Swiss Arms 96 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 96

-VB-

Isabella von Fluelaberg

“And you just reached too far,” Hans said to her without any emotion. 

It didn’t feel like she was being ridiculed for wanting to learn how to fight with a blade. Or that she was a woman trying to fight with a blade. The way Hans taught was…

“Faster,” he told her blankly, and with inhuman speed, tapped her wrist with a thin stick that was as long as his arm was. He tapped her just lightly enough that she felt a sting but it didn’t leave a mark, not even a red spot. 

He was very hands on.

Her wrists, helbows, shoulders, waists, and knees were all lightly throbbing with the hits she took over the last week, and since he always made sure to rotate where he struck each day by changing the type of exercise, she always had a “fresh” spot ready to go for him to tap away at if she didn’t react quickly. 

When he said that he wasn’t going to go easy on her, she expected a lot of stances, sword swinging, and forms. Instead, it was sparring everyday with active “encouragements” so she fixed her errors quickly. 

Apparently, this was better than what the rangers were used to, and a few even gave her looks of jealousy. Unlike with them, he was being extra gentle with her. Her pregnancy was probably one of the main reasons for that gentleness, but her arms had nothing to do with her pregnancy, so it might be less related than anyone thinking about her pregnancy might think.

She yelped when she got a hit to her ankle, a new place for her.

“Thrust out after you have a stable footing, not after,” he hummed. 

She glared at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she snapped. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Not at all. I would rather be building a new log cabin so that I can make love to you inside of it.”

She blushed. “Not in front of our retinue!” 

“They hear us have sex anyway when we’re back home. Neither of us are exactly quiet, you know?”

The blush creeping up her face turned into a landslide. Everything became too hot, and she felt anxious and almost panicky. “Stop! Stop talking about it!”

“You’re the one who asked what I would rather do,” he shrugged. “Alright, let’s keep going. Give me a side step. In three, two, one -.”

And when he swung, he swung fast. She could barely track the stick in his hands with her eyes. But she dodged out of the way by sliding to the side. Then she struck. Her feet ground against the ground as she spun and lashed out with a stab toward his neck. 

Hans easel parried her attack. And then he smiled. “Good. You didn’t overextend yourself this time and put your back into the attack.”

She huffed. “But I couldn’t get you to dodge.”

“Hon, a squad of rangers can barely make me sweat. Don’t worry about it.”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the rangers accompanying them nodding in agreement, though some of them looked uneasy about sparring with Hans. 

“Alright, let’s go for a few more dodge and strike practices before we move to parry practices. After that, it should be time for dinner.”

She nodded and took a deep breath in as she held up her sword again.

“Good. Dodge and counterattack.”

He stepped forward once and struck out with his stick toward her core, and she stepped to her left. Instead of striking, though, she took another step back.

Why?

Just because this was a “Dodge and Counter” practice did not mean that her husband did not prepare traps. He could, and did, counter the counter, often times hitting her harder than normal to “dissaude her from forming a habit of always countering after one dodge or parry.”

Having dodged to her left while she held her sword in her right, she was not ready to attack unless she was also prepared to take a hit, and Hans always said: “if you are prepared to gamble with a fatal hit, then you weren’t prepared enough to fight.”

Which neatly didn’t apply to him because he was some sort of supernatural human who could shrug off steel with his skin! 

“And again.”

This time, she didn’t wait for him to attack. She dove into his attack (slowed for her sake), and “punished” him for the attack. He looked at her with momentarily surprise before he schooled his face and -.

She looked at him with wide eyes as her sword arm got flung up without the sword. There was a whirling hiss above her head before she heard it sink into the ground with a sharp thuck. She looked over her shoulder and found her sword sticking out of the ground. 

“Very nice,” he complimented her as if he hadn’t just moved so fast that she couldn’t even figure out what happened. Or that the rest of the spectating rangers had gone still after looking and trying to process what they saw just as she was trying to process it. And they were all failing. 

She … She saw his arms drawing back. She got that much.

The stick did something funny, though. As he drew it back, he was making it spin? Yes, he made it spin in his fingers.

Then there was something that happened between the stick caught her sword and when her sword was sent flying.

He spun a thin stick in his fingers and then … did something to send her entire arm flying along with her sword. 

“I think that deserves a reward. How about I cook tonight’s dinner?”

Everyone in the clearing cheered.