Orsa led Chiara and me out to the practice yard. The two of them had arrived in my room a little more than a quarter of an hour after Ippolita left. That had been enough time for the tent in my trousers to go down, as well as bring my thoughts somewhat back under control. Even now as we approached a group of knights in tunics and trousers, my anxiety over the last few things Ippolita had said to me was still dominating my mind.
Come on, Jack. Just get your ass beat while learning a new weapon by one, two… seven attractive women wearing way too little clothing for sparring, and your head will clear right up!
After I finished admonishing myself, Chiara broke off from us and walked over to one of the benches that sat outside the dueling ring. Orsa continued leading me to the other five knights. They all wore expressions that sat somewhere between appraisal and naked lust. Despite it being said to me dozens of times by now, I still didn’t have a good gauge on my value or my supposed attractiveness. In Doranna, I was decidedly average. Here in Fortenna, you’d think I was the son of the goddess of beauty with how many women stared, or leered, at me. Some of that was from the social and cultural structure having roots in matriarchy, I was sure; the rest was just the rarity of men, and my personal rarity of being human.
“Alright, cucciolo,” Orsa said. “You’ve met Damas Cicilia and Simona already.” When she said their names, she jerked her head towards the two women I vaguely recognized. Hearing the name Simona, though, brought the memory of last week to the forefront. I hadn’t met them yet, exactly, but we did speak. Simona had stuck her foot in her mouth back then. I had intended to just write her off as someone not worth getting to know, but if she was willing to help me train, then I’d just pretend like it never happened and we could start fresh.
Simona had very long silky white hair that was pulled back and tied in a pony tail with the remainder falling to the small of her back. Like every dhampir I’ve met, she had red eyes; her’s were a softer shade of red than anyone else I’d met though. She had a build similar to Chiara, but was about the same height as Fiametta. Her blue sleeveless tunic looked almost painted on, while her trousers merely clung to her curves, but were clearly designed to offer freedom of movement. After Orsa had called attention to her and Cicilia, Simona adopted a somewhat chastised expression.
“Sorry, again, about before Signor Wright,” she said.
I waved my hand out in front of me. “No need for that, Dama Simona. Rather, thank you for helping me over the coming weeks.”
Color dusted Simona’s cheeks, but she nodded and her expression turned more serious. And eager. Cicilia wore an amused smirk while watching Simona, but then shifted her eyes back to me. She had long curly black hair, most of which had been gathered and tied off in the back, but several strands had rebelled against her efforts and hung on the sides of the face. She had lined her eyes with black makeup, causing her vibrant red eyes to practically glow. Like Fiametta and Filippa, she had pointed ears suggesting some elf heritage in her bloodline from millenia past. Her black tunic and trousers had the same fit as Simona’s, and her left hand rested on the hilt of her rapier.
“Good to see you again, Signor Wright. I hope you don’t take offense if we don’t go easy on you.”
“Good to see you as well, Dama Cicilia, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“And this is Ginevra,” Orsa said, pointing towards a blonde dhampir wearing a red tunic and dark brown trousers. Her hair was shoulder length and hanging freely. Her arms were crossed under her bust, and she was wearing a very smug expression. She was a little shorter than Cicilia and Simona, being closer to my height.
Or perhaps condescending? I internally rolled my eyes at that thought.
“Don’t be too mad if I make you bleed a little, Signore,” Ginevra said, licking her lips.
Orsa’s face darkened briefly, too fast for anyone to catch it unless they were already looking. “Next,” Orsa continued, “Is Lauretta.” Orsa gestured to the next dhampir. Her green sleeveless tunic looked like it was barely hanging on in a battle against her bust, while her faded brown trousers looked the tightest out of all of their clothes. She had an easy smile and there was genuine warmth in her eyes, which made me think of burning coals in a fire. Lauretta was a couple inches taller than Fiametta, and some blessed blend of curvy and muscular. Her light brown locks tumbled freely along her shoulders.
“I look forward to teaching you, Signore,” she said. Her voice matched her eyes’ warmth. I was surprised at how welcomed she made me feel. It completely overshadowed Ginevra’s weird attempt at flirting. I gave her a nod, and then looked to the last dhampir as Orsa gestured to her.
“Lastly, this is Maddalena.”
Maddalena was the only one wearing a baggy tunic with sleeves, but she had on a tight leather bustier overtop. She had short cropped black hair, ruby red eyes, and pointed elf-like ears. When I made eye contact with her, she smiled enthusiastically. I could even hear her excitement in her mana.
“It’s Maddalena in the dueling circle, but you can call me Maddie everywhere else, caro,” Maddalena, or Maddie, said and winked.
“That’s everyone cucciolo. We’ll start by going over the four guards,” Orsa said as she moved around until she was right behind me. I could feel her breath on the top of my head. “Go ahead and summon your new rapier that her majesty got you. We’ll be training with sharps.”
“Don’t worry, Signor Wright. Her majesty had me join so you’d have a healer on site. More importantly, everyone here is one step above you in cultivation. They’ll be able to pull their strikes to keep them from being fatal,” Chiara said from the side of the dueling ring.
“Well, I wasn’t worried until you said something Dama Chiara,” I joked. I got a couple of polite chuckles, but I could tell all of them were taking this seriously, which was a good thing both for my safety and for my future skills with rapier. I summoned my rapier and sword belt from my storage ring. This was a different swordbelt than the one I’d kept my longsword on, so it still needed some adjustments to the strap lengths so it hung at my side properly. Once I had it set correctly, I drew the rapier from the frog and activated the Mental Acuity tattoo.
“For the first of the four guards, we will do third position,” Orsa said. “Third position is the most neutral and balanced of the guards and is considered the ready position as it allows easy transition to the other guards. Your weight is on your rear leg and you can either be fully neutral or more reclined to your rear leg. Your blade hand is extended forward, with the blade on line and tip pointed towards your opponent’s face. It’s similar to longpoint in longsword in this regard. Your foreleg should be a little further forward. There we go.” As Orsa was explaining my legs and arms, she was gently guiding my body into position. Then she got up right behind me and assumed the same stance, her hand gripping my mine around the hilt. I saw barely disguised looks of jealousy on the other women. I hoped I wouldn’t be the one paying for Orsa’s brazen flirting once we started sparring.
“Next, make sure your palm is turned inward, not fully up or down. Your thumb should be on top or slightly angled inward. Yes, just like that cucciolo. This makes your knuckles face outward, and it means to get to second position, you merely turn your palm down to bring the blade parallel with the ground and raise your arm up to shoulder height. To get to fourth position, you turn your palm up and drop your elbow slightly. Good, now back to third. Lastly for first position, raise your arm up so your elbow is almost at head height and then rotate your wrist so your palm faces outward. Perfect.”
Orsa’s heavy chest pressed into me, but it went all but unnoticed, as I focused on burning the hand positions into my mind. The hand movements felt both strange and natural, but she was right that third position felt like the most comfortable position of holding the sword. It was similar to grasping someone’s arm upon greeting them. With the motion to go from third to either fourth or second, I could see how it matched the natural movements your arm and wrist would make to parry a thrust off the line while keeping my tip on line for ripostes. First position I was still having trouble wrapping my head around for usages other than thrusting from above, but this was all untested. I had no idea how any of this would actually play out when fencing.
“Okay, cucciolo, we’ll go over the leg and body positions for the other guards now that you have the hand positions. These are slightly less important because they’re intended to be in motion. You will most likely reset to third position after each clash anyways.”
I grunted my affirmation, and loosened my body in third position so she could move me more easily.
“Second position,” she called out and I moved my hand to it. “Good, now keep your weight on your back foot, but bend forward over the lead leg slightly. Now back to third. Good. Now fourth position. Okay, now you’ll step forward a little more with this one, keep your hips over your back foot and bend forward at the waist. Just like that. Now, back to third position and then move into first. Here, you’ll draw your front leg in more while raising your arm up. That’s perfect.”
I felt her lean more into me, her mouth dropping down to my ear. “Good boy, Jack. You’re doing so good for us.” I stumbled forward and turned on her quickly, brows scrunched down. Orsa was smiling, but that quickly turned into a laugh.
“Don’t be so tense, Jack. You need to be light on your feet for these. Practice going through them. The other girls and I will warm up with a few spars of our own while you get used to the movements.”
“Sure,” I said the word slowly and walked off to the side where Chiara stood, so the girls had the ring to themselves.
“I’m sorry about them,” Chiara said.
“I’m getting more and more used to it. I think, in their own way, her, Fiametta, and her majesty are just trying to help keep me from spiraling. Which I’m thankful for.”
Chiara gave me a long look before smiling to herself and shaking her head.
I mean, they’re interested in me, too, but I’m not saying that outloud. Gods forbid one of them figures out I know they’re interested.
I practiced going through the guards for the first 15 minutes or so before I started accompanying movements with them. It was one thing to know the guard positions, but it was another thing entirely to incorporate them into my movements for thrusts and cuts so that it was natural. The biggest adjustment, though, was figuring out what to do with my left hand. I’d been using a longsword for almost a decade now, and while I had training with a one handed arming sword, it was always accompanied with a shield. I had no idea if I looked silly or if I was using my second hand correctly, but I let it trail behind me, acting slightly has a counter weight or or using it to add an extra bit of balance when moving my upper body forward for lunges.
The footwork was also a bit of a challenge. I tried to loosely maintain the structure of each of the positions as I moved through them, but it didn’t feel natural—and probably wouldn’t for a while if my longsword training was anything to go by. Still, I continued on for about an hour before Cicilia walked over.
“I’m your first partner because I’m closest to you in height, Signor Wright,” she said. She had a friendly enough smile on her face, but the comments from Ginevra earlier had reminded me that not every woman here that found me attractive also found me equal. At least, none in the arts of combat. I didn’t think Cicilia held any strange prejudices, but I also wasn’t about to let myself be hazed when getting trained for potential duels at the ball was far more important than whatever errant thoughts these women had.
“Okay, are we taking the dueling ring here then?” I asked.
She nodded and gestured with her head to follow her into the ring.
“Okay, Jack. Since we’re training you specifically for dueling, we’re going to keep score the way a duel would. Drawing blood is a point. If you both draw blood at the same time, then you both get a point. First to three points wins the duel. Questions?” asked Orsa.
“Is that the only dueling format?” I asked.
“No, but it’s far and away the most common. None of the men have dueled to the death in several centuries. Though it's called ‘To The Death’, you can yield and the power presiding over the duel can choose to accept it or not.”
“So it’s rare, but it could happen?”
“Scared, guerrierino?” asked Ginevra.
I turned slowly to look at her with a flat expression, then turned back to Orsa.
Orsa had a pleased smirk on her face and answered, “It could, but given your value, no family would let their sons challenge you to one. You’re simply too valuable. Remember, they want to humiliate you so you’ll be more inclined to friendly offers, not kill you outright.”
“Alternatively, you could forgo picking weapons and pick the scoring type. Your right as the challenged would be to get first pick on one or the other. Then the challenger will pick the one you didn’t,” said Cicilia with a shrug.
I nodded along. It was good information to have, but I couldn’t see myself picking the scoring method. While I didn’t think I’d be picking longswords unless I felt too uncomfortable after the next several weeks, I also didn’t want to risk something other than rapier being chosen.
“Alright then,” I said and dropped into a stance with third position. “I’m ready, Dama Cicilia.”
Cicilia gave me a once over, then nodded approvingly. She dropped into a stance as well and also adopted third position. With Mental Acuity running, I caught the moment her weight shifted before she launched herself forward with a thrust aimed at my chest. I quickly gave a silent thanks to Orsa for having us practice the hand to hand combat maneuvers with Mental Acuity active and no body enhancements, otherwise the inability for my body to keep up with my mind would have been more jarring. Instead, I was able to shift to fourth position and let my body’s structure keep my tip on line and force hers off. Her own body’s momentum propelled her forward towards my tip, where I would quickly score a point. At least, that’s what would have happened if she was as inexperienced as I was.
Cicilia swept her blade under and around mine to push her tip back online and force mine off. Her body still carrying her forward, she moved her blade at the same time I did. I was moving to second position to parry again, but she was also moving to second position, albeit at a lower height and made a cut at my lead thigh. I couldn’t move to parry in time, and so in just a couple of exchanges, Cicilia had drawn first blood. The cut stung, but I quickly moved backwards to create distance. I saw 7 pairs of red eyes glow slightly before dimming.
“Point Cicilia,” intoned Orsa.
“Good movements, Signor Wright, and good instincts. You’ll be bloodied today, have no doubt, but I suspect it won’t be long before you are giving as good as you get,” said Cicilia.
I bowed my head slightly in acceptance of the praise, and readied myself. She returned to her side of the ring, and we both inched forward. She had her blade closer to her body than last time, so I kept the actual placement of her feet in the back of my mind. Whether it was longsword, hand to hand, rapier, or any other method of fight, measuring distance and controlling distance was a universal fundamental. That mindset is why when she exploded forward, I was prepared to move forward as well, but with a slight side step to move myself off line. I kept my tip pointed at her chest at all times as I moved, then quickly shifted to fourth position to defend a cut that came from above. The opening this gave me smelled like bait, so I disengaged and stepped back twice.
Cicilia smiled wide, then lunged at me again with greater speed than what she’d been moving at. My eyes widened as I parried, but she rotated her wrists through the positions and reclaimed the line. I sidestepped to my right and desperately angled my tip to try to take back the line, but her strong structure made that impossible. I quickly disengaged from the bind as I continued stepping to the outside, then made a sweeping cut at her lead leg forcing her to withdraw. The reprieve was a lie because she quickly flicked her wrist and nicked my forearm on her disengage.
“Point Cicilia.”
I was breathing heavier now, though that was less from being out of breath and more from the intensity of the moment. I had barely managed to avoid getting impaled. The sight of my blood from another wound seemed to rile the girls up further, but they all made very clear, and successful, efforts to keep themselves under control.
Surely they don’t have this problem when dueling other dhampirs or therianthropes? Is it my blood? Or am I just overly sensitive because of the unfamiliarity of dhampirs and vampires?
Cicilia and I reset on our sides and got in our stances. Again, she launched at me faster than the two times before.
Is she not bringing her speed down to my cultivation level anymore?
She was thrusting for my shoulder, so I moved to second position to parry. I expected there to be contact with her blade, but faster than my enhanced mind could track, her blade wasn’t there anymore. She had feinted. Her thrust was now aimed at the left side of my chest. I knew I wouldn’t be able to knock the sword away in time, so I threatened her with a thrust aimed at her face. If she followed through for my chest, I would take an eye.
Pain erupted from my chest. I tried to suck in a breath from the shock of it, but it was shallow and made the pain worse. I was wrong. She didn’t need to abort the thrust. She had contorted her body so that I only scraped her cheek. Her own breaths were coming in heavily now, and her pupils were so dilated I could barely see any of the trademark red.
“Signor Wright,” she said and took a step forward. She pulled the sword out of my chest, and blood flowed freely. Pain blossomed as her blade left my body. Her eyes were transfixed on the wound she left like she was a child hypnotized by a carnival performer.
“I’m sorry,” she said while licking her lips.
The pain was becoming more and more manageable as time went on, and with that being the third point, I immediately began channeling my regeneration tattoo. Cicilia went to take another step forward, her hands reaching for me, but Orsa’s palm clapped down on her shoulder.
“Point Jack. Point and Match Cicilia. Not bad for your first rapier duel, cucciolo,” said Orsa. She gave me a proud and satisfied smile before turning her gaze down to Cicilia, who at this point seemed to have snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in. She leaned down to have a whispered conversation with Cicilia, most of which left Cicilia blushing. After getting the answer she was looking for, Orsa nodded and looked behind her at the others who had been watching. Lauretta, for her part, had stepped forward past everyone else, as if she was torn on wanting to help or not.
“Everyone, take out a blood vial and drink it. I’ll reimburse you for the ration, but Signor Wright’s blood is… potent.”
Realization seemed to hit everyone at the same time, and they all summoned a vial that looked like a health potion, except a much darker red, from their storage items and quickly downed them. Chiara, however, stepped up and started healing me with the assistance of my own regeneration spell.
“Cicilia, go stretch your legs to help shake off your exposure. You have some time before your next turn. Simona, you’re next.”
Cicilia turned back to me, “I’m sorry, Signor Wright. I…”
I raised my hand to cut her off. “Don’t give it another thought. You’re going out of your way to help me. It would be boorish of me to be upset about the occasional mistake. We’re both learning something today, and that in itself is valuable. I look forward to your next turn. Hopefully by then I can give you a better showing.”
Cicilia blushed a deep shade of red and quickly turned and walked away, somewhat stiffly. Orsa clicked her tongue as she watched her go, and stepped out of the ring. Chiara quickly finished healing me, and I stretched a bit, mainly rolling my left shoulder to get some of the stiffness out after being fully impaled by a sword. The memory of it made me shudder. It wasn’t the worst injury I’d had, but it made the top 10. Simona stepped into the ring, gave me a very shallow bow—just a nod of her head—and assumed her stance.
“Before we get started, Simona, I want to reiterate that you don’t need to give any more thought to last time. Today you’re here doing me a favor, and for that you’ll always have my gratitude,” I said and took my stance.
Simona blushed slightly and said, “Of course, Signor Wright. I’ll do my part to teach you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, a very serious expression came over her.
Good, she'll do this seriously.
The girls: