They walked over to the training yard closest to their tent, empty. Mark moved to the weapons rack with an easy stride and casually placed his sword down against it. He pulled two wooden practice swords – one for himself, and the other one for Raen, which he promptly tossed over to him in a lazy underhand arc.

  Raen caught the sword one-handed and turned it over, testing the weight while raising an eyebrow at Mark.

  “I don’t want anyone saying I bullied a man fresh out of a coma.” Mark moved to the center of the training yard. “This way, neither of us has an excuse.”

  Mark was relaxed, playful even. But Raen noticed a sharpness in his eyes that told him this spar had been thought about. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment, but planned.

  “With these, the odds are even, agreed?” Mark swung his sword in a loose arc, feeling it out.

  “If you want, I can hit you over the head once,” Adam called from the sidelines. “That should even things out even more.”

  Mark glanced at him. Not amused.

  “First to three, as usual.” Mark settled into a relaxed stance, watching Raen with patient eyes.

  “Ready?”

  Raen took a breath, swung the sword once with his right hand, feeling the balance settle. It didn’t. It still felt wrong.

  ‘Focus, use only the basics. Don’t give him anything he didn’t already know.’

  He nodded, and Mark smirked. He then lunged.

  ‘A feint.’ Raen read it instantly. The lunge was too telegraphed, the angle wrong. Mark’s weight was still on his back foot. He wasn’t committing, simply testing.

  Raen responded in kind, raising his sword high, as though to block – a feint of his own. He then dropped his hand and stabbed the sword into the mud, planting it.

  Clank!

  Mark’s sword came down exactly where Raen had expected it. A sharp impact vibrated through the wood. Mark had taken the bait, or at least played along with it.

  Mark then quickly pulled his arm and stabbed forward, aiming at Raen’s neck. It was fast, faster than Raen anticipated.

  He stepped back, pulling his sword out of the ground and sweeping it from below to deflect the attack. The attack should have been sharp and aggressive, enough to carry his counterattack directly into the opening Mark left.

  It wasn’t.

  His right hand didn’t cooperate. The deflection came out sloppy and weak, the blade swinging wide with none of the precise, snapping force he planned.

  Mark’s sword grazed his cheek, drawing a line of cold, stinging pain. Mark’s eyebrow twitched as he quickly pulled back, and before Raen could recover, struck his sword thrice in quick succession. Each hit was precise, loosening Raen’s grip.

  Then, with a casual push, Mark shoved the blade aside and pressed the tip of his sword into Raen’s ribs. Raen winced, the breath punched out of him in a sharp grunt.

  “First point,” Mark said, without grinning. A faint crease appeared between his brows. It wasn’t concern, but something closer to curiosity.

  “Yeah,” Raen said, exhaling.

  “I know.”

  Mark moved back by a couple of steps before nodding at Raen.

  Raen nodded in return, spinning his sword. It wasn’t a standard grip adjustment, but something else, a different stance.

  His legs spread apart wider than before, lower to the ground. His left leg settled half a step in front of the right. His right arm pulled back, sword angled behind him. His left arm extended forward, clenched into a fist.

  It was the stance the current him knew best. This stance was built around one thing: to maximize the thrust while using the left to receive and redirect an attack. It was a stance where one struck with everything behind the right.

  He usually wore an iron gauntlet on the left hand, using it as a shield and weapon in one. Now, there was nothing but bare skin and bone, but it would suffice against a wooden sword.

  “Ohhh, aiming for a faster round this time.” Mark playfully licked his lips as he mirrored Raen with ease, as if mocking him.

  He cracked his neck. “Let’s see who’s faster, then.”

  Raen moved first, exploding forward. His left foot left an imprint on the ground as he lunged forward, left leg driving, right arm primed to attack, his body coiled and released as a spring. Weight shifted from back to front in one fluid motion, his right foot stomping the mud hard enough to send bits and pieces of it flying. The sword exploded forward, toward Mark’s chest.

  Mark didn’t block, but copied his move, lunging forward, but leaning to the side, his body flexing with unnatural efficiency. Raen’s sword moved past him, barely grazing his ribs.

  He then countered, a downward stab at an unnatural, impossible angle. His wrist bent so far back it looked broken. It was a technique Raen had never seen before, something unique to Mark.

  Raen’s body, however, was already moving. The momentum of his lunge carried him forward, his left leg lifted off the ground as the strike followed through – an unintentional motion. Like that, Mark’s sword drove past him and stabbed into the mud as their bodies passed one another, their left shoulders colliding in a sharp, solid impact.

  They spun apart, facing each other.

  “Not bad,” Mark said, his breathing still even, compared to Raen, who was already starting to breathe a bit heavily.

  “You almost had me there.”

  “As if,” Raen said with a scoff, fully aware that Mark was simply teasing him.

  His right arm ached slightly from the lunge. His footwork was off by half a step, and his strike came too soon, with enough space between them for Mark to respond and nearly hit him.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He had focused so hard on not allowing Mark to have the first strike this time that he attacked prematurely and nearly paid the price for it.

  “Second point,” Mark said, tapping Raen’s sword away and gently striking Raen’s ribs again.

  Raen blinked. He’d been so focused on analyzing his mistake that his awareness of the fight had simply … dropped. He hadn’t even seen the attack coming.

  “You zoned out for a second there, Cap. I thought you were baiting me into a trap for a moment.” Mark said, pulling his sword back, studying him. “You sure you’re alright?”

  Raen clenched his jaw. Two points down, one more, and he would lose.

  ‘Focus.’ He told himself again. ‘Stop overthinking, let your instincts take over.’

  The third round started differently.

  This time, Raen didn’t use complex techniques. No fancy stances, nothing.

  He just stood there, blade in hand, next to his body. His breathing was even, his body relaxed, and his eyes … unfocused.

  “What is he doing?” Jason asked from the sideline, brows furrowed.

  “I have no idea,” Adam added while Thatch cocked his head to the side, staring at Raen.

  “He’s emptying his mind,” Dral said, arms crossed as he observed Raen. “He’s clearing out everything that isn’t necessary.”

  “Interesting,” Marcus murmured, his dark eyes never leaving Raen’s face. “Did you know he could do that?”

  Dral shook his head.

  Mark, meanwhile, stared at Raen as he thought of several things in quick succession. He didn’t know what the latter was trying to do.

  Was Raen baiting him into attacking? Or was he simply out of options, acting desperate?

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ Mark moved.

  He lunged at Raen, then stopped, shifting his weight and lunging to the side.

  Mark feinted with everything. His footwork, his shoulders, the angle of his sword – each movement carried the signature of an incoming attack. He cycled through a dozen false starts in rapid succession, each one designed to trigger a response.

  Raen didn’t respond to any of them.

  To some degree, Mark was growing frustrated. It seemed as if Raen had given up completely and was waiting for him to strike for the last time.

  Deep inside, however, he knew that was not true, that he was truly getting baited.

  He bit the bait anyway.

  He lunged from Raen’s right, swinging his sword from the side, aiming to hit his sword arm.

  Clank!

  Before Mark’s sword was able to get halfway to Raen’s arm, it was hit by a sword and pushed to the side. A minimal shift, just enough to redirect the strike.

  Mark once again attacked, this time stabbing straight at Raen’s forehead.

  Raen tilted his head, allowing him to perfectly evade the blow. He then swung from below, aiming at Mark’s forearm.

  He was holding his own.

  Raen kept his movement small, economical. Nothing was wasted. His seventeen-year-old body was keeping up.

  Mark stared at Raen with annoyance before moving faster, delivering multiple strikes toward Raen, most of which he was able to block, but he was now being strained.

  And then –

  Clank.

  Mark struck from the left. Not at Raen’s body, but his practice sword. He delivered a sharp blow against the flat of the blade near the hand guard from below. The impact caused the hilt to twist in Raen’s grip before the sword slipped from his right hand, being thrown to his left.

  Raen’s left hand closed around the grip an instant later.

  And slashed.

  The slash was fast, faster than anything Raen had shown so far. A tight, efficient downward slash aimed at Mark’s head that caused the latter’s eyes to constrict for the first time in their fight.

  He didn’t know Raen was able to perform such an attack with his non-dominant hand.

  But before it could reach him, Mark let go of his sword. His right hand shot up and caught Raen’s wrist with a firm grip. The sword stopped inches away from Mark’s head.

  Mark then pulled.

  He yanked Raen toward himself and drove his knee into his stomach. Raen saw it coming, the pull, the shift in weight, but he couldn’t stop it. The knee drove the air out of him, and he doubled forward. Mark then swept his legs out from under him in the same fluid motion.

  He didn’t stop there.

  Mark grabbed Raen’s left hand with both of his hands, twisting the wrist and tilting Raen’s sword downwards, touching Raen’s chest with the tip.

  “Third point.”

  Raen lay in the mud for a moment, his eyes staring at the sky.

  Three rounds, three losses.

  In the past, he wouldn’t have beaten Mark, but he would’ve made him at least work for it, maybe scored a point even.

  “You good, Cap?” Mark extended his hand.

  Raen took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet, mud and sweat dripping from his face.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good match.”

  “Was it, though?” Mark added quietly, so that only Raen could hear him. “Because something is not adding up.”

  “Cap’n did much better in the last round,” Thatch observed. He was sitting cross-legged on a nearby crate, dagger balanced on one finger, watching with sharp attention that his youthful face usually kept hidden.

  “His eyes were working perfectly. Every attack, every feint – he saw them all coming.” Dral said in a confused tone.

  “But his body couldn’t respond.” Marcus’s voice was low. His dark eyes fixed on Raen with intensity that made the air feel heavier. “He knew what to do; his body simply couldn’t keep up.”

  “Exactly,“ Mark said, the playfulness gone entirely. “You fought like a man who knew what to do, but couldn’t remember how his own limbs work.”

  “The head injury,” Adam added from the side. “It must have affected his coordination.”

  “Perhaps,” Dral added, his eyes still not leaving Raen.

  “Again,” Raen said.

  All heads turned to him.

  “We never know when there will be a skirmish, or whether or not we will face danger during a patrol,” Raen said, grabbing his sword again, spinning it once in his hand.

  “What better way to warm up and get ready than this?”

  Before Mark had time to respond, Raen already lunged at him, a straight thrust at the neck, fast and committed, forcing him to respond.

  Mark deflected his attack, stepped to the side, and tapped Raen lightly on the back as he passed.

  “First point.”

  Raen attacked again right away, before Mark could even settle back into his stance.

  “Trying to pull a fast one?” Mark sidestepped the slash, grabbed Raen’s hand, and pulled.

  Carried forward by inertia and Mark’s grip, Raen stumbled and lost his footing.

  “Second point.”

  This time, Mark’s strike was not light, hitting Raen’s back with the flat of his sword. The sound of wood hitting the tunic echoed as Raen clenched his jaw in pain before falling on the ground, his face drenched in mud and sweat. He quickly stood up and raised his sword, panting.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Cap, but I can do this all day,” Mark hopped in place, his feet light and breathing even, a stark contrast to Raen. “I’m not sure you can, though?”

  Raen’s response was an attack, just as before. In his mind, there was nothing more important than this spar right now. It was a golden opportunity to get familiar with his body quickly.

  The training yard around him disappeared, the voices of the squad members, all that existed now was movement – strike, dodge, counter.

  Their sparring session continued, the sound of swords clashing echoing across the camp as Raen refused to stop.

  His body was learning. Slowly, painfully, but learning. With each round, he was getting more familiar with his body.

  He had to, for the scouting mission to go well, for the past to change, he had to be better than he was now.

  ***

  Over an hour of ‘sparring’ later, when Mark finally decided it was enough, the training yard had emptied, the passing soldiers no longer interested in seeing Raen get beaten up.

  Raen could barely stand, leaning on the practice sword, his body bruised and exhausted. Mud covered his tunic, mixed with sweat and drops of blood that came from some of his wounds.

  “That’s enough, any more and you won’t be able to lift a sword tomorrow,” Mark said quietly, his own breathing labored.

  Raen opened his mouth, wanting to argue.

  His legs gave out.

  “I got you.” Adam caught him before he hit the ground, one massive arm wrapping around his shoulders.

  “I just need a minute.” Raen tried putting more weight on his legs, but they protested in return.

  “You need rest.” Dral appeared on his other side, axe buckled on his waist. “You weren’t bad, for someone recovering from your injury.”

  “Yeah, you should rest, Raen. Sleep a bit, maybe,” Adam glanced at him with concern.

  “I’ll wake you for supper, don’t worry.”

  Raen sighed before nodding his head. The two flanked him, offering support if he couldn’t walk, while Jason stood behind with Mark, ready to catch him if he fell.

  Marcus had left some time ago, and Thatch disappeared right after the spar was finished – probably spreading word about his bizarre training session.

  As they neared the tent, Raen caught sight of his reflection in a puddle. Mud-streaked, exhausted, seventeen years old.

  The face of someone who shouldn’t exist in this time.

  Still, for those of you who thought he would grit his teeth and continue, well done guessing correctly.