Ghost In Blood by Owen Jones

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Kater disliked the word victory, it suggested gain where as far as he was concerned there was simply a loser. It amused him to wonder how many of these so called experts would have believed he fought with skill if they knew that Kater had never trained with a sword or any weapon for that matter. All nuance and subtlety of footwork, angle of attack even of the killing blow were lost to Kater. His teacher, Fassler, had explained to him once that some people had a natural gift, some for art, some for music and some for destruction.
It was not difficult to understand what Kater's gift was.
When considered in this light the original question of ‘Am I unbeatable?' modified itself into ‘How am I unbeatable'.
To not know one's own self is to be a prisoner in a strange body.
The thought leapt unbidden from supposed memory and Kater struggled hard to pin it down, without success. This was another strange puzzle where he found his mind almost reflexively drawing upon such seemingly relevant statements, yet he had no idea from whence they originated nor where, or off whom, he could have learned them.

Broken from his contemplations by a balling sergeant, Kater pushed his doubts to the back of his mind and opened the tent flap, entering Calashan's command post.
As was to be expected of a Calashan army that prided itself on organisation each corner of the tent was efficient and tidy, the hierarchy of the army was divided into four generals, each with commanders.
Each of the four generals presided over one of the four components of war deemed most important by the writings of the brilliant dead general Orsan.
Orsan was considered the greatest military mind ever produced by the Calashan academy. In his writings Orsan suggested that logistics, strategy, morale and warrior prowess were the four key parts to any war.
To this idea previous Calashan generals had adopted a four point strategy, appointing each of the four sections a commander. But due to the fact that commanders were out on the battlefield, often right in the middle of the most vicious fighting, communication with them was tremendously difficult, even life threatening to those couriers sent to relay intelligence.
As a result, Mordan, another great Calashan general and Orsan's protégé, created a four General system in which each of the Generals was picked based on their excellence in their given field.
As Kater looked around the room he assessed, as he had done on many occasions, each of the current generals.

In the corner created for strategy stood Vorlesh. A truly brilliant strategist, argued to be even more gifted than Mordan. Vorlesh had proven himself five years ago in the defence of several raids by Natou warriors. The Natou's quick, unpredictable strikes from outposts on bordering desert enclaves had confused several high-ranking officers and strategists before Vorlesh had quickly shown how all the raids were organised.
In a stroke of genius Vorlesh had realised that all Natou raids were based on the principle of counter attack.