“You’re a bad master” I yelled. I was bandaged in almost all the places of my body and had taken those instant pain killing syrup more than five or six bottles. We were doing a basic combat. As soon as I went to the training ground Eva became a bad master. The training ground was a little larger than the football ground. I ran twenty rounds around it, 100 pull-ups from a branch of the tree that dangerously creaked with every pull-ups I took and 200 push-ups in the centre of the ground. At least I thanked the God for giving me the training time at night. If it had been afternoon, I would have been dead by now. After doing these many exercises I didn’t even get a single glass of water. With every push-ups and pull-ups I shouted
“This is too much Eva! Too much!”
“I told you it would be hard” she said casually.
“But this is not hard. This is making me insane!” I said. When all my energy had been drained from my body, Eva said
“Take your cavalry sword and come stand here.”
“Can I get a glass of water? At least a half? My throat is burning.”
“No, Oliver. While you are in the war nobody will give you water. You should learn to control your thirst, hunger, pain. And sometimes you should control your fear also.” She said (This is not the first time she was saying this. This is the tenth time she is saying this) I cursed her and took my cavalry sword and stood in the place where she told me to stand.
“Always remember. Stay stiff. Don’t lower your guard. Be fast. These three things should be your motive always. Okay, first let’s learn the basic attack. This attack is called ‘Oberhau’ or Strike the head attack. Put your left foot front. Keep it stiff. Slightly bend both your knees. Balance your body weight on both your legs. Hold your sword at shoulder level. Like this” she showed the position and I copied it.
“Okay. You’re good. Now, first step is to come closer to your opponent. Put your right foot a little diagonally to your right. Then swing your sword above the opponent’s head” she said. I did as I was told. Now I was closer to Eva. But she was a little taller.
“Good. Now you’re in the striking range. Lower your sword exactly at your opponent’s neck. Okay. Now I’m your opponent. Perform this attack on me but don’t take my head off my neck” I took position. I did the attack with amazing speed and correctly. The sword went straight to Eva’s neck. But she was faster than I was. She ducked. Then she exhaled like she was relieved.
“Okay. Good. Let’s learn some other techniques.” Then she taught me many attacks like lunge, feint, flick, beat attack, remise and a thrusting attack as offensive ones. As for defense I learned to parry, riposite, circle parry in which we can disarm the opponent and many other moves.
“By combining the correct pair of offensive and defensive attacks, we can create a deadly combo, like you combine the lunge and riposite. You move forward, let your opponent swing his sword and then you use parry to strike your opponent. Always remember that this everything happens in one or two seconds. So you should be lightning fast” she said. Then we entered into combats. In the first battle we took our positions. When the combat started I lunged at her using the first technique I learnt. But she used her sword to defend mine and pushed me with great force that I stumbled backward. Before I could gain my balance she charged at me and hit her sword’s flat blade on my head. With that I attack I almost fainted. Like this we almost battled ten times. I lost every battle. I was disgusted at me. At last I couldn’t take more insult and I sat on the ground. She said
“It’s alright. You’ll learn. In fact your speed is increasing and you are becoming strong. You are using your techniques also nicely. You make simple mistakes. We can solve them.”
“Simple mistakes! Those simple mistakes can kill me in the war. I won’t have time to solve them” I yelled. “I should not have come here. I’m not the person. Maybe you should have brought Nielson or Crimpson here. I’m not the right person” I sobbed. Eva sat beside me and said
“Don’t be so hard on you Oliver. This is the first day of your practice and you are doing great. No soldier, I trained had lasted more than a minute in their first day of their practice. But you lasted more than five minutes in the last battle that we fought. See, I have been practicing sword fights for more than four years. But you haven’t practiced them more than 4 hours. Then how can you expect to defeat me. You are excelling in this but now you are tired. Go have some food and go to our tent. I’ll join you later.” Then I steadied my mind and asked
“When is the training tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow morning, after breakfast.”
“No, we should practice earlier. I’ll come here at 4 am and do my exercises. You come at 5 am. Okay?”
“Okay. Now go.” I went and had some food and went to the tent and lied down on my cot. The time seemed to be 9 or 10 pm. It was hard to keep track of the time. I was still angry about that day’s practice. I decided to use that anger tomorrow during practice. Suddenly my anger turned to Eva. Some part of my mind said ‘she could have beat you a little slowly. Why did she give you such a hit? Tomorrow when you get your chance kill her’ it said. Then some other part of my mind said ‘Don’t listen to him Oliver. He is spoiling you. Eva is your friend. If she had thought, she could have killed you today.’ I was confused. It was like, after coming to the past my mind has split into two parts and had started arguing. One was my own mind that used to guide me in the future. The other one, I guess, was Carlo’s. But Carlo would never tell to kill Eva. Then the thoughts about my family and friends came. I didn’t want to think about them. Whenever I thought about them my anger would be gone. Then my eyes closed and I fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up sharply at 4.00 am. I thought it was 4.00 am because the sun had not come up and it was still dark outside. Then I saw that Eva’s bed was empty. I thought she would have gone to the infirmary. I took my weapons and went to the ground. The weather was cool. A slight breeze was blowing. It seemed a correct time to practice. In the center of the ground I spotted a small figure. Then I realized that it was Eva. I went to her and asked
“Hey, what are you doing here? I told you to come at 5o’clock.”
“Thought, I could help you.”
“Okay. Tell me what should I do” I asked. She said the same training that I had done yesterday but today I did all the exercise without complaining. After that I practiced all the sword techniques. Then when the sun began to rise, we entered into combat. At that time all the soldiers began to come out of their tents. We took our positions. All the soldiers gathered around the ground yelling
“Come on, Eva. Come on, Eva”
“Show them who you are” Eva said to me in a whisper. Then the combat started. For some time I kept backing away. When I reached the end of the ground, the first hit came from her. She went for the head but I blocked her attack and pushed her back. A roar erupted in the crowd. “Not bad” she mouthed. Then I charged at her. Then suddenly my body became an involuntary muscle. I charged, hit, hit again and blocked. She tried to give me a side kick but I ducked. Then I made a small mistake. I tried to duck but she was fast. I escaped her side kick and got caught in her sword’s hilt. The hilt hit me between the eyes. I fell. The crowd cheered. Then again the same voice that had talked to me the previous night said ‘Kill her. She has insulted you. Kill her.’ Then another voice, the good one, said ‘No Oliver. Don’t listen to him. Eva is your friend’ but I was too angry to listen to the good voice. With all my effort I stood up. Anger flowed into my veins. I charged with full speed and hit her in the face. Actually at first I brought the sharp end of the sword to her face. If it had hit her, her face would have been halved. But fortunately at the last moment I turned the sharp end into the flat end. It hit her with such force that she literally flew a little distance and fell down and she couldn’t get up. I had won. The crowd roared and they ran into the ground and lifted me. They threw me up and down. Then finally they set me down and went to prepare for the day. I went over to Eva who was still down. She lied down in the same way she had been when I first found her. It seemed like years ago. A big cut was made in the side of her face.
“Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean to... Did that hurt?”
“Don’t feel. But that was a little extra force. But, no problem. You have won me.”
“Sorry” I said again. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t put that much force in that attack. I did it because of my anger. It was like the sword had given me some energy.
“It’s okay. It is a small cut. The infirmary people can heal me. Well, now go have your breakfast and in the afternoon we train to horse ride and one more thing tonight the king will test you” she left that comment to sink in. My stress level increased.
