“Amber’s terrible,” Clara declared, deciding it didn’t really matter why he had brought her here. Yes, she was annoyed by his constant attempts to try to get her to confess her skill, but at this moment, it didn’t really matter.
Not sure why, she pulled a glove off, and took another step towards the frozen girl. Her fingers smarted with the sudden total exposure to the cold air, but she chose to ignore it. She was a Water Princess. Jakob had hinted that she might have some sort of power with water - hadn’t he? Yes, it was common knowledge that only a wielder of Alphego’s fire could free one of Amber’s ice statues … but perhaps it was possible for Alphego’s water to do some good as well?
She bushed her fingers against the girl’s cold cheek. She was surprised to find how dry the ice was. It actually felt like skin … just so very cold.
The girl didn’t spring back to life. Clara thought that maybe, just maybe, there was now a tint of color to her, but that may have been just wishful thinking.
Shuddering, she shoved her hand back into the glove. “Would you like me to leave the two of you alone a moment?” she asked.
Jakob snapped around to face her. “No, I’m good now. We should get back to the others. They should have lunch ready.”
She nodded, and they both turned away and again made their way through the ice statues.
“You didn’t have to bring me all this way to prove to me that it’s acceptable for girls to use a sword here,” she pointed out. “I’d already figured it out by the fact that they’re giving me lessons.”
“I just thought you might want to see that you’re not alone,” Jakob explained. “I was making the trip anyway.”
“Look, I don’t hide because I feel alone,” she admitted. “When I started, it was because I was in a strange world, people were calling me a strange name, and I had no idea whether they meant me harm or what. And now … well, I don’t know why I’m still hiding. I guess I’m scared to admit that I’ve been lying to everyone.”
“I don’t think there would be anyone who wouldn’t understand,” said Jakob, after a moment’s silence. “Well, your teachers might be a bit annoyed, but they’ll surely be glad you’re going to fight the Dragon for us.”
“So they’ll be happy to find out that their future queen is a liar?”
“You were scared,” said Jakob. “And there’s lunch.”
“Fear doesn’t make it right.”
“You were holding your skills in reserve in case we proved to be you enemy,” Jakob countered. “I don’t think anyone with half a brain of sense would have done differently, in your situation. And if anyone tries to tell you differently, they’d be lying.”
The soldiers had set up a roaring fire and had the lunch that the cook had packed that morning out and ready to eat. Clara pulled off her gloves and thawed out her hands against the fire, then sat down on a stool that one of the soldiers had provided for her.
Little was said among them as they ate. It just felt wrong, somehow, to talk about the affairs of life, when all those statues were watching. So they just ate their picnic and drank their tea. The area was covered in blue snow, so it was obvious where the men had gotten the water.
Once everyone had finished eating, they began to pack up so they could head back home. Clara tried to help where she could, but it seemed that these men had the art of packing down to a science that didn’t include her.
So she stood awkwardly to the side near the statues, watching them. Jakob, it seemed, wasn’t part of the science either, but he didn’t look as awkward as she felt. He was circling around the campsite, looking around suspiciously. Eventually, he approached one of the guards and whispered something in his ear. The man glanced about, particularly in the direction Jakob had been staring when he first became suspicious.
Then Jakob approached Clara, leaned over and whispered in her ear as well.
“I don’t know if it’s anything or not, but I’d recommend you get closer to the fire. I think I just saw one of Amber’s spies.”
Clara’s heart gave an extra beat. “What? A—”
Jakob shushed her. “Be quiet, we don’t want them to realize we know about them.” Then, louder, he added, “Your hands look cold. Why don’t you come closer to the fire?”
Seeing the sense in that, she allowed him to pull her closer to the fire. She made a show of warming her hands, and he walked off to do whatever else it was he needed to do. When she glanced in the direction he and the guard had been so worried about, she didn’t see anything, but then again, she really didn’t know what to look for. Amber was capable of turning herself into a dragon and people into ice. Who knew what sort of creatures she used as her spies? Clara did hope they weren’t ravens, though. That was just cliché.
Her hand went to the hilt of her sword. Would she need to use it today? Or was it just one spy and he was only trying to gather some sort of information? She didn’t like the sound of either of those options, though she would personally go with the second.
Another guard approached and threw some snow on the fire, which sizzled out of life.
“We’re about to leave,” he announced. “Would you like me to fetch your horse for you?”
“I would appreciate it,” she admitted.
So her horse was fetched, and she was just about to mount again – much as she didn’t want to, her legs were still sore from the morning’s ride – when a group of black stumpy-looking men ran down the hill they were camped against. They were yelling words Clara didn’t understand, and it sounded so terrible, she was glad she didn’t.
Her hand went to her sword, but the guard laid a hand on her shoulder. “That may be a fine sword, your Highness,” he told her, “but if you haven’t an idea how to use it, I’d recommend that you stay back and out of trouble. These Enokles should be dealt with quickly enough.”
Enokles … so that’s what they were. She nodded and watched him run to join his fellow soldiers in the fight. She stood helplessly behind them, her hand on the horse’s bridle. She was too short and inexperienced to mount without help.
All she could do was watch. To her astonishment and horror, these creatures didn’t die like normal mortals when they were stabbed. Instead, they exploded in a cloud of black dust as soon as they were so much as touched by a blade. Having a foe so easily defeated was, perhaps, a good thing, but the Enokles just kept coming. There seemed to be no end to them.
Shouts of “Find the Eir, find the Eir!” rose from the men, and Clara had no idea what they meant. All she knew was that she felt useless.
The Enokles had to be coming from somewhere, so, since no one seemed to be paying any attention to her, she drew her sword as quietly as she could, skirted around the hill, and started to climb up a different side where no one would see her. She questioned her own sanity, of course, for likely as not, it was going to be Amber with her dragon fire and ice magic at the top sending those foul creatures.
It wasn’t Amber she found, but it was just as horrifying. At the very top of the hill sat one more of those terrible, stumpy men holding some sort of black box in his lap, and out of that box sprang, one after another, those Enokles.
Was this the Eir? Probably. Clara continued to creep towards it, her sword held at the ready. At the last moment, the creature spun around, and the Enokles leaping out of the box attacked her.
She gave herself a quick mental reminder that these would only turn into black dust when she killed them, so it was easy to fight her way through them. Her sword was longer than their black knives, and she was much faster. It didn’t take long for her to reach the Eir.
Before the Eir had a chance to react, and any other Enokle could jump out of it, she drove the point of her sword into the black box, and it, too, crumbled into black powder. There was no chance to celebrate the victory, however, since the Eir sprang to its feet, drew its own black knife, and attacked her.
It didn’t take long for Clara to realize that this creature was not going to explode into black po
wder, and it was far more skilled with its knife. The air rang with the sound of metal colliding, and Clara hoped that, with the whole Enokle-creation business taken care of, she would soon have backup. There was no way that she would be able to kill it, even though she had the skill. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she was a girl, and she was squeamish at the thought of drawing blood.
She drove it down the hill, hoping that it would lose its footing and roll down into her audience who were apparently done with all the Enokles, but were just watching her without offer of help.
And – ah, there it went! It stepped on air instead of ground, and caught off balance, it took little only a well-placed kick from her to send it the rest of the way down the hill.
“Kill it!” she shouted down at the men. “Be men and kill it!”
It didn’t get all the way down the hill before it regained its feet and started to crawl back up to her, but at her cry, Jakob drew a knife and plunged it into the back of its neck. It let out a terrible gurgle and then collapsed. Jakob withdrew the knife with a grim expression and wiped the black stain onto the snow.
Clara took a deep breath as she paused to clean her own sword on the dirtied snow around her. Then, with every bit of dignity she had, she descended.
“Was that the Eir?” she asked.
“Yes, it was,” said Jakob. “Good work, Water Princess.”
She glanced at the entourage of guards, who were still just staring at her. She arched an eyebrow. “The prophecy does state that I’m to fight,” she pointed out. “I thought that now was as good a time as any for me to start. I didn’t want the Lor’Son to join his sister, after all.”
“Technically that wouldn’t have happened,” Jakob pointed out, as he helped her onto her horse. “Amber herself wasn’t here this time.”
“How was I to know that?” she replied.
Everyone else mounted their horses, and they began their journey back home, amidst remarks that they hoped they would get in before dark fell.
“So those were Enokles,” she said riding up to Jakob.
“Yeah,” he said. “Nasty, aren’t they? And those were some of the more normal-looking ones.”
“So, you’re saying…” she prompted.
“Amber doesn’t have a big army, not one that can leave her island, anyways. It’s cursed so that once you set foot on it, you can’t leave for at least five hundred years. Only her longevity permits her to leave,” Jakob explained. “Instead, she takes advantage of any nasty creature who manages to find its way into our world – or maybe she summons them herself, I’m not quite sure. Even then, there aren’t many of those. So those she does find, she gives them this magic box that allows them to replicate themselves. We call those replications Enokles, and the actual creature itself the Eir.”
“They’re terrible,” she said with a shudder.
“Amber has a thousand tricks and none of them pretty,” Jakob agreed. “So … are you going to stop your lessons now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now that the men have seen you fight – quite well, I might add – you really don’t have an excuse to keep on with them.”
Clara considered a moment. “I think I shall take one more lesson with each of my tutors,” she decided. “But make sure Sir Henre knows that he may need backup.”
“Backup, eh?”
“Yes. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that even you haven’t seen yet.”
Chapter 11
Jakob gave the guards strict orders to not tell anyone of the Water Princess’s involvement in the skirmish until the next afternoon. As per usual, she arrived at Sir Rigel’s for her daily archery lesson. He handed her the bow and an arrow.
“Did you have a nice trip yesterday?” he asked, conversationally. Sir Rigel loved conversation.
“It was fair enough, and certainly not as dull as I had feared,” she admitted. “Frightfully cold though.” And with a fluid motion, she fitted the arrow to the bow, pulled it back and sent it firmly into the bullseye.
“Well!” said Sir Rigel. “It seems a break from practice served you well. Want to try again and make sure it isn’t just a lucky shot?”
She took the second arrow he was offering her, and moments later, it too was in the bullseye, right beside the first arrow. She handed the bow back to Sir Rigel. “This is an inferior bow,” she informed him. “If you’d like me to hit a farther target, I need one that’s stronger.”
Wordlessly, Sir Rigel fetched a better bow and handed it and another arrow to her.
Smirking, she sent this arrow into the target at the complete other end of the field. “Archery isn’t my favorite sport,” she admitted, handing this bow back to him. “I have some friends back home who’ll do it blindfolded.”
“Blindfolded?”
“And still hit the target. Now, shall we call the lesson quits, or do you think you still have more to teach me? I’ll warn you, though, my instructor back home has declared me about as good as I’m going to get. I’m at the point where I just practice to keep from forgetting, if you know what I mean.”
“I think, Water Princess,” said Sir Rigel, “we should go in and celebrate your success with some cider.”
“Sounds like a marvelous plan to me,” she agreed.
While they drank their pomella cider, he drilled her with questions about archery that she had previously been missing every time he asked them of her. She answered them all correctly today.
“You seem to be a girl of surprises,” he said at last. “All this time you’ve been better at archery than you’ve been letting on?”
“Seems so,” she agreed.
“Well,” and Sir Rigel drew that word out long and hard, “we need a girl who can keep the dragon on her toes. I’ve a feeling I ought to feel betrayed and that such because you weren’t willing to share the truth with us, but I think it’ll all come out in the end. Now, you’ve other lessons to get to, so don’t let me keep you.”
Sir Martin was waiting for her, as usual, with her change of clothing. She accepted it without comment and went behind the screen to change. She had long since stopped protesting the clothing, so she didn’t raise suspicion there.
She knew from experience with her dad that she would probably only get one chance to defeat Sir Martin, after which point, once he realized true level of her skill, would prepare accordingly. With the same meek, unsure walk she used every lesson, she approached her teacher. He gave her a form to hold for ten minutes, which she did. Then it was time for them to get into actual fighting.
As he was helping her into the correct position, she reached behind him, grabbed his shoulder, and flipped herself over his other shoulder so that she stood behind him. While he was still processing what she had just done, she knocked his legs out from under him with a well-aimed sweep of her own leg. As he toppled over, she grabbed his shoulder and pushed him onto his back. Smirking, she pressed an arm against his throat. “Yield?” she asked.
He laughed and pushed her off of him – one drawback to being a small person was the fact she didn’t weigh enough to keep her opponent down. “I’ll think about that one,” he said, sitting up. “I was wondering how long it would be before it clicked – though I can’t say I’ve ever seen a move like the one you just did.”
“The flip?” she asked. “Well, that’s because I learned that in gymnastics. Don’t worry, my dad was equally surprised the first time I pulled it on him.”
“Your father?”
“He teaches martial arts. I’ve been learning this stuff since before I could walk.”
“I thought you seemed more skilled than you let on,” Sir Martin observed. “So, let’s see how well your father taught you.”
And so the rest of his hour was spent dueling. She wasn’t able to get him down again, but then again, he never managed to best her. At the end of it, he stepped back and gave a respectful bow. “Your father taught you well. I’ve had few students ever master the art as thoroughly as you clearly hav
e.”
She grinned and returned the bow. “There were a few tricks I used that came from you, not him,” she admitted. “I am honored to count you as my teacher as well.”
She stopped by her room and changed into her leggings and shorter dress before she went to lunch. Dina was full of chatter, asking her about her trip, and wasn’t the whole ice business simply terrible – and the fact that they had been attacked by one of Amber’s Eirs. Had she been scared?
Clara confessed that she had been, and then the conversation turned to her outfit, and Clara informed her that having seen the enemy for herself at long last, she now understood that fancy dresses actually weren’t what was required of a Water Princess – not at this time anyway – and besides, she felt more comfortable in this sort of outfit.
Dina remarked that Essua used to wear dresses just like them.
Then it was time for her lesson with Sir Henre. Clara hoped that he had gotten her message about backup since she really was looking forward to a double duel. It’d been a while since she had had one, and she rather enjoyed them.
Upon entering the room, she found that the backup was Jakob himself. She could deal with that. Wordlessly, she approached the wall and selected a second sword of similar weight to the one she had been given by the Bookdaughter. She shifted it into her left hand and then drew her own sword with her right. Turning to Jakob and Sir Henre, she smirked.
“My mother and I have a game we like to play, we call it two against one,” she explained. “Well, actually, she plays three against one, but I’m not quite as good as she is. I’ve been wanting to play it for some time now.”
“Water Princess?” said Sir Henre. “But you…”
“I’m only scared of a sword if I feel like being scared of a sword,” she admitted with a roll of her eyes. “Right now, I feel like using two at once.”
Sir Rigel glanced at Jakob, who nodded and drew his sword, so he did the same.
The battle was as fun as she had anticipated, and having Jakob, who was aware of her skill, only made it all the better. Back and forth the battle went, and she used most of her tricks. By the end of the fight, neither of the men had a sword in their hand.
Water Princess, Fire Prince Page 10
