by J. M. Rojas
CHAPTER 15: TRAINING
Jack had never been in a proper fight before. Sure he had the odd school-yard scuffle with the bullies when he was younger, or played the violent video game here and there; but he had never practised any martial arts of any kind or sparred with any professional fighter. This made him wonder what Mathias expected from him in a friendly match against the experienced Ramose.
This has to be a joke, he thought.
Walking up beside Layla, with his eyes on William and Ramose who stood facing each other in the centre of a large courtyard, Jack asked timidly, “Will this involve some kind of boxing?” As his words tumbled out of his mouth, his eyes took in the splendour of the courtyard where they stood. A garden of gloams pressed against the north and south walls and an arched door on the eastern wall led to the Inner Sanctum from where they had come. Above the archway was a stone face of a beautiful maiden with flowers in her hair, etched with such fine detail that Jack swore it would open its eyes at any moment. A balcony loomed over the western wall, casting its shadow, with a bronze lattice linked between two small obsidian pillars which reached to the marble roof. Bars of light cut down through large square holes in the roof, but Jack suspected, due to the depth of the Library, that it was not sunlight. “I'm not good at boxing, or kicking, or any other kind of fighting really. I think I won a fight once; but it was against Caleb and we were using those giant, inflatable boxing gloves at a circus—”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Layla interrupted, “but you won't be only using bare hands. Mathias plans to arm you with a glaive and Gaianar armour.”
“What?” Jack exclaimed in surprise and blatant fear. “I thought this was supervised, bare hands fighting? Glaive? Armour? I don't know if you haven't noticed this already, but I'm not a warrior!”
“Don't be a scaredy cat,” Layla said, using a childish, modern-world slang. “You'll be fine.”
“Fine?” Jack was incredulous. “Ramose will decimate me!” When his brain finally caught up with her her words, he paused, then almost laughed out loud at the young womanʼs naïve use of the term ʻscaredy cat.ʼ She had a lot to learn when it came to modern slang.
“Oh, calm down will you.” She didn’t seem to notice his grin behind his fanned fingers. No one is decimating any one. It is just a friendly spar. Now watch Will put that djinn in his place.”
Jack stopped voicing his anguish and sighed. Layla's casual disinterest in his fear made him sound like a complete wimp, and he didn't want her thinking that. He lightly punched his stomach, hoping the butterflies would cease their anxious fluttering. Where was his famous father's iron nerves when he needed them?
William and Ramose stood perfectly still like statues. Jack marvelled at their discipline, and envied their physical form. Both were fighting fit, with toned muscular frames. Will was a little taller than Ramose and broader of chest; but Ramose was no twig. From what he knew of Egyptians, Ramose did not look like one. He had their olive skin, and curved nose, but his eyes were deep purple and quite large. Long black hair hung to his shoulders, which were tattooed in strange symbols that did not look Arabic or Egyptian hieroglyph. Two purple sashes crossed his chest and ended in a golden ring in the centre. His pants were loose, white linen, pulled tight around his waist by a black corded belt.
“Bring the Son of Ammon his weapon!” Mathias shouted across the courtyard to a guard holding a plain looking, iron-shod quarter-staff and a trident strapped to his back. The Atlantean, who was dressed in turquoise and deep blue robes, with a silver shoulder guard and an ornate skullcap, rushed over to Ramose and handed him his weapon: the Staff of Dancing Winds. Bowing low, the guard hurried back to stand with several other guards and servant spectators who had gathered under the northern gloam garden and were sitting on squat, marble benches.
Silence prevailed for several moments, before Jack whispered to Layla, “Why aren't they doing anything?”
“The Battle Ceremony is about to commence,” she whispered back, her eyes still on the combatants. “Lemurian soldiers perform a dance before the fight. A tradition my people follow before any battle.”
A bell suddenly chimed somewhere above the courtyard, which was answered back by another bell held by a white-hooded servant standing under the eastern archway. Then drums began rumbling like an earthquake had struck from two more servants under the gloams. Their drumsticks bounced rhythmically over animal skins pulled taut atop large bronze bowls, and chimes rang from bracelets around their wrists. Though it looked chaotic from a spectator's view, the music was cohesive and powerful, stirring up anticipation and excitement.
Then Jack saw from the eastern doorway a procession of Lemurian soldiers enter the courtyard, dressed in long, dark blue robes with white trimming over silver breast plates and leather pants. Glaives glittered at their hips, unsheathed and clasped by leather straps that were fastened to their belts. From a distance their robes look like ocean waves rolling forth from the archway with white froth bubbling at their feet. Beautiful, sharp-cheeked faces were partly concealed behind tall, lofty helmets with visors that resembled vines woven through each other, and plumes of ashur flowers sprouted from topknots. They wore leather gloves, and their boots were leather also, with silver spats and pointed toes.
“The Emperor's War Heralds,” Layla said breathlessly, still awed at the dance troupe she had seen a hundred times or more.
In three rows of six, the War Heralds clacked their booted feet together and stood still, facing William and Ramose. The drumming suddenly stopped, and all eighteen soldiers dropped to their left knee with heads downcast.
A young boy in a simple garb stepped out from behind a gloam and ran to stand between the two drummers. From out of a cloth messenger bag he uncovered what looked like a bronze pan pipe, which he lifted slowly to his lips. After a nod from one of the drummers—an old man with a snowy white beard and large wooden-beads around his neck—he began to play.
Jack had never heard anything as beautiful in his whole life. The music sounded Eastern European, Arabic and South American all at once. An ancient melody that had not been played on Earth for more than a thousand years. It sounded like children laughing, like flowers growing and rain falling. He felt the earth move under him as the hypnotic melody travelled through his ears and into his very being. Tired, heavy eyelids began to close, and Jack had to pinch himself to stay awake. Not from boredom—far from it—but from the beautifully moving and embracing song that lulled him into another world. Then, like the flick of a switch, the panpipe became sharp and loud—but still beautiful. It demanded attention, and it stirred up passion and energy in all who listened.
Then the drums began to slowly creep back in, until they were a steady, pounding rhythm.
All at once, the War Heralds lifted their heads up, their plumes bouncing with the sudden movement, and their gloved-hands fell on the handles of their glaives. In unison they stood up from their kneeling positions, and their hands pulled their weapons free from the straps, raising them to the sky. A sea of silver blades, glittering under the light that came from the mysterious square holes in the roof.
Like a choreographed performance Jack had seen at his university, the War Heralds moved in initially slow then fast sweeping movements. First it was simply an elegant sword-dance that echoed Japanese kabuki mixed with ballet; then as the music became more fervent, the glaives began changing into a myriad of shapes that created collective images. A blossoming flower, whose pedals, anther and stigma were individual glaives. An ocean with many waves, moving and undulating. A great fire, with many writhing flames. Then finally a tree rising up above the dancers as if its silver glaive-shaped branches were reaching for the roof. Branches and leaves projected from the minds of each dancer and made reality by their weapons.
The tree was the last shape the War Heralds made as the drums and panpipe tapered to silence. When all was still, the servants and guards on the marble benches began clapping and cheering. The sudden loud appreciative clamour took
Jack by surprise, and he slowly joined in clapping. He was however, still awed by what he had seen. Layla laughed and winked at him, turning his face scarlet.
Disappearing back through the eastern archway just as quickly as they had come, the sound of War Herald's clacking boots gradually dimmed to silence.
“Prepare yourself, Atlantean,” Ramose said to Will with a sinister smile.”
“Your meek appearance does not fool me, storm-dancer,” Will laughed. The man from Hy-Bresail held a glaive in one hand and his other was finger-spread in front of him. The silver bracelet around the wrist of his empty hand shimmered softly. “I will make this quick for you.”
Then the warriors were against each other in a furious display of hand-to-hand combat.
Will swung his glaive in a downward arc at the nimble djinn who deflected the blow effortlessly with the flick of his staff. Not slowing, the Hy-Bresailian then came in low with a feint, spun to the left and swept his blade across Ramose's neck with deadly speed. The blade's shape morphed into a curved, blunt sickle—he didn't intend to decapitate Ramose, only knock him over.
The djinn threw himself backwards, barely missing the swipe, then prevented his fall by stabbing his staff into the ground behind him. After a quick breath, the teenager catapulted himself into a back flip with a double kick at Will's jaw. The blonde-haired man laughed at his sprite opponent and somersaulted away from the kick before it hit him; falling into a tumble, then coming to his feet again.
“Brilliant!” Will chuckled, swinging his blade above his head. The glaive shimmered and changed into a long staff.
“Don't think the fight is over, Will,” Ramose said with a cheeky grin. “It has only just begun!”
Amongst the guards and servants, long rectangular silver plates with holes in them were being collected by a short, bald man with leather eye-patch. Jack threw an inquisitive look at Layla, who rolled her eyes “They are betting with tiateq—Atlantean currency. The short man is one of the chefs. His name is Taran uthʼThagar and he knows how to make good coin with matches such as these.” She then made some hand sign gestures and mouthed something to Taran across the courtyard, which changed the man's squinting expression to eager excitement followed with a quick nod.
Jack was about to ask Layla how much she was backing on Will, when the crowd's collective gasp brought his attention back to the combatants.
The djinn swung his own quarter-staff above his head in circles. Two pin-points of light ignited on the iron caps on either end of the staff and a humming sound filled the air. The Hy-Bresailian raised an eyebrow and began to approach Ramose cautiously. The teenager then began to swing the staff—whose ends were now a blur of white light—under his legs and just above the ground in some tribal dance. He continued doing this until the sand and dirt on the ground began to levitate up around him. The particles swirled around Ramose and followed his movements with the Staff of Dancing Wind. The mystical, spinning dance gathered momentum and soon djinn was a blur, and all about the courtyard the sand had gathered around him like a small tornado.
Will ran at his fast becoming invisible opponent, screaming a Hy-Bresailian war cry: “Karath thal har!” His silver staff shimmered brightly in the sand storm as he carved a path to the heart of the tornado. Before he could reach Ramose there was a force like a mighty gush of wind, which blew outwards, throwing Will several feet backwards. The man landed in a dazed heap at Jack's feet.
The sand blast faded into nothing before it reached the courtyard's walls.
A shape of Ramose made of sand hovered in mid-air, before showering down to the ground. The djinn was nowhere to be seen.
Will scrambled to his feet and shook his head. He threw off his shirt, revealing his muscular chest, which he pressed his glaive against. The staff shrunk in size and snaked around his body into a metallic spiral, then formed a shoulder plate on his right shoulder. The bracelet Will wore was now humming in the same way as Ramose's staff. Just as Jack had seen back in the Southlake Woods; a sphere of energy projected out of of bracelet and swirled around the Hy-Bresailian like a force field. It was roughly six feet in diameter and it was a translucent white like the luminous body of a jellyfish.
“echokinesis,” Layla said to Jack, answering his unsaid question. “It is sound moulded by psychic energy. Ancient Osiria and Hy-Bresail both perfected the technology. The masters of this type of fighting are called Auralar—though Will has not completed their training to be honoured as such, yet. Right now he has complete control of anything within his field. He can lift heavy objects with echokinesis and even break them effortlessly apart.”
“What is he trying to do now?” Jack asked, his eyes frantically searching the courtyard for Ramose.
“Draw out his enemy. The djinn has the same power of echokinesis in his staff so the sound from the bracelet will inadvertently react to it.”
Ramose leaped out from one of the gloams in the courtyard's southern garden and hurtled through the air at Will's turned back. His staff, which was humming with echokinesis as well, stabbed into the Hy-Bresailian's spherical shield and caused a jarring, ear-splitting sound, followed by a shock-wave that threw both combatants backwards from each other and onto the ground. The Staff of Dancing Winds and the bracelet also went flying in opposite directions, landing away from their wielders.
The spectators held their ears from the terrible sound.
Will jumped to his feet just in time to block an axe-kick to the face from Ramose. He used his blocking hands to grab his opponent's leg and then swept Ramose's other one out from under him. Falling, the Osirian grabbed part of the glaive that spiraled around Will's chest and pulled him down with him. They fell into a tangle of arms and legs and began to wrestle in an attempt to overpower each other. Will, who was bigger, managed to put Ramose into a headlock; however the Osirian never gave up and threw his head backwards smashing it into Will's face. The Hy-Bresailian almost passed out; but kept his headlock firm. Ramose threw another head-butt. Blood trickled down Will's nose.
Both combatants tapped out.
“Tie!” Mathias shouted, calling an end to the match.
A chorus of groans came from the guards and servants, and everyone was handed back their bet.
“It seems everyone didn't expect a tie,” Layla said then chuckled softly. “Including myself.”
“I softened him up for you, Jack,” a bloodied-nose Will said with his charming grin. Layla walked over to him and dabbed his nose with a piece of white cloth.
“Thanks, Will,” Jack replied, “although I'm sure it won't make much of a difference either way.”
“Have some confidence,” Cloak whispered, suddenly appearing beside the teenager. “You have your father's family name to uphold. You also have Atlantean blood in your veins, which means you can't let this Osirian brat win, regardless.”
“Thanks, Erin,” Jack said. “I suppose I don't know how I will fare against such an experienced fighter. I know Mathias is giving me a glaive and some armour of some sort, but that would probably make me even more cumbersome. This isn't like some kind of video game.”
“Nonsense,” Ramose said, walking over to the group of Lemurians. Jack was surprised to see Eleena tending to the djinn in the same doting fashion as Layla was doing with Will. “Those weapons are the pride and power of an Atlantean. Do not doubt your blood right to them and their answer to your need.”
“The Sun-Prince knows his ancient enemy well,” Mathias added, crossing the courtyard from the north western corner. He was accompanied by Oreus, Vesphaeon and a couple of brown-robed servants carrying bandages and rattling belts of ointments and salves. “So I am pleased that he is our friend. Do not fear, Jack. Your father left you the memories of his combat skills deep inside your mind. With the Gaianar armour you will awaken those memories and know how to fight well. It will be as if you had been fighting for many years—a trained veteran.
The general was soon standing before him, rigid and unyielding like the walls of the cour
tyard. “The genetic-memories that a father shares with his son have always been tantamount to our survival.”
“The echoes of our forefathers in our deeds and words,” Oreus said, quoting an old Atlantean proverb.
“Are you ready?” Mathias asked. “Are you ready to awaken the past inside of you? Walk the path your father walked and know the wisdom he gained?”
“Yes,” Jack answered, and part of him believed it.
Standing on the balcony above the courtyard, Rykar watched the gathering of his kin around the outsider and the Osirian prince. Cursing bitterly under his breath, he turned and disappeared into the darkness of the passageway behind him.
Vesphaeon looked up from courtyard and saw him leave.
Jack stood in a small room arrayed with weapons. It was his fatherʼs private armoury that was adjoined to the eastern training hall of the Chamber of Lore. Before him, strapped to a stone bust of a faceless man was the Gaianar body armour he was expected to wear. It was marvellous, he thought. The chest plate was crafted from light-weight steel and leather, and beautifully bonded with gold and silver embellishments, which were in turn engraved with Atlantean motifs of the finest detail. If Jack hadn't known its origin and was shown it during one of his history lessons he did not think he could place it culturally. It seemed Greek, Middle-eastern and Western European all at the same time. The shoulder plates were the most stand out feature, which were curved upwards like rising waves and studded in brilliant blue and green stones.
“This was your father's armour. He left it behind when he left the Library.” The voice behind him belonged to Mathias. Proud and ancient. “He was a Gaianar like me. A knight of Atlantis. One of four ancient orders that are all but gone. We were the Emperor's personal guards, diplomats and law makers. The Great Lore Keeper Houses of Lemuria. The Trident and the Crown. Gaianar, Orgonar, Auralar, and Kratoth.”
Mathias moved to the stone bust and began to remove the armour. “If you are going to walk in your father's footsteps and protect your family, if you are going to fight to save this world, you are going to need this. It is our perfected conduit with the Aether—the spirit of Gaia, the Earth. With it you can achieve great things. Drinking from the Earth however has a great price to pay, so heed these words; your father has set limits inside your mind with how much you can channel—if they were not there, you could consume too much and destroy yourself.
The teenager felt his skin prickle with goosebumps at the thought Mathias painted.
“The Gaianar armour will not only protect you against attacks, but will allow you to amplify your psychic powers. Someone like yourself, with your limits, can absorb small explosions, levitate to great heights, even move heavy objects much heavier than those doors you faced back at Mount Spire.”
“And people like you?” Jack dared to ask.
Mathias paused, contemplating how much he could say to the teenager; then shrugged away caution and said, “I have pulled sky-ships—the size of the Silversong—out of the air and smashed them into the ground. Toppled buildings. Walked through a raging forest fire... and more. But such things cannot be taken lightly. They will drain you, leave you weakened if you exert yourself too quickly. And if you push yourself to the very edge of your limits, you can destroy the conduit. The armour is fragile as much as it is strong. Be wise with your decisions in combat; if you channel too much Aether, you could very much lose your only weapon capable of facing our enemy.”
Jack eyed the armour, then gulped. After a deep breath, calmness took him, and his mind was decided. He was scared, yes, but fear no longer preyed on his decisions. He knew Mathias was right about the memories his father had left him. The past dreams were evidence of this. They were messages from beyond the grave, directing him through his journey into understanding who he was.
A vague familiarity of fighting had always nagged at his subconsciousness since childhood; but he had never explored it, could never grasp it, and therefore thought he would never be good at it. Now he knew and understood why. He promised himself then and there that if Mathias could bring to the surface these memories, awaken this warrior in him he would never have any reason to fear his responsibilities of the quest. He wasnʼt going to be a ʻscaredy catʼ as Layla put it.
“I will take the armour,” he said.
The general fitted the armour to Jack and adjusted the straps and the collapsible, jointed plates that allowed it to conform to the teenager's much smaller body. “Atlantean ingenuity,” Mathias said, winking.
Jack flexed his arms above his head and twisted his waist from left to right to get a feel of the weight and his freedom of movement. Surprisingly the Gaianar body armour felt as light as a sweater!
“Light, but durable,” Mathias said. He then walked over to an open cabinet against the wall behind the stone bust and picked up a finely crafted sword that rested there. He handed it to Jack. “This is the glaive your father favoured. Given to him by a dying Gaianar who helped protect his village when he was young.”
The sword had a little more weight to it than the armour Jack wore; but it felt balanced and reliable in his hand. He swirled it around in a figure eight in front of him, and watched in awe as the blade began to glow white, igniting his own eyes in psychic fire.
“Thoughts control its shape,” Mathias explained. “It will react to whatever images you channel into the blade. Glaives are made from a special kind of metal called eideticium. Brought to this world by the Gods.”
While Jack swung the sword about, its blade morphed into various shapes and sizes with the fluidity of water. His thoughts were already testing its capabilities. Jack laughed excitedly like a child with a new toy and watched as the blade sprouted several new points, each one growing out like the branches of a tree.
“There are no limits,” Mathias said, “only what your imagination can conjure.”
Jack lowered the weapon to his side where it took its normal shape once again. “These are amazing; but I'll need more than imagination to know how to use them proficiently.”
“You will need your father's memories,” Mathias answered, and he reached out and placed his hand upon the Gaianar chest plate and closed his eyes. Jack felt a sudden jolt in his chest as if a defibrillator had struck him, and then his whole body erupted in a surge of psychic-energy. This seemed to suck the light out of the armoury and descend it into darkness.
Both their eyes shone bright in the small space, and when Jack gasped in shock his mouth expelled the same white light too.
The armour clenched tighter against his body. It felt alive; almost as if it was trying to consume him or merge with his flesh.
Then the memories came.
Bright images of Thomas flooded the teenager's mind. Memories of training and fighting pouring into him like water breaking through a dam. Thomas' progression from amateur to experienced fighter over the span of many years absorbed within a span of a couple of seconds. Jack soon knew the Atlantean martial arts called iska and its graceful yet powerful movements; and was an expert melee fighter with swords, spears and other exotic weapons he had never heard of. It felt like he was waking from a coma and finally remembering who he really was.
After the last memory melded with his mind, the surge of power that enveloped him gradually dissipated and left his skin tingling. The armour slackened its grip.
Jack opened his eyes and saw the armoury was normal again. The darkness had lifted and the silence was deafening.
Mathias was gone.
Jack knew he was prepared now. The anxiety of confrontation was still there; but it was diluted with excitement. His confidence was strengthened by the fact that he knew how to fight.
Just like his father.
“You are a solitary desert flower,” Ramose whispered in the silence, his eyes shut. “You are standing defiantly against the harsh sun. Blowing ever so gently in the desert winds, but never breaking. The sand, the mountains, the hidden valleys, the creatures, the infinite sky above are all extensions of your
will. They are apart of you and they are separate. They are all and they are nothing. You are the center.”
Jack's eyes were shut as well, and his breathing was steadied by Ramose's words. He could feel a gentle, underground breeze, which had descended into the courtyard, trickling over his skin and refreshing him. When he opened his eyes he was standing up and facing his opponent.
“You are the center,” the djinn repeated, and he began to slowly twirl his staff before him. “Nothing matters. Now, attack me.”
Battle-ready, Jack rushed forward to meet his opponent. The glaive shimmered like ripples in a pond and morphed into a blunt edged version of the weapon, which Jack swung down upon Ramose. The djinn blocked the blow: raising his quarter-staff with both hands to catch the blade in its middle guard—an iron tube much like the caps at each end—before throwing the attack away. Jack stumbled back; then quickly found his feet and slid under the staff with a slash at the other's stomach. Ramose swung the right end of his staff down, knocking the blade's trajectory away, and then completed a full circle by swinging the opposite end down on top of Jack's head. The blow was inches from knocking Jack out cold when he leaned to the left and flung the hilt of his glaive up to deflect it.
The opponents leaped away from each other, their eyes a-light with white fire.
“Good,” Ramose said with a broad grin. “Let's see what else you have.”
“This is... all new... to me,” Jack huffed from the physical exertion he had just used. “Those attacks... I just did them. It feels like I have always known... how to fight. Hard to explain...”
Mathias said to Jack from the sideline, “Thomas's warrior instincts and reflexes were implanted in you at birth and have simply been awakened.”
Ramose and Jack began to circle each other slowly. The djinn's quarter-staff spinning lazily around in slow rotations, and Jack's glaive melding into a variety of shapes and sizes in reaction to his changing thoughts.
“You have your father's moves,” Cloak said from the opposite side of the courtyard, “but your body is soft and untrained. Lack of strength and endurance will be your weakness.”
The Osirian prince was the first to make a move after the Nysaean had spoken. He charged at Jack and delivered a flurry of stabs to his chest with the Staff of Dancing Winds; all the while advancing forward and forcing the half-Atlantean into retreat. Jack shaped his glaive into a large lion's claw and desperately swiped the first couple of blows away. The last jab however was delivered with such force that Jack's strength deserted him and the iron-capped tip slammed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Jack crumbled to the ground and the glaive flew from his hand, landing several feet away, where it clattered loudly upon the marble flagstones of the courtyard.
“I draw my strength from the desert,” Ramose said, walking towards the curled up ball that was Jack. “From the wars my people have fought to stay alive. From the persecution and the solitude. From my parents exile... and possible death.”
Clutching at the burning pain in his stomach, Jack lifted his head up from his fetal position to find his opponent standing over him. Ramose's open hand reached out for him. “Where do you draw your strength from?” he asked.
Jack thought of his mother. She sat in her wheelchair with her head in her hands. She was crying. There was an overdue bill sitting on her lap, and Jack knew that that week they were all going to have to tighten their belts. In the background he could hear the loud argument between James and Alora over something he didnʼt know what. Their fighting and yelling was reaching its crescendo...
He couldn't breathe. Was it the blow from the staff? Or was it the thoughts of home? His broken home. The wallpaper was peeling. The plumbing was all blocked up. Jack's university degree would save them all, he dreamed. A big job in Paradise, living with Rowan and Emily. But he couldn't now. He was in Egypt, and he was about to go back in time. Kaelan, the unseen enemy, was out there searching for him and his siblings.
The last thought was his father. And the photo back on his bedside table in Willow.
“Family,” Jack finally answered with tears in his eyes. “My strength comes from my family, and my need to protect them. My need to avenge my father!
His anger then fizzled, and logic took its hold. “Although, I fear this will leave me vulnerable to Kaelan.”
“It will,” Ramose replied, grabbing his hand and wrenching Jack up to his feet. “But you will not fail them. Or yourself.
“Anger is your demon, Jack. Be mindful of your emotions and the turmoil they bring. The desert flower survives because of patience.”
Jack's eyes were still glowing white, and the psychic energy they heralded purged his body like fire in his veins. The pain in his stomach began to subside.
Ramose grinned. “You are ready.”
Jack raised both hands in the defensive pose of the Atlantean martial arts called iska and nodded.
The first blow came at his feet. Jack leaped over the quarter-staff with ease and delivered a flying kick to Ramose's chest. The djinn took the blow on the right rib, not fast enough to bring his staff up to block; but he managed to spin to the left of his opponent and complete the evasive move with a slap across Jack's back as the weaponless teenager landed from the kick. Jack flinched from the hit, then locked his right elbow and clasped his left hand onto the staff, stepping forward, and pulling Ramose into another kick to his face.
“He fights like an iskan champion,” Will said proudly. His nose was still swollen from the early spar with Ramose.
“Thomas was always good in hand-to-hand combat,” Mathias added. “I think the saying was: Toram is more deadly without a glaive.”
Layla smiled, but said nothing. Her eyes were intensely on Jack. Beside her, Eleena was watching Ramose. Both women were holding each otherʼs hands.
The Osirian prince let go of his quarter-staff and blocked the kick with both his arms. Jack threw the weapon to the ground and stepped in closer, his fists flying. Both men then engaged in a spectacular display of close quarter combat, delivering a series of graceful punches, kicks, elbows and knees that looked to the spectators like a choreographed fight. Occasionally, Ramose sacrificed taking a hit from the half-Atlantean—whose punches lacked enough strength to cause significant damage—so he could gain a stronger offensive position. Jack sensed this leniency and fought all the more harder.
Then one slipped up.
Ramose came in with an elbow uppercut at Jack's chin who had feigned an opening from a wild hay-maker. When the blow hit midair, the djinn tried to regain his defensive composure in time; but he wasn't quick enough to evade Jack's leg sweep.
Falling hard to the flagstones, Ramose rolled towards his Staff of Dancing Winds. Within three rolls he had it in his hands and was back on his feet.
Jack ran towards his own glaive, which still held the lion claw shape he had formed earlier. He swooped down and retrieved it—its blade shimmered and changed into a long lance as he spun around to face Ramose.
Before Jack could locate his sparring opponent, there was a flash of light and a sound like air imploding. Then he saw him. A gust of sand had lifted off of the flagstones and was being sucked into a spinning vortex of violent energy. Ramose had used his staff to create the tornado form once again.
A sudden lurch from the spiral of wind caused Jack to stumble backwards and fall to the ground out of sheer awe and fear. Then, before he could collect his wits, the tornado was whirling around him at an incredible speed. Blinded by the sand in his eyes, Jack crawled to his feet and began to slash his lance wildly at his invisible opponent.
Thud! A blow came out of the sand wall forming around him and struck his right shoulder. He reeled in pain and limped away in the opposite direction. Thud! Thud! Two more blows to both his legs. He dropped to his knees.
“Finish this!” Jack screamed. Then, almost without knowing what he was doing, he flung up a hand and grabbed the iron-shod tip of Ramose's quarter-staff that came
flying out of the haze in front of him, aiming for his chest. The white-fire in his eyes were now furiously ablaze. Jack suddenly rose to his feet with a burst of new found strength from some hidden reservoir. He swung the tip away and leaped towards where he judged Ramose to be standing and slashed down with his glaive.
The sandstorm exploded, and Jack spun away. He didn't fall over however, but crouched low against the onslaught, covering his eyes with one arm. When the sound of wind passed over him and he no longer felt the sting of sand against his skin, he peered over his arm. Spinning around him were eight sand encased figures of Ramose, hovering a couple of feet off of the ground
The enemy has many faces. Spoke a voice in his mind. It was Ramose's. However its true face will be the one you least expect. The one you may even trust.
Jack screamed his anger at the figures and flew at them in wild abandon. His glaive smashing through their empty shells and blasting their sand everywhere. When he had obliterated six of them, he stood facing the last two. His eyes trying to pry through the floating figures, Jack began to arc his glaive back over his head—the blade elongating into a shimmering, silver whip—for one final blow that would smite them both.
Then the Staff of Dancing Winds flew out from the sand figure on the right and hit him against the side of the head, dropping him like a stone.
Sand filled his eyes, and darkness claimed him.
