Even with his intuitive twin blades, Kre had a difficult time keeping up with Beleg during practice. The large man moved with exquisite grace and speed, weaving his large blade through the air like a leaf on the wind. Although Beleg’s sword was heavily padded, Kre could still feel the power come through as a crushing blow. He surmised that Beleg would have no need of slicing his opponents in half, he could simply break them in two with one of his hefty swings.
“Yow!” Kre cried, hugging his elbow tight to his side, “I think that one cracked a rib.”
“I doubt it,” Beleg replied, stepping closer to examine the site of the injury. “It’s going to bruise, but it doesn’t look much worse than that. You’re not wincing as you breathe, so that’s definitely a good thing.”
Kre nodded and stepped back into a defensive stance.
“No,” Beleg waved him back, “you rest for now. Virryn should be here with lunch soon and you should clean up. I’ll work on some forms for now.”
He set down his blade and picked up a long piece of wood. Kre was fairly certain that the stick had been a part of the bed frame but decided against asking in case Virryn noticed. He wanted to be sure that he could honestly tell her that he had no idea where it came from.
Dowsing his head with cold water was refreshing and he even splashed a bit onto his injured side. Having fought the both of them now in the span of the last half day, Kre tried to determine if Beleg was indeed the better fighter of the two. He suspected that Barry had been holding back last night, but the fight had still been a struggle. Kre figured that having enchanted swords on both sides cancelled each other out as he had no other idea of how to factor them into this equation.
Kre could tell that Beleg was easily as strong as Barry, but he used his strength differently. Beleg’s moves were precise and fluid, using his strength to perfect every movement, whereas Barry seemed more interested in pouring all of his physical power into treating every attack as if it were the final killing strike. Beleg’s moves were based around patterns and concentric circles where Barry seemed very direct and linear.
The two of them could not have been more dissimilar while at the same time seemingly born under the same sign.
“Oy! Boy!”
The smack to the back of Kre’s head sounded worse than it felt, but it still made him lose focus for half a moment. He turned to look up at a red-faced Beleg flanked by Virryn and two other men. One of them was the man that had first brought them into the weapons selection room but the other was unknown to Kre.
“Wake up you lout,” Beleg snarled. “Help that one with the lunch preparations.” He gestured to Virryn and turned back to his guests. “I do apologize sirs, but it seems that a little bit of practice is just too much for a weakling like him.”
“Ahem, yes,” said the man they had met previously. “He does seem rather on the dumb side, now that I see him up close.”
The other man waved his hand and cut off his colleague. “What is that boy doing with my swords?”