He was stronger than me. If this had been two years ago, I would have lost to him after a few exchanges because of the difference in strength, but I had made enormous progress in sword training since then. With the help of my buffs, I could now hold my own against thirteen- to fourteen-year-old boys, but I had never fought a teenager before. Still, I had to fight him to get what I had been promised.
My base attributes were 2.6 strength and 2.8 speed, with a 0.5 buff to each, bringing them to 3.1 and 3.3 respectively.
The buffs had no visual effects; their effects were internal. The only way to detect them was through sensitivity to mana.
I had watched Wayland fight boys his age, so I had a good estimate of his capabilities.
He had 3.5 strength and 3.3 speed. Even with my buffs, he was much stronger than me, but with my buffs active, our speed was the same.
So I cast my buffs, Aspect of the Bear and Aspect of the Cat. Two seconds after they took effect, his sword clashed with mine.
I acted as though he were driving me back. I let him push me around for a few moves, but I was in control most of the time.
"What are you mumbling, you freak?"
Every time he attacked, I tilted my sword slightly to one side, dissipating a little of his force without letting him notice.
I could feel every blow vibrating through my hands. It shook my bones, and my hands hurt terribly, but I had to fight this way. I had to wait for an opportunity to counterattack.
Over the past two years of training, I had realized a few things. They might seem obvious to most people, but realizing something and applying it to a fighting style were entirely different matters.
You could not pit strength against strength; you could pit flexibility against rigidity. If your opponent was stronger than you, you needed to flow like water or be as elusive as the wind.
If he was impatient and not strong, you needed to be as solid as a boulder.
If you were going to attack, you could not waver. You needed to be explosive and unstable, like fire. That way, you could disrupt their rhythm.
In most fights, if you controlled the rhythm, you controlled the fight.
In this fight, I would be like water. I would let every blow flow past me.
Wayland began to grow arrogant, believing I was incapable of fighting back. I already had the situation under control, but he did not realize that, because of my footwork and dodging, he was only making high attacks at my head and upper body. Without knowing it, he had become predictable.
A few seconds before he moved, it was as though a ghost moved, showing me how he would move.
It was like reading an open book. I saw all his subtle movements. I could see annoyance and frustration beginning to show on his face.
He was preparing a diagonal cut at the left side of my neck, and I was ready. I held my sword in my left hand and placed my right hand against the flat of the blade, pretending I was going to block his blow. When he saw this, he sneered.
He knew he was stronger than me, so he trusted in his greatest advantages: size and strength. When his blow was only a few centimeters away, I took a large step backward. I could see his eyes widen in surprise.
He tried to adjust his swing, but he had put so much strength into it because he thought I would block. He failed to follow me forward.
So his sword passed a centimeter from the tip of my nose. He had committed too much to the strike and lost his balance completely. Then I placed my sword against his neck and waited for him to yield.
He looked at me, angry and unwilling to accept the outcome, but he still took a deep breath, then let out a heavy sigh and spoke.
"Today is your victory, but next time I won't underestimate you."
I turned and looked at Rodrik expectantly. He looked at me, then at Wayland, as though he wanted to eat Wayland alive. Seeing this, Wayland left in a flash.
To my eyes, his speed seemed to become 10 in a single second. Rodrik must have warned him to use his full strength from the start.
He began scratching the back of his head and said, "All right, I'll speak to the lord about hunting and the pass. I still think it's too soon for you to leave the castle, but a promise is a promise. I'll only do it after you spar with me, though."
"That's not fair. Why should I do something I know is futile? You just said a promise is a promise. Why have you suddenly added a new condition? I'm a hundred percent certain to lose."
"Of course you'll lose, you brat. I'm not so old that I'd lose to a snot-nosed child. Even if you lose, I'll speak to the lord. That's not why we're sparring. Now come here, or are you really that afraid of fighting this old man?"
"Hmph, do you really think that kind of provocation works on me, old man? By the way, Ser Selmy is much older than you, but no one dares face him one-on-one."
"Hahaha, fair point. You're right, you snot-nosed brat. Now come at me however you like."
I did not think Rodrik merely wanted to spar, because he wanted to beat me black and blue.
So I did not think he would use his real strength against me. I thought he would fight me using roughly the same strength as mine. I drew my sword from its sheath. I approached him and threw the sheath at him. He knocked it aside with his sword, and at that moment, I closed the distance, lunging at his supporting leg.
He looked surprised, but merely sidestepped. That bastard had just used 4.2 speed. I had no way to catch up to him.
"Whoa, that was dangerous. Who taught you to fight so dishonorably?"
"There's no such thing as a dishonorable way to fight. In a sword fight, there's only life or death."
Now I knew he would fight however he pleased. He would not let me land a hit. I had to use all my strength against him. I had not wanted to show him this so soon, but it seemed I had no choice.
I took a deep breath and began attacking him without pause, but all I could see on his face was amusement. Once he had grown comfortable with my speed and attack patterns, I drew a small dagger, smaller than my palm, and threw it at his foot.
It hit, but had little effect because it had no edge. It was a training dagger, just like our swords. They had no edges, but a hit should still hurt a little.
But that second of distraction was all I needed. I thrust at his torso, but he defended with a parry. Still, I was beginning to grow used to his rhythm and starting to see that ghost. I decided to use another of my trump cards and took something out of my pocket. When I saw him begin to move, I understood where he was going to strike: a horizontal slash to the right.
I threw what I held to the ground, and it burst into a thick cloud of white smoke, blocking his vision. Then I slipped to the left, dodging his slash, and tried to cut his arm with a diagonal strike. But as I unleashed my slash, I felt something beside my throat. It was his sword. When the smoke cleared, I saw a small wound on his arm, but he had caught my neck.
(Rodrik's POV)
This boy was a force of nature. Two years ago, he had insisted on not training with the other squires until he became a squire himself. Within two years, he had become good enough to defeat teenagers, but his fighting style still had one major flaw. He trusted his vision and his ability to read opponents too much. He had never fought a master swordsman before.
Yes, he had fought the lord and me a few times, but those had been child's play. I had to teach him a lesson about deep feints. He thought that seeing a muscle move or noticing a change in stance meant an attack, but that was not the case.
A true master could move while feinting. Those movements were unlike basic feints. For example, I could pretend to step left with my left foot, while that foot could actually be my supporting foot.
I only needed to bend my waist slightly to the left. That way, all my weight would fall on my left foot, and my center of gravity would shift as well.
He did not know about such things, but I could not believe I was trying to teach something only experienced and talented knights could understand or use to a child of eight, or almost nine.
If he had an adult's body now, I thought he would be the strongest warrior in the North.
While I was lost in thought, he stepped into the ring and drew his sword from its sheath. The next thing I knew, the sheath was flying at me. I knocked the thing aside and saw him lunge at my supporting leg.
The little bastard was really coming at me. In that second, just one second, I felt fear, so I sidestepped with half-serious effort.
This monster was terrifying. How could an eight-year-old be so fast?
I joked, "Whoa, that was dangerous. Who taught you to fight so dishonorably?" He said, "There's no such thing as a dishonorable way to fight. In a sword fight, there's only life or death."
Sometimes this boy spoke and acted like a seasoned warrior. He was basically right. There was no honor in a sword fight; honor came from whom or what you fought for.
Right after that, he began launching an unending series of attacks at me, but every attack targeted a lethal or crippling spot. They were not random.
Suddenly, I realized that within four years, I thought I might no longer be able to beat him. What I did not realize was that a faint smile had crept onto my face.
As the fight began to settle into a rhythm, he took some things from behind his back and threw them at my foot. I had no time to react. They all landed on my supporting foot, and they really hurt, but they were nothing that could cause actual injury. I thought about what would have happened if they had been real daggers. I would have been crippled by now.
That thought sent the fear inside me boiling, but I refocused and began using deep feints.
That was when I saw a faint, smug smile appear on his face. Hmph, he thought I was going to make a horizontal slash to the right, but it was actually the opposite: a horizontal slash to the left.
Just when I was certain the fight was over, he took out something else and threw it to the ground this time. A large cloud of white smoke rose from the ground like a curtain of fog.
I lost sight of him for a second, and fear crept through me again, so I unconsciously grew serious once more. His sword came at me through the fog, so I continued my attack while stepping back.
His sword grazed my arm, but it ended at that moment. Ten years from now, the only names I could think of were Cregan Stark, the Dragonknight, Arthur Dayne, and Barristan Selmy. Compared with this child, all these heroes would become lesser figures in people's memories.