The Vampire & Her Witch

”A silver penny for striking him, and another one if the group can bring him down. That does sound like powerful motivation,” Isabell agreed as she watched the skirmish begin to unfold. Owain wasted no time trying to defend himself against the greater number of men, going instantly on the offensive instead by charging one of the men with the polearms.

Compared to the soldier facing him, Owain wasn’t only stronger, he was much faster and the wooden sword in his hand swung in a series of lightning fast strikes that battered the soldier’s armored hands, forcing him backwards and weakening his grip on the weapon enough for Owain to use one hand to capture the weapon while the other hand drove the point of his blade against the other man’s throat.

”I yield! I yield!” the soldier cried, going limp in Owain’s grip, but the young lord was far from done with his defeated victim. Spinning around the helpless soldier, Owain used the captured man like a shield, fending off attacks from the other man with the polearm and one of the other swordsmen. Slender lines of paint soon covered the soldier’s padded armor before Owain shoved him at the swordsman while charging the other man wielding a polearm.

”See the way he moves?” Jocelynn said with a wistful sigh as she watched Owain working methodically to defeat the men attacking him. ”He never lets more than two people approach him, he always moves so they get in each other’s way,” she pointed out, repeating the words Owain had used when he explained his method of fighting to her after the first time she watched him practice.

In the courtyard, Owain was moving smoothly between his opponents, lashing out with vicious strikes to arms and legs, inflicting enough pain to stagger his opponent before he danced to the next, defending himself and striking again without becoming mired in a one on one duel at the expense of his ability to disengage and face a new opponent.

”Lord Owain says that demons try to surround knights so they can pull them down in massed attacks,” Jocelynn continued as she gazed at Owain’s heroic figure with starstruck eyes. ”So he trains himself against groups that work to pull him down. The men are also instructed to keep fighting no matter how many times they are struck unless they deliver something that is clearly a killing blow, because demons won’t stop no matter how many wounds they suffer.”

”It sounds like Lord Owain takes fighting against demons very seriously,” Isabell said in a carefully neutral tone. Seeing him in action, she had no doubt that he took his practice seriously, perhaps more seriously than anything else he did. Though, given the rumors she’d heard from the brothels in Blackwell City during his visit, she suspected that he had at least one thing he pursued just as passionately as he seemed to pursue swordsmanship.

By now, in addition to the man who had yielded at the point of Owain’s blade, two other men lay limply in the puddles on the cold cobblestones of the courtyard. One of them sprawled awkwardly where he fell with eyes that were glazed over from the force of the blow he’d taken to the head. Another clutched his ribs, crawling slowly across the courtyard in a way that suggested he’d suffered broken bones from Owain’s ruthless sword strike.

”I’ve spoken to other knights who have trained with him,” Jocelynn said with eyes that seemed unable to see the suffering of Owain’s ’training partners.’ ”And I’ve talked to the Templars who watched him fight against the demons before he left to visit Blackwell County. Everyone who’s crossed swords with him agrees,” she said with a growing smile.

”Lord Owain may be the greatest swordsman of his generation,” Jocelynn said, gazing at the battle below as though she could see the future unfolding before her eyes. ”Not just the greatest in Lothian March, but perhaps the greatest in the whole of the kingdom. That’s why he’s certain to be the one who finally topples the demon lords and transforms Lothian March into a proper Duchy,” she added. ”Because Lord Owain is a hero without equal.”

”He’s certainly a man who seems born to fight demons,” Isabell said, wincing as she heard the sounds of bones crunching when Owain’s training sword fell on a swordsman’s forearm, knocking the blade from his opponent’s hand and following up with a thrust to the chest that knocked the man to the ground where he writhed in pain, clutching his forearm.

It was impossible to say for certain without taking the man to a healer, but from where Isabell sat, it seemed like the soldier’s arm was broken. If he were taken to a priest quickly, he might recover with minimal lingering effects, but unless Lord Owain was willing to pay for the use of the Church’s holy magic to treat the wound, it was possible that the man would never hold a sword again.

”It must be convenient that Lord Owain’s brother is a priest,” Isabell said more lightly than she felt. ”Not everyone has the luxury of training to the extent that they injure their partners. But with Lord Loman available to heal his soldiers, he doesn’t need to restrain himself as much.”

”But, Lord Loman has nothing to do with Lord Owain’s training,” Jocelynn said, looking awkwardly at the injured man clutching his arm. ”Lord Owain believes that pain teaches the best lessons and that every knight who has risen to greatness has learned through countless painful lessons. If a man is injured in practice, then the injury is his lesson to do better next time.”

”So his men are commanded to fight until they are too injured to continue,” Isabell said darkly. ”But if they are injured, it’s somehow their fault for getting hurt? Perhaps Lord Owain’s true calling is to teach demons the meaning of cruelty,” Isabell said with a snort. ”But whether that makes him a hero or not is another matter entirely.”