And Now with Both

Swoosh

Kieran pushed her straight thrust to the side, clear off his body. He noticed that the usual noise when steel meets steel was different and turned his body instinctively to the side. Kieran felt a sharp pain in his left upper arm. A quick glance informed him that something had slashed him. The wound itself wasn’t of much concern, as it already began to heal itself. The bigger mystery was from what he got the cut, as he clearly parried her sword. Kieran looked at the opponent’s weapon, which was slowly receding. Sophia hopped back a few meters, seemingly effortlessly. That’s when he noticed that surrounding the young woman was a thin layer, which looked kind of warped. The same was around her weapon, only more distorted.

“Huh,” Kieran said slightly impressed, “First time I’ve seen magic like this.”

“So, you noticed?” Sophia remarked with a grin, “Well, noticing alone will not be enough to stop me.”

She hopped forwards again and closed way more distance, than her body movement would suggest. Caught slightly off guard, Kieran’s only move was to raise his sword in a quick guard against the oncoming slash.

Swoosh

Again, he stopped her blade and felt the impact, but something was off. It did not feel like steel on steel, and it definitely did not sound like it. A sharp pain in his right shoulder this time informed him that he was hit again. Kieran pushed his arms up, flourished his sword around and attacked with a wide horizontal swing, while retreating a step.

Clank

This time he definitely hit something hard, but it was not Sophia’s sword. Two fist-sized rocks had shoved their way between his sword and her body. Sophia sword flashed up from the other side. Kieran managed to wind his sword from the rocks and parried.

Swoosh

Like before he managed to stop the blade but the magic energy surrounding the sword seemed to have moved through his guard and gave him a shallow cut across the collarbone. A thrust to his chest was next. Kieran jumped backwards instead of trying to parry. This time there was no impact and no invisible force cutting a new wound. But there was no time to think about this right now, as Kieran noticed Sophia’s free hand making a gesture and a split-second later flames were shooting towards him.

Giebel, the mare, was standing a few meters behind Kieran. She had watched them two fighting only with mild interest, while grazing. Her position, however, meant that dodging the oncoming fire beam was risky, as he didn’t know how much control Sophia had over the flames once they were on their way. So instead of getting out of the, Kieran decided to take the attack head-on. He held his left arm out and the inscriptions on it began to glow brightly. The flames came closer and touched his outstretched fingers. His whole arm got covered in the flames. Kieran felt the pain of his skin getting burned and simultaneously healed back up. He held his arm outstretched until all of the flames got enravelled around his arm, then he just swung it to the side, as if he wanted to beat the fire out. To Sophia’s astonishment it really got snuffed out, but not without leaving some damage. Kieran’s whole arm was black, except for the inscriptions that still shone brightly, and it was just hanging by his side.

“Guess I’ll have to take this at least somewhat serious…” he said in a low and menacing tone, while raising his sword with the still intact arm, “Get ready!”

Inscriptions all over his body began to glow and Sophia felt the magic emanating from him. Then he was suddenly gone, vanishing into thin air. Sophia quickly extended the magic field around herself outward in anticipation of what would happen.

Swoosh

She was just in time. Kieran, who had appeared to her left side had swung his sword one-handed in a vertical arc, aiming directly for her chest. If not stopped by her magic, she would have been chopped in half by now. Sophia noticed that he wasn’t completely stopped. The inscriptions on his arm glowed as Kieran pressed his sword through the magic field slowly. Sophia quickly turned her body, bringing her sword in front and retracted her spell back into a thin layer. Kieran’s weapon was free and continued in its path.

Clank

Their swords met, this time steel on steel. Sophia was just barely able to withstand the power that was left in his one-handed swing. They purple in Kieran’s eyes intensified as he stared at her with cold eyes. He stepped forward and swung his sword around for a slash to the other side. Sophia stepped back, scrambling her sword to the other side for a parry.

Swoosh

This time she had concentrated the magic field around her sword, making it easier to block and not only that. A cut appeared a split second later on Kieran’s chest. Sophia allowed herself to smirk a little for landing that blow while parrying. Kieran smiled as well. They started a series of swings against each other. Both with one hand. They alternated between attacks and subsequent parry. Their movement seemed matched, the only difference was that cuts appeared on Kieran’s body while Sophia still remained unharmed, but the most recent wound on him kept getting shallower and shallower.

Swoosh

Another one of Sophia’s attacks got parried by Kieran followed by a weird twist of his body accompanied by a sidestep. No new cut appeared on him. Kieran’s smile grew wider, while Sophia had long lost her smirk. She quickly formed a sign with her free hand and two rocks appeared flying at his face. With a retreating step Kieran swung at them and cut them in half in one motion. Sophia followed up with a bunch of small flaming balls. Kieran swatted them aside like flies, using his left arm again, which was just hanging limply to his side up until now. He lunged forward, swinging his sword diagonally from below with both hands now. Sophia barely got out of the way of this attack and scrambled to parry the follow-up one from above. She fired another barrage of rocks against him, but he sliced them up just like before. Kieran then started a flurry of attacks. Sophia had to concentrate fully on the defensive, leaving her no opening for another magical attack. She did manage to find some opening for a swing with her sword, but they got easily parried, and Kieran suffered no new cuts, despite her trying very hard.

Sophia began to breathe more heavily as the constant attacks took their toll on her stamina, yet Kieran showed no sign of slowing down. In a last-ditch effort, she intentionally let herself open for a thrust and he took it. Sophia pooled most of her magic beneath her feet, allowing her to dodge backwards, covering a lot of ground in a split second. Simultaneously she gestured a sign with her free hand and a pillar of flame erupted under where she just had been and Kieran still was. After finding himself completely engulfed in fire again he just made a sweeping motion with his left arm. Sophia was slightly terrified as her spell just got sucked up into his arm and the last flame vanished. The inscription glowed more brightly as Kieran went into position to thrust again. He lunged forward and practically flew across the distance separating them. Sophia focused all that she could in front to parry, but he vanished into thin air just before he reached her. Sophia quickly tried to expand her power again in all directions around her, but she was too slow. Something hit her in the back and she went flying. She landed headfirst in a patch of taller grass, cushioning her fall. Sophia rolled herself on the back and tried to get up, but a sword in front of her face stopped her. Breathing heavily, she looked up and saw Kieran standing over her, his body back in its regular state, with no glowing inscription and only some red line were the last remnants of her cuts.

“Dead,” he said, breathing completely normal, “Again.”