The Best Training Is A Real Fight

I raised my spear. Feet shoulder-width apart, the shaft standing at a slant, my right hand a third of the way up from the butt and my left falling naturally toward the front of it. Then I levelled the point at Duho, because he was the strongest one here.

I settled into the stance and spoke.

“Come at me meaning to kill me. I will be doing the same.”

I looked over the squad of ten. The ones who met my eyes flinched, their shoulders shaking.

“If you want to go back with your bodies in one piece, you had better give it everything.”

Every man in Duho’s squad of ten swallowed. They were strung tight, no doubt on account of what I had been doing these past few days. I had killed the lieutenants, and I had taken a merchant’s head off besides. I had run about like a butcher, near enough, so that impression must have been driven deep into their heads.

A mad dog not to be touched.

With a man like that gripping a spear and spitting out murderous words, how could they not be tense?

But they will have to shake it off.

Fear is an excellent means of controlling the men under you, but in a real fight it is poison. A man who freezes up scared cannot bring out half of what he has. Naturally Duho, once the boss of a bandit gang, knew that perfectly well.

“Don’t go turning to jelly before the fight’s even started, you idiots!”

Duho laid into the backs of his squad.

— THWACK! THWACK!

“Ugh.”
“Guh.”

The ones he hit yelped and bent double at the waist. Duho went on talking, indifferent to it.

“If you don’t want to be carried off to the physician’s hall on the very first day, get your heads straight. What he just said — he means it.”

At Duho’s words the look in the men’s eyes changed. Realizing how serious this was, each of them took a fresh grip on his weapon.

That’s Duho for you.

He sized a situation up fast, and he could lead men. It had been the same at Blood Sand Plain: when a melee broke out, or an ambush turned the place into bedlam, he read it faster than anyone and found the best move. There were a fair number of fights we walked out of alive because of it. There was no telling how reassuring it was to have him on my side.

Though right now, for this one moment, he was the enemy.

“Form the ring and close slowly. Nobody goes in alone.”

At Duho’s order the men closed into a ring around me, then came slowly in.

A former bandit boss joined up with a pack of unorthodox-sect flunkies.

It might not be a bad combination at all. Both sorts made their living by the blade, and the ring they had thrown up was decent enough to show it.

Watching them close the distance, I measured it myself. Just as the spear was at the edge of its reach, Duho shouted.

“Kill him!”
“Waaaaah—!”

Duho and his men rushed me all at once. Swords, sabers, spears, every kind of weapon came flying in from every side until my eyes swam. An ordinary martial artist would have floundered, not knowing what to do first or where to block.

But not me.

It’s all far too familiar.

At Blood Sand Plain, many against one was an everyday thing. A weapon coming in from outside your field of vision was a given, and being surrounded was basic. I was the mad dog who survived ten years in that place.

I swung the spear around clockwise in a wide circle.

— Whooooosh!

The iron spear turned and gave off a heavy sound. With no internal energy behind it at all, its weight and the force of the spin still tore the air with a tremendous noise, and the men charging me stopped dead in fright.

The ring broke up, and a gap opened. I ran at the one standing there awkwardly, unable to get his stance back.

“Block him!”

Duho shouted it urgently. One of the men, flustered at the sight of me, hurried his saber up to block, but I was faster. Rather than thrust, I drove deep inside his guard and swung my left arm at his throat, left wide open.

— THWACK!

“Kurk!”

My left arm caught him square on the windpipe. He went up and away as though lifted, and rolled across the ground.

“Don’t panic — attack!”

Duho’s order seemed to put the fight back into them, and swords came flying in at me from both sides. The moment I saw them I threw my upper body back.

— Whish! Whish!

The blades grazed past above my chest. I went straight into the counter. As I came upright I locked the spear in my right hand hard against my waist and whipped my whole body around like a top.

— THWA-THWACK!

“Agh!”
“Gaaah!”

The ones who had attacked me took the shaft and were flung away. Three of them out of it in an instant, and the rest of the squad wavered.

“Wake up! What are you standing there gawping for! Form the ring again!”

Duho’s bellow finally brought the men round and they moved again.

But it was already too late.

The ring had been broken when there were ten of them; what were seven going to do? And I had no intention of letting them surround me again.

I took hold of the spear up at the tassel, the red horsehair under the spearhead, and swung it like a stick.

— WHUMP! THWACK!

“Kuh-huk.”
“Ugh!”

The men who failed to block caught the shaft in the belly and the head and rolled on the ground. It was as well I had the spear the wrong way round; the gap in skill was so wide that a slip could have hurt one of them badly for nothing.

The point was to make it like a real fight, not to kill anyone. So I worked through them one man at a time. I did not use anything so grand as a form. I simply swung the spear.

See? You can put a man down perfectly well without any peerless divine art.

“Uugh…”
“My leg…”

Groaning filled the space around me, and at some point the only man still standing was Duho. He looked around at his men sprawled on the ground, and the bastard let out a hollow laugh.

“Insane… However far off the pace they are, nine men can’t put one down.”

He looked at me with disgust on his face, and his lips moved.

He must have been a demon in a past life. Look how vicious his hand is.

It was absurd, Duho muttering away to himself like that.

Wrong, you bastard.

Not a demon. A mad dog.

He had no idea I could read lips… well, of course he didn’t. That was something from my past life, and had he known, he would naturally not have let me see his lips so openly.

I spoke to Duho.

“Come.”

— Crack. Crack.

Duho worked his neck side to side, loosening up.

“It won’t go like the Bound-Hand Duel last time, Young Master. I’ve come to a realization or two lately, see.”
“I look forward to seeing how much stronger you’ve got.”

I adjusted my grip on the spear and went on.

“But I’m not the same as I was then either. This time I’ve got a spear in my hand. It might be over faster than it was last time.”
“When it comes to a gift for making people’s blood boil, you’re a Peak master, you really are!”

Duho rushed me. From the very first movement he was different from the squad, circling me, working for my blind side. He knew exactly how to use his body, no question, and he was plainly going for close quarters, the spear’s weakness.

— Tat!

Duho kicked off the ground. He made no secret of wanting the distance closed, and I had no intention of handing it to him easily. I gave ground and spun the spear like a cartwheel.

— Whoooosh!

The iron spear drew a circle and walled off the space in front of Duho. He started and slowed his step, and brief as the hesitation was, it was all the signal I needed. I stopped the turning spear dead, stepped forward, and drove it out.

— Shhk!

Plain middle-level thrust though it was, the weight behind it was heavy. Duho twisted his body away in fright, and the point brushed past the hem of his clothes.

“Ugh, damn it! Young Master, you’re actually trying to kill me!”

Duho backed off in a cold sweat.

“I told you to come at it meaning to kill.”

I did not stop; I drove the spear in thrust after thrust. Like a snake running down its prey, my spear bored in after Duho.

— Whish. Whish.

Duho slipped two of the attacks and knocked the flat of the oncoming spear aside.

— DWAANG!

The spear twisted off line and split empty air. He did not miss the opening and drove straight inside my guard, plainly set on dragging the fight to close quarters.

That’s Duho for you.

The nerve on him. To knock an iron spear aside with a bare fist and come straight in.

He was not like the others. The squad’s men had gone down dithering, never even thinking of coming inside, while he came in without hesitating. That alone said his instinct for a fight was out of the ordinary.

That was how he had survived years at Blood Sand Plain, after all. But I had seen every kind of trouble there was myself, and I had expected him to come inside.

Instead of giving ground I stepped forward, and as I drew the spear back I struck Duho’s shoulder with the shaft.

— THWACK!

“Ugh.”

The blow to the shoulder cost him his balance and he staggered. Ordinarily that would have been the end of it, but Duho was different. He dropped his body low and planted a hand on the ground, then spun like a top and shot a leg out.

He was going for my shin.

It was his best shot, but he was using it on me. The two of us had sparred several hundred times over, and this attack was one of the patterns he leaned on.

— Tap!

I kicked off the ground, sprang up lightly, and let his leg pass under me. I saw the bastard’s face as the attack failed and he faltered.

Sorry about that. I was hardly going to take a hit I could see coming a mile off.

Still up in the air, I drove the spear straight down.

— BANG!

The point buried itself deep in the ground right beside Duho’s face. Earth and pebbles sprayed over him.

“Pth! Ptooey! I yield! I yield!”

Duho spat out the dirt that had got into his mouth.

“Good work.”

I put out a hand to Duho where he lay.

“That was my best shot. Didn’t think you’d dodge it.”

Duho took my hand and got up.

I drew the spear back and looked around. Every one of them was watching the two of us, and every last face wore the look of a man who had bitten into something foul. Nobody was dying and it only hurt a little; what they found so grave about it I could not say.

Just then a familiar voice sounded inside my head.

It’s been a while.

Lately I had barely heard the voice however much I trained alone, and I had not expected it here. Fighting a crowd instead of fighting by myself was what had done it.

As it happened, that suited me. I had squads of ten to fight until I was sick of it, and if the voice came with them, I would grow stronger that much faster.

Training really is best done like a real fight.

What had changed this time? Heart thumping, I gave the spear a light swing.

— Foom! Foom!

My strength has gone up.

The spear felt a little lighter. Without internal energy behind it the iron was still a burden, so stronger muscle was welcome news. If I kept getting stronger like this, one day I would handle an iron spear the way I handled a wooden one.

I was already looking forward to that day, and eagerness welled up in me.

I wiped the sweat off and spoke to Duho.

“When the lads come round, drill the fundamentals. Next squad, step up.”

The squad of ten I looked at next flinched. Glancing at one another, they came toward me slowly, hesitating with every step, dragging their feet as though they were in fetters.

I tightened my grip on the spear and spoke.

“If you are not here by the count of three…”

Before I had finished, the next squad of ten had all arrived in front of me. The way they fell into a single rank and came to attention showed how thoroughly the discipline had been drilled in.

One show of force and they listened beautifully.

“We begin.”

The words were barely out before the squad of ten pulled miserable faces and raised their weapons.