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I didn’t particularly need to be involved in the older boys’ lesson, but it was a good way to be interacting with my kids without distracting them from their lessons. I couldn’t help Alden or Imtara in theirs as they were beyond my learning thus far in what they were doing. Anara would ask me if she wanted my help. But despite my little hellions being more advanced than I in bladework, I knew I could contribute to the lesson – and it was never a bad idea to get another lesson myself. I teleported to the gym.
Scimtar’s splinter was sparring with both of the boys simultaneously, while Asto’s splinter watched. The splinters were using titanium rods, while the boys were using practice blades sized for their smaller frames. Not that a real blade would hurt a splinter. The titanium rods, however, would inflict a nasty bruise or even broken bones – and such injuries happened regularly. Esteban and Ilras had been healing themselves from such injuries for years – the family believed it was necessary. As much as it clashed with my American upbringing, evidence was on their side. The boys were wearing head protection, but I knew from personal experience Scimtar could hit practically at will with the lighter titanium, and he would intentionally inflict broken bones or worse if he thought it necessary to drive home the lesson.
Since the boys were busy, I began by drawing my weapon and practicing parry-riposte drills with a drone. Dead boring – and absolutely necessary to keep muscle memory fresh, even for Guardians. Scimtar had produced a program that randomly mixed up the major drills. Contrary to the fevered dreams of fiction writers unfamiliar with actual swords, there were exactly eight basic guard positions or parries against point attacks, six against cutting attacks. There were variants on each, yielding parries versus circular versus active and a few others as well, but they were variations on the basic theme. More complex were responses to compound attacks, which began with a feint. However, you still had to move to parry the feint or the drone would hit you.
Similarly, there were only four basic thrusting attacks and three cutting, and although there was a choice of complicating maneuvers, from what Earth swordsmen would call degage to coupe to moulinet and others, and the possibility of feinting or turning an attack into a compound action, there remained only seven basic attacks. Start multiplying all the possibilities out and you’ll understand there are a large number of possibilities, and I haven’t even mentioned stop actions or counters yet, but you have to practice them all to keep them in muscle memory, and they really do spring from a comparatively small number of basic actions.
I winced as I saw Scimtar’s splinter disarm Esteban, hit Ilras across his forearm, and move back to strike Esteban on his protective headgear all in one smooth action. Ilras’ arm was broken, but he kept from crying out and transferred his blade to his off arm in time to parry Scimtar’s return stroke. I kept at my practice, pretending not to notice what had just happened, or Scimtar’s critique.
“You louts determined to waste all your mother’s hard work carrying and raising you? You’ve got to work together or a single opponent will use your inability against you, ending up in both your deaths! If you want to kill yourself, we can’t stop you but don’t get your brother wiped, too!”
I kept up my drills, pretending not to pay attention. Cut-parry-feint-thrust. Cut-parry-feint-thrust. Thirty repetitions of each drill, change to the other hand and repeat. Keep it engraved in muscle memory, so all I had to do was tell my muscles what program to follow, and they would do it. After thirty more repetitions, thrust to a new line, parry the riposte, feint a thrust, then turn it into a cut in different line. What Scimtar was doing to the boys might sound like abuse to some, and if we were back on Earth with no Great Families full of Sixth and Seventh Guardians for rivals, I’d probably have agreed with them. Not here. My children needed to be able to handle deadly threats before they were adults, in whatever way those threats presented themselves.
The boys had learned enough not to argue with their great-grandfather or his splinters. They’d get no sympathy from anyone else in the family, either. Esteban was helping Ilras heal himself while the two of them endured their great-grandfather’s admonishment. Their father’s splinter looked on in disapproval of their slipshod efforts. I studiously kept to my drills.
Scimtar’s splinter ended his tirade once Ilras’ arm was healed, and struck a guard position. “Asto, illuminate your offspring as to the nature of teamwork.” Asto’s splinter struck a guard position as well, parrying Scimtar’s first attack, a circling parry in what an Earthman would have called octave, which defeated Scimtar’s initial degage, flipped his sword up into a quartre riposte to Scimtar’s high inside line. The boys were slow off the line, but attacked Scimtar in the low outside and low inside as well. Scimtar enveloped Asto and Ilras’ attacks in quartre himself, retreating from Esteban’s attack. Esteban redoubled, Asto in turn bound Scimtar’s blade on his yielding parry, and Esteban scored a hit thanks to his father controlling Scimtar’s blade. “Better,” he admitted, “Now let the boys do it on their own. Go spar with your wife for a while.”
Thus encouraged, Esteban and Ilras renewed their assaults on the grandfather’s splinter. Asto’s splinter saluted me with titanium rod, I returned it, and we were off.
Actually, this was pretty much the only sparring I did with my husband – blade practice. If someone had told me how few arguments we’d have before I married him – on all of a day and a half of courtship – I would have probably laughed at them. But the bond we’d forged in that day and a half forty Imperial years ago was true. So long as we were in the same instance, we were in rapport with each other constantly, an unending string of wordless communication that told us both what we were feeling, what we were experiencing, what we were learning. It wasn’t the merging of identities into one that so many people on Earth blathered about before contact – it was the two of us growing together, becoming ever more strongly each other’s partner. I was me and Asto was Asto, but the bond helped us work out our differences before they ever exploded into conflict or fights. We’d had one serious disagreement in our forty (Imperial) years of marriage that got to the point of open debate, but even there the bond between us had left me no doubt my partner loved me and valued my opinion – he just happened to disagree on that particular issue. My husband might be stronger and more capable than I would ever be, but I was a real partner, his wife, the mother of his children, and someone whose happiness was essential to his own. If I resented being the weaker partner, all it would have accomplished was ruining something wonderful – it wouldn’t have made me any stronger, and it wouldn’t have made Asto any less than he was. So I concentrated on being me, and enjoying the miracle that was Asto and the partnership that we had.
The rules of bladework sparring were simple: blade only. You were allowed to use auros to plan, but no mindbolts or anything else. This wasn’t a duel; it was a test of our skills with the blade. The point continued until someone drew significant blood. When you could heal anything but brain function, lesser wounds might be painful, but they weren’t life threatening. You’d heal yourself and be good as new in a few seconds – maybe a minute or two at most. The ilestar floor covering would soak up any blood that fell, and as soon as the room was vacant, one of the little robots would be along to replace the ilestar. Clothes were just as replaceable. Head protection prevented practice weapons from doing anything that couldn’t be healed.
The point was that we didn’t hold back. Our family could use the same sword moves we’d use in a real duel, and do so in earnest. This meant no bad habits to break in a real duel, we wouldn’t be used to ‘holding back’. I had no reason to suspect that the other Great Families did anything different. Swordsmanship settled roughly a third of all Imperial duels. If you were reasonably matched mentally, greater sword proficiency gave you a real advantage. It wouldn’t balance out a large disparity in mental power – as I’d learned the hard way in my one duel – but it could be what allowed you to defeat an opponent that might otherwise have worn you down mentally. I had no intention of fighting any more duels – but sometimes circumstances gave you no choice. I’d learned that the hard way, too. Since I wanted to keep enjoying my husband and children for as long as the Lord allowed, I practiced with blades regularly.
Parry riposte parry riposte parry riposte, and ow! A hit on my wrist from the titanium rod meant momentary pain, and a bruise I’d be healing later, but no real injury. In a real duel, it might have been the opening for an opponent to win decisively before I could transfer my weapon to the other hand. A beat later, I re-started the engagement with a cut to his head.
Attack parry riposte remise parry riposte. He’d hit me several times before my blade nicked his elbow. Good! He acknowledged the touch, and we kept going. Unlike a real human, Asto’s splinter didn’t have blood – a splinter was a projection, not a real human body. Ordinary action with a sword didn’t damage them. Even in a duel with a real opponent, it would have been at most a minor annoyance – healed in a moment to negligible blood loss. But it felt good to have the acknowledgement that I’d gotten some of my own back. Good enough to trust me to take our kids to meet my family?
Copyright 2021 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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