[Aratar Mori'ithil]

"When wielding two weapons you must always keep one thing in mind," the Vagaran told his student, "a good defense is a better offense. The more aggressive you are the the less your opponent can concentrate. Even more so if he is only wielding a single blade, most of the time if you keep the pressure he is forced to give up ground." The elf nodded, all focus. He recalled the street fight between one who had had two longknives and the others. Some had had weapons, but none of them had wielded two at once. In one-on-one situations, the one with the single blade had often succeeded to parry the first attack, but his opponent had followed with an attack with his other weapon and hit. It was one of the reasons for why he had chosen to learn this particular style of combat.

He admired the grace of that fighter; his speed, his aggressiveness. He preferred weapons that demanded dexterity from its user rather than brute force. The knives were his weapons. They were small and decidedly harmless looking in comparison to a sword, as the Dorin at Darkblade had pointed out, and easily concealed. A knife fighter could keep his weapons hidden and appear unarmed.

"Even a skilled opponent--no, especially a skilled opponent--will know that he can not move fast enough to parry two advancing weapons and still be able to follow up with a counter, doubly so when said weapons are as small and nimble as the longknife...a good balance between a knife and a shortsword. So far we've concentrated on some beginning kata and the basic slashes, but the true benefit with dual wielding comes with the versatility. You can parry with both blades, which is handy when you're in multi-opponent combat. You can attack consecutively, alternating weapons so as to create a continuous string of assaults without letting up on pressure as single-weapon combat does by virtue of necessity.

"There is a third use we haven't touched on yet, however, and that is simultaneous attacks. Using both blades to attack at the same time. Trying to track and combat multiple opponents with each hand independently isn't something a beginner can do, but if you manage to reach the higher levels before getting your ass killed, it's a very useful skill. For now, though, simultaneous attacks will be limited to attacks against a single target." He demonstrated by crossing his arms, a blade in each hand, and doing a cross-body horizontal cut with each blade passing close by each other.

"This move leaves you relatively defenseless at the opening, but an opponent likely can't parry both attacks. Once of the slices will cut. Additionally there are other moves such as this one." He turned and crossed his right arm over his torso so it was on his left side, and created two parallel horizontal cuts--one at midsection-level, and one at throat level.

"Most opponents will parry high or parry low. Very few will parry both at once, and even if they do, only one will be a strong parry close to the guard where they have the leverage to have a solid defense. The knife closer to the farthest end of the opposing weapon, whichever that might be, is the weak parry, and if you can see by how they aim there defense before contact is made which one will be the weak parry and throw additional power behind the blade that'll contact it, sometimes you can power past the parry to strike even though they tried to counter it. They can't reposition for more leverage, because they still need to worry about the weapon in your other hand." He chuckled softly as he held the blades aside, making one of his few jokes...which unsurprisingly was at Aratar's expense.

"There’s always a chance that your arms will get all entangled, that your blows won’t be as effective as they should be because you move so fast and are thus unable to concentrate on a single attack. If you're not too careful you'll wind up doing more damage to yourself then an opponent. A bit of practice should take care of that problem, however." As he made his little joke, he demonstrated another move. This time leading with the left across his body to his right side he made a slash at throat-level, followed up immediately by a thrust.

"The point of that move was that it's supposed to distract the opponent. He will concentrate on the first attack, and in trying to parry it he'll likely fail to see my second one coming, or react too late. Keep in mind, though: the thrust is the most committal move that a fighter can make. It leaves you open, but in exchange you can fire off a powerful, penetrating blow that is much more difficult to parry than a slash. However, a virtue of two-weapon combat is that with some good footwork, your second weapon can usually cover most gaps in your defense left by such a committing strike." Aratar nodded in recognition, and Fritz shrugged.

"Such footwork probably won't get covered until you're ready for the more difficult stuff, however. In the meantime, I'm going to teach you a few more moves in the kata." Without waiting for an answer, he went on to demonstrate, letting Aratar match movement to keep up. He didn't open with the unarmed version this time, leaping straight into the version where they held the knives.

He stepped forward, performing a cross slash down to the right hip with the right hand and cutting a horizontal line across the shoulders with the left hand. In a second step, he tightened his grip around his longknife again and shot his left knife into the air, curving it into a slash across what would have been an enemy's neckline. His other blade went forward in a thrust. In the next step he he took his left arm in to cut across an invisible opponent’s midsection and at the same time did a stab at an angle up underneath his chin area. It was not quite a vertical stab, but it was not horizontal either. It was a compromise between both.

Aratar followed the three steps at slow-speed, a few times, then increased it to half-speed. Once he was comfortable with that, he glanced at Fritz.

"Alright. For the rest of the brightening do the complete kata that you know so far, new moves included, alternating each repetition with twenty repetitions each of the various slashes with each hand. Do it until sunsdown, and be sure to include a full-speed version of the kata by at least mid-brightening." Aratar nodded and when he stalked off, and went about diligently practicing, increasing his skill and conditioning his body at the same time.

By dusk he was exhausted, but less so then previous as his body was adjusting to the level of work. He managed to eat an early meal before passing out in his bunk.

The next morning, at dawn once more, Fritz asked him to show him the full kata at full speed, which he did. Fritz's upwardly-curving mouth appeared once more, and he nodded.