seoras’s weapon. It was going to need a great deal of skilled work to restore the edge and recondition the surface of the metal.

Tactically, nothing had changed. The best approach remained a focused aggressive attack, but Edryd could not bring himself to charge in again. Any anger over the stolen money had disappeared. He had been properly unsettled by the last exchange and was no longer sure he could secure any success or guarantee his own safety.  The curved sword he was using was weak in defense, and given the superior reach of his opponent’s weapon it was unwise to do anything other than remain close in and on the attack, but Edryd was unable to contemplate doing this, and so he chose to stay back.

It was a failing he had never overcome. Whenever he was pressured or made to feel vulnerable, he relied too much on reading the movements of his opponent, all but reducing his options to responding in a reactionary mode. Falling into a defensive counter-attacking stance, Edryd waited on Seoras to resume the fight.

Seoras gave Edryd a suspicious, considering look. He seemed to think he was being baited, crediting Edryd for employing some form of deceptive mock defense. But he soon dismissed the need for caution, and when it became clear that his opponent would not engage, Seoras drove forward with a flurry of strikes aimed first at one quarter and then alternating to another.

The attacks were delivered with more speed than Edryd could keep up with.  His solution was simple. Ignoring the pain each time he twisted his torso, Edryd moved fluidly and constantly to keep his body well out of the range of Seoras’s strikes. If Seoras could not reach him, he couldn’t connect. This placed Seoras even further from Edryd’s much shorter reach, but that didn’t matter. If he could study the man’s attack, Edryd was certain he could find a weakness to exploit.

Dodging most of the attacks altogether, Edryd avoided directly blocking any of the strikes. Instead, he would knock one aside intermittently, disrupting his opponent’s rhythm and interfering with his technique. Even better, by representing a block and then withdrawing it before Seoras’s blade could connect, Edryd could induce his opponent to overextend. Seoras was talented, not to mention shockingly strong and fast, but his technique was, by Edryd’s standard, almost sloppy, and he left an occasional obvious opening.

If Edryd thought he was beginning to stabilize, Seoras did not seem to notice. Once seemingly bored and then angry, Seoras now seemed exhilarated, enjoying the unfettered opportunity to engage freely against a competent foe. At this range, Edryd would need to close a great deal of ground to deliver a strike, while remaining mindful of the need to use the length of his own weapon to prevent Seoras from delivering another counter with his free hand. There had been something out of the ordinary about that simple physical attack, and Edryd knew he could not withstand another.

Edryd grew tired as the fight progressed, his sword arm feeling heavy and sluggish, but he continued to patiently ignore minor openings in his opponent’s defenses. Seoras too was beginning to pay the price for the furious pace he was imposing on the duel, breathing hard and sweating freely. With fatigue setting in on his opponent, the attacks were certain to grow less controlled, until eventually the openings would grow wider and be recovered from less easily. Edryd would wait until the moment Seoras began to wear down and make the most of it.