Valder

“Shitty day to lead our troops.” We had been riding toward Doblen for hours now, and my troops were getting tired. Nonetheless, none voiced a complaint aloud. That was good…and unexpected. “Surprised the Cresnians haven’t complained.”

“They know better, sir,” said Velmar. I liked the kid. Always called me ‘sir.’ Never ‘lord’ or ‘bastard.’ He was competent enough, too, so there were no complaints about making him my second-in-command. No complaints after I glared at them, anyhow. “I don’t understand…why have they composed your army like this? Less than half our troops are from Portna. Rest are Cresnian or from small towns—why would they do that? Our effectiveness might be compromised!”

I grunted. When it became clear he wouldn’t take that as an appropriate answer, I went on. “Our King in Cresna does not trust us. He now sails the seas in an uncertain mission toward Razil, and we sit in a precarious position against Johan’s army. If he were to fail in securing an alliance there, suppose the man thinks I would consider taking over his throne.”

“That cretin!” Velmar exclaimed. “I don’t care who he is—Valle needs to respect you, sir.”

“Well, he is right.” This seemed to surprise the kid for some reason. “He is my king because my sister supports him and because of his ability to gain an alliance with Razil. If he loses the latter, why should I assume he can keep her safe? Can’t say the thought of taking it over didn’t cross my mind. Why?” I asked, amusedly. “Do such treacherous thoughts trouble you?”

“No,” Velmar replied quickly. “The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.” He hesitated. “Do you believe it will come to that?”

“Of course not. Doubt our king will fail us in getting the alliance…and by keeping me away from all my most loyal troops, he prevents a coup even in the event of failure.” Hated politics. “Just how things are. Don’t mind it. Just keep going.”

Velmar seemed perturbed by this. Good. It meant he wasn’t entirely too used to this bullshit yet. Maybe he can come out of this almost like a human being. “We…we have been marching for a while, sir. Should we take a break?”

“No.”

“You did not use such long marches last war, sir. Is there any reason for the change?”

“Just one.” I pointed ahead of us. “But it’s a big one.”

We arrived at a farming village near Doblen, but we were not the first. Neither was the Empire. It had been monsters. Entire houses had their rooftops torn apart, the uneven destruction giving the uneasy feeling that something had been large enough to envelop its monstrous jaws around it and uproot it in a single motion. Blood had dried, but not too long ago. They could still come back.

It wouldn’t do any good to give the troops time to feel fear. “Search the village and the outskirts—find any survivors!” There wouldn’t be any, but it would make me heartless not to order it. Besides, it would serve as a sort of rest for the more tired troops…and the horses. We need the horses to be healthy for communication and emergency withdrawals. The fact I assigned cavalry roles to mostly Portnian troops won’t make me popular with Cresnians, but that is just as well. “Scouts, you’re in charge of searching for survivors. Velmar, make sure to draw defenses around the village first and foremost, then search for supplies we can salvage from this disaster. Farming villages don’t have walls to keep them from monsters.” How many people lived in a small farming village like this, I wonder? Maybe a hundred at most…and most houses are destroyed. Hardly a mountain of supplies to find, and it won’t do as a defensive position for a long period of time.

There were no reports of survivors for the first hour. That was expected. What wasn’t expected was that my scouts weren’t the first to report to me.

Instead, it was someone from Doblen.

Brave man, I thought, as he entered my tent, to come in without being allied to us. Doblen had responded to Valle’s declaration of Cresnian independence with something between concern and flat confusion. They hadn’t declared their support, but they did not reject the new kingdom either. Cardente did, though, and that’s the major trading partner. There must be a lot of panic there.

There was no reason to be afraid, of course. Even in war there was such a thing as honor—no one would dare kill someone who was welcomed into their camp. Hospitality and honor are sacred, even if nothing else is. “Don’t bother kneeling,” I told him. “Just makes it harder to hear you.Well?”

“I—I am an emissary from Doblen, my lord.” The young man almost knelt down before standing up once again. It seemed as though he was unused to looking at a commander in the eye. “I bring an urgent request.”

“Who does the request come from?”

The messenger appeared scared, and his knees nearly bent once more. “My—my lord, they come from Doblen.”

“Doblen of where?” I demanded, stepping toward him. “Tell me—is this request from Doblen of the Lusobritanio Empire or Doblen of the Terra Inglesa? This will change how I view the request.” Urgent, he says. Let’s see how urgent. “Look at me, boy!”

Truthfully, he wasn’t that much younger than myself. But he acted like a little boy, thus he should feel satisfied with the name or demand satisfaction from me. Strangely, the boy chose neither. He was sweating heavily, and though he looked me in the eye when told to do so, he was shaking. “I—I don’t know, my lord, I’m just a messenger. I don’t have the knowledge or authority to do so.”

“Hmm. I’m just a general. I do not have the authority to aid the enemy. Speak plainly, or not at all.”

He looked down, then up again. “It—it is from…from Doblen of the Terra Inglesa, my lord.” He handed me a sealed letter, addressed to King Valle of the Terra Inglesa, then nervously glanced at his feet.

Addressed to the “King Of” not the “King In.” They aren’t fully certain about the manner in which Valle decided to style himself as ruler. This suggests they must be as incompetent as their initial letter showed. That was curious…but there was more about the boy’s behavior that was unusual. He didn’t agree to address us in that way at first. He probably had two letters, one for “King Valle” and one for “Lord Valle.” His orders must have been to use the latter if possible, the former if not. That suggests a lot about their situation…and their cowardice. “Let’s see,” I said, ripping the letter open and unceremoniously reading it, “you are under siege?”

But Cardente hasn’t fallen…how did their troops make their way to Doblen? Mayhap that meant Cardente had allowed troops to pass by uncontested, which was a concern. The mighty walls of Cardente would feel much taller if they had reinforcements behind them.

He stared at me and hesitated, obviously wondering whether to concern himself with my actions or not. Go on, accuse me of treason against a king you’ve barely pledged yourself to. “The—the Empire’s forces. They have laid siege on us from the south and blockaded the east, so we can no longer reach Cardente. We can only resupply from the west, but as King Valle’s position is to refuse trade until we pledge themselves…”

Wars are more often won with bread than with steel. “The letter speaks only of a siege, but your urgency speaks of more. There is no way in which a recent siege would have you out of supplies already. A city like Doblen should have supplies for months, at the very least.”

“It—it is complicated, my lord. There have been fires in our storage facilities. Our people are weakening, and it is…it is not without question that the Empire might storm the city.”

Hm. Can’t have that. There was much one could ignore. Allowing Johan’s troops to set a single foot in a city of the Terra Inglesa wasn’t one of them. I had once raised my own rebellion to stop as much from taking place. “The request isn’t for trade, but for an army. Doblen wants us to relieve them of the siege, eh?” Makes sense. If we can push the Empire’s troops away, then it might be worth it to serve Valle. If not, they can immediately pledge allegiance to the Empire. Not that I was going to let them get away with that.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Onward to Doblen, then.” Crush their army, secure Doblen’s support, seize Cardente with its help.

Max

This body hadn’t recovered from fighting Johan yet. It wasn’t even the missing arm that was an issue. It just felt like every move I made had a sort of delay to it. My mind would will my body into stepping forward and it would take just a moment too long for the movement to complete. It wasn’t really a bother in my daily life, but it did cast a shadow over the idea of me being able to fence in a competitive way again.

There was just one reason why this didn’t bother me.

I still have another body back on Earth. If I can find a way to get that body back…I will be back in the fight. And since Carr had left that thing behind that lets someone interact with the Void…there is an open path there. It’s not entirely clear how one should go about it, but that was an open path to explore. There were more urgent matters to attend to right now, though. Even if I can get that other body to replace this one…I’m not strong enough right now. And the city could be attacked at any moment. Fedal and Isabella are strong, but…there’s another matter to settle.

“Are you ready?” I called out. “You better be, I gave you more than enough time to get ready.”

“I—wait a minute, Max!” Gilder cried. We were standing in a practice room Valle had recommended me to use, both wielding swords at each other. “This is insane, you’re in no condition to practice right now!”

It was true that with my body lagging behind so much, there was preciously little I could do in a match. However…that was only if the match was against someone of my level. A beginner wouldn’t be able to keep up. Gilder was no beginner, of course. But he had to admit that first of all. “One arm and a slow body is enough to handle anyone short of a master,” I grunted. Gilder hesitated, and upon seeing that, I smiled. “But you are a master, aren’t you, Gilder?”

“No,” he said quickly, “I’m…I’m really not, Max.”

You keep telling yourself that.

Gilder was one of Johan’s ‘projects’ for a while—he was meant to be one of the copies of Johan’s old friends. Jack, buddy…I miss you. But I’m glad Gilder didn’t turn into a copy of you. This meant that Johan had taught Gilder fencing for a while in order to make him a proper copy. Something went wrong, though. Gilder learned at a much more rapid pace than even Johan anticipated. Guess that makes him a poor match for Jack. Guy always needed a few extra days to really learn something…but he was still one hell of a fencer in the end.

And in the end, Gilder had defeated Reven in a duel with those very skills. Where did Reven’s body go after that? Is he alive somehow? Or…I guess it doesn’t matter. Not now. What I have to do is to get Gilder to admit to himself that he’s a strong fencer now.

There was only one way to do that. By forcing him to defeat me.

“En Garde? Prêt? Allez!”

I always wanted to fence with you. This duel was for important, mature reasons…but I couldn’t wipe that silly grin off my face. Is it so strange, to want to fence with the person you love the most? There is no way. And I have always wanted to know what your fencing style would be like. I only learned fencing after I left this world, so I never got to see what kind of man you really became, Gilder. Show me now!

What was his style going to be like? Was it going to be just like Jack’s? No. Johan wouldn’t have gotten rid of him if that were the case. The answer has to be something else. One way to find out.

I advanced toward him and angled my french grip inwards. Gilder is using a pistol grip. At the very least, it means I can threaten from a distance like this. It was time to set up my old style once more. Even injured, my body could still manage it.

Foot.

Hand.

Counter.

Those three weapons were all I needed to lure anyone into a state of mind where they could not fight me anymore. My first move was to hold my arm to the right of my body and angle my wrist inwards, hoping to go around Gilder’s guard and catch his wrist. It was my old strategy. If he blocked it, he would have to start being more conscious of his wrist once more.

His hand would have to move upward to use his bell guard to block my attack. This is what I want him to do. Then, in order to protect his high line, he’s going to have no choice but to expose his low line. That’s when I attack his foot…and to block that, he has to expose his arm. Even Carr had issue with this strategy, having only managed to defeat it last time by allowing himself to absorb the damage and hope the probabilities fell in his favor. And thatreckless strategy was only possible because Carr could rely on Celle to heal him later.

Without the ability to heal, there was no easy out to my perfect triad strategy anymore. I was pretty sure of that, and I was right.

There was no ‘easy’ way.

But there were a few ‘hard’ ways out of it, and this was one of them.

His legs were the first thing I noticed. His knees were half-bent, but what surprised me the most was his heels—Gilder was standing on the balls of his foot and his heels weren’t touching the ground at all. The second thing that I noticed was that this thought wasn’t entirely accurate. His back foot hadn’t touched the ground in the slightest.This man was moving backward with just one foot. This isn’t like Jack’s style at all, this is...! When my blade came close to his hand, he didn’t move his blade arm at all. Instead, he jumped backward using his front foot, and then landed on that same foot.

His back foot…it hasn’t touched the ground at all! Gilder jumped back and landed on the same foot.

Do you understand the difficulty of the matter? Try to stand on a traditional fencing en garde, and then lift your back foot off the ground. To do so, you have to shift your center of gravity forward, but you also need extremely strong leg and core muscles—in addition to being very light. This was more than unorthodox, this was a unique fencing style I had barely ever seen, for only a very limited number of people were born with a body that could pull this off. You have to work hard to be able to do this even among that small group of people.

This style had one single advantage: speed.

Because you are always having to shift your center of gravity forward to avoid falling backwards, all it takes is to stop doing that in order to allow your body to fling itself back decently far. Here, you can use your back foot as a ‘break’ of sorts to stabilize yourself before going back to standing on mostly one foot. This isn’t easy, and the one-foot movement is mostly a tool for retreating rather than moving forward, with the back foot touching the ground and being used for balance.

An explanation is in order here.

Try to stay in a regular fencing en garde. One foot forward, pointing straight ahead, back foot pointing sideways, knees slightly bent—the bending is important! Your weight should be more or less evenly distributed, shifting slightly when you walk forward or backwards. Does that make sense? Now, instead of taking a traditional fencing retreat—where you bring your front foot backward first, then move your back foot further backward—simply lift your back foot off the ground and straighten your front leg. This should push you back, and if you have the right combination of lightness and leg strength, push you off the ground enough that you can pull your foot up, then shift it backward mid-air and land on it. This is extremely difficult and frankly not practical for most fencers, even in the modern aggressive game.

Now, with that extreme lightness where you barely even touch the ground, suddenly shift your weight backward like you’re firing a gun, fully switching where your weight is, and use your back foot to launch yourself in a lunge forward. Your speed is unbelievable.

This isn’t traditional fencing anymore.

It’s also not even the Epee 2.0 that reinvented the system.

It’s a style meant only for a very specific group of fencers.

And Gilder was one of them.

Gilder — 1

Max — 0

“I’m so sorry!” Gilder cried out. “Are you okay? I—I didn’t mean to hit you!’

Gilder used his speed to dodge my poking attempt and then exploded forward. My strategy relied on establishing a careful guessing game and forcing my opponent to play that game. The way I achieved that was by having great stop-hits that could keep them from merely running me over. But Gilder’s speed is enough that I can’t counter it…especially not with these injuries. I can’t establish my game.

“A perfect checkmate, huh,” I muttered. Perhaps it was time to give up and leave it at that. Then I saw his eyes. He still isn’t accepting how good he is. I can’t stop now. My body ached, and I felt slow. Ah…haven’t felt this overpowered in a long time. Never thought I’d feel like this against you of all people, Gilder. The thought was bittersweet. “Let’s keep going—!”