by Kunego, Chad
Cliff turned toward the group and gestured.
“Karen, you’re up as well.”
Samuel watched as Karen hopped up and quickly retrieved an Epee and fencing gear before moving to the other end of the sparring area. After taking their places, Cliff stepped toward the middle of the sparring area. As Samuel watched, he noticed that while Karen aggressively swung her sword through the air to limber up and test the balance of the sword, Blythe appeared reluctant to use hers.
After getting in position, Cliff nodded to both women.
“Are you ready?
After waiting for an acknowledging nod from both women, he stepped back to the edge of the sparring area.
“Salute!”
At the command, both women raised their blades in front of them before dropping them down to point at the floor.
“FIGHT!”
At the command, Karen lunged forward, attempting to stab Blythe in the chest. At the last instant, Blythe swung her blade across her body, point down, while twisting so her left shoulder drifted back. Sliding her left foot back to continue her counter-clockwise turn, she lightly deflected the epee, causing it to barely miss her as she performed a molinello on her left side. As she rotated the blade, she angled the cutting edge so it would cause a slice across her opponent’s neck, but just before it touched, Blythe pulled the strike and stepped back into an upper guard position.
The speed and precision that Blythe had performed the block and counter-attack was fast enough that Samuel doubted anyone else had noticed that Blythe had actually won the pass. Leaping back, Karen brought the point on target again and stabbed out. Samuel noticed that Blythe instinctively swung her blade around to deflect again, but then pulled back enough to allow Karen to score a point.
“Point! Karen one, Blythe Zero.”
Both women stepped back to their starting positions before clashing again. Again Samuel noticed that Blythe could have easily won the clash, but instead allowed her opponent to just barely win the clash. As far as Samuel could tell, Blythe should have easily been able to dominate the fight, but instead chose to allow the other woman to win. After the final point was scored, both women saluted each other and removed their helmets.
“You almost had me a few times.”
“Yeah, but you’re so good with that epee. I just can’t seem to keep up with it.”
As Blythe gestured at the other woman’s blade, Cliff walked over.
“Blythe, I keep telling you, you need to be more aggressive. If you had pushed your attacks harder, you might have been able to score against Karen this time. Once we’re done here, I’ll give you a few exercises that should help.”
“Okay…”
As Blythe walked back toward him, Cliff looked around again.
“ John, you’re up next…”
“Who am I sparring against?”
Cliff thrust his thumb against his chest.
“Me,” he said with a smirk.
“Aw crap. Can you at least try and take it easy this time? The last sparring session we had left bruises for almost a week.”
“Well, that’s to help motivate you to get your guard up faster,” Cliff said with a good-natured smirk.
“Fine, fine,” he mumbled as he turned back to me.
“Thanks. Wish me luck…” he said as he slowly walked to the sparring area.
“This should be entertaining…” Blythe whispered in Samuel’s ear.
Cliff and John slid their padded helmets down over their faces.
“Ready?” Cliff asked.
John’s only reply was a feeble nod.
“En Garde!”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Samuel sat mesmerized. Even though he couldn’t remember any of it, he KNEW he knew how to use a sword. He could spot opening and feints and felt he could easily hold his own against either of them. The fact that, during his hallucination, he’d somehow pulled a longsword out of his jewelry was another reason he thought he might be familiar with swordplay.
“Want to try your hand at it?” Joe asked, catching him off guard.
“Who, me?”
Joe smiled as he replied, “sure. I’ve been watching you over here and noticed you were imitating some of the techniques they were using up there. You’re more than welcome to give it a shot. We promise to take it easy on you.”
“Uh, okay… sure,” he said as he got up.
As Joe led him over to the sparring area, Samuel said, “for some reason, I think I might know something about sword-fighting. I can’t say I really remember anything, but something about it just feels really familiar…”
As he trailed off, he spotted a long sword that resembled the sword he pulled out of the dragon’s mouth on his wrist. He walked over and picked it up, examining it and checking it’s heft.
“Ah, the gentleman knight’s best friend, the longsword. That metal practice one might be a little heavy for you if you’ve never used one before, but we do have some wooden replicas, along with some shorter swords as well…”
He trailed off as Samuel started experimentally swinging the sword around. As he moved, he just immersing himself in the flow of movement that somehow felt right. He lost track of time as he flowed through different combinations before finally coming to a stop in a defensive position. Letting out a deep breath, he turned around to face everyone.
Everyone had varying levels of shock on their face. He suddenly felt self-conscious as he looked back at them.
“Did I, uh, do something wrong?”
Everyone jumped slightly at the sound of his voice before Blythe responded.
“Dude, that was awesome. And beautiful as well. You just started swinging that sword around through forms that I’ve never seen before. I couldn’t even follow half the stuff you were doing. You’ve been going at it for like, five minutes or so…”
Samuel tried to recall exactly what he’d done for the past five minutes, but all he could remember was feeling like the sword was a part of him as he moved. Feeling slightly embarrassed, he started to put the sword back down.
“Oh HELL NO!” Cliff said, causing Samuel to freeze, snapping his attention over to him.
“If you think you’re going to get out of sparring with me after that little impromptu demonstration, you’re nuts. From what I just saw, you’re years ahead of anyone else here except for maybe Joe there.”
“Damn straight! From what I just saw, I’m not even sure I could hold my own against you, and I’ve been doing this for over ten years,” Joe added.
Samuel was loath to put the sword down, but was concerned as well that he couldn’t remember the display he’d just done. What if he forgot himself and hurt one of them.
“Any time now, or are you just chicken?”
Samuel glanced back up at Cliff. From his expression, Samuel could tell that he was just doing some good-natured ribbing, but Samuel was still hesitant.
“I promise not to hurt you…” Cliff replied again sarcastically.
Samuel felt a pinprick of anger well up inside himself.
“Fine. I promise I’ll try not to hurt you either,” he replied with a slight edge in his voice.
Cliff took a slight step back, his eyes going wide slightly before recovering.
“Get him suited up Joe. Let’s see what he’s got.”
Chapter 14
Samuel started having second thoughts as he adjusted his stance in the sparring ring. Against both Cliff’s and Joe’s insistence, the only padding he’d agreed to put on was the chest padding and the helmet. Everything else felt too bulky and restricting to him. He glanced at Cliff and noted three different openings in his defense, but wasn’t sure yet if they were intentional… Or feints.
“Last chance… You sure you don’t want to wear any of the arm or leg protection?”
“I’m good. I take full responsibility if I get hurt.”
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you…”
Samuel adjusted his feet again, resting on the balls
of his feet. Bringing the sword up, he waved Cliff over with a come-here gesture.
“Whenever you’re ready…” he said, smirking at Cliff.
“Fine! En Garde!” he snapped, lunging forward with a quick horizontal slash at Samuel’s left side.
Samuel instinctively swung his sword vertically to the left, performing a point-up inside deflection. Continuing to move, Samuel started to turn clockwise as he reached his left arm over the locked blades, grabbing Cliff by the wrist nearest the crossguard. Pushing slightly upward and outward with his left hand, he slid his blade under and across, slashing Cliff across the stomach. Continuing the motion, he flourished the blade before bringing it forward, pretending to pommel strike him in the head before doing a front stomp kick to Cliff’s chest, causing the other man to stumble backward several feet.
Everyone held their breath while their eyes bounced back and forth between the two combatants.
“Uh… touché?”
Everyone burst out with applause and cheers.
“Wow. I’ve never seen Cliff get bested that easily before!”
The chatter went on for a few seconds before Cliff snapped, “I was just taking it easy on him. Let’s see how he does when I’m serious.”
This time, Cliff approached more carefully, doing feints and tentative attacks, in an effort to determine Samuel’s defenses and reflexes. As they jockeyed back and forth, Samuel started to loosen up and enjoy himself. Cliff hadn’t offered really any sort of challenge, so Samuel wasn’t in any hurry to counterattack just yet. He wanted to just soak in the feeling of moving smoothly, sword in hand, while defending himself from attacks that weren’t really a threat.
After several minutes of having all his attacks rebuffed, Cliff stepped back out of range, letting his guard drop slightly. Samuel noticed that Cliff was gulping in huge draughts of air while he himself didn’t even feel slightly winded yet. He was still surprised to find that he was in such good shape, even though he’d been able to jog nearly twenty minutes carrying Hank to get help.
Without warning, Cliff let out a yell while surging toward him, wildly swinging his sword in aggressive arcs and jabs, the air whistling as it cut through the air. Without thinking, Samuel responded, dodging, deflecting, and blocking all of the sword-strokes Cliff was launching at him.
After one aggressive flurry, Samuel realized he had gotten careless, letting his sword get out of position, moving it to the right while the attack was coming at his left side again. He knew there wasn’t enough time to reverse the momentum of the sword and get it into position to block the strike without compromising his balance. Doing so would leave him open to another riposte. Instinctively, he snapped his body clockwise to the right while pulling his right arm in, accelerating his sword in another flat arc, rotating his wrist to turn the blade in a counter-clockwise motion while his arm continued to whip the blade to the right. Turning his arm over, he whipped the blade up behind his back vertically, the tip pointing toward the ceiling as he dropped down to one knee.
The blades clashed, throwing off sparks before Cliff reared back again for a powerful overhead strike. Samuel reversed the grip on his sword while he swung his left arm up, arresting the descent of his opponent’s blade by clashing just above the crossguard while his body spun back around in a counter-clockwise motion, bringing the pommel of his sword up on the outside of Cliff’s wrist. Yanking back and downward forcefully, he stripped the sword out of Cliff’s hands while he swung his right foot around, sliding it behind Cliff’s leading foot. Shifting his weight, he slammed his shoulder into Cliff’s chest, causing him to fall backward. As both Cliff and his sword started to drop to the floor, Samuel’s left hand blurred, grabbing the sword in a reverse grip. As Cliff landed on his back, Samuel sprung skyward while executing an inverted X-block, landing with his feet on either side of Cliff’s chest before dropping forward. His knees pinned the other man’s shoulders while pressing the edges of both blades on either side of Cliff’s neck. He slid the crossguards together, locking Cliff’s neck between them, the edge of both blades intersecting across his throat and pinning his head to the floor.
“I yield! I yield!” Cliff yelled.
Samuel rocked back on his feet and sprung up and glided back a few steps while casually flipping both blades around so they were both pointing upward in his hands. Everyone in the room was hushed, afraid to break the tension that was almost a physical presence rolling off Samuel in waves. After a few seconds, he shifted the sword from his right hand over to his left and stepped forward again, holding his hand out. Cliff glanced at it, then glanced at Samuel’s face. With a slight nod, Samuel continued to hold his hand out to Cliff. The tension drained out of Samuel’s face and shoulders as Cliff swung his hand up, grasping Samuel’s hand in a tight grip before Samuel effortlessly pulled him to his feet. Meeting his eyes again, Samuel nodded to the other man before breaking into a smile.
“That… was fun.”
Everyone noisily let out their collectively held breath.
“Man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to attack you in anger like that. Honestly, I’ve never gone up against someone with your skill level before and it was so damn frustrating. I haven’t been manhandled that badly in a sword-fight since I first started training. If it wasn’t for your unbelievable skill with a blade, I probably would’ve seriously hurt you back there. I know I acted like a rank amateur, letting my emotions get the better of me. I really screwed up, but I hope you’ll accept my apology,” he asked as he held his hand out.
Samuel reached out and gripped the other man’s hand again. Giving it a vigorous shake, he replied, “Hey, no harm, no foul. I’d also like to apologize if I hurt you with my riposte.”
Letting Samuel’s hand go, he rubbed his butt.
“Other than a sore ass and a severely bruised ego, I think I’ll live,” he said as he broke into a smile as well.
“That was one hell of a fight though…” he said as Samuel handed his sword back.
“Sure was,” Samuel replied as he draped his arm across Cliff’s shoulders as they turned back toward the rest of the group.
As everyone rushed over to congratulate them on the fight, Cliff looked back over at Samuel.
“Honestly dude, when you finally get your memory back, you’ve gotta introduce me to your instructor. You were doing stuff I’ve never even seen before. I’m not even sure how to defend against half of it.”
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you at all?” Blythe asked, examining Samuel all over for injuries. It might have been his imagination, but he felt she was examining him a lot more throughly than expected.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was really fun, actually. I just wish it’d helped my memory come back.”
Joe came up and kept looking back and forth between him and Cliff, his mouth hanging open.
“Holy shit! That was amazing. I’ve never seen anyone move like you do Samuel. You seemed to know where Cliff was going to strike before even he knew. In all the years we’ve been sparring against each other, and even against some of the other people who come to his gym, I’ve never seen anyone fight Cliff to a standstill, let alone beat him. I don’t think I saw him get past your guard even once. I’d love to spar you, but I don’t think it’d even be a challenge…”
Joe got quiet for a second.
“I know… How about you spar against both me AND Cliff. I bet you’d still be able to beat the two of us without breaking a sweat, but I’d just love to see you in action like that, assuming you’re willing…” he said, a hopeful look on his face.
Nodding at Joe, he replied, “Well, assuming Cliff’s interested in it as well,” he said, casting a glance at the other man and getting a slight nod in return, ”then I don’t see why not. Even though I can’t remember how I learned how to use a sword, I’d love to try and figure out what my limits are. Who knows, maybe the challenge of fighting two skilled opponents might help me remember something.”
Joe let out a whoop as he jumped in the air. Sam
uel chuckled under his breath at Joe’s antics. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John moving toward him with a purposeful stride.
“Did that jewelry get damaged from blocking that strike?” he asked as he got close enough to be heard over the rest of the crowd.
“I don’t think so,” Samuel replied as he glanced down at it. “It’s taken quite a few hits before without any visible damage.”
“Can I take a quick look at it to be sure?”
“Uh, okay,” he replied as he held his arm out.
“Remarkable. There isn’t a ding or scratch on it. What the heck is this thing made out of? Even high carbon steel should have shown some type of surface damage, blocking that heavy of a blow.”
Karen came over while John continued to examine it for any signs of damage.
“You know, the way you used that thing, I’m not entirely sure it’s just supposed to be a piece of jewelry. I think that thing might be a fully functional vambrace, or at least that’s how you’re using it. If skippy here is right about there not being any damage, that would indirectly reinforce that possibility as well. You swung it up to block that sword strike with such practiced ease that I suspect it’s been used in that role too many times to count. That was completely unconscious reflex action there.”
She glanced back down at the vambrace again. A slightly puzzled look came over her face.
“Hey John?”
“Yeah?”
“Weren’t those gemstones in the eyes an almost cobalt blue when we looked at it earlier?”
“Yeah, why do you a—” he said as he looked at the eyes again.
“What the…?”
“Could it be the lighting?” she asked, turning his hand back and forth.
“Maybe. Without knowing what kind of gemstones they actually are, it’s hard to tell if it’s a natural effect.”
“Huh?” Samuel asked.
Karen looked up at him, pointing to the eyes on the dragon’s face.
“When we first examined those gemstones, they were almost a dark sapphire blue. Now they seem to be approaching almost aquamarine in color. Just very odd is all.”
