Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  The elder godmother held up her hand, and the great hall went silent. You could have heard a pin drop.

  “Very well. I shall work harder for you, and as you have offered, I will accept your oaths to work harder for me. Many of you have wondered why I have not shown myself in public for many weeks. It is because I have been traveling abroad, meeting in secret with the tribal chieftains of the Phillian Confederacy…”

  A wave of awe rippled through the crowd.

  “…and I am pleased to announce that this morning I concluded negotiations for a military alliance between our nation and theirs. No longer are we to be on the defensive against Erotan and their filthy alchemists. Now, we have the means and the will to go on the offensive!”

  The crowd began to cheer and applaud. Reinala soaked up the praise, drinking it down in satisfaction.

  Standing beneath a wing beside her, a human stood smiling. He had the warmest brown eyes Agaprei had ever seen. With his youthful skin, curly golden hair, and friendly round face, he had an angelic quality to him. It made her feel safe just to look at him.

  While the cheers continued, Reinala leaned over and whispered to the man.

  “Lord Krýo Fidi. I want that incompetent choir put to death. Every last one of them. Their families, too.”

  “Are you sure that is necessary, Godmother?” he answered worriedly.

  “Ruin my entrance will they,” she grumbled.

  She held up her hands and the hall became quiet again, the blossoming chandeliers swaying from the vibrations of the thunderous applause.

  “As of this moment, I am temporarily doubling all of your tithes, and quadrupling your soldier quotas, so that we all may bear the weight of the preparations, and share in the glory and spoils that are to come.”

  This declaration was met with only scattered applause. Many deities looked at one another in dismay.

  Reinala stood up triumphantly. “On the day of the winter solstice, we, along with our beastmen brethren, will launch an attack the likes of which have not been seen in an age. We will make war on the seas, we will make war on land, and we will make war in the air. We will not cease, we will not relent, we will not falter, until we achieve our objective, and what is our objective?”

  She lifted her hand into the air.

  “The destruction of Erotan.”

  * * *

  Erolina held up her wooden shield and tapped her wooden sword against it in salute.

  Storgen squared himself up against her and did the same with his practice sword and shield. The swelling on his eye had gone down enough that he could open it, but he was still a bruised mess to look at.

  “Begin.”

  Erolina turned her back foot and lunged in, launching a flurry of quick stabs at his chest and legs, then cross-cutting at his arm. She was so fast, it was immediately intimidating. Storgen blocked with his shield each time as quick as he could, but her final stroke was too fast. He parried with his sword, and nearly had it torn free from his grip.

  “Good, now watch your feet, Storgen. Whether you advance or retreat, you always begin with your lead foot. Otherwise, you make it a tasty target of opportunity.”

  She feinted a stab at his chest, then changed direction, stabbing his exposed leg hard with her blunt tip.

  Storgen smacked her blade away and retreated, hopping on one foot.

  “Hey, you might want to go easy on a guy who’s never really held a sword before.”

  “Learn with your eyes and with your body. Pain will be your teacher.”

  “Can I get a substitute?”

  She advanced again, quick as lightning. She struck high, kicked low, struck low, then kicked high. She flicked her head and her hair mace came smashing down at him from above. Storgen blocked her each time, feeling a little bit pleased with himself, till he saw her smiling. Glancing down, he realized she had taken the opportunity to hook the edge of her shield inside his. With a mighty yank, she threw his shield aside, leaving him wide open. Her sword came streaking in, straight at his heart. He parried with his sword, letting her thrust slide beside him.

  She stepped back and spun her blade dramatically. “Good, let it slide off you, don’t counter my blows directly unless you want to break your wrist.”

  She crouched down lower. “Now you.”

  He advanced aggressively this time, swinging at her again and again, but each time she took a half-step back, and each time his blade whiffed before her, hitting nothing but air.

  “Gauging distance is key,” she explained. “If your opponent isn’t close enough to actually hit you, there’s no reason to even meet their blows. Just let them pass like the wind.”

  She took a swing back at him, even though she was out of reach, but Storgen still flinched as it nearly clipped his nose.

  He adjusted his grip on the shield. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, immensely.”

  She jumped in the air, kicking his shield three times as she spun, nearly knocking him over. Pressing the attack, she feinted high, making him raise his shield, then kicked it out of his hand with her knee. Nearly flat footed, he ducked below a slash, then pushed back, blocking a thrust with his forearm and stabbing her in the gut.

  “Ha!” he shouted.

  “No, that’s no good,” she said, stepping back.

  “I got you, didn’t I?”

  “You can’t block with your forearm.”

  “Yeah, but it’s only a wooden sword.”

  “A real sword would have taken your arm off.”

  Storgen looked at the freshly forming bruise. “Yeah, but it’s not a real sword, so it’s kind of hard for me to think that way.”

  “Really? You’re that feebleminded you can’t actually use your imagination?”

  “Skotádi surgically removed it when I was a child. Or maybe that was my gall bladder, I forget which. No, seriously, of course I can use my imagination, but when I’m in the moment I’m not thinking about that. I have like a hundredth of a second to react to you.”

  “Interesting.” She sheathed her sword and thought for a moment. “Let me ask you something, when you are fighting, what are you normally looking at?”

  “Their eyes.”

  “The eyes? Really?”

  “Why, is that wrong?”

  “Well, it’s considered a major faux pas to look another duelist in the eyes, but we both know that etiquette is never going to be your thing.”

  “Gosh, you know me so well.”

  “Duelists are trained to look at the shoulders, the hips, the feet, the wrist, the weapon. You watch for those little changes in muscle tension and angle that precede an attack.”

  She drew her blade and squared up her shield. “Watch, I’ll show you.”

  She began to demonstrate a series of standard attacks, each time returning to her starting position so he could see the difference. It was hypnotic to watch her. Toned muscles flexing, weapon dancing in whirls of sharp precision. Her strong legs moving in poised strides, her clothes fluttering like weightless feathers, her long silver hair flowing like a streamer in the air. Every strike was full of poetry, and he lost himself listening to the wordless ballad she weaved. The delicately curved small of her back, the deep shadow of her elegant collarbones, the delicious curve of her hips.

  She was intoxicatingly feminine.

  “There, you see?” she said, sheathing her practice sword.

  “Um, yeah,” he stammered, trying to clear his head.

  She looked at him knowingly. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity. Tell me. Why do you look at their eyes?”

  He scratched the scars on the back of his neck. “I dunno, I guess I’m looking for that moment.”

  “That moment?”

  “Yeah, the moment when they make the decision to kill. He shivered a bit, trying to shake off dozens of bad memories. You can see it in their eyes…”

  “And when you see it?”

  He winced, trying to push the nightmares aside. “Whe
n you see it, that’s when you know you have to strike first, and strike to kill, because if you don’t, you’ll be dead yourself.”

  His answer impressed her. “I want to try something to test a theory. I want you to come at me.”

  He picked his weapons back up. “Okay, which way? A draw cut, a fade slash, a binding jab?”

  “No, nothing I’ve taught you so far. Don’t think, just attack me as if this were a real fight.”

  “But, it’s not a real fight.”

  “Ugh, suffering Sappho. Look, just pretend I have your true love hostage, and the only way to save her is to take me down.”

  His eyes focused and he lowered his stance. “All right, I think I can do that.”

  She found the fire in his eyes exhilarating.

  “Begin.”

  Storgen sprinted straight at her and threw his shield. The heavy wooden object slammed against her, breaking and splintering. Blindly, she slashed out at him, but he jumped down below the strike, sliding on his hip beneath her. With a click she brought up her boot and a blade extended from her heel, but he rolled aside as she stomped it down, catching her remaining leg in a scissor grip. Spinning his body, he wrenched her backwards, slamming her hard into the floor. Stunned, she kicked hard, freeing her leg and springing into a backflip, but her head was yanked backwards as he planted his sword through her braided ponytail, nailing it in place.

  She collapsed awkwardly to her shoulders, flicking her sword at him and kicked her legs, but he had already leapt up above her.

  Storgen came crashing down on top of her, her hair pinned back, her own sword pushed up against her throat as he held her wrist. With his other hand, he held her other wrist above her head.

  For a moment she lay there in shock, breathing hard and heavy as he straddled her, her eyes a mixture of fear and desire.

  He could feel her soft body beneath him, her chest heaving as she breathed. Her face was flush and beautiful. Her satiny chocolate skin glimmering with perspiration. She was close, so close he could smell the delicious scent of her hair.

  A few loose strands of silver hair were caught in her long eyelashes. Without thinking, he reached up and brushed them aside. The sensation was electric as his fingertips brushed across her cheek. Her ruby eyes half-closed at his touch, becoming dreamy, and when she gave off a soft purr, his heart skipped a beat inside his chest. One of her hands came to rest on his shoulder, the other on the small of his back in a lover’s embrace. When her fingernails ran across his skin, his spine shivered with goosebumps.

  Every instinct he had wanted nothing more than to lean forward and press his lips against hers. It would be so easy. There they, were, so soft and flush. Her lips parted ever so slightly of their own accord, and somehow he knew she wanted him to kiss her as badly as he wanted to kiss her.

  Reluctantly, he pulled the sword away from her throat and rolled off of her.

  “How was that?” he asked, trying to clear his head.

  She sat up, still panting. “That was…extremely disappointing.”

  “Really? I thought I did pretty well.”

  She gave him a coy wink. “I was hoping you’d kiss me.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t want to.”

  “Then you should have.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t normally kiss my friends.”

  “What a silly rule.”

  “Would you kiss Pops?”

  “If you want to do something, you should just do it.”

  “You want to kiss Pops? I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  She leaned in with a sultry smile, tracing a line down his nose and over his lips with her fingernail. “If you ever change your mind, I’m right here.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She stretched and pulled her knees up to her chin. “I swear, I’ve known eunuchs that were less prudish than you are.”

  “Yeah, well, I work in a fertility temple and you seem easy, even to me.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him playfully.

  He stuck out his tongue back.

  They both laughed, then helped each other to their feet.

  She slapped her war skirt to dust herself off. “Well, your prudish nature aside, you broke just about ten dueling rules in as many seconds.”

  “Blast, I was going for eleven.”

  She dislodged his sword to free her hair. “My first instructor used to say, ‘this weapon can save your life, you never abandon it.’ And your shield, I mean, who throws a shield? That’s not even what a shield is for.”

  He rotated his shoulder, trying to work the stiffness out. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  She laughed and touched the scar on her face. “No, you totally died three times during that duel.”

  “I did?”

  She pointed down at his chest. He looked, and found three red marks directly over his heart. When he looked back, he saw her sheath her wooden training dagger.

  “When did you manage to stab me?”

  “A woman has to keep some secrets, now doesn’t she?”

  She ran her fingers over her lips as she looked at him. “Still, I love it when a man pulls my hair. And I’ll admit you caught me completely off guard. I can see why the Shield of Nisi had so much trouble with you. You’ve got good instincts, excellent, actually. I think I finally understand you. You fight intuitively, not mechanically. The whole time I couldn’t read your next move. I had no idea what was coming next. It was very disconcerting. Given your experience as a street fighter, I think it would actually be a mistake to train you in the sword.”

  “Awww.”

  She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “You’re cute when you pout, you know that? I didn’t say I wouldn’t train you, I said I wouldn’t train you in the sword. If I teach you swordplay, you’ll learn to fight predictably, and lose what is now your greatest advantage. What we need to do is train you in a weapon that will augment the style you already have.”

  She reached into her pack and took out a glowing clockwork cube. Tapping the sigil, she tossed it to the floor, where it unfolded again and again, until it was a full sized cabinet, fully stocked with a wide array of weapons and armor.

  “Let’s see,” she said, looking over the selection.

  Storgen started to get excited. “Ooh, maybe something exotic from the east, like a repeating crossbow, or a chakram.”

  “Ah, here it is.”

  She produced a long smooth pole weapon carved from moonwood.

  Storgen crinkled his nose. “A stick?”

  “It’s a quarterstaff.”

  He looked it over again, to check and see if he had missed anything.

  “It’s a stick.”

  “It’s a big stick,” she corrected, “and it’s a very versatile weapon.”

  She spun it in her hands and spun it about to demonstrate. “You can wield it with one hand like a spear, or both hands like a pike. You can jab with the tip, bash with the end, hook your opponent’s legs and arms, bind their weapons, and press them tight to restrict their movement with the center. It’s quick, light, and in the hands of a good fighter it can easily hold off multiple opponents. Once you get it spinning, it has an unparalleled ability to chain attacks. With one end, you brush aside your opponent’s weapon, and just by doing so the other end is already moving towards them for a strike through the opening you’ve created.”

  “But...it’s a stick.”

  “Yes, and that is its biggest advantage. It’s not a weapon, or at least, it’s not perceived as a weapon.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Of course you are. Okay, let’s say you are walking down the street with a broadsword strapped to your back. Everyone is going to be on their guard, right? But a guy walking down the street with a staff is totally normal and no one is going to blink an eye.”

  “I get it, they’d just assume it was a walking stick. They perceive you as being unarmed, so they underestimate you.”

  She
clapped him on the shoulders. “Hooray, it is capable of learning.”

  “Yay, I’m an ‘it’ now!”

  She handed him the quarterstaff, and he held it appreciatively.

  She tapped a sigil and the cabinet folded back up into a cube. “Now, keep in mind, the main reason I’m going to train you in this is to augment your current skill set. This will improve your follow-through, your balance, and give you a wider variety of attacks to draw from.”

  “Nice.”

  “Plus, it’s a cheap weapon to replace, so if you throw it like a maniac, it’s not that big a deal.”

  “Ha ha. So, when do we begin?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, a friend of mine once taught me that I shouldn’t work myself to the point of exhaustion every training session. Especially when we’re traveling though dangerous waters.”

  “He sounds like a smart guy.”

  “Not really, but he does have a cute butt.”

  She gave him a playful wink. “Besides, I think we’d better end now before your girlfriend tries to kill us.”

  Storgen turned around and saw Philiastra seething at them through the porthole.

  “How long has she been there?”

  Storgen’s eyes went wide. “She didn’t see me land on top of you, did she?”

  “You’ll find out in a moment.”

  “Ah, crap.”

  As Storgen walked dejectedly toward the door, Erolina made sure Philiastra could see her and blew him a kiss.

  “See you later, honey.”

  Philiastra’s eyes glowed bright yellow with anger.

  “Stop that! You’re making it worse,” Storgen hollered.

  Erolina laughed uproariously as he threw open the door and walked outside.

  On the deck, Philiastra placed her hands on her hips. “What was that all about?”

  Storgen scratched the back of his neck. “We were just…sparring.”

  “You were lying on top of her.”

  “No, I was pinning her beneath me.”

  “Oh yeah, cause that sounds soooooo much better. And what is that in your hands?”

  “My new training weapon. A quarter staff.”