You're uncommonly good with a blade, and you make your living with cold steel. Were you taught the new sword-arts in the gymnasiums of Florence, or did you learn crude but effective techniques in the army or the alley? No matter - you're a master of cuts and parries now, and few men would dare to stand against you. Naturally, these skills have taken on a life of their own. Young rakes wish to test their steel on yours. Family foes want your blood and are willing to take it cut by cut. If you belong to an academy, you've found that such schools have rivals both inside and outside their walls. By the same token, you've probably become a bit like a blade yourself. Are you like the poignard, pointed and quick? Or the rusty dagger, notched by hard use but still fast enough to gut an overconfident foe? Might you be the broadsword, thick and heavy but strong enough to shatter most opponents, or are you sharp and graceful like the rapier or stiletto? No matter. Bladecraft allows many masters, but no fools.
—The Bladesman, Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade - Companion
They are making a fight of it, too, impossible though that seems, and then Shem Shem Tsiem unsheathes his sword and joins the fray, and Edie learns what butchery is.
She Shem Tsiem is perfect. It comes from his feet, she's fairly sure. His feet take him where he wants to go and you least wish him to be. He comes at your bad side, your wounded leg, your blackened eye. He is lithe and strong, but it's not his arm and shoulder which power the narrow blade he carries, but his heels and hips. He moves through the battle like the shuttle on a loom, trailing threads of human extinction. Edie wonders, honestly, whether even the Sekunis were ever so graceful.
Such was Lucius’ hunger for personal glory that his entire life distorted around it, bending like hot metal around the pointed pursuit of excellence. By the time he came of age, the young swordsman had already surpassed the classical styles taught by the weapon-masters of Chemos. During his studies, his rapier took the lives of dozens of beggars and brigands that Lucius later claimed had attacked him. He dispensed hundreds of scars to lesser pupils, even claiming an eye or a finger here and there in the occasional "accident." His character was called into doubt time and time again, but none could argue with the lustre of his skills. As he grew older, Lucius redefined the term prodigy. He fought with lackadaisical contempt against youths his own age, toying with them like a cat toying with a wounded bird before delivering the scar that signalled their defeat. Against his tutors, however, he fought like a man possessed, every iota of his being focused upon victory.
—Warhammer 40,000: Champions Of Chaos
Upon meeting me, you might find that my appearance is quite dreadful and unkempt. I have been spat upon by priest, king, and merchant alike. I have no retainers, and possess nothing except a straight sword six hand spans (five and a half kret) long (this is the proper length). This is because I am Royalty and the undisputed master of the principal art of Cutting. I will fight naked with ten-thousand men.
— Meti's Sword Manual (argument 5), 'Kill Six Billion Demons
Maya: The boys say you are the greatest sword fighter ever to have lived. That you once fought naked with a hundred men and won.
Meti: The first is debatable. The second is undoubtedly false. It was ten thousand men.
Meti: The first is debatable. The second is undoubtedly false. It was ten thousand men.
"I would like to tell you that I am a noodle vendor, but alas! Instead, I am a disciple of the principle art of Cutting."
— Maya, Kill Six Billion Demons
Bingle explained that rather than practice a single fighting technique, his technique was to master all techniques and to deploy them as the circumstances and terrain required. A single grand meta-technique, if you will. He'd wandered Fillory and the lands beyond for years, seeking out martial monks in mountain monasteries and street fighters in crowded medinas and extracting their secrets, until he became the man Quentin saw before him: a walking encyclopedia of swordsmanship.
