Chapter 13: How to fight.

The discussion with Sikra was short after that, mostly comprised of stories about their lives after they separated twenty years earlier, apparently Sikra, who didn't have much talent for magic, was one of the first ones to adhere to their new king's rebellion.

After that it took a bit of time and a lot of efforts on his part to reach a fairly high rank in the new kingdom's military, his current rank was colonel, the third highest rank in their military.

He told us that he too had a daughter talented in magic with my same age and that I might actually meet her if I join her same magical academy in two years time.

After that it was father's turn to recount a few of our escapades in recent years, mainly about me and Sophia, but mostly about me, I was awesome.

After that we each went our separate ways, it was late already, so we were given two rooms to pass the night, the next morning we departed.

And once again, as soon as I left the city barrier, I felt the call of that damned foggy crater.

"Dad, that feeling came back." I informed him without much emotion in my voice, after the entire journey to get to Kilbury I had almost gotten used to it.

"I'm sorry dear, I have no idea how to stop it…"

He seemed really sorry about it, but it's not like I absolutely wanted it to stop, the feeling wasn't torturous at all, it was more of an annoying fly getting too close to my ear.

"Can't we check it out? It would resolve everything."

He sighed deeply, "It would, but it's too dangerous, we can't risk it being some sort of trap, how about this, we'll ask Sigmund to come with us to check it out, he'll probably be able to protect you in the wort case scenario, okay?"

How could I reply with anything except a positive answer?

But it didn't sit well with me that the job of keeping me safe was given to somebody else, even if that someone was the old man or my father.

I just didn't like the feeling of being powerless and protected while others fought for me, why did I train this much and learn this much in all I was good for was being protected?

It was the same all those years before when I first started leaving with my father to work as a merchant with him, I was now powerful enough to beat the beasts alone and when groups came we could fight together.

That really was the best feeling, to not be a burden.

But now, once again, I was obliged to leave my safety to somebody else.

I knew I was small and that like everything else, strength would come with age, just like the old man and father did, neither of them was as strong as I was at that age, but I still wanted more.

And every feeling of frustration over my own powerlessness crystallized into my next query.

"Dad." I called with as firm a voice as I could manage.

"Yes dear?"

"Train me." I wasn't a request or a plea, but an ultimatum with no answer other than yes.

"Aren't you already training on your own? Your magic is progressing far faster than mine did, skipping the necessary steps will only create more problems in the future."

Great answer, one couldn't take the easy way in magic, only through a rigorous learning process could one progress, but I wasn't talking about that.

"I want you to train me physically, not magically."

"Why?"

"In every single battle I have to rely on my magic to kill the beasts before they reach me, otherwise I'd be almost defenseless, I don't want that anymore, I want to learn how to use a sword like you do."

He looked at me, but before he could answer I felt a beast incoming, around a kilometer (0,6 miles) so I informed him about it.

"In that case… Let this be your first lesson." he said with a smile.

I grew excited after seeing him unsheathing his silvery blade from its scabbard, the beautiful color similar to my own hair reflecting the light of the Sun above us.

It was a long sword, it could be used with either one or two hands, its handle wasn't decorated in any way, except for a single small green gem where the blade met the hilt.

"Sigmund gifted me this long ago, it's a bit more special than other weapons, but we'll talk about that later, for now remember that the most important part of a sword is its blade, the beasts here are soft compared to many beings living elsewhere.

A durable blade is good, but if it can't penetrate the enemy's skin then it's not one that can save your live, now, look at my fight, look at the way I use it and then tell me your impressions."

Following those words he stood up, right on time to see the beast coming into view.

Ugly as always, this one was a scaly beast with just four legs, its scales where roughly as big as a fingertip, light green in color.

It had a very streamlined body clearly focused on speed, it had a single reddish eye in the middle of its face, right above two sets of jaws with sharp teeth that protruded from its mouths.

On its backside there was a single long tail with a stinger that released a clearly poisonous liquid.

This one was among the most troublesome types of beasts, most of them were roughly the same in the defense department, their hides or scales couldn't take much before being cut apart or destroyed, but that couldn't help if they were too fast to be hit.

This was probably the type who had killed most merchants of all, the poisonous type, there were no cures and in most cases the person being injected with it would die in very shortly after.

It wasn't the first time I saw one of these, I'd normally stop it from moving by having the soil eat it up, before cutting off the stinger with either wind or water, but father took a different approach.

He let the beast come as close as possible while maintaining his usual stance, looking relaxed while flexing his muscle to attack as fast as possible, it kept running in his direction while he did nothing, waiting.

But the beast didn't wait any at all, it jumped and tried to eat father's head with its two protruding jaws, but at the last possible moment father evaded by cleanly slashing half of the beast's head off after a side step.

The thing kept going as if nothing happened, it could now no longer see, but that had never been a problem for any beast, somehow, it released a screech from its whole body as it turned to father once again before lunching another assault.

This time, as it only had a single remaining way to attack, it used its stinger to inject father with its potent poison.

But it was all too easy for father to deflect the stinger out of the way with his sword being held in only one hand while the other simultaneously did a chopping motion with his other hand in the direction of the base of the stinger, using a wind slashing spell to cut it off.

Now, the tail of the beast was cleanly cut off, and evidently its weak spot too, because as soon as it was gone the rest of the body stopped moving and collapsed to the ground while the tail kept moving left and right.

It was unable to do anything though, as father incinerated it with a fire spell.

He cleaned his sword on his sleeve before putting it back into its scabbard, making his way towards me and once again hopping on the carriage.

"So? What did you learn?"

"Wait for the best opportunity and attack the dangerous parts first?" I asked tentatively.

I had seen him fight with his sword many times, I knew how he mixed both sword attacks and spells into his fighting stile, killing the beasts incredibly swiftly while using as little mana as possible, this wasn't new.

"What about the way I moved?"

This made me mumble to myself for a moment before answering, "Oh, you only used the bare minimum amount of movement necessary."

"And why is that?"

"To not get tired?" I wasn't entirely sure, only eighty percent sure.

"Is that a question?"

"No."

"You're correct then," he smiled and patted me on the head, "but that's just half the answer, the other reason is to waste as little time as possible to slash, if I used wide and flashy strikes I'd waste way more time that could be used to prepare for the next slash."

"Is that why you also let it strike first?"

"Yes, in a fight, the person who holds the initiative is usually in an advantageous position, so tell me, in your opinion, who held the initiative in this fight?"

This was obviously a trap question and I recognized it, "You."

"Exactly, why?"

Now the difficult part, I had no idea, absolutely none, "Because you wouldn't have asked if it was otherwise."

"Smart," he chuckled, "it was me because I predicted how it would have attacked and prepared a plan to counterattack, taking the initiative and eliminating its main attack method.

This usually can only be done between individuals with an immense difference in skills, but against beasts this isn't a great problem, they mostly move the same with very few variations, they are very predictable."

This was something that I had long since understood and incorporated into my tactic, by predicting where it would move I'd cast a spell on its way to hit it without difficulty, but I didn't consider applying it to melee combat too.

"What about against other people then?"

I didn't want to fight people, but all the tales told us by Sikra made me realize that interpersonal combat was a must, fighting was commonplace in the academies and battles were still rampant between people.

"Between people it's less easy, they are more unpredictable and disciplined if trained correctly, even more if it's mages we're talking about, you never know what kind of spells they've mastered.

But if we're talking about pure swordsmanship there are a couple of main things that you have to pay attention to, the precision with which both you and your enemies strike, your speeds and the power behind your strikes."

I could mostly understand, it there is an enormous difference in these three the fight was already lost, only magic could offset such differences.

I picked a small notepad from between my things and wrote everything he said down, I didn't usually forget things, but writing them down helped me incorporate things in my knowledge.

After I finished a couple of minutes later I told him, "I got it."

"Great, when we get home I'll teach you how to actually hold a sword, but you'll also need to train you body a lot, you need to be able to hold your sword after all, so be ready for the hardest training in your life, are you up for it?"

"Yeah, it won't be a problem."

I only needed to train my body a little and replicate what father did, how hard could it possibly be?