The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (19 page)

One step, two steps, three steps. On the fourth step,
Avery leapt up off of the ground. She bounced into a handspring,
then from there into a front flip. She hit the ground a little off
balance, but quickly recovered, took five paces, then sprung into a
cartwheel, a back handspring, and finally a double front flip. Her
landing was a little rocky and she ended up stumbling forward a few
feet, landing on her hands and knees, but she had made it without
damaging herself, and that was all Avery could have hoped for.

It took Avery a few seconds of kneeling on the ground
before she was fully aware of what she had just done. Avery heard
cheers from the other girls standing behind her.

“Oh, my God,” Skylar hollered, running up to Avery,
“I cannot believe you just did that!”

Jade ran over to Avery as well, grabbing under her
arms and helping to pick her up off of the ground, “Are you
alright?”

Avery allowed herself to be picked up and placed on
her shaky feet.

“I can’t believe I just did that either.” Avery
uttered, walking around to regain her balance.

One by one, Gumptin had the girls each do an
individualized routine. Just like Avery, they got through them,
shocked that their bodies could perform such tumbling maneuvers. Of
course, not one of them got the landing perfect; Skylar landed on
her butt; Sasha fell on her face; Jade landed so hard on her right
ankle that it caused her to curse and fall to the ground, and poor
Bunny overestimated her speed, came out of the routine too fast,
and slammed into one of the large trees surrounding the
clearing.

Gumptin had the girls flipping, tumbling,
cartwheeling, and handspringing until they were all proficient in
everything, including the landings. They weren’t allowed to stop
until they were almost too dizzy to walk, let alone, whirl through
the air.

“Aren’t we done yet?” Avery whined, sticking her head
between her knees to stop the queasiness in her stomach caused by
all the spinning.

“We are done with the tumbling.” Gumptin told her
matter-of-factly, “Now, we move on to weapons training.”

Avery could swear she heard Skylar begin to cry
behind her at Gumptin’s words.

Gumptin let the girls collect themselves for a whole
minute, and then moved them back over to the edge of the forest
where their punching bag trees were. Between two of the trees was a
broad rectangular hole dug into the ground. A brown canvas blanket
rest on top of the hole and was covered with fallen leaves and
other debris. Gumptin had Avery lift the canvas cover off of the
hole. Inside were four round tire-sized bull’s-eye targets, eight
wooden swords, and a dozen sticks about six feet in length, a pile
of arrows, three bows, two crossbows, and about a dozen sacks of
different sizes. Last, but not least, resting on top of everything
were three straw stuffed dummies, the size and shape of actual men,
attached to a metal pole with a metal bottom base.

Gumptin had the girls drag the life-sized dummies to
the edge of the clearing. He carried with him one of the sacks that
had been in the hole. Gumptin dumped out the contents of the sack,
which consisted of twelve thick curved metal spikes and two bulky
hammers. The metal base of the dummies each had four round holes in
it. Gumptin had the girls stand the dummies up straight and hammer
a spike into each hole. This anchored the dummies to the ground
making them unyielding.

Once they had finished staking the dummies to the
ground, Gumptin gave them each a wooden sword. He stood them all in
row and slowly explained the footwork, the different cuts to make
with the sword that are the most effective, cuts to the leg, body,
and head, assorted thrusts, and blocks. All the girls listened and
followed Gumptin as best they could, but were honestly getting lost
once he started to add more than five or six cuts, thrusts and
blocks together.

“You are Protectors,” Gumptin shouted at them after
their tenth failed attempt at a series of techniques he had told
them to do, “you should know this! You are not trying hard enough!
You must focus, because we are not stopping until you get this
right!”

Jade quit what she was doing in mid sword thrust and
turned towards Gumptin, “What is this ‘we’ crap!” She hollered, “I
don’t see ‘we’ doing anything. I see the five of us working our
asses off while you stand their shouting at us!”

Gumptin kept pacing in front of the girls, barely
acknowledging Jade’s outburst, “Trust me Jade, it is far more
painful watching the five of you pathetically labor through your
elementary training routines, than it is for you to do them.”

“You’re like a little satanic monster, you know
that.” Jade told Gumptin, throwing down her wooden sword, refusing
to continue.

Gumptin still didn’t turn to acknowledge Jade, which
Avery was sure he only did to frustrate Jade more, “For every
minute that goes by in which you refuse to train, I will add an
extra twenty push-ups onto tomorrow’s warm-ups for everyone.”

Jade stood with her hands on hips, not moving, but
Avery could tell she was torn. It was only her pride that was
keeping her from picking up the sword.

“That is twenty extra push-ups.” Gumptin said, “Shall
we try for forty?”

“Jade, you pick up that sword, or I’ll strangle you
while you sleep!” Sasha shouted at Jade.

Avery wasn’t about to let Jade’s pride cost her forty
extra push-ups, “Jade, pick…it…up!” Avery made sure to say it in a
tone that let Jade know if she didn’t pick it up, there were going
to be serious consequences for

Jade.

Jade snarled and stomped her foot before bending down
to pick up her sword and continue with the exercise.

Disheartened by the idea of extra work the next day
and the fact that they had been out there for over six hours, they
all concentrated exceptionally hard and got through Gumptin’s
maneuvers in just a few short tries. Once they had completed that
task, Gumptin moved them towards the stuffed dummies and had them
practice their sword work on them. Three at a time he called them
up and shouted commands out to them.

“Right knee cut, turn, left head cut, body thrust,
turn, right body cut!” Gumptin called out.

They all muddled through the orders imperfect in some
way, but not enough for Gumptin to make them keep doing the same
ones over and over again.

After the sword work was over, Gumptin had Bunny
bring over six of the long sticks Avery had seen in the hole.
Gumptin explained that they were called quarterstaffs and were a
very useful and effective weapon.

Jade complained that it was pointless to have to
learn how to use a weapon that didn’t even have a pointy end. The
only thing that shut her up was Gumptin’s threat to add more
sit-ups to tomorrow’s exercise.

Avery was just done all together. She was sore; she
was tired, and she really didn’t want to have to learn how to fight
with a giant stick. These were the thoughts running through Avery’s
mind as Gumptin handed Avery a staff and described the proper way
to hold it, with both hands.

Having been through the sword practice before made it
easier to grasp using the staff. They learned glides, and strikes,
sweeps, and jabs. Once again, Gumptin had them practice on the
dummies before letting them move on to the next weapon.

When they had finished training with the staff’s,
Gumptin had them move on to the bow and arrows. The girls pulled
out the round targets with the bull’s-eye on them and placed them
each at a different distance from where Gumptin was having them
stand to shoot. He led the girls in a straight path back into the
woods, where there was still clear sight and shot to the targets,
but so they would have a longer distance to shoot from. The first
target was placed a hundred feet away, the second at two hundred
and fifty, the third at four hundred, and the fourth and last
target at a whopping five hundred feet away from them. Looking at
the targets from where she stood, Avery thought it laughable that
Gumptin expected them to hit the targets at all, let alone any of
the bull’s-eyes. The furthest target, even though it was the size
of a truck’s tire, looked to Avery like the size of a Frisbee.

Gumptin explained that right-eye dominant archers
hold their bow with their left hand, have their left side facing
the target, use their right hand to handle the string and arrow,
and take sight of the target with their right eye. Avery closed one
eye, then the other, and back again, trying to figure out her
dominant eye. When her blinking technique failed to give her an
answer, she just figured, since she was right handed, her dominant
eye was most likely her right one.

Sasha was called to go first. She picked up one of
the sturdy wooden bows and a stiff arrow with a long thin metal tip
on one end and three bright red feathers on the other end.

Gumptin instructed Sasha to move her body
perpendicular to the target, with feet shoulder length apart. He
had her point her bow downward and get her arrow ready. Then, he
showed her how to bring the bow up, and pull the arrow back in one
quick fluid motion. He had Sasha take a few deep breaths, aim, and
release.

Sasha’s arrow flew towards the target one hundred
feet away and landed just a few inches away from dead center. Since
Sasha was the first one to go, and the rest of them had nothing to
compare her shot with, they couldn’t help but be impressed and gave
her a round of applause.

Her second shot went about as well as the first one,
but her third shot from four hundred feet away didn’t land exactly
near the center. In fact, the only part of the target it hit was
one of the wooden legs holding it up. Sasha’s last shot was just as
bad, except this time it landed in the ground a few feet in front
of the target.

“This is ridiculous.” Sasha complained, handing the
bow back to Gumptin, “I’m not some Neanderthal who needs to go out
and bow hunt for my supper.”

“Practice, Sasha,” Gumptin told her, “more practice.
By next week, I want you to at least hit the last target. The
object is to hit your enemy with the arrow, not to have it land
next to him so that he may see how dangerous it looks.”

Next to go was Bunny, who did about as well as Sasha
did, although, her last shot landed somewhere in the forest behind
the target instead of in front of it. This pleasantly surprised
Avery; Bunny seemed to have a lot more strength than Avery would
have given her credit for.

Skylar went after Bunny. She hit the target near dead
center with her first two shots, but her third was more than a few
inches off. However, her fourth shot actually landed on the target,
the very outside edge of the target, but so far it was the best
shot of the day.

Next was Jade. She didn’t take as long to aim as the
other’s had, but even so, her aim was scarily accurate. Her first
two arrows landed right next to Skylar’s near dead center. Her
third shot was only a few centimeters from center, and her fourth
and most difficult shot, flew through the air, slamming into the
target a whole three inches closer to the bull’s-eye than
Skylar’s.

Finally, it was Avery’s turn to go. Jade handed off
the bow to her and Avery ran her hands over it. The sensation of
the wooden bow in her palms seemed familiar to her body, even
though she had never handled one in her life. She picked up one of
the arrows off of the ground and got into position. She tried to
remember Gumptin’s words about not over thinking, about letting her
body remember the skills it had and letting it do all the work.
Avery was skeptical her body would do what she wanted it to do, but
she decided to try and give it an attempt. If she failed, she would
just blame Gumptin and his stupid reasoning. Avery closed her eyes
and let her left hand feel the strong center of the bow, her right
hand the delicate tip of the arrow and tight tension of the string.
Her body was telling her she knew these feelings, and she forced
her mind clear before she could argue away what she was feeling.
She took one long deep breath, raised her bow and pulled back on
her bow string in one swift movement. It took Avery only a split
second to decide and aim at the fourth and furthest target first.
It seemed like the world around her went black and the only thing
she could see was the bright red center of the circular target.
What had seemed so tiny to her just ten minutes ago was now the
clearest thing she had ever seen. Her hand released the arrow and
it sailed through the air, whistling its way towards the target
before hitting dead center in the middle of it.

After she watched her arrow hit its mark, the world
came back into focus for Avery, color returned and the target went
back to looking like an unreachable speck.

“Well, screw me!” Jade whooped, standing behind
Avery, staring open mouthed at the shot she had just made.

“Thanks for making me look pathetic, Avery.” Skylar
pat Avery on the back.

Avery looked over at Gumptin and noticed a small
smile on his face.

“What are you smirking at, weirdo?’ Avery asked, a
little embarrassed at all the attention her perfect shot was
getting.

Gumptin’s smile broadened, “I knew you would do well
if you let yourself. You were always excellent at the bow and
arrow. After practice or patrolling, you would come out at night
when the moon was bright enough and practice it for hours.”

It seemed like Gumptin was fond of the memory, so
Avery smiled back at him and nodded, deciding not to tell him that
there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen this time
around. Avery didn’t think anything could possibly suck more than
added voluntary training after what she had already been through
today.

After the bow and arrow, Gumptin moved them on to the
crossbow. Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite as well as the bow and
arrow training had.