Last Shadow Warrior

by Sam Subity

  What was left of my lunch churned in my stomach. “You mean, like … the hunters became the hunted?”

  He nodded grimly. “Exactly. So, you see, the recall of the Aesir to Vale wasn’t entirely for the reasons you were led to believe. When I presented my findings to the council, we knew that immediate action was necessary. Yet they still refused to believe Grendels could be involved. And then the attack on your home … Well, we knew we had to bring you in. To protect you and your dad before it was too late.”

  My mind leapt back to the dark shadow. The eyeless giant on the motorcycle. Maybe the hunters had found us after all. Then I suddenly recalled the lack of communication from my aunt and gasped. “But my aunt Jess? What about her?”

  Doc shook his head. “We lost touch with her a few days ago. A team has been dispatched to investigate. But so far … nothing.”

  My head throbbed. All this information. It was too much to process all at once. “What about the other Aesir? If they’re being recalled too, then where are they?”

  Doc looked down for a minute. When he raised his head, he had that same thousand-yard stare from the previous day. “I’m afraid that you and your aunt”—he drew in a long breath—“may be the last Aesir left. I’m so sorry we—I didn’t see it until it was too late.”

  And if my aunt didn’t make it, he didn’t say … I’d be the last hope. It felt like all the air had gone out of the room. I wanted to run and scream and curl into a little ball all at once. Because if the survival of the Aesir depended on me, then we were all as good as dead.

  “… but I don’t know what it was.” I realized Doc was speaking again, but my ears must have temporarily checked out.

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “I was just saying, I’ve come to believe that the whole chain of events ties back to your mother somehow. Perhaps some discovery she made or …” Doc studied me for a long moment, as if reading my thoughts, then said, “I know.”

  I could feel my face turn hot. He knew? Wait … he knew what, exactly?

  “Your mom and I, and then later your dad, kept in touch about your progress. Any signs of special abilities blossoming as you grew up. Your dad most of all has felt the pain of being the weak link in your genetic makeup that’s held you back from what you’ve wanted most. To be an Aesir. To carry on your mom’s work. Her legacy.”

  Tears pricked my eyes as I thought of my dad blaming himself for this. “He … he has?”

  Doc chuckled. “In fact, I think he sent me a photo of every A you ever got on a report card. Every medal or ribbon you ever won. In his eyes, you are the most special thing in the world, Aesir or not.”

  My heart ached with love for him and at the same time with the painful feeling that he was wrong. That I wasn’t special at all. “But what if I’m not? What if I’m just … normal?”

  Doc adjusted his glasses. “I’ve met a lot of people in my time. And you know what I’ve found? It isn’t where you’re from. Or what you know.” He tapped on his chest. “The true measure of who we are is what’s in here. And whether your Aesir abilities develop or not, I can tell you have the heart of a warrior. Just like your mom.”

  I turned my head away, taking all this in. Just then I heard talking and a burst of laughter from the locker room outside. Doc shuffled his papers into a neat stack and started to rise.

  “Wait,” I said, “you mentioned earlier you thought my mom had something to do with everything that’s happened to the Aesir. Why?”

  He glanced toward the door. “Not now. We’ll have to finish our discussion later.”

  Wait! My mom! I need to know! I wanted to scream.

  But Doc was already digging through a box on the floor full of what looked like jerseys. “Just be sure that what we talked about stays between the two of us. It’s important for now that you keep acting as if nothing has happened. As far as anyone else knows, you’re just a normal kid adjusting to a new school.”

  Just a normal kid? That’s exactly what I was worried about. But right then, I’d have given anything to be dealing with nothing worse than too much homework and maybe a bad case of acne. “But if I’m the last”—I glanced toward the door—“you know, shouldn’t I be doing something?”

  “Indeed.” Doc extracted a maroon jersey and held it up in my direction. “There we are. Number 27. Powerful to the Vikings as a multiple of nine. For now, we go into a different sort of battle.”

  He tossed me the jersey and I caught it in midair. I stared at him blankly before making the connection, then shot a nervous look in the direction of the playing field. “You mean I … What, right now? I don’t have time for this. What about the whole Grendel thing? The Aesir being hunted out of existence? My dad?”

  “You probably wondered why we gave you a knattleikr scholarship.”

  Oh, right … that. Dad had mentioned that it required me to actually go to practice and games or risk losing it. And if I lost the scholarship now on top of everything else … “Well, yeah, it crossed my mind.”

  He nodded. “It’s because the game brings together all your years of training into a cohesive whole. It may not seem like it at first, but as you learn to play, you’ll see how natural it all feels. And if what I fear is happening comes to fruition, you’ll need to quickly master those skills to weather the storm.”

  A storm. A storm is coming. The words echoed in my mind again, sending a tremor all the way down to my toes.

  As he moved to open the door, Doc added, “Don’t worry. It’s no big deal.”

  Call me paranoid, but I’ve noticed that when adults say stuff like “no big deal,” it generally means it’s a pretty big deal. Just a few days ago, my dad had said the same words to me about driving, and now he was lying in a coma. So you can’t blame me for being a teensy bit nervous as Doc led the way out onto the field ten minutes later.

  “Knattleikr was a favorite game of the early Vikings,” he explained. “We’ve modernized it a bit, but it’s essentially the same rules. Success takes a combination of strategy, planning, and brute physical strength. Not unlike going into battle.”

  I chased after him, trying to balance a three-foot-long heavy wooden stick with a curved openmouthed dragon head carved into one end. And simultaneously to jam a plastic helmet onto my head while not getting twisted up in my oversized jersey. Like everything I’d been through recently, it all felt way bigger than I could handle.

  We exited the tunnel onto a large rectangular playing field covered with artificial turf and lined by glass walls. On either end of the field was a goal about six feet wide. About a dozen other players were already on the field tossing a small brown ball or stretching to warm up.

  “So they had arenas like this?” I asked, looking around and taking in the whole expanse.

  “No, early Viking games were generally played outdoors, sometimes on frozen lakes. And, of course, they occasionally resulted in the deaths of some of the players.”

  I was sure the color drained from my face at this. I turned to see if he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “But not to worry. We play an updated version. We’ve had a few broken bones and sprained ankles. But no deaths.” Doc gave me a wry smile. “Same basic rules as the original Viking version, but since there are no out of bounds, the play is much quicker. Five players on each side plus a goalkeeper. Think of it sort of like a giant game of pinball, only with human bumpers.”

  A set of knuckles rapped on my flimsy plastic helmet, and I turned to see Grimsby stuffing another ball of dough into his mouth. “You look like a bobblehead in this thing,” he said as he chewed. “I had one of those once, but its head kept falling off.” As an afterthought, he added, “But I’m sure that won’t happen to you.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk,” I said.

  A horn blared. The players stopped practicing and moved into their positions on the field.

  “Ready?” Doc asked me.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” Or in other words, not at all.

  �
��Good. We’re going to warm up with a little scrimmage. I’ve separated the players into maroon and gold squads. I have you playing charger for the maroon team. That means you can go anywhere on the field. It’s a lot of work, but it’s important because you set the tempo for your team.” He jogged off the field, followed closely by Grimsby. They closed a door in the glass behind them. It felt a lot like being sealed into a gladiator’s arena.

  Grimsby took a seat in a row of metal bleachers next to the glass and started a one-person wave. “Gooooo Abby!” Somewhere he’d found a giant foam finger, which he waved encouragingly.

  I looked for Gwynn, wondering where she’d gotten to, but she was nowhere in sight. I raised my stick toward Grimsby in acknowledgment, then turned back to the field. And nearly ran right into a player on the gold squad.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I—”

  Oh, great. It was Mr. Fuzzy Pants himself. Chase Lodbrok—the self-appointed king of the school, and world history class.

  I was expecting at least a thank-you for saving his life from the sea monster. Maybe even a fist bump. But instead when he saw me, an evil grin spread across his face. “Hey, brah,” he said, borrowing Hawaiian lingo even though there wasn’t a palm tree in at least a thousand miles. “If it isn’t my close, personal friend Abby Beckett.” He nudged the guy next to him with his elbow. “Hey, drop me a beat.”

  The guy cupped his hands around his mouth and started beatboxing, both he and Chase bouncing like they were part of a rap crew as Chase opened his mouth:

  “Her name is Abby Beckett.

  Now everybody check it.

  They say she got game, but she just gonna wreck it.

  And get herself owned when she don’t expec’ it.”

  My face flamed hot and my fingers tightened around my knattleikr stick. I felt a hand grab my shoulder.

  “Hey, don’t listen to them.”

  I turned and did a double take. Under a plastic helmet of her own, I recognized Gwynn’s face smiling at me. So that was where she’d gotten to. She was wearing an oversized jersey tied around her waist to hide her wings.

  She glanced at Chase, who was high-fiving the small posse gathered around him, then back at me. “They’re only trying to get in your head. Let’s bury them on the field instead.”

  I slid her hand off my shoulder. “No, I’ve got this.”

  Then I turned to Chase. “You really want to go there?”

  His eyebrows shot up as he regarded me with a smirk.

  “A rhyme battle with the daughter of an English PhD?” I said. “Okay, then try this on:

  “Hey, y’all, my name is Chase.

  I got a pretty face

  But in between my ears

  All I got is empty space.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” one of the guys said, and thumped Chase on the back. “You just got burned.”

  As the small crowd of guys laughed, Chase’s eyes smoldered. He was no longer smiling. Was it a smart move to escalate the little war between us? Probably not. But it sure felt good.

  Gwynn gave me an impressed look, then jerked her head toward the center of the field. We jogged into position, and I looked around at the huge arena, once again feeling very out of my depth.

  She held out a gloved fist. “Take no prisoners.”

  I took a deep breath before bumping her fist with mine. “Right. No prisoners.”

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “You look like a deer caught in the headlights.”

  There was just the small problem that I had no clue what I was doing. “No, I-I’m okay.” The quaver in my voice didn’t sound at all convincing.

  As if reading my thoughts, she winked and said, “Follow my lead. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. Catch the ball in the dragon’s mouth.” She pointed toward the dragon head carved into the end of my stick. “Then fling it in the goal down there.” She indicated the other end of the field, then with a sidelong glance added: “The ball, not the stick. Easy as that.”

  “Ball. Stick. Goal,” I repeated. “Got it.”

  On the sideline, Doc was busy positioning what looked like a toy cannon, aiming its muzzle into the air. “Ready?” he called.

  Chase and Gwynn raised their dragon sticks to indicate they were. I wasn’t so sure, but I lifted my stick anyway.

  “Okay, standard rules apply. Five points per goal. The ball stays in play unless it travels outside the glass enclosure or the ball carrier becomes incapacitated.” My heart gave an extra-wobbly beat at this. “First team to fifty wins.”

  Based on the size of the cannon, I was expecting a fun little popping noise, sort of like a toy cork gun. So I naturally ducked for cover when a teeth-rattling explosion launched a small brown ball high into the air over the field.

  Ball. Stick. Goal, I repeated to myself, pushing off the ground before anyone else noticed. Easy.

  I jumped and reached for the ball with my dragon stick. But with my feet still in the air, another stick swiped the backs of my legs. Hard. I flipped, my feet going up into the air as my shoulders crashed into the ground. I’ve heard artificial turf is supposed to be safer and all, but to the back of my head, it felt a lot like fuzzy concrete.

  I lay there for a few seconds, waiting for the whistle from the sidelines. I mean, that had to have been a foul. Maybe even enough for a yellow card or even an ejection. But the whistle never came.

  “Abby! Get up!” Gwynn shouted as she sprinted past me.

  I rolled onto my stomach with a grunt, but it was already too late. Chase was running down the field in the other direction with the ball. As he approached our last defender, he jerked his wrists to launch the ball against the glass wall. Then, with a spin move, he was around the defender and expertly met the ball where it ricocheted off the wall. With a smooth arcing motion, he launched the ball toward the goal. The net jumped. A horn sounded. Five points for the other team.

  Chase came running back toward me. “Some superstar,” he said with a sneer. “Had enough yet?”

  With a scowl, I got back to my feet. Okay, if that’s how we’re going to play, then get ready for war, I thought. “Bring it on,” I fired back.

  Gwynn jogged back and slapped me on the shoulder. “Hey. Stay focused. It’s only one goal.”

  We played several more rounds, the gold squad racking up goal after goal as we fell behind thirty-five to ten. The maroon squad seemed hopelessly outmatched, with Gwynn the only one able to get any points on the board. I was sweating, frustrated, and on the verge of quitting. As messed up as it was, only Chase’s taunts kept me from hurling my stick and walking off the field. I had an unexplainable need to prove myself to this guy.

  Then the cannon fired again, and the ball was back in the air. Chase jumped and snagged it. He ran toward the sideline, angling for an open shot. But this time I was right behind him. As he dodged around one of my teammates, I darted in for a body check. Time for some revenge. Instead, out of nowhere, another body crashed into me at the last minute, sending me sprawling against the glass wall face-first. Grimsby’s eyes widened as my nose and cheek mashed like Play-Doh into the glass right in front of him.

  And the guy wasn’t done with me yet. With a nasty laugh, he shouldered my face even harder into the wall.

  “Get off me,” I seethed with my lips pressed into the glass, my arms swinging uselessly behind me in an attempt to fend him off. Finally the pressure let up, and I crumpled to the ground in time to see Chase expertly flip the ball toward the goal again and to hear the horn sound. Another five points.

  Gwynn’s concerned face appeared above me. “Are you okay? Maybe you should sit out the next round. You know, just watch and learn?”

  I lay there on the ground, hurting all over, when suddenly I was overwhelmed by the image of my dad lying in a hospital bed not far away, slipping toward death. And that was an even worse pain, knowing that I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do about it.

  “Hey, Beckett.” I heard Chase’s voice again, snapping me back to t
he present. “Need a spatula to scrape yourself off the field?” He and Beatbox Guy erupted into laughter and gave each other high fives.

  “No thanks,” I growled to Gwynn as I pushed myself off the turf. “I can do this.”

  There was another boom from the cannon. I crouched, ready to jump for the ball, but I felt a hand on my shoulder pushing me out of the way.

  “I’ve got this,” Gwynn said. “Go long.”

  I took off in a dead run. When I looked back over my shoulder, she gracefully leapt into the air to snag the ball in her dragon’s teeth. She dodged a swipe from a defender and planted her feet. Then in one fluid motion she hauled back and heaved the ball in my direction.

  I flung out my stick and leapt for the ball, the muscles in my shoulders and arms straining to reach it. With a sudden rattling noise, the ball settled into the dragon’s teeth. I had it! I fell to the turf, rolled, and came up facing the goal.

  Only one opponent stood in my way. Chase Lodbrok.

  That’s when everything went into slow motion. In a split second, an eerie focus came over me as years of training gelled into this one moment. A dozen possible paths to the goal sprang into my mind, then were evaluated and discarded until only the best remained. And as soon as I had it, my body was in motion. I charged toward Chase, feinted to the left, then ran up the glass wall, my feet catching air as my body flipped end over end. Using the momentum of my somersault, I whipped the ball toward the goal with everything I had, feeling all my frustration, fear, and anger explode into that single forward motion.

  The ball rocketed across the field. The goalie dove, but he was too late. I watched in disbelief as the net jerked. Then, with a sharp crack, the glass wall behind the goal disintegrated in an explosion of tiny shards. My throw had carried the ball all the way through not just the back of the net but the wall behind it too. The horn blared again. Score.

  When I overcame my initial shock and turned around, everyone stood frozen, staring at me. Some had their mouths open in shock. Others eyed me warily. “Um, sorry,” I said awkwardly, feeling suddenly self-conscious, like I’d just done something horribly wrong.