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Michael narrowly dodged a spear thrust from Crick and attempted to slam his shield down on top of it, but Crick swiftly pulled his spear back and attempted a follow-up stab. This time, Michael parried it with his sword before attempting to hit his face with its hilt. Crick pulled back his head sharply and brought up the butt of his spear toward Michael’s groin, but he quickly summoned a small shield that caught the blow and slowed it long enough for him to close his legs and twist his hips. Crick was unwilling to release his spear and so was dragged slightly off balance by the motion, and Michael tapped the back of his neck gently with the flat of his blade.

Crick shook his head, “That low blow almost always works.”

“If it hadn’t been for my shield, I’d be curled up in a ball crying right now,” said Michael, feeling a phantom pain where the blow would’ve hit just from the thought of it. He was glad he’d practiced putting the small shield there specifically. It wasn’t great for completely blocking powerful blows, but it could buy a bit of time, and that had tremendous value on its own.

“Where did you pick up that twist move?” asked Crick. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Pyotr. I watched him use it on the wall. It scared the shit out of me for a moment because I thought he was about to go down, but he just twisted the soldier’s spear away and cut him down.”

“He moves strange. Should be dead by now, to be honest.”

Michael shrugged. “We all should be.” He cracked his neck back and forth. “Up for another round?”

Crick shook his head. “These old bones need some rest.”

Michael sighed. He’d already sparred with all the others and was trying to take a break from practicing his magic that day. His channels were feeling raw from overuse. His recovery did seem to have a positive effect on his magicka as well, but it wasn’t to the same degree as everything else. Maybe he’d be lucky and get a Title or Deed that would boost his magicka later, but he supposed in order to get something like that he’d need to accomplish something magical. Titles and Deeds really seemed to favor specializing.

“I’ll have a match,” said a familiar voice from a few yards away.

Michael looked over to see Lance. The young man’s familiar dark hair, strong features, and smile on his face were all aimed at him. He seemed much improved from the last time Michael had seen him. There was still a touch of mania to his eyes, but they were less sunken, and his bearing more relaxed and confident, as it had been at the academy.

“Lance,” Michael said with a smile, placing his fist on his chest in salute.

Lance held up a hand. “None of that.”

Michael put his fist down. “What’re you doing here?” he asked.

“I have a special assignment I need to talk about with your commander, Bayle.”

“I can take you to him.”

He shook his head. “There’s no rush. I wanted to talk to you first anyway.”

“Oh?”

“I wanted to thank you. I was on a dangerous path after my brother was kidnapped. You gave me an out. I, and more importantly the men under my command, may have died had I continued.”

Michael shook his head. “You would’ve figured it out. You have a good head on your shoulders.”

Lance shook his head. “I’m not so sure.” He gestured at the sword Michael was holding. “I was serious about my offer of a match.”

Michael smiled and gestured to the weapon rack nearby. “Let’s do it then.”

Lance smiled and went to the rack, grabbing a practice sword and shield that matched Michael’s own, then he stood across from him with them at the ready.

Michael raised his own shield and started to circle. “Ready when you are.”

Lance moved quickly forward, opening with a powerful downward slash, Michael decided to see how much he’d improved and raised his shield to take the blow directly rather than deflect it.

The sword struck with even more force than Michael remembered, and he nearly buckled from the weight of it as it landed, his shield denting. He was so surprised he nearly took a full force kick to the chest from Lance, but he dodged around it at the last moment and swung his own blade for Lance’s chest.

Lance was also surprised and narrowly managed to step back from the blow.

Michael felt quicker, and stronger, realizing that his Baron Breaker Deed was activating thanks to Lance’s nobility. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to make it start bleeding and then began to slowly heal it so that he could activate both his Fort Healer and Wound Man boons granting him vastly improved durability and some improved awareness as well.

Lance attacked again, this time striking out in a wild flurry of attacks that Michael caught on his shield or parried. Even with all of his new abilities, his increased strength and experience, he still felt like he was struggling to keep up. He hadn’t been the only one to improve, it seemed.

Michael decided to try a few of the other new tricks he’d developed over the last week. He summoned some small orbs of light that he sent at Lance’s face to distract him, let a blow bounce off his summoned shield so that he could launch an attack of his own, and even made his hand glow with enough light to become blinding. All of those moves bought Michael time, and space and let him manage some blows, but all they did was level the playing field, and that was temporary.

Soon Michael was on his back foot, being pressed back further and further as they traded blows. He threw out a full-strength swing toward Lance’s midsection, and Lance threw a similar attack at the same time. Their blades collided and very suddenly shattered from the force of the blow. Small pieces of metal flew at both of them embedding in the skin of their arms and faces, one piece actually cutting the edge of Michael’s eye, causing it to bleed.

Lance was panting heavily as he dropped the hilt of his sword to the ground and started picking small pieces of metal from his arm.

“Guess we could call that one a draw?” he asked with a small smile.

Michael very carefully removed the small piece of metal from the outer corner of his eye before raising his hand and healing them both.

“Fair enough. You would’ve won if it had gone on any longer. Lucky for me, they only ever give the Penitents the most worn-down training equipment.” He said that, but he was fairly certain they hadn’t been in that bad of shape.

“I’m not so sure time was on my side. You’re barely breathing heavily.”

Michael shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, you only needed one good strike to end it. I was more likely to make a mistake than you were to run out of energy.”

He smiled. “No sense in debating who would’ve won.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll just assume it would’ve been me.” He stretched his hands a bit. “Hitting you is like striking solid rock. Your durability must’ve gotten monstrous.”

Michael chuckled a bit. It was good to see that Lance had regained some of his humor. It went well with his increased strength. Michael did a quick divining of him as he placed the hilt of his shattered sword and his dented shield back on the training rack. He could see that he was now the heir to two more holdings and had gained three Deeds as well. Had the holdings been those of his brother that had been captured? It would make a brutal kind of sense to transfer them to the sibling that was still in the field, but he hoped that his brother didn’t need that strength wherever he was.

“I can take you to Bayle,” said Michael, gesturing toward the corner tower.

“Lead the way,” replied Lance.

They walked across the field to the small tower that the Penitents called home. Inside was Bayle, and also, surprisingly, Jakub. They were in the middle of a conversation as they entered the room. There was a certain tenseness to the air, and Jakub looked uncomfortable about it, while Bayle was visibly angry, something which Michael had never seen from him before, even in the midst of battle.

“Ah, Knight-Lieutenant,” said Bayle, addressing Lance. “I’m glad you’ve decided to come in person to demand control of my assets to execute a plan I presented to the war council myself without me being involved. Would you care to give an explanation for that yourself, little dukeling? Or would you prefer to hide behind a letter from your father as your friend here has?”

Lance’s expression was unchanged, but he did pull a letter from a pocket within his jacket with a detailed wax seal on it. He held it out to Bayle, who took it with a sneering chuckle.

“That’s what I figured.”