Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I

by K. Panikian

  I shrugged at Owen, “Guess we’re in charge of the dishes too.” I moved to the sink and started rinsing. Owen came to stand beside me and we loaded the dishwasher in tandem, hands brushing occasionally.

  My pulse sped up and I laughed at myself. My lust for this man was out of control. I stopped laughing though when Owen reached across and shut off the tap, then used the same arm to turn me to face him.

  We stared at each other. He reached up slowly and cupped my face. I stepped forward.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this since the hot tub,” he said and he kissed me. He stopped. “Since I first saw you,” he corrected and then kissed me again. His lips were soft and his breath tasted like orange juice. I melted into the kiss, wrapping my arms around his neck. I pressed closer and felt the heat of his body scorch mine. I moaned. He groaned back and fisted his hand in the back of my hair, cradling me closer, and backing me up to the sink. He deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth and I curled mine around it.

  “Me too,” I said breathlessly. My head swam. His nose brushed my cheek and he moved his kisses toward my neck with gentle, sucking movements. He bent to hoist me onto the counter when the doorbell rang. We stopped and he rested his forehead against mine. We breathed the same air for a few beats and then he stepped back.

  I smiled at him ruefully and then went to the front door. When I opened it, Zasha was standing there with a pastry bag in each hand.

  “Ah, I know, I am early!” she exclaimed. “But I have blinis from town and more tea cakes from my mama.”

  I smiled at her and waved her in. She was a bubbly, effervescent sprite and every time I saw her, I liked her more.

  I introduced her to Owen and was just offering her some tea when another “Boom!” echoed through the house.

  We ran to the back door and into the back yard. Theo stood a few feet back from the fire pit, his safety goggles askew, gesticulating wildly at Julian with a long, metal stick. “I said one more minute!” he was shouting.

  The bags and plastic containers of ingredients spilled all around them in the snow – white crystals; cubes of gray, crumbling rocks; and some vaguely block-like mounds of yellowish-green.

  I checked hands for fingers and blood and then Zasha gasped beside me.

  “You’re making a bomb!” she exclaimed.

  “What?” Theo asked. He waved the black smoke in the air away from his face and put the metal rod behind his back. “Of course not. It’s fertilizer.”

  “I am a scientist, yes? I study chemistry, yes? I know a bomb when I see a bomb,” Zasha gestured to the materials in the snow. “Are you terrorists?” She took a step backwards. “Are you CIA?” she whispered.

  I held my hands up to her and said soothingly, “Of course not. I’ll tell you. Please relax. No one here will hurt you.” Theo stripped off his gloves and put his hands in the air too, looking at her appealingly. She turned away from him and said to me, “You tell me.”

  I told her everything. The magic, the besy, the portals, everything.

  At the end, she nodded her head and said, “Okay, I will help you make the Greek fire.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “You believe me?”

  “My mother, she has the second sight as well, though it is not very strong,” she lifted her chin in Theo’s direction. “She told me to come and help you. She had a dream and Mesyats, the Moon God, spoke to her. So, your story is not so strange to me.

  “She told me to pack my bikini and my hunting knife too,” she finished self-consciously.

  “Marry me,” Theo declared and fell to his knees before her. She sniffed at him but didn’t turn away. “You see,” he continued, “this guy,” he gestured to Julian, “does not have a scientific mind like you and I do. With your help, we’ll figure this out by lunchtime.” He inched forward on his knees and grasped her around the waist, smiling up at her winsomely.

  Zasha relented and smiled. “Okay, show me your results so far.”

  Julian, Owen, and I backed away from the pair and headed into the house. Owen whispered to me, “Do you think we can have the tea cakes now or should we wait?”

  I elbowed him and smiled. “We’ll wait for the mad scientists.”

  “Then,” he replied emphatically, “I want my crossbow lesson.”

  A little while later, I stepped back from the tree stump in the side-yard, pulling Owen’s bolt with me. He’d hit the stump four times out of his last five. My Sharpie-drawn beast face was sporting several gashes.

  “Seriously,” I told him, “you’re doing great. You’ve settled right into how to use the sight on the crossbow. I’ve got nothing else to teach you.”

  “With crossbows, okay,” Owen settled in beside me as we walked to the garage. “What about a knife?”

  I shrugged at him. “It takes years to learn how to fight with a blade. I’m not being arrogant. I’ll try and help you learn some moves, but realistically, I think you’re going to feel better with the crossbow for now.”

  I went into the house and strapped on my nightingale knife while Owen found his long knife in the garage. I waved at Julian, who was watching, and he grabbed his knife too.

  “Okay,” I gave Owen the basics. “First, these are not practice weapons, so we go at half-speed.” I demonstrated a slow, methodical thrust, stopping a few inches away from the impact point.

  “Second, a knife fight means you are very, very close to your opponent. In this fight, your opponents have claws, horns, sharp teeth, and magic. They don’t have to reach for a weapon to hurt you. Knife fights are short, brutal, and scary. So, before you commit to one, you have to decide if it’s worth it, and once you decide, you have to move quickly. In and out and away.” I demonstrated stabbing forward and then spinning away.

  “Strike first, strike hard,” added Julian with a smirk.

  I motioned Julian over to me and pointed at his arms and legs. “Julian,” I said, “has super strength. You will not be able to block a thrust from him. Instead, move out of the way of the thrust and strike from the side.” I demonstrated.

  Owen watched me carefully and said, “I’ve been trained in hand-to-hand. I know that it’s chaotic. Let me try.”

  We faced each other in the snow in the side yard. Each of us held our long knives in our right hands. I crouched slightly, bent my elbow so my knife was at a blocking angle in front of my chest, and waited.

  Owen waited too, looking uncertain.

  I stood up and told him, “You can strike like a hammer, from above, or like a hook, from below.” I showed him.

  “You can slash, and slash wounds from knives look intimidating.” I slashed with my knife at his torso. “But stab wounds cause more damage.” I showed him a lunge with a stab. “Slashes, while bloody and large, tend to be superficial, with only the skin that is damaged. Stab wounds, however, go deep into the body and are more likely to injure an internal organ.”

  I stood again. “Bottom line,” I said, “in a knife fight you know your range and you decide whether you’re in it to kill or not. If not, don’t fight.

  “If you’re competing against someone with a longer reach than you, then you have to attack faster or you defend, and you try to get away.”

  “With someone like me,” I gestured to myself, “I am close to your height and your reach. I don’t have claws. Your best attack is slashing at my arms, while I try and defend myself. I can’t attack you if I can’t feel my arm muscles.”

  I settled back into my semi-crouched position, right arm bent, and waited.

  Owen held his knife loosely in the hook position and then lunged at me slowly. As he stretched into the lunge, however, he raised his arm up. If I stood still, it would slash across my chest, heading for my face. I stepped left and forward, turning my shoulder to him, and shoving his elbow to the side with my left hand, also slowly. I brought up my own knife under his extended arm and pressed the tip against his armpit.

  “Good first attempt,” I said. “Next time, remember I’
m going to try and move out of the way, not necessarily block your knife with my knife. So, don’t leave yourself open. And don’t forget about your feet. You can move around.”

  I danced forward and back, slowly, slashing, stabbing, and weaving. Owen grinned at me. I rolled my eyes. “Let’s try again,” I said.

  Owen mimicked my bent knees and starting pacing around, waving his knife hand up and down. I watched him slowly inch closer but didn’t back up, deciding to let him try his maneuver. Suddenly, he dropped his shoulder and charged, tackling me into the snow. My breath wheezed out.

  Owen sat up and reached out an arm to help me up. His hand was cold but his eyes were laughing.

  Julian stepped forward and said, “Okay, not to take away from that tactic, which was great against a human,” he added, “but don’t forget these guys have sharp teeth, or fire magic, or claws. You probably don’t want to grapple with one.”

  I brushed the snow off my coat “Yes,” I agreed. “We are all new to fighting with magical opponents, despite our theoretical training.” I gave Julian a pointed look. “But remember, in and out. Slash and stab, try to hit something vital, and then back away out of range.”

  “Okay,” Owen agreed. “How do I make my range longer? Can I have a sword?”

  DMITRI’S shop was on a tree-lined street across from a tram stop. The parking lot was small but there was a large, cement building behind it. I could hear hammering sounds from inside and the air smelled like burning metal. We walked into the store and although the carpet was a little shabby, there were beautiful knives and swords hanging on all of the walls and in the display cases.

  An older man walked out of the back room and headed our way. I showed him Dmitri’s business card and he reached for the phone on the wall. We wandered around the shop and a few minutes later, Dmitri walked in from the back room.

  He beamed at me and hurried over. “You came!” His accent was thick but understandable. “Did you bring your knife?”

  I nodded and pulled the nightingale knife from my backpack. I handed it to him and he held it carefully, examining the bird motif and the gold, floral inlays. “This is very beautiful work,” he said. He pulled off the scabbard and held the tang on one finger. “Superb balance. Where did you get it?”

  I told him it was a family heirloom and he agreed, “Yes, I think it is very old. It was made in Zlatoust though, did you know?” He showed me a tiny gold “Z” stamped in the petal of one of the flowers on the hilt. I’d never noticed it before.

  He walked us over to one of his display cases and showed me similar-looking knives, with different animals in gold on their hilts. “These were all made by my family. Many years of work,” he said. I admired them and listened while he told me a little about how they were forged.

  Finally, I asked him if we could look at the swords. I gestured to Owen, who’d been listening to everything we said avidly, and said, “He would like to buy one. I was thinking, perhaps a falchion.”

  “Ah, yes,” Dmitri answered. “He is a beginner, yes? A very fun sword.” He waved Owen over to the wall and began showing him several of the swords hanging there.

  I found Julian by the other wall, eyeing a spatha. It was straight and long and had a beautiful guard plate with a bronze inlay of a bear.

  “I don’t need another sword, do I?” he murmured.

  “Well,” I answered, “you didn’t bring any here with you.”

  “Very true, Very,” he said and reached up to lift it off the wall. He balanced it for a moment and then stepped away from me to swing it gently. It made a swooshing sound and he grinned. He stepped into a pattern drill designed for narrow spaces. He cut and weaved around me while I stood still, waiting. When he finished with a slow-motion strike to my head, he beamed and said, “I want it.”

  He went to go speak to the other man at the counter. I watched them compare a couple of different scabbards and sword belts for a moment before I turned back to Owen and Dmitri.

  Dmitri was holding a sword in each hand, gesturing and talking with one and then the other. One was a falchion, its single edge had a slight curve on the blade toward the point, after which it dropped into a secondary bevel. It was a quick, slashing weapon with only one edge. Easy for a beginner to learn.

  The other sword was a longsword with a crossguard and a straight double-edged blade. It had a long grip, meant for two-handed use. It was designed to fight knights in armor and it would thrust, cut, and slice. It was impressive, I admitted.

  I walked over and Dmitri showed me the longsword. The pommel was silver in the shape of a snarling wolf head. Dmitri put the falchion back on the wall and demonstrated to Owen how to grip the longsword – the lead hand close to the crossguard, with the thumb just touching or overlapping the guard slightly, and the rear hand holding the grip just above the pommel. The wrists and hands should be supple when the sword is in motion and then held strong and secure at the strike.

  Owen gave a few enthusiastic practice swings and said to me, “I feel like King Arthur.”

  Dmitri took the sword back and demonstrated a handful different strikes. He told Owen seriously, “If you buy this sword, you come back here tomorrow and I show you more strikes. You come back the next day too. You should not buy a sword if you cannot use it. This is not a sword to hang on your wall to admire.”

  That settled it for Owen, I could see it in his eyes. He loved this sword. I shook my head at him, “You and Julian both, kids in a candy store.” He smirked back at me.

  “Come,” Dmitri said, “we will pick a scabbard and a sword belt. Also, I must give you a certificate that will let you carry it while you are in Russia. It will say it is a souvenir, yes?” He winked at us and led the way to the counter.

  BACK at the house we found Theo and Zasha hovering over a boiling pot in the backyard. It was black and thick and stank of sulfur. They made three different batches and this was the last. The other two were cooling in copper pots in the backyard shed.

  “The problem,” Zasha told us, “is that we don’t know if they will still be liquid when they cool, or if they will ignite when they are cool. In the morning, we will test these three batches and see.”

  “We changed the recipe slightly with each one,” Theo added. “So, if we get a winner out of these three, we can start making more batches of that one.”

  “We will need some more of some of the ingredients though, by the end of the day tomorrow, I think,” Zasha added.

  I left them to start the cooling process for the last pot and went into the kitchen to make dinner.

  Chapter 17

  I read Aunt Irene’s journals late into the night and then had bad dreams about earthquakes and fire. When my phone alarm went off in the morning, I groaned into my pillow. I jumped up though, when I heard a muffled scratching at my door. I cracked it open and saw Theo and Owen in the hall.

  “Come for a run with us,” Theo said.

  I agreed and held up one finger. I brushed my teeth and dressed and then met them stretching in the entry. “No Julian?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t get him up,” Theo answered. “He said he’d go later.”

  We headed into town – Theo led, then Owen, then me. I pushed myself to keep pace and it felt good. When we finally made it back to the chalet, I was panting hard. Owen wasn’t much better than me, sweat darkening his already dark hair.

  “He’s a machine,” he wheezed to me, laying on his back in the living room, stretching one muscular thigh across his body and reaching toward the wall.

  I agreed, stretching my calves. “He ran track in high school. Now he runs marathons.”

  Theo called from the kitchen where he was drinking water, “That was hardly a marathon, guys.”

  Julian stepped out of his bedroom, carrying a mug of coffee, still in his pjs, “Why do you think I said I’d go later?”

  I hobbled into the kitchen to get my own water. “Where’s Zasha?” I asked Theo.

  “She’s staying in town with a f
riend. Said she’d be over after breakfast to help again.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so let’s talk about what we need to accomplish today. Theo and Zasha are going to hopefully have a successful batch of Greek fire, all cooled off but still liquid, in the shed. If they do, they need more ingredients to make more batches. We need to enough for me to build a fireball the size of that cave entrance.

  “Owen also has a sword lesson this morning.

  “Julian, why don’t you and I go to the hardware store in Chelyabinsk first off. Then this afternoon, let’s take the snow machines up one of the other trails, see if we see any tracks or anything.

  “Tonight, if everything is going well with the Greek fire, we need to plan the assault. The clock is ticking.”

  Julian waved his agreement, still sucking down water, and Owen asked, still stretched out on the floor, “Can you wait for me to go up the trails? Dmitri said we’d be done by 1.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Theo, you good?”

  “Yeah, sounds good to me. Julian, there are a couple of things we don’t need more of.” Theo snagged a notepad and started writing.

  I turned my head sideways so I could see Owen, “Oatmeal?”

  THE drive back and forth to Chelyabinsk took longer than the shopping. Julian remembered where everything was at the hardware and health food stores. I texted Owen on the way back and told him we’d pick him up at Dmitri’s.

  We found the two of them in the back parking lot. Dmitri had a padded dummy set up in the middle the lot and Owen was striking it from different angles. Dmitri shouted, “Thrust! Parry! Slash!” and Owen moved the longsword around relatively gracefully.

  “Pretty good for a first lesson,” Julian said to me and I nodded. “He’s got good spatial awareness and he’s strong.”

  Despite what they look like, longswords are not any heavier than other swords. The two-handed grip is not because you need large muscles to maneuver it around; it’s a personal choice. Some moves you can do with a longsword only need one hand on the grip.

  At the end of the lesson, Owen was full of enthusiasm and promised to be back the next morning. Dmitri told him to remember to think about his feet too. Off-balance strikes mean you end up on the ground when you’re hitting something other than a dummy.