“Those who refuse to believe that hard work eventually pays off, likely never did proper hard work for long enough.” - Old folk saying.

In the end, councilor Estelle found herself too intrigued by what she had heard from Reinhardt to pass up the offer. Fortunately there was not much work in the city council the next day, and the councilors dispersed well before noon. Estelle found herself headed towards where the mercenaries set up their encampment of tents and wagons outside the city, and found that she was early.

It was not difficult for her to find Reinhardt, as his tall figure and white, spotted fur was easy to notice even from a distance. She found the mercenary captain standing around a small makeshift arena – more just a fenced up area roughly ten meters in diameter to the side of the encampment – together with his wife and daughter, as well as a group of young mercenaries that Estelle thought was far too young to be in that sort of business.

The two knights from Kolain that he had ransomed the day before were inside the fenced area, both clad in gambeson and chainmail, though unarmed for the time being. Estelle happened to come right when one of the knights questioned Reinhardt, and was quite intrigued to hear the exchange between the mercenary and the captive knight.

“So you are saying that you have ransomed us and would set us free after this fight?” asked one of the knights as he fixed the fit of his chain shirt. The knight seemed to be a human in his thirties at most, and like his somewhat younger companion only wore pants, a gambeson, and a chain shirt that only covered his torso over it. Neither had any weapons on their person.

“If you win,” replied Reinhardt with a nod of his head. “I mean, if you lose, I’d still free at least one of you, but they’ll have to leave some part of them behind. I’m thinking an arm. Simple enough, yes?”

“Fine, mercenary,” spat out the knight with obvious disgust in his voice. “We’ll play this sick game of yours.”

In response to his words, Reinhardt snapped his fingers and four armed mercenaries brought over a rack of weapons and placed them right next to the fence before they stood guard to its sides. The message was clear. The knight who was fighting may pick his favored weapon, but if they were to try anything funny, they would be killed on the spot.

With some grumbling under his breath the knight Reinhardt had spoken to walked towards the weapons rack after a short discussion with the other, younger knight. The man looked over the various weapons, then pulled out and weighed a couple longswords in his hands, putting them back afterwards, until he finally found one he was satisfied with and nodded his head, standing tall near the center of the fenced area with the longsword in hand.

“I am ready. Let’s get this farce over with!” yelled the knight.

In response, Reinhardt only nodded lightly, and from the group of young mercenaries, Alycea walked out and leapt over the fence, into the arena. The fourteen year old girl had cut her blonde hair rather short, save for a long, slender “tail” of hair at the back. The armor she wore was also reminiscent of the sort of protection Erycea wore, mostly just covering her torso, on the lighter side as armor went. Her staff of Willow Heartwood was firmly held in her hand, now serving as the shaft of a glaive with a long, slender blade on one end and a spearhead on the other.

While the girl’s youth was evident and easily noticeable, the knight made no comment about it, as instead his eyes fixated on the glint of the glaive’s cutting edge and his features turned more serious. Like most seasoned warriors who had contact with people from the upper class, the knight recognized the telltale gleam of mithril that formed the edge of the blade on Alycea’s weapon.

That alone was enough of a hint to make him take the fight much more seriously, even if his opponent was little more than a juvenile. Instead, though, that warning also allowed him to notice details he had not paid much mind to beforehand, like how the girl walked with a clearly practiced motion, and the easy way she held the glaive that was longer than she was tall.

All hints that despite her young age, the girl he was told to fight against was not one to be taken lightly.

The fight itself began with a simple signal, and Estelle noticed how Alycea immediately took a step back to open the distance a bit more, placing her well outside the reach of her opponent even if he were to lunge at her. It was a clever decision to make, considering that the girl has the longer weapon by far. In contrast, the knight’s longsword was at a clear disadvantage unless he could close the distance.

Both the knight and Alycea kept their distance from each other at first, their eyes roving over their opponent in an attempt to note things that might be good to know once they started to clash. The two slowly circled around while keeping their distance in a show of wariness towards each other, which was not unusual in a duel.

In the end, however, Alycea was the one to make the first move. Perhaps she felt that she already had some measure of her opponent, or perhaps she was just confident in her own skills, but she took a large step forward – placing the knight just inside her range – and swung her glaive from above towards him, using nearly the full length of the polearm.

For his part, the knight probably thought that since he was likely a good bit stronger than Alycea – the girl wasn’t particularly tall for her age, a whole head shorter than the knight, and with a slender build at best – he might be able to block and deflect her blow with his longsword. The attempt almost cost him, and the only reason the knight escaped without injury was because he was fast enough to evade backwards when Alycea’s blow simply crashed through his attempted block.

The mithril edge of the glaive still sheared through multiple links of the chainmail the knight wore, and its tip left a cut on his gambeson that had gone most of the way through.