The Gallant Swordsman

The Gallant Swordsman (華麗なる剣士, kareinaru kenshi) is episode 3 of the anime series The Vision of Escaflowne.

Plot
The beam of light transports Van, Escaflowne and Hitomi down to the ground, reflecting in a pair of round wire rimmed glasses. Van recognizes himself as still on Gaea, but Hitomi has landed elsewhere. She is alone in the forest and pulls out her pendant to tell her where to go, when a strange man in round wire rimed glasses attacks her, fascinated by her pendant. An owl comes to attack him, when a strange blond man comes to Hitom's rescue. Hitomi sees this man as her crush, Amano, and falls into his arms crying. Van, who heard Hitomi scream when the first man attacked her, comes to find her faint in front of the blond haired man. Van challenges him to sword combat, but is outmatched. He cannot hit the strange man who fells Van without drawing blood by hitting him with the back of his blade. The blond man wonders what Van and Hitomi are doing in the middle of the woods.

The leader of the enemy expedition that attacked Fanelia, Dilandau, is angry at two of his troops whose melefs were felled because Hitomi could see them. Dilandau then joins a man who sold out Fanelia named Folken in a room where they contact Emperor Dornkirk. Dornkirk tells Folken that "the dragon" has fled Fanela and that his Destiny Prognostication engine did not detect the pillar of light. He tells Folken that the new power which could do such a thing must be captured, and that the dragon can be found on the frontier of Asturia.

Hitomi has a dream of sitting under a tree with Amano, where she tells him that she had a dream of Gaea. She awakes in a bed with a bunch of mercenaries gathered around a nearby fire, as well as the blond man, called Allen Schezar, who is a knight of Asturia. He says that he is the commander of that fort, and that he will proteect her. Some of his men come into the room with Van, who looks furious. They tell Allen that Hitomi is from the Mystic Moon, and Allen says that if the king of Fanelia says it is so, that it must be. Van demands the return of Escaflowne, so that he can return to Fanelia when Allen tells Van that Fanelia has been destroyed. Van is thunderstruck, and a large fortress on a floating rock spews forth several melefs.

Dilandau asks whether Allen has seen a strange melef, and Allen asks if he knows anything about the attack on Fanelia. Dilandau calls its leaders cowards, when Van, the the side of the hall says that hiding behind invisibility cloaks is cowardly. Dilandau looks over and is drawn to the strange girl standing next to Van, and Allen claims Hitomi as his lover. He kisses her, and she seems to have a crush on him, seeing a vision of Allen with a large set of wings on his back. Dilandau returns to the flying fortress, where he and Folken are talking, preparing for an attack.

Hitomi does a tarot reading for Van, but Van doesn't believe that you can tell the future with cards, when she pulls out the Death card, plunging her into a vision of fire and a laughing Dilandau. The man that attacked Hitomi in the forest digs up from under the floor, where the three of them escape into the ground. The mole man claims that Hitomi's pendant caught his eye, and that is why he came to her in the forest. They find Escaflowne, and Van gets in.

Meanwhile, Allen has been told that they've escaped, and shows up to confront Van in his own guymelef, Sherazade. They have a duel in an arena on the grounds, all the time being watched over by Dilandau's forces. To the shock of those manning the fort, Van holds up to Allen, even nicking Sherazade. But Allen defeats Van, distracting him with the news that Balgus was also his swordmaster. Van is pinned, and comes out of Escaflowne at the tip of Allen's sword. Hitomi approaches Van, when the heart of Escaflowne glows in her presence, and she has a vision of the fort being attacked.

Characters

 * Van Fanel
 * Hitomi Kanzaki
 * Allen Schezar
 * Folken Fanel
 * Emperor Dornkirk
 * Dilandau Albatou
 * Susumu Amano

Trivia

 * Allen's owl is named Natal after the Portuguese word for "Christmas."
 * Allen's Castelo Fort is named after the Portuguese word for "castle.