Chapter 45 — "The Kingslayer"
Alaric picked up the sword from the fence where he had set it.
Not the axe.
Jaime looked at it. At the empty space on Alaric's back where the axe usually sat.
"You are not using your axe ," Jaime said.
"No," Alaric said.
"Why."
Alaric looked at him.
"With the axe it's easier to kill, that's why I use it. I can use the sword just as well Kingslayer." he said.
The yard was very quiet.
Jaime looked at him for a moment —
Then he drew his sword.
They circled.
Jaime the most famous Swordsman in Westoros. One of the youngest knight in the realm. He has been famous as one of finest knights in the realm
On the other hand Alacric, one of the rising stars. One of the famous Mercenary and Warlord. Gaining fame for his campaigns in Mountains of Vale.
Alaric moved differently.
Where Jaime was fluid Alaric was specific — each movement chosen from a different grammar entirely. The mountain pass fighting of someone who had learned blade work in conditions that had no patience for elegance. Not crude but Just purposeful in a different way.
Two completely different philosophies of violence trying to find each other.
The first exchange was brief.
Jaime opened with a testing combination — not his full ability, an assessment. Fast. Precise. Each movement flowing from the last with the ease of someone who had been doing this since before Alaric was born.
Alaric met it.
He absorbed the first hit on his guard and redirected the second and made space with the third. Neither of them landed clean.
They separated.
Jaime's expression had changed slightly.
"You've been trained, good for you snow you would need it." he said.
Alaric said. "Well I have heard this for three years of people trying to kill me and here I am sparring with you."
Jaime almost smiled.
They went again.
The second exchange was longer.
Jaime committed more — The sword working at the speed and precision that had earned him his reputation across twenty years of being the best in Westeros.
Alaric felt the difference immediately.
This was not a Reach tournament knight. Not a Vale household veteran. Not Ser Denys Redfort or the Corbray knight or anyone else he had faced on any field in any context.
This was Jaime Lannister.
The blade was everywhere.
High left. Redirected. Low right. Blocked. The combination flowing seamlessly into the next combination with no visible break between them — each attack becoming the setup for the following one, the sequence reading three moves ahead of where Alaric's guard was.
Alaric stepped back.
Reassessed.
Robb's voice somewhere at the yard's edge — he couldn't hear the words, just the tone.
He came forward again.
He had watched enough of the combination to understand its rhythm.
High left. Redirected — but this time Alaric redirected into the gap between the first and second movement instead of blocking the second. Forcing Jaime to adjust. The adjustment small but real — the first time in the duel that Jaime had gone on a backfoot no matter how small
Jaime felt it.
His eyes changed slightly.
The adjustment acknowledged. The recalibration happening in real time.
They separated again both breathing harder.
Jaime looked at him properly for the first time.
He attacked again.
The third phase was different from both previous ones.
Jaime stopped holding back. Alacric also increased his pace.
The sword became something else — not the testing probe of the first exchange or the controlled pressure of the second but the full expression of what twenty years of being Jaime Lannister had produced.
Alaric stopped thinking.
Thinking was too slow him he always trusted his insticts in a fight than his thinking.
He moved on the specific instinct that three years in mountain passes had carved into the part of him that operated below thought — the body's own assessment running faster than the mind's, the guard going where it needed to go before the conscious decision to put it there.
He took two more hits.
Left arm. Right side.
Then Alacric stopped defending, he started attacking
The shift happened between one breath and the next — from the reactive pattern of someone managing Jaime's attack to something else entirely. He came forward instead of back. Inside Jaime's reach where the long blade lost its leverage.
Close the distance.
Change the grammar.
Jaime adjusted immediately — his experience showing, the body already moving to compensate before the mind had finished deciding. But the adjustment cost him half a beat and half a beat was enough for Alaric's blade to find his shoulder.
Not deep.
First blood.
The yard made a sound.
Robert somewhere has found himself in the yard — he had heard the sound of swords smashing, He let out something between a shout and a laugh when he saw Kingslayer going on a backfoot.
Jaime looked at his shoulder and then at Robbert he cursed.
At Alaric.
Alacric smiled.
Full and genuine and entirely unexpected. Pleasure of finally releasing his anger.
"Again," Jamie said.
They went again.
Longer this time. Both of them fully committed now — the pretence of demonstration gone, the duel become the thing itself.
Alaric took hits but he also gave. The gap in pure technical ability too large to close entirely — Jaime Lannister at full commitment was a different beast .
But Alacric has gritted himself in mountains and he wasn't the one to back down. He gave Kingslayer a fight to remember and bruises that will hurt.
Again. And again. Nothing ending.
The stubbornness of it.
The refusal to go down.
Jaime felt it.
He had fought knights and champions and the best the realm had produced.
He had not fought this.
It ended the way duels sometimes ended when neither participant was willing to end it cleanly.
Jaime's blade found Alaric's sword arm with enough force to numb the grip.
Alaric stood and survived the pain.
Looked at Jaime.
Jaime looked back.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
The yard was completely silent.
Then Robert's voice from somewhere behind.
"Gods," he said loudly. The one that came out when something had genuinely affected him. "Gods. What a damm show. That's what I call a true sparring"
Jaime lowered his sword.
He looked at Alaric with the expression he had shown at the end of no other duel in recent memory —
Jaime looked at him for a moment longer.
Robert started laughing.