and laughing at Kovos, who was now starting to join in. The scene must have been too much for Keither, who gave a small chuckle and then put his hand on his side with a grunt. This elicited more laughter from all of them.
“Stop making me laugh! Ouch! It hurts! It’s not funny you guys,” Keither said.
It wasn’t that funny but the stress of the last few days was finally breaking, and Sasha could feel her anxiety leave as the fit stopped. Kovos was shaking his head, telling everyone just how much he hated them all, and that they would regret making fun of the flames and went back to teaching her.
“Oh my. Ok Sash, here’s what everything is named. Just try and remember, ok? On the blade there are a few parts. This first is the tip here, it’s called the Foible. Next is the mid-blade, then the forte is the part closest to the handle. Got that?”
“Foible, mid-blade, and forte. Got it.”
He pointed to the edges. “This edge, the one your knuckles are on, is the leading edge of the blade, and the other side is the false edge. The parts on either side are the flats.”
“Ok.”
“Now this cross part here is the cross guard, then the grip and the pommel. This whole part is the handle of the blade. Got it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Ok, good. Now we will go over how to hold the sword.”
“Ok.” For the next hour she learned how to hold the sword and the basic names of moves.
After that, Arkin brought a stop to it. She was getting into it. For some reason this stuff was interesting to her, and now she was beginning to understand a lot of the conversations she had with Legon growing up. He was always talking about “parry” this and “thrust” that, but she never really had known what he was talking about. She just smiled and nodded to be nice. She didn’t even remember hearing Arkin and Legon, who both were covered in sweat.
* * * * *
Arkin stood across from Legon. He was going to start learning better deflections so he could use his opponent’s momentum against him. The staves were perfect for this kind of training. They couldn’t take full blows without cracking, so this would force him to deflect with one sword and then strike with the other. Arkin came at him again and again, doing the same move until Legon would deflect it correctly and then he would move on to a new one. He’d been used to two-handed fighting before, but was never totally comfortable with it. You didn’t have as much power with just one hand, so someone could get an advantage with just pure strength, but he also knew that people who did know how to fight well with two swords usually won, so he would put in the time.
Arkin held one stave, and it was the same size of a standard hand and a half broad sword. He swung at his side, splitting the air with the sound of smacking wood, sending a vibration up the stave to his hand. Legon turned, catching the stave with one of his own and turning his back to it, using his body to help it make its way up and over him. This exposed Arkin’s side. As he did this he stabbed with the other hand, catching Arkin in the side. It felt awkward but was still effective.
“Good job, Legon. Now again, but less sloppy. Make it a more fluid movement.”
“Ok. Hey watch me do it on my own and tell me where I’m sticking.”
They continued until he was getting very good with the two-handed technique. He was good with one-sword combat, and in truth you didn’t use both hands a lot of the time, as you were constantly switching hands to help with endurance and to get your opponent off guard. All you needed to do was add in a sword on the other hand and for the most part you didn’t need to learn that many new moves, so it didn’t take him long to get the hang of it.
After they were done, Arkin took Sasha and him aside and began to teach them the Jezeer, which was basically learning how to master each muscle in your body. The hard part was isolating just one muscle. It seemed that you couldn’t move just one without all the others joining in. This training would be hard. The way they learned was