Darkenhold: Social Climbing through Competitive Swordsplay

[Vanidor]

"Never take your eyes away, Glenn." The Duke followed with a full on lunge of his sabre, a thing that drove the point of his sword downwards and then saw an up-lifting cut that wanted to bisect the cut that had already appeared upon his clothing. Burel was cutting it close, to say it lightly, when it came to injury. But he was, now, certain enough in Glenn's ability and his own to know that he'd not touch flesh. Not in the way the blade arced through the air, anyway.

It was followed by a synchronized assault with the scabbard. Aiming for knees and then hip. Perhaps for the hand that held the dagger. The Duke saw the training dummy just beyond Glenn, and he had to wonder, what trick did the man have up his sleeve? It would certainly be interesting

[Glenn]

Interesting? Desperate, perhaps. Were they on equal footing right now, Glenn would be trying to use his dagger to block blows, would try to force Burel to use his scabbard to do the same. He was curious if the Duke could manage THAT. Later on, Glenn might thank the man for respecting him enough to cut it so close. For now though, it was all he could do not to start swearing at him.

In fact, he did let a curse loose a moment later. The saber was deflected. He was able to keep his knees safe but not his hip and it stung. It was a rather filthy one too, the curse, that was. To his credit, he was able to dodge the third of the blows, was able to recover, and all the while, he was retreating back towards the dummy.

[Vanidor]

Cursing, now there was an interesting subject. Something Burel would comment on shortly after Glenn avoided the last of the swift assaults with the scabbard. "You know, Glenn. I always did favour this saying..." Before going into it, he jabbed at the man with the end of his scabbard, using the thing like a second sword for all intents and purposes. Twice he aimed for his torso, the sword held above his head like some scorpions tail ready to strike.

"Adon's Hairy balls. Always had a nice ring to it." That being one of the number of gods in the panthenon most Thessilaneian's held to for their religious observation. 'The One True Faith' had never really settled well in that part of Amasynia. There were horse gods and hearth gods and gods of the harvest and whatever you pleased. Supposedly, Adon was the chief one of the stock. "Or Baels bloody bicep! I liked that one, though I never could get Borean to tell me why his bicep was bloody."

And then strike, he shot the sword forward, rotating the thing in midair to try and catch Glenn at the right shoulder... oddly enough by first aiming for his left arm. As before, he'd not be aiming for blood. But, if cloth tore. That was all well and good.

[Glenn]

"Thessilaneian culture creates a lot of jerks." Glenn was moving with a purpose and had time for that brief burst of honesty and not a whole lot more. Well, maybe a little more. "Why is that?" Maybe just a little more on top of that. "Let me try it out, though," for the sake of international friendship. "Adon's balls! The Thessilaneian are a bunch of jerks!" That last was said with a real grunt as sweat ran across his brow.

Glenn had no real idea what to do with that scabbard. It was doing too much damage to key areas to just ignore it. He couldn't focus solely upon it because of.. well, the sword. No, what he was trying to do now was to react to both it and the sword, primarily using his dagger, closer and closer to Burel's hand, to block it and hopefully, by closing in, to dissuade further such attacks.

The feint would have taken him off guard, but his reflexes were honed by Ariane herself. All it would mean was yet another attack blocked with no hope of counterattack by the young mapmaker.

That was fine, though, because he had made it to the dummy. It's head, at the least, was wooden, though the rest was a mishmash of one material or another. After this much wear and tear it wasn't connected nearly as loosely. Glenn thought it looked a LITTLE like a member of the Bromn family, if you squinted a bit, but never quite commented on that thought. Still, there was no satisfaction to be found in what he was about to do.

The fact of the matter was this, he needed Burel distracted for a few seconds, and just a few seconds, and this was a terrible terrain for that, as it was meant almost specifically for sparring. There were just no tools to aid the mapmaker, save one.

Glenn wasn't able to counterattack, but he was able to finally dart behind the training dummy. He let out a quiet whisper. "sorry about this.." Perhaps he just meant to use it as a shield that Burel would have to work around. That would have been kinder to the poor thing, at least. No, instead, as Glenn slipped behind it, he would sweep his dagger across. The decapitated head would drop to the ground right by where Burel's feet were about to step in dogged pursuit.

All Glenn wanted was even a moment's hesitation from the Duke so that he could make a move to reclaim the offensive. If it meant cutting the head off of a friend to do it, well, he could apologize to Ariane (or maybe blame Quincy; Who would know?) later.

[Vanidor]

So. Here was a head rolling on the ground all of a sudden in front of him. That sad truth was that this wasn't the first time a head had rolled before Burel whilst he had that sword out and swinging. He didn't usually go for decapitation, mainly for the fact that a loose head just added to the mess of a battlefield. Bodies and limbs and assorted viscera were enough to worry about without having to deal with that as well. So, as his foot came down and his forward momentum stalled, his rearward foot would skip back and set himself.

It meant that his current rain of attacks would have to come to an end for a brief moment. Perhaps it would give Glenn the moment he needed to collect himself and try to attack once again. "We will have to get Ariane a new head, hm, after we are done." There was a slight smile, a wrinkle of his forehead, and then the Duke would kick the head behind him a small bit, hoping to replant his foot before Glenn could come around the dummy and resume the match.

[Glenn]

"I'm rather fond of the one she has. She wears it well." A bit of renewed confidence there. It had been a rather transparent trick, saved only, perhaps, by the affection he showed the thing not long before. Who thought he would cut its head right off? Ah, well. Easy come, easy go, at least when it came to most inanimate objects. Certain things such as swords were different. And right now, a very ready Glenn Burnie was moving around that headless dummy with his sword and real, real speed.

He had been ready for this. After two unorthodox gambits, would one expect him to come up with a third? Not hardly. His footwork was instinct trained. His lunge was straight and to the center. His dagger was raised to deal with that scabbard. Glenn, now that he saw a chance for the offensive, was going to take it completely and utterly by the book, as hard and fast and as well-disciplined as he could manage. When it came to the latter two, that was really saying something and he was no slouch with the first.

[Vanidor]

Burel laughed as Glenn began his lunge, the Duke sweeping his sword to center for a parry, again enjoying some mild thrill in the sound of metal against metal as the two blades interacted. He made it a point to do this maneuver with the part of blade that was relatively close to the curving handle of his sword. Mainly so that he could glide forward as Glenn lunged.

It was a simple counterattack, really. As the two were moving in their given directions, and Burel warded himself with the flat of his weapon, the Duke would just...

Just attempt to step on Glenn's foot. If he let the Duke get close enough anyway.

[Glenn]

A counterattack sliding towards him would Glenn to shift slightly to the side, but only slightly. That with redirectioning of the his blade, still close to Burel's should be enough to narrowly avoid the blow. Ah, but here the Duke was up to no good.

"See. Jerks. The lot of you." Glenn Burnie sparred with two people on a regular basis. Ariane Emory, though they had not for a good while now, and Cinnabar Calomel. Ariane was speed and fluidity and grace and power. She was masterful. Calomel was overpowering and disciplined and, though the mapmaker would never talk about it in public, a complete and utter cheat. That just happened to be one of his favorite dirty tricks and Glenn was well prepared for it.

His foot shifted with practiced ease out of the way of Burel's step, even as Glenn would use their relatively close proximity to try to poke the Duke in the side with his dagger, if he could make it past that scabbard. "Whole nation of jerks."

[Vanidor]

"Opportunists, Glenn. Not Jerks. Different thing." He sucked in a breath and shifted his entire body away from the jabbing end of that dagger. No need to waste the effort to block it with his scabbard when he could just twist his entire body... and then perform a silly little trick.

As his torso shifted away from the dagger, his feet maneuvered as well to cause the Duke to perform a spinning attack that would take him a step off of Glenn's center, and then try to swipe at him with the sword first, and then scabbard next. It certainly was very quick. Almost graceful, in the way his feet repositioned themselves.

The weapon that aimed to injure, though, was not the sword but the scabbard once more. The was wanted to cut cloth, as it happened, but the scabbard wanted to break ribs. Or at least batter them.

[Glenn]

"Are you dancing now, Duke?" It was said lightly, though not offensively. His back had been open to Glenn for a brief moment, but it had been a trick, and a smart one at that. If Glenn had taken the opportunity, been one of those opportunist jerks, Burel's speed would have finished him before he could ever get there to capitalize. The move probably did work well against Thessalinians.

His sword would manage Burel's sword, parrying it with skill if not ease, but that was perhaps not the primary attack. No, it was the infuriating scabbard again. Glenn had about enough of it. He wasn't going to eat this blow, thankfully, for his ribs sake. He had to move out of the way, therefore offering only a rather tame (but quite low) counterattack, looking to scrape Burel's kneecap.

The next one? The next swat? That would be responded with blocks from the dagger about a third up Burel's arm. Either he'd pull back quickly or get marked for his trouble. For now though, Glenn would offer that slight counterattack and see what the Duke would do next. At least it wasn't boring.

[Vanidor]

"Dancing. Swordplay. You could say that they are the same, yes? Cut and thrust. Parry. Block. The position of your feet."

The swatting scabbard ceased its forward motion in order to ward against the probing dagger. Though for a moment it would have seemed that the Duke was a spar second too slow in that protection, for there was a sliver of cloth dangling from his elbow. The man adjusted his stance, shifting backwards a step and presenting a narrow profile towards Glenn. The sword was held low, the tip of the thing pointing towards the Mapmaker.

And that infuriating scabbard? Burel had adopted a pseudo rapier stance here, with the hand that held the scabbard now against the small of his back. The way he held the thing, Glenn could probably see the end of it projecting upwards behind the Duke's back. Burel smiled. "So. A question. How would you resolve my grievance with Trae Kelsa, since you are so opposed to it? All the while preserving the sanctity of my nation and her people?"

[Glenn]

"It's dancing if I'm doing it with Miss Olwak." Or Ariane. No, not Ariane. Just Rhaena. "With you it's something else entirely, thank you." Young, prideful, and stubborn, that voice.

Glenn already realized by now that he has been too distracted by far by that scabbard. What should have been of secondary import, worlds behind the swordplay itself, had taken up so much of his attention in this spar. It meant that he would provide no more mercy for that hand and arm of Burel's if he was to bring the accursed item back into the battle.

What the hell was he doing with it anyway? No matter. No point in being distracted by it when it was BEHIND the Duke. Better to be distracted by the question, anyway. At least that was more interesting.

"Not by putting my people through senseless war, not through putting innocents in other provinces through more pain. All for what? Really? Trae Kelsa offers little support, no support to be honest, but also few chains, few restrictions. They're distant, ineffectual. A tithe, hardly unreasonable. Some nosing around here and there. The occasional braggart from Rasazan. What else? Oh, I imagine, being larger than Myrken, they bother you a little more, but enough to warrant this? Honestly, Duke. What you are attempting to change is, in name, at best, some words on paper, pride. That's hardly it at all, though. No, in TRUTH, you're merely taking more lands as you're own. Don't mask this as a problem with the crown, Burel. That was your excuse for conquest."

Perhaps there would be more emotion granted to that last word than Glenn Burnie would have otherwise intended, but it capped not only his statement, but his brief inactivity. Burel had temporarily put that scabbard where it could do little immediate good. Therefore, Glenn would lunge forward with real intensity, aiming to take off the man's nose while using his dagger to protect his.. netherregions from that looming blade.

[Vanidor]

His wrist adjusted and his sword came upwards with more than enough speed to parry the incoming lunge and direct it towards his left. He retained his stance, however, and the scabbard remained behind him, idle and silent. There was no counter attack either, instead it was a return to point, the end of his sword aimed directly at Glenn's groin once again.

"I will not deny that there is a bit of desire to expand the nation I have been given. We were conquerors before we ran into Amasynia the first time, you know. My old mentor said that it was in our blood, no matter how much we tried to cover it with civility. Xanth was Amasynia's shield. We were her sword, afterward." Burel shifted a step backwards, glancing to either side from the corners of his eyes before focusing once more upon Glenn.

"The shackles may be light, Glenn, but they are shackles non-the-less. Would you live thusly? Being bound to someone you did not respect for eternity? Would you offer them your support in all things, when they demand it, when they do nothing to uphold you? No. I think you would find a way to do it yourself, as you and the Governor have done here in Myrken."

[Glenn]

"A few months ago, sir? A year ago? Two? Perhaps. I am learning. I am growing. I watch how government works. I learn to value things, people, as I did not before. Two years ago I would never bind myself, even to one I respected, for no price in the world. A year and a half ago, I found something worth it to me, and I found a man I respected, and our work is GOOD, Duke."

Glenn Burnie could talk, better than he could do anything else. Perhaps he was giving Burel too much time to recover by saying so much between attacks. Perhaps they had merely shifted the combat to a different level, with the lunges serving the role that his bantering had before.

"All shackles chafe, sir, but Trae Kelsa is in decline. They weaken by the year. You and yours become more powerful each day, even without encroaching upon your neighbors. You picked a time where people would suffer unduly, people who do not deserve such suffering. Just one generation in the future and much of this would have been unnecessary. But then it would not be your statue that they will build and your victories that they celebrate, no?"

Again, the last word was accentuated with a lunge. Again towards that nose of Burel. Again with his dagger for defense. This time with even more ferocity than before. He WOULD move the Duke.

[Vanidor]

Another small step backwards, once more his sword coming up to parry the lunge. Like this truly was practice, yes? This time he aimed to send the Mapmaker's sword to his right and behind him, while effecting a center-line thrust for Glenn's torso. He did not step forwards, however. Giving Glenn ground, it would seem.

"Then it would be a statue of my daughter in Conqueror's Square, would it not? Perhaps, hers would be a fairer sort, I could imagine. But better I bear the stigma of ruthless conqueror than her or any of my bloodline to come. Still. Would that I had waited a year or two before acting. Sometimes the signs are not right, hm? I had expected more resistance from Trae Kelsa, than just stern words. I get enough out of you, my friend."

A tight smile here. Not because it was something he didn't want to say. His definition of friendship was certainly odd. But because he was concentrating on something. His stance, most likely. Or at least, where he was in relation to certain objects in the room.