60th of Searing 4622
The sun beat down into a sun-lit clearing. Surrounded by a couple of trees but mainly by large pieces of shrubbery two male figures were standing. They had blades in hand but they seemed to have no hostile intent towards one another. Instead, a younger, darker-skinned figure was looking at a middle-aged individual with the bearing of a soldier. Through the bits of sunlight that pierced the leaves a studious and determined look could be seen on the young figure, the Veir known as Hugo Abreo. Contrary to the expression of his official liege lord the Valran known as Bertrand LaRue had an almost laidback attitude. Not worrying like his younger counterpart and instead casually looking up and down the younger male's figure and stance.
At this moment Hugo was standing with a straight right leg, a bent left leg providing support to absorb the shock that could come from any kind of blow from the front. Meanwhile, his sword was held in the standard formation, with the lower end of the sword being just above hip level whilst having a roughly 45-degree ankle. Overall this was the standard stance that should be held in combat and it provided the basics of what was to come after this point. To assess whether Hugo was ready to move forward to the next stage of training Bertrand was moving in a circle around Hugo. Whilst he moved around Bertrand nodded with a satisfied expression before responding after about half a minute of walking around. "Mhm, looks half-decent. it does not look too bad at all. Well, I guess that you are ready for the next part of the training. This means you will learn how to defend yourself in more detail."
Bernard would then still, and Hugo knew that this was the queue to listen in to whatever piece of advice Bernard was going to give next. "Several lessons earlier you learned the basic stance of how to hold a sword. You learn the basic avenues of attack and defence and thus learnt the very basics of combat. Now we will be looking at various guards that will help a certain aspect of attack or defence." Bertrand then shifted into a combat position. A long stick with the approximate length of a longsword was then placed at a low angle. The stick was pointing to the left and pointing at a slight angle downwards. "This is the first Guard. With a guard being a position in which your sword is held. You already know the basic guard so to say, but here you see the Whole Iron Door." Bertrand then made a nod in the direction of the stick.
"This position is very good for learning the basic pace of battle and once you learn to master it you will have a solid, though rudimentary, defense and attack." Bertrand cleared his throat, coughing a few times before getting back on track. "Alright. So Hugo come forward... forward... forward... stop. Now try to attack me with a basic forward thrust." With a frown Hugo did as Bertrand asked, attempting to lunge forward with his accurate replica wooden longsword. Aiming for his vassals chest, only to find that Bertrand's stick had made almost a full circle arc, pushing Hugo's blade downwards. Then the moment Hugo's blade was down Bertrand's sword pushed forward, above the length of Hugo's sword and the end of the stick met Hugo's throat. "Now you can see a basic principle of swordfighting demonstrated. You don't just defend, you parry and attack. So in this case I swung your sword out of the way in my defense, then making use of the opening that left I managed to hit your soft exposed throat. Now you try it. Be careful to look at the guard I hold." Hugo did so, taking a moment to process the quick sequence of events that happened and combining them with the dialogue that Bernard gave him.
Bernard went to the basic stance, holding his sword at a 45 degree angle above the hip and waiting to thrust the blunt stick into Hugo's chest. Meanwhilst Hugo tried to imitate Bertrand's Guard from earlier. Pointing his sword to the left and downwards whilst holding the but of his sword just above the hip. Hugo thought he was in the right position, but then Bertrand stepped forward and slightly adjusted the position of Hugo's sword stating. "The sword was mostly well-positioned, but not perfectly and you were not balancing it properly. Feel the weight and swing it in a parry movement a few times. After that you should have a good grip on the new positioning we can test it out. " Hugo did as asked and swung his sword in the air a couple of times. Feeling the beginning of sweat droplets gathering on his face but dismissing the thought of them. Then after a bit Bertrand nodded.
"Alright, now do that movement again but this time I will be attacking you. Got it ? Good." Then Bertrand's sword went forward and Hugo's swing went upward, and only slightly deflected it. "Good swing, but give it more force." Another swing, this time it was quite a bit harder, Hugo almost lost his balance as he added too much force but it still succeeded. "Good you got that swing. Now we'll repeat that several times and next time after you bat my sword out of the way push your sword forward in a thrust. The further away my sword is pushed, the bigger the opening you have but also the more you leave yourself open. So keep that in mind." This exercise was repeated about four more times, each time successfully before Bertrand smiled and put his long stick in a resting position. "Good, that was the counter to the basic thrust. Now I'll do a swing of my own, the same principle applies as earlier, but now you will have to keep the position and momentum of my sword in your mind. Got it ? Alright then let's get to it." This time Bernar did a swing from the right side. Hugo did hit Bertrand's stick and with quite some momentum, but it was the front end of the swing, which meant the course of the sword was only diverted a little. "Keep the amount of space you have in mind. Think of the position my sword is in and where you will hit it. Now let's try again." This time the counter was done well. Bertrand's swing was properly diverted and a thrust from Hugo's wooden longsword was barely an inch from Bertrand's throat. "Good ! This feels slightly uncomfortable but still, good counter there. Now we have to make sure in future sessions you got that movement mastered. Just keep in mind that this technique might not be effective if your opponent is left-handed and does a swing from the same side as your sword is currently resting."
"Now that you know the basics of the Full Iron Door, we will go to the Woman's guard.... Don't give me that expression! I didn't name them that's for sure. Regardless, focus on the next stance." Bertrand then brought the sword just behind his left shoulder, having the point of the sword behind him. "The advantage of the Woman's guard is that it is a position that is good for both attack and defence. Whilst the Full Iron Door from earlier is more of a defence-oriented approach. From here you can attack the enemy's head, shoulder, center, leg etc. Most avenues of attack are possible from here. If you attack the chest area you can easily transition to another Guard but that is a topic for another time. " Bertrand then demonstrated the swing coming from the upper left of his shoulder and then going to each of the aforementioned target areas. Hugo was slightly surprised by how fast this could go, possibly due to the momentum of it going downwards, the most natural direction for a sword to go. "Now this of course isn't the hardest strike to block, but there are many different ways you can react after your strike is blocked. We will discuss several different ways in future lessons but for now I will show you the transition I like the most. So you try to block the first strike with the standard guard or the Full Iron Door from earlier" Hugo nodded and then went to the basic defensive stance, figuring that since had mastered that form more it would be better for the example that Bertrand was about to give. He then saw how Bertrand's stick headed for his left soldier and Hugo then blocked the initial hit, but then Bertrand took a step forward and shifted the position of his stick so that the butt-end of it was now heading towards Hugo's face before stopping bare centimetres from it.
"This move will often not be a finishing blow, but it is a good way to gain an advantage in combat. This way your opponent will potentially have a bloody eyebrow which obscures his vision or there will be a very annoying dent in his helmet. In the event your opponent is not stupid enough to have a helmet there is even a chance of this knocking out an enemy. The issue with this move is that it does take some risk to move closer to an enemy and get this close. It will go against many of your instincts and will have to be practised a lot in the future. For now you can use the Woman's Guard to try and block my attacks." Hugo then took the position he had seen Bertrand stand in several times before. Feeling the weight of the sword just above his shoulder even as he watched Bertrand intensely. Then he saw Bertrand swing towards his shoulder area which Hugo intercepted with a swing of his own. "Good, you blocked the attack. That was a good strike but you have to be careful when you are in an actual large fight if you keep using your swing that way. It goes a bit wide and might accidentally hit an ally."
Bertrand then looked as he finally noticed that the shadows were lengthening in the clearing and then put his stick in a resting position. "I think that is enough for now. The sun is beginning to set and Lionet is probably starting to get annoyed we are letting the food go cold." Hugo nodded, putting his sword in his sheath and beginning to walk towards the exit of the clearing before the speed of his movement decreased. "You talked earlier about fighting in a large battle or a group, what is that like ?" Bertrand frowned, about to say that it wasn't Hugo's business, before reconsidering and speaking in a somewhat softer voice than before. "It is a mess. Honestly, the sword fighting I am teaching you is more useful for a duel, or at least for the later parts of a fight. In the beginning, two large groups will face off against each other and then the lines will clash. This will initially remain organized before a certain moment when your line or that of the enemy breaks. When the line breaks fighting devolves into roughly individual combat, though with one side perhaps having one or two allies. It is bad having to keep an eye on everything around you. Often you miss a thing and you get heavily wounded as a result. " One of Bertrand's hands then went towards his upper left arm. The main bone of which was once broken during combat by an enemy mace. "It is not pleasant. Let's keep it at that." Hugo nodded and the two of them then headed back home. Severe thoughts in both of their heads.
