*CLANG*
The clearing held its breath. Everyone watched with awe and interest.
Astaroth moved first.
No warning or signal. Just steel cutting morning air and Kevin's sword snapping up to catch it, the impact rattling through his teeth.
The Commander was already withdrawing, already swinging again before Kevin's block finished, each strike arriving faster than the last like hammer blows from a man who had never once been tired in his life.
Kevin backpedaled. Boots finding wet grass. Another blow. Another. The ring of steel became a single continuous sound.
"He's being pushed," one of the younger knights muttered.
No one corrected him. Kevin was, indeed, being pushed back since he was fighting the best.
Astaroth's blade came horizontal and Kevin ducked beneath it, riposted hard at the man's flank, and the Commander simply wasn't there anymore, pivoting with a soldier's economy of motion, redirecting Kevin's momentum into nothing.
