2 Aloura

For the ninth time in two days, Aloura Gildcrest found herself in the dueling circle, and only twice by choice.

Marshal Blackburn insisted she needed more practice, but considering how quickly she'd ended each of the matches he'd forced on her, she seriously doubted it. It was getting to the point that finding a decent sparring partner was almost impossible. After you consistently beat all of the boys with swords, none of them ever want to play anymore. Now she was getting forced to practice against whatever grown man could be paid enough to risk his pride on a duel with a teenaged girl. And no, none of them were really any better than the boys.

She shouldn't complain. Most of the Republic's fine ladies wouldn't be allowed to come near a blade, even if they wanted to. And here she was, crying about having to use one too much. Her sister would be proud of her. "Disdain of that which becomes a man is what becomes a woman", she always said, flouncing about in her hoop skirts and crinoline. Considering she routinely gave things like autonomy, agency, or personal opinions for being "too masculine", Emilia must make quite the woman indeed. She'd give some perfumed ponce with a title a lot of equally poncy children, for sure. Maybe she'd even be loved enough to be given the right to have a hobby. And if she was a particularly good mother, maybe she could even speak her mind sometimes. How daring would THAT be?

Aloura inspected the timepiece on her wrist, before sighing and smoothing the front of her soldier's uniform. They'd been here for almost fifteen minutes, and there was still no sign of her opponent. Glancing over at the Marshal on the observation deck, he seemed to be far more perturbed by her opponent's absence then she was, huffing and stuffing the pocketwatch back into his overcoat with a grimace of disdain. Maybe the man had taken the money and run. If so, he'd better not have been paid a lot. If he had and didn't show, Father or the Marshal would put the poor bugger in the stocks for theft. Or have him killed. But probably not the second one, unless it was a whole lot of gilders. Or the Marshal was in one of his moods. Which he was.

Lacking anything better to do, she pulled her dueling sword from its scabbard, and began to warm up again. If she sat for more than a few minutes and let her muscles get cold, a decent cross-cut swing or gran-marte could tear something in her muscles or joints and impair her practice for a couple weeks. And knowing the Marshal as she did, practicing through the pain of a torn shoulder was considered the expected bare minimum. Better not to risk it.

The blade still felt light in her hand, which was a good sign. Once it started to feel like a long iron bar again, warming up took much longer. She set about limbering up her limbs again, before sliding into the second form of Rinmartest and throwing practice thrusts at a point just above eye level.

When doing so, she imagined a pair of tiny floating rings, and alternating driving the point of her sword through one, and then the other, each time returning to center guard for a different parry. The rings, which they actually used in her training drills, were meant to represent the eyesockets of an opponent. Virgil Rinmartest, as a swordmaster, made the observation that armor would eventually overwhelm the wounding ability of any sword, no matter how well made. He thus came to the conclusion that the only technique worth studying was that which would never be blocked by the armor. Thus, his students training to aim for the eyes, for no other reason than that they were always guaranteed to be devoid of armor blocking access to them.

The technique was difficult, completely useless against the Legion as far as anyone could tell, and was of little use outside of an individual duel, but it made an excellent tool for training thrust accuracy when incorporated into other forms.

The Marshal appraised her movements, watching her for any slip in her technique he could correct. After she completed the cycle for the fifth time, he got fed up with waiting for something to criticize.

"Faster, girl! Even my mother could parry thrusts that slow!" He barked, waving the end of his cane at her.

She smirked. He was definitely in one of his moods today.

She pulled back at the end of her sixth set, preparing to switch forms, when the door at the far end of the dueling hall burst open. An older man hurriedly shuffled in, his tunic and hair disheveled as he rushed to the dueling circle. Aloura sighed. He was easily in his mid to late forties, and more than a little overweight. What little hair was left on the top of his head was greying and stood on end.

If this took longer than thirty seconds, it was likely to be a surprise to both of them.

"You're late, Stewart!" The Marshal said with a snarl.

"Right, sorry! So sorry! I got lost trying to find the place!" The man said, breathless, as he walked up to the edge of the circle. "I'm ready! Just let me get my weapon out!"

The Marshal rubbed his face with his hand, before waving the man on. Stewart ran a hand through his thinning hair, pasting it to his head with sweat, before drawing the sword at his side and walking into the ring. It was rusty, and made a hideous, squeaking grind as it pulled from the scabbard that caused the hair on the back of Aloura's neck stand up.

Once inside the ring, the man gave Aloura a sheepish smile.

"Uhm, hello, I don't suppose you're my opponent, are you?" He said, looking at her, and then her bared sword, then back to her.

Aloura nodded, already bored.

"Let's just get this over with, shall we?" She said, snapping to attention.

"Oh, uhm, okay then." Stewart said, seeming a bit taken aback. He shook his arms and head around a moment, letting out a chorus of crackles from his neck. Once he seemed satisfied, he cleared his throat and saluted. "Ready."

The Marshal appraised each of them, before driving the end of his cane into the floor of the observation deck.

"Begin!"

Stewart looked her as she stood there with her guard lowered, seemingly unsure of what he was supposed to do next. After he spent several long seconds of looking for a clue, Aloura sighed.

"After you." She said, gesturing with her hand.

"Oh, uh, right..." The man said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before sliding into a deep fencing stance.

Contro Mesto. Interesting.

Aloura took a deep breath, and took a defensive stance with a high guard. Contro Mesto tended to attack from low to high.

In a flurry of action, the man sprang at her, a wild lunge aimed at her throat. Instinctively, Aloura snapped her blade to the side to parry the strike, but to her surprise, his sword was no longer there to parry. Instead, he'd pulled it into a feint early, and a second jerk of his wrist, struck the inside of her right thigh hard enough to make her eyes water. She groaned and slid back to prevent a follow up cut, before shifting to Maxenheim for defense.

"Oh, sorry! I figured you'd expect the two-step feint from Contro Mesto to Van Dextra. I didn't hurt you did I?" Stewart said, his face concerned.

Aloura looked up at the Marshal, who seemed more than a little pleased with himself at her expression. Who on earth had the old goat brought in for her?

She appraised Stewart again, only to find him cleaning some dirt from underneath his fingernails with the tip of his sword. He startled when he noticed her watching, his face red. He cleared his throat.

"Ready, miss?" He asked.

Oh. She was MOST DEFINITELY ready.

Without a word of reply, Aloura resumed her stance. He liked Van Dextra, did he? Then let's see just how much of it you know, mister.

She cut towards his lead leg with a leaping slash. Then, right before making contact with her blade, she altered the cut angle with a twist of her hand, sliding her weapon just past his parry and striking the outside of his lead leg, just above the knee.

So, not much of it, then. How disappointing.

Stewart groaned, dropping his guard and limping a few steps before shaking out his leg. He looked at her and grinned.

"Good one!"

Aloura glanced up at the Marshal again to see his expression had soured a bit. While this gave her plenty of joy, she couldn't help but feel a hint of frustration. She knew already how this was going to end, and that bored her. At this point, she could probably spend time at one of Emilia's decadent soirees where everyone, including the men, was perfumed. She wouldn't be missing much, and besides, Father always did say she needed more culture.

Then again, this Stewart fellow was at least competent enough that she had to try, which is more than she could say for most. Maybe he'd be able to keep up well enough for her to practice her more advanced forms.

Alright then, old man. You want me to practice harder? I'll practice harder.

Their next bout ended in a draw, when they both delivered torso blows to each other simultaneously. She won the next by a less than gentle tap to his forehead. He'd won the next by surprising her with a last moment grip change and sliding his blade beneath her parry.

It was a clever trick.

But it was time to be done with this.

Steel rang against steel as Aloura's sword darted and slashed, probing every possible angle of her opponents defenses. Quarten. Van Dextra. Aggripus. She ran through each of the master's forms as she struck, pirouetting from one to the next, calculating every detail of her blade control and positioning with each motion. Counter-turn, thrust, draw to fourth position, feint. Shift the tip of your right foot ten degrees to improve your balance. Just so.

Stewart, to his credit, was spirited, but flagging in energy, and lacked refinement in his technique. He'd clearly studied his Spinamos, based on how he favored a high guard and danced on the balls of his feet. And he had a near instinctive understanding of the other standard forms. But his breath control was lacking, and he telegraphed his thrusts half a second early by the movement of his left knee. His wrist was clearly a bit underdeveloped as well, because the point of his dueling sword tended to drift a bit in center guard. But she'd fought far worse.

Far, far worse.

Using the opportunity to practice some of her more complex lessons, she shifted her stance to Pendergast, then Bon Rosetto. He probably wouldn't know what to do with those, considering they weren't something you taught to most students anyways. But to her pleasant surprise, he kept pace. Never enough to take the offensive away from her, but enough that she, despite her best efforts, couldn't seem to land a hit on him.

In fact, she couldn't shake the distinct impression that the harder she fought, the more he kept pace with her. The bouts continued until her lungs and limbs burned. Stewart looked just as hard-pressed, his face red as a tomato, and his tunic stuck to his body with sweat. But he looked like he was having the time of his life, which bothered her to no end.

Finally, after several more bouts, Stewarts hold on his blade finally loosened a bit from exhaustion. Sensing an opportunity for a decisive win, Aloura rushed forward, using a broad sweeping strike to knock the point of his weapon to the side. Following the strike, she quickly flipped the grip of her sword, and with a pivot and a downward slid of her blade, she slid the tip of her dueling sword between the basket weave of his sword hilt and pulling it flying out of his hands. Following through with the momentum behind her disarming pull, she twisted her hips and drove the heel of her left riding boot square into the man's torso. He crumpled with a loud groan, falling to the floor of the dueling circle. He lay there groaning and coughing for several seconds, before slowly struggling to his feet.

"Pazzo Pasato. I wasn't expecting that." Stewart coughed. He was grinning. Why was he grinning?

"Enough!" Marshal Blackburn roared, banging the end of his polished cane on the observation platform.

She'd displeased him with that last move. She could tell by the way the bristles of his moustache snarled slightly when he looked at her. It honestly looked almost like a twitch at this distance. Well, the move had been effective, but it was dirty. And, if she was honest, not actually very useful in a real battle, but who cares? She won. It's not like one on one sparring matches were a good comparison to actual war anyways.

"Your thoughts, swordmaster?" Marshal Blackburn said, appraising Stewart.

Wait... swordmaster?

Steward leaned on his rusted blade, catching his breath.

"She's good. Easily as good as I was at her age, probably even better."

Aloura looked from the Marshal to Stewart.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" She asked.

Stewart bowed.

"Stewart Damien Marcuse, swordmaster of House Marcuse. Though I've been a few years retired." He said proudly.

Things now made more sense. House Marcuse had a reputation for training some of the best fighters in the Republic, with the family proper going out of their way to recruit the best possible trainers and smiths for their scions.

The Marshal cleared his throat impatiently. "You were saying, Stewart?"

The swordmaster reddened and coughed.

"Right, sorry. I'll take her on. Most assuredly. She has the most potential I've seen." He said.

"I'm sorry, you take ME on?" Aloura said, suddenly indignant. "I never said I wanted you to teach me."

"Lord Gildcrest has instructed me to find you a new instructor who can take your abilities further. Lord Marcuse here is the best available teacher. So he will be instructing you from here forwards." The Marshal said flatly.

"He's not good enough to keep up with me, much less show me anything I don't know!" Aloura protested.

Stewart cleared his throat.

"Marshal, I'd like to allay that misunderstanding, if that's acceptable with you." Stewart said. There was a hard glint in his eye that Aloura found more than a little unnerving.

"At your pleasure." The Marshal said with a sniff.

"Alright then" The swordmaster said, stretching for a moment.

He shifted into a stance that, for the first time, Aloura didn't recognize.

"Are you ready, my lady?" He asked.

Aloura drew her blade again.

"Yes."