Arthurian Cultivation

So began my time with Bors. He set up a tent for me, another looted goodie from the hunting cultivator. In fact, he ‘loaned’ me the man's entire storage ring and most of its contents for the duration of our partnership. The tent was pleasant, but everything else the man owned made me feel as though a hunting lodge had thrown up over it. One thing I wasn’t going to complain about was the fur-lined camp bed. Bors grumbled about that, grousing about short men and tiny beds.

Not that size alone was the issue. I suspected that, with his huge body, he’d collapse most beds, even if they were built to scale.

For the first few days, our companionship was quiet, a distant silence as we got used to each other. That changed when I asked to borrow a bastard sword and shield to train. Bors was ecstatic to get in some fighting. He wasn’t a great teacher, but I was focusing on relearning what I’d forgotten.

Part of his difficulty in explaining anything was that his martial skill was simply on a completely different level from mine. Even when limiting his strength, he could beat me hands down with one hand tied behind his back—literally. He was polite about my failings, but I could sense a little frustration. Bors lived to fight.

He explained why it was going slowly after a particularly tough fight.

“You fight more like Gawain or Percy than me. You’re fast and can attack quickly. You fight tricky too. You can use both hands for the sword, and that quick switch almost got me.”

“All right, but why am I on the floor while you’re untying the arm you didn’t use?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I’m used to fighting Gawain, who is faster than you, and Percy is even trickier. Both are Iron, too. Sorry to say, you’ve got a ways to go before you can compare.”

“Any tips?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing, and get to Iron rank.”

With that sage wisdom ringing in my ears, we flipped our roles on their heads. I volunteered to give some lessons on control. Being stuck for so long meant control was one of the few things I could develop. Control was essential for techniques, like my smoke illusions. Techniques weren’t often possible until high Bronze rank. They tended to require excessive amounts of glamour and a level of control that ranged from middling to excruciating heights I never reached.

Techniques were a melody you could play, while control was your command of the instrument. I had one technique: my smoke illusions. And illusions required a song to make them work. So, my control had to match. Thankfully, it was low on glamour usage.

Teaching Bors control, though, was stretching my self-control. He just bulled through everything like an avalanche. It was reflected in the techniques he could use, which had to be demonstrated a good distance away from the bridge. Destroying your own bridge is another big no-no in the Knight Errant community.

The least destructive technique was something that turned everything within ten paces of him into splintered hexagons. While he ran through some exercises I suggested, I tried to work out how to help him. For that, I needed space.

I hunted and foraged again while retrieving the Gale Hare's corpse. Bors let me know there was a small bounty in the local town on them. The local government paid Cultivators to handle them, as they were such a disliked enemy that, without some coin, they’d be ignored in favour of better prey.

Our time continued. We shared stories. I was careful not to share so much as to fully out my identity—not that I thought Bors would share, but I didn’t want him to accidentally say something that made its way to the wrong ears.

In turn, I learned about the small group of knights he belonged to. There were four of them currently, and all of them were, according to Bors, at least as proficient as he was. Though he was happy to say he was physically the strongest. Their leader, Arty, was a true prodigy. If the man who trounced me without breaking a sweat considered himself a simple dabbler in the sword compared to the man, then I could believe it.

The other two members were Percy and Gawain. Percy was their lifeline; she knew people and was somehow always able to keep the heat off the group. She sounded like some kind of confidence trickster from the way Bors told it.

Gawain was a master trainer of beasts. He had a soul bond with a Whispering Kestrel, an impressive fae beast. It allowed them to communicate over longer distances and acted as a scout.

All of them had run afoul of demonic cultivators. All had been less than impressed with the reaction of the Orders to the threat.

The rest of the group was out hunting down a group of ‘Inquisitors’ who’d been found putting entire towns to blade and flame to aid their foul rituals. It was within the borders of a local Order that Bors had annoyed previously, and so their response would be aimed at him rather than the rampaging murderers.

We agreed that was the height of folly.