Chapter 33 An eye for an eye
While Zaos was meditating, he began to hear the sound of pieces of wood being hit against each other. While the sound was quite loud, he still managed to keep his focus. Until he felt his cheek being slightly pinched and he noticed that his mother had woken up.
"What are you doing, Zaos?" Lyra asked. "Go play with your friends."
"… I would rather not be the one responsible for wounding the future ruler of the kingdom," Zaos said after he frowned.
"Even if you don't do it directly, you lent your training tools, so if something like that happens, you will be responsible indirectly,' Lyra said.
That was a good argument, so Zaos had a hard time thinking about how he could solve that problem. While he was doing that, he noticed that Ameria was also pretty good at using a sword and a shield. She probably had some good instincts since Drannor only used a staff since the very beginning of his training.
"If that were to happen, I can always erase the evidence," Zaos said.
"… How?' Lyra frowned.
"I can use Heal and make the wound disappear," Zaos replied.
"For a moment I thought you were planning to do something bad…" Lyra said and then laughed. "Anyway, you should build a good relationship with those two. After all, in the future, you will have to work together to keep peace up and running and at peace."
"It is fine, as long as I do my job and be the shield of the royal family, all the other problems can be left to them," Zaos shrugged. "That should be enough."
"How come a five years old boy like you can be so shrewd?" Lyra asked while she was poking both of Zaos's cheeks.
In the end, even though everything Drannor did was to block Ameria's attacks, she fell on her knees while she was sweating bullets. Zaos was amazed that she managed to show that much effort considering that she was wearing a dress that all spoiled princesses had to wear all the time.
"You lack stamina, but you have spirit," Drannor said. "Come here, Zaos. Show her what someone who has stamina and spirit can do."
Although that was the chance he had been waiting for, Zaos didn't feel like sparring. However, since Lyra slightly pushed him forward, Zaos decided to train a little bit. He needed to at least see if he truly could fight while using a longsword. After Ameria stepped back, Zaos and Drannor assumed their positions. As expected, Drannor decided to wait and see since that was his usual strategy. Still, he regretted it a little when Zaos charged forward at a fearsome speed. In the blink of an eye, he raised his longsword, and in the other, he was already swinging down, even though Drannor wasn't within his range yet.
Drannor moved his staff and prepared to hit Zaos's stomach and stop him, but he noticed that Zaos was moving too fast, and his momentum couldn't be stopped with a single attack. In the end, he used his staff to block Zaos's swing. While he succeeded, all the momentum of the attack made Drannor bend his knee.
Zaos's grinned from ear to ear. While that hadn't been a clean hit, it had been the first time Zaos managed to break Drannor's composed face. Moreover, he was winning the contest of brute strength. However, since Zaos was too focused on the attack, he didn't notice when Drannor prepared a kick and hit his knee. Zaos's stance broke, and Drannor had the chance to step back and escape from Zaos's range, but he soon stepped forward again and tried to hit Zaos's face with a lightning-fast trust. Zaos moved his head to the side, and his ear was only scratched, but it began to get hotter in the end. That hadn't been a weak attack…
"… You can't use kicks," Zaos said after he stepped back and checked his ear.
"You can't use all out attacks either," Drannor said. "Did you want to split my head?"
"If I wanted that, I would have used a real sword," Zaos replied.
Despite his words, Zaos also noticed that he got too far. While he wanted to check the results of his secret training, there was no point in trying that hard against a kid… even though Zaos planned to stop his attack at the last minute.
Despite the argument, the two boys decided to continue the spar, and this time they returned to their usual rhythm of training, where none of them would get hurt too much if a clean hit landed. Zaos dashed forward again and prepared a full vertical swing, but not fast enough where he would have to put all his weight behind the attack. Drannor tried to attack Zaos's exposed left side. Still, then he noticed that Zaos didn't make a single move to stop that… in the end, Drannor gave up again and assumed a defensive stance, and completely blocked Zaos's attack.
"What was what?" Drannor asked. "While he was trying to move away Zaos's sword.
"My secret technique, I call it: an eye for an eye," Zaos smiled.
"What a dumb technique… what is the point of hitting if you are going to get hit first?" Drannor asked.
"It doesn't matter, our weapons can't cut anything," Zaos said.
Drannor frowned when he heard that, and in the end, he stepped back and easily from Zaos's range again. For some reason, he looked pretty pissed, and that was a first. It seems like Drannor would try to fight for real this time, but Zaos wouldn't complain. He assumed a semi-defensive stance where he could defend and attack after just a few moments if necessary. With his sword being held by his hands in front of him, Zaos prepared another charge. But then Drannor charged first and began to hit Zaos's sword with frontal trusts one after another with lightning speed. In the end, Zaos was forced to assume an utterly defensive stance while holding both hands of his sword to decrease the weight of Drannor's attacks.
