Morning came as it always did, filling the world with light that some particularly didn’t care much for depending on the amount that they drank during the feast. By the time Viconia and I rose it was well after the eighth hour, the Lodge was filling with sound and movement and it appeared that it was indeed little more than business as usual.
For the first time in weeks, if not longer we again found ourselves with no clear goal or purpose. The journey to Blackmarsh had been exhausting and more than what we had expected. A single night sleeping in a bed that didn’t rock and sway or had consisted of our bedrolls had only served to reveal just how tired, sore and battered our bodies truly were. It also highlighted that all of the events of the previous weeks had indeed happened, and as Viconia wandered off to find Ultrin’s stable and I wandered in the direction of the training yards I felt dazed returning the salutes of even the most senior knights of the Order.
A large portion of the Order were still sleeping off their inevitable hangovers but for most it was a day like any other. Servants and craftsmen performed their duties, Knights, Squires and Men-at-Arms trained and many seemed off practicing manoeuvres on their enormous warhorses. As a footsoldier I preferred my own training with my feet on the ground and I was not alone in my preference. While most of the Order’s Knights were busy elsewhere there were a few within the training squares, undertaking callisthenics and other activities.
Falid of course was one of the few as evident by the hovering collection of amazed onlookers as he went through his own routines. Somewhere he had acquired a millstone and a collection of varied weights that ranged from the equivalent of his enormous sword to those that would have easily been more than my total bodyweight. Entirely stripped to the waist and wearing nothing more than his pants and boots he was somehow even more intimidating than if he was fully clad in his enchanted armour. It was the fact that even with the size and weight of his armour, underneath he was a titan of an individual. Somehow the seventy kilograms of forged ebony plate armour seemed ill suited to contain the slabs of muscle covering him.
I watched for a few minutes as he lifted an iron counterweight made for assisting in opening the Lodge’s gatehouse doors one handed. His face was contorted with the strain as he raised it straight armed over his head and carefully and precisely lunged forward and back a couple of times before swapping arms. Sweat was running off him like a torrent but I didn’t need more than a glance to tell me that without vampirism I would’ve struggled to even drag the weight unaided.
My own training beckoned and I wandered off and found a small duelling square set aside for no more than two or three combatants at a time. At that point I had no interest in weights or callisthenics, but rather my own personal training to ease the tension in my limbs and body from the weeks of travelling by ship, boat and canoe.
Sunchild whispered through the air as I wove it around myself in slow but steady patterns, using the weight of the sword and the rolling motions to twist and turn me about. The strokes were lazily easy and had been drilled into me for months during my Legion training as a way to stretch and limber up my muscles. Within minutes they were already beginning to pleasurably burn, speaking to me in their own way of the journey to Blackmarsh and the strain it had put upon me. There was no real killing technique, especially those taught to foresters who were expected to fight more as duellists than soldiers in a shieldwall. We might have fought with gladii just like the legionnaires but our techniques were far different to the precise and accurate stabbing into an enemy’s vitals. A forester’s attacks had to roll and flow, relying on the double edged blades that we carried to equally defend and attack and to kill with cuts and slices as well as stabs and thrusts.
The familiarity of the patterns and rhythms was also instilled into us to allow us to regain a measure of calm and to control our senses. Even in the heat of battle the simplest roll of a shoulder or twist of a wrist could bring instinctive and immediate composure just from something as simple as muscle memory. During training it allowed one to control their mind, in a militaristic meditative way.
After the events of the previous day I was in desperate need of calm as even the slightest glimpse of the expensive signet ring that had replaced the White Stallion one on my hand was enough to make my heart race as though I was about to a take a life. It was proof and evidence that not only was the whole situation real but I had somehow gone from a simple Archer-Praefect in the Legion, to a deserter condemned to die, to leading one of the most independent military organisations in all of the Empire. A Knight Commander was beholden to no one other than their affiliated or sponsoring count or their local ruler and the Elder Council themselves and my new signet represented this and more. I was the new leader of arguably one of the most famous Orders and the most successful individual in retrieving the holiest of relics in all of known history.
The fact that I was also a damned individual with toxic, corrupted blood infusing my flesh to the last hair was somehow laughable and borderline insane. I didn’t know whether to burst into hysterical laughter, break down and cry from terror or shout to the world how utterly, inconceivably wrong they were in their choices.
Instead I focused on the old routines that had been drilled into me through a lifetime in service to the Legion and the Empire. Cut, twist, roll, stab, slice. Slightly awkward with a four-thousand-year old elven sword made of unbreakable skymetal instead of a short, leaf bladed gladius but still familiar enough to control my breathing and fact that my heart was racing as though I had just finished running. Anxiety was a foe that truly didn’t care who you were when it chose to sink its claws into your mind.
While not as familiar as Viconia’s, the footsteps my vampiric hearing picked up approaching from the direction of the Lodge was enough for me to identify the source. There was only one being who walked with such grace without the gift of vampirism or hailing from the Underdark and I turned to see Alexi’s grinning face.
“That’s got to be some of the worst techniques for that sword I could think of.” He said, moving over and leaning over the wooden fence running around the dirt of the duelling square.
“It is, but it is useful for warming up.” I made a show of looking over his shoulder with a series of exaggerated movements. “No pretty noblewoman hanging off your arm?”
“Ugh, no, but the Baronetess is definitely smitten with me. I didn’t believe that Mara and Dibella were gods in favour of cursing mortals.”
“One man’s curse is a woman’s blessing.” Rolling my shoulders in one last motion, I returned Sunchild to its sheath. “Did you come out here to escape?”
The puckered scar tissue from the arrow twisted in his smile but somehow didn’t affect the humour in it. “Yeah. That and to ease a few of these kinks out of my spine. I granted her Ladyship my quarters for the night, but managed to find a space in the stables.”
“Glad to see that you slum it with the rest of us low-born. What would the gossipmongers say if they heard the dashing Sword-Champion of Cyrodiil woke up smelling of manure?”
“I made sure it was clean before I laid down, and just for that I think you need a bit of a lesson in the manners of your betters.”
Gracefully he gripped the fence with both hands and hopped over it without any effort at all.
“Betters? Unless that I’m mistaken I do believe that it was I who received a promotion yesterday.”
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“Please forgive me commander, I was remiss with my tongue.” He said, bowing deeply at the waist with an exaggerated wave of his hands. His broadsword was already in one as he held it out to his side in almost the perfect mimicry of a travelling performer.
Both of us were chuckling as I drew Sunchild, returning his bow with one just as mocking as his own with the same lack of venom. Immediately the two of us were wary of our opponent as it had become a routine for us to practice together.
“I didn’t get the chance to yesterday, but you have my congratulations on the promotion.” In one smooth movement, he swung his blade upwards, bringing the crossguard in line with his eyes in salute before adopting a fighting stance.
Despite the seemingly casual way he rested the flat of his blade over his bare forearm as though it was the lip of a towershield, I could see the deadly gracefulness that infused every fibre of his being. I adopted a stance of my own, feet resting lightly on the ground and ready to jump or move either forwards or back with Sunchild held in my right hand in a more traditional fencer’s grip. “Thank you. Although I am not sure whether I truly wanted such a promotion despite how I expected it.”
The sudden ringing of steel echoed around us as our blades met. In one second he was standing solidly, almost flat-footedly so and the next he was as quick as a viper. On instinct alone his blade was slapped aside with Sunchild as I flicked it away but rather than following on with another blow he danced away, content with merely testing my defence.
“Do you really think that I would have taken the oath, let alone followed you into Blackmarsh if I didn’t think you weren't a decent sort?”
“I thought you were bored?” I said with only mild sarcasm as we quickly traded a handful of blows in less time it took to think of them. As effortlessly as I would have killed a caged rabbit with my bow he had managed to open my defences and leave the point of his sword hovering a few centimetres from my throat.
“There was that. Don’t tell anyone though, but I actually respect you Kaius.” Sliding away like a spring breeze, he gave me space and we both adopted our stances again. “You have come a long way since we first met.”
“I hope you realise that was only a few months ago?” Our conversation was paused for a moment as we again launched into a blistering combination of attacks, parries and dodges that still resulted with his blade piercing my defences and leaving the bout firmly in his grasp.
“I know. You have still come a long way.”
By now both of us were beginning to concentrate, eyes narrowing slightly and care was taken to control our breathing. Even the greatest of fighters and swordsmen could be worn down with exhaustion and no skill in the world could keep death at bay if you had no breath to fight.
“I still have a long way to go with the sword it seems.”
“Not as far as you think.” We circled each other warily and Alexi’s grin was no longer being mirrored in his eyes. It was an expression he wore whenever he fought and I was beginning to know it well. “You are a good swordsman, and with more practice you could be excellent.”
“I am glad you are going to be with us Alexi, the gods know that I need all the help.”
“Between myself, Viconia and Falid I think you have all the intimidating warriors in the land at your back.”
“What about Detane and Mazoga? Or Thedret?”
There was no mistaking the way he paused at the names. Our blades flashed but again he managed to disarm me in less than six moves. “To be perfectly honest I nearly fell over when you offered Detane a Knighthood. Mazoga I can understand because she has more than earned it. Hells, she’s more noble and knightly than half of the Order of the Stallion. Detane though?” his breath was long and drawn out even as he casually flicked away one of my thrusts without the slightest of effort. “That man is poison.”
Judging my next attacks and trying to work out a strategy to breach the wall of Alexi’s defence I thought hard about Detane and the interactions we all had with him over the weeks of journeying. He was overwhelmingly divisive and he was extremely apt at driving others away but there was something about him that was off-putting. I could still remember the way that he had turned to face the bandit in the Argonian village with the spear, and the overwhelming anger he had directed at me when I had pulled him out of harm’s way.
“There is something about him.” I said carefully to Alexi, trying me best not to show any hint of my next attacks or strategies. “I can’t explain it but my gut isn’t sitting right.”
“Maybe its indigestion.” Another blow was redirected away and again I found a blade to my throat. “I have to be honest though, I trust your gut almost as much as mine and I too think there’s something off about him.”
“More than his personality?”
Alexi shrugged. “There’s that, and there’s the fact that I have never encountered someone as good as a sword as he is. Men of that skill don’t simply appear out of thin air and yet I have never heard or seen his like in any of the tournaments.”
“You could take him though… right?”
Worryingly Alexi shrugged again and his expression was grim. “I could and would, but it would be a much closer fight than I have had in a while.”
“You need to fight Viconia more often then.”
We both laughed at that. “Vicky is dangerous in her own right.” His sword flashed and there was a dusty rattle as Sunchild was twisted out of my hand and skittered across the dirt. The blow had been almost too fast for me to see even with my vampiric enhanced sight and reflexes. “My sword against hers I would win every time, but she’s not one for fighting fair.”
“Good luck dealing with her magicka as well.”
“Yeah… there’s that too.”
For another handful of moments our swords rung through the air with a quality of their own until our breathing was becoming more and more ragged. Alexi won again, still showing the same effortlessness that he did with all things related to his blade.
“What about the others?”
Both his eyebrows raised. “Thedret? Easy. Although it would be interesting dealing that glaive of his. The Knights Mentor have always been a bit of a weird bunch.”
Before we had left the Fort, Thedret had managed to retrieve some of his equipment and that of his slain comrades and Viconia and I were possibly the only ones not to be surprised at his personal choice of weaponry. Like Sir Henrik who had gifted me with a scar up the back of a leg from his ghostly weapon, Thedret used an enormous polearm instead of the typical knightly sword or mace. He had explained that it had been chosen to assist the Knights Mentor in their roles as guardians of libraries and other storehouses of knowledge.
“What about Falid?”
Alexi and I shared a mutual look of concern before bursting out laughing. “I’d have to get one or two good hits in and hope he’d bleed to death quickly. How would you take him?”
“With a ballista.” I replied half-jokingly. “And at least three hundred metres between us.”
We traded several dozen more blows, our concentration increasing and our breath soon robbing us of our ability to converse or tease each other. For the most part we reduced our spoken words to acknowledgements of skill and mutual praise, discussing techniques and how I could improve.
Both of us were quickly sweating in the increasing heat and Alexi’s tabard was soon patchy despite the fact that it was sleeveless and allowed all to see just how muscular he was. Unlike legionaries or some of our companions there was no overwhelming bulk or size about him, but there was no doubting that underneath the rough training clothes or the mithril chainmail he usually wore was a body as tempered as iron.
I was much less elegant and had exerted myself much more than he had in my vain attempts to best him and as a result sweat was dripping down my forehead and soaking every inch of my flesh. The heat of the southern provinces was much stickier and the air was a lot closer than that of the north that I was more accustomed. It certainly wasn’t helping my bouts against him.
We continued to train however and with every failure I was learning from a combination of watching and being directly taught by Alexi. There were few betters that I could learn to improve my abilities from and he seemed to take great joy in teaching those with the skill and desire to match him. I still had a long way to go but it wasn’t something that would stop me from trying.
The blows rang through the metal of our weapons and through the meat and bone of our forearms and despite the casual flicks and parries he made appear oh-so-effortless there was incredible strength behind them. It had taken me less than the first thirty seconds of our first ever fight to know that without the full might of vampire filling me there was no way to best him. Even then it wouldn’t have been anywhere near a one-sided confrontation as I would have liked.
Rolling my wrist as Sunchild met his broadsword I could feel the tremor course through the Ayleid blade from the impact and I felt rather than saw the way that he rolled his own sword to compensate. In less than a blink of an eye he had rolled the hilt of his weapon to minimise the amount of time Sunchild’s edge had on the flat of his blade as it wouldn’t take as great of a blow as expected to shatter forged steel. What surprised me though was the direction that he rolled our blades, as instead of twisting my hand and wrist around and popping Sunchild free from my grasp he moved it the other direction, allowing me to snake the point into his guard. Instinctively and before my conscious mind could truly understand the consequences there was an opening, as brief and short lived as the beat of a butterfly’s wings and it was one that I took.
