74 Sword dance

When Emp reached the training field with all of Nessa's friends, she was already there wearing her light armor and her fine sword. She had tied up her hair into a trio of thick rings to keep them from flying everywhere and stood with an excited smile on her face.

Mable didn't know what they were all doing here and found a little strange that Nessa would dress that way without a good reason. After all, her small group of friends weren't really into exercises and fighting. She was the first to ask Nessa what was happening.

"Nessa? Why did you want us here and why are you dressed like that?"

"It's because of what he said!" Nessa pointed at Emp. "He said fencing was just like dancing!"

The others didn't understand how that brought them here but clearly, it was very important to Nessa. Did she get upset because of his words?

"You want to fight me because you disagree with what I told Brenia?" Emp tried to understand.

"No! The opposite. It resonated in me, I saw what you meant. If there is a song guiding this whole thing, I want you to teach me. Show me the rhythm of death, show me the steps to the dance of blades."

"You want me to show you?"

"Yes, if Brenia could learn how to dance with only those words, there is no reason I couldn't do the same the other way around."

"So all of this is about fencing?" Aglaya summarized.

"But why do you want to learn fencing so much?" Gytha wondered out loud.

Emp had been asking himself the same since a long time ago. She was one of the only girls who kept going to the fencing classes and she kept putting up with it despite the fact she had never improved.

"I guess it's true that I never told you. You know the four dukes of Artefine right?"

Emp didn't remember but luckily, they had Aglaya with them.

"Yes, duke Jazay of the eastern grove, duke Glowstorm of the southern grove, Greathorn of the western grove and Hasting of the northern grove." (1)

"Right, I've never really hid it so like you know, I'm Vanessa Hasting, daughter of the duke of the northern grove. The task placed on my family by the king of Artefine is to protect the northern part of the kingdom just like the three other dukes and their respective directions."

"I heard of that, the northern grove is the hardest to protect and they have the largest armies of the four."

"That's right, up north, we have the cursed-bloods from the tribelands that keep pushing at our borders while the other three only have wild beasts to worry about."

Cletine grip on his head tightened a bit and Nessa tried to reassure her with a few words.

"You don't need to make that face Celtine, I can understand that not all cursed-bloods are bad guys. I think your guys actually never attacked us. It's usually the wolf tribe or the bears."

"But what does it have to do with fencing, you're not going to fight them yourself are you?" Mable asked her with a bit of worry.

Nessa answered with a wry smile.

"My father doesn't want to let me at least but... It's complicated. We were really unlucky, or rather, my father was. Right now, there are only two Hastings that could inherit the title and duty after him, me and my little brother."

"You only have a single brother?"

Aglaya seemed surprised. Maybe she had searched for information before and found another answer.

"Yes, I had more before, and sisters too but like I said we were really unlucky. My father had four wives, one was barren, one got murdered with her son and daughters by a group of Drekans as she traveled between fathers castle and her own parents home for a family reunion. The third was my own mother, she was a great warrior that followed my father on every battlefield, she died giving birth to me. The last one is the mother of my last little brother. I had two other older brothers from my mother but one died before I was born in the thundering pass while fighting alongside my father and the other died in an ambush while on his first hunt."

Emp would have never thought that Nessa of all people would have such a story. She was always all smiles and seemed to be interested in nothing but dance and tea. Now, he learned that she was the daughter of the protectors of the north and that most of her family had died.

"How old is your younger brother?" Asked Aglaya.

"He will turn nine in a few weeks." Nessa said in a sigh.

"I think I see where this is going." Aglaya said softly.

Emp didn't but Nessa soon explained for the rest.

"I do like my brother but I just can't see him leading our territory. What's more, I heard from my father that things have been getting worse lately. The imperial army feels sluggish, it doesn't help as much as it should and we're accumulating losses in our knights ranks."

Emp felt that the last part was probably because Chinui wasn't there to give orders and take decisions but he couldn't say it aloud.

"My little brother is too soft, he won't be able to work this out. He's not fit for it. My father's getting old, he'll have to give him the territory before he's ready to shoulder it all, not that he ever would be but if he was at least a man it wouldn't be as bad. They want to marry me off and entrust everything we have to him but if something happens to him, there will be no one else to pick things up and the whole north will crumble. I wanted to inherit the title in instead of him, for the sake of house Hastings."

"Is that even possible?" Mable asked. "Do you even have a say in this?"

"Normally not." Nessa admitted. "But, I thought that if I could prove my abilities, show them I was more fit for the duchy than my small brother, father would have to see reason and entrust the house to me instead. I needed to show him I could take care of everything way better than my brother would ever be able to."

"So that's why you struggled so hard with the fencing classes."

"That's right, I hate them but I really needed to learn. If only I had Brenia's strength, I wouldn't have all those problems. Alas, I'm really bad at it. I had almost given up and resigned myself to see our house disappear. I didn't even bother taking the strategy class." (2)

"But you saw hope in what Emp said? That's sad but also beautiful, I hope you will succeed." Gytha said in wonder. "But, even if Emp manage to help you get better at using a sword, will it be enough? I mean, I'm sure that under your father, there must be a lot of very exceptional swordsman. Even if you know how to use one, all those strong guys won't think of you as one of them."

"Maybe but there is a way. One thing the others would have no choice but to respect."

Aglaya seemed to realize what she was talking about because she became suddenly very excited. She gasped and clasped her hands together.

"The royal sword dance!"

Nessa nodded with a large smile while the rest frowned in confusion.

"What's that?" Asked Mable.

"It's a legend from Artefine." Aglaya explained helpfully. "When the Artefine king's brother left to establish house Hasting in the past, he was granted the whole northern border because of his incredible sword technique."

"That's right, my ancestor was one of the best swordsman in the empire. What most people don't know is that he was actually blind."

"Blind? How could he be one of the best swordsman then?" Emp asked in confusion.

"That's because of the royal sword dance. He said he could hear the song of the battlefield, whatever people did, he could always defeat them. He once fought a team of twenty imperial knights and won despite his disability. He called his technique the royal sword dance and tried to teach it to his sons but none managed to learn it. Our house kept trying to learn it and repeat his legend at every generation but we always failed. No one ever managed to learn the royal sword dance after him, we don't even know what it looks like anymore. All we have to left of it are old dusty tomes with instructions and accounts of his exploits."

"That's why his words pulled your heartstrings." Gytha nodded.

"That's right, he said that fencing was just like dancing. If I can truly understand what Emp said, I'd be able to learn the sword dance and revive the legend of our founder. I'm a good dancer after all, if this is truly a dance rather than a fancy name, I'm sure I can achieve it."

The others agreed to her thoughts easily. If she could truly master that, there was no way her father could deny her the title of duchess. The whole kingdom would oppose her younger brother inheriting the title, favoring the legendary technique wielder instead.

"That's why, let me hear the song of war, the ballad of death or whatever you want to call it. Show me it's melody and the correct steps to dance it."

Emp really wanted to help her but he felt there was a major flaw in her plan. He exposed his thoughts in an apologetic tone.

"I understand what you want me to do but I don't actually know anything about that sword dance, it's just an observation I made to help Brenia with the dance steps. I'm not sure I can actually help."

"We can at least try right? Just Help me with the fencing and I'll take care of the old technique myself. Please."

As long as she did not resent him afterwards if it failed, he'd be happy to help. Mable and Aglaya also urged him to accept with their eyes.

"I'll try my best."

While the other girls took seat around a small garden table to drink an afternoon tea, Emp tried to help Nessa with her sword. For this, he even put down Celtine and gave all his attention to Nessa.

"You can't actually hear a music when fighting, but there is a rhythm. It changes all the time, it's set by you and your opponent."

It's all about the speed at which they can attack and defend, they'll raise the bar until the other can't keep up.

"The one who sets the rhythm has the advantage."

It's the one attacking, the other is forced to follow and counter, if he can't adapt, he loses or at least, becomes unable to take back the imitative.

"Your goal is to see the rhythm and match your moves to what the other side does. You have to consider every attack as a step in the dance. Each of them has a correct counter, a correct step to make as an answer to keep the dance going."

That was the best way he could put it but if she only countered all the time, she would go nowhere.

"In a noble dance, you have to keep it going, you lose if either makes a mistake. In a fight, it's the opposite, you need to wait for your partner to make a misstep and exploit it. You need to impose your superior performance. It only ends when a better dancer is determined, the other is a dead dancer. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe? Could you show me instead?"

With the pained smile on her face, it was obvious she barely got any of that. Emp wasn't surprised, he was making this all up as he was going after all.

He stepped closer to her with his sword in hand and slowly made a motion as if he would slice at her from the right.

"Here, if I attack from this side, how will you answer this step? What is the correct movement? The fencing teacher showed it to you already."

"He showed many different, how do I know which one is the correct one? Dances are easy because they are always the same, this is hard, there are too many different answers for the same movement."

"You have to feel it." Emp never thought he'd actually say that to someone one day. "Fighting is like you took every single dances you knew and all merged them into one. Every counter you learned are correct answers but the one you chose will change the dance towards where you want it to go. The more different steps you know, the easier it is to steer the whole thing towards where you want it to go."

"Mhn, then I'd like to sweep it over my head."

She placed her own sword under his own and pushed it over and past her head with a large arc of her arm.

"Then what?" Emp asked her.

"I don't know..."

"What would happen if this was a dance, would it be over after just that first step?"

"No, we have to take the next one or we will fall off the beat."

"If you do nothing, I will attack again to keep the beat going but this is not what you want, you want to take control of the dance, you want to lead it, impose your own rhythm and style. It is your turn to make a following move before I do something else. You have to chose a step that would go well with the first one you made."

"I see. then what if I do this?"

Sliding the sword just a bit further to her side, she followed the arc to bring the blade towards him, for the sake of listening to his instructions, she kept the same snail pace as him.

"Right, then my answer would be this."

Emp turned his body to expose only his side, letting the blade pass right in front of him in the empty air.

"After that, I can just bring back the sword you pushed away. You have to remember that just like a dance, most of it is done with your feet."

"With my feet? Isn't it about the sword?"

"In my case, yes, because I could still attack you from all the way over there but for you and everyone else, it's about your position. How close are you to your opponent, can you reach, can he reach, will you be able to move out of his attack range, can you predict where he will move to next, should you push forward or back up a step? In most fights, there is a back and forth, sometimes you want to push back the other and sometimes, you want to back off to avoid a strike, sometimes, you can just sidestep it, sometimes, you want to turn around your opponent or distract him."

"Like a waltz then?"

"I'm sorry, I don't remember which one is a waltz."

Emp was able to remember the moves and adapt following the example of those around him but remembering which moves belonged to which dance was beyond him.

Nessa showed him a few steps where she twirled on herself, moving to the side.

"Oh, I see. It's the one where we all move in circles while spinning. I'm not sure spinning is a good idea in the middle of a fight but you can certainly use the general movements."

Emp continued to slowly help her out like that. In the following two hours, he slowly moved faster and faster to let her adjust and understand the pace. He would make sets of attacks, give her many tips and kept trying to make comparisons with dances. In return, she brought her own dancing knowledge with her and asked more details about some similarities she noticed.

At the end, she couldn't help but laugh.

"I really feel it. I think I see, or rather, I can hear the beat. Your boots on the ground, mine, the two swords hitting each other. You were right, we make our own rhythm, I can refuse a clash to impose the right note and step."

That wasn't really what he meant but if she found a way to keep all his help in mind, it was good none the less.

"I really want to take a look at those dusty tomes now, let's practice again soon. Oh! Let's bring Brenia as well! Maybe if I can see the real thing again, it will help me understand better."

"Alright then, I don't think it will be hard to convince her to help with that." Emp agreed.

From nearby, the other girls praised Nessa.

"You really improved a lot today, I would not have believed it had I not seen it myself." Aglaya told her.

"Yes, at first it was really hard and I couldn't remember all the movements Sofenne taught us but once my feet started moving, things slowly started to feel better and better."

"Emp, do you think she can do it? Learn the sword dance I mean?" Mable asked her guardian eagerly.

"I think so." Emp said even though his tone seemed unsure. "I don't know what the sword dance is about and I don't know how much time she has to make it happen. I do think she improved a lot in just those two hours. Now that she has the right mindset, I think she will continue to improve fast. If this is really a dance, Nessa has as much chance as anyone of doing it."

Maybe even better than anyone, Emp had no reference on what made for an extraordinary dancer.

"That's great." Gytha nodded.

"Yeah, we're all rooting for you Nessa. I'm sure you'll succeed!" Mable cheered loudly.

"Thanks Mable. Wait... Didn't you have a private lesson with Blackbull today?"

The girl immediately turned pale.

"I forgot!"

"We were all so entranced by your practice that we missed it." Aglaya chuckled.

"Then you should go apologize now. I'll go with you since it is my fault after all. Then, I'll go have my schedule changed." Nessa proposed apologetically.

"You'll take strategy?" Aglaya asked.

"Yes, I'll have alchemy removed and changed for things I'll need if I succeed in learning the sword dance. How to manage a territory and so on."

Emp felt pleased, It meant he would not be alone in that classroom for much longer.

***

The next day, Emp had a private lesson with Blackbull so he couldn't help Nessa or finish up making the contract with Juniper but he did find the time to talk to Heinrich about the tulips.

He suddenly had the brilliant idea of asking the book of answers about them but the answer had not been satisfying to him. The book told him the exact name of the curiosity but failed to tell him what it was used for or what it could do. Now, the only thing he knew about it was that it was called a "black tulips of the crystal spring". Obviously, this wasn't enough to sate his curiosity and so he really needed to ask Heinrich about this.

The hardest part was to remove Penny from him. She was always glued to him with millions of questions. To get rid of her a moment, he had to exchange the technique Jaska had taught him to fragment his attention. This was enough to interest her and keep her out of his way long enough to ask.

Once everyone had left the classroom, he went over to the teacher and showed him one of the crystal tulips he had picked up in the den of the creature.

"Teacher, I'd like to ask you if you know about this. I heard they're called-"

"Black tulip of the crystal spring!"

The teacher had been struck by interest and loudly exclaimed the name of the flower. He got close to it in an instant and marveled at its delicate beauty.

"I can't believe you found one of those, they're incredibly rare."

"Are they?"

He had thirty seven other in his bag.

"Of course they are! They can usually be found only on the highest mountains of the south. They are a sign of the apparition of the new moon king."

"What is the new moon king?"

"It's an entity that only appears in our mountains and only at night when the moon doesn't show up. That means he only appears about once every month. On the night he shows up, he makes a few of those flowers grow under his presence and then leaves again. The creatures living close by are attracted to the presence of the new moon king and soon find the flowers. If one of those tulips is eaten by an animal or a monster, it wildly mutates into something else. Sometimes, they die from the shock, sometimes they are disgustingly morphed and sometimes, they even turn into unnameable of chaos."

"So this thing is poisonous."

Good thing they had plucked them all from the cave, who knows what could have happened otherwise. Had the creature they fought been one of those mutated by the flower? Maybe it decided to keep them with it as a souvenir.

"Yes," The teacher followed. "consumed as is, it's a deadly poison but when given to a master alchemist, it is miraculous instead."

"Why, what does it do?"

"I'm no good with potion so I don't know how to process it but I know of the final result. When the recipe is followed at the exact, a powerful elixir can be made out of it. That elixir, just like the flower at its base is extremely rare and when drank by anyone, will forever improve the composition of their bodies."

"What does that mean."

Emp had never heard such a thing as improving the composition of one's body before.

"It induces a controlled mutation in the drinkers body, it's a form of high level magic strengthening. It's said to be miraculous but I've never seen the results myself. According to recorded results, the effect vary but usually improves one's flexibility or speed. Researchers assumed it somehow changed the bones structure to make it lighter but more resistant."

"Is it actually safe to use? I'm not sure I should trust something that could change me from the inside."

"Of course not, it's nowhere close to safe. If even a little mistake is done while preparing the elixir you die instead. If it's done correctly though, there are no harmful side effects. It is highly prized by warriors and nobles. The only downside is that it doesn't work twice on the same person, it can only improve a person once."

If that thing really had no side effect, it would be crazy to not use that flower.

"That sounds incredible, could you make it?"

"Are you even listening? I just said I was bad at this sort of thing! Of course I can't do it. I can find the instructions but you'll have to find someone else to do it. Maybe Ninoslav, the potion teacher could do it but I'm unsure. Also, he's a greedy crab and will probably ask something insane in exchange for making it. If I were you, I'd look for someone else, and be discreet about it too. If they learn about that flower, they might try to steal it. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's extremely valuable."

"How much is it worth?"

"I don't know the exact value but its more than you think. There are new ones that appear every month but humans are never the first there and more often than not, the monsters rampaged and fought each other over the flowers. Only the luckiest can find one in time before they get destroyed or eaten, it usually only happens about once every ten years."

He had thirty eight! What the hell was going on in that den!?

"Thank you for your advises teacher."

On this, Emp left with his mind filled with excitement. They had found such a good thing! With thirty eight of them, even if he gave an elixir to each of the surviving huntresses, he'd still have a lot left.

He knew it wasn't good to pick the fruits before the trees grew but he couldn't help but think about what he should do with the remaining elixirs he would end up with. Should he just sell them? He didn't think it was a good idea. He didn't need the money and he felt that if he had such a treasure in his possession, he should give it to his friends instead of some stranger for money.

If he sold them, they might end up in the hands of someone like Balpoisson, some bad guy that wouldn't do any good with them. It was better to choose himself who would get one and who wouldn't.

But, before he could give those to anyone, he needed to find someone that could make those elixir. Sophus might be able to do it but with how much he disliked Emp, there was no way he was willing to give him the flowers.

But who else then? He didn't know anyone who specialized in potions. It might take him a while to find someone. Maybe it would be best to just ask Esther the front desk girl to find him someone, or maybe the duke would have someone in mind. He chose to go with Esther for now.

Like always, she was very helpful and polite. She promised to help him search for a master of potion on his behalf and sent him away with a gentle smile.

Now, it was time for another tiring private lesson.

***

Weeks later, Emp was once again on the training field with Nessa and Brenia. This had recently been a common occurrence.

Nessa wasn't the same person anymore, she had improved so much that she was now at the level of everyone else in the group, only worse than Brenia or Emp.

She had a revelation, a flash of insight. After her third time training with Brenia and him, she suddenly understood the words used by her ancestor to describe the sword dance. It was just like a switch had been flipped in her head. Everything suddenly made sense.

Now, even while holding real spars against either him or Brenia, she could last a long time. She still needed a lot more training and she was far behind in terms of stamina and actual combat experience but she kept coming up with new tricks to fight Emp and Brenia.

"I tell you they aren't new tricks, they're all old steps of the dance. I just need to hear more of the music, read more of the dance that goes along with it."

Emp felt that if this sentence was said by anyone else, he would think they were a bit crazy. Nessa wasn't though. Outside of the training field, she acted just like always but here, she turned the dirt under their boots into a dancing floor.

She now always showed up with twin swords, straight and sharp, long and fine. Even the knights that were ambidextrous didn't like to use two long weapons at the same time but she obviously didn't care about what was usual.

Her initial posture was insane too, she stood straight facing her opponent, she held her two swords crossed over her head like the elegant pose of a ballroom dance.

When the music started though, like she would say, she could spin in and out of reach easily. At first her movements had been awkward and clumsy but now, they gave off the same feeling he had when watching her dance, and they were deadly too.

Her two swords would come from every directions at once, clash again and again with his own and then he'd find himself at her side instead of facing her. When he tried to lunge forward, she would just spin past his attack and bring her two swords down towards him like the fangs of a spider. She'd make seemingly random steps with her feet and look in the distance seemingly ignoring him but somehow always ended up where she wanted to be at the right moment to strike in-between his own attacks.

Brenia was in the same situation as him, she had more than a little fun experiencing this new style of battling. Brenia was a fighter with a lot of power and enough flexibility to pull off some stunts in a battle. Nessa was growing more into an agile fighter that relied on surgical strikes and precise maneuvering to dodge her opponent. The two against one another was impressive to watch.

The biggest weak point of Nessa, at least for now, was recklessness. Not from her but from Emp and Brenia. When in the middle of a fight, If Brenia and Emp suddenly decided to ignore her attacks and her quick pace to rush up to her and swing wildly, she'd get hit every time.

"When you break the pace like that, it gets too fast for me to react and I don't know how to escape those swipes."

"It's still pretty impressive that you can hold your own against those two monsters." Aglaya praised.

"I never thought you would do it this fast, in only took half a year. You're awesome Nessa!" Mable added in.

The trick was that the first stage of her sword dance relied heavily on control. As long as she was the one setting the pace, it was hard to break through to her but once someone did something reckless and dived into the blade storm at the risk of their own health, she had no way to take back the initiative. As long as someone could do something that was outside of her known steps, she would lose every time. A simple trick could spell her demise where she could counter almost all recorded classical stances.

The true problem wasn't the sword dance itself though, that thing was very impressive. The problem was that she only knew the first stage of it, the higher the stage she reached, the more impressive it would become but the harder it was to understand and perform. Not only in terms of talent but also simply in terms of her body.

"The opening steps of the second stage are just too fast, the beat turns insane before suddenly dropping, even if I can understand the words and hear the music, my legs and arms can't follow."

One time, she tried to execute the movements anyway but ended up cutting deeply into her own arms with the swords, she almost sliced a piece of them off before tripping into her own foot and collapsing forward. That had scared the other girls a lot but after she had been bandaged, Nessa had already wanted to try it again.

Seeing all that, Emp now understood what Galana meant when she asked if the Muracier had a secret hammer technique. Obviously, if one could master such an insane technique, there was no way an ordinary sword art could compete.

"Almost! If I could only master the second stage, the dukedom would be mine." Nessa lamented after each failure.

As her friend, Emp hoped she would succeed. As a fighter, he was pretty annoyed at the strength of this technique. He had looked at the words related to it too and was the one that had trained her all this time but he had not been able to understand any word of it.

Winfred had found an expert in the use of hammers for him and he had learned a lot since then about how to best use that sort of weapon but the movements and technique seemed rather dull to him since he had witnessed the almost mastered first stage of the graceful royal sword dance. He so wished he knew a set of moves that could compare to it.

He felt depressed. Even the finalization of the contract on the crystal den didn't cheer him up.

He ended up with a 10% of the profit they would make from the crystal, including the crystal they made themselves if they were ever able to copy it satisfyingly. Ten was great, it was as much as the tax and commission from the auction back then. He'd get a lot of money without ever doing anything.

Money would not find him a great technique though. For that, he could only sigh in sadness. At least, he could still be greatly advantaged simply by using Space blessing. It was enough to defeat the other students but would it be enough in the future too? Who knew what sort of crazy techniques there was out there? The students here learned the basics of everything but their own houses usually provided their own secret knowledge afterwards. Emp had no such thing.

***

"She could really do it? As expected of the daughter of a duke."

"..."

"Are you regretting telling me all of this already? Here, drink this, it will help you clear your head a bit."

"..."

"Good, now, come here. Sit on my laps."

"..."

"You did a great job, some of them I would never have guessed. It's so hard to get information sometimes. I'll tell you now what we're doing, do not worry, this is nothing evil. I decided it was time for me to retire and when I found out about you, I knew I could do so with a large bonus. You of course, and the large door you could open."

***

(1) All the names here have already been presented to you in the past. Here is a reminder: Jorman Jazay, the ancient of the school had been presented as the duke of the eastern grove, Zoran's last name is Glowstorm, a man named Twain Greathorn used a spear crafted my Marcy to kill a stone giant and obviously, Nessa Hasting.

(2) I know no one says alas but I wanted to use it anyway. It's more dramatic than sadly and I like that word a lot.