The Society

A young man has won his first ever duel by just more than luck, but wins like this may draw the attention of unexpected foes...

It's been around two weeks since Hanko won the duel for his family's inn, he didn't make a big deal about it but he felt good about himself when people acknowledged and praised him as a local hero, truth to be told you don't get to win a duel to the death against a man who came to the top of the city's aristocracy by usurping other's property by judicial duels alone every day, especially when you killed him by stabbing his throat in such a graceful manner as Hanko did. For his first fight with swords he did pretty well.

It was time to close, Hanko made sure Father and the other guests were in their rooms, cleaned the tables, sorted the food for tomorrow's breakfast, and lastly swept the floor and gathered the trash to throw it out; before he opened the door, Hanko picked his longsword for good measure, you never know if a friend or relative of the aristocrat would hire an assassin for his head, better safe than sorry. Hanko opened the door put the trash and the swept dust on its place and right before he headed back to the inn, he saw the mysterious figure of a man wearing a cape and a big, feathered hat. He would normally ignore this and close the door but then the man spoke to him.

-"You are the young fencer known as Hanko, am I right?" His accent made it obvious he wasn't from around here, probably he's from the southern provinces.

-"Um, yes... But I'm not much of a fencer, I just had a duel and that's all. Who wants to know?"

-"Let me introduce myself, my name is Diego Galvez de la Espina. And let's just say that your most recent deed has become of interest of the Society..."  The mysterious man approached slowly into Hanko, as he approached the light of the door's lantern made his appearance look clearer; he took his hat off to reveal the lightly wrinkled face of a middle-aged man, with short curly hair and a set of waxed moustache and goatee.

-"Society of what? Of the pompous dagger-eating b******s?"

-"Hah... The Society of the One True Science, actually."

-"One True Science...?"

Diego: Yes... What if I told you magic was real but not the way you heard on fairy tales? You cannot expel fireballs from your hands, nor make things appear and disappear out of thin air... all those tricks are illusions and those who make them are nothing but performers and scammers... The One True Science studies and teaches magic in its most real nature. Your dagger is your wand, the weapon you wield is your staff, the moves caused by your muscles and bones are the source of the magic's power and the death you cause on your enemies... that is your spell.

Hanko kept silent, he could barely digest what Diego said, he didn't even know how to reply so he let Diego continue.

-"But there is one trick, though... The spells work only when your enemy wants to die..."

-"That's nonsense! No one wants to die!"

Diego chuckled to Hanko's reply.

-"That is what everyone says, young fencer... But in practice, in the fight, the desire of death grows stronger as the unfortunate commit mistake after mistake..."

-"Whatever tell me what you want from me, so I can tell you "no" and then we can keep on our lives and never see each other again."

-"The Society wants to recruit you, Hanko Hettinger... Yet, a test is needed to see if you really are worthy..." Within a moment’s notice, Diego drew his sword. It was kind of different to other swords Hanko has seen, the hilt seemed to have a pattern of curved bars of metal and the blade was long as a longsword's, if not longer but it was slender and compact enough it could be held with just one hand. It seemed to be a rapier, he only heard of them being carried by southern nobles but never saw one in person. Still, this sight didn't make him hesitate to close the inn's door and draw his sword.

-"Oh, I know where this is going... If you have said it before I could have already made you cry for mama now!" Hanko was prepared for a fight, but he spotted something else; Diego stood in upright with his heels almost touching, his body was in profile while he held his rapier with his right arm straight in line with his shoulders while his left hand was close to his face looking with the chin up; it contrasted Hanko's deep and wide stance by far. Before the fight could have begun though, Diego turned his back and drew his rapier back into his scabbard and put his hat back on his head.

-"... It's no use, I have made my calculations... And in all cases, but one, I have given you a horrible death."

This obviously upset and confused Hanko to say the least.

-"And what about the exception?"

-"Oh, I just leave you full of wounds and incapable of holding a sword and standing for life... Anyway, I don't want to be charged of murder or crippling another man so, farewell! Diego tipped his hat to Hanko before walking away into the darkness of the street.

-"I'm fed up with your bullshit!” Hanko charged in frustration, ready to make a wrathful cut.

To be rejected for a fight was one thing but that commentary was the last draw on his patience, but before he could strike, Diego turned his feet and suddenly pulled his rapier in a moment's notice, pointing at Hanko's throat, one inch closer and the fight was done for. Hanko threw a powerful cut while stepping away to put the dagger aside and do his next blow, and so he did by throwing a horizontal cut aiming at his head, but Diego took advantage from the energy of the previous cut and simply ducked under the next one and the next thing Hanko saw was Diego throwing his hat at his face. The distraction gave Diego enough time to untie his cape and set his feet in position.

-"... You remind me of myself when I had your age... without hesitation, straight-forward, yet reckless and full of openings. But that can improve, don't worry." Diego adopted the same stance he took at the beginning. The real fight has begun.

Hanko charged again with no difference on intent, but no matter how many cuts and thrusts he did and no matter how fast they were, Diego could dodge and parry them with ease, almost as he could see them coming slowly and every time he had the chance he gave Hanko superficial cuts with either his rapier. Hanko was not sure if Diego's cuts were limited on purpose or his weapon lacked the mass to deal deeper wounds, but he was dead sure every cut built up his frustration more and more. I was just ridiculous, whenever he thought he could bind his sword with Diego's to gain advantage, the other just redirected his blade effortlessly to do a cut, and when he thought. Also, there was footwork, when Hanko gave a step forward, Diego just stepped aside in a circular manner gaining his back and making Hanko turn to defend himself. As the fight wore on, Hanko received more cat-scratching cuts and thrusts on his arms and legs. That was until it came to Hanko's mind to do the same technique he used to win the duel, if it worked on a pompous and more skilled aristocrat, so too will work with this one. Hanko put himself in a high guard, feinted for a middle cut, released his right hand to do a whipping motion with his left one  which was holding the pommel, Diego bought the feint and aimed for his head, Hanko then caught his sword's hilt with right hand behind his head and went for a downwards cut to put his rapier on the floor, he locked the rapier with the crossguard and threw a thrust into his pretentious face; but what Hanko didn't expect was that Diego turned his head just slightly so that the blade would just do a glancing draw cut through his cheek. Hanko couldn't believe it, his strategy worked, but not fully, at least he dealt damage on his opponent's ego. Diego stepped back to check himself and recompose but before he could, Hanko charged again with another downwards cut, this was it, if Hanko would overpower Diego once again, he would now have another win in his record. Alas, in a moment's notice, just when the two swords were about to bind, Diego pulled a dagger from his back and received Hanko's cut along with his rapier. For some reason this block was stronger than Hanko's cut, so his longsword was kept in there; out of sheer desperation, Hanko kicked at Diego's abdomen but before it could even connect, he stepped aside once again, dropped his dagger so he could grab Hanko's arm and put it in a lock and right after that he aimed his rapier's point at Hanko's mouth. The fight was almost over.

-"Ah, now that's what I wanted to see! You could have done better but at least you're not dead... yet. Congratulations, you have passed!" Diego cocked his arm to do the thrust and Hanko, defeated, hopeless and scared, let go a scream that was shut by the rapier's point penetrating his throat.

 

After that, everything went dark for Hanko, dark and cold. He couldn't feel anything, the humid smell of the street at night, the glimmering light of the candles outside the pub, the feeling of his sword at his hand, all gone. If this what happens after one dies, then Hanko now must deal with this for the rest of his life.

But then, a faint yet sudden sound came to him, a familiar noise as well; as time wore on the sound became clearer and clearer, after a while it was obvious, it was the sound of two or even more steel blades clashing and sliding with one another. Hanko then felt like he could open his eyes and so he did, only to see a ceiling and the rays of the sun shining into his face, the discomfort made him to sit up on the bed he was laying now; he rolled the sleeves of his now strangely fresh clean undershirt to see stitches all over his forearm, where he remembered having cuts from that mysterious swordsman. Then he looked around with his sight and found many beds set on his left and right, arranged into a line, it was, Hanko presumed a nursery of some sorts, the whole place was new to him and he didn't know how he got here. Clashing metal? Waking up in a nursery after thinking he died in the hands of a stranger? His undershirt being washed? Hanko didn't like this, and he wanted answers.

He turned his body to set his feet aside the bed and stood up with pain in his legs, of which he also received cuts and most likely they were stitched as well. He walked into this door which seemingly led to a larger room, he got through the door and saw he was on an elevated ground and right below he could see dozens of men fighting each other individually, as if they were practicing drills and every pair was standing on some sort of circle with plenty of lines across it; these men were fighting with all sorts of weapons: longswords, rapiers, swords with bucklers or daggers, staves, sabers... Hanko would keep looking in wonder at this huge fencing hall should he had not seen a recently familiar face with the corner of his eye.

-"Ah, you woke up!"

-"It's you... What is this place?"

-"Oh yes, I almost forgot it's your first time here. This are our headquarters"

-"I... I thought you killed me!"

-"And that I did, boy! you were in luck I came with some medics of the Society, so they could revive you! It was a close call." He laughed as it was something that happened regularly. Hanko tried to think about what happened that night and it came to his head.

-"You said... I passed, right?"

-"mhm, to be honest I haven't had been cut by a prospect in years." Diego showed the stitches on his cheek from that wound of the other night "As I said, you need to improve, but that's why I brought you here."

-"Well, I never said I'd join you, did I?" Hanko wasn't fond of the idea of staying near the man who killed him, even though he got him revived as well

-"hmm... look at it this way, the only reason our fight lasted that long is because I was playing with you, like cats do with their prey. You died that night and now you're given the opportunity to live again and to learn how not to be so easy to kill... again. Also, we're a highly selective lot so consider yourself fortunate for being a prospect and not an enemy of ours..." Hanko thought of this deeply, it was true he was out skilled, and he knew he would find trouble after winning the duel sooner or later, so the best thing he could do is to train to become better and be ready for when that moment hypothetically happened. Now he's involved in a secret society, so he was sure he will see himself involved in fights as well.

-"... Fine, I'll join you. But on one condition!"

-"I'm listening."

-"I will never ever have to wear whatever you have on." Hanko pointed at Diego's outfit, the same one he wore that night.

-"Ah, no worries! We have no strict uniform norms, except for this. Diego approached his fist to Hanko and opened it to reveal the pendant of a coat of arms. It was a field of Gules with a combined border of Or and Argent, inside it there were two crossed swords, with their point upward and above them, a scale with the image of an eye on its hinge, all these figures were in Sable. The looks of the pendant immediately took Hanko's attention, he took it to give it a closer look and to hang it around his neck.

-"Huh, not bad. I'm in then!" Hanko didn't know how it was possible he could have been brought back to life, but the mere fact it happened meant he has offered a second chance. And if taking that chance involves fighting with swords within a cryptid group on gods know what places and situations, so be it. Maybe he would not see Father ever again, but maybe the best option now is to disappear, so he could have an eye over him and the inn business from the shadows from now on.

-"I'm glad... well then, welcome to the Society!" Diego drew his rapier and handed it over to Hanko. "Once your wounds heal come with me, we have some training to do."

Author's Note

I'd like to hear what do you think of how I organize the dialogues and the actions and write them overall. How should I change it so it can be more clear?