The Aftermath - Part 6

The days passed by rather quickly staying in the village. Althea had asked that they remain a little longer until the bulk of their investigation was finished, just in case they had more questions about what they had learnt. So, they stayed, allowing them to put up their feet and get some much-needed rest before the journey continued.

"Come on, is that all you got!"

Well, it was calming aside from the training sessions.

Fighting tooth and nail, Octavia spared against Althea. When she was resting, it was Sylvia's turn. And when both of them were starting to recover, she made them both take her on at the same time. It was brutal.

Yet somehow, Althea never seemed to look out of breath or a mess after the several hours of fighting they had to endure.

"Ohh, so close that time. Just a little more and you would have only missed by two lengths of an Octavia."

"Why am I being used as a measurement?"

Althea continued to be incredibly annoying during their matches, all of which kept pushing them to land hits, of which, they had not succeeded.

But, her training had come to fruition in other ways.

Sylvia was able to keep her cool when it came to the battle. Compared to the first time where she had possibly passed through her own exhaustion, she had not done so again. She kept a straight face and didn't let the insults get to her, keeping her annoyance and rage in so as not to make a mistake or misstep because of it.

She had also improved drastically in her fighting ability. As seen during her fight with the slaver in the basement of the base, she was very agile which meant the sword she had been practising with wasn't very compatible with her fighting style. It was rather heavy and required using more strength than finesse to wield, being used to deal powerful blows and needing the muscle to deal with blocking and the like. Given this, she tried out several different weapons seeing which one meshed well for her opting for the smaller blades.

Eventually, she came to the conclusion of using a short sword and a dagger. The short sword, while called this was still long enough to hit someone from a good distance. Not as long as a longsword, but it was smaller and thinner, allowing it to be easily wielded with one hand. Then, finding it odd to have one hand free, she chose a dagger, which again relied more on dexterity and speed to use, rather than strength. Strength would help of course, but the sword and dagger could be used well even without it.

Both were rather, simplistic in design, aside from one area. The guards for each were not just the usual cross guards that most swords had. The guards were more spherical, forming a hemisphere which covered the entirety of the top of her hand. This meant added protection from blows and that it could also be used in attack as well.

Althea, seeming to be a master of most weapons, took her through training exercises, showing her how it could be used against opponents.

She took her through simple attacks from slashing and stabbing with both blades to more complex movements, such as how to block, dodge, parry and use the guards for strikes.

Blocking and dodging was how you would expect, but for parrying, being dexterous was key. Althea swung her blade, and Sylvia then moved her sword to intercept. Rather than just take the full force of the blow dead on, she turned herself and her blade so that Althea's sword was redirected down its edge.

It scraped along the metal, reaching all the way down to the guard where it ended up stuck. The parrying part came from the dagger.

Where Althea was now closer to Sylvia, having moved with the sword, and Sylvia doing the same, she was now in the prime location to bring up her dagger to get a strike against Althea, in really any location available. With Althea's sword on the other side of Sylvia's, there wasn't much that could be done to stop Sylvia's next attack.

They tried this out with Althea using a few different weapons, allowing Sylvia to get as much practice in and master the movements. And this was done with all the techniques she had taught her as well, where by the end of the few days of training, Sylvia knew them by heart.

Putting them into practice, however, was a different story.

"Why doesn't this work," Sylvia said for the umpteenth time, having deflected Althea's blow in the practice spar, which she then followed up with her parry…but ultimately ended up missing the final flourish.

Althea was just too good, was the only answer either of them could come up with. She was always able to spot and get away from the oncoming blow. She was even able to counter it on times, something which Sylvia took to heart knowing that her counter could be countered. That is not something you would want to learn on the battlefield.

But all in all, her training was going well. She had the techniques and the know-how of what to practice going forward, and the early skills that she could apply in a fight well.

…

For Octavia, she too had improved, if Althea's nodding and few words of compliments could be believed.

They went through a few spars, so she could get the lay of the land with where Octavia was, which was then followed by practice on the…several aspects that could be improved.

"Come on, back straight, grip here and there. I taught you this all before…how have you forgotten it."

Some of it was basic stuff, but Octavia was sure that wasn't the case for all the issues with her technique.

She practised her swings and lunges, moving on to blocking, dodging and countering. Then Althea took her through some more advanced fighting which focused on the flow of the battle.

Part of it was what Octavia could only describe as combos if she looked at games she had played before. It wasn't as simple as button mashing to do a chain of attacks though.

Althea taught her how to keep the momentum of her poleaxe going as a person dodges. How to react and get another swing in when someone blocks your hit. How counter someone parrying your attack. And lastly, dealing with more than one combatant. Something that would have helped during the fight earlier.

She took her through all manner of techniques, such as where to hold her poleaxed based on the type of attack she was going for. Lower down gave the best leverage for heavy hits, great for breaking someone's guard. In the centre was a great place to keep the poleaxe moving as a person blocks or dodges, allowing good use of both ends at all times in the fight, keeping the person at bay and on the retreat as much as possible.

Going from stance to stance and grip to grip was something else she explained, but more practice would be needed to make it just happen as muscle memory.

Althea even brought up some ways of fight that applied more to her as a Lamia, having thought of them after they had left. A lot of it would probably be seen as dirty fighting, but if it saved your life, it didn't really matter.

But even with all of these techniques now under her belt, she was still no match for Althea. While she did better than Sylvia, the spars were again very one-sided.

She was learning, however. Taking on her advice, she was able to get very close to hitting her.

At one time, Althea slashed with her sword, and Octavia was able to easily block, pushing the sword away with the top of her poleaxe. This left the bottom spike free to be used for a stab against Althea's leg, something Octavia was sure she wouldn't see coming or be able to dodge.

But, she managed to move her foot just out of the way of the stab.

Octavia kept her cool, and continued her poleaxe's trajectory, as she pushed Althea's blade down, hoping to either disarm or make her lose her footing. But Althea, managed to pull back, getting her blade out of the spiral downwards, and went for another lunge that Octavia had to quickly move to the side to dodge.

This continued for a while, where at one point, she realised she would need to play dirty to get a hit. She couldn't do what she did before. Althea knew about her bite, and she would not be making that mistake again. But, with all that she had thought up of the ways she could fight as a Lamia, additional things came to Octavia's mind as well.

Amid the spar, Octavia had just blocked another slash from Althea. As Althea pulled back to go for another attack, so too did Octavia, under the pretence that she needed to move back to more effectively dodge or block her next blow.

As Althea came in for her next attack, when Octavia went to block she also dug her tail into the dirt. Althea's hit was once again blocked, but she also ended up on the receiving end of a spattering of dirt in her face. It had not rained for a while, so the dirt crumbled to nothing, making it almost like sand being sprayed in your face.

Expecting Althea to be blinded by this, Octavia continued the momentum, and brought the axe blade head of her poleaxe into attack, hoping to finally get a hit. But, her poleaxe hit metal and did not meet its mark. The next thing she knew she was on her back staring up at the sky.

She didn't even think she could be knocked down with her tail supporting her.

"Very good. You almost had me there." Althea said as she came into view. "I will say, you do that to a thug or bandit and you are guaranteed to kill them. But, you'll need more than that to take me down."

Looking up at Althea's face, it was almost like the dirt hadn't made a difference. Some dirt was clinging to the side of her face so she knew her aim had been true. So how was she able to block her attack with ease while blinded?

It was at this point she saw the dirt on her hand and arm. Sure, it could be there from rubbing it off her face, but why would it be along her arm?

Which is when she realised what happened. Somehow, Althea had known she would try that sort of dirty trick. In the attack she threw, Octavia had focused on blocking and flinging the dirt that she hadn't noticed Althea using only one hand for the attack. The other was already up against her face ready and waiting for the dirt.

It had apparently been from her body language, and from how she had moved back, that had led her to catch onto what she was going to do. It was frightening to have that sort of sense in combat.

This just meant that another day went by and neither of them had landed a hit.

Not that it mattered too much as upon hearing the bell in the village, all thoughts on sparing went out the window, as it was time for Imeril's training.