Chapter 45 - The Test of Valor (3)

My opponent kept on blocking all my sword strikes, his body, legs, and arms straining against their limits, his muscles heavily working to keep up.

Just as I was about to increase my strength and speed up another small degree, I finally broke through my opponent's guard as he lost balance. Taking advantage of the opening, I struck him on his right side, my sword digging deeply into his kidney despite the leather armor he wore.

I didn't give him time to recover from that blow, already retracting my sword and transitioning it into a thrust toward his chest. This time, I put a large amount of my strength into the attack. The force of my lunge shattered the wooden sword, breaking it into pieces against his leather armor. My opponent flew backward a small distance, falling to the floor on his back.

I knew that with some rest, the fighter would recover. Not wanting to leave it to chance, I walked toward his prone form, and kicked at his face a few times, until blood was flowing freely, until his face was almost unrecognizable, until he had finally lost consciousness from the pain.

The man was brave, I would give him that. He had never pleaded for mercy nor surrendered during the whole beating.

The rest of the fighters in the courtyard looked at me with no small amount of nervousness. A few of them looked scared at the viciousness of my sudden violence. There was an air of silence as they paused awkwardly.

The words were unspoken, but all of the fighting men and women made an agreement with each other, that they would leave me alone. Instead, they would do battle with each other to fight for the other nine spots.

I guess I was lucky, but the thought of them grouping up to get rid of me did not cross any of their minds. Or perhaps they just wanted to look honorable, since the two grandmasters were impassively spectating the melee.

Either way, fighting broke out again.

I observed most of their fights, until finally the other nine slots were filled. Now, there were only nine fighters, three of them women, standing on the courtyard. The others had long given up and surrendered, slinking away with bruises like wounded animals.

Seven men and three women. That was the outcome of the chaotic melee and those fighters would be the ones who would be able to sign up for the tournament.

The short grandmaster, the one who had given the speech, came walking toward the remaining group of fighters, all of whom were avoiding me like the plague.

“Well done, you louts. That fight was not too shabby. You have saved me a lot of time and patience by eliminating most of them. Now then, I will give the lucky ones a Test of Valor so I can get a better measure of their skills.” He held up a hand to stop the fighters from asking questions. “Not to worry, the ten of you are eligible to sign up for the tournament. The lucky ones I will select, however, will have no need to participate in the preliminaries.

The taller grandmaster then came walking toward the center of the courtyard to stand beside his companion.

The shorter grandmaster arched his eyebrows at his companion. “Do you have anything to add, brother?”

The brother, probably the elder, only shook his head sideways. “No, you can continue, brother.”

He nodded in return. “Alright, you shit maggots. The two lucky ones I will be choosing for a Test of Valor will be that man in the black cowl and that woman with the short, black hair there.” The short grandmaster pointed at the woman and at me just in case some of us had mistaken ideas.

“The eight of you louts not chosen can go sign up for the preliminaries now.”

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With his hard, gray eyes, the short grandmaster inspected the black-haired woman and me. “Very well, I shall now explain how the Test of Valor will work. You should be honored to take it, as it will allow you to skip the preliminaries.”

Both of us nodded in agreement, not wanting to anger the grizzled veteran.

The short and greying warrior turned to the woman and gestured to his brother standing beside him. “You, child, will demonstrate your swordplay to my brother on the training grounds. If he deems your skills sufficient after a short spar, you will have passed the Test of Valor.”

Then the grandmaster turned to me. “You, however, are clearly not experienced in swordsmanship. I can tell that only your natural abilities—strength and speed—won you that fight. Thus, you need not show me your swordplay. Instead, I will have you fight a few guards of my choosing.”

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In truth, my guest, the Test of Valor was just another tedious assessment. And needless to say, I quickly won the fights with the “few” guards, few being a dozen of them. The most I had to fight, however, was three of the chosen guards simultaneously, which I had no trouble doing so. That battle had ended quickly with me knocking down each of them with three quick slashes, each of them done in swift succession.

The other nine guards, with a brief respite in between each, were one-on-one sparring. I won them all in mere moments, even though the expertise of each guard went up every time I won.

By my eleventh opponent, I was beginning to get the feeling that the grandmaster would throw even more guards at me, but thankfully, he decided that one more would be sufficient to test my skills.

His praise after I had knocked down my twelfth guard was this: “You, my lucky bastard lout, were born with natural physical gifts. You must come meet me again after the tournament. It would delight me to train you as my pupil.” Then the grandmaster arched an eyebrow, daring me to contradict him.

When I finally gave him a small nod, his eyebrow finally went down, his grizzled face no longer stern, but a small grin plastered on. “Good, now get the hell out of here. I don't want to see your face until the tournament starts, since I am one of the judges.” He gave a harsh, loud chuckle. “I don't want you frightening the other fighters who will come, after all.”

I left, thinking that in the entire afternoon I had spent with that short grandmaster, I had only received two compliments, indirectly and directly.

Well, I had also received a new and shiny longsword from him, free of charge. The grandmaster had told me that my stolen short-sword was a weapon for shit maggots, so he gave me a new weapon as said above. That was the high-point of the Test of Valor, or rather one of the end-result of it.

Quite amusing, really.

There were only tonight and two days left before the preliminaries of the tournament began. The preliminaries, the grandmaster had told me, would eliminate all the participants until only ten were left. Then we, including the others who had passed the Test of Valor, would all battle in one grand finale in the arena outside to the east of Asolance with many spectators watching. This, of course, included Baron Serle, his family, and his eldest daughter.

Now, I thought, I only had to win the tournament and with that, the attention of Baron Serle and his eldest daughter.

Or his four other younger daughters if that didn't work. I had many possibilities open to me, all of which would suit my vengeance, all of which would help me find out the cause behind my death.