Chapter 3: The contest

So Sarah/ Nu gave it her all and won her duel with Cai Mao, that ought to teach him a lesson in how to treat a lady, but I didn't think he was anywhere near the strongest in this camp.

So there we were, facing each other in a ring, just waiting for someone to tell us we could start, Gan had his blade ready, something about his confident stance told me that I would struggle in this. Nu sat there, wondering who would win, I'll admit, I wasn't exactly the symbol of confidence.

"Are you two ready?" Huang asked, I moved my weapon in front of me, hoping for a quick win, Gan kept his normal stance, unnerving me oddly enough. We both then nodded. "Fight!"

Gan moved quicker then I thought he could, raising his blade over his head in an attempt to hit me; I left it for a bit before rolling to the left out of the way. Before I had a chance to get back up, he swung the blade from where it was in my direction, where, with a lot of effort, I moved my weapon in the way to block it, achieving that only just in time.

He looked surprised that I actually managed it, a recruit like me pulling that off is like my family showing up out of nowhere, the crowd loved it though, everyone, including Nu, was standing up and shouting encouragement to one of us, half of the crowd for Gan half for me, he got most of the higher ranks on his side though.

I decided to take advantage of his surprise, forcing his weapon back and swinging my weapon upwards, he jumped back out of the way though, unlucky for me. This thing was very heavy and wearing me out, I was breathing heavily and sweating after only a minute of combat. Gan looked at me and saw this.

"You ok Fu?" He asked.

"Fine, I'm just enjoying myself" I answered, oddly enough I was, the rush of adrenaline was revitalising. This was something I could do everyday.

"Alright, let's keep going"

I regretted saying I was fine then, as Gan rushed me so fast that I barely had time to defend my self. When the weapons collided, we were stuck in a deadlock. I held my weapon with both of my hands to give it the most of my strength; he did the same with his.

"One of us shall lose" Gan said, using most of his strength.

"That won't be me" I replied, doing the same.

"I'm not called the river master for nothing"

He forced my weapon upwards then 'slashed' me in the chest with his wooden blade. I had lost the duel, but I had enjoyed it a lot, the crowd was silent as I put my weapon back on the rack, closely followed by Gan, I stopped and looked at him, he was breathing as heavily as me, and our combat hadn't lasted that long. I thought I had to do something to end the silence.

"Great fight Gan" I said, holding out my fist. He looked at me, thinking for a bit about how to answer me.

"I was looking for some competition in this camp" He replied, punching my fist in one of those friendly ways. "Looks like I found it"

The whole room stood up and applauded us, some of them were yelling out Gan's name. None actually bothered about me, so I just went and sat down.

"So!" Gan shouted, the crowd sat back down and fell silent. "I win that round, but that was a good fight to watch wasn't it"

The crowd just all said 'yeah' at the exact same time, I would have thought that they would have been freaked out by that, but I saw out the corner of my eye that some were looking up and speaking some words, making a wish. Superstition at work for you.

"Right, now the last match tonight is between two of our veteran officers. Lord Huang Zu and Lord Lu Gong"

Two people stood up, one in simple cloth clothes with a tall hat, Like Zu Huang, he walked over to the weapons and grabbed a sword, another stood up, he was wearing a turban on his head with what I assume is leather armour. Don't they have any casual clothes here?

I looked at Nu, she seemed to be enjoying herself, I, on the other hand, was knackered after that short match. Seeing as though I would either be training or fighting tomorrow (I set that up earlier in my head. I mean neither of us are any good with our weapons at this time, hopefully she would come of her own accord)

"Sorry, guys, but I'm off" I said, getting off the chair. "Good night"

"Good night, Craig" Nu said, you know, this name thing isn't working. Maybe we should just be called Craig and Sarah. Regardless, I left for my tent.

The camp was quite quiet, and thank god the rain had stopped, I had had enough of a soaking for today, I looked at the sky, seeing clouds in the distance, I'd say that they were half a day away, if that.

When I got to my tent, I reached in and pulled out the great sword in its sheath. Its weight almost pulling me over, I pulled off the sheath and put it on the ground, looking up and down the blade to see if it had any marks from the earlier fight with the soldiers.

"One day" I said to myself, looking for one of those dramatic lines to say. "One day I will find a way home for me and Sarah, until then, I will do what I have to" I wasn't sure if anyone heard me, but It felt good to say it at least, sure it was a bit corny, but still, may as well make a pledge now.

I put the blade away, crawling into my tent and putting beside me. I laid on my back with my hands on the back of my head, trying to relax, that's when I heard someone.

"Craig" she said, I knew it was Sarah/ Nu.

"Yeah" I answered.

"Are you dressed?"

"Yeah, why?"

She crawled into the tent; I got up into a sitting position, cross legged and moved the sword to give as much room as possible. She got in and did the same near the entrance and relaxed.

"What's wrong, Sarah?" I asked.

"I think we have to sort out this name thing" she replied

"Thank god, I was thinking the same but going to ask you tomorrow"

"Well, what do we do?"

"Well, why don't we just call each other our real names, but tell others that we are our new names?"

"Nice idea, but wouldn't people get suspicious if we went around introducing ourselves as Fu Xi and Nu Wa then talk to each other calling each other Craig and Sarah"

"True, true, but it's the best thing we've got"

"Alright, Craig, but we have to think of something, I don't like the idea of war"

"I'd be lying if I said I liked the idea, but think about it, we're alongside some professional soldiers and they are shit scared. Heck I think me and Gan are the calmest here"

"But how do you stay so calm?"

"It's just natural"

"Craig!"

"Ok ok. I think that we are doing the right thing"

"What?"

"Think about it, you signed us up as every good person would do, we are fighting to defend this place and if we lose we go to a stronger faction"

"But what if we get taken prisoner and killed"

"It's the 'what if…'s I ignore for good reasons, you can think 'oh, what if I die here' or 'what if I don't do something right' but you won't know until your on the battlefield"
"Really"

"Sarah, this is our first real battle, we can't keep thinking about the bad things that could happen, but we're not going to, alright."

Sarah looked at me as if I was going mad, but she saw my wisdom somewhere in those words.

"Good night, Craig" She said, getting out of my tent

"Good night, Sarah" I said, putting my blade back beside me and going back to laying down with my hands behind my head. Soon drifting off to sleep.

Well, we sorted out the name thing at last, I just hoped we wouldn't have anyone thinking we were spies or mad because we had different names for each other then they called us. But I can honestly say I was quite calm about the whole battle thing.

Weird huh.

from now on, Sarah and...Me call each other by our names, while the soldiers and officers (with some exceptions) call us Fu Xi and Nu Wa

And i thought that seeing as though Gan was extreamly strong, may as well give him speed as well, if you've play DW 5 you will know how fast he is

Move set will be put on next chapter