by Ken Brosky
“You do not know the human condition as I do,” he said. He came at me again, aiming high. A fresh surge of adrenaline coursed through my body, waking up my numb fingers and letting me clutch the hilt of my saber more tightly. I parried the blows one by one, stepping back to avoid a stab to my midsection. “Humans have always been a disease upon this earth. They crave death and destruction, like a drug. They are insatiable.”
I attacked, swinging for his head. When he parried, I stepped back again before he could counter. “Some of us are pretty neat. Maybe deep down, you’ve got some redeeming quality, too.”
The prince scoffed. “You must know by now what I am.”
“You’re the Malevolence,” I said, taking the offensive again, driving him back a step. I swung high, then aimed for his wrist, nearly cutting him. But he flicked his blade downward, ensuring that I only nicked the edge of his black glove, slicing the leather.
“I am that which existed before the dawn of man,” he said, standing tall and piercing me with his dark eyes. He slid left, his cloak flowing hypnotically behind him like a piece of fabric floating underwater. “I seek to return this planet to the way it once was, without your parasitic species.”
“So you helped the Brothers Grimm bring their stories to life,” I said, swinging low again. This time, he stepped out of the way. I surged forward, swinging at his head and nearly dropping my sword when he parried hard. “You gave them black magic. Why?”
“Because my powers are limited,” Vontescue said, stepping back. He lowered his sword, moving swiftly to dodge another swipe of my blade. “But the human imagination … ah, what a wonder that is! The Brothers Grimm could create thousands of tales, bring them to life, and the creatures therein could wipe out humanity. Do you see now?”
“You knew the fairy tale creatures would become Corrupted,” I said. “And you hoped the Corrupted would wipe out humanity.”
The prince smiled.
“I’m not going to let that happen!” I shouted, swinging high. The prince met my attack and our blades clanged together with a deafening crack. We both fell back a step.
“I’m aware of your tenacity,” Vontescue said. “I have been from the start. I apologize for the deception, but I was curious about your abilities. In all honesty, I’d been quite sure that devilish wizard was going to fulfill my wishes.”
“Agnim,” I whispered. “But … if you want humanity destroyed, why have you protected the people of Agnosara for so many hundreds of years?”
“The people serve their purposes,” Vontescue said simply. “I am not an all-powerful entity or I would have wiped humanity out myself. I have … limits.”
“Weaknesses is more like it,” I said.
The prince held out his blade, examining it. It was old, nicked in places, little flecks of rust reflecting the firelight. “The duel is a curious thing. Man pitted against man, while people watch at a safe distance. They strike each other …” He stepped forward, swinging low. I parried awkwardly, stepping to my right. “… And the duel often ends quickly, one man run through or grievously injured. Or sometimes it is a woman.” He stabbed at my stomach, then followed through with a quick slash toward my head. My blade was too low to meet his, so I ducked, losing my balance and falling onto the floor.
I scrambled to my feet, taking a deep breath. The bruise on my leg had begun to throb.
“There was a woman who once dazzled the fencing world,” Vontescue said, stepping closer. He swung low, then high, forcing me back again. “By the age of seventeen, she was besting some of the most talented soldiers in the French army. Her name was Julie d’Aubigny, and her exploits spread throughout France like wildfire. Her first two duels were a tragic joke. The first man she challenged refused to fight, and so she took his watch and paraded around town wearing it on her wrist. The second man who insulted her was forced to beg forgiveness or be cut down by her sword.”
“My kind of woman,” I said, swinging low and then thrusting the blade at the prince’s midsection. He parried, stepping away from the fireplace. We were in the center of the room now, where the shadows were at their strongest. It felt almost magnetic, as if the darkness was pulling at me and enticing me to lower my weapon.
“D’Aubigny’s most famous moment came when she attended a party dressed as a man,” Vontescue continued, “wooing the women and insulting a trio of nobles who promptly challenged her. She accepted the challenge and met the men on a Paris street. The lamps were not yet lit for the night and so they had only the full moon to illuminate their battle. D’Aubigny dispatched all three men, then returned to the party and let the host know where he could find them.”
He attacked with a violent slice aimed at my neck, then lowered his body and aimed for my stomach. I parried both blows, feeling the tip of his blade run across the fabric of my sweater. I risked a glance down—the shirt was undamaged. My heart raced. The flames of the hundreds of candles had begun to blur once again. Only the prince seemed clear. He was a shadow, then a man, then a shadow again as he stepped closer. He moved with an inhuman fluidity.
The prince continued: “D’Aubigny, like others before her, was obsessed with the search for a perfect thrust. It was a myth, something no swordsman has ever found. It was said that the perfect thrust was a single fencing move so perfect that it was indefensible. It guaranteed victory no matter who the opponent was, no matter his skill level, no matter how he chose to parry it. Duelers for centuries obsessed over this guarantee of victory, never succeeding in finding it.”
I swept forward, breathing deep, bringing my sword down on the prince’s head and then sweeping my blade low after he parried. I swept my blade back across his chest, using every ounce of strength in my arm, the muscles screaming out with a fiery pain. I took another deep breath, attacking again, reversing my strikes, hoping and praying that he would leave me an opening. But his parries were all impeccable, and the dancing shadows played tricks on my eyes.
“You fence like a warrior who senses death,” Vontescue said, groaning as he beat-parried my last strike. I nearly lost my grip on my saber, feeling it slip a bit in my sweaty hand. I stepped back, unable to continue my attack.
I was tired. I was afraid.
“You believe this is the end and so you fight with your back to the wall,” he continued. “It’s served you well thus far but it will not help you any longer.”
His face suddenly changed, all calmness dripping away, replaced by that same ferocious look he’d shown me before. Now I could see the candles’ flames reflected in his eyes. He came at me hard, swinging furiously, each attack a little calculated chunk of fury, pushing me back again and again, our blades clanging together so loud that it stung my eardrums. I tried beat-parrying but instead of forcing his blade to bounce back, it was my weapon that bounced back, the dull side of the blade hitting my shoulder.
He was using my own strength against me. Magnifying his intensity.
I fell back into one of the candelabras and my left hand dropped the pen, instinctively grabbing the intricate base of the candlestick holder and throwing it at the prince. He snarled, falling back to avoid the candle flames. I abandoned the pen, stepping right to put some distance between us.
“Clever,” he mused, kicking aside the candelabra before the candles’ flames could ignite the old rug. The candles rolled beside my pen, leaving a trail of white wax.
I grabbed another candelabra, gripping it by its base. I swung it at him, sending droplets of hot wax onto his cloak. The candles flickered, their orange light playing over the prince’s hard features. His eyes narrowed.
“You think the flame will protect you?” With his right hand, he swept back his cloak. All of the candles along the wall went out, including the three at the end of the candelabra I was still clutching. The prince clung to the shadows, stepping to my right. With only the soft red glow of the dying embers in the fireplace, the prince’s body seemed free to be one with the darkness, moving inside it as if it was a part of him. Ther
e was no way to attack. I could barely even keep my eyes on his tall form as it slid through the shadows.
“I am the cold wind that snuffs the flame,” he whispered, his voice echoing in the room. “I am the pitch-blackness that haunts your darkest thoughts.”
“I can’t—”
He suddenly emerged from the darkness, each blow pushing me back. I parried. The muscles in my arm were threatening to give up at any moment. My heart beat in my ears between the clangs of steel. Fear gripped me like it never had before and choked the air from my lungs, squeezing my throat.
Ferocious intensity contorted his face. “You must not fear death,” the prince hissed, swinging again. “You must look between your opponent’s strokes and find a place to strike!”
I beat-parried, willing all of the energy I had left into one last, desperate attack. I swung high, then thrust the blade at the prince’s heart. He parried, but left an opening on the right side of his chest. I sliced my blade that way but he parried again, not with his blade but with his right hand, pulling it out from under his cloak.
He closed the gap between us, thrusting his saber into my left shoulder.
I braced myself. The tip of the saber pressed against my skin. My entire body felt numb, expecting death. I thought of Chase. I thought of how badly I wished I’d just said goodbye and kissed him one last time.
A dull pain spread over my shoulder. Not the piercing pain I was expecting. The prince was impossibly close now, his right hand still clutching my blade. His right hand … there was no glove. The sharp edge of my blade had cut two of his fingers. I watched in terror as they cracked like chunks of dry clay, crumbling to the ground and leaving only two black shadows in their place. It was as if I’d cut the fingers off a statue, only inside the fingers there’d been some kind of glue holding them in place. The strange oil-like blackness had spread up his arm, eating away at the fabric of his shirt, covering his pale skin like paint.
The tip of his saber pressed harder into my shoulder. But it still didn’t pierce my skin. I looked down. The tip was dull. So was the edge of the blade.
“Tomorrow, you face Hungary in the tournament,” the prince said through gritted teeth, spittle flying out. “She will attack you relentlessly, just as her ancestors attacked me. She has the blood of kings in her veins. Relentless, foul and forgotten kings who thought they could rule over me and my servants.”
The tip of the blade was digging into my muscle. It hurt. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. For once, I had no wisecrack.
“You cannot fence the way you fight Corrupted.” He brought his face close, his sharp nose nearly touching mine. I could smell rotten meat on his breath. “You cannot fear death. In a fencing duel, it is only the first strike that counts. Let your opponent strike you … simply ensure you strike her first.”
He pushed me back, holding his left arm up and marveling at his mangled hand. He flexed his fingers. The two shadow fingers bent just like his regular fingers. A terrible realization hit me: The Malevolence is the shadow, Alice! The body is just a shell!
“In two days, there will be a new moon,” Vontescue said. He was breathing heavily, his body slumped just a bit.
Not all-powerful. A dark force trapped inside a very human body. Remember that, Alice.
“We will meet again and finish this. But tomorrow … tomorrow, you must take your glory!” His three human fingers and two shadow fingers curled into a fist. “Dispatch the Hungarians just as I did hundreds of years ago. Taste the sweetness of victory and savor it, for it will not last.”
The door to the staircase flew open, snuffing out half the candles in the room. Suddenly the prince looked twice as large, and I could feel my own shadow drawn to him, tugging at my feet. I turned, hurrying to the staircase, running down the hall, back to my room.
I shut the door behind me, locking it. But the lock didn’t matter. The prince was waiting for something …
A new moon.
Chapter 7
We took the limos into town early the next morning, only instead of going straight to the arena, we went to the practice facility next door. Chase kept us from the boys, who were about as pumped as could be. They’d all won on the first round, and Mr. Whitmann—clueless about the Jump—was ecstatic because it meant they would get to play against some of the weakest fencers in the tournament’s first “official” round.
“Just keep it up!” he said, pacing beside their practice mat as they faced off two at a time. “Crap, don’t listen to me. You know what you’re doing. Swing those swords like your lives depend on it!”
Chase was in a cooler mood, keeping us off the mat while he looked over a notepad full of scribbles. On the other side of the practice facility, South Korea’s team was stretching out, doing a little workout routine that had them alternating between jumping jacks and push-ups. They were all wearing the same black shorts and white t-shirts with their flag displayed prominently on the chest.
“I bet they’ve been here since dawn,” Margaret said. She was nervously wringing a napkin between her fingers.
“No one has to face them in the second round,” Chase murmured. “So don’t worry about them.”
“I’m tired,” Jasmine said. “Can’t we have a cup of coffee or something? I need caffeine.”
“There’s bottles of soda in the limo,” Chase said. “Drink half a bottle, then have some water, too. You don’t want to jack yourself up on caffeine before the match. It’s just going to make you more nervous.” He looked up at Margaret. “Especially you.”
“Chase, what about the Jump?” Jasmine asked. “What if we all took half a pill, you know? Just so we can fight our nerves?”
Chase ignored her. “Margaret and Rachel are up first.” While they put on their masks and the old fencing uniforms, he wheeled over to me. “Hey. You OK?”
“Of course,” I said, uncrossing my arms. They’d been crossed ever since we’d arrived. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You haven’t said two words this morning. You forgot to do your hair up in a ponytail. You didn’t eat the cereal Sorin laid out for us this morning, although I guess I don’t blame you for that. You’re also paler than the prince.”
The last word sent a whole bunch of crazy images into my head. Images of shadows and little dancing flames. I leaned over, kissing him on the lips. Images of his death replaced the shadows. I kissed him harder, forcing my head to clear.
“Uh … do you guys need a minute?” Margaret asked.
“He’s ready,” I said, pushing his shoulder. He wheeled toward the mat.
“OK,” he said, clearing his throat. “Hold on. Let me … just gimme a minute.” He looked over his notes, flipping the page. “OK, now listen. You’re both facing off against girls from Japan. You can’t let them follow through on their attacks. You need to beat-parry to disrupt them and then you need to take the offensive.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
“Because they have patterns,” Chase said, wheeling beside the mat. “They have each attack sequence planned out four strikes in advance. It all builds up to those last few strikes—that’s when they expect you to leave them openings they can exploit.”
“So we have to stop them?” Margaret asked. “Chase, come on! Make sense, bro.”
He pursed his lips, thinking. “OK. It’s like a video game. Your opponent is going to punch you two times, then kick you two times, then perform a super move. If you just keep blocking, what’s going to happen?”
“She’s going to perform the super move and kill me,” Rachel answered with more than a little enthusiasm.
Chase nodded. “So your job is to hit her before she performs her super move. Let’s practice. Margaret, I want you to attack Rachel’s chest two times, then her stomach two times. Rachel, your job is to beat-parry and counter-attack before Margaret can finish her sequence.”
Margaret began her series of attacks. Rachel parried once, then beat-parried, her thin foil blade clanging hard against Margaret’s and leavin
g an opening for Rachel to stab Margaret right in the chest.
They both turned and looked at Chase. He had a hard look of determination on his face, allowing only a half-satisfied nod. It was damned sexy.
“Switch roles,” he ordered.
Rachel attacked and Margaret parried, waiting until the very last strike this time before the opportunity to beat-parry arose. Rachel being bigger and tougher, the beat-parry didn’t leave much of an opening … but Margaret’s speed ensured she didn’t need one. She stabbed Rachel in the left ribs.
“Again,” Chase ordered. “Margaret, switch it up. Plan out an attack sequence ahead of time. Rachel, anticipate the plan.” They did it again. And again. And again. Every time, their beat-parries got more intense. Every time, they grew more confident. Jasmine, sitting beside me, grabbed my hand and squeezed. We watched, enraptured, pretty positive that if we’d just walked in, we never would have thought these two masked fencers were from our team.
“OK, stop.” Chase flipped a page in his notes. “After you take down Japan, Rachel is going to be matched up against Germany and Margaret is going to be matched up against England. We need to prep for them.”
I laughed an excited laugh, snorting a bit.
Chase turned, his face still dead serious. “You’re next, sweetheart.”
Later, when we walked into the arena, we strode with all the confidence of a team that felt destined to win.
Seriously, we strutted. We had the walk, and that included Chase. In the tunnel, he’d handed off the wheelchair to Mr. Whitmann, opting instead for the forearm crutches. He took his time and so did we, giving the crowd a nod as we lined up to greet the judges, chomping on peppermint gum. The European synth techno music thumped deep inside our bodies like a pulse of energy.
We can do this.