Goblin

I came here on the ship of a merchant. The East had many things that a trader could make fortunes on, if he were willing to bring them back home. I had convinced him, that having a person like myself, to whom no skill was considered useless would be a great boon and he hired me on. It was a lousy pay, I must admit, but I would've gladly paid to go with him anyway, so I didn't complain.

My first sight of the Easterners left me dumbstruck. I thought it to be a place of monumental wealth and power immediately. The official who met us was dressed in simple yet clearly quality blue silk in a cut I then thought terribly exotic. The dockworkers wore simpler clothes; functional, but still pleasing to the eye.

The items sought by the merchant seemed quite dull in my opinion, when compared to everything else here. Porcelain cups, plates and teapots painted with intricate blue patterns. Beautiful, intricate and surprisingly sturdy, but when faced with their architecture (flowing between sharp points and soft curves), their food (meat from animals I had never seen and spiced with substances I couldn't readily identify) and their beautiful pictures, tapestries and poetry (though I didn’t understand what they said at the time, later on I’ve found their language perfectly suited for such pursuits; flowing, ambiguous, not to mention that using similes is an unavoidable aspect of this beautiful tongue).

I ended my contract with the merchant, who gave me my pay (subtracting various ‘taxes’ that I knew didn’t apply, but I held my tongue) and let me explore this land. I walked the streets for hours on end, marvelling at the architectural genius that dominated this place. I was stunned by men and women wearing bathrobes in the middle of the street and swords of unusual shape (clearly designed for use on horseback based on the way the blade curved near the end allowing for greater penetration when travelling on horseback), light enough to be wielded in one hand but with its handle designed for double-handed use.

I saw women with white-painted skin and their lips the colour of blood, black hair tied into a knot wearing exotic silks that covered all skin from their neck and down. I thought it was high-class courtesans and in my curiosity I followed. When they were called one by one by an elderly matron into a house, I thought my suspicions confirmed. Later I would find that it was in fact a wedding ritual of the culture and laugh at my own mistake. After I had walked for a whole day, I returned to the docks where some of the deckhands of ‘my’ old ship helped me find a place where the proprietor spoke the Western tongue and I rented a room with him. With the not immodest sum of money I had originally brought – gifts from family, friends, money from years of work and (most recently) doing a very dubious assignment for a duke, who wanted me to design him an iron maiden – I was able to stay there for several months and my host, Iwasa he was called, was happy to practice his Western and I excited at the prospect of learning the Eastern tongue.

So I did.

When my money started to run out Iwasa and I had already become good friends, though he did still have a business to run and I could hardly expect to get my room for free, not to mention food and drink. I asked him about what sort of work a foreigner such as myself could expect to get and he smiled at me, explaining that most people here saw Westerners as a bit unintelligent, having simple architecture, clumsy and slow merchant vessels and that being thought an idiot savant was probably the best one could hope for.

It discouraged me, I’ll admit, but if I didn’t try it would all be for nothing.

I tried getting a job at a library, thinking that they would trust me to at least handle books when I showed them my almost flawless Eastern and explained how I had handled many fragile books in my own country and that it would be no problem. I was turned down.

I tried asking a blacksmith, explaining how I had made horseshoes, greatswords and full-plate armours. He laughed at me, though I didn’t understand why at the time. It seems that in the East their blades were constructed differently from in the West, partially due to the fact that their resources of iron were far lower and also due to the inferior quality of any ore they did manage to extract. Full-plate armours, while an attractive idea for many were simply too costly to produce and few Western merchants would want to fill their ships with such armours, partially due to the fear that no one would buy it but also because the West saw the lack of decent armour as the East’s only real weakness and should the East decide to take military action, such a weakness was imperative to the continued rule of the Western monarchs.

I tried applying for several other jobs, but none of them wanted to hire me on. My accent was more pronounced than I had thought, though my vocabulary had astounded many of the people I had visited.

When I saw the poster, I had only enough coin for another two days. It promised that the most skilled man-at-arms in an organized tournament would win not only a sizable amount of money, but also the patronage of a local lord (I recognized his name, at least and his title translated approximately to “Greatly Named,” which was not unlike a duke as far as I could tell). As a desperate man who needed both coin and employment I signed on. Granted, I wore only my battle cloak and carried a quickrazor, so the many men around me brandishing long, slender swords frightened me. Still, they wore less armour than me – most of it consisted of cloth, though by the sound of clinking I reasoned that some of them bore ceramic tiles beneath the cloth as well.

I prayed that I would walk out alive, although I’m not quite sure to whom I prayed.

It must’ve worked though, because the first day of fighting – I had learned it would take place over three days during which we would be living on the lord’s hospitality – I went up against a young, inexperienced duellist, who fought (poorly) in a Florentine fashion; sword for attacking and a shorter blade for blocking. When the quartermaster told us to begin, I didn’t move.

The youngling hesitated, seeing me unarmed and smiling at him, holding my empty hands out for him to see. He looked suspiciously at me for a moment and then made a clumsy swing at my head, his blocking blade nearly nicking himself in his primary arm due to overextension.

I dodged with a quick sidestep and pulled the quickrazor from its holster and, with a turn, managed to rob him of his balance. As he started to fall, the razor entered between two of his vertebrae and he let out an involuntary gasp, as I returned the blade to its holster.

The crowd loved it. I doubt anyone had even seen my blade go in so to them I had disabled an armed opponent using my bare hands. I was allowed to continue to the next day of fighting and I left the fighting grounds to get something to eat. It was – after all – free and despite seeming rude, I couldn’t afford not to. Once I had eaten all I could I went to my room where I settled down with a book. Tomorrow would be harder, I knew, but I was sure that superior intellect would win the day.

My opponent was slim and stood a few inches taller than me – I shouldn’t have been surprised, really – wearing no armour. It was clear that he was a skilled combatant, and I decided that his skill depended on speed and mobility over strength. He reminded me of a large feline, in a way.

He carried the Eastern sword I had seen so many times now, but that didn’t scare me. What scared me was that he hadn’t drawn the blade when the quartermaster had told us to begin. Rather he walked slowly towards me without hurrying or worry. Yet, I noticed that he was walking quite unusually and realized that he was actually protecting his legs from attack in this manner. Frankly, I was impressed. And scared. Very scared.

I dropped into a crouch, knowing that if he used mobility against me, using mobility against him would be of little use. No, I would have to roll with each of his movements and make him overextend, then move in and finish him. I waited for him to draw his blade.

I felt a shooting pain in my arm. ‘Shit!’ I thought, ‘The blade’s just for show! He’s a fucking mage!’ then I saw the blade in his hands and the flick of his wrist that caused blood – my blood – to fly cleanly off the blade onto the dusty ground. My arm was an open wound and it was nothing short of miraculous that I maintained the presence of mind to roll away from his next attack before it severed my head from my shoulders. I quickly weighed my options.

One, I tried to keep him at a distance, hopefully wearing him out. The only flaw was that I was bleeding out and would probably tire before him anyway.

Two, I feint to get inside his reach and finish it up-and-close, so that he couldn’t bring his sword to bear. Still, I hadn’t even seen him draw his weapon, so getting close would be a challenge in itself.

I opted for the second challenge. I pretended that the wound was more painful than it was, contorting my face, and fell down on one knee. He moved in for the kill.

When he was close enough I dropped the pretence and kicked him in his Achilles tendon, robbing him from his balance.
Then I shot up, my quickrazor weaving patterns through the air, severing his airpipe four times before moving out of his reach again. Blood was running down his clothing and he’d dropped his sword, clutching at his throat with both hands. I smiled for a moment and moved into the house, hoping to make myself a make-shift bandage from my spare clothing.

“What’s your name?” A strange voice asked behind me.

“Goblin,” I answered with a smile, “It’s a long story,” I added with a wink.

“I’m Saru. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure?”

“Why’d you let that guy get close enough to cut your arm like that? Seems rather wasteful.”

“How was I supposed to know that he could draw his sword like that?”

“Are you kidding? Half of everyone here can draw as fast as him or faster! Finishing the fight with the draw of your sword is highly respected in our country.”

“So… can you give me a few pointers for tomorrow? How one should draw etcetera? I’ve only got two arms,” I said, laughing.

“Sure, I’ll give you a few pointers. You and I aren’t fighting tomorrow unless we meet in the finals… and then I’d much rather know exactly how good you are,” he said, grinning and revealing a large gold tooth.

Iaijutsu – as it was called – meant “knowledge of immediate reaction” as far as I could tell.

The whole concept was that you fight without needing to think – an alien thought to me – though, as far as I could make out it was actually that you trained your muscle memory to a degree that thinking wasn’t strictly necessary, reacting to your opponents attacks by virtue of routine.

Saru taught me the most commonly adopted stances and showed me the twist of the both needed for optimal penetration power. He in turn was surprised at how quickly I caught on and after a few hours training I was able to perform ‘shadow fighting’ as Saru called it, properly executing techniques against imaginary opponents. Still, there’d be a long time before I could use it in combat, he warned. Still, even after he went to bed, I trained. I slept only a few hours that night, spending the rest of the time training how to properly execute the move. I had changed the bandage and – despite an initial unwillingness – cauterised the wound for good measure. The less it sapped my strength today the greater my chances of survival.

So, there I stood in the glaring sun, hoping that my hasty training had been enough that I might have the opportunity to regret having even entered this competition. My arm continued to throb accusingly.

When my opponent showed – two minutes late – I nearly laughed with relief. I had expected an Eastern monster of a warrior and that I would find myself covered in hundreds of clean, yet deep cuts before I knew it. Instead, the man was a Westener, a sailor by the looks of him. I thought victory safe until he took off the cloak that shielded him from the merciless Eastern sun, revealing full plate armour, a battle-axe and a buckler. As my opponent strapped the buckler to his arm I felt my confidence slowly sap away. There was no way, that I would be able to cut through a heavy layer of metal… neither could the Eastern blades, I realized, which was probably how he’d made it this far. The low-grade material of the Eastern swords would have limited their wielders to thrusts against the gaps of his armour and even then the blade might still snap. Clever.

Though, I did wonder just how he’d gotten his hands on such an armour, expensive even in the West and here it could buy the allegiance of a lot of people. But that was a problem for later.