Magic Rises

dodge, parry. Ow. I batted his blade aside with the flat of mine, but if it had landed, the sheer power of it would have taken my arm off. Good that I wasn’t planning on standing still.
    “Temper, temper.”
    He opened his mouth and growled. Ha-ha, hurts to talk, doesn’t it?
    “You look in pain. Do you want a time-out to pull yourself together?”
    He parried. His sword came over his head, slicing forward. I dodged and too late realized he had expected me to, because as I moved, he continued the swing, drawing his blade back. For a moment he looked almost like a batter, his body angled, his hips turned, as he put all of his momentum into the underhand swing. I barely had time to thrust my blade before his.
    The blow knocked me back. I staggered. He kept coming, pounding on me with methodical heavy strikes. The precision of a scalpel, the power of a sledgehammer. I shied left, right, turning, trying to keep movement to a minimum to keep from getting tired out.
    He thrust.
    I blocked, half an instant too slow. The sword grazed my right shoulder. Pain lashed my muscle. Argh.
    “Dance faster, Kate!”
    His jaw started working again. That was some regeneration. I ducked out of the way. Hugh rammed me with his shoulder. I flew and crashed into the wall. My back crunched from the impact. You sonovabitch. He sliced at me. I ducked under the cut and twisted away. His blade struck stone. It cost him a third of a second and I landed a mule kick to the back of his knee. The knee bent, Hugh pitched forward, and I smashed the heel of my left hand into the back of his head. Face, meet rock.
    Hugh grunted, a savage sound, one part pain, three parts pure fury.
    I could cut through him. I could bury my sword in his back right now. But it wouldn’t look like an accident.
    I launched a kick.
    Hugh dropped down and swept my leg from under me. I dropped. I was still in the air when Hugh’s enormous fist flashed, coming toward me. I hit the ground, flexing my stomach, as I fell.
    Hugh hammered a punch into my solar plexus.
    Aaahhh. Aaahh, that hurt. Pain drowned me, hot, intense, and blinding. My stomach melted into agony, the air turned to fire in my lungs, and every nerve in my body screamed.
    Hugh rolled to his feet fast like a dervish and flung blood from his face.
    I squeezed the sword grip in my hand, fighting through the pain. I had to get up. He could’ve killed me. He hadn’t, but I could not let him win. No. Not happening.
    He would expect me to roll to my feet and catch me on the way up.
    I could swear I heard people screaming somewhere far away. “Get up, Kate.”
    Hugh’s right foot swung back, aiming for my side. “No time to rest.”
    I rolled into the kick, my knees bent. His foot connected with my shins. I grabbed his boot and kicked straight out at his other leg.
    Hugh crashed down. I rolled backward and to my feet, sword up.
    Hugh flexed and hopped off the ground. He bared his teeth at me, his eyes alight with madness. He looked insane.
    You know what, fuck it. Accident or not, I no longer cared. I would end him here.
    I grinned back, my own deranged psychotic smile.
    Hugh bellowed like an animal. It was a happy roar.
    I charged. His defense was too good for the inside strike, so I went for the arms. Big body, big heart. Let’s see how much blood you’ve got in you, Preceptor.
    We clashed and danced across the clearing. I sank into the flurry of strikes, melting into the rhythm, fluid, quick, the sword so natural in my hand that wielding it was like breathing. He was fast, but I was faster.
    “You want to know how I killed Erra? Like this.” I sliced his left bicep. “And like this.” Another cut, across the chest. “Hang around. I’ll tell you the whole story.”
    He scored a cut across my side. I opened two gashes across his arms. Two to one. I liked those odds.
    Hugh shook his head, trying to fling blood out of his eyes. I kept coming. He took a step back. Another.
    Twenty-six years. Twenty-six years of looking over my shoulder, of living in constant paranoia. Twenty-six years of worrying about being found, of pretending to be weaker, of denying myself basic human contact. I let them fuel me. My sword became a whip, lashing, cutting, slicing, turning, drawing hot red blood again and again. He tried to match it, but I was too fast. I thrust and laughed when the sword found resistance.
    Pain hummed inside me, but it had receded into a far place. He cut me, but I didn’t care. The real world faded.