A Dog Among Princes

Chapter 4

“Alright, attack me.” Guts had found a branch on his way to the clearing where he’d practiced the previous night. The rest of the band busied themselves with packing up before they rode out for the day. In light of his status, Guts was exempt. Most days he would still help out after his morning training, but today he’d started late. Isidro stood across from him with his stick, his face screwed up in concentration. Casca and Griffith watched from a distance accompanied by the Rose Knights, who’d insisted on hovering over his practice every morning. Isidro kept glancing back and forth between them and Guts. “Don’t think about them, kid. Just focus on your approach.”

“Approach?” Isidro asked, moving back and forth in place. He was already thinking about how to get a hit in. That was good.

“This is a problem.” Guts gestured at his branch. “I want to see how you decide you want to solve it.” Guts drew a circle around him in the dirt with his branch. “If you get this close,” he pointed at the circle, “I can reach you with my stick. I’m bigger and stronger than you so I’ll be tough to over-power. How do you approach?”

Guts could think of a few answers off the top of his head. Isidro could throw his stick at Guts attempting to hit him from a distance, he could rush him trying to spook Guts into innaction, He enter the circle and try to parry Guts’s first hit and repost, or he could try and get in extra close and strike inside Guts’s guard. Isidro bent down for a moment. It looked like he was picking something up. That was alright. He was up against a much larger opponent, any way he thought he could level the odds was fair game. Then he rushed forward, holding the stick in his right hand and whatever he had picked up in his off-hand. Guts held up his branch in preparation. Isidro opened by tossing what he’d picked up directly at Guts’s face. It was a good sized rock that Guts easily deflected. Isidro slashed low with his stick, trying to hit his abdomen while Guts’s branch was up by his face, but Guts quickly twisted his sword down to block.

“Not bad, kid. Very solid strategy.” He knocked the stick out of his hand with a quick twist of the edge of his branch. “You threw that rock pretty accurately even with your left hand. Are you ambidextrous?”

“I’m left-handed originally but after my parents died I was forced to use my right enough that I can use both now.” An intense feeling of relief washed over Guts. Isidro had been treated badly by the villagers. He didn’t just leave to become a mercenary because of him. The issue still stood that he chose to try and become a mercenary but at least this particular child had a reason for leaving home.

“Excellent.” He picked up the stick and put it in Isidro’s left hand. “Left handed swordsmen aren’t as common so you’ll have an advantage against less experienced opponents in duels. If you want to hold that with two hands you’ll want to keep the left on the bottom and the right on the top. I figure you’re better off keeping something else in your off-hand though.”

“But you always use two hands.”

“Not always, but it helps with a sword like mine.”

“So then shouldn’t I be using two hands as well?”

“I’m going to ask you to look at me and then look at yourself. Do you think it makes sense that you’d fight the same way I do?”

“No, but if you’re my teacher…”

“No buts, kid. You ought to develop a fighting style that’s better suited to you instead of trying to copy one that wasn’t made for you.” Guts looked in the direction of Griffith and Casca. “Hey Griffith, come over here for a second.” He looked over, said something to Casca and then walked over to Guts.

“What is it you need?” Guts undid the buckle of his scabbard and tossed his sword towards Griffith.

“Here, catch.” Griffith just barely managed to get under the huge blade in time. He caught it but then almost immediately gently let it fall to the ground.

“Bigger than the last one I see,” he wheezed, winded from the effort.

“Griffith, would you be able to use that sword in combat?” He tried lifting it with one hand and got it about halfway up before slowly putting it back down.

“No, I don’t believe I could. I don’t think I could use the sword you wielded when you were 15 effectively in combat.”

“That’s what I thought.” Guts picked his sword back off the ground effortlessly. “Would you be willing to spar?”

“If you don’t mind being thrashed for throwing that hunk of iron at me, I certainly wouldn’t say no.”

“Fantastic.”

It took a moment for Griffith to get outfitted. Both men wore minimal armor. Just gauntlets for Griffith and a single left gauntlet for Guts. This was just a spar after all. Bouts between the two men tended to get heated but both had enough control of their blades that they deemed only hand protection necessary. Casca held up a hand.

“Ready?” She brought it down. “Begin.” The two crashed into each other. Then Guts felt his sword go further than it should’ve. He stopped his swing just above Griffith’s shoulder. The end of Griffith’s saber spun through the air and buried itself in the dirt behind him. “Holy shit.” Guts heard Casca whisper.

“Are you alright?” Guts carefully withdrew his sword. Griffith looked a little shaken. “I didn’t nick you did I?”

“No, I’m fine. You just surprised me a little.” Guts turned to Isidro.

“Well what I wanted to show you with that spar is that different ways of fighting are equally viable. However, now you also know how important it is to check the condition of your gear before every match.”

Griffith was not in fact just a little surprised. He retreated away from the camp with the excuse that he needed to relieve himself. Emotions swirled around within him, however foremost among them, that was the hottest thing he had ever seen. Griffith knew Guts trained for hours on end every day. He saw how defined his arms had become over the years. He’d been present when Guts managed to wound Zodd fighting by himself. But to see him cleave a sword in half right in front of him. Guts didn’t like to be touched but he wondered how they would feel. Would his arms be tightly wound or soft to the touch. Would he still be able to pin him down like when they were teenagers? If he held his hands above his head would he be able to pull away. Maybe that would be part of it, that he could break free at any moment but he still let Griffith hold him down and… that didn’t bear thinking about. They had to leave soon, he needed to maintain his composure. They were nearing the capital. He heard a branch crack. He reached for his sword and grabbed at air. Right.

“Hello? Is someone there?” Something felt wrong. The same wrongness that surrounded the old fortune teller and Zodd.

“Take heed Falcon.” He couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. “In the coming year you will be tempted. You and your friends and your kingly half shall be gathered in one place. If you give in to temptation there, you will condemn them to torment beyond that which a human soul is capable of atoning for. You are uniquely positioned to present this Falcon. You fly high, seeing possibilities that no one else is capable of.” he saw a flash of armor through the trees and a brief peek of a shield emblazoned with the same black rose emblem as the knights. “Think, plot, achieve. These are the wings that can subvert the death of your comrades. Never forget this.”

“Wait, who are you?” He ran through the trees searching for the source of the warning. He briefly caught a glimpse of a knight in a skeletal helm with glowing eyes and then he vanished. “Damn it!” What on earth had he meant?

“Griffith is everything alright? We’re about to leave.” He heard Casca call.

“I’m fine, I’ll be out in a minute.” He looked at the spot where the Skull Knight had disappeared. “At least I hope I’m fine,” he muttered.