Infinity Blade 01- Awakening

was just a means of drawing us in here,” Isa said, “I’m going to be really annoyed at you.”
    “You aren’t now?”
    “Too cold to be annoyed yet. Did we have to fight in the river?”
    “Felt right at the time,” Siris said as the daerils closed in. Their hooting had grown agitated. They obviously didn’t like having lost so many members during a simple ambush. “I don’t think the guy we saved is with them. He seems terrified.” Siris couldn’t make out much of him, only a robed figure cowering behind the rocks.
    “That’s something, at least. So . . . I’m not that handy with a sword. I can deal with one of these guys. Maybe. You can handle the other seven?”
    “Yeah, sure,” he said. “No problem.”
    “Good. For a moment, I thought we were in trouble. Maybe if someone hadn’t broken my crossbow . . .”
    “Maybe if someone hadn’t tried to murder me in my sleep . . .”
    “You keep coming back to that one little slip of mine,” she said. “You really need to stop holding grudges, whiskers. They aren’t healthy.”
    He found himself smiling as the daerils came for them. That smile vanished quickly. The splashing of clawed feet, the hoots, the swinging of swords.
    They bunch up when they attack with so many together, Siris thought. There’s something to that. . . . I can see it, in my head. Forms with the sword . . .
    He threw himself into the fray, Isa guarding his back. He slammed swords aside, used his shield like a bludgeon, roared in rage to try to intimidate the daerils. But they were careful. They forced him back, and he could barely defend himself. He did get one lucky jab in, sending a single monster to his knees, holding his stomach and coughing blood. The others closed in.
    Yes . . . I can see it . . . like a fragment of a memory . . .
    Siris fell still. That seemed to make some of the daerils wary, for they drew back. Others still rampaged toward him, fighting.
    Isa fell. He could hear her grunt, could see new blood in the stream, could feel the splash of water against his legs as she collapsed.
    The daerils closed on him.
    He shut his eyes.
    There.
    His arms moved, raising the sword as if by their own volition. In his youth, he’d trained his body to follow the instincts of a soldier, performing practice attacks, jabs, and stances until they were second nature. He was familiar with fighting by instinct.
    He just had no idea where these particular instincts came from.
    He snapped his eyes open and spun in a complex sword kata, feet moving quietly in the water. He seemed to dance with the river itself. His blade struck seven times in rapid succession, each blow precise, each move exact. When he stopped, he held the Infinity Blade before him in a calm, two-handed grip. The river flowed at his feet.
    Seven daerilic corpses floated away.
    He took a deep breath, as if coming awake after a long sleep, then turned—absently noting his shield, which he’d dropped sometime during the process.
    What had that been? The rhythm of the attacks seemed so familiar. The seven strikes had come as if this particular fight—with each daeril in its place—was something he’d practiced time and time again.
    The Infinity Blade? he wondered. Did those reflexes come from the sword?
    Isa.
    He cursed, dropping the weapon, grabbing her from the nearby water. She had a gut wound, a bad one, and the chill water washed the blood from it. Her eyes were still open, still moving, but her skin was pale, her lips trembling.
    “I didn’t . . .” she said, “. . . when I said you had to fight seven, I didn’t actually expect you to do it. . . .”
    “Here,” Siris said, pulling the ring off his finger and shoving it onto hers. “Use the ring. Heal yourself.”
    “I can’t . . .”
    “You can . It’s easy. You can sense it. See? Use it. You don’t even have to worry about growing a beard.”
    “How can you not know?” she whispered.
    “Know what?”
    “I can’t use this, Siris. It doesn’t work that way. It—”
    “Oh my, oh my, oh my ,” a voice said.
    Siris looked up. The robed figure who had been cowering behind the rocks had un-cowered his way up the bank to inspect his saviors. His hood had fallen back, and there wasn’t a face in there.
    Or . . . well, not a human face. Not even a living face. Two eyes like blue gemstones regarded him from their place set in a head carved from wood. There was no mouth, though the spindly thing spoke.