Chapter 37 - What Is the Spell's Medium?

“Where did you learn that footwork?”

Ragna asked the question out of nowhere on the fifth today. You taught me, of course.

Encrid couldn't tell him the truth. “I've attended more than twenty swordsmanship schools.”

Some of their instructors had been little better than swindlers, but plenty had taught him properly. “Hmm.”

Ragna nodded. As Encrid moved using the footwork Ragna had taught him, Ragna's face grew animated. He was enjoying himself. Objectively speaking, Ragna wasn't a great teacher. He couldn't be.

A genius couldn't see the ground beneath his own feet. That made it difficult to teach someone the path he'd taken. How was he supposed to explain something you simply did? He thought that if he told someone to swing a sword down, they should simply swing it down. He didn't explain the footwork or shifts in weight required in between. No, he couldn't explain them.

He was the worst possible sort to open a swordsmanship school. Encrid had realized that on the first today. But that was fine.

If the teacher was terrible, the student just had to be good. In that respect, it would be fair to call Encrid the best on the continent. “Where do my feet go? Which way should my toes point?” “Do I have to explain even that?”

His tone wasn't reproachful. He was genuinely curious. “Yes.” Ragna explained which way his toes should point, corrected his stance, and demonstrated his own. His stance was a textbook example of the fundamentals. Anyone with a discerning eye would have drooled over such talent.

Simply watching him demonstrate it again and again helped Encrid. “What about my center of gravity?” “Yes, that's the right timing.” Encrid asked, and Ragna answered. Through twelve repetitions of today, Ragna taught him nothing but footwork and stances. “Stance and footwork first. The basics come next.” “You do manage a decent swing once in a while.” “That wouldn't even split firewood.” “If that last downward strike kills an enemy soldier, thank him three times for being kind enough to die.” “Was that... were you dancing just now?” “It was a dance, then. Since you were holding a sword, I suppose I should call it a sword dance, but I'd rather not. Let's call it the stick dance.” Ragna delivered his barbs in a soft, measured voice. 'Was this bastard always like this?'

Rem had been a far gentler teacher. Sometimes Ragna said things that made Encrid wonder whether he'd lost his mind, but Encrid was satisfied all the same. Every day felt like breaking out of an egg and being born anew. Around the time they began diagonal cuts, Ragna said, “The line connecting you and the opponent facing you is called the line of attack. It's usually the shortest distance between two people, as well as the path a weapon travels when attacking.” “Blocking your opponent's line of attack and extending your own is another fundamental. You understand? I don't think you do. Ah, is this one of those cases? You understand it in your head, but your body won't cooperate?” “Let me rephrase that, Squad Leader. Only your mouth understands.” Ragna was incapable of teaching without throwing in barbs. Encrid learned and learned. Twenty todays passed. Then twenty-five. “... I thought your fundamentals were abysmal, but you do know how to use your feet.”

He heard that on the thirty-fifth today. By then, Encrid's routine had changed a little. He no longer died as soon as the fog appeared. He dodged the first spear thrust, then charged in and died. Spears often stuck out of his body like a hedgehog's spines. It was a pretty good method. A single spear sometimes missed, after all. Why pull the spear back when he was charging in asking to be killed?

He understood, of course. Anyone would be bewildered to see a man suddenly rush at them begging for death. When a thrust missed its mark like that, he had to spend an hour writhing before he died. It was an almost unbearable succession of pain, one horrific moment after another. Each time, Ragna called out to him or shouted. “Squad Leader!” “You lunatic!” “Hey!” Later, he was sometimes so frantic that all he shouted was “Hey!”

Encrid made the most of every today. “Your stance is better than I expected.”

He improved little by little. With every change, Ragna furrowed his brow. “But just yesterday, you were clearly...”

Sometimes he muttered things like that. “... What did you learn, and where?” Around the hundredth today, Ragna said, “Who are you?” Encrid looked at him, wondering where that had come from. “You were a complete mess yesterday. How could you do this in a single day? Is it magic?” Ragna was astonished. Encrid burst out laughing at the sight. “Why? Am I a little better than you expected?” “Not a little. Enough to make me wonder if you're really our Squad Leader.” There was genuine suspicion in Ragna's eyes. This was the troublemaker squad, after all. Ragna was an oddball too. “So you're not going to teach me?” “That's not what I said.” Still looking uncertain, Ragna began again.

After that, Encrid swung his sword against an imaginary sparring partner. The concept of the line of attack, how to grip a sword, how to use it for defense. “With a good-quality sword, you can block with the flat. Otherwise, use the edge.” “Slashing, stabbing, and slicing. Those three are the basics. Your footwork and stance aren't bad, so focus on practicing those three fundamental sword techniques.” Ragna taught him many kinds of footwork: advancing, passing, closing in, evading, circling sideways, turning, and making a wide turn.

Just memorizing them made his head spin, but with practice, they too became somewhat ingrained. However untalented he was, constant one-on-one instruction from someone this skilled brought improvement. Even if those gains were too slight for a genius to notice, each brought Encrid fresh exhilaration. “Picture an opponent in your mind. Then swing.” CLANG! He kept learning through dozens of todays.

Diagonal cuts, binding blades in a bind, winding strikes, angled cuts, high horizontal cuts, strikes beside the eye, cuts to the crown, counterstrikes, half-sword fighting, parrying, deflecting, combination strikes, closing in, and pressing the edge against a target to slice. As time passed, the barbs grew less frequent. “Better than I expected. Where did you learn to bind blades?” “One of my old instructors drilled the bind into me until I thought I'd die.” “Excellent.”

Ragna said he was satisfied with that. Encrid adopted the same approach when learning other techniques. “At my last school, they kept saying my high horizontal cut was a mess. If you're going to teach me swordsmanship, that would be a good place to start.” “... I'm the one teaching, but you seem to have come with your lessons already planned.” “Not exactly.” When he shrugged, Ragna gave him a brief test, then soon agreed with him. “Let's do that.” Ragna would never know it, but after teaching Encrid through numerous repetitions of today, he would judge the results good enough and move on. Each time, Encrid advanced to the next lesson. Today repeated, sweat drenching him beneath a roof of blazing sunshine. Someone else might have grown sick with boredom. Not Encrid. Then, around the two-hundredth today... “Hmm?” He opened his eyes to a black river. What was going on?

He could see the ferryman, his eyes covered. Encrid didn't see his mouth open, but the voice rang clearly in his ears. “Are you insane? You keep going willingly to your death? You dull-witted fool.” The ferryman's tone was unremarkable. His words were anything but. Before Encrid could answer, he woke from the dream.

Once again, the familiar today. Encrid lay motionless with his eyes open, lost in thought. “Have a wet dream or something? What are you doing?”

Beside him, Rem spouted something fit to come from a yapping dog. Ignoring him, Encrid sat up. 'Let's just say he wanted to call me crazy.'

Even if he wanted to ask why, he had no way to do so. There was no point dwelling on a question that no amount of thought would answer. Encrid got up. “Know anything about spells?”

Rem whipped his head around. “Spells?” “Tell me whatever you know.” Every time the fog appeared, Rem said something about spells. He had to know something.

Until now, Encrid had been too busy drilling the fundamentals of swordsmanship, but he finally had some room to spare. The training had become ingrained. His skills had improved enough to astonish Ragna every time, too. He hadn't tested them yet, but one thing was certain: he could feel that he was better than before. “A spell's a spell. What else would it be?” “Tell me what you know. Sounds interesting.” Encrid didn't normally start conversations like this. Rem grinned and began. “What's brought on this curiosity? All right. Hmm, I'll keep it simple. Know the difference between magic and spells?” “Magic's more common.” Though rare, mages did turn up from time to time. But spells? Even after wandering all over the continent, Encrid had never seen one. They were that rare. “You're not wrong.” As he spoke, Rem tidied his bedding. He roughly rolled up his blanket, shoved it aside, pulled on his boots, and went outside. Encrid followed. It was the same today. He didn't find it tedious. Whatever kind of today it was, it would simply be another enjoyable one for Encrid. As he followed him out, Rem continued. “Spells need a medium. I know magic sometimes needs a medium too, but for spells, sacrifices or a medium are reeeeally important. Without them, you can't even get started.” “Did your tribe use them too?” Rem came from the western frontier. It had become a frontier for settlement because the Empire in the central continent had won the war. Before that, the West had belonged to other peoples.

That was over a hundred years ago now. By now, it was firmly established as the western frontier, and its peoples had been incorporated as one of the recognized ethnic groups. People still called them barbarians when they wanted to disparage them, but in any case, spells had originated in the West.

That was common knowledge. “I've watched a few times. But did you know there are hardly any real shamans? The ones wandering the continent are all charlatans. Charlatans.” If Rem said so, then that must be how it was. Encrid nodded and went back to what he needed to do. “Where are you going?” “To train.” He met Ragna and honed his fundamentals again. Around the two-hundred-and-fiftieth repetition of today, Ragna said, “Were your fundamentals always this solid?” Ragna swept back his blond hair, his red eyes widening. “And it seems the longsword was your primary weapon to begin with.” Yes, that sounded right. He'd been training with this sword all along.

An odd thing: a sword already familiar to his hand. This was the first time Encrid had handled it, yet he had repeated this process so many times. That familiarity came from the repeated todays. “It's time for some real combat.”

Ragna said that after training ended. Encrid nodded in acknowledgment. “What are you two doing? We've been called to assemble.” Rem called them over. On the way back, Encrid got some bread through Krais and chewed it. He soaked the hard bread in water and forced it down, then got some jerky to eat as well. He checked his equipment and stood on the battlefield once more. As the longsword he'd traded with Ragna for swayed at his hip, Rem asked, “Didn't you say you paid a lot for your old sword?” “This one's more familiar.” “I've seen plenty of men switch weapons overnight and wind up dead.” Was that a curse or concern? “Worry about yourself.” He let out a breath and steadied himself. The heart of the beast gave him boldness, but he couldn't rely on that alone.

If he was going to test himself in real combat, it would be best to make it count toward “tomorrow.” Before the enemy came into view, Encrid considered what he knew. 'Spells need a medium.'

And that medium was vitally important. According to Rem, at least. What if the enemy had stayed in the tall-grass fields not to ambush them, but to conceal something? What if there was something they wanted hidden?

Encrid had already seen it. The flagpoles and flags. When they'd set that one tent on fire, hadn't the enemy been too busy putting it out to kill the intruders? Soon, the enemy came into view. A soldier from Third Squad standing right beside him frowned and muttered, spear in hand, “What's with that formation?” They were clustered around the flagpoles. The formation had no tactical value. Then its only value must lie in the spell.

Six flagpoles and flags jutted above the enemy ranks. They were the spell's medium. “Huh!” Fog spread, blotting out his vision. Well then, time to swim through this spell-made fog.

Encrid's ears twitched. It was time for the keen hearing he'd gained from Jaxon to take the place of his eyes.