A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1410 - 1410: Ambitions - Part 7

"Hoh, that is quite the technique," Oliver said. "But if you don't work it into the flow of combat, it'll hit nothing but the most novice of foes. Even the most powerful of techniques, if you use it from the off, will be defeated by a discerning eye."

"Grrr… I thought I'd be closer to getting you with that," Firyr said, distraught.

"An attack begins like this," Oliver said, feigning a slash to Firyr's thigh. Firyr reacted strongly to that, taking an almost fearful backwards step, and lowering his guard in an instant. Then Oliver delivered a light jab to Firyr's chest. Not a move made designed to finish a man, but simply to attract his attention. Once more, Firyr reacted strongly, trying to wrestle the blade away. "At least two threats, Firyr, that is the heart of it, but even that rule of two threats needs to be worked into the flow of combat."

Oliver finished it, by kicking Firyr's legs out from under him. Firyr's strong blows had been enough to give Oliver two steps of advantage. With two steps of advantage, Oliver thought he could have slain even the likes of a General – but the issue was grinding a man away and allowing the smaller fractional advantages to accumulate, in order to gather those two steps.

The Commander landed with a grunt, but he was back on his feet in a second. "Again!" He declared. "I wasn't watchin' that time, Captain. You distracted me."

"Ah, you think you can drink everything in, and keep your eyes on everything at once?" Oliver asked. "Is that your solution, Firyr, simply more? That's a child's way of thinking. Your sense for combat is already too advanced for that kind of thing to have any effect on you."

Firyr didn't let Oliver's words distract him. That was another point to his credit, Oliver supposed. In matters of combat, he hardly even let rank phase him. He treated Oliver just as he would any other foe. But that didn't stop him from over reacting when Oliver feigned a strike at him.

Oliver had to smile. Fighting with the likes of Firyr, the laws of combat became as strong a thing as gravity. When Oliver took a step, it was as if he was in a wrestling match with the man. Just a single step like that carried weight. He'd only feigned one strike before it, but that single forward move was enough to create a step of advantage.

"You ought to be careful how much you give a foe," Oliver said. "Do you not feel the advantage you just gave me? You're already on the back foot, Firyr. If I had a mind to, I could have ended this a move ago."

"That's not—" Firyr tried to say, but Oliver lunged out, and walloped him on the shoulder, forcing him to drop his spear.

Firyr crouched down with a strained expression, fighting to deal with the pain. "I don't get it… How are you able to step in like that?"

"Naturally, it's because of the disparity between our strength initially," Oliver said. "But I could not have done so had you not already allowed the flow of combat to build itself in my favour."

"What do you mean by that, Boss?" Firyr said. Oliver grinned at being called Boss, when Jorah had tried so hard to quash that habit in Firyr.

"Why do you suppose a feint works?" Oliver asked. "Why do you suppose a step forward works? Why do you suppose our reactions change throughout the course of combat? Why do you see experienced fighters circle even beginners, before they press the advantage?"

"I dunno," Firyr said, though his forehead was strained in thought, as he tried to think it through.

"It all accumulates," Oliver said. "There's always a push, and there's always a pull. The laws of progress exist as strongly in combat, as they do out of it. I build an idea in your head of what strikes to expect. That's a feint. I build an idea in my own body, as to my forward motion, and I'm able to react beyond my normal reaction time. That's our rhythm when we're fighting. Surely you've been told before, 'don't get stuck in his rhythm?'. Even the battlefield as it rages around us has an influence. We push, and we pull against it, and all the factors work to build an advantage in our favour. It's progress, Firyr."

"I don't get it at all, Boss," Firyr complained. "I don't think that much when I'm fighting…"

Oliver inclined his head. "True enough. We can't fight trying to take every variable into account. And so we have to move in a way that is more in line with the laws of progress. We have to be able to feel out advantage and weakness without thinking."

"How do I do that?" Firyr said.

"That part, it's rather simple," Oliver said. "You do what a master does, when he does not wish to underestimate his foe. You simply move more. You take a forward step, you feel how he reacts. You prod with your sword, you feel how he reacts. You follow his eyes, you feel how he reacts. You do all these things naturally… playfully… and you build your image of him…"

Oliver trailed off, as his own explanation evoked a word in himself that he hadn't used to explain it before. Firyr was far from being the first that he'd tried to explain the concept to, but Oliver didn't think he'd ever used 'playful' in his explanation before. He wondered if it was not simply because the idea had been on his mind lately, as he studied the High King, and he attempted to reconcile his single victory over Volguard.

"Move more…?" Firyr said. "But on the battlefield, you want to move quickly… Ya got to deal with the enemy, before he deals with you."

"True enough," Oliver said. "It always seems optimal to defeat a foe in a single strike when you can. But against an equal, you'd be hard pressed to do that. But I would not say the concept is invalid on a battlefield. For the soldiers of a battlefield are part of a larger whole, and when you step forward, and feint, and slay, killing foe after foe, it is not a single enemy that you are playing with in your head. It is the entire army that is falling into a rhythm. And you can hold advantage over a single enemy in front of you, by feeling the rhythm and place of the entire army. Surely you have felt, at times, in our charges, when enemies crumble as if they do not exist, and then a few minutes later, that enemy is capable of fighting valiantly, and holding us to a standstill?"