Twas a warm afternoon, bout the time when the sun is right high. The songbirds did chirp, and the winds did blow. As the warriors three sit together at Matieos’ Bar, each a drink in hand and struck with words. The season of jousts where warriors renowned would in tournaments fight, a time of sword, a time of spear, axe and all manners of weapons. The smiths did work, and myriads of blades were flung from their forges and in the centre of it all, the people did watch and awe in this time of celebration.
“Are you actually serious?” Asked Zejian.
“Yes, we actually have these things, there’s going to be a joust tomorrow and you can watch peasants fight the royal family.” Answered Xueliang.
“Except jousts are boring, duels are there they have it best, sword on sword for good taste but an axe will break your sword arm, that’s probably why axe competitions are last.” Chimed Boyan.
“But they use wooden swords, right? Cos there’s no way people actually fight with real weapons.”
“Only the bows are real, and they range from 70 to 200 pounds.” Answered Xueliang.
“Just because they’re practice weapons doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous, an axe head is really heavy and with enough force, it’ll break bone.” If you hadn’t noticed Boyan really liked axes.
“They also wear full armor.” Added Xueliang.
“Like plate armor, with the forklift to get on the horse and also for the duels?”
“First of all, you don’t need a forklift to get a man in plate armor onto a horse, second plate armor is only for the jousts, but underneath they have mail and gambeson for duels its just mail and gambeson.” Answered Xueliang.
“But it doesn’t matter what you have on, mallet, hammer, axe, with enough force you can knock your opponent down. One strike, break the cross guard, second strike break his arm!”
“But isn’t chain mail absolute shit though? And isn’t gambeson just some linen put together?”
“No, they have riveted mail and that’s extremely hard to break, and gambeson can stop swords and arrows so…”-before he could finish Xueliang was cut off.
“So no fatal injuries and they get to bring out the axes, but to be fair, you will find the same people in multiple tournaments, so for example Danica Andrik is a well-known archer but she also broke a man’s sword arm in an axe duel, and that man just so happened to be Jaromir Leu who was from the royal family.” Boyan said.
“Wait what!? Duels between men and women aren’t separate?”
“No, why would they be?”
“Because women are biologically weaker than men?”
“Yes, but the way duels work is that the first person the be hit is out, it really has nothing to do
with strength, because its quite hard to overpower someone in a duel.” Answered Xueliang
“Unless they’re using an axe, one good hit with enough force will break through any cross guard and shake any shield.” Added Boyan.
“That’s why the axe duels are separate gender, however we also have mixed duels as in sword on spear, sword on axe and so on. But in a duel that is sword on axe between a man and a woman the woman gets the axe, to mitigate the chances of injury.” Said Xueliang. “There are separate gender tournaments and mixed, but all of its entertaining to watch.”
“Can I join one of the tournaments?” asked Zejian.
“Yes, but it needs to be at least 1 week in advance and normally there’s a limit to how many people can participate.”
“But will I be able to joust a royal?”
“Maybe, but an axe will do far more damage.” Answered Boyan.