by Logan Jacobs
I was going to become crazy powerful, but first, I had to soak up all the skills I could from this arrogant fuck.
That sword of Lucian’s was an extension of his arm, and his shield was just as deadly as the blade. I knew I wouldn’t win, but I held out as best I could. I swung my sword to watch how he blocked, and when I brought my shield up to protect myself, I studied where his blade hit and how hard. I did my best to memorize every little detail that I possibly could because I knew my most powerful weapon wasn’t the one in my hand.
It was my ability to do this over and over.
My death came the moment one of Lucian’s shield blows knocked my helmet off my head. My brain rattled around in my skull, and as the duke’s son sneered at me, I drew on my power and restarted the moment.
Chime.
“I accept your challenge,” Lucian said once more as he leaped from his horse.
I really didn’t want to listen to his monologue about his horse or whatever all over again, but I still didn’t want to make a new save point. I needed to actually beat him and figure out what kind of results I would get before I locked myself in with this timeline.
“The rules are simple,” I began as I unbuckled my daggers and tossed them to the ground. “Swords and shields only, and when the loser falls, the men on either side must accept defeat and walk away.”
“That is a fair wager,” Lucian said with narrowed eyes as if he was expecting me to pull some kind of trick.
Maybe he really was smarter than he looked, even if he would never have guessed my trick if he were given a thousand years.
The pageboy stepped between us as Lucian got the rest of his gear and disappeared just as quickly as before once he signalled the battle to begin.
I lunged almost as soon as the boy vanished and brought my sword down on the Loser Lord as he had done to me during the first attempt. He was ready with a block, but when he swung his shield up for the sideswipe, I wedged my own shield between us and took the blow on my arm. The impact didn’t rattle as much as last time, but it was still enough to cause my arm to shudder, and the air seemed to vibrate with the scraping of the two shields.
Lucian brought his foot up and kicked it against my breastplate to shove me away. I stumbled and fell, and the Loser Lord bored down on me like a wolf closing in on its prey. He brought his sword in low and aimed for my left armpit which was one of the only places my armor didn’t cover.
I rolled out of the way just in time, but my armor was too heavy for me to leap to my feet easily. Lucian was agile even while weighed down, and I had to roll away from him again before his next strike.
I tried to do a backroll back to my feet, but I couldn’t get my legs underneath me, and that gave Lucian the opening he was looking for.
Chime.
Lucian accepted the duel again and got armored up while my mind raced over what I had learned so far. He was just as skilled with the sword as with the shield, and both were deadly weapons in his hands. He liked to use overhead slices, but he also purposely aimed for the unarmored parts of my sword arm to try to disarm me. Where his sword might fail, the shield could knock me around as well as a club. If I took a blow to the head, I was done for.
Once the pageboy vanished, Lucian lunged forward. This was his first tactic, so I shuffled back and parried his overhead slice rather than meet him in the middle. I brought my shield up as soon as he lifted his own, but I wasn’t expecting him to come charging at me like a raging bull. The impact jarred my arm, and since I hadn’t braced myself against the ram, I was knocked off my feet.
It took Lucian less than a half a minute to pounce.
Chime.
I danced away as Lucian swung his blade down, and when he tried his ram tactic again, I was ready for him. I lifted my shield and waited until the last possible moment to leap sideways so that he charged right past me. I swung my sword at the back of his knees, but I missed, and my blade skittered across the armored part of the thigh.
Lucian used his momentum to turn around and come at me with another charge. Just before he slammed into me, he swung the shield up and smacked the edge into my head. While my skull bounced against both sides of my helmet, Lucian brought the pommel of his sword down on my right wrist.
My sword fell to the ground as my brain rattled in my head. I didn’t even feel the blow that killed me.
Chime.
Lucian attempted another overhead slash, and I blocked him with my shield and shoved him away before he could bring his shield up to my side. He didn’t stagger or anything, but when I lunged forward, he wasn’t expecting it. The parry from his sword was almost too late, and he shuffled back several steps to get some distance between us.
When he lunged for me, I darted to the right and tried to bash his head with my shield. He managed to avoid the attack by rolling, and I prayed that he would struggle to get back to his feet as I had.
No such luck.
The trained warrior sprang to his feet like a cat and turned around with his sword and shield at the ready.
He darted forward with a side slash, and I just barely managed to block it with my sword. When his shield came up to knock against my jaw, I threw my head back to avoid the blow. My helmet started to slip, and when I slapped it back down with my sword hand, Lucian sprang forward and sliced into my underarm.
I kept going in spite of the injury, but it slowed down my swings to the point that I couldn’t even go on the offensive. He eventually knocked the sword out of my hand and won the duel.
Chime.
I was getting better, but this was so much harder than I had originally thought it was going to be. My sparring lessons with Mahini had taught me the basics of my grip and stance with a single sword, as well as how to move my feet to keep from getting cornered. It was easy enough to remember and utilize when my enemies were brainless goblins that barely knew which end of the sword to hold. Most of the enemies I had killed up to this point had had no real skill with their chosen weapon. They had been a bitch to kill, but that was just because there were so fucking many of them.
The few humans I had killed when I first arrived in this world hadn’t been anywhere near as skilled as Lucian, even if they had proven difficult at first. From what I knew about this world, humans were the only creatures that could actually understand complex things like battle tactics and combat which made them even more difficult to defeat. Plus there was the whole moral quandary about killing my own kind that I had to wrestle with each time.
Lucian couldn’t learn and respawn as I could, but he had been trained to read his opponent like a book, and if I didn’t step up my game, I was going to be at this forever.
The Loser Lord had two favorite shield tactics, and that was where I was lacking, since I didn’t really train it with Mahini. The shield bash was his go-to, and he really liked to rattle my brains or attempt to break my ribs through my armor. When that failed, he would put some space between us and try to ram me. While that was easy enough to dodge on the surface, he was clever enough to improvise and mix the two tactics by surprising me with a shield bash as he rushed forward like he was going to ram me.
I’d never really guessed how badass shield combat was. Whenever I’d played Dungeons & Dragons or video games, the shields just added a bit more armor, and it was almost never worth it to carry one when you could just have another sword or dagger in the off hand, but Lucian really was awesome with his shield, and I was picking up a lot of his tactics through these fights. One thing was for sure: shields were awesome, and after I killed this asshole, I was going to make sure I found a teacher that was really good at using them.
I did feel like I was better at my sword than the Loser Lord, though. His blade tactics were pretty generic, and they were kinda slow. He liked the overhead blow, of course, but he could use that pommel like a hammer to disarm me or dent my armor with enough consistent blows. And if he ever found an opening, he would slice at my underarms or across my thighs to wound or disable me entirely, but
it wasn’t like he was amazing with the weapons.
It was really all about his shield tactics.
I lost track of how many times he killed me, but I learned from each battle. Lucian was highly trained, and that meant he made very few mistakes. He rarely left himself unguarded, and he was much more agile in his armor than I was in mine. But he wasn’t perfect, and while I wasn’t able to get through his physical defenses, I learned that once he was frustrated, he started to make more reckless decisions and stopped using his shield as much.
“I accept your challenge,” Lucian said yet again.
The rules were laid out and the pageboy signalled the beginning of the duel, just like he had over a dozen times already.
Lucian sprang at me, and I shuffled backward to avoid the blow. He followed up with a wide swing with his shield, but I dodged back some more to keep some distance between us.
Lucian’s men jeered at me from where they stood, and I could just see the glint in his eyes at their support.
I caught his sword on my shield when he came in swinging, and when I jabbed at his inner thigh, he leaped out of the way. I sprang after him with a sideways slice of my sword and immediately followed it up with a thrust of my shield.
Lucian parried my sword, as I was expecting, and met my shield thrust with his own shield. The thud of metal meeting wood sent a vibration through the air like a hummingbird flying over our heads. He grunted with the effort of holding me back.
“I admit, you have some skill,” the Loser Lord growled. He was close enough that I could see the light reflecting off his eyes inside his helmet. “But skill alone will not save you!”
He shoved me back with the shield and was probably hoping I would stumble, but I had already faced that move several times and knew how to shift my weight and turn my feet to hold my ground. Lucian growled as he swung down at me, and when I deflected with my shield, he spun around and tried a powerful sideswipe.
I danced away from him and let him come charging at me like an enraged bull. I couldn’t see his face very well through the grating of his helmet, but I imagined his face was like a snarling beast. Maybe his blacksmith should have made him a helmet like the Hound’s from Game of Thrones.
“You fight like a coward!” Lucian roared at me as I danced away from him yet again.
“Awww,” I snickered. “That hurts my feelings.”
“Stand and face me, fool!”
“I’m just letting you do all the hard work,” I replied with a shrug, and then I parried with my sword when he swung at me again. “There, happy?”
“I’m going to gut you.” He growled again and dropped his shield to open up his other hand.
Hell, yeah. This was super good. I was going to be able to cut him into sashimi if he didn’t have his shield.
His sword had a slightly longer grip than mine, and by using a second hand, he was able to get so much more force behind his blows. He even pulled some kind of weird flourish where he swung the sword and then pressed his other hand down on the pommel to bring the blade swinging back around.
I barely managed to deflect that with my shield, and the impact knocked me off my feet.
Aww, shit. Okay, at least I knew I could get him to drop his shield. I just had to be ready for him to go berserker afterwards.
“That was a pretty cool trick,” I admitted as the Loser Lord closed in on me.
Chime.
I kept Lucian at a distance as before, and it was delightful to see how easily his temper got away with him. I knew that he was skilled enough to win most of his battles, but most of his opponents were probably normal men, and that I was not. Because of my ability to reset time, I could spend all day getting to know his every move until I could read him like a picture book.
Time was irrelevant for a god like me.
When Lucian dropped his shield this time, I lunged forward with a stab to his exposed underarm before he could get a good grip on his sword. He was quick to realize my tactic, but he sprang backward to avoid the blade. He swung his own sword upward, and when I dodged backward, he hit the pommel with his other hand to bring the sword back down at a different angle.
I managed to leap back in time to avoid it, and when I landed, I kept the weight on the balls of my feet and sprang forward again. I caught my opponent off-guard, and I feinted for his arm before dropping the sword low for a stab to his inner thigh.
The ripping of the thick padding was the greatest sound I had heard all day.
Lucian howled in pain and leaped away from me as droplets of blood flew through the air and landed on the trampled grass around us.
“That will be the last time you cut me,” Lucian growled as he charged forward again.
“I don’t know,” I said as I got ready to dodge. “That was so much fun, I might have to do it a few more times.”
His two-handed attacks became more aggressive, and even with the slice to his leg, his stance remained as strong as ever. He was still unprotected by his shield, but now he was expecting me to try to slip closer to cut him again.
In the end, I was too slow to dodge an upward strike, and he knocked my helmet off my head. I watched his blade circle back down to cleave my head into two.
Chime.
I lost count of how many times I got him to drop his shield and then attacked him. I knew I was past fifty because that one was the first time I managed to roll back onto my feet when Lucian knocked me down, but I couldn’t clearly remember each individual attempt. They all blurred together in the end into a single feeling of lasting several lifetimes. I still didn’t think he was that much better with his sword than I was, but he was in way better shape than me, and I was normally breathing heavy by the time we got a few minutes into the fight, so I made a mental note to get some serious fitness training in when I finally beat this boss.
“I accept your challenge,” Lucian said after yet another respawn. He looked as confident as ever as he leaped off his horse’s back, and I looked forward to wiping the smug look off his face once and for all. “There must be rules in place to protect the winner.”
“Swords and shields only,” I recited for the millionth time. “Loser’s side has to back off and accept defeat.”
Lucian scowled at me but agreed to my terms. He was armored up and ready within a few minutes, and after the pageboy signaled the beginning of the duel, he lunged forward with an overhead swing.
“Can’t you be more original, dude?” I was so tired of the tactic by that point that I just flicked my wrist to parry his sword. “That only worked the first time.”
“First time?” Lucian questioned. “We’ve only just begun our duel!”
“Oh, never mind,” I grumbled as I easily parried another swing.
The Loser Lord snorted and came at me with his shield up for a good ramming, but I saw the way he held his sword and the way his dominant foot was twisting. It meant he was going to feint with the shield and try to stab me through the right armpit.
I tightened my grip on my sword, and when his shield came up to disarm me, I spun away from him and smacked his blade away with my shield. Before he could recover, I darted in and sliced at his leg.
He managed to wiggle away from my attack at the last possible second, and when he swung his sword again, it was more of an attempt to get me to back up than an actual attack. He flailed it around a few times until he had recovered his stance, and then he started to circle me.
“What are you, a vulture?” I taunted as I matched him step for step. “I’m not dead yet, genius.”
The helmet on his head hid his facial expression, but I had to imagine that he was glaring at me. He lunged forward with another overhead slice that I easily blocked, and when his shield came up for a sideswipe, I kicked it away from me. He stumbled with the blow before he sprang away from me again.
I could tell I was beginning to frustrate him. He circled me for a little longer than the last time, and it was like he was trying to get a read on me.
“
Any day now,” I said and mimed looking at my watch, but they didn’t have watches in this world, and I supposed the gesture was lost on the Loser Lord. “I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life staring at your ugly mug.”
Lucian charged forward with a snarl, and when he swung his sword, it seemed to be coming from every angle. I had already fallen to this attack, so I was able to parry the blows with a back and forth with bored gestures that only seemed to piss the Loser Lord off even more. He swung his shield up to try to catch me on the jaw, but I’d seen that move two-thousand times, so I threw my head back at the right moment. Then he tried a pommel bash on my sword wrist, but I drew my arm out of reach and let out a little giggle when he screeched.
I ducked down as his right arm continued its trajectory, and I sliced at the fleshy part of his thigh that was unprotected by armor. The skilled fighter let out a roar of pain as the padding tore, and he leaped away from me as blood splattered the ground.
But I didn’t give him a chance to recover.
I took a page out of his book by swinging my shield at his head. He was able to bring his own shield up to deflect my blow, but it was a feeble attempt, and when he lowered it again, I head butted him like I was a rhino.
I heard something crack, and he collapsed to the ground as his helmet rolled away from him.
“Any last words?” I placed the tip of my sword at his throat as the heat of victory swelled in my chest.
Fuck, yeah. Finally.
“I will be avenged,” he spat, and his gray eyes were filled with the deepest loathing.
“Worst villain speech ever.” I plunged my sword down and listened to the gurgling as blood bubbled from the wound. The cheering from behind rose to a fevered pitch as I lifted my blade above my head.
“Lucian is dead!” I shouted as I turned toward my town. “Addington is safe!”
There was nothing left for me out in the field. I figured the Duke of Bullard would want his son’s body returned to him, so it wasn’t like I had to stay behind and help the soldiers bury their leader. The men were already packed up and ready to leave, although they now had a riderless horse in their midst, didn’t they.