71 – Blind Fighting

Lars was already waiting for me, with several lanterns spread around the space. The attic was, as my trainer had proposed, ‘properly’ lit.

At least I assumed so, since it was uncomfortably bright to my eyes. Squinting at the knight, I saw him nod in greeting.

“You’re here, Lord Steelheart. Tell me, what’s the first thing you should try to do if you were put in a situation where you’re blinded?”

I thought for a moment, grimacing at the sting in my eyes. “I’d say it’s similar to the advice for being unarmed in a fight – try to get away, if possible. Otherwise, do my best to turn the situation in my favor. For me that would include snuffing out light sources.”

I got a grunt in response. Lars stared at me with folded arms.

“You’re correct. No matter how much you train for it, fighting blind will always put you at a disadvantage compared to an opponent that isn’t blind. And fighting at a disadvantage, on someone else’s terms, is a great way to get yourself killed. With that in mind, getting away or changing the circumstances to favor you instead is vital.”

He let out a huff.

“I already said this when we talked about unarmed fighting, but you have a very rational approach to these things. It’s still a bit surprising, but good. Don’t be a brash fool that gets himself killed.” Lars’ gray-blue eyes fixed me in a piercing glare, though some of the effect was lost due to my squint.

“Wasn’t planning on it. I’d prefer to be alive for a long while, if I can help it.” I smiled as best I could through the pain and discomfort.

“Good. And don’t forget it. Now, you’ll learn a bit of how to fight if you can’t change the situation. In other words, you’ll get beaten up a lot, so better prepare yourself.”

Even after saying that, we didn’t immediately start sparring. I was first made to perform my usual warm-ups. Even just simple running was unpleasant when I couldn’t see properly, though that was probably the point.

As was to be expected, my coordination suffered greatly in the light. I had to be extra careful not to trip or misplace a step.

The worst part to all of this was that I wasn’t even really adapting to the lighting. I got a bit more used to dealing with the pain, but it didn’t get better, the way a human might adapt to low-light conditions.

“Ugh, this sucks.” I couldn’t keep myself from complaining after my exercise.

“I can only imagine,” came Lars’ unhelpful answer. Stupid humans and their not-super-sensitive eyes.

My experience was significantly worse than what a normal person would go through if they were suddenly in a pitch-black room. Sure, they wouldn’t be able to see, but at least there wouldn’t be constant stabbing pain in their face.

“If you want a comparison to how this feels,” I said grumpily, “then feel free to stare directly into the sun.”

That would of course be even worse for me – deadly, even – but it was the closest thing to how the light felt in my eyes.

Whenever I made the mistake of turning towards one of the lanterns scattered about, afterimages would be burned into my retinas for a long while.

Unfortunately for me, this was when we transitioned into sparring.

Lars was going even easier on me than normal, moving basically in slow motion. Not even that handicap stopped me from getting thrashed. If he didn’t go slow and pull his punches, I’d have been beaten black and blue in moments.

I could, technically, see what he was doing. The problem was that my field of view was extremely narrow, not to mention how often I was blinking. That was a factor I hadn’t even really considered before, but I was actually blind for, like, a third of the time. It was hard to focus with the constant pain, as well.

Also, the way everything sort of smeared together in my view didn’t help at all. The most basic feints got me every time.

After who knew how long, we took a break. I massaged my ribs, where Lars had landed a slightly stronger hit in our last bout.

“You really are very affected by the light,” Lars remarked. Lucky bastard didn’t even break a sweat, his heart still beating at a regular pace.

“It’s a lot more debilitating than even I expected,” I admitted. “I knew it was bad, but didn’t think it’d be to this extent.”

“Do you feel ready to move on to the staff?” Lars’ voice contained a surprising amount of concern.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

My outwardly confident statement was undercut when Lars tossed me my training staff and I fumbled the catch, the stick clattering to the floor. Bending down to pick it up, I quickly settled into a ready stance. Just as I’d been taught. This part I didn’t need to see for, just the floor beneath my feet and my own proprioception enough to get it right.

Minor success aside, I got absolutely stomped once more. It was even worse than with fists, since I just couldn’t keep all of the relevant things in sight through my squint. Never mind actually recognizing what Lars was doing in time to react.

“This isn’t working,” I finally huffed in frustration after one of Lars’ blows tapped me on the head.

“Well, not much to do but keep training. You won’t get better by yourself.” What Lars said did make some sense, but I wasn’t learning anything at all right now aside from how much I hated light.

Really need to get myself that veil I thought about before. Or sunglasses, if they exist. I could be that obnoxious guy wearing sunglasses indoors. The thought made a momentary smile break through my grimace.

Most ideal, rather than a veil or glasses that didn’t block all directions or were easily disturbed, would be contact lenses. The main issue was with my iris not blocking light like it should, due to lacking color pigments. Unfortunately, where I could maybe arrange sunglasses by just describing what I needed to a glassblower, contacts were entirely out of the realm of feasibility.

Maybe – and it was a very big maybe – magic could be used to create something similar. But until I was proficient enough to achieve something so detailed, it would take who-knows how long. As for paying another mage to make something for me, that brought up the issue of trust. Did I dare put something made by someone I barely knew in my eyes?

Aside from the ever-present potential for betrayal or sabotage, how could I know they did it correctly? I didn’t exactly know how contact lenses were made in the first place, so relaying the idea for another person to create wouldn’t work well. And again, putting something I didn’t know would work as expected into my eyes wasn’t something I was fond of.

Having regeneration that would hopefully fix any damage didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want to hurt my eyes in the first place. As I was rapidly gaining experience on the topic, I knew that eye pain was especially debilitating. Probably because of just how delicate they were, plus the major importance to the human body.

I have to try something else for now. There were actually several ideas that popped into my head after thinking about it.

Let’s try the first one.

“I have a request. Can you swing a bit faster?”

“What? That would be dangerous–”

“Just trust me, okay? For safety’s sake, let’s do it like this – you take a few steps back, so that you’re out of reach. Then you swing as though you were still close enough to hit me and I’ll do my best to ‘block’. Alright?”

“If you say so? I don’t quite understand what this will do for you, but we can try it.” Lars sounded hesitant, but did step away and take up his ready stance again. I copied him.

The first swing was only marginally faster than before, but a few gestures made Lars actually speed up properly.

When he reached about the speed I’d estimate a normal person to be able to swing at, I smiled. For even better effect, I closed my eyes. Finally mostly free from the stinging pain, I could concentrate much more easily.

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“What–” Lars began, but I cut him off.

“Keep going. Tell me if I would have blocked your strike.”

With a grunt, he got back into it. My smile widened. I moved my own staff up and to the left, to block a diagonal hit. There was a short pause in Lars’ movements before he resumed.

A rustle of clothes. The muted creak of the wood underfoot at a change in stance. And most importantly, the ‘whoosh’ of air split by the staff.

Overhead, right side, diagonal from below. We continued this fake sparring for a while, with Lars every now and then confirming I would have blocked his attack. It was far from a hundred percent accuracy, but also not the nearly zero successful blocks I’d had earlier.