Guardians of Magessa (The Birthright Chronicles Book 1) (7 page)

“A brilliant move,” he said. “That’s the
first time I have seen an opening move like that actually work. I don’t think
anyone has ever finished off a match in so little time, especially against
someone that much larger.”

Senndra glanced across the field to the
platform and saw two officiators placing her unconscious opponent on a
stretcher. Now that she had time to look at him, she could see how big he truly
was. He was somewhere between six and six and a half feet tall and had to weigh
at least two hundred and fifty pounds, with no fat on his frame. His sword,
which lay beside him on the stretcher, was twice as long as hers.

“That was a very smart move,” Lemin
commented. “The way you put him away, you hardly exerted yourself at all. And
because of that, you’ll have a slight advantage over your next opponent.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Senndra said as
Lemin rose to his feet. She closed her eyes and mentally went through each move
she had been taught. Some of her competitors would be better sword fighters
than her recently dispatched opponent, and she needed to be ready for them when
they came.

******

Senndra drew her sword and saluted the
crowd. This time, she continued the salute, soaking up the excitement of the
spectators. She could hardly believe that she had gotten this far, to her fifth
and final fight of the night. This one would decide the winner of the
tournament. The cheers of the crowd were subsiding, so she jumped lightly off
the platform and headed to a corner. She took several deep breaths to calm her
nerves. She needed to be in the best condition for this fight. She glanced
across the platform at her opponent and wondered if she had any chance at all.
He was massive and, concealed as he was by his armor, looked a lot like her
first opponent. Her only hope would be to
outmaneuver
him with the sword and not take a direct attack. But she had seen him fight his
other opponents and knew that he was at least as good as she was with a blade.

The officiator climbed the platform and
raised
his flag. He then lowered it and backed away.
Senndra’s opponent immediately jumped up onto the platform, ready to confront her,
but she stayed where she was. She slowly backed away from
the platform
so that her opponent couldn’t attack her from above.

The other combatant seemed at a loss for
what to do. In every previous fight, Senndra had started out by jumping onto
the platform, and her lack of aggression clearly flustered him. He recovered
quickly and jumped off the platform to meet her. He landed several feet in
front of Senndra and advanced quickly, aiming a swipe at her head. Senndra
dodged left and ran back several steps. Her opponent attacked again, swinging
hard toward her torso. Senndra was able to catch the blow on her sword and let
it slide to the side. She ducked as her attacker brought the hilt of his sword
around and came up as the blow passed. He was wide open, so she aimed a blow at
his shoulder; he stepped backward to avoid injury.

Senndra retreated a handful of steps and
tried to catch her breath. The onslaught of the other cadet couldn’t have taken
more than a minute, but it
was extremely
ferocious and had left her gasping. Her training kicked in, and she launched
herself across the area that separated her from her foe. She acted on one
principle that Lemin had drilled into her head time and time again: never let
the enemy act first; make the first move. She spun as she flew through the air,
moving from left to right so that her sword came at her adversary from his
right side. He saw the move just in time and jerked his sword up to block the
blow, but was too slow. The parry
rotated Senndra’s
blade
so that it hit her opponent's head with the blunt side, smashing
against his helmet with a ringing sound. The blow threw him sideways, but he
maintained enough of his wits to turn the uncontrolled fall into a roll.

Senndra watched as he got to his feet,
unwilling to strike while he was down. His stance was unsteady and it was clear
that the blow had rattled him. Senndra made sure he saw her advancing and then
attacked with vigor. At first, the other cadet fell back from her blows, using
his sword only to
block. However, as
time
passed, he began to counter her attacks. The pair delivered and blocked strike
and jabs for no more than a few minutes, but to Senndra it seemed like an
eternity. Both combatants moved constantly as they circled each other, trying
to gain the advantage in the fight. Finally, when Senndra thought it would
never end, her opponent pulled a move she never suspected. As she made a move
that had most of her body weight behind it, the other cadet moved as if to
block
the blow, but stepped out of the way at the
last second, allowing Senndra's momentum to carry her forward. With all of her
weight forward, she hit the ground hard, rolling over just in time to evade a
strike
. She rolled to her right to avoid the next attack and came to her
feet, instantly assuming a defensive position.

Senndra expected that her opponent would
be thrown off by her evasive maneuver, but she immediately found herself being
pressed by him. As she began to gain control of the attack and return blows,
she tried to think about some way to beat him. His defense was almost too good
to penetrate, and he was too fast to surprise. He landed a jab to her shoulder,
and it gouged into her armor, though it didn’t penetrate to her skin. She
brought the hilt of her sword up toward his face, but found her wrist trapped
in a vise-like grip. Her opponent jerked his sword
from
her armor
and, with a twist of his wrist, sent her flying to the side.
She rolled several times before coming to a stop face down and unconscious.

Senndra felt herself jerked back to
consciousness by the prick of a sword tip on her throat and knew that it was
all over. The sword tip was removed and she rolled over.
As she prepared to make her way back to the contestant box
in defeat, she saw something that surprised
her. Her opponent had
withdrawn his sword and was now holding it over his shoulder. She scrambled to
her feet and grabbed her sword from where it lay on the ground. Holding it in a
defensive position, she waited for an attack. It didn’t come; the other cadet
advanced with his hand, not his sword, extended.

“The name is Timothy,” he said. His voice
was muffled by the helmet, and yet Senndra heard something in it that made
her believe
Timothy wouldn’t attack. She extended
her hand as well, and the two leather gloves clasped
in
a handshake.

“I just wanted you to know,” Timothy said,
“that no matter who wins this match, I’m glad I have had the honor of battling
you. Though you are at a disadvantage in size, you still fight better than
anyone I know
. In addition, the fact
that you
did not take the easy way out and attack when I was down shows that you have
honor in your heart. Therefore, even if I do fall to your superior skill, I
will be honored to do so.” Timothy backed away to his previous position and
raised his sword in salute.

Senndra’s mind began
to race as she
considered what had just happened.
She had come to this contest to win and had defeated all of her opponents. Part
of what had enabled her to do that was hating them enough to beat them. Her
hatred for her current adversary had grown throughout the fight, giving her
strength. Now, the simple action of telling her that he would be willing to
accept defeat had dissipated it. Senndra wondered how she would be able to go
on fighting someone such as this. Granted, she didn’t hate Lemin and was still
proficient against him, but that seemed different somehow. She didn’t think she
could return this attitude, but when she looked and saw that his sword was
still raised in salute, she realized how
self-centered
she had been. She had wanted to get into the contest so that
she
could
win. She hadn’t even considered the fact that there were nineteen other
contestants that wanted to win just as much. And now, here was a young man that
had the skill to win and it didn’t matter to him. Whether or not he won made so
little difference that he didn’t care if he got beat by a girl. Slowly, Senndra
raised her sword in salute
and stood there for
several seconds. She finally pulled her sword back down into a
defensive
position and prepared for an attack. Now that she had nothing to prove, she
began to actually enjoy the fight. Her opponent lunged at her, and she
sidestepped him
. He spun on his heels, bringing his
sword back around toward her, and she was able to block it with her sword.
Again the two cadets began to exchange blows, neither of them moving so much as
a foot. Suddenly, with a move that Senndra couldn’t quite see, her rival
swung toward her
chest, but pulled his blade down at
the last minute. Senndra was unable to drop her blade in time and
felt his blade
contact the back of her knee. The
joint buckled, sending her to the
ground. When she
felt the
sword point at her throat this time, she knew it was to finish
the match.

Senndra rolled over once the pressure was
relieved and climbed to her feet. With a deft move, she pushed her sword into
its scabbard, took off her helmet
, and turned
to face the only person who had been able to defeat her. He had also taken off
his helmet and revealed his features. Though Senndra had estimated him to be at
least eighteen, she took one look at his face and decided that he couldn’t be
more than fifteen. He had short, red hair, but the thing that held her gaze the
most were his eyes. He had red eyes—not as though he hadn’t gotten enough sleep
or what
would come from crying, but truly red
eyes. A red circle, instead of a blue, green, or brown one, stretched around
his pupil, making his eyes quite unnerving. Senndra shook his hand again then
pulled her sword out and saluted the crowd. Timothy did so as well, and the
cadets in the stands went wild. Senndra and
Timothy
slowly let their salutes fall and headed back for the contestant box. In that
moment, Senndra knew that she had gained a friend for life.

******

Josiah stood out in front of the ranks of
his soldiers. One thousand cadets were in perfect formation, waiting for
inspection. Josiah could tell that the sun was already bothering them, but they
were doing their best not to show it. A commotion came from behind, so he
turned around. Approaching him was the grand admiral of the academy, along with
several other high ranking officers.

Josiah turned to his troops. “Attention!”
he called, and immediately the cadets became even straighter than they had been
before. Josiah spun around to face the approaching officers and saluted them.
The officers lost no time covering the remaining distance. They returned
Josiah’s salute, and as they passed, Josiah fell in behind them. The officers
came to a halt only a few yards from the first rank of cadets,
and their eyes slowly traveled up and down the rows looking
for flaws. Several minutes passed as they
scrutinized the cadets before
them, then the grand admiral turned to Josiah.

“Your troops are again in perfect order,
Commander Pondran,” he told Josiah. “You will receive your instructions in
short order, so don’t let your men get too comfortable.” Without another word,
he turned and began to walk away. One of the officers following the grand
admiral paused when he reached Josiah. He pulled several pages from a binder
and handed them to Josiah.

“Here are your orders, Commander Pondran.”
Though the words were nothing out of the ordinary, the
tone
revealed that
the speaker would have been happy if Josiah had dropped
dead where he stood.

“Thank you, Superior Officer,” Josiah
responded in a monotone. For the life of him, he could not figure out why the
man hated him so much, but he wanted no trouble.

“And you had better have the barracks
ready by inspection,” the superior officer said in a threatening tone. “If I find
so much as a splinter out of place, I’ll have you busted down to a basic
infantryman in no time.”

“Yes sir, Superior Officer,” Josiah
answered, though he had to bite back several angry retorts. He had serious
doubts that the officer could bust him down, especially that low, but he didn’t
want to test the
theory. The superior officer stalked
off, and Josiah turned back to his soldiers.

“At ease,” he ordered. He waited for the
soldiers to relax a little before continuing. “You heard the grand admiral. We
have a list of things we need to do between now and when the students from the
academy in Belvárd come, which is…” he looked down at the paper in his hands
, “…in two days. Actually less than that,”
he
corrected himself. “They are supposed to be arriving sometime tomorrow. Your
captains will instruct you as to what your duties will be. You are dismissed
for now.”

The cadets began to break formation and
head into the barracks to change from their uniforms. Five of the cadets, one
for every two hundred, approached Josiah, and he led them into a small office
at the front of the building. He slid into a chair behind a small, battered
desk, and the five captains entered the room and stood in front of the desk,
the last one closing the door as he entered.

Josiah looked down at the list of
assignments and sighed. He was almost positive
the
officer
had given his cadets the most work, but he wasn’t going to
complain. Instead, he began to mentally divide it up between his five captains.