LIGHTNOVELONLINE 252 The Reach of a Knife’s Edge (New Story Announcement?)
To Bishop Kayes the only battles that mattered today were those of Donovan's squad, the rest were just filler. They were important filler, serving as examples of dos, don'ts, and conditionals for Cayzi. Even then, some of these fights were just plain boring. Twelve people would walk out into the circle, stab each other for about a minute, and then the next twelve more people would walk out into the circle. Poor Cayzi seemed ready to fall asleep at times.
The crowd loved it though.
Kayes could only imagine their excitement was one borne of an amateur's understanding of how to fight. They didn't know what was really going on down there, only that things were chaotic and people were getting chopped up. So much as a preliminary understanding of combat was all it would take for the crowd to see some of these as 'boring' fights. At the same time, he supposed that was alright.
The Sanctum made it very clear that this was supposed to be a source of entertainment for the people, a tourist attraction that only the Sanctum could provide. These matches were a way to accrue government funding without taxing, something the people probably appreciated quite a bit. This was a way for everybody but the combatants to relieve stress, be it on their psyche or purse.
"I wish we could see Trebar fight." In a way, Trebar was sort of like Cayzi's older brother. Both of them had been under Kayes' tutelage, and whenever they met Trebar would 'treat' him in some way. It didn't help that most of the stories Kayes had to tell while teaching or entertaining Cayzi came from when he was teaching and training Trebar. Before then, Kayes mostly operated alone.
"We'll get to see him tomorrow." Kayes had promised Cayzi that they would be attending the nine and ten man tournament tomorrow. It was inconceivable that Trebar and company might lose in the preliminaries, they usually swept the tournament. "Those matches will be a lot more interesting, trust me."
"Should I go get the two of you sandwiches?" Petunia only ever seemed invested in the battles when Titanyana was on the field.
"Don't bother. If the food the vendors are selling are anything resembling what I remember, then we would only be left wanting to puke. Just tough it out until their last match."
"Okay."
Kayes looked over to Petunia. It was probably the noise, but she had been a bit pale all day. The Nekh were supposed to be incredibly sensitive to loud noises, and this place was anything but quiet. He would have offered to send her home, but that would mean he and Cayzi would have to leave as well.
"Look's like they're up." The roaring of the crowd informed Kayes before his eyes caught sight of any of them. The cheering about 'Tempest' literally couldn't mean anyone else was going out to the field. "I wonder what Donovan is going to show us this time."
"What do you mean?" Cayzi didn't quite understand his teacher's interest in Donovan, which made him all the more curious. For example, why wasn't Cayzi supposed to fight like Donovan did? Donovan had won both bouts thus far, which almost made it seem like he should be emulating Donovan, at least to some degree. Of course, Cayzi didn't quite understand that there was a massive difference between himself and Donovan on a physiological level.
"Donovan may be an amateur, Cayzi, but he isn't an idiot. I think you would agree he's pretty smart, right?" Cayzi nodded his head. "Donovan's problem, if it can even be called one, is that he doesn't quite understand how 'fights' and 'combat' are supposed to go. He doesn't understand the flow, the techniques, and what he should be expecting of an opponent based on stance and temperament. If we were to grade Donovan on those grounds alone, he would be an abject failure."
Cayzi and Petunia both tilted their heads.
"However, we must remember that Donovan has not had the time to develop those skills. He is, as I previously stated, an amateur. He doesn't know for sure how he wants to fight, he hasn't decided on a 'style', though I imagine he is starting to gather clues. In that regard, he possesses an extreme degree of freedom."
"What do you mean by freedom?" Petunia this time.
"He is not significantly more proficient in one style of combat than another, meaning that he could probably use a variety of different weapons and approaches and see a similar level of success as he does currently. At this stage, Donovan is not so committed to one weapon or style that deviating from it would adversely affect his performance either, so it is actually beneficial for him to experiment. For example, those knives strapped to his thigh, they weren't there last match."
"Knives?" Petunia strained her eyes, but all she could make out was a black strap. "Why would he need them? Isn't his sword better?"
"Accessory equipment like that can be used for a lot of things. If, for some reason, he ends up in a locked position, he can pull one out to get a cheap hit on an opponent. If his opponent is using a light but fast weapon, such as a rapier or daggers, he might be able to use it to assist his parries. If his weapon gets knocked out of his hand, then he will at least have something. Honestly, there are a million and one reasons for someone to keep a knife or two in reserve even outside of combat. Having a small sharp and sturdy blade handy at all times is just better than not having one at all."
"So you're saying he might not have a specific plan for it?"
"No, not at all. Knowing that he didn't have them before leads me to believe that something in his last match made him think they were necessary."
"What might that be?" Cayzi had watched the previous match, but nothing Kayes described had happened. In his second match, Donovan once more fought people with spears, and hadn't been in a static lock.
"Who knows? Like I said, there are far too many uses of knives for me to narrow it down on a whim. We'll just have to wait and see."
Kayes said all that with confidence, but the truth was that he had zero clue why Donovan would bring along knives. He could lists all sorts of reasons he and others might bring a knife along, but Donovan wasn't at the level of proficiency one needed to make use of them. To use a knife one had to dedicate a hand to it, meaning that there would only be one hand dedicated to their primary weapon. In the case that you were somehow disarmed that was fine, without a weapon to sacrifice leverage on you lost nothing by grabbing a knife, but being disarmed was a death sentence for someone of Donovan's skill level.
"He doesn't look like he's using them."
"Of course not. They are situational tools for him at best. He'll only use it if he needs to." Kayes really wanted to see what Donovan was planning.
- - - - -
The squad had collectively decided that this would be their last match of the day, win or lose.
Personally, Donovan would not have been opposed to continuing, but it had become apparent fairly early on that they were not going to be fighting the average squad. In short, Donovan's initial assumption that the squads lacking in cohesion, skill, and drive did not show up to these competitions often. The majority of their opponents were, therefore, well above their skill level. Titanyana would be able to carry them through on a loss, but at a certain point it became less of a battle between squads and more an exercise in Titanyana mopping up five or six people.
It didn't feel good for the boys, they weren't learning anything from the loss, and Titanyana didn't need the practice. Donovan wanted to push them anyways, but Titanyana convinced him that at a certain point they were going get killed so fast there wasn't a point in trying to learn from it. Basically, what Titanyana had been doing to others would instead be done to them and . . . yeah, after seeing that happen twice he didn't think that was conducive to high morale.
The referee announced the start of the round, and already two of their opponents were outside the ring. Donovan almost felt like it had taken Titanyana a little bit longer than before, but she was still faster than he could keep track of.
Disregarding that, Donovan once more assumed a defensive position in front of Sanna.
"Duck." Donovan dropped down and a big shard of something passed over head. At this point, Donovan and Sanna had figured out a way to communicate when a spell was on the way. Sanna had missed, but Donovan stressed that it was more important for Sanna to establish himself as an environmental hazard (if not an outright threat) as early as possible.
"How quaint." One of their opponents had a bit of a mouth on him. Clearly, he didn't view Sanna's capabilities highly.
"He appreciates the compliment." As the leader of the squad, Donovan had a duty to prevent this sort of trash talk from provoking his subordinates. "I'd recommend keeping your eye on the real threat though."
The man's head rapidly turned to Titanyana, but she remained still. Only her eyes were mobile, little green circles that saw through his every move.
"Ignore her, she won't interfere." The other man that had been 'assigned' to Donovan and Sanna leveled his spear. "If she was going to, she would have killed us at the start."
"Are you sure?" An enemy who could think. Donovan had hoped that they would fall for his bluff, but he wasn't above giving the old double down a try. "Well, whatever. It's not like you'd be able to do anything about her anyways."
Two pairs of eyes glanced at the tiny terror for a moment before returning to Donovan and Sanna. Hopefully he had introduced enough doubt to give them pause whenever they decide to approach even though it probably didn't matter.
"Duck." A storm of ice shards this time. Enough of them to be impossible to avoid, too small to deal meaningful damage. They would be able to pierce light clothing though, which was annoying. A little bit of bleeding and pain would decrease their combat capabilities somewhat, right?
"Peh, annoying." A trickle wouldn't be more than a minor inconvenience though. "Hey, you handle this moron, I'll go get the miserable excuse of a warrior in the back."
"Sounds good to me."
The mouthy one with the sword made to run around Donovan while the guy with the spear jumped at Donovan. This was not ideal. In the previous match, Donovan had been also been faced with opponents who realized Titanyana would not interfere. Without being able to keep both of his opponents in front of him, where he could track their movements, he was quite quickly overwhelmed. Given how the situation was developing, Donovan felt he was in for a similar result. Now was the time to try out his new stalling tactic.
- - - - -
Kayes watched in shock as the knife zipped through the air, missing its intended target.
Well, to say that the knife had missed wasn't entirely accurate, but it was unlikely to have hit even if his opponent hadn't dodged. However, his opponent had dodged, losing all of his momentum in the process. Sanna, taking advantage of this slower target devoid of a friendly fire obstacle.
Three spikes erupted from the ground, almost ending him right there. Unfortunately, Sanna did not yet possess mastery over this sorcery, and only managed to poke his thigh. While not lethal, that was bound to be a pretty nasty handicap.
"What did he just do?"
"Sanna hit him with a spell." Petunia answered Cayzi with the obvious, missing Cayzi's real questions.
"No, not Sanna! Donovan! He did something to make that guy stop."
"He threw a knife." Kayes started to rub his chin. "He let the guy with the spear attack, blocked an backed out of his range, then threw a knife at the guy trying to go around him."
"Oh! That's smart!"
"Not . . . really." Kayes hated to burst the boy's bubble, but Donovan's strategy seemed to come more from desperation than it did cunning.
"Why not?"
"Hmm, how to explain." There were a plethora of problems Kayes could see, some borne of inexperience or misunderstandings. "Let's start with the practical. Cayzi, did you see how fast the knife was flying?"
"Um, no? I can't really make small things out from this distance."
"Well, to me, that knife looked like it was moving pretty slowly. I think that you, if you focused only on speed, could cover the distance between Donovan and where that knife landed faster than Donovan had thrown it. Obviously, people who are more powerful and experienced are faster still, and they are fully capable of dodging or parrying a projectile that slow without needing to slow down."
The implication was that Donovan's opponent was either inexperienced or had been surprised.
"Another thing I noticed is that Donovan clearly doesn't know how to throw a knife properly. I can't say I am proficient in the field myself, but I don't need to be an expert to know that the blade is supposed to be pointed at the target when it makes contact. The knife Donovan threw was wildly tumbling, I'm almost certain that the hilt would have made contact first."
"Oh . . ."
"My last issue with it really comes down experience. Like I said before, to use a knife you need to forfeit leverage over your primary weapon. He probably doesn't recognize how big of a problem that can be." Kayes was not upset with Donovan. He was experimenting, trying to solve the problem of keeping two people focused on him. Using a thrown object to extend his zone of influence wasn't a bad idea if Kayes was being honest, he never would have considered it, but that was because he already had a better solution.
This zone of influence, the region inside of which someone presented a legitimate threat, was a combination of the length of their weapon and their speed. Swords were shorter than lances, but you could move a lot faster with them.
"But it still worked, didn't it?" Petunia did not see the problem, something reflective of the Nekh's general attitude towards risk.
"Perhaps, but a fluke is not an excuse to commit to risky courses of action in the future. What he did leaves success and failure up to the skill of his opponent."
"And normal combat doesn't?" Petunia looked a little bit confused. "Doesn't the success of every action taken in combat depend in part on the skill of your opponent?"
"That's not what I meant. That tactic will not work if your opponent is fast enough to counter it."
"Isn't that the case with any tactic though?"
"I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say." Kayes felt a headache coming on. "That tactic? Knife throwing? It isn't going to work against opponents working on a higher level."
"I understand that perfectly fine. I think the one who doesn't understand is you." Petunia was oddly defensive about this. "You yourself said that he was an amateur. He doesn't have the skills, strength, or experience that you do."
"I know that, and that experience is how I know that knife throwing won't work."
"That-" Petunia growled a little bit. "How about we do it this way. Put yourself in Donovan's position. How do you stop the other guy from getting past or around you?"
"I would use my speed to-" Kayes stopped himself. That wasn't an option available to Donovan. "I would . . ."
What would he do? They were talking about Donovan, so leaving the problem unresolved wasn't on the table. He could try to adjust his position and . . . no. His opponents were faster and had more space. Plus, there were two of them. He could . . . he could . . . he could throw himself at his enemies and hope they messed up their defense? That wasn't an acceptable solution either.
"I suppose I would throw a knife."
A chance of success at the cost of an early defeat was infinitely better than no chance of success at all.
