Chapter 239: Side Story 15 – Always a Higher Mountain to Climb

"What makes a nation is not the ruler, nor is it the land and fortifications, no. It is the people, the peasants and commoners, who formed a nation, for no nation could even exist without them." - Ancient Huan Proverb, unknown source.

Rafiqa bey Leung watched the unfolding duels on the many stages with great interest while she waited for her number to be called. A few contestants already garnered her attention, ones to watch out for.

 

One of them was naturally that slim waif of a Huan girl who had so nonchalantly demolished High Magistrate Wang's great-grandson. Rafiqa had been near the stage when that happened, and had heard the snobby boy disparage the obviously peasant girl's status before their short-lived duel.

 

Rafiqa would not deny that she felt great satisfaction when the snobby brat was sent flying out of the stage with broken ribs mere moments later. She had never liked those sort of snobs, ever.

 

As the second daughter to the Marshall of the army and the most senior general, Rafiqa was naturally considered part of the higher class. Even so, she had never liked those who disparaged others merely due to the circumstances of their birth.

 

Her being adopted by her parents likely played a role in that opinion of hers. Since both of her parents were men, she and her sisters were naturally adopted children. They never asked of their origins, for even as young children, they had noticed the obvious reluctance - and some dread - in their parents' eyes whenever the topic of conversation touched upon it.

 

She and her sisters were plenty happy with the status quo, and had agreed with each other not to ask their fathers about it.

 

"Numbers 174 and 828, please proceed to stage four," announced a young soldier loudly at that moment.

 

Since 828 was her number, Rafiqa headed towards the stage in question. Despite being a woman, she and her youngest sister Ayesha had found the military arts fascinating. Where Ayesha gravitated towards strategy and tactics, however, Rafiqa was more interested in the arts martial.

 

Once her fathers learned of her interests, they had not dissuaded her like many upper class people did. To many of those, a woman of the upper class should be gentle, refined, and worry about domestic matters instead.

 

Her fathers had instead enlisted the best possible teachers - some retired military men of great skill as well as a few members of the imperial guard - to teach her. When they had spare time, father Zhang or uncle Ishmael even trained her themselves.

 

Normally, a girl of twenty-two like her would have long been married off, to a partner of their parent's choosing. Yet her fathers had allowed her and her sisters to live their lives as they pleased instead. Their eldest sister married last year, while she and her youngest sister planned to join the military to support their fathers.

 

As she walked towards the stage, Rafiqa took a wooden glaive from a nearby weapons rack. She climbed the steps to the stage confidently, and stood across from her opponent with one hand against her waist.

 

"Girls like you really ought to stop playing with weapons," said her opponent with disdain.

 

By coincidence or mere happenstance, Rafiqa knew her opponent for that first round. The youngest son of Magistrate Ning, one of the traditionalists and a lackey of High Magistrate Wang.

 

She had met him on more formal occasions several times before, and the brat - she was two years his senior - had always disparaged her views. He was of the opinion that women should be obedient to men and just serve them from the kitchen and on the bed instead.

 

Rafiqa actually thanked all the deities that she got to fight him in the tournament. She had wanted to beat his smug face in for so long, but never had a chance to. On the duel stage, "reasonable" amounts of injuries were to be expected after all.

 

She ignored her opponent's infuriating words, as he brandished his wooden sword arrogantly. Of course a snob like him would choose to learn the "gentleman's weapon" over something with more use in a battlefield.

 

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The instant the referee started the fight, Rafiqa charged her opponent before he could react. The wooden glaive in her hands - a lighter style of glaive, unlike the heavy glaive her father favored - swiftly struck for his face.

 

He barely managed to parry her strike, flustered by the strength behind it. Hidden beneath her silken clothes, Rafiqa's slender arms tensed, as her well-trained muscles burst with power. She struck again, and again, her glaive pushing him back with every blow.

 

Rafiqa was not a mage, she had poor mana capacity and even worse talents for it. One thing she never lacked, however, was determination. She her undergone rigorous, mercilessly brutal physical training under her teachers' guidance, and had forged her slender body into a weapon itself.

 

She had not known that her fathers had arranged for the especially brutal training in the hopes of making her give up and realize that such a life was not for her at first. Instead they couldn't help but be moved by her determination to keep going, even after the training had driven her to the brink of exhaustion many times.

 

A snobby brat like her opponent, who probably never even traversed a city block on his own feet, was nowhere near a match for her. Even so, Rafiqa had not quickly defeated her opponent, and struck him lightly instead, so the battle would not be judged as her victory too soon.

 

She struck him "lightly" many, many times, and by the time she finally felt satisfied and finished the fight with a full strength blow that shattered her opponent's wooden sword and his nose, he was full of bruises all over, bleeding from his lips, and missing a third of his teeth.

 

Rafiqa continued to give a good showing of herself, as she defeated opponent after opponent. The days went by, and the tournament was soon on its third and final day. Rafiqa had fought her way to the top thirty-two, an impressive result for one so young. The training her fathers had prescribed to her had truly been worthwhile.

 

She won her first match against a middle-aged man who proved to be a master with the spear, mostly thanks to the many bouts she had with uncle Ishmael, who was widely considered the best spearman in the empire.

 

In the top sixteen, she faced a large, muscular young man who wielded a heavy glaive. The man was stronger than her - not unexpected given the difference in body size - by a good bit, and used his glaive expertly.

 

On the other hand, father Zhang had taught Rafiqa pretty much every trick there is to know about to glaive as a weapon, and she had kept those teachings well in her heart. That difference in expertise allowed her to defeat her opponent, even if it was a close fight.

 

Rafiqa faced the small Huan girl she noticed early on in the quarter-finals. The girl leveled a wooden weapon designed to evoke the feel of a double crescent halberd, and offered her a salute before they began, which she politely returned.

 

That fight was the first time in her life that Rafiqa was trounced so thoroughly by someone younger and smaller than her.

 

Despite her best efforts, the girl just calmly and confidently intercepted her strikes, before returning her own. She had even taken it lightly, apparently, as she mostly just compared their skills with the weapon, rather than directly overpowered her.

 

Rafiqa stayed near the stage after her defeat, and watched the remaining matches as that girl, Ying Xiao by name, went on to win the whole tournament. She displayed great strength that one would never have expected from such a small, slender body as she crushed her last opponents with ease. The man she fought in the semi-finals was even larger than the youth Rafiqa faced, yet Ying Xiao had directly and forcefully overpowered that man.

 

As she watched the young peasant girl fling her final opponent off the stage, Rafiqa was reminded of the old saying that there was always a higher mountain.

 

Even so, it did nothing to diminish her spirit and determination. A mountain was meant to be climbed, after all.

 

 

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