Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

was what we were referring to the impromptu fucking Xamira gave me, Dani and the imp had been trading off training days. Both were more than proficient in sword play, but they had very different styles. Both agreed being able to adapt to different opponents was critical to my survival.

Good thing I was a quick study. Like unarmed combat, sword fighting had a rhythm and pulse to it. They had forms you could flow through to achieve desired results. Some forms were offensive, others defensive, others a mix, and some just downright crazy risky. I was picking it up, but despite the encouragement and adulation of my trainers, I knew it wasn’t going to be enough to face a fucking knight. They lived for this shit. I’d just been doing it for a few weeks.

We sat in silence as we hydrated. Neither of us had much to say after the near miss. “Let’s get back to it. Another twenty minutes and we’ll call it a day,” Dani broke the silence and hopped up.

I had a moment of hope the dwarf would go for the wooden kendo swords sitting at the edge of the mat, but she drew her blade before getting into a ready stance. When I’d first suggested we use blades that wouldn’t kill me if she scored a hit, the dwarf just laughed.

“You’ll be using the blade I gave you,” she said like it was a given. “It’s nothing like those wooden sticks. It feels different, it cuts different, and most importantly, practicing against something that will make you bleed gives you that extra sense of urgency you need right now, Cam.” That was the end of the practice blade discussion.

I sighed and pulled out my own blade. It was a short-sword modeled after a Roman gladius, but with a small guard so someone couldn’t run their blade along mine and chop off my hand. Compared to the giant broadsword I’d seen the knight wielding, it felt like a toothpick. I’d never say that to the dwarf that forged the blade, but it made me feel terribly unprepared for the fight I was walking into.

“You don’t need some giant fucking broadsword,” she replied when I asked her about getting a different weapon. “Your only advantage is speed, and my sword gives it to you.” Again, that was the end of that conversation. Dani could be stubborn like that.

I faced off against her with the blade vertically in front of me. She had me using a two-handed grip, because if I had to parry an attack by the troll, I’d need both hands to ensure I didn’t get it smacked right out of my hands. To prepare me, she’d gradually been increasing the amount of strength she used. If I had to guess, she might be at level three out of the ten.

She moved. Her own short-sword sang through the air, and I barely angled my own blade in time to catch it. It felt like I’d just stopped a runaway Mack truck with nothing but my arms.

“I guess she dialed it up to four,” I felt the vibration shoot up my wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, into my teeth, and out through my skull. I was frozen in momentary pain, and she took advantage of it. She swiped high, planning to take off my head, but I ducked and slid away. She came after me, easily following my pathetic attempts to create distance, and drove an overhead strike into my block.

Her strike forced my blade back to the point it nearly sliced into my chest. That would be embarrassing. Having “killed by my own sword” written on my tombstone was something Aveena would see to.

My hatred for the Fae woman helped fuel me, and I pushed Dani’s blade up and away before kicking out at her legs. This was where Xamira’s training came in handy. I used my whole body as a weapon, not just my sword. That was the only way I was going to survive.

For a couple minutes, Dani and I danced around the gym, blades striking with the clang of metal on metal. It took me a second to block out the pain of each strike, but I found my rhythm. The world around me faded. The only thing that mattered was Dani and the blade trying to kill me. I guessed this was what people called “being in the zone”, but just thinking that made me lose my concentration. Dani knew how to fight with more than her blade, and her fist hitting me in the gut knocked all the wind out of me.

I collapsed onto all fours, dropped my sword, and wheezed as I tried to draw breath.

“You’re dead,” she deadpanned, as she hit me on the crown of my head with the flat of her blade. “Now get up. Seventeen minutes left.”

I finally got some oxygen through my spasming diaphragm. I picked up my sword, and we did it all over again. Being in the zone came faster the more I fought, and I lost track of everything as we continued our dance of death. I kept my mind clear, felt the flow of battle, and reacted out of instinct to the dwarf’s attacks.

In the silence of my mind, something clicked. An ember flickered in the darkness. It didn’t break my concentration. It did the exact opposite . . . I think. All I knew was that I saw a blur. It looked like Dani’s sword, but it wasn’t the shiny metal of the blade. It looked like a shadow, or some type of ghost. It was black, white, and gray; and it looked like it would cut me diagonally from shoulder to hip.

I moved my blade without thinking, and easily caught her actual sword as she tried to make the diagonal cut. In my cocoon of concentration, I didn’t see the surprise on Dani’s face.