“Mike.” I rolled my eyes. “I can probably handle this thing better than you.”
“Ha!” He turned away and handed his sword to Falcon while he took off his shirt. “We’ll see.”
I hoped I could handle it. So far, I’d only used wooden swords—no one being brave enough to stick sharp metal in my hands and let me come at them. And this was heavier and shaped differently than the wooden ones—the handle thicker, a little slippery in my fingers.
Mike folded his arms, standing beside the four knights, wearing a smug grin, and said, “Okay, Ara, take combat position.”
I planted my heels to the ground and bent my knees, balancing the weight of the sword by angling my elbow on a slight tilt inward.
“Feet further apart.” Mike pointed to my legs; I shifted them.
“Chin up.” Falcon walked over and stood behind me, lifting my face with his fingertip.
“And be on your guard,” Blade said in his smooth English accent as he stood beside Mike and pointed his sword at me.
Smiling, I scanned the scene; three men in front of me, one to the side, and one I could feel behind me. I dipped my weight into my knees a little more, curling my fingers to beckon their advance. “Bring it on.”
Mike grinned. “You heard her, boys.”
A quick movement caught my eye to the left; I turned, feeling time slow down around me, heard the blood pump through the fingers of the hand gripping a sword, felt the cut of the blade through the muggy summer air and saw the glint of excitement in the eye of the man swinging it. But his face changed before the blade reached my flesh, when he realised it would hit white space, its target bending under it—feeling the brush of wind from its crisp metal sweep over its back.
“Shit!” Falcon said, laughing. “She’s fast, I’ll give her that.”
Time sped up again; I sunk to my knees, rolling my spine straight to dodge the cut of a blade coming directly down my nose, missing it by a bee’s leg. Two men moved in on my right; I swung my leg out, using a fist on the ground to balance me, then thrust my sword upward into Mike’s, blocking a cut that would’ve opened my shoulder. The men under the swing of my leg hit the floor as my blade came back down, and I heard only a few grunts as I got to my feet again and squared my sword to slice along the blade of another. As I spun to an assault from my right, metal connected with my cheek, parting the flesh in a clean slice, forcing a high-pitched squeal from the back of my throat. I cupped my face to hold the blood in, my gut turning until the wound tingled, knitting back together.
“Holy shit,” Quaid said.
The knights were taken aback for only a breath more, then ran in from all four sides; my forearm split open where it shot up to shield my face, while my sword clinked against Quaid’s, and all of a sudden, my feet came out from under me, a fifth knight tearing me to the ground. They all piled in on top of me, pinning my arms and legs, deepening the gash as it tried to heal.
“Get off me!”
Quaid stood at my brow, his sword to my throat. “Yield?”
“In your dreams.” I bent my elbow and twisted my forearm, bringing my knee up into Mike’s jaw at the same time, sending him and Ryder back with a pretty powerful blow—for me. The knights on my left ankle and wrist stupidly let their guard drop, watching Mike stumble about, cursing; I took the break, risking the condition of my gashed arm, and rolled to one side, dragging my limbs from their grip.
Aside from the blood coating my wrist, standing felt like a new victory, but Falcon was on it; he rolled his shoulder into the ground, legs over head, and came up in front of me, his sword meeting mine with a nasty knock that made my elbow shake. I gripped the handle with both hands, angling it against each of his strikes, until Ryder thrust his in a straight jab, right between Falcon’s and mine, and I lost my grip, dropping the sword to the ground.
They moved in then. Falcon kicked my sword out of reach; it skidded across the floor, stopping by the mirror, right beside any hope I had of winning this. But the defeat made something shift in me, like a decision made—like everything had already been calculated and was just waiting for that last cog. It filled me with a feeling—a rush, like excitement, which rose up my arms, replacing failure with a burning charge demanding release.
I flicked my wrist, sending a bullet of electricity into Falcon’s chest as he ran in for the kill; he stopped dead, as if he’d hit an invisible pane of glass—his arms flailing out, his body shaking once before he shot backward, like a rope pulled him from behind, dragging him to the wall.
“Back off.” I pointed the violent lashing of blue at Blade, then turned at the shoulder to warn the knights behind me; they all stopped, metal clinking on the ground as they dropped their swords, held up their hands and yelled, “Yield.”
My winning smile swallowed my entire face. “Looks like you guys can go home.”
Mike rose from the floor, clapping his hands. “Much better, Ara. Much, much better.”
“Yes, simply marvellous,” a loud, humour-filled voice announced from the side of the room.
“Arthur.” I turned around and smiled as he walked toward us.
“Bravo, Amara. I see the rumours of your power were true.”
I bit my lip, waiting for the electricity to recede, but my body obviously still felt under threat.
“You’re okay, my dear.” Arthur carefully touched my shoulder; the adrenaline pumping through me eased, taking the blue light with it.
“Ur, Chief?” Blade tapped Mike’s shoulder.
“Dear God,” Arthur said, his panicked eyes on the back wall.
Mike moved as I spun around to see Falcon, slumped heavily on the floor. “Mate, you okay?”
“Falcon!” My gut dropped.
Mike and Arthur got to his side first. I fell in clumsily between them, my hand hovering over the knight’s bloodied chest. “Did I…did I kill him?”
“Not yet.”
“His heart’s stopped,” Arthur said, rolling up his sleeves.
Mike grabbed the knight by the shoulders and laid him flat on the ground, then started compressions, pushing crossed hands down firmly between Falcon’s breastbones, right below a mucky, sticky mess of burned flesh. And without a second thought, I sunk my teeth into his arm, and the instant his skin broke under them, blood spilled into my mouth, burning the sides of my throat like hot pins charging through each tiny tastebud, searing everything in their path. The watering response of my tongue made the blood mix into a thinner liquid, which slipped easily past my throat and into my stomach, twisting it in tight knots.