by Bach, Shelby
Adelaide shrieked in a very satisfying way, but Chase only scowled, drawing a fingertip over his cheek and licking off the icing.
Lena and Kelly stared at me, and I didn’t blame them. I would’ve stared at me too.
Adelaide ran off, still wailing, to the girl’s bathroom, and Kelly handed me a napkin to wipe my hands. Lena giggled a little.
After a second, I smiled back, my anger draining away. I liked it, almost as much as the Yellowstone adventure.
Maybe I had to watch myself at Ridgefield, and all the other schools I had been to in the past few years, but here at EAS, things were going to be different. I was going to be different.
“We are not friends,” I told Chase again, and he glared at me through a mask of crumbs and icing.
“Time for sword practice,” Lena said brightly.
• • •
The walls of the training courts were covered with mirrors, the floors with slate. Lena led me to the corner where the triplets waited, their swords in hand.
I couldn’t help but notice that we were the youngest Characters in the room. I wasn’t used to being so much shorter than everyone else. A kid just beside us either had giant blood, or he’d repeated a grade ten times.
“I kind of feel outnumbered,” I said, as more and more older students filed into the room. “Why are there so many high schoolers?”
“Well, there are twice as many EASers in high school than in middle school,” Lena said slowly. “Each grade gains a few more students every year. By the time we’re George’s age, we’ll have, like, thirty kids.” She leaned in close and added, “But just so you know, the longer you’ve been here, the better your Tale is. Nine times out of ten.”
So, maybe waiting on my Tale wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Adelaide came in late, refusing to look at me. A long streak of chocolate matted the back of her hair, which made me smile.
Right behind her was a man with salt and pepper hair—the same guy who inspected the dragon’s hoard in Yellowstone. He had to be Hansel, because everyone straightened up as soon as he entered the room.
“What are you looking at me for?” he bellowed when he saw us assembled in front of him. “Someone get out the practice dummies.” He pointed to one of the triplets. “You, Kevin.”
I bounced a little on the balls of my feet.
If I blinded a dragon the first time I ever touched a sword, obviously I would be able to slay whole packs of them with just a little training. Well, maybe not packs, but at least I could graduate from the slash-and-escape trick to the actual slaying.
Kevin ran over and threw open an iron-studded door on the other side of the room. Metal clanged, and a second later, dozens of black figures filed into the training court: small dragons, ugly trolls, wolves lashing their black iron tails, miniature giants with clubs, and evil-looking fairies whose iron wings fluttered with excitement.
“Your mouth is open, Rory,” said someone behind me.
I closed it abruptly. Chase had just entered the courts with a crowd of tardy high schoolers. I noticed with relish that he had needed to change his shirt.
“Don’t worry, Rory. I was pretty shocked too, the first time I saw them,” Lena said.
“They’re alive?”
“No, but they do move on their own. One of Madame Benne’s inventions,” Lena added with pride. “Hansel says that they’re the only thing that keeps beginners from hacking each other to pieces.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “What about practice swords?”
Then I realized my mistake. The dummies had stopped moving. The practice courts were silent. Everyone was looking at me, including Hansel.
I gulped. As fast as someone flipping a light switch, my face burned red. I watched it in the practice mirrors. It was twice as embarrassing when I could actually see it.
Across the room, Chase snickered.
“If it isn’t the famous Rory Landon,” said Hansel, “who took it upon herself to slay dragons on her very first day.”
Obviously, Hansel was as much of a bully as Chase and Adelaide, but the grown-up kind.
I glanced at Lena beside me. She was sending me a warning with her eyes, but I didn’t know what she was trying to warn me about.
“You seem very sure of your skills,” Hansel continued. “So you won’t mind helping me with today’s demonstration.”
I stepped forward nervously, not seeing any way out of it, but Lena said, “She hasn’t got her sword, sir.”
“Conner, do you know which one is hers?” Hansel said, without turning away from me.
I smiled at Lena and shrugged helplessly. She had tried.
When Conner darted into a closet, Hansel began his lesson. I stood at his side, avoiding everyone’s eyes.
“We have been practicing the disarming technique for a week and a half now. Those of you who are still terrible at it will probably be terrible your entire lives,” Hansel said.
A bunch of people winced, including Lena, and I scowled at Hansel. That was not how you were supposed to teach.
He didn’t notice. “There’s nothing we can do about it, so we might as well move on. Today I’ll teach you how to counter the disarm.”
Conner ran out of the closet and held out both sword and sheath to me, a little awkwardly, with both hands. I didn’t realize why until I reached for it.
The unexpected weight almost made me drop it. A few people laughed, including Conner.
In my reflection, my neck turned as red as my face.
“You’re a beginner, but surely you know you’re supposed to hold on to your sword.” Hansel eyed the blade in my hand very skeptically, as if he had his doubts whether or not I could handle a toothpick, much less a sword.
“It’s a lot heavier than it was before,” I mumbled, not daring to look at Chase. I knew he was laughing at me too.
“Well, you can’t rely on adrenaline in practice,” Hansel said. “Sword tip up.”
Slowly, muscles straining, I raised the sword.
“You, over here.” Hansel pointed to one of the evil fairy dummies. It came closer and stood right across from me, and I willed myself not to take a step back. Metal wings included, it was four feet taller than I was.
I had felt a lot more confident before Conner handed me the sword.
The weight made me clumsy. One palm cramped around the hilt, and the other one sweated like crazy.
“To review, the trick to most disarming techniques lies in locking your hilt guard with your opponent’s and twisting quickly so you wretch it from their hand,” Hansel told his class. “To counter this, you let go of your sword, predict the arc of its movement, and snatch the hilt out of the air. Simple.”
I hoped everyone else didn’t think it was as simple as Hansel did.
But a lot of students nodded. Chase looked impatient, like he had heard all of it before.
I shook myself a little and tried to concentrate despite my burning face. I was already up in front of everyone. I had to do my best.
“Now for our demonstration.” Hansel turned to me with a smile I didn’t like. I held my sword a little tighter and reviewed the instructions. I was still thinking about the arc of the blade when the evil fairy dummy lunged forward, hooked his black hilt guard around mine, and sent my sword spinning through the air.
It landed ten feet away. A few of the older kids laughed as I scrambled after my sword.
“I wanted you to demonstrate the counter to the disarming technique, not the technique itself,” Hansel said, as I returned to the evil fairy dummy. “Again.”
The dummy came at me before I even got a decent grip. I raised the blade hurriedly and felt the sword leave my hand.
“Don’t forget to catch it!” Hansel shouted.
I watched it spin and reached toward the hilt. Pain opened across the back of my hand. I snatched it away as my sword clattered to the floor. A neat slice marked three of my knuckles, just a little wider than a papercut.
“Class
, Rory has just demonstrated how not to counter being disarmed. I’m sure most of you will realize what kind of problems you’ll create if you injure yourself,” Hansel said dryly.
I stomped over to where my sword had fallen and grabbed it, half furious with myself and half mad at Hansel. It was like he was trying to humiliate me.
“Do you need to visit the infirmary?” Lena whispered.
I shook my head and turned to face the evil fairy dummy again. “It isn’t deep.”
“Beginners,” said Hansel scornfully, arms crossed over his chest. “Full of bravado. You have no idea what you might be up against. You would all be dead in two moves if the war hadn’t ended. Especially you girls.”
I stared at him, not believing I heard him right. The older students fidgeted uncomfortably. Even Adelaide looked annoyed.
I don’t know what made me speak out. Maybe the chocolate cake incident started something, or maybe I was too mad to think clearly.
“You shouldn’t say that. Someday, we might even be better than you,” I told Hansel hotly. The evil fairy dummy shifted, and I braced myself for the attack that I knew was coming.
“Pretty words. You won’t be the first Character to die saying something like that,” Hansel said. “But not today. I’ll set you up with an easy dummy to practice blocking, but first we have a demonstration to get through—Rory, out. Chase, in.”
I let my sword dangle at my side and stepped into the crowd, still fuming.
Lena must’ve noticed. “Hansel always picks on the new Characters,” she said in an apologetic tone.
Chase shouldered through the other students, and he paused in front of Lena and me, just to smirk. I clenched the fist that wasn’t holding my sword.
“He’s just trying to get back at you for the cake,” Lena whispered.
I should’ve known that he would be good, the way he had walked in with the older students. With an easy grace, he twirled his sword around in an elaborate flourish, and he turned to the evil fairy dummy. This time, since I wasn’t the one in the hot seat, I saw Hansel signal to the dummy by flicking three fingers. The dummy attacked, and Chase let it.
With a sound like a knife getting sharpened, Chase’s sword spun up, rising directly above his head. Chase jumped up after it, kicking the dummy squarely in the chest. The dummy tumbled feet over wings over feet and crashed into the mirrored wall behind them. The glass shattered.
“Chase,” said Hansel, exasperated. “What have I told you about breaking the training mirrors?”
“Sorry,” said Chase, landing lightly. He didn’t sound sorry. His sword was in his hand.
“He jumped five feet in the air,” Adelaide said in a dreamy tone.
One of the older students shook his head, impressed. “At least six.”
I didn’t want to, especially since Chase was smirking around the room like he expected everyone to applaud, but I had to admit the move had been cool.
“Well, that’s one variation,” Hansel said, yawning a little. “Of course, if you let your sword get away from you like that, there’s a good chance you’ll have to defend yourself. Which is why Chase kicked the dummy across the room.”
“You know, besides showing off,” I muttered.
Lena snorted, and Chase shot me an evil look.
“Chase, try it again. This time, keep your feet on the ground.” Hansel gestured to the fairy dummy. Glass tinkled to the floor as it stood up. It ran at Chase. I blinked when their blades struck, and when I looked again, Chase had his sword and the dummy’s in his hands.
“Definitely a show-off,” I said, and beside me, Lena nodded with a rueful shrug.
When the older kids and Chase paired off to practice, Hansel assigned each of the sixth graders to a specific dummy, according to their skill. He took me to a little dummy in the back. It was wizened and hunchbacked like an old witch, and the sword it swung looked a lot like a long wand. I felt a little insulted.
Hansel showed me how to block in four positions: high, low, left, and right. Then he left me to practice and walked around, correcting people’s stances and giving tips. Every once and a while, Hansel would announce that every single one of us would be dead if the war was still underway, but he didn’t bother to come back and check on me.
So, I didn’t have anything to distract me from the pain.
First, my arms started to burn. Then I started to feel it in my stomach. Soon after my legs began to tremble, the witch dummy started to get past my guard. She poked so many holes in my shirt that it started to look like lace.
It didn’t help to find out that I was the only one having trouble with the drill. Adelaide performed hers like a ballerina, rapping her dummy—an evil fairy—on the neck, chest, and leg in time with Hansel’s count. The triplets were solid fighters, able to fight with either sword or staff, and even Lena could punch holes in her troll dummy with a spear. And the other new girl in the class, Miriam, hit her practice dummy with so much force that every stroke rang out like a bell across the room.
“How did you do that?” I asked her finally.
“Tennis. I’m on the team at home.” She pushed her hair out of her face and raised her sword above her head, mimicking an overhand serve. “Some of the movements are the same.”
So, I didn’t even have being new as an excuse.
I was terrible. I couldn’t believe it. Usually, I picked up new sports so easily.
“Pathetic attempts—the lot of you. None of you would stand a chance if war came upon us again,” Hansel bellowed. “Villains aren’t going to be nice enough to let you pick your sword up after they’ve knocked it from your hands. Do you expect mercy from the likes of General Searcaster?”
I rolled my eyes. It didn’t work if you tried to scare people.
“They say she plucked out her own eye—sacrificed it for her mistress’s magic.” Hansel corrected the stance of a tenth-grade boy and moved on. “Do you think a fierce giantess like that would hesitate to slay you if you made it easy?”
Gulping, I blocked another strike from the witch dummy. Maybe it did work a little. The eye comment, especially.
“And you’ve heard of Iron Hans, I’m sure,” Hansel lowered his voice to a rasping whisper. “He’s a Character, maybe even the oldest still alive—ten centuries or so. A huge wild man, covered in hair, with skin the blackish-gray of iron. No blade can pierce it. They say he escaped from a Fey prison, just a few months ago. If you ever meet this villain, you should turn around and run the other way. None of you are good enough to face him.”
If possible, my palms got even sweatier.
“He always carries the same weapon, an enormous double-headed ax, almost as old as he is,” said Hansel. “With one blow, he can behead a man in full armor. With two, he can fell a castle wall. In the final battle alone, defending the rooms where his queen hid, he cut down sixty-seven Characters, one by one.”
“Uh, Lena,” I whispered around my witch dummy. “Are villains what I think they are?”
“Of course,” said an unwelcome voice. “Bad guys.”
I was instantly annoyed. I didn’t know if this would happen every time I saw Chase, or only on days when I was already mad at him.
He stood with his arms crossed, holding his chin in one hand, on the back of a small dragon dummy that Hansel hadn’t assigned to anyone. It was at least seven feet off the ground, and I wondered exactly how high he could jump.
I turned back to the witch dummy—to show him exactly how much attention he deserved.
“Wow, you really suck,” he said. “You should be scared.”
I gave him a dirty look. He didn’t have to rub it in.
I raised my sword again. When the witch dummy repeated the drill, I blocked all four hits, pretending like it was easy. The muscles in my arm were not happy.
Chase leaned over the dragon dummy’s head and told me in a low voice, “You know, it was my dad who finally took Iron Hans down. So, if you ever want any pointers—”
That wa
s really too much. I couldn’t let him get away with that. “You two, switch,” I told the dragon and the witch dummies, hoping that they were spelled to follow everyone’s orders, not just Hansel’s. “I’ll practice with the dragon now.”
The dragon dummy moved so quickly that Chase didn’t have a chance to brace himself. He tumbled to the floor, just like I hoped he would.
I smiled. He scrambled to his feet, glaring at me, and then he glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed.
“I won’t always suck,” I told Chase cheerfully. “And I can defend myself with a few other skills until then.”
Chase opened his mouth to say something, but a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.
I jumped the height of a troll.
Hansel stood over me, scowling. “I didn’t tell you that you could switch dummies. You’ll stay after class today and straighten up the weapons closet.”
“But—” I protested, as Hansel steered me back toward the witch dummy.
“I hope you’re not planning to tell me that you weren’t actually going to practice with the dragon dummy, that you were simply trying to make a point,” Hansel said, glowering at me. “Because that’s not what the dummies are for.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself from getting into more trouble.
Chase grinned at me and headed off.
Twenty minutes later, just as I started to feel like I couldn’t lift my arm even one more time, Ellie arrived and announced that it was time for everyone in Eastern Standard Time zone to go home.
Sighing, I watched a dozen students file in and out of the weapons closet.
“Don’t feel bad. Hansel really does always pick on the new Characters,” Lena said, standing next to me. “I’ll help you straighten up. It’ll go fast.”
“No, you won’t,” Hansel called from across the room, nodding pointedly at the doorway.
“Thanks anyway, Lena,” I whispered.
She reluctantly jogged outside under Hansel’s stern gaze. With one final scowl in my direction, Hansel stepped out too and closed the door after him.
I headed for the closet. Every step echoed in the big empty room.