Owainâs world was simpler now.
From the moment he closed his visor, everything else in the Great Hall ceased to matter. His killing ground had been prepared, twelve paces on a side, and his prey stood before him, weak and under-protected in the antique, scavenged armor sheâd brought to a duel to the death.
Owain didnât fear her. Heâd never been afraid of her, even when Jocelynn had revealed to him that she bore the mark of a witch. Witches could still be killed, especially up close, where they had no time to work their witchcraft. Heâd proven it once already when he stripped her bare to reveal the proof of her corruption and bludgeoned her to death on the floor of their wedding suite.
Only she hadnât died. Somehow, sheâd come crawling back out of the grave to haunt him one more time.
But that was fine. Heâd killed her once before, and he would kill her again, only this time, he would see to her dismemberment himself, and when every last bone in her body had been burned and ground to dust, he would scatter her to the wind to ensure that she never rose again.
In his mindâs eye, he could see the opening moves of their duel taking shape. The sword Ashlynn claimed to have forged from his ancestorâs treasured weapons was shorter than his own, combining with her smaller stature to give him a decisive advantage in range, and he intended to use every inch of that space to teach her why women like her had no business posing as knights on a field of honor meant for men.
Heâd bring Fallen Claw down in an overhand cut, not to the crown of her helm, but dropping off to the side at the last moment, aiming for the side of her helm right next to her ear. The noise alone would be enough to rattle her, and the force of the blow would do even more.
Heâd ride the rebound off her helm into a sweeping cut to the opposite side, aiming high enough on her chest to threaten her breast, provoking her into defending herself with her sword. A trained knight would take the blow on the strong curve of his breastplate, trusting in his armor to deflect a strike that wasnât a real threat, but a woman wouldnât react so calmly.
Two rapid, powerful strikes to rattle her and pull her off her simple, cowardly guard, and heâd be set for the first real attack of their duel, a thrust directly to her visor, slipping over the lip of the bevor that protected her lower face and aiming directly for the eyes.
It would be unrealistic to expect it to end there, but it would be a delicious beginning to the âeducationâ he intended to give Ashlynn before she met her end, and from there, he could take his time wearing her down at a distance before he finally closed for the kill.
This was his killing field, and unlike the trial before, where slippery words and inconvenient truths could drag him down, there was nothing here he couldnât control.
"Begin!" Aubin shouted, starting the duel at last, and Owain charged forward, his blade whistling through the air exactly as heâd planned. Only, when he struck, the blow failed to land.
-CLANG!-
Ashlynnâs blade moved with impossible speed, meeting the strength of his blade with her own as if she intended to beat his blade aside.
Fallen Claw spun in his hands, already moving into the next cut heâd planned, riding the force of Ashlynnâs counter-stroke the same way he would have ridden the force of rebounding from her helm, but once again, she moved with incredible quickness to close his line of attack again.
-CLANG!-
"Die, witch!" Owain cursed as he pulled back for his thrust, but this time, he had to abandon his plan entirely as Ashlynn charged forward the instant he pulled back. Fallen Claw came up to a hasty guard, its point dropping from an offensive ox-guard to a more defensive line, and her cut at his shoulder met his blade in a hard angle of steel.
-CLANG-
The bind held.
For a heartbeat, their swords pressed together through their crossed forearms, and Owain felt the weight she was putting into the bind. The pressure she exerted on him didnât match up wth her size and stature at all. The hilt of Fallen Claw was being driven backward against his grip, slowly, by a strength that should not have been in the body of the woman heâd married.
She was strong.
She was as strong as he was.
The realization broke through the rhythm of his planning, and his planning failed him for the first time in years. For a split second, all of the moves and counter-moves his mind normally held ready fell away. There was only the bind, and the realization that this woman really had come to kill him, and sheâd brought the tip of her blade within three fingers from his visor in a move that could find his eye if the bind broke wrong.
His heart hammered in his chest, and his body moved without thought, abandoning finesse and technique as he stepped into her instead of away.
His armored shoulder drove forward with all his weight behind it, and the bind became a lever.
"Raaaa!!" Owain grunted as he shoved.
Her falchion held against his blade for an instant longer, and then her boots skidded back on the polished stone. Once. Twice. A third step, and her stance broke. The bind came apart with a final scrape of steel as her sword arm was forced wide of her body, and Owain pivoted away from her on his back foot to recover his guard at distance.
Three paces of ground opened up between them again and Owain and he took a deep, steadying breath as he struggled to regather his composure.
The entire exchange had only taken a few heartbeats, but Owainâs eyes were wide, and sweat had formed on his brow as his mind raced to understand what had happened in that opening exchange.
"Impossible," he muttered as he watched her bring her shorter sword back into the same, simple guard sheâd used before.
Her stance belonged in a textbook, not because it was perfect, but because it represented the simplest starting position that every swordsman learned from their very first day with a weapon in their hand. Her counterattacks werenât inspired; they were the same as her stance, taken from the list of sword strokes that any squire could recite from memory.
But the speed and strength at which theyâd come was something no amateur could produce.
Moreover, thereâd been no hesitation in her movements. She hadnât flinched when heâd threatened her head, hadnât panicked when he attacked her breast, and sheâd advanced the instant he gave her an opening.
"You really are a witch," Owain muttered as he took the offense again.
This time, however, he didnât charge. This time, he waded in with slow, steady strides. His fingers flexed briefly on the hilt of his sword, and his wrists turned, unleashing a rapid rain of snapping cuts to her head, shoulders, arms, and back again.
-CLANG-
-CLANG-
-CLANG-
Ashynnâs blade moved like a blur, flowing from one deflection to the next, but this time, Owain gave her no room to counterattack. He pressed onward, faster and faster, increasing the tempo of his blows as he tested the limits of her defenses, and with each resounding ring of steel, the look on his face, concealed behind his visor, grew more and more grave.
Somehow, in the nine months since heâd beaten her to death on their wedding night, sheâd found the strength and speed to rival his own... and the gaps between their skills were narrower than heâd imagined possible.
She might, his mind acknowledged reluctantly... She might actually pose a threat, one he would have to take far more seriously than heâd planned.