Chapter 753: Sword Master Thane
When Ashlynn emerged from Nyrielle’s chambers, she was greeted by a sight that she’d never expected to see. Thane’s handsome features were unmistakable, and his casual demeanor as he leaned against the wall couldn’t have been more normal.
It was the suit of armor that he’d donned that truly surprised Ashlynn. During most of their training, there had been little need for Thane to don more than a simple padded gambeson to cushion the occasional glancing blows that made it past his guard, but now, he’d donned a full suit of three layered armor.
Unlike most of the forces of the Vale who wore a padded gambeson as their primary armor, Thane wore one as a foundation garment, covered by one of the most intricate suits of blackened steel chainmail she’d ever seen. For a moment, she almost mistook the chainmail as being darksteel, but the armor lacked the weight and presence of the Eldritch’s people’s enchanted steel.
Chain over gambeson was what Ashlynn had learned to fight in when she wore her armor. The protection it afforded the body against swords and arrows was substantial and even axes and maces were substantially blunted against a person wearing two-layered armor. But Thane had gone even further, covering the suit of chain with a complete set of blackened steel plate armor.
Some would call Thane’s armor an antique, lacking the sophisticated articulation at the joints of more modern armor and relying on the skill of the knight to protect his most vulnerable joints that were only protected by two layers. His chest and back, however, were protected by a sturdy steel cuirass, while bracers, rerebraces and pauldrons protected his arms. Steel greaves covered his shin while tessets hanging from his cuirass covered his thighs.
Modern armor increasingly favored the mounted knight, with many of the innovations in the past hundred years coming from a desire to produce tournament victories rather than to fight in true wars. On the frontier, where wars against the Eldritch were more common, armorers worked relentlessly to adapt innovations from tournaments into new methods of closing up gaps, trading flexibility for the ability to survive the swarming attacks favored by many Eldritch forces against armored knights.
To Ashlynn’s eyes, however, Thane’s armor didn’t just look like an antique, it looked like a carefully considered compromise between maximizing the defensive capabilities of three-layered armor and allowing him the freedom of movement to employ his vampire speed and strength. Without his armor, Thane had always had a presence that felt both noble and playful, but with it, he felt... Commanding.
"Do you, do you really need all that?" Ashlynn asked as she looked at the knightly vampire. "I’m still a long way from posing a threat to you." Far from being a threat, Ashlynn wasn’t even wearing armor. At some point, while she was bathing, her mud-stained gambeson and chain had been taken away to be cleaned, likely by Heila, and in its place, a fresh tunic and breeches had been laid out along with a simple gambeson from the ancient fortress’s armory. Against someone like Thane, it felt like barely wearing armor at all.
"Tonight’s lessons will be frustrating," Thane said, pushing himself off the wall to retrieve his longsword and a small cloth sack from the floor next to him. "Heila showed me what you did to your room yesterday and we all saw the storm you conjured last night. So I thought I should keep myself safe," he said in a light, jovial tone.