Dragonfire

by Charles Jackson

  “Aye… lad… me too…” The old man agreed, giving up on any attempt at a nod. “Can… you see… what’s happening…?”

  “William… still down…” Godfrey hissed, the expression on his face suggesting that he wasn’t at all happy with what he could see. “Can’t… see… Lester… don’t know. Baal… attacking princess…” he continued. From the angle at which he was laying, he was the only one able to observe the fighting that was about to unfold behind Randwick’s back. “Another… sword… facing Nev… rapier… good…”

  “That… will be... Garrick…” Randwick replied slowly, no happier than Godfrey was about being a captive audience under those circumstances “…dog… never strays… far from its master…”

  “Need… to help…” Godfrey strained desperately, not knowing who Garrick was but able to see clearly enough that the man knew how to handle a blade.

  “Too good… for… any of us…” Randwick said with a hollow tone, well aware now that there was no chance of getting free soon enough to be of any use. “It’s a… miracle… we need now…”

  “Come on, little one... still waiting for you to cut me in half…” Garrick goaded, moving slowly to Nev’s right with the intention of placing himself between his opponent and Baal’s attack on the king. “A young woman skilled in swordplay: something so unusual does get noticed.”

  “You’re really starting to piss… me… off…!” Nev hissed through clenched teeth, unable to contain her frustration despite knowing that letting Garrick see he was getting to her would only urge him on. He tried another careful prod at her defences, but Nev simply sidestepped his thrust rather than showing her katana, which she suspected was what he wanted all along: to force her to engage him.

  “Really… all these acrobatics…? I’ve heard from a number of sources now about your supposed prowess with a blade… I should very much like to actually see some of that…”

  Nev would’ve very much liked to have shown him some of that skill herself right at that moment, but the truth was she was more than a little scared now and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Her defences were strong, but most of her training had been against fighting styles that were very different to that best suited to the type of blade Garrick now held.

  A katana was primarily a cutting or slashing weapon in stark contrast to Garrick’s rapier, and the man’s very different fighting style was making it difficult for her, leaving Nev feeling nowhere near confident enough to mount an attack of her own in response.

  “Damn you, Garrick, finish that little bitch and be done with it: there’s work to be done here!”

  Baal’s angry call reached their ears in that moment, drawing a dark smile from Garrick and a gasp of held breath from Nev as she was brutally reminded that the king and princess were still in grave danger. The images of what was about to happen flooded back into her mind once more, just as they had moments earlier, and the realisation that there was nothing she could do only served to fuel the rage that had been building inside her for some time.

  In the desperation of that moment, with her anger rising in sync with the urgency of it all, Nev’s reflexes – probably for the first time since arriving in that world – screamed for her to attack… for her to raise the katana and unleash her fury on the enemy standing before her.

  It is the unemotional, reserved, calm, detached warrior who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune. The voice that came unbidden into her head was Honda’s, although Nev knew at the time that he’d been quoting Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

  The quote had come at the end of a particularly intense training session, during which her sensei had left here with at least half a dozen bruises on different parts of her body. She’d lost her temper after the first few strikes, slashing and striking at him with wild abandon and earning herself some additional, equally-painful blows for her trouble without ever coming close to landing a hit in return.

  She knew why he’d inflicted those additional bruises – to ensure she’d always remember the lesson he’d just taught in self-control – and it was clear in her memory now as she emptied her mind of her growing anger and frustration, replacing it with the cold calculation that came with years of training. Rapier… sabre… katana, it made no difference: neither fear nor anger could help her now but Nev knew that if she kept her head, she had the skills to deal with whatever they could throw at her.

  “Not my head that needs keeping…” she muttered softly out loud, the words coming with a faint, wry smile that left Garrick feeling vaguely unsettled in spite of his own self-confidence. There was no way to know what was going on inside the girl’s mind but the complete change in body language he’d just witnessed as she’d spoken those words somehow made her seem a foot taller.

  “Getting tired, little one…?” He ventured, hiding the fact that he’d needed to fake a sneer for the first time as he thrust forward again and bounced backward again on the balls of his feet, catching her cloak at the shoulder, although this time she barely moved enough to avoid the strike. “Time’s a wasting and there’s more to be done yet. I think it’s time we finished this…”

  “Lucky I’m wearing my good boots then…” Nev observed drily, raising an eyebrow and tensing her body in anticipation of the full assault she was now certain would come next.

  “And why is that…?” He asked in exasperation, not interested in the slightest but unable to help himself all the same.

  “Because I’m gonna kick your arse…!”

  The words came not as an angry shout nor as a wild taunt, but rather as a simple, muttered aside that would’ve been far more frightening to Garrick had he been given a moment to think about it. He was afforded no such luxury however as the blade of her 700-year-old katana flashed upward and slashed down again like silver lightning, carving through empty air with a soft hiss where the deputy-viceroy’s chest would’ve been had he not thrown himself backward out of harm’s way.

  “The child has fire…” he exclaimed shakily, trying to maintain his bravado but struggling as Nev drew back for a moment then lunged forward again, this time with a feinting thrust that morphed into a spin and slashing cut from the left as she whirled through 360-degrees and again forced him to leap backwards out of the way. Inside her pocket, the crystal was glowing with a far brighter intensity than usual, and Nev had no way of knowing it was already tapping into her nervous system, silently aiding her as it heightened her senses and sharpened her reflexes.

  She came on with another thrust at his mid-section that he barely turned aside with his own blade, gasping at the jarring impact as pain flared in his hand and up his forearm. Nev’s own momentum carried her forward and lowering her shoulder in anticipation, she crashed heavily into his chest and sent him sprawling to the ground, winded and wheezing for breath as he scrambled to take his feet fast enough to avoid her next strike.

  It was Garrick now who felt real fear for the first time, realising far too late that the thin blade of his rapier, while perfect for thrusts against armoured opponents, was dangerously inadequate in defence against the thick, heavy steel of a katana. The weapon had never been designed to take that kind of impact and a few more forced deflections like the one he’d just experienced would be more than enough to snap his blade like a twig.

  The feared next attack never came however as Charleroi’s panicked scream pierced the air to Nev’s right. With Garrick down and no longer an immediate threat, Nev bolted straight past, charging toward Baal as the prince drew back his sword to deliver his coup-de-grâce against the king. She was upon him before he could react, blindsiding Baal with a mawashi-geri spin kick that took him in the back near his kidneys and sent the prince staggering backward, sword flailing. He found his balance quickly and turned to face her, fury growing exponentially with his damaged pride as he realised that a girl – this girl – had once again gotten the better of him in combat.

  “You again…! ” He roared, drawing an intentionally-smug nod and gr
in from Nev in return. His rage was intense and she knew she could use it against him. “You dare to challenge me again…? I am of royal blood! Kneel before me…!”

  Dodge, turn and strike…

  “Mate, I haven’t ‘challenged’ you: I’ve beaten you… twice…!” Nev shot back with a sneer, drawing on her connection to an inherently Australian ability to show others the complete lack of respect they deserved. “I’ve wiped things off my boot that were more ‘royal’ than you!”

  She held the katana out before her in both hands, stepping cautiously around to her right – toward Charleroi and the king – as she waited for the attack she knew was coming. At the same time, she also made a point of keeping Garrick within her peripheral vision as he regained his own feet a few metres away and took stock of the changed situation, already certain that he was by far the more dangerous opponent.

  “Die, bitch…!” The prince snarled, charged forward with his sabre drawn high and slashing downward with all his might. Nev side-stepped quickly, seeing the movement in his tensing muscles and already knowing how it would come. She spun around him as he followed through and her katana slashed upward at the end of her turn, its razor-sharp blade sliced easily through the leather armour Baal had shrugged on over his robes.

  He whirled on her awkwardly, howling in pain over the deep wounds her blade had left on his back and left arm, and charged in again, staggering now as his sabre sliced from side to side in an attempt to force her retreat. Taking a step or two backward as she gauged the timing of his blows, Nev blocked his blade on the fourth strike, deflecting it away and to the left as she spun inside the reach of his arm before he had time to react.

  Just as she’d done with Garrick moments earlier, she smashed her shoulder hard into his chest, winding the prince and sending him reeling backward again as he fought desperately to keep his feet, instinctively knowing that losing his balance in that moment would also lose him his life.

  Nev gave him no chance to recover, striding forward with him fire in her eyes as the katana arced in like lightning at Baal’s neck. He threw himself backward and to one side, stunned by the speed of the strike, and screamed shrilly as the tip of the deadly blade that had been aimed at his throat instead ripped across the surface his left cheek in a spray of blood.

  He was down now, sprawled across the hard earth, and this time Nev didn’t hesitate for a moment as she leaped forward, ready to deliver a killing stroke.

  Blindside… pain… danger…! The next few terrible, heart-breaking moments flashed through her mind far too late to be of any use as a warning.

  “Noooooo…!” She shrieked out loud again, twisting herself in mid-leap as Garrick – momentarily forgotten – came flying at her from her right and cannoned in to her using a heavy, wooden shield he’d found lying discarded amid the dead Blackwatchers. Backed by over a hundred kilos of fit, muscled bodyweight, the impact lifted her from the ground and slammed her against the nearest of the high log walls, smacking her head against the wood, knocking the wind clean out of her and leaving her dazed and wheezing for air as she slid to the ground.

  Squashed between her body and the logs, her left arm had taken the brunt of the impact and that wrist now burned with a spearing pain that suggested a sprain at the very least… possibly worse. Stars flickered in her vision as she struggled unsuccessfully to find her feet, yet after all that the katana remained clenched firmly in her right hand.

  “Still, she won’t let go of that infernal blade…!” Garrick snarled, actually quite impressed she’d managed to keep hold of her weapon considering how hard he’d hit her. “No more games…!” With a howl he lunged forward, smart enough to go for the kill before Nev had any chance to regain her strength or her wits. She was barely able to raise her good arm in defence as the blade came smashing down toward her head.

  Lester pretty much felt sore all over. He suspected that at the very least he’d wrenched his shoulder, and judging by the amount of pain coursing through his whole right side he was rather concerned that something in there might actually be fractured. Every attempt at moving his right arm produced searing agony and he found himself unable to stand upright as a result; forced instead to move with a hunched-over crouch, favouring his injured shoulder.

  He’d landed hard against that log barricade as Godfrey had come to his aid, and had scrambled awkwardly out of the way during the melee that had followed, forgotten by all during the heat of the battle. He’d since seen what had happened to both Randwick and Godfrey – that they’d been mysteriously afflicted by some kind of unseen paralysis – and hadn’t needed any great leap of logic to work out that majik was involved… by definition also meaning a brother was somewhere close.

  Creeping down to the western edge of the defences, he’d taken a moment to peer carefully over the top of the stacked logs there and immediately caught sight of Silas, still astride his horse no more than ten metres away. The old man’s eyes were screwed tight, his hands outstretched in apparent supplication, and wrapped carefully around one of them was a brightly-glowing Shard pendant.

  Lester didn’t know why that vile rodent hadn’t been able to keep him imprisoned in the same way he’d taken hold of Randwick and Godfrey. Maybe the fact that Lester had already experienced the priest’s wrath left him immune… maybe he’d been forgotten about… maybe the old lecher simply wasn’t strong enough to control more than two people at any one time… Lester couldn’t really care less at that moment. The only thing he did care about was that the great nemesis of his short life so far was now standing just a few yards away with eyes closed and no obvious way to defend himself.

  His beloved crossbow was gone, lost somewhere in the chaos of battle, and he dearly missed it now with Silas so close within range. The boy cast his eyes downward, searching the surrounding earth, and quickly came up with a discarded dagger its deceased owner no longer had any use for. It wouldn’t be easy making a killing thrust with his weaker left hand, but he was confident there was enough rage within his tiny frame to compensate for his current condition. Taking a moment to glance around and make certain there was no other threat, he began to climb carefully up over the logs toward his prey. It was at that moment he’d heard the princess cry out, and instinct alone forced him to turn back toward the sound.

  He saw Baal strike Charleroi and send her sprawling, then watched in growing horror and rage as the prince stabbed the king through the shoulder as casually as one might pin paper to a board. He watched as Nev downed Garrick and rushed in to her aid, almost allowing himself a smile at how terrifyingly dangerous she was with a blade when she wasn’t worried about actually hurting someone. It was only as Garrick sprang to his feet once more and began to move toward her, clearly now outside the range of her vision, that Lester realised his friends were in terrible danger.

  It could be said that a thousand wild, adrenalin-fuelled thoughts flashed through the boy’s mind in that split-second, swirling and fighting with each other for attention, but the reality was that there were only two conflicting alternatives presenting themselves to his conscious mind and demanding a decision on what to do next: on the one hand the opportunity – finally – to avenge his family with Silas’ death or… do something to help Nev and the princess here and now.

  The mace once again blocked a killing stroke, this time intercepting Garrick’s blade and snapping it neatly in two as Charleroi stood fast, pushing her body between him and Nev and buying her time to recover. More prepared this time, she immediately followed the block with a wide, ponderous swing that sent the weapon’s spiked head swishing past Garrick’s nose as he threw himself backward out of its path.

  “Traitors… traitors…!” She shrieked, eyes wide with rage and adrenalin. “I’ll kill all of you…!” The princess’ cheek was bruised and swollen from Baal’s earlier blow, and a trickle of blood had left a thin trail beneath a cut at the corner of her mouth. Half of her hair had come free from its intricate bindings and now hung loose about her face, adding t
o her wild demeanour.

  “My Lord, if you would…?” Garrick asked with mild amusement, stepping lightly back out of Charleroi’s path and bending momentarily to scoop up a discarded sabre as she advanced on him, swinging a weapon that was clearly too heavy for her. “I’ve a far more dangerous specimen to skewer here than this little butterfly…”

  There were very few situations in which Baal might consider taking orders from a subordinate however direction from Garrick during battle was definitely one of them. The man’s reputation as a swordsman was legendary amongst the Huon military and in any case, having been almost killed by that damned witch twice now, the prince was perfectly happy to step back and let his deputy-viceroy take care of business.

  “A pleasure, good sir,” Baal quipped with a forced grin, leaping forward with a sudden thrust as Charleroi turned and tried to bring the mace around, barely meeting his blade in time to deflect it to the left side of her midsection. He followed up immediately, crashing his shoulder into her chest as effectively as Nev had done to him earlier and sending the princess sprawling backward to the ground as the mace flew from her hand from a second time.

  “Stay your hand, girl…! Time enough to savour your death once the others are done…” Garrick warned, stepping in once and holding the sabre point before Nev’s eyes as Baal lurched past behind him, ignoring the wounds on his cheek and back as best he could and intent on finishing off the princess.

  “Lester, no…!” Nev screamed, still groggy but catching movement out of the corner of her eye and somehow knowing the damage was already done.

  “Really, girl…?” Garrick asked with a shake of his head. “Do you really think I’d fall for that old trick?”

  The boy was on Baal’s back in an instant, launching himself at full speed from several metres away and plunging the dagger deep into the man’s shoulder as he landed. The prince screamed, the sword falling from his grasp as he twisted and turned, desperately trying to shake Lester loose. The dagger rose and stabbed downward a second time, again plunging deep and only prevented from delivering a mortal blow by the added difficulty of aiming as Baal threw himself from side to side and writhed in agony.