How Steel Is Tested
Valk on the day of the duel was half festival, half funeral.
The imperial arena in front of the Lord’s residence was already packed full since dawn, with people spilling over the walls. The pitchman from the betting house shouted the final payout.
“Geralt of Steel wins! One coin per payout!” “Zashik Ken wins! Twenty coins per payout!”
“Twenty times! Twenty times the gangsters are saying about our captain—”
“Hugo. You bet on Geralt, too.”
“T-that’s diversification! It’s finance, it’s finance!”
In the front row of the spectator seats sat the full forty members of the Gray Fang, next to the Doran Trading Company, and next to a blonde figure who didn’t even seem to be wearing a hood.
On the raised platform sat the lord and Iden. A new ledger rested on Iden’s lap.
Today’s papers to fill.
Kael had been escorted all the way from the inn that morning. Vargas had simply pulled his sword belt once, patted his shoulder once, and that was all it took. He knew that prolonged farewells sounded like death sentences.
Hugo was the opposite.
“Last chance to settle things. Beating them is first priority. Looking cool while losing is second. Winning is… hey, if you’re really gonna win, at least do it without style. Hard, rolling, like you’re dying. Got it?”
“There’s a lot of orders.”
“That’s the price of your life! Orders are all you get!”
Finn had followed him from the training ground and handed him an envelope right before the match. It was warm.
“It’s a charm. Win and eat it.”
“Charms aren’t usually eaten.”
“There are edible charms! I just made them! Look!”
Kael tucked the envelope into his coat. The place where letters usually went. As the pocket narrowed, something strange stiffened along his back. Its name was still blank, though.
***
Noon rang out.
In the center of the arena, two swords faced each other. Geralt wore simple clothes. No armor, just a single wooden practice sword. Kael was the same. An old iron sword.
“Rules as usual for duels. Surrender, disarm, out of bounds, stop the match. Aura allowed, but no killing.” The referee from the Lord’s residence recited it, voice trembling. Judging a master’s duel was something he had never done in his life.
“Ready—”
Geralt let his sword fall and asked, not to the referee, but to Kael.
“Last question. Come at me with everything you’ve got.”
“I’ll start measuring.”
“Good. That’s how you fight.”
“Begin!”
The first exchange cracked the world in two. Geralt’s wooden sword fell straight down, no feint, no probe. Straight on. Dodge and the floor splits, take it and the blade snaps under the weight. Kael neither dodged nor took it, just flowed around it. The iron sword grazed the wooden blade’s side and pushed the trajectory one inch aside; the stone floor exploded a one-inch crack. The stands screamed and roared at once.
Second exchange. Third exchange. Geralt’s blade was honest, and honesty was the most vicious. No tricks to read. The weight he can’t take even when he knows— that was a master’s straight thrust.
Kael didn’t take it. He flowed, stepped aside, survived inch by inch.
The fifth was a thrust. The wooden sword’s thrust was like a falling log. Kael stepped aside half a breath and laid the sword face against it. The missed log shaved the corner of the arena wall.
The ninth was a horizontal slash. Sand lines split beneath the arc that cut the waist. Kael sank without leaping. A single inch of knee. Above that inch, steel passed.
“Is that even a person…?”
“He’s not taking it. He’s never taken it. He’s just flowing around it all the time.”
The spectators in the stands began to realize it. Not taking it is not cowardice. Taking thirty exchanges without taking it means you already know where every blade is coming from. On the platform, Iden sat frozen with his pen, unable to write even one letter. The princess peeked only her eyes over her fan, and they widened a fraction with every exchange.
The limit of aura users. Performing tricks exactly on that line— Kael was counting. Geralt’s breathing, the rhythm of his opening shoulders, the depth his feet were chewing into the sand. Measuring. The sharpness that had kept him half-in, half-out for ten years was measuring the master’s floor one inch at a time.
The problem was that the floor was too deep.
“He’s holding on! He’s holding on!”
“He’s gone mad. Ten exchanges into a master’s straight thrust—”
Twenty exchanges passed. A smile began to fade from the lips of the spectators around Geralt. Thirty exchanges. For the first time he stopped his sword and retreated two steps.
“…Captain.”
“Yes.”
“The measuring must be finished. Thirty exchanges.”
The arena fell silent.
“I am what I am now. You—”
Iden’s pen stopped on the paper. The crowd couldn’t understand what he said, but the few who did turned pale. The princess folded her fan. Vargas rose slowly from his barrel.
“Steel doesn’t bend. It grows heavier until it snaps.”
Aura rose one full level on Geralt’s wooden sword. Five exchanges were a different world. The flowing blade sang, and the missing inch shrank by half. On the fortieth exchange the first sleeve of Kael’s coat was cut. A piece of cloth fell onto the sand and the stands screamed; the forty Gray Fang members stood at once.
“Stop! Stop—”
“Sit down.”
Vargas’ voice cut low. His eyes never left the arena.
“Watch closely. This isn’t retreat. This is testing. The cut wasn’t on the flesh. He left half an inch and kept testing in the middle of it.”
The fiftieth exchange, Geralt stopped again. Sweat ran down his forehead this time.
“…Five exchanges, one sleeve. Fine. The courtesy is broken.”
Geralt gripped the wooden sword with both hands.
“Six exchanges. Take it.”
The world grew heavy. Aura rose along the wooden blade in steel light. The sand at the arena floor was pushed outward even though no strike landed. The roar from the stands crawled back into throats.
Kael’s mind spun fast. Six exchanges. It could not be flowed around. On the limit of aura users it could not be taken or dodged. If the line was held, he lost. But losing itself was something he could accept. The problem was what came after. A sword that loses is not removed from the target list. The prince’s paper had been gnawing at it for a year. The platform was being gnawed. And beyond all those cuts, something lifted its head. From inside a drawer. Something that had lived only half-in for ten years, never once fully revealed— it was looking at the steel in front of it. The sword that had never bent in its entire life. The sword that cut lies. In front of this sword, the one hiding was the lie.
“…I see, Master.”
Kael murmured low, gripping the iron sword tighter. The line was erased. The testimony of those who saw that moment would be twisted later. Some said the gray-fang swordsman disappeared. Some said two men appeared. Finn would insist for the rest of his life— the uncle simply stepped one pace forward. Like a stroll.
The wooden sword fell. It looked like a mountain collapsing. And between that mountain and the ground— through a single sheet of paper— a gray shadow slipped in. No one was there. Only a sound remained. One short, high sound like tearing paper. The sound the troll of the Rainwater Village had heard.
When the sand settled, the center of the arena held this image. Geralt’s wooden sword was stuck in the ground. A single line of hair-thin crack ran along the blade. And right an inch in front of Geralt’s neck, the tip of the old iron sword stopped. Unshaken.
“…………” No one made a sound. The referee forgot his role, ink dripped from Iden’s pen onto the paper. Geralt broke the silence. He stared at the tip of the sword in front of him for a long time. Then— he laughed. First low, then so loud the arena itself rang.
“Haha! Hahahaha!”
After the laughter, he stepped back one pace, pulled the wooden sword from the ground, and held it up to show the crowd. In a booming voice he declared,
“Geralt of Steel has lost to swordsman Kael! Witnesses are all present in this place!”
The roar exploded. It was a roar that could shake the roof. The forty Gray Fang members poured over the wall, Hugo cursed while crying, and Finn jumped with a bag of roasted chestnuts.
“Twenty times! Twenty times, you idiots!”
“All members, all of you hit! Drinks! Lifetime drinks!”
On the betting-house side, laughter and cheers split half and half. One pitchman sat down clutching his settlement sheet. If he counted the unpaid payout for the blonde woman who never revealed her identity, the Valk betting house would have to close for the month.
On the platform, two different expressions sat side by side. The lord stood and clapped. The seven swords of the capital had been broken. The name of Valk would spread across the empire.
Iden did not clap. He quietly closed the ledger he had not written a single letter on. The day the paper lost. Only his fingers tapped once on the closed ledger, slowly. The paper could not write fast, but it could write the end. What would be written in the capital when this result reached them— it would be an entirely different sentence from the cheers of this arena.
The princess approached, covering her mouth with her fan, and whispered only to Kael.
“Congratulations. And I will mourn.”
“…Which one is it?”
“Both. You just became the most famous commoner in the empire. How a famous commoner ends up… your big brother’s next letter will tell you.”
The princess folded her fan and added, back in her usual teasing tone.
“Oh, and I already cut the entire year’s worth of your squad’s drinking money in advance with the payout. It’s how collectors turn investments into cash.”
From the noise, Iden descended the platform and blocked Geralt’s path.
“Geralt. What are you going to write in the report?”
“Straight. I lost the duel.”
“As for the nature of that last move—”
“If you didn’t see it, write that you didn’t see it, Deputy. I didn’t see it either.”
“…My lord.”
“Paperwork is settled. I’ll stake my name on it. Steel does not break promises.”
Geralt walked past Iden. Iden tried to say something else, then simply clutched the ledger tighter. The moment the defeat on paper was recorded the second time.
In the middle of the noise, Geralt approached Kael. The roar parted around the two men. When two swordsmen faced each other, the crowd also knew distance.
“That was a good sword. That last move— it was the second I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“…The second.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m asking.”
Geralt extended his hand for a handshake— and in the only voice that carried across the distance of that handshake, he drove one word like the tip of a blade.
“Ten years ago, at the Gray Border, I first saw you. The gray blade light that cut through the beast wave. The military record said ‘unidentifiable,’ but the young knight behind them that day never forgot that footwork for the rest of his life.”
“……”
“That last move. That footwork.”
Strength flowed into the hand that shook his. Not enmity, but the power not to miss.
“Swordsman Kael. You are… what of that man?”