Vernon Roche

That afternoon, a figure in blue appeared in the swordsmanship area.

A Blue Stripes soldier stood before a wooden post, training sword in hand, using its tip to demonstrate angles and footwork at the marked thrusting points.

Then he stepped aside and let the recruits try for themselves, occasionally reaching out to correct their movements and pull them back from a wrong angle.

Ves personally demonstrated once. Her blade was precise and swift, without a single flashy movement—chops, slashes, thrusts, upward cuts. Every move was a practical battlefield technique. She withdrew her sword.

"Did you see that?"

The recruits nodded. Some were already secretly loosening their wrists, trying to imitate the moves they had just seen.

Karl stood on the wooden platform of the drill ground, watching the swordsmanship area. After a while, he withdrew his gaze, turned around, and continued bellowing orders at the formation.

That evening, at the sparring enclosure.

A lightly wounded Blue Stripes soldier leaned against the fence, watching two guards spar. The sound of their blades colliding was not the dull, sluggish thudding heard on the training grounds.

It was a faster, more destructive series of violent impacts. Every time their swords struck, even the wooden fence trembled.

The two guards moved quickly, with almost no visible pauses between their techniques. Their shifts between attack and defense seemed instantaneous. There were no shouts, no gasps for breath—only the howl of blades cutting through the air.

The Blue Stripes soldier watched for a long while, then took off his coat, grabbed a training sword from the nearby weapon rack, and stepped into the enclosure.

The guards stopped and turned toward him. No expression could be seen through the slits of their full-face helmets.

The Blue Stripes soldier raised his sword before his chest and swung it twice, the blade dragging through the air. He looked up, pointed the tip at a guard, and nodded. Come.

The Blue Stripes soldier attacked first. His opening move was fast, a diagonal rising cut from the lower right at an awkward angle. His blade drew a thin line through the air as it struck for the guard's chest.

The guard retreated half a step—not too much, not too little. The sword tip brushed past his shoulder armor, producing a faint scrape of metal. He blocked the second strike with his sword, turned his wrist, and pressed downward in reverse, forcibly driving the Blue Stripes soldier's blade down.

The two swords tangled and ground together with a low rasp. The guard stepped and shifted his center of gravity, turned to the side, then followed with a thrust. The tip struck his opponent's wrist with precision.

His opponent's sword fell from his hand with a clang. Before the Blue Stripes soldier could react, the guard's sword tip had stopped before his throat, less than a finger's width away.

He froze, then backed away two steps. He stared at the guard's sword for several seconds before finally nodding. The guard lowered his blade and nodded back in salute, then turned around and resumed sparring with his companion.

The Blue Stripes soldier walked out of the enclosure. His hand trembled slightly, but his breathing was steady. Another wounded Blue Stripes soldier came over and handed him a bowl of water. He took it, tipped his head back for a gulp, and wiped the corner of his mouth.

"They're not even in the same league."

The wounded Blue Stripes soldier beside him said nothing. He only stared at the two guards still sparring inside the enclosure.

That evening, in the Blue Stripes' quarters.

"Our swordsmanship wouldn't fall short even against Nilfgaard's Imperial Guard."

The man defeated by the guard sat on the edge of his bed, a cup resting on his knee. With his head lowered, he said, "And yet I couldn't even see his footwork clearly."

"It wasn't just that you couldn't see it." Another wounded Blue Stripes soldier leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He had watched the spar from start to finish.

"That man never even used his real strength."

The Blue Stripes soldier by the bed looked up. "Tell me, if the commander could join forces with these people..."

He did not finish. No one in the room answered, but no one refuted him either.

Ves sat near the door with her back against the frame, not taking part in the discussion. She turned the cup in her hand twice, set it on a wooden crate, rose to her feet, and walked out.

She followed the low stone wall around the herb garden for a while. Aina was crouched beside the garden, loosening the soil around a sage plant with a trowel. Ves stopped beside her.

Aina looked up at her once but did not stop working. She took a new seedling from the herb basket beside her, placed it into the loosened hole, covered it with soil, pressed it firm, and watered it. None of her movements were fast, but all were practiced.

Ves said nothing. She merely picked up an empty clay jar from the ground and handed it to Aina. Aina took it and set it aside. "Thank you," she said. Ves nodded once.

That night, Ron was going through the materials list for the water-powered forging hammer when Ves came over from the direction of the training grounds, still carrying a training sword in her hand.

"Big guy, your men are pretty good, but individual combat is their weakness.

"What they need to train now is how to stay alive after their formation gets broken. I'll teach them everything I know. How much they learn is up to them."

"Mm. Thank you."

She turned and walked several steps away, then stopped. Without looking back, she raised one hand and casually waved it twice.

Three days later, a signal came from the manor's watchtower. A group was approaching the manor, not many in number—around seven or eight.

They were not wearing Nilfgaard's black armor, nor the motley leather armor of bandits. The crossbowmen on the watchtower had already cocked their crossbows.

Ves was correcting a recruit's movement in the swordsmanship area, pulling him back from a wrong angle. When she heard the signal from the watchtower, she straightened up and glanced toward the gate. She thrust her sword into the weapon rack beside her and said, "Friendlies."

Ron was standing in the courtyard, reviewing the progress list for the water-powered forging hammer. He looked up and saw seven people entering through the gate. They all wore blue cloth shirts beneath light leather armor, weapons at their waists. They were covered in travel dust, their boots caked with dried mud.

The man at the front had a lean, capable build, neatly trimmed sideburns, and several days' worth of stubble on his chin.

His eyes did not pause as they swept across the courtyard. He looked from a sentry nearby to the source of the commands coming from the training ground, then to Ron standing by the table. Then he changed direction and walked straight toward Ron, his pace neither hurried nor slow.

He stopped three steps in front of Ron. He was already tall by ordinary standards, but before the seven-foot-two Ron, he still had to tilt his chin up slightly. He did not offer his hand, and neither did Ron.

"Vernon Roche," he said, his voice steady and his diction hard, as though the words had been pressed straight from his chest. "Commander of the Blue Stripes."

"Ron."

"I know." Roche's gaze paused for a moment on Ron's chainmail and brigandine before returning to his face. "Ves told me about Velen. You killed the officer yourself."

"I did."

Roche did not answer immediately. He turned his head and glanced toward the training grounds. Karl's commands carried over from the wooden platform, where the recruits were practicing shield formations. The sound of shields striking the ground was neat and uniform.

Ves had already returned to the swordsmanship area. She was crouched before a recruit, using her sword tip to draw footwork lines on the ground.

"Why?" Roche withdrew his gaze and stared at Ron again.

"The elderly. Women. Children."

Roche fell silent for a moment. His eyes never left Ron's face, as if weighing every word in that sentence. Then he looked away.

"That kid got flattened by one of your guards." Roche tilted his chin toward the swordsmanship area. "He said he never even saw when the other man changed his footing."

"My guards learned swordsmanship on the battlefield. They can kill, but they aren't good at teaching."

"So you're using my people to train recruits now."

"The foundation of trust is need and exchange."