The Witchstone Amulet

by Mason Thomas

  He shaded his eyes with his palm and felt packed warm sand under his feet. It took a bit for his eyes to open more than a slit, and he stumbled awkwardly after Zinnuvial’s long silhouette. They emerged from under an open-air horse stall that reminded Hunter of a crude carport and into the heat of direct sunlight.

  Blinking, Hunter scanned around him. They were in an enclosed courtyard, surrounded by buildings that looked either neglected or abandoned. Much of the yellow plaster walls had crumbled away to expose the stone bricks underneath. Wooden balconies, warped and ruined, hung precariously from the upper floors. The only visible exit was an arched tunnel that ended with massive double doors and a wooden beam lying horizontally across its middle, resting in heavy iron brackets.

  He and Zinnuvial were alone. The quiet of the place was disconcerting.

  “What is this place?”

  Zinnuvial threw up the lid of a large pine box. She glanced his way, her expression cool, before bending into it. “A stable yard. Formerly. We use it for training.” She dug two wooden swords from the box and tossed one of them roughly in Hunter’s direction. On reflex, he extended his arm and snatched it from the air.

  Something flashed behind Zinnuvial’s eyes. Surprise, perhaps. She had expected a different outcome.

  She gripped the hilt of her practice weapon and let the lid drop with a thud, then drifted to the center of the courtyard, her movements graceful and efficient. Nothing wasted. She looked like a dancer moving to the center of the stage to take her position before the music began.

  Feeling clottish and awkward, he inspected the fake weapon as he strolled out to meet her. The length of the wooden blade was marred with chips and gouges.

  “Is this really necessary?” he asked.

  “According to Master Dax, it is.” Her face gave away nothing. Even holding a wooden sword, she looked strong and fierce. Intimidating. “I am told you have had no training.” She spoke plainly, but she managed to make it sound like an insult.

  “None,” he told her. This was not what he wanted to be doing today. Still reeling from yesterday, he couldn’t decide what he did want to do—slink back to bed or march out of this place. How was any of this helping him find a way home? It was waste of his time. And hers.

  “Very well,” she said. Hunter could almost hear her inward groan. “We begin at the beginning.”

  He adjusted his grip on the hilt, which had been wrapped in soft brown leather. Holding a weapon again, even though it was fake, brought back in a sickening rush the memory of the mace striking the head of the kug’ra. His arm seemed to recall the impact, and he nearly tossed the thing to the sand.

  Zinnuvial didn’t wait for his permission or compliance. The exercises began in earnest whether he wanted it to or not.

  She first ran him through basic drills, just as Dax had done. Defense stances mainly, focusing on the position of his arms and feet, and the alignment of his back. She was very particular about the direction his feet were pointing. They ran through a series of poses together, side by side. “Guards,” she called them, ways to position the sword to defend himself from an attack. They stepped into each pose, one transitioning into the other. She would count them off one at a time. When they reached the wall, they would turn and do it again from the other direction.

  She drove him hard, demanding precision. She circled him, barking out each command. With the slightest variance from her instruction, she would grab the blade to redirect it to the right angle or kick his foot for being positioned incorrectly.

  “No, no, no,” she snapped at him. “You are treating the sword as separate from your hand. It is not. It is an extension of yourself.”

  And as soon as he believed he had the hang of it, she would add a new guard position and run him through the list again from the beginning.

  Hunter breathed through his nose and kept his teeth tightly set. He had plenty to say back to her, but his ego kept the words locked behind his tongue. Without even being aware of it, he settled into training mode—a hardened and deep-rooted coach/player dynamic that was etched into his brain like acid on metal. He accepted her treatment. He almost welcomed it. It scratched something familiar in him.

  The physicality, the repetition, the snarling commands, the sun and sweat on his skin. It was all something he knew. He caught himself digging in, fighting to get it right, and giving himself over to it.

  He would have preferred a rugby ball to the wooden sword, but it was better than nothing.

  After more than an hour, they took a break for water, taking turns ladling it out of a rain barrel. Hunter’s heart rate was up, and his tunic was soaked through. He pulled off the tunic, swept it across his forehead, and tossed it aside. The activity had cleared his head and burned off some of the black energy that had built up in him. He felt more focused and alert than he’d been in days. It felt good to move again.

  Zinnuvial stepped back out to the center of the yard. “Get into your stance and face me.”

  Hunter obeyed.

  “I will call out the defensive guard, then step in. Use the guard to ward off my attack.”

  Hunter nodded and readied himself. His mind quickly tried to catalog all the varying poses she’d demonstrated to him. There were too many to remember. He hadn’t had enough time to build them into his muscle memory yet.

  “Full iron gate,” she barked, and she came at him.

  He expected her to come in slow, at least in the beginning, to give him time to get used to this new drill, but she came at him at nearly full speed. A straight thrust aimed at his belly. His timing was off. The blades didn’t connect. The tip of his sword dove into the sand, and hers came to a halt an inch from his rib cage.

  “Too slow,” she said as she drew back. “A mistake like that means death. Again. Full iron gate.”

  She hardly gave Hunter enough time to get into his proper stance before she stepped into her attack. This time, Hunter matched her speed—and deflected the attack.

  She stepped back and returned to her starting position. “Full iron gate.”

  Over and over, she came at him with the same attack. But each time it varied slightly—by speed, or direction, or intensity—forcing Hunter to adapt and adjust his defense. But she didn’t get past him a second time.

  “Where’s Dax this morning?” he asked as they stepped away from each other.

  “Employed in more important matters.”

  “Is he around? Here in the hideout?”

  Her eyes lifted to meet his as she slid into her stance. “No.”

  Hunter wasn’t sure he believed her. He adjusted the angle of his feet and shifted his weight on his back leg. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “I can tell you nothing.”

  “Nothing? I get the impression the two of you work pretty closely.”

  “It is not for me to speak of him. If you have questions, speak to him yourself. Full iron gate.”

  “He’s not the forthcoming type. You could give me your perspective.”

  “I have no perspective I am willing to share.”

  “All right. What about yourself. Can you speak on that?”

  She paused and held his gaze a moment. “You ask a great deal of questions. We are here to train.”

  She was dodging. But he had to start somewhere to break the ice. He didn’t have a single soul in this world to talk to beside Dax.

  “How long have you been fighting?” he asked as they pulled back to their starting positions once again.

  “Since I could hold a sword. Half iron gate.” She came in higher and at an odd angle, driving Hunter’s left elbow up more, but he still guided the weapon aside.

  “Who taught you?”

  “My father. Half iron gate.”

  She came in with a different attack. Hunter’s brain scrambled to remember the position. He gave in to instinct and executed a sloppy, half-cocked version of the guard, but he managed to meet her blade.

  “Why so young? Were you expected to be
come a soldier?”

  “You are relying on your strength to protect you,” she said. “It will not. Reflexes. Cunning. Planning. Those are what you need to sharpen. Half iron gate.”

  He was ready for it this time.

  “What brought you into the resistance?” he asked.

  Her face darkened. “These are not questions you should be asking.”

  “Of you?”

  “Of anyone here. You’re prying—”

  “I’m not prying. They’re harmless enough questions.”

  “No question is harmless. Mother’s guard.”

  A new one again. But the position stuck with him because of the odd name. He met her attack easily.

  “I’m just trying to get to know you,” he said. She had come in harder than before, and the impact made his hand sting.

  She ignored him and came at him again. Faster this time. He could feel her holding back, but still her speed and precision were unsettling. He imagined there were few who could best her in combat.

  “Since I’m here,” he said, “shouldn’t I know what this fight of yours is about?”

  “The less you know, the better.”

  The same bullshit line Quinnar gave him. “Apparently, I’m here for a while. I should know what I’m facing.”

  “It will be hard enough to keep a knife out of your belly without you giving people a reason.”

  “Knowing why you fight makes me a threat?”

  “Full iron gate,” Zinnuvial said and came at him. “Your questions will make people suspicious.”

  “Then, you answer them.”

  Again, cold silence followed as she ran through the drill. She didn’t trust him either. She was only here because she was ordered to train him. But she wasn’t about to divulge any information that could threaten their cause.

  “Why does everyone assume I’m some evil spy? A villain twirling my mustache, waiting for the opportunity to betray you all.”

  “Betrayal doesn’t always come in the form of deceit and duplicity. Stupidity, ignorance, even weakness, can lead to treachery.”

  “Maybe I’m not any of those things,” he shot back.

  “Maybe you are all three.”

  “Maybe you could take a minute to get to know me first,” he grumbled. “Then decide.”

  Her attacks were ramping up. She no longer called off the guard but came at him with random strikes. He met each of them. Sometimes clumsily, but his blade still deflected hers aside. He could sense her frustration building. She wanted him to make a mistake so she could criticize his technique.

  His own pride kicked in. He wasn’t going to give her the opportunity if he could help it.

  This was what he did. He was an athlete. He trained. For strength, of course. But he also trained his reaction time. Trained his ability to read an opponent. And he was a fast learner. This was just a new twist on a game he’d played his entire life.

  The speed intensified. She came at him harder. Two attacks in a row. Then three. His sword was moving faster now, driven by instinct and muscle memory. He gave in to it. Trusting it. A deep part of his brain took over and anticipated her attacks, subtly picking up on cues as to what was coming next, while a fragment of his conscious mind was amazed how quickly he’d adopted the positions and was ready for each attack.

  But then she shifted her tactic. She came in and feigned an attack—then altered her approach. He recovered and managed to block an upward swing, but she returned immediately with a reverse that brought her blade against the side of his head.

  It was intentional. She was too skilled for that to have been a mistake.

  He pressed his fingers against the bone of the temple along the edge of his eye socket. The skin was still tender from the elbow he’d taken during the match. Had that really only been a few days ago? He hadn’t seen a mirror since he’d been here and wondered absently if it was still bruised.

  There’d be a fresh one there now regardless.

  He looked directly into Zinnuvial’s eyes—and glimpsed the anger behind them. She tried to hide it behind a stoic wall of indifference, as if Hunter didn’t matter to her.

  But it was there. Hunter had no idea what fueled it. His mere presence in the hideout? Her being forced to babysit him when there was important work to be done? His ability to at least somewhat hold his own the first day of training? Perhaps it was all of it.

  She watched him, awaiting a response. Her eyes were slightly wider, her cheeks flushed. Perhaps she was as surprised as he was that she allowed herself to strike him. It was clear she expected a complaint from him, expected him to flare in anger, maybe shout at her or storm off. He didn’t. Instead he returned to his starting position once more.

  But she lowered her arm and tossed the fake weapon to the ground.

  “Enough for one day.” She walked off the practice field with a controlled gait. She flung open the trapdoor to the underground and froze. Hunter could see her shoulders rise and fall as she took on long breaths. She looked over her shoulder.

  “You know nothing of us,” she said. “Nothing of our plight. And yet you believe we should trust you. Simply because.”

  She disappeared below, leaving Hunter alone in the midday sun and warm sand.

  His mind whirled. The turn in her had occurred so quickly, he fought to make sense of what happened. But his gut told him the truth.

  He’d gone about it all wrong.

  Zinnuvial was governed by loyalty. Loyalty to her pack—and the pack was always suspicious of the outsider. He’d tried to elbow his way in, looking for answers, but force never worked. He’d been the outsider long enough to know that.

  And like it or not, he was an outsider. Again. He had to remember that.

  He was seized by an unexpected memory—time in the scrum during their last match. Eight of them, grunting and calling out, driving hard and digging cleats into the ground. Him in the back, his head squeezed between the hips of the two locks, guiding and stabilizing the push forward. A scrum was as much a chess match as it was a show of raw power and strength. Eight fighting as single unit, one mind with one goal, and trust was everything.

  His heart tightened. He hadn’t really thought about it much, but he missed them. The tribe he’d worked so hard to infiltrate. His new family. But this training session seemed to hook into his connection to them and drag it all to the surface, and thinking about them—Bilbo, Samson, Torch, Captain Cowboy, and all the rest—it made his insides ache. He missed that sense of belonging, the camaraderie. The strange language they had that no one else understood. It ate away at him like a slow-burning acid sitting in his gut.

  His acceptance into the rugby squad had been hard fought. At the beginning, no one thought he was worthy. No one thought that a faggot could stand with them, keep up, and hold his own. Daily, he stood up to the underlying machismo culture that dominated the locker room. No one was overtly contemptuous—Coach Titan would never allow it. The ostracism was more subtle. More nuanced than something organized or planned.

  It took months, but it did change. Slowly. With minuscule differences that were impossible to qualify and slipped by without notice. And one day, with a black eye as his ticket of entry, he was one of them. He had no awareness of the journey until it was over. Somehow he convinced them that he deserved a place among them, and he had no recollection of when or how the switch occurred.

  Now it was gone. Probably forever. He was starting all over again. With a new pack.

  A pack that wouldn’t only reject him but would likely kill him. For whatever reason, Dax had decided he was worth keeping alive. But no one else here felt that way. Hunter needed to remember that. If he was going to survive this, he needed to be smarter.

  He picked up the practice sword Zinnuvial had dropped, returned both to the pine box, and sat on the lid.

  For a time, he stared at the massive doors and considered giving up. He could lift the beam from the brackets, push open the door, and be gone. It would be easy enough. Just
slip out and be away from this madness. Disappear into this city. But then what? He knew nothing of this world, nothing of its dangers. How long before he was dead? He may be treated like a prisoner here, but in a strange and inexplicable way, he was protected.

  He had no choice but to stay.

  But he also had no desire to head back inside, back into the dour confinement of the hideout, back to grim little room he’d been assigned. If he was going to be alone, he’d rather experience it here, in the sun. So he sat there until the sun sank behind the building and the courtyard was draped in shadow.

  Hunger finally compelled him to head back down. Feeling sullen and tired, he retraced the path through the tunnels. In the now quiet and empty kitchen, he loaded up a plate of food and ate it without tasting it, then he drifted back to the small room and his cot. A part of him wondered if Dax would be around, maybe waiting for him, but the room was vacant and dark. With a sigh, he stripped off the sweat-soaked clothes and left them on the foot of the bed. After traveling in them and training in them all day, they were starting to smell a bit ripe.

  For a time, he could only stare at the dark stone ceiling. Tired as he was, sleep felt distant and unobtainable. Despite everything, he was still finding it hard to accept any of this was real. More so, accepting that this was once his mother’s world was beyond comprehension.

  How could his mother, a woman of such grace and generosity, come from a place teeming with such violence?

  But then, was his own world any different? A memory of his past crawled up from the dusty basement of his mind. From their roach infested one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor, he would often wake to the jarring pop of gunfire in the middle of night. It was their first home after his father had left. All she could afford, she said. When he crawled in bed with her, frightened, he remembered her murmuring to herself about how their Uptown neighborhood was a war zone.

  Guns were uncivilized, she’d told him once. Dishonorable and cowardly. He hadn’t understood what she’d meant by that. Until now.

  Not long after, they moved from that apartment to a place farther west. It took her longer to get to work, but she said it was worth it. And Hunter would sleep through the night.