The Duelist

by Eric Vall

  With one last dip of his gray head, Jenner continued on his way.

  “What were you and Jenner talking about?” Zoie asked as she walked up next to me.

  “We were talking about the things we could try to get this place up and running like it’s supposed to be,” I told her.

  “If anyone can figure out what this place needs, it’s Jenner,” Zoie said with a smile. “He’s the best.”

  “I know, it’s like he knows everything,” I chuckled. “But now, I want to learn some stuff from you. Ready?”

  “Are you really ready to train with me, Alex Brightwood?” she asked with a sexy smirk, and she dropped the rolled canvas onto the ground. Then she stepped over the bag and waltzed into my space with a simmering look in her azure eyes.

  “Is this training… physical?” I drew her in by the waist, and she brushed her nose against mine. I didn’t know where this bold and playful Zoie was coming from, but it drove me crazy in a good way.

  “Very,” she said and nipped my lower lip.

  I ducked down and captured her mouth in a forceful kiss with just a hint of teeth, and she responded by kissing me back just as hard. When my brain was about to short circuit from the fierceness of it, Zoie abruptly broke away and left me staring after her lush swaying hips and swishing tail.

  “Daylight is waning,” she sang coyly over one shoulder, and then she slowly bent over and scooped up the canvas bag, which gave me a good view of her backside and tail in those hot black warrior pants. “Are you coming?”

  “Well…” I trailed off as I glanced down at myself and then shook my head to try and clear away the fog of arousal. When things were less hazy with my lustful fantasies, I jogged to catch up with Zoie just as she disappeared into the old barn.

  When I opened the barn door, Zoie was in the center of the big open space, and she unrolled the heavy-duty canvas bag in the middle of the floor. Inside were several weapons of various lengths and sizes. Some I recognized through movies and pop culture, like katanas, short swords, and throwing stars, but others looked like a fusion of weapons I was only vaguely familiar with. One of them even looked like the combination of a leather whip with a morning star as its handle, and I admitted I didn’t even have the first clue about that one.

  “Are you going to train me on all of these?” I asked as I walked up next to her so I could survey the polished weaponry.

  “My goal is to assess your natural talents and let the weapon pick you,” Zoie said and pulled out a short sword similar to the one I wore to the gala. This one looked less ritzy and more functional, although it still felt foreign in my hands when I hefted it.

  Zoie walked behind me and removed my left hand from the sword, and then she adjusted the fingers of my right.

  “If you hold the hilt too strongly, your movements will be messy and uncoordinated,” she said from over my shoulder, and her warm breath tickled my ear as she loosened my grip all except for my thumb and forefinger. “Relax your wrist, and keep it in line with your forearm.”

  She lifted my elbow just a tad and then extended my arm until I could feel the weight of the sword in my shoulder and triceps.

  “Feel that?” Zoie whispered into my ear again as she massaged the muscles in my arm where I felt the balance of the blade.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back, and then she maneuvered my sword arm in a downward slashing motion while guiding me to take a step forward.

  “You’ll want to use small movements from either your shoulder or your wrist to shift the sword’s center of gravity,” she said and wrapped her hand around mine so she could demonstrate the proper technique once more. “That way, your arm won’t tire, but your blows are powerful and accurate at the same time.”

  “Loose, not locked,” I said as I remembered her first piece of advice when we fought the demon scourge together.

  “Exactly.” She smiled and then raised the sword so it was blocking my head. “And now for your guards.”

  Zoie then walked me through the eight ways I could use the blade to block incoming attacks. She started above my head, then taught me all the guards on my left, followed by all the guards on my right.

  After we ran through all of the positions a few times, Zoie then paced in a circle around me as she called out which block to demonstrate.

  “Head, left shoulder, left leg!” Zoie barked.

  I moved the blade from above my head, across my left shoulder, and then down to protect my left leg, but it was a little cumbersome at first as I tried to balance the sword and correctly block at the same time.

  “Wait,” she said when she noticed my problem, and she switched out the heavy short sword with a backward curving blade that reminded me of a saber. It was lighter in my hand, and I sensed a greater flexibility in my wrist when I held it.

  “Okay, again,” Zoie said and resumed her circling. “Right shoulder, left shoulder, head!”

  Each guard I did flowed more fluidly after that, and Zoie nodded as we went through the drills over and over in this weird game of Simon Says With Swords.

  “Good, let’s see what you’ve learned,” she said a bit later when she was eventually satisfied with my progress.

  Zoie then walked across the barn and grabbed another basket of woot fruits that seemed to be laying around everywhere. She brought it toward the center of the space, dropped the basket at her feet, and held up one of the ruby colored fruits. Then she tossed it up, caught it, and gave me a smirk as she fired the fruit directly at my face.

  “Ow!” I said as the fruit bounced off my forehead like a water balloon. “I wasn’t ready!”

  Zoie giggled in her bell-like voice, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as I rubbed my head.

  “Rule one: you must always be ready,” she said, and she lobbed another one with just as much speed and accuracy.

  On instinct, I brought the sword up to guard my head, but I was a second too late, and it bounced off my shoulder.

  “Focus!” Zoie shouted, and then she began throwing fruits left and right with both hands because of course she was an ambidextrous badass.

  I stopped trying to think about the guard positions so much and let my muscle memory take over until I was blocking eight fruits for every ten. It was really fun once I got my rhythm, and I relished every time the saber’s blade managed to slice clean through one of them.

  Eventually, there came a point when Zoie ran out of fruit, so she reached behind her back for something else to throw at me. I raised my sword and blocked the attack, but was shocked when I realized I just deflected a lethal looking throwing knife.

  “What happened to the fruit!” I yelled when she lobbed another knife at my head. I blocked it, and the knife rang off my blade as it spun away.

  “When you are in a Duel, there will not be fruit,” Zoie said, and she flicked another knife in my direction that forced me to dive out of the way. When I got back to my feet, I saw Zoie had managed to climb up the wooden ladder and was now standing on the hay loft with her forearms crossed in front of her like an X. Interspersed between each of her fingers was a wickedly sharp throwing star, and both my eyebrows shot up toward my hairline.

  “Uhhh, those look like they hurt, Zoie,” I laughed nervously.

  She readied her stance and shrugged one of her shoulders. “Don’t get hit.”

  “Oh, shit,” I gasped as two of those little wheels of death whizzed past my head. I dodged out of the way and rolled behind a barrel just as one of the stars sank into the soft wood.

  “Block me, Alex!” Zoie commanded, and a throwing star landed in the dirt right in front of me.

  I looked up and saw her poised on a rafter beam like a high-wire artist.

  “No fair!” I hissed, and I leapt to my feet as she tried to hit me with more stars.

  How many did she have on her anyway? And where did she put them all, was the better question.

  I brought the saber up and flung away another throwing star, and Zoie dropped down to the ground in front of me in a
lithe crouch. She then sprung up, held up her last weapon, and flung it at me with deadly accuracy.

  Her actions were so quick and fluid she completely caught me off guard. I had the sudden fear I wouldn’t move out of the way in time to avoid a new hole being added to my body, and an electric shock of adrenaline coursed through my blood.

  Tick, went the beat of my heart, and my hearing tunneled out.

  The throwing star twirled through the air, and on every revolution, it seemed to get slower and slower as if it was a bullet traveling through ballistics gel.

  Tick.

  I stepped to the side and watched as the star sailed past me at half-speed…

  Tick.

  My heart ramped up until it was galloping against my rib cage as time returned to its normal speed. The air rushed past me, and I watched as the throwing star embedded itself into the support beam directly behind where I was just standing.

  That was a close one.

  I walked over to the metal star and pulled it out of the wood, and then I turned around to give it back to Zoie, but I froze when I took in the sight of her.

  She was standing with her hand over her mouth, and her eyes were wide and wild as if she just saw a ghost.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I dropped the star and walked up to her so I could put my hands onto her shoulders.

  “I thought it got you,” Zoie breathed and patted down my chest and abdomen as if searching for any mortal wounds. “I’m sorry!”

  “Nope, I’m fine,” I said with a crooked smile.

  “But, how?” she asked as her eyebrows pinched together. “I…”

  “Uhh, I guess I’m just light on my feet.” I shrugged.

  “Nobody is that quick, Alex,” Zoie insisted. “I miscalculated and didn’t give you enough time to get out of the way. It would have hit you in the heart--no, it should have hit you in the heart.”

  “I… oh,” I faltered. I really didn’t have an explanation, so I scruffed a hand through my hair and tried my best to put what I had felt into words. “Sometimes this thing happens where my mind focuses down to just the basics of my surroundings.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she pressed, and her ears pricked forward with interest.

  I frowned as I tried my hardest to recall all the times I’d had this slow-motion Matrix effect in my head.

  “Well, the first time it happened was when I was fighting Dagmar,” I said as Zoie began to pace the floor while she listened. “I thought for sure I was going to die. My heart was pounding in my chest, and suddenly everything got all slow, and it was like I could see every move he made almost before he made it.”

  “That was the only other time it happened?” Zoie asked.

  “Yeah… no, wait,” I said as I remembered the night of the Blood Moon. “It did it again when I was fighting the herald demon. It had me pinned, and you and Rylan needed me, so I let that instinct take over, and suddenly I was free. It was strange, but I just thought it was some sort of stress response.”

  “Alex…” she said and peered into my face like she did whenever I said or did something freaky. “That’s not normal. I didn’t even see how you moved out of the way because you did it so quickly.”

  “Let me guess, this is another one of those things I should try not to do, or something,” I said and lowered the saber.

  “No!” Zoie shouted, and I reared back from her reaction. Then she grabbed my face and kissed me hard before she pulled back. “This is incredible! We have to know how to use this to our advantage. Come, we must talk to Jenner to see if he knows anything about this.”

  Zoie took me by the hand that wasn’t still holding the saber and dragged me out of the barn.

  I smiled and let her lead me up to the manor as she continued to chatter excitedly about expanding my future training.

  “This might be the key in helping us to defeat Asher Ren. It might be the key in much more than that. If you… if you can move this fast, and we can cultivate the ability, then no Duelist will be able to beat you.” She stopped so she could look at me. Her face was jubilant and hopeful, and it was a much better sight than the distress I’d witnessed the night before. She looked like someone had given her a priceless gift, and I squeezed her hand tightly because I knew what it felt like to live in fear that at any moment everything could be ripped away.

  Her joyous grin faded as she gazed at me. That charged spark in her ocean eyes drew me in like a tractor beam, and without words, we both came together in a slow and reverent kiss.

  “I’m happy,” Zoie whispered when our lips parted. “For the first time, I feel like I will be allowed to keep you. I feel like there is an abundance of hope, instead of just a sliver.”

  “Zoie,” I gasped as her timid words dug into my heart, and I cupped her face and gazed into those fathomless depths of blue. There was so much I wanted to say to her. I wanted to tell her I felt the same, and that no one ever made me feel the way she did, and that I was maybe, possibly, falling fast and hard for her with no chance of ever returning.

  Before I could say any of this, however, the golden sun suddenly bled a violent red, and a familiar, deep, earth-shaking howl pierced the air. The ground rumbled, and Zoie and I grabbed onto each other for balance. Then a clamor of roars, growls, and thundering feet echoed all around us, and the atmosphere grew silent and stagnant.

  Zoie and I exchanged a terrified glance when we realized what was happening.

  Demons.

  In the daylight.

  Chapter 9

  The sky blazed red, and the eerie howl droned on and on in the stagnant air.

  Just like before, a hush fell over the land as if even the insects in the dirt were too afraid to do anything other than tiptoe. Demons were coming, even though there was no Blood Moon to announce their arrival.

  Zoie and I were still clutching each other’s arms as our heads both swiveled around for any signs of a threat.

  Then a loud roar came from the vicinity of the manor, and Zoie and I snapped out of our daze.

  “That’s Arvid!” Zoie gasped, and she started in the direction of Arvid’s distressed yell, but I grabbed her wrist.

  “Wait, you don’t have a weapon,” I said and dragged her back a little. “Let me go to Arvid.”

  “Right.” Zoie nodded. “There are weapons back in the barn, I will meet up with you once I’ve armed myself.”

  A huge crash that sounded like a bulldozer cracked through the air, and Zoie and I both whipped our heads in the direction of the barn.

  A demon raced toward us on its six double-jointed legs with a shrieking yowl.

  “Too late!” I yelled and dragged Zoie up the hill.

  We ran like hell itself was after us, which was a good description when the literal spawn of the earth was molding up from the ground at our feet like some fucked up claymation nightmare.

  “Zoie!” I shouted and slashed my saber through the arm of a smaller demon that sprouted up on her left. The impact jarred my wrist and elbow, and I remembered what Zoie told me about my grip.

  The demon wailed like a pissed off moose and collapsed onto the ground.

  Without a second thought, I jumped over it and sprinted right behind Zoie as she raced toward the manor house gate. She got to the manor wall first, and she struggled as she tried to pull the heavy gate closed.

  I spun around to guard her with the saber held out in front of me as the screams of the demons got closer.

  The demon that busted through the barn leapt at my head, and I blocked like Zoie showed me with my weapon held high. Then I side-kicked the demon’s fugly ass away, and it tumbled back down the hill a bit.

  It shook its head, righted itself, and then charged at me as the tentacles on its back sprung out toward me like a fleet of arrows.

  “Fuck off!” I growled as I guarded my left shoulder from the whipping tentacles. A few wrapped around my sword hand, but I just used the leverage to pull the demon into my left hook, and it yipped and went tumbling
to the side.

  A howling bellow reverberated through the air just as three more demons materialized out of the earth.

  “Alex!” Zoie yelled, and I turned and ran through the gate so I could help her pull the heavy thing closed.

  When it was in place, Zoie and I locked the gate tight as we slid the pair of iron ground pegs down into the holes bored into the manor’s stone foundation. A moment later, the demons shrieked as they slammed into the other side with a bang, and we both backed up as it snarled out one of those gut twisting squeals.

  “How long do you think it’ll be before it learns how to climb?” I asked.

  “Not long,” Zoie panted. “I’ll go to the garden and through the underground weapons cache, and you get to the courtyard and help Arvid. I’ll come and find you.”

  “Be careful,” I said, and then I drew her in for a quick kiss.

  “You, too,” she said as she gave me a confident smile. Then she nodded at me and bolted up around the right side of the manor to get to the north garden.

  The demons, more of them now, pounded on the gate as they screeched their rage to the red skies in a way that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

  I didn’t need to be told twice, so I sprinted into the entrance of the manor, slammed the large wooden door closed behind me, and secured another set of floor pegs for good measure.

  “Arrrrrggghhh!” Arvid’s deep voice boomed from nearby.

  “I’m coming, buddy!” I yelled out as I raced down the corridor, shouldered open the side door, and burst out into the inner courtyard splashed with red sunlight.

  Arvid was in the middle trying to fend off two demons at once, and his usual relaxed and dopey expression was now transformed into a fierce snarl complete with three-inch canines on his upper jaw. Arvid bellowed, swung his tree trunk arms, and whacked a demon to the ground when it tried to lunge for his throat.

  “Hey!” I roared as the second demon went to attack Arvid when his back was turned. I stepped on one of the demon’s tentacles just as it jumped, and the fucker slammed back into the stone courtyard with a squeal.

  It spun around and targeted me just like I was hoping, and I held my saber lithe and loose in my right hand as I brought my left up close to guard my face.