White Mage

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 37

  Round One

  Bianca overshot blocking Sky Father's first swipe with his mace. Her shield rose too high, blinding herself. Her own return with the sword was clumsy and easily evaded. Sky Father backed quickly, though, and circled, still unsure of his opponent. Bianca pivoted, following him, taking care not to let him move her into a constrained position.

  He tested her range by advancing and then retreating certain distances to see where her threshold was. Bianca, unsure herself, reacted very conservatively. She did not even try for an attack with the sword unless she was sure she had a chance. But, at this stage, he gave none and just baited her. For someone who hadn't allegedly fought in over a thousand years, he was in pretty good form.

  When he finally did commit himself, she saw it coming. Something about the shift of his feet, or when he stopped looking at her, and just went into general peripheral focus. She knew it was coming. He feinted low and struck high, which she had expected. The mace, being a short weapon, required close fighting. Although getting it around a shield was a challenge, so anything he could do to get her to move the shield out of the way was to his benefit. Additionally, you held a mace further down the shaft than a sword, and if correctly strapped, you had the ability to pivot it not only from the wrist but also the palm. It was like having an extra joint which enabled you to arc it around the edge of a shield. A trick you couldn't do with a sword.

  But her sword did give her the benefit of range. So she swung a textbook forehand blow. It forced him to keep his head down, and spoiled his shot, although the thunder of it clattering against her shield shook her. And back he went again, to circle and assess.

  The second time he came in she responded likewise with similar results. This time, though, he did not back away, but stuck close to her, striking from one opposite side to another. She backed, to increase the distance to where it was to her advantage and brought the sword from her recovery high and across the front of her shield. It did not connect though and she guessed he was circling to her shield side. In this position her shield protected him almost as much as it protected her, which is why he was clinging, lamprey like, to her. She drew the shield more to her left, toward the expected blow but lowered it, figuring he would try to wrap her low rather than high. This also gave her clearance as she brought the sword recovery around and down again. This time she had the clearance for a sharper angle and managed to connect with him, but not before he clipped her in the kidneys around the shield.

  This time he did back and stood assessing once more. She considered as well. She had felt the blow strike, but it was more of a dull pressure and no actual pain. She suspected Lilly was finessing the synchronization. Letting some feelings through and not others. Bianca would have to check with her later.

  Sky Father himself appeared unscathed, though she knew her blow had struck and he had no armor. She was mystified for a moment, but realized he must have healed himself as soon as he had a moment. After all, she could do the same. Grimly she accepted that this battle would not be metered out by blood on the sand, but of mana in their respective stores.

  He approached again, smoothly and steadily, with subtle shifts as he came to mask his true intentions. Bianca locked stance, not trusting her control to be up to the task of responding in kind. In the close he bent his knees, coming in low and close again, and preventing her forehand strike from making any contact. This time, though, he just feinted with a few blows around her left side, and did a rolling tumble to her right. She realized this as her sword swung through air and his mace hit her solidly in the back of her right shoulder. Her unimpeded swing and the momentum of his contact pushed her off balance and she stumbled forward. The stumble turned into a stagger as she failed to recover and, with embarrassment, she careened across the parade ground until she tripped on a barracks and fell, full length on the single story building.

  She rolled first one way, and then another to right herself. However no blow came. When she got the Ævatar under control, she saw he had walked to the other side of the grounds and stood there, waiting for her. Was he sneering at her?

  She stepped back into the grounds and nodded to him. He nodded back. That was it, she realized. He was fighting tournament style. If he truly had not fought in so long, there must be some instinct buried deep of his years fighting in the tournaments of long lost Londra. Back before he was a god. Bianca was not used to such genteel fighting. Her mother had taught her the dirtiest of dirty fighting. But she had also made her serve a six month stint in the army as a shield wall trooper, for perspective. Moss had also impressed upon her the importance of fighting fair and honorably. At least until pushed to the extreme, whereupon a surprise dirty trick would be doubly effective.

  Right now, though, she was seriously outclassed. This was not her preferred weapon form, nor her natural body, and her opponent was a god. Nevertheless, she would see how far she could push it.

  She changed the circumstances this time by advancing herself. He did not back, as the closer the better for him. When he ducked down this time, she met him, bending her knees and lowering her stance. A low stance made it hard to move decisively, but since she was not going to be doing any lunges it didn't matter. And since she had a better view of him, she could pivot easier as he tried her left and right.

  After a swing or two from each of them she launched herself straight at him, straightening her bent legs. She brought the shield, full force into his face sending him flailing back in his turn, desperately blocking the overhead backhand she followed it up with. As her recovery forehand started he sprung backwards to get out of her range and smacked solidly into the temple of Martius where she had been driving him. The pediment crumbled and tumbled down with the impact, blinding him.

  Just to be obnoxious, Bianca turned and walked back to the far side of the parade ground. She could have stabbed him while he was down. But that would just have blown some of his mana and made him indignant. Giving him her back and the grace to recover was bound to infuriate him. His temper was famous and could only be to her benefit.

  Or so she thought. After an extremely frosty exchange of readiness, he came down upon her like a winter tempest. She could barely keep up a defense, let alone counterstrike. She was backing continuously, to try to get out of his range and put him in her easy range. Not wanting to fall into the trap she had set for him, she made sure to turn for every two steps back and keep aware of the edge of the grounds.

  But a complicated multi-sequence bluff caught her off and he delivered a mighty blow to the back of her knee. It was from a high angle and so skirted the wings on her poleyn and collapsed her joint. She felt herself go down, almost in slow motion. She drew her shield in, tucked, and rolled on her shoulder, channeling the momentum into a drive upwards with her sword, straight into his thigh. She rolled the other way into a crouch as he howled in pain and rage.

  He glared at her, crouched and breathing heavily as he healed. They were both within weapons range, but neither moved for the moment. Bianca's mind was racing. What she had done was a knife fighting move; something she was very familiar with. She hadn't planned it, it had just happened. Instinctively. The Ævatar had responded, flawlessly.

  Maybe she had approached the whole thing wrong. Mostly she had been fighting to control it like an automaton. To distinguish between her own body's position and its position. To move it, since she knew she could move herself. But in that moment of panic she had dropped all of that and just moved. Its body was her body. She grinned and twitched her shoulder. Sky Father jumped to one side, and stopped. His brow furrowed deeper. Bianca's grin grew broader.

  The tenor of the battle changed after that. With her renewed confidence Bianca pressed the fight and she was the one stringing together consecutive feints. Several times her sword bit deeply into him as he struggled to change gears and reassess the skill of his opponent.

  If he had been mortal, he would have been dead several times over before he finally came to ter
ms with her. But he was a god, and just burned through a lot of mana to get to the same position. Working purely on instinct limited him to adapting slowly. This was no tourney form she used. However, her most comfortable fighting form was unsuited to a long sword and large shield. He sensed this and favored her instinctual desire to be knife-close, and triggered defensive responses that did not take advantage of the shield.

  Although less frequent, his telling blows on her were more effective. By the time the threshold of pain was high enough for her to notice the wound was severe enough to require immediate attention. She finally started to dip into the mana reserve to repair the trauma. It was hard to do that and fight at the same time, which further complicated things.

  Gradually he got close to the point of getting the upper hand. Bianca knew she could not afford to let that happen. The next pause she bought herself she applied magic to her damage, but over changed the spell, and crafted a quick seeking phrase. It would hover until needed and then apply itself.

  She closed again and then dived to one side, leaving her shield limp; the habit she had been trying to avoid. He dived for the opening, taking the bait she offered. She took the blow but dampened its effect by going with it and letting it knock her down. What looked like a sprawl, though, was actually a body swipe. She pivoted on her bottom and swept his legs clean out from under him. As he fell she arched her back and kicked him in the face and sternum.

  He crashed to the ground and she flipped upright. A hacking roundhouse swing bit deeply into him. Two more kept him from rising and forced him to heal double time. She changed her grip and stabbed the sword down, dagger like into his abdomen. She stamped his throat to hold him down as she pulled it free and stabbed again. Twice more and she shifted to kicking his head and chopping again. He rolled to his side, almost trying to curl into a ball, and she hewed the gap between his ribs and pelvis. He was virtually glowing with mana expenditure, struggling to keep up with the mayhem she was wreaking. It was worse than slaughter. Any other foe Bianca had fought would have been long dead by now. It felt surreal to keep chopping what her mind swore was a dead body, but it kept moving and struggling. Even the undead she had fought were not as grotesque as this.

  Then there was a huge icy blast. She was blind for a moment and swung unseeing at her adversary. But Sky Father was no longer there. When her sight cleared she saw him, in mist form, soaring straight up into the sky, in open retreat.

  She paused, felt for injuries, but nothing pained her. The delayed spell had done its trick. She watched him arc high and make for Oak Grove Hill. Bianca walked to the edge of the parade ground, to the half destroyed temple of Martius. She climbed what remained and stood upon its dome, holding the brightly glowing shield of Romitu high above her head for all to see.