How to fight dirty (1)

Once in the house, I started by dropping off the clothes in Edwoyn's room and the new equipment in the workshop. I thought this was a good time to give him a brief tour of our workspace. Not having crossed the threshold, he scanned the room with a puzzled look, not expecting to see so many threats in one place. It was even more crowded than in the weapons shop, which was intimidating for novices.

Weapons, most of them unregulated, filled the walls to the last inch, creating a shimmering play of reflections between the silver blades. To the sides, glass-door cabinets displayed firearms and a pair of dark suits.

A stool sat under a desk with a large work surface. There I prepared our drugs, maintained and tinkered with some weapons by the light of a magic lamp like those used in industry... If we opened the drawers of this desk, we would plunge our hands into a sea of copper-plated pieces collected here and there, the use of which I had not yet found.

Much tidier was the chrome sink next to the place of the cleaning tools kit. I had lost count of the number of times I had polished the iron chair in the basement with the sponge scraper, which had finally turned pink because of blood. I liked to make the evidence disappear while the bodies burned in the incinerator at the back of the room.

It meant another success for us.

You can imagine that this place was not lit by any windows. It was an oppressive atmosphere at first sight, but it turned out to be a refuge for tinkering. The workshop was a place I had total control over and where no one came to disturb me when I locked myself in...

“No need to lecture you, we store everything that is not magic here. If you have the bad idea to use the weapons against us, I will send His Highness for another ride on his iron throne in the cellar. Using weapons is not a game, now your aware.”

As the boy remained to admire our precious collection, I returned to pick him up and grabbed him roughly by the collar.

I led him to the training ground on our left as we went outside. It was blended into the forest: a large, sandy and rough area offering us a touch of privacy. All was quiet and flat, except for the presence of the display dummy I had brought out of the back of the horse stable and which now stood on an iron rod in front of us.

I would begin by teaching the prince the rules of unfair combat and then we would move on to practice. For this purpose, I brought two wooden sticks we would use as swords.

Before we began anything, I said “Forget everything your previous weapon master taught you, mercenaries do not play at the same playground as others. Fighting according to your rules of propriety is a burden to us. You will see that our methods have nothing to do with those of the soldiers making demonstrations at Court receptions!”

“Indeed, your methods are odious and violent, I have experienced them! It is too ignoble to be suitable for a prince of my rank!”

“You are no longer a prince of any kingdom. No matter how violent or disgraceful it may be, we do not aim to have artistic hobbies. You can only judge our methods after you have used them in real combat.”

“There's no way I'm going to stoop to tha-“

I hit him in the crotch with my stick to introduce the first concept of my course and calm his ardor.

“OUCH! What a rotten world! I swear on the crown that you will pay for this!”

His shouted sentence became a strangled whisper. He collapsed and writhed in pain on the floor for a long time.

“You're not allowed to complain until you've suffered a hit like this one! Rule number one: never let your guard down until the opponent is defeated. If you don't, you'll get used to the pain, and I doubt that's what you want.”

Without waiting for him to recover from my attack, I raised my stick as a wand and pointed authoritatively at the plastic dummy. I patiently showed him the weak points and sensitive areas of the human body. When he had finished rolling on the floor, we did a series of stretches.

“Warmed up enough?”

With a smile, I threw him his weapon, which he grabbed in flight. The next second, I engaged him in combat, which delighted him.