Zhang’s attack was stopped dead, and Mikey looked up. An Olympian blade had stopped his attacker’s blow and was holding it firm, even as Zhang tried to push through it. To his amazement Theodosia wielded the blade. She drove his blade high and kicked him to the chest, launching him back several feet. He crashed to the ground against one of his wounded comrades.
Two others came at Theodosia, but she dropped under one strike and cut up with a vicious slash across his torso. A dao blade came for her head, but she took it on the vambrace on her left arm, slashing at the arm that bore it, and then punching the wielder in the face with her left. Rick could see the opening she had created and let out a battle cry as he ran forward, finding himself invigorated by having Theo at their side. He went at one of the katana wielders with a huge downward blow, forcing him to raise his sword, but it was nothing more than an exaggerated feint, as he drove his shield low into the kneecap. A resounding crunch echoed out as he collapsed from the gruesome blow.
Rick felt a blade bite into his lead arm, and he lost the grip of his sword, but he spun about and smashed his attacker with his shield, causing him to fly back. There was a momentary lull in the combat as the space between the two sides had widened. Many of Zhang’s goons were licking their wounds and didn’t look like they had much fight left in them. Theodosia waved her blade in their direction, and some of them flinched.
“This ends, now! Pick up your wounded, and get the hell out of here!”
“This isn’t your fight!” Zhang protested.
“I am making it my fight. You think about that next time you’re looking for trouble. This salle and all who attend it are family to us, and to all who still serve the will of Zeus. If you pick a fight here, you pick a fight with all of us. Leave now while you still can, or I will rain down fury on you and your kind. I will take this fight to your homes, and not stop until everything you know is burned to the ground!”
They didn’t need to hear anymore, as they gathered their wounded, and fled with their tails between their legs. Nobody had died, but many trailed blood out of the building.
“Thank you,” Mikey gasped in relief.
“No problem, you were there for us when we needed you, and we will do the same for you.”
“They didn’t bring guns to the fight?” Rick asked in amazement.
“If you bring guns, they bring guns. Swords, and they bring swords. Zhang has some stupid sense of honor and a code he follows. It’s all bullshit. Aaron told me all about it.”
“Zhang only cares about his reputation. He wanted to beat us at our own game. Show what balls he’s got,” added Johnny as Theo went to check on the blade stuck in Mikey’s shoulder. He took a seat at the side of the room.
“I’m gonna need a doctor.”
“You don’t want take this to a hospital. They’ll start asking questions. We don’t want cops in on this,” replied Rick.
“I’ll call Aceso. She’ll know what to do.” Theo went to the landline at the front of the room. “Theo,” said Mikey.
She stopped.
“Thanks, really.”
“Like I said, you were there for us.”
Chapter 10
Aaron swiped sweat from his brow after a long day’s hike. They’d been going since first light, and it was close to dinnertime.
“We’re a day and a half in, do you really think you know where you’re going?” Ava asked, as she took a drink of water.
“You’ve seen the signs. They’ve all been there.”
“We think we have. Maybe we’re reading things that just aren’t there. Interpreting it all wrong?”
He drew out his journal and flicked through a few pages before noticing an illustration of a rock formation that was most unusual, cascading and perfectly symmetrical as it reached a near perfect point. He looked up, remembering he’d seen it moments before.
“You see, we’re close now,” he pointed.
It spurred him on as he rushed towards it. He was excited, and all of his fatigue melted away. Ava sighed, as she was getting weary of it. She was beginning to lose hope. He reached the rock and ran around it excitedly, checking the journal once more.
“It’s a guide.”
“What does it say about this place?”
“That it’ll lead the way at first light, or I think that’s what it says.”
That was the last thing she wanted to hear.
“Another day? Is this just an endless game, Aaron? Are you sure?”
“I think we’re really at the end. There’s nothing left of the poem, no other clues. This is it,” he said excitedly.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s get a fire going, and settle in for the night,” she said cynically.
He understood her concerns, and yet he knew they had to go on, and he felt excited at the prospect of reaching the end.
“You really do believe all this, don’t you?” she asked him as they dropped their gear and went to gather firewood nearby.
“It doesn’t seem so wild anymore, and I have to hope there’s something else out there, someone who might have our backs. You weren’t there when we fought Hades. It was almost sad. For a moment I thought I had him, but I was never close. My blade drew his blood, but it didn’t even seem to hurt him. We were completely outclassed.”
“But you came close? You landed blows?”
“I hit him, yeah.”
“Nobody is unkillable. If you were able to land blows, maybe you weren’t as far away from victory.”
He listened intently as she went on.
“Hades wants to be seen as this big bad, I get that. Maybe he can shrug off the cuts you gave him, and pretend it was nothing. But what if it really did hurt him? What if you’d landed strikes somewhere more serious? Maybe it was closer than you thought.”
“Yeah, maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact we got our asses kicked. You didn’t see it. Trust me, Thanatos and Theo, they were beaten up like you wouldn’t imagine.”
“And you think you could ever be as good as them, even if we can get training from some ancient secret master?”
“I don’t know. But I do know I was able to put up more of a fight than they were. The gods, they aren’t as powerful as you think.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it, Ava. In a fistfight, sure they could beat anyone. But with an Olympian blade in hand, we’re closer to them than you know. It is an equalizer.”
“What is?”
“The sword, just like it always was. A weapon that can make all men equal, or near as damn it.”
She groaned. It was too much to take in, and she was starting to lose faith. Aaron didn’t push it any further. He was just glad of some company as he got the fire going and prepared their meal from the cans in their bags. They soon began to laugh as they relaxed their weary legs and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. She looked up at the stars.
“What is it?”
“Just how bizarre all of it is. I was thinking back to the times I imagined where I’d be in life. Working a six-figure desk job. Lounging about on a beach somewhere gloriously hot. You know the sort of thing. Never in a million years would I have seen this coming. Sitting in a damp forest on the other side of the world, hundreds of miles from civilization, and looking for a mythical swordsman that can train us to fight a god.”
Aaron smiled.
“You know, life has never taken me where I expected it to, but it’s never been boring. I guess that’s what matters, right? People work themselves to death, or just do the same thing day in day out. Or they lay about doing nothing. But not us, we find excitement wherever we can.”
“My life since I joined the club could certainly never be defined as boring,” she nodded in agreement.
They finished their food quickly, and Ava lay down to get comfortable.
“You know tomorrow we might just get to meet the only survivors in a lineage of masters we thought lost hundreds of years ago. We…” he paused as he noticed her snoring
lightly.
She was completely out for the count. He smiled, realizing just how exhausted she was, and he was starting to feel the effects himself. He rested the sheathed Olympian blade just under him so it was easy enough to reach, but couldn’t be taken without him noticing, if there were indeed anyone out there. The prospect seemed slim, as they’d not seen any sign of human life in a long time. He felt no fear or concern for sleeping without anyone on watch, and for a while he was able to forget all his worries as he lay back and looked up at the stars.
He smiled as he thought of all they’d been through, even the hardship. As tough as it had been, it had been the experience of a lifetime. He marveled at the things he now knew, and how so few in the world knew it. He wanted to show the world, but knew he couldn’t. In fact, without some intervention on the part of the Olympians, he’d be in a mental asylum within a week if he spoke of his experiences. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open as the fatigue truly set in. Finally, he let go and let himself slip into oblivion. A deep sleep as he let his mind wander.
First light awoke him from a deep sleep. It was more rest than he’d had in a long time, and Ava was still completely out of it. For a moment he was only half awake and couldn’t remember why they were there. Then he spotted the pointed rock in front of them and it all came back. He rushed to the rock, looking for some sign on the face itself, as if daylight would reveal some hidden information, but there was nothing.
“Come on, it has to be here somewhere.” He brushed his hands over the rock as if expecting to reveal dust from some hidden sign.
“Aaron?” Ava called as she stirred.
“Over here! There’s nothing here!” Aaron yelled in frustration.
She yawned as she looked around at her surroundings. She took a few paces toward him before stopping and thinking about it differently.
“The rock was supposed to point the way, not reveal a sign,” she said to herself.
She turned and went up a small hill slope.
“What are you doing?”
Aaron peered out to check where she was. She quickly reached an elevated position and pointed down at the ground around him.
“It points the way, literally!”
He didn’t look convinced and ambled on after her, expecting it to be a complete waste of time.
“This better be good, Ava,” he grumbled.
He finally reached her. She had a huge smile on her face as if she’d completed the puzzle. He turned about and understood what she meant. The morning light had cast a long shadow of the pointed rock.
“No, it can’t be that simple.”
A long shadow stretched out all the way to the edge of a thick forest a hundred meters away. It was so thick it looked impenetrable and extended out toward craggy mountains either side. It looked completely impassable.
“All of this deception and hidden messages, and it comes down to a shadow. Are you sure about that?”
“It’s not like anyone would know it was a sign unless they knew the poem, and that it intended to lead you somewhere. And you’d have to know where to look and how to interpret it.”
“Who’s the cynic now?” Ava smiled at him.
“All right, saddle up, and let’s find out.”
“Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a horse right about now.”
“Where we’re going, you won’t need one,” he replied, looking at the incredibly dense ground ahead of them.
They quickly gathered their gear, not that it was much, just bedding and a few utensils. They walked in the shadow of the rock, and feeling the anticipation building with every step.
“Is this finally it?” Ava asked.
They reached the edge of the shadow. It stopped exactly at a point of thicket between two closely spaced trees that were many hundreds of years old. They were looking about, investigating every inch of the ground, and looking for some sign. Aaron was pushing against the thick brush, trying to find any way they could get through, but it was rock solid.
“I don’t get it. We’d need a chainsaw to get through this, and where’s it gonna go? It’s just going to be the same for god knows how long.”
He kept pushing and prodding, and then finally his hand gave way. He wasn’t expecting it and almost fell through flat on his face. The thicket seemed to just swing away as he stepped inside, revealing a carefully cut passage through the foliage. He could barely believe it, but Ava grabbed onto him to keep him from falling.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” he insisted.
Neither of them could believe what they were seeing. They’d hoped to find something, but had almost resigned themselves to find nothing at the end of their journey. The brush they’d come through suddenly snapped back into position, and everything went dark. They waited for their eyes to adjust, and a few seconds later they realized they were no longer alone. A single figure was standing just a few feet in front of them. He wore a holstered pistol on a rig about his chest, but in his hands was a staff, the same height as its wielder.
Aaron instinctively reached for his sword, thinking they had found trouble, but as his hand reached it, the staff tip smashed into his hand with a carefully aimed thrust. It almost broke his fingers. A cut up against his chin snapped his head back, and he staggered back.
“We don’t mean you any harm. We’ve come looking for Aldred,” said Ava.
The man held firm, his staff in two hands in a strong position. They were in a narrow corridor amongst the dense foliage, no wider than the staff itself, but the mysterious man had no problem using it to great effect. He had dark hair down to his shoulders, partly obscuring his face, and a similarly dark beard. Everything about his look was slick. He was not someone who lived in the wilderness. He was wearing a ballistic vest mostly covered by a bandolier and sash. He looked like a mix between a SWAT officer and a HEMA fighter.
“Leave it.” Ava looked back and saw Aaron’s hand on the hilt of his weapon, “You came looking for these guys, and maybe we’ve just found them. There’s no need to pick a fight.”
He grunted angrily, moved his hand away, and relaxed his stance.
“What do you want with Aldred?” The stranger asked in a growly accusatory voice.
“We want to learn from him,” replied Ava.
“Come with me.”
“Do you want our weapons?”
Aaron was shaking his head furiously as if he couldn’t believe she would even offer them. The stranger had already turned his back and walked on as if expecting them to follow.
“No, you may keep them. But make no attempt to do harm here.”
“Or what?” Aaron asked, as if annoyed by the accusation.
“Come on, take it easy. We aren’t looking for a fight, Aaron. We’re looking for help,” she whispered.
“Yeah, but I’m not the enemy. I didn’t come looking for trouble.”
“It always seems to find it, though, doesn’t it?”
He couldn’t disagree.
“Hey, at least I got us here,” he replied with a smile.
They continued on for several minutes in silence, until Aaron’s curiosity could not hold his tongue any further.
“You got a name?”
But there was no reply.
“We heard this was a place of great masters. A lineage back to the past, to the great swordsmen of five hundred years ago and more.”
“Yes,” came a stoic reply.
Ava looked relieved. It seemed obvious they had come to the right place. It was far too much a coincidence that Durer’s hidden directions had led them exactly to this point, to a hidden entrance in which they found a well-equipped and experienced swordsman.
“Are you Aldred?” Aaron asked.
“No,” came the simple response once more.
“But you know him?”
“Yes.”
Aaron sighed. It was hard work getting anything out of the mysterious figure. He could taste blood and wiped his mouth. Blood was pouring from his nose where he’d be struc
k with the stout hardwood staff.
“Easy now, we came into their home armed, wouldn’t you have done the same? It could have been a lot worse.”
Ava was concerned he might try to get some retribution, but he shrugged it off, as if offended by the idea he’d even consider it. Yet he was salty about the blood dripping down his face, and his sore jaw that he was exercising to try and loosen up. They’d walked for what had to be a mile through the passageway in undergrowth so thick there was no way off the path. It had to have been very carefully and regularly maintained.
“You really think this place has been here since back in Durer’s time?”
“How could it not? It seems crazy, but then we’re so far out from everything, who would ever know? You’d never find this place, not even if you knew it was in the area. You’d have to know that precise point to get in. One tiny entrance in hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles of forests and mountains. It’s not like it would be seen from the air.” He pointed up to the thick canopy above them.
Eventually, the path opened up into a wide circular clearing, about the size of a football pitch. Though it too was still well covered by the shelter of the trees reaching over it. Like the trail they had followed, the area had clearly been cut out from within the forest and was well concealed. To their surprise, stone buildings ran all the way around the perimeter of the circle. On the opposite side was a large two-story stone building that looked like some kind of great hall. The stonework looked hundreds of years old, yet was perfectly maintained. It had evidently been updated many times in the past hundred of years, with relatively modern glass and roofing. Three pairs of swordsmen practiced intense drills in the wide-open space. He was surprised to see others working with firearms, practicing close quarters techniques.
“What is this? Some kind of commune, a training facility?”
They still got no response as they were led to the center of the clearing. It was mostly stoned, once again, a long time ago. It was a well-established facility, but Aaron just couldn’t believe something so well developed was out there in the wilderness.
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