Chapter 72: The End of The Beginning

Even before the first light rays crowned the mountain peaks, the birds had already begun their chorus. A single note rose from between the dark trees, another answered from the east, and soon many followed. Their calls tangled together in a melody as soothing as the sound of rain droplets gathering into a river.

Standing in the ring’s center, Arthur was running through the basic guard transitions he picked from the few training sessions he had with Marcus. The theory behind them was clean enough in his head, but his body had other opinions on the matter.

Tap… Tap… Tap.

A man came through the gate in an even stride while carrying two wooden training swords loosely in one hand, a cloth thrown over his shoulders, and nothing else. He moved through the gate and across the courtyard toward Arthur’s position.

Two scars crossed his face horizontally, both healed to a pale keloid. The first one cut across the bridge of his nose toward the forehead, while the second was just below the upper cheekbones. His eyes beneath were wide open, flat white, catching the last of the pre-dawn dark without reflecting anything back.

He stopped a few feet away and offered the training sword, grip-first. The hilt aligned perfectly with Arthur’s right hand with a precision no ordinary man could achieve.

Arthur took the sword and offered a slight bow. “I am Oliver Ashborn. Thank you in advance for training me.”

“The pleasure is mine, young master,” the man replied, returning the bow with equal measure. “Rowan Hale, former commander of the Imperial Phoenix Division.”

“You arrived early,” Rowan noted. “Standing still in cold air tightens the tendons. You will think that you are moving at full speed, while you are running in fact at about two-thirds. Just something to consider.”

“Although I arrived early, I have been running through some basic forms.” Arthur said in response.

“That’s good then. Show me your guard.”

Arthur exhaled slowly, settling into his stance; feet at width, weight centered and slightly forward, the training sword lifted into mid-guard.

Rowan made a short sound that wasn’t quite dismissal and wasn’t quite approval. “Your right foot is too far back. It seems that you have built your weight around protecting your dominant side, which means every step you take forward will be a half-step instead of a full one.” He paused, letting his words sink, then added, “Adjust.”

Arthur brought his right foot slightly forward and adjusted his weight accordingly following the swordsman’s instructions.

“Now come at me.”

In a straight thrust aimed at the shoulder, he lunged, committing enough to make it honest. Rowan shifted his hip in response, and the blade missed by a margin too fine to measure. From below he tapped Arthur’s lead wrist with a force enough to remind him that in a true fight, his hand would have been no longer attached.

Arthur tried again with a lateral cut, testing whether a shift in angle might change the outcome. But that didn’t work either, as the blade found only air. Rowan moved backward one step, his hand caught Arthur’s sword arm at the wrist, and redirected the momentum, sending him stumbling into a quarter turn that left him facing the gate.

“You are thinking about the blade,” Rowan said from behind.

*What does that mean?*

Arthur turned back. “What should I be thinking about then?”

“About where you will be standing after the strike lands. The sword only gets you there, but it is not the destination.” He lowered his sword to his side. “Again.”

At the rim of the mountains the light was turning gray, and the birds singing turned into a full chorus, the kind that swallowed the notes into a single sustained sound.

This time, Arthur focused on the endpoint, imagining where his feet should land once the blade struck. He let his body follow that vision instead of leading with it. The difference was subtle but noticeable even though Rowan still redirected the attack. The tap on his wrist came a fraction later, and from a less comfortable angle.

At that moment, Rowan paused and said, “this one is better. Now, get in stance and try again.”

The training carried on for a while, Arthur varied his entries; height, angle, timing, even combining two movements together sometimes. Yet, Rowan met every attempt with the same economy of motion, the same precision in strength.

What he noticed after the seventh failed attempt was that Rowan never reacted to his blade. By the time his shoulder engaged in the motion, the man’s weight was already adjusting, and that meant he was reading something before the physical movement.

Arthur tried to feint by committing to his shoulder rotation of high cut, holding it a half-beat, then dropping low. Nothing fancy, just standard misdirection, something that might have had an effect against an opponent who tracked the eyes. That wasn’t the case here.

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Rowan’s response was the same as if Arthur didn’t feint at all. The low cut met his training sword in a simple deflect that redirected Arthur sideways, which made him stumble two steps before being able to catch himself.

He dropped the training sword, bent forward with hands braced on his knees, panting heavily. “Hah… Hah… Hah.” His body was drenched in sweat as if he was caught beneath a sudden storm.

From the side, Rowan said in a steady voice, “The feint was clean. The issue was that you made the decision to feint before the action, and that left a gap. That small hesitation between commitment and redirection.” He tilted his head slightly, gesturing toward his ear. “I heard it.”

This is ridiculous…

Arthur looked at him with an expression that seemed to ask: What am I supposed to do then?

“Try again.” Rowan’s voice echoed in the courtyard.

By the time the sun was a full red sliver above the ridge, Arthur had exhausted every idea to land a strike. Every attempt proved ineffective as Rowan had answers for all of them. So, he abandoned the thought of trying to outmaneuver him, and decided to make the hit unavoidable.

He pressed forward, blade aimed at the chest with his full weight behind it. It was the kind of attack that accepted being deflected in exchange for requiring a real response. It was neither elegant nor clever, the logic behind it was blunt.

*If every variable produced the same outcome, remove the variables and test the output directly.*