by Ines Johnson
“You lot need to get used to fighting one-handed,” said Percy. “Stop using the shield as a counterbalance. It’s a weapon of defense. Not a weight.”
Both Maurice and I brought our swords and shields up. Maurice stood squarely in front of me. I stood in more of a side lunge stance, due to my fencing training. I never gave anyone full frontal access, no matter what any man might have said about me.
The square stance made no sense to me. I knew that the edge of the shield was weaker than the center. And so I simply struck the edge, which opened up Maurice’s body. As predicted, his forearm followed his shield and he lost his grip. His shield fell to the ground, and without my having to go through his big bear of a body, he was out of the game and out of my way.
I gripped my shield tight to my body and turned to find my next opponent. Boys were falling on both sides, mainly due to the weakness of their shield technique. Instead of attacking the body, they were all attacking the edge of the shields and trying to force their opponents to lose their grips.
It was working. It was also boring. I failed to see the point of the exercise, so I directed my attention elsewhere. And there it was.
The flag was in sight. In fact, my teammate, Yuric, was upon it. But he froze as he tried to determine how to pick it up without setting down either his sword or his shield. His hesitation cost him. Baysle, the perpetual leader of the other guys, took a swing at him.
It was unnecessary roughness as Baysle disarmed Yuric by tapping at the edge of his shield. The villain then went further and took the blunt end of his sword and shoved it into Yuric’s gut. The chainmail protected us from any mortal slicing that would rend our flesh, but it didn’t do much to soften the impact of blows.
Yuric went down gasping for air, and leaving Baysle free to take the flag and the victory for the opposing team. Unfortunately for Baysle, he was then confronted with the exact same conundrum as Yuric. How the hell would he take possession of the flag without putting down either of his weapons which would automatically expel him from the game? Even worse for Baysle, the fight wasn’t over. I was his next opponent.
Baysle’s upper lip curled when he saw me standing, backlit by the sun. A light wind blew the tendrils of my hair out of my face. I heard crickets chirping in the blades of grass, a bird cawing from a tree. I did that slow advance like you see in movies before the climactic fight scene. A branch cracked under Baysle’s foot as he made an equally slow advance on me. Then we squared off, facing each other.
“So,” I drawled in an awful Spanish accent, “now it is down to you, and it is down to me.”
Baysle brought his shield to his chest and lifted his sword.
“Hello,” I tilted my head. “My name is Loren Van Alst. You kill my friend. Prepare to die.”
Baysle looked behind him at our fallen comrades. “What is she even talking about?”
I sighed. “You kids need to watch more eighties movies.”
Instead of playing along with the storybook romance of princesses, pirates, and vengeful Spaniards, Baysle charged me. I lunged forward, striking the edge of his shield. No one was more surprised than me when he shifted his body, and my blade glanced off his disk. The kid had actually learned from past mistakes. Who knew?
But now I had to smarten up too. Baysle’s shield came back at me, the edge aimed at my face like it was a blade. I bent my body backward, Matrix-style, and then struck out with my foot. Baysle went down, but he didn’t lose his grip on his weaponry. He managed a cool martial arts move which landed him back on his feet without the use of his hands.
Okay. So, he was actually going to make me break a sweat? The little creep.
We came at each other again. This time, taking a tactic from Baysle’s cookbook, I used my shield like a sword. Aiming for his shield hand, I went for the edge of his shield with mine. The move pushed both of our shields into the armpit of his sword hand, leaving him entirely defenseless. His whole body was open to my attack.
I aimed my sword for his jewels. “Yield.”
Baysle grit his teeth. His green eyes screamed bloody murder.
Oh, it would get bloody all right. If he didn’t drop his weapons, I was going to relieve him of a couple of his toys. But the boy was smart. He threw his sword down to the ground in a huff. Then he backed away from me, dropping his shield down low to protect what he prized most in his life.
There was no one left standing on the battlefield. Look at that. I’d won.
But there was no cheering just yet. Now, I was confronted with the exact same problem that had stumped both Yuric and Baysle. How to pick up the flag without setting down either of my weapons?
I kicked at the flag’s staff, which was speared deeply into the ground. It didn’t budge.
I squatted down over it and tried to grab it between my knees and toppled over. I heard chuckling behind me.
“Oh, shut up,” I said. “Not one of you got this far.”
I saw Geraint and Percy eyeing me from the sidelines. Percy looked maniacally amused. Geraint looked bored and constipated.
I turned back to the flag. There was no way a normal person without a third hand could pick this dang thing up. And then I remembered. I wasn’t normal. I was a witch.
But my hands were full. I couldn’t flick my fingers like I’d done with the bucket and mop last night. I decided the thing to do was to pull a Samantha.
I wiggled my nose bewitchingly. The flag blew on a nonexistent breeze, but it didn’t come up. I wiggled my nose again. The earth around the staff began to give way. I wiggled it a third time, and the flag flew up and balanced on the tip of my sword.
Geraint’s pointy eyebrows flattened. Percy’s grin rose higher. The bad guys moaned and booed at my display of magic. The good guys cheered me on for the win.
“You missed the whole point of the exercise.” Geraint marched over to me, his fists balled at his sides.
“Uh, the point was to win,” I said. “And we did. There was no rule that said I couldn’t use magic.”
“No,” said Geraint. “The point is to never put down your weapon. That’s the lesson in all of this. When you’re on the battlefield, no prize is worth your life.”
“Oooh,” I nodded, pondering the moral of the story. “That’s pretty deep. And I totally get your point.”
“Actually, G,” said Percy. “I think she makes another point.”
Percy came up and studied me. Under the scrutiny of his dark gaze, I began to squirm. Sir Percival was rumored to have been raised in the wild. Looking in his predatory gaze was like having a dark light flashing directly into my eyes. It made no sense for darkness to be bright, but that’s what it felt like to me. His lips were spread wide like a wolf’s, ready to sink sharp incisors into my flesh.
“We have a witch in our midst,” Percy proclaimed.
“Yeah,” I nodded, wondering if he were playing with a full deck. Wondering also if it was smart that he be let near children.
“She’s a witch and a warrior,” Percy continued as though he hadn’t heard me. “Don’t you see, G? We can use her like a weapon. If she can pick up a stick without hands, she can probably throw a punch from a distance.”
“You know,” I said, latching onto his manic enthusiasm. “I had this idea. You ever watch Star Trek.”
Percy looked quizzically at me. I forgot; raised in the wild. I turned to the squires.
“Dr. Spock? Captain Kirk?”
The squires nodded. So, they’d watched seventies television but skipped the eighties movies.
“I loved Zachary Quinto the first couple of seasons in Heroes,” said Yuric. “And then it got old. But he kicked butt as Spock.”
I rolled my eyes at the mention of the remake of the classic television show into a film with Millennial actors. But a girl had to work with what she had.
“You remember Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch?” I spread my fingers into the V of the Vulcan greeting. “He used it to render his victims unconscious because it was supposed t
o be undignified for a Vulcan to knock someone out with a physical punch.”
“Oh, is that the reason?” said Maurice.
“Spock touches a pressure point at the base of the neck using telepathic energy from his fingertips,” I said. “Since magic is a bunch of energy, what if I could send a bunch of energy to that bunch of nerves from a distance?”
Geraint opened his mouth to protest. Before he could get in a word, Percy stepped in front of him. Percy rubbed his bearded chin as he stared at me again with those dark, bloodthirsty eyes.
“Let’s try it,” Percy said with a sly grin.
“Percy,” growled Geraint in warning.
Percy wrapped an arm around Geraint’s shoulders. The move was probably meant to be brotherly, but it looked as though Percy was holding his brother-at-arms at bay. “What if she could incapacitate a whole army with a flick of her wrist? Less work for us.”
In the end, Geraint threw up his hands. Percy gave me the thumbs up. I turned to the squires.
“Any volunteers?” I asked.
The boys looked around at each other. Feet shuffled and kicked up dirt. Hands fidgeted on sword handles and tugged at chainmail. Finally, Maurice stepped forward.
His amiable grin was back in place after the battle, letting me know we were back on the same side again. I gave him a smile right back, hoping that after this display we would still be friends. I was far more sure of my fighting skills than I was of my magic skills. But what I was about to do was magical fighting. So, it should work. Right?
I took a deep, cleansing breath. All that managed to do was to awaken the butterflies in my belly. I blinked a couple of times and focused my attention. But trying to quiet my mind had never worked. I heard everything.
Baysle’s breathing. Geraint’s eyebrows twitching. Percy grinding his incisors.
I decided to try a chant. “Bring me quiet, bring me peace. Bring this big man to his knees.”
The energy swirled between my V-spread fingers. I threw out my hand towards Maurice. And … nothing happened.
I tried again. Another deep cleansing breath. Another few blinks of the eyes. I even tossed in a head waggle, hoping to clear my mind. I spread my fingers into a Vulcan V again.
“Engineering is red. Science is blue. With this V, I conquer you.”
This time when I aimed my peaceful greeting at Maurice he shrugged his right shoulder up. Then he jerked it up to his ear, as though someone was pinching him. Then he shrugged his left shoulder. His chest began to shake. His hands swatted at his neck as though a bug buzzed around him. He swatted more frantically as if a horde of bugs had descended on him.
Next, the big guy fell to the ground. At first, I was afraid he was in pain, and I’d pinched a nerve that might leave damage. But then the giggles started. As big as he was, Maurice let out a trill of giggles fit for an afternoon tea party with kindergarten girls. Everyone looked up at me as he rolled from side to side on the ground trying to shake off my spell.
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I need a bit more practice.”
All the boys backed up at least three paces. So, I might not have hit the right nerve. But my target was incapacitated and that was the goal. It didn’t look like it would leave any permanent damage. At least, I hoped not.
Chapter Four
“I’m really sorry about that, big guy,” I said.
Maurice’s body had shaken for a quarter hour until someone went to get Gwin to come out and stop the spell. During that time, Maurice had giggled a high pitch squeal like a little girl while his body convulsed uncontrollably. Anything I’d tried to do only made it worse.
“You didn’t do it on purpose, Lady Lo,” he said.
I reached out to touch Maurice, and he jerked away from me. He smiled apologetically and headed on down the hall.
I looked down at my hands. They were already lethal with a blade. Now they could fell a man with a snap. They were empty now but I felt the energy in the air.
I hadn’t hurt Maurice on purpose. But I could have. I had no business wielding my powers on living creatures when I still struggled with my control over inanimate objects. I could’ve done serious damage to the kid, maybe even permanent damage. I needed to keep my hands and my magic to myself until I had better control.
“You could’ve done serious damage to Maurice. Maybe even permanent damage.”
I turned to face the sound of Geraint’s voice. The hair at the back of my neck stood at the disapproving grumble of his voice. My arms crossed over my chest in a defensive pose.
“Maurice is fine,” I insisted. “He got to show his feminine, softer side with all that giggling. Girls dig a man who’s in touch with his femininity.”
“You need to keep your hands and your magic to yourself until you have better control.”
I knew he was right. I’d come to the same conclusion only five seconds ago. But now that it was coming through his pie hole, it sounded like a record scratching.
“Why are you coming down on me? It was Percy’s idea.”
“Yeah, well Percival can be a loose cannon. You two have that in common.”
“It all worked out in the end.”
“Only because of Gwin; a witch who’s trained and knows what she’s doing.”
“You know,” I said. “I thought we were cool after the battle with the Banduri.”
“We’re coworkers,” he corrected. “But you’re not one of my brothers.”
“That’s not something I can ever be, dude, or did you fail sex education? I’m following the rules. I’m not stepping out of line or flying solo. What more do you want from me?”
Geraint studied me. “I want to be able to trust you. To not question your every move and motive.”
“So, put on a blindfold and fall back in my arms. I’ll catch you.” Probably.
He shook his head. “I’m not there yet.”
“Isn’t that your problem and not mine?”
He only glared.
I spread my arms wide. “I’m an open book.”
As Geraint continued to stare, I crossed my arms over my chest. His dark gaze didn’t make me feel as though he’d eat me like Percy’s did. Geraint’s glare felt like it saw through the bullshit.
“Tell me about Baros,” he said.
I lifted my chin with a confidence I didn’t feel and hoped his BS meter was off today. “What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you think is important to help your fellow knights find this magical Ring of Gyges.”
The thing about BSing and confidence games? They worked best when the mark asked a specific question. But an open-ended one like that? I fixed my features so that I wasn’t scowling at Geraint and searched for something to give him. But the truth was that I had nothing left to give.
Wow. Wasn’t that the story of my relationship with Leonidas Baros. Though relationship is a loaded word. Baros and I had had a wide and varied connection … association … involvement.
We’d been student and teacher. We’d been friends and lovers. We’d been partners and then, somehow, we’d wound up on opposing teams.
But this actually wasn’t the first time Lenny and I had found ourselves on opposing fields. In our romantic relationship, we were often after different things. Where I was after his attention, he was always doling it out to other women besides me.
Lenny and I had had an open relationship. It wasn’t like he’d duped me into it. I didn’t believe in monogamy from a young age. All my life, people had been transient. No one and nothing stayed forever. Not my parents, not any of my so-called friends, or even pets I’d rescued from the streets.
As a kid, I’d traveled the world over. My family never stayed in one place for too long. I was used to making friends one day, leaving them the next day, and losing touch a month later. We’d promise to write or virtually chat and didn’t. I’d return a year later, and those bosom buddies had moved on or forgotten about me completely.
My father and I had stayed in Greece the longes
t and returned there the most. Leonidas Baros never forgot me. We always picked up where we left off on the mat and later on the mattress. But that wasn’t something the knights wanted to know.
“I didn’t think so,” said Geraint as my silence loomed between us.
“I don’t know where he is,” I insisted. “I would tell you if I did.”
“Are you still in love with him?”
My nose crinkled. My feminine sensibilities had been completely offended by his words. “I was never in love with him.”
Geraint stared at me. I left myself open to his radar and meters. His brows rose in surprise to see that I had told the truth.
I’d crushed on Baros hard when I was a teenager. But by the time I became a woman, I knew the score. I’d seen him juggle enough women to know that he didn’t subscribe to the Highlander theory of life. For Baros, there never could be only one.
I’d figured that out for myself, but he’d reinforced it with words.
“There’s no such thing as fairytales,” he’d say after he’d snatched a Harlequin book from my hands when I was thirteen.
I’d been sitting on the mat waiting for my session to begin. He’d tossed the book, the pages fluttering in the air like the wings of a downed bird. Then he sliced at me with his sword. I ducked and rolled, rising to my feet to meet his next attack.
“Damsels die. Real women carry blades,” he’d said when I was fifteen.
I’d been standing outside his training studio chatting up a local boy. I’d flipped my hair and giggled like I’d seen girls do in the movies. I’d pushed my weapons case behind my back when Baros had poked his head out of the door. When I came into the studio moments later, Baros said those words and advanced on me before I could unzip my weapons bag to defend myself.
“There’s no such thing as a happily-ever-after. Happiness is a constant, hard-fought battle to be won.” That time, when he’d delivered his words and then his blade, I was seventeen.
It was the year my father had died. I hadn’t gone back to my dad’s family. I hadn’t needed to. With his passing, I came into my inheritance. It was enough that I didn’t need a real job until … well, ever.