The Convoy

by Sebastien Acacia

  They all nodded in agreement, with unflinching gaze. Aymeric interrupted the silence which had dropped on the audience. He put three fingers on his forehead and uttered.

  “Happy the one living for science and improving the world…”

  “... and who will overcome darkness through science,” all his fellows followed in unison with a loud and willing voice.

  Matilda was silently repeating the fateful sentence to get even more motivated. She finally concluded by a private mantra and barely hid a discreet sign of the cross over her belly.

  God, the Almighty, give me the strength to defeat the evil forces standing against us. Help me to find back my mother, alive and healthy. Amen.

  Ermengarde

  Once the mission briefing over, Ermengarde didn’t wait for Matilda, too intimidated to even try approaching her. Nevertheless, he still tried to shyly look for her. He even enjoyed the sight of her hips for a bit, nicely enhanced by a beautiful black leotard. Getting no sign of interest from her, as she was too busy speaking about long board machinery with Blanche in one corner of the room, he quickly fled toward the martial art academy.

  *

  * *

  Ermengarde had joined the Kathars quite by accident. Three years had passed, since he had conveniently escaped from a slave caravan in the Arabic desert lands. This topic was unmentionable within the powerful Terra Fecundis. Inosanto had finally reached some agreements with the last indestructible nomads who were still reluctant to definitely give up their Muslim faith to fully embrace the Christian faith despite the birth miracle. Nevertheless, they weren’t crazy. With time, even quite quickly, they developed a kind of religious syncretism, adopting a few Islamic precepts suitable with Terra Fecundis’s requirements. Enforced and bounded, those nomads took part in some natality worships, arranged in a more amenable way than for other communities. Nevertheless, there were just a handful of them. A hundred old people, still rooted in a more traditional Islam, going back before the birth miracle, were the last gurus of this community with a very low birth rate. This wasn’t a major problem for Inosanto. He was thinking time was in his favour. One day or another, they would definitely convert to his doctrine. If the old ones didn’t, their children would. In the meantime, Inosanto was needing some rare metals to produce some components for the maintenance of the Milicia Christi’s military equipment that were widely spread in the Arabic deserts. The Arabic people mastered the extraction and the purification of those ores such as chromium, silica, niobium and even copper. Because of their expertise, they became vital. So, in order to buy their silence about the little deals they enjoyed, and mainly to ensure enough delivery and a constant flow, they requested a large and servile labour. This was a true blessing for Inosanto, who didn’t want to bother with jails and with a prison system which existence would be an admission of a failure of the Church’s authority and God Himself. Pushed by the Legatee, who gave him the idea, he decided to extract everybody breaching the divine order and to hand them over to the mine operators. Those extractions were very brutal, without any formality. The Legatee being the only recipient of the Church’s authority, he was using and even abusing of his prerogatives, being openly sadist. People were regularly disappearing without a trace, after some brawls or minor irrelevant offences. If it was impossible to avoid any incident within the theocracy, those mysterious disappearances had an unexpected effect over the population - it became extremely docile and showed a complete submission toward the divine law. In fact, the arrests quickly became too rare, therefore the extractions too, up to a point the Arabs threatened exposing Inosanto to the population if he didn’t redouble his effort to supply enough slaves to ensure the mining operations. The solution happened very fast. Inosanto ordered all the abbots to report the followers who wouldn’t attend the different worships, creating a new offence to supply the mines. Those threats were infuriating the almighty Prophet, who was already planning to get completely rid of those spoilers and to replace them by a horde of robot dogs and drones dedicated to this task. Only the technological aspect was preventing him from executing his plan, as the engineers’ communities hadn’t succeeded yet in adapting the machines to those specific mining operations.

  Ermengarde was living in a small engineers’ community on the sacred lands of Oceania, near Sydney, on this huge island formerly known as Australia. Unwilling to follow the religious beliefs, he alienated his parish abbot because of missing too many masses and others worships. When the divine decree to punish the recalcitrant individuals was implemented, the old cleric really took pleasure in denouncing him. The next day, Ermengarde was suddenly and brutally extracted. First, he was identified by a drone, then chased before coming nose to nose with an aircraft of the Milicia Christi which directly took him to the Arabic Peninsula. Right before he was 20 years old, the destiny of the one Matilda had called Ermy took a dramatic turn. He had to face two options. Either, dying of exhaustion or because of the collapse of an underground gallery from a firedamp. Or, managing to breach the huge surveillance system in order to escape. Escaping! But where? The desert was everywhere around. Hundreds, even thousands of miles of sand. Unbelievable! Fortunately, while he was transferred between two surface mines in order to reallocate the slaves, the escort was attacked by the Kathars. They were looking for niobium to fix the reactor of the URM they had recently stolen from the Church, and attacked the caravan in the middle of the desert. A sudden renewed acuity and a good moment of folly pushed Ermengarde to escape to join the rebels who didn’t reject this blessing. After all, some young people were a good addition in this difficult time.

  *

  * *

  While the old trainer was practising a few slow Tai Chi movements on the tatamis, Ermengarde was peacefully dressing in his training outfit. The small woman, whose face was more wrinkled than a Shar Pei, was knee-high, but she was fully able to strike down a militiaman, as her young apprentice liked to say.

  “Hello Philippa,” Ermengarde told her in a familiar tone.

  “Late again, you will never change,” she answered, as neutral as possible.

  “I was taking part in a meet...”

  “Apologises only concern the people phrasing them,” she interrupted him without stopping the kata she was doing.

  “Hmm!” All right! I warm up, then I’m ready for you.”

  “While in a mission you will have to face an assailant willing to stab you in the belly, will you tell him hold on a second, I need to warm up?”

  “Hmm!” Indeed, no.”

  “Indeed!” The old martial art master repeated. “You need to be operational as you’re. If you have a thigh cramp, got shot in the shoulder, have a knife wound in your flank, you need to adapt to the situation. Your mind must be ready to face any possibility. Come closer!”

  Ermengarde stepped a little toward her, nonchalantly walking barefoot. Without stopping her kata, the wise old woman spoke to him.

  “I can see your left leg is tensed and your shoulders aren’t properly lining. Does your left femoral hip make you suffer?”

  “Uhh! No, I’m perfectly good and don’t feel any pain, Professor,” Ermengarde said surprised.

  “Attack me!” She asked him.

  “How?”

  “As you wish, kid,” she added while carrying on her exercise as if nothing was amiss.

  Ermengarde got closer to her, stood in a boxing position, and after a few moves to look for an efficient line of attack, drew a quick and accurate right hit on his trainer’s face. Without even looking at him, she seized the opportunity of one slow and light movement she was doing to dodge the attack, but she didn’t stop doing it. Instead, she grabbed Ermengarde’s wrist, which had just passed a few inches away from her face, with two fingers and emphasised the trajectory. Thanks to the outstanding foundation and unity of her body, she hastened her young apprentice’s movement who was catapulted toward the floor. From instinct only, he recovered his balance by moving his left leg forward to find a solid suppor
t and try to attack again. At this exact moment, Philippa struck her knee in his left hip, just above the femoral hip. Ermengarde felt an intense pain. His entire muscle of his thigh shook, leading to an inevitable imbalance and Ermengarde felt violently. Philippa was still holding him with two fingers, while he was grunting unintelligibly to conjure the pain.

  “Indeed, it was the femur, don’t move,” she told him.

  “Humpf! Too painful to even move,” he mumbled, his eyes closed because of the pain.

  Philippa laid her knee on her young student’s cervical vertebrae, pulled up on his arm, and caved her other knee in his hip. They both heard a slight cartilaginous snap and Ermengarde reacted with a relieved breath.

  “Oh! What you have just done truly relieved me.”

  “I told you your femur was suffering, didn’t I?”

  “Or just admit you hit me on this spot.”

  “You aren’t very perceptive. Your hip was slightly off-centre. I just pushed a bit on it with my knee and this was enough to make you fall.”

  “Hmm!” Please, clear all my doubt, you just put it back in place, right?”

  “Indeed, kid. This should allow you to improve your poor performances.”

  Ermengarde wasn’t listening to his old teacher any more. He was staring at the dojo entrance. Philippa, standing back to the door, and who couldn’t see what was happening, added.

  “Please, come in, young girl,” she said while releasing her hold on Ermengarde.

  Matilda, surprised, entered the fighting area, defined by worn-out tatamis red like the Kathar cross.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you...”

  “Philippa was showing me a new technique,” Ermy immediately interrupted her, while straightening back.

  “Don’t even try, kid, she has been here long enough to see the whole action,” the instructor said.

  How could she see me when she wasn’t turned toward me? Matilda thought.

  “And what a sight!” Matilda provocatively added, very serious.

  “You must be Matilda, our regretted Esclarmonde’s daughter, mustn’t you?” Philippa interrupted her.

  “Did you know her?”

  “A great fighter!”

  “My mother, a fighter? Unbelievable!”

  “I’m adamant. She was one of my first Systema students.”

  “Systema?”

  “A very old method of combat from the Russian army.”

  “Russian?”

  “I’ll explain you later, for the moment, you must start your training,” Ermengarde interrupted them, while warming up his hips with a few circular motions.

  “Are you sure, you’re in shape, Ermy?” She provoked him pointing at the pelvis rotations he was apparently doing with some difficulties.

  Philippa, who has been waiting for a long time to get new blood in her rank, was glad to finally see her young apprentice with an opponent his age. Glancing at her body, she quickly understood Matilda would be a fierce opponent once she would have mastered a few efficient techniques. With her slim body, her long and smooth muscles, her ratio weight to height supportive of a high execution speed and of destructive attacks, she thought Matilda had the perfect morphotype to become an excellent fighter.

  “Come closer, dear,” the instructor invited her. “I would like to see you in action a few minutes so I can decide how I will train you in the near future.”

  Matilda shyly moved forward. Once she was at arm-length from Philippa, she finally noticed how small she was. She was easily eight inches taller, while she was barely five feet five high.

  “Come on too, my dear Ermy,” she joked. “You will fight in single combat bare-handed. The first one who makes the other fall and who immobilises them will be declared the winner.”

  “But? I have never learnt how to fight,” Matilda whispered.

  “Don’t worry, my dear. Just think about it as a simple game,” Philippa retorted. “You can start whenever you’re ready,” she added.

  Besides having a lot of practice and being in the prime of his age, Ermengarde was really holding back when he engaged the fight. He was probably scared he would hurt this charming and fragile girl, whose feline curves he was admiring so much. Or maybe he was simply scared to touch her and that she would feel uncomfortable about it. He slowly moved on the side and tried to tease Matilda’s arm from the tips of his fingers in order to test her response level. Nothing special happened. Matilda, fully focused, didn’t even move her arm.

  Hmm! If she lets me reach her personal space like this, I will win easily.

  While performing some quick moves, he tried again to touch her, and still didn’t get any reaction. It seemed to him that Matilda couldn’t see his moves on time to avoid them. Nevertheless, her position was firm, her two arms were protecting her chest, her back heel raised from the ground, her front foot was strongly anchored in the tatami, her legs bent and mobile. She was just following Ermy’s moves, always standing in front of him. Suddenly, surprising everybody, she took the lead. Strongly pushing on her back leg, she stepped in Ermy’s hold, who received a good slap on the left cheek before being able to react. Confused, his pride even affected, he briefly looked at his old instructor. Matilda, already back to her initial position, was smiling, quite happy with the impression she had triggered.

  “So? That’s all you can do?” She provoked him.

  A malicious smirk appeared on Philippa’s face. Ermengarde, furious, pounced on Matilda. First, he pretended to try reaching her face, then, taking advantage of her raising her arm to protect herself, he finally dived toward her hips. He stuck his cheek under her chest, grabbed her front leg at knee level, slid his right hand just under the opposed buttock and brutally lifted her. Baffled, Matilda grunted when her shoulder struck her flank, and, while she felt herself rising into the air, she clutched Ermengarde’s neck, while looking at the ground getting closer very fast. The shock was stronger than she would have thought.

  “Ouch!”

  It felt like all her organs were breaking apart. Her breath was instantly cut by Ermengarde’s weight, pushing on her diaphragm. Nevertheless, she didn’t let him go, blocking him against her with her arms. He was kneeling between Matilda’s thighs, his head against his chest. When he realised how embarrassing his position was, he released a bit the pressure. It didn’t take long for Matilda, who didn’t have a dirty mind like her opponent, to come around. Philippa was carefully looking at the action, already anticipating all the technical options which could end the fight, in favour for either Mathilda or Ermengarde. And she wasn’t disappointed. Matilda strongly pushed on Ermengarde cervical vertebrae, who, like an ostrich trying to get its head out of its hole, tried to pull away by standing again on his feet and projecting his bottom upward. Matilda didn’t need anything more to group her legs, put her feet on her opponent’s lower belly and project him on the side, almost above her. Ermengarde, who wasn’t expecting such a prowess, ended completely spread flat on the ground. While he tried to stand again, Matilda jumped on his back and put her arm on his jugular to strongly strangle him. Ermengarde immediately grabbed this arm squeezing him with his two hands. But it was already too late. He could already feel the lack of oxygen, and Matilda wasn’t letting go.

  “Enough!” Philippa finally told.

  Matilda immediately released her grip and rolled on the side, her arms opened like a cross, her eyes vaguely looking at the rocky archway. Ermy, crawling, was sputtering, while putting his larynx back into place.

  “Why? Why stopping? I was going to throw her over my shoulder,” he cried out with a shaky voice, offended by the turn of the event.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Philippa retorted him. “I’m afraid we will never know how it could have ended, but this isn’t the most important. I now know enough to define your training program, my dear. You’re definitely your mother’s worthy daughter,” she added for Matilda.

  Ermengarde was raging interiorly. Nevertheless, his admiration toward the young woman took o
ver.

  “I’ve to admit, you’re quite resourceful!” He finally admitted, while he readjusted his outfit.

  “I’ve already told you a hundred times, you shouldn’t underestimate your opponent. You must forget your ego, fight with your mind, with your intellect,” Philippa insisted for her young student.

  “Hmm!” I know, I know,” he mourned, embarrassed.

  “And for you, my dear, if you wish one day to be able to face a militiaman and to be able to stand long enough to run away or survive, you will need to train even harder,” the small woman interrupted her.

  “Run away or survive? What I really want is to make them eat Kang Kong from the roots!” She confronted her.

  “See this! I don’t know anybody who survived a fight with a militiaman without a good machine gun and being far enough to stay safe. Do you have any idea how fast and powerful they are?”

  Matilda, vaguely looking at the red tatamis, didn’t answer.

  “A militiaman can cover 40 yards before you have time to draw your weapon, aim and shoot,” Ermengarde added.

  “If you’re lucky, he won’t manage to avoid the bullets,” Philippa interrupted him.

  “But, to be fully honest, this is very unlikely,” Ermy added, smiling.

  “If by mischance, you’re on his trajectory,” Philippa continued, “let’s just pray he will grant you a quick and painless death.”

  Matilda seemed to be pouting.

  “If they are invincible, why do we need to train to face them?” She complained.

  “They have one vulnerability, a very small one,” Philippa answered her.

  “Which one?” Matilda immediately asked, a bit anxious.

  “They need to recover.”

  “How so?”

  “After approximately one minute of intense effort, their fantastic skills are at rest,” the instructor explained. “Don’t be mistaken, they are still fearsome warriors, who had fully trained about fighting and weapons handling, even during the short time they are exposed.”