How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book Two (12 page)

“Actually, there is one more group waiting to see you,” said Semion.

“Really? We were starting to get a little peckish. Have they been waiting long?”

“Since this morning, my liege.”

“Well, I’m sure they won’t mind waiting till after lunch.” He set off towards a side door, which one of the giant guards suddenly ran to—odd seeing such a big hulk skipping along like that—and opened. “Laney, do your duty,” he called out over his shoulder before exiting.

“Yes Daddy,” said the sullen Princess. She stood up and sneered at me. “Follow me.” She marched out of the door at the back of the room with me trotting to catch up

“This library, does it have any books about magic?”

She stopped and looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. “Well, obviously. What else would books be about?”

My expectations of hefty magic tomes full of spells were quickly dashed. Laney’s idea of books was limited to fairy tales about princesses and knights and, of course, magic. Not exactly what I had in mind. As far as she was concerned, if it didn’t interest her, it didn’t exist.

“This one’s really good,” she informed me, holding up a thin novel called
Loved By Two Dragons
. “He’s a dragon, but he’s also a handsome boy. But his brother’s even more handsome, and he’s an even bigger dragon!”

Apparently teenage girls liked shitty books no matter in every world.

The library wasn’t particularly big, about the size of a large living room, but the walls were covered in shelves, and each shelf was full of books. I skimmed the spines looking for any interesting titles.

“When I said books about magic, I meant books that teach you how to do magic, not silly stories for little girls.”

“You want to learn magic?” said Laney. She was sitting cross-legged on top of the table in the middle of the room—there were plenty of chairs, but for some reason she ignored them. Next to her was a plate that used to have a pile of sandwiches on it, most of which had migrated into my stomach.

“Yes, I want to learn magic. Are there any books that tell you how?” So far I hadn’t found anything other than bad novels and some out of date almanacs. Something along the lines of
Magic For Dummies
would have been ideal, but I hadn’t come across anything even close to that.

“No, of course there aren’t,” she said. “How would a book be able to teach you something like that? You either can do magic or you can’t.”

I flicked through a book called
Out In The Field,
which turned out to be a guide to planting crops at different times of the year, and placed it back on the shelf.

“Do you know anyone who can do magic?” I asked her.

“My uncle’s supposed to be able to, but I haven’t seen him in a few years. He locked himself away in one of the spires, working on his research, whatever that is.”

There were seven spires around the city, each vastly taller than any of the other buildings, and with no doors or windows.

I continued browsing the shelves. “What are the spires for?”

“I don’t know. Daddy says they protect the city, but I don’t see how. They never do anything.”

My finger stopped on a worn out book. The faded writing on the spine said
Beasts Of The Wild.
I pulled it out and flipped it open in the middle. There was a drawing of a yeti-looking creature called a yowg. The description gave details of height, size and hair colour. Dietary information and habitats were also included. I flicked through more pages and found more creatures, some of which I was familiar with. The names, at least.

Unfortunately, the book wasn’t organised into alphabetical order, so I had to search a number of pages before I found what I was looking for: Mouse King.

The drawing did not look like the small chap we had encountered. This version of the Mouse King was ripped. Huge muscles, enormous teeth, a body almost as wide as it was tall. What the fuck?

Grayson had seen what we brought in and identified it as the Mouse King. Had he made a mistake? I kept reading.

The author of the book was clearly very enthusiastic about the creatures he wrote about. Everything was described in excruciating depth. Why use one adjective when you can use six? It made for a very slow, boring read as I tried to find an explanation.

He also loved footnotes. Even the footnotes had footnotes. It was in one of these that I finally found my answer. According to the author, the only time the Mouse King was vulnerable was during its mating cycle, when it lost most of its body mass and avoided conflict by remaining hidden with its mate. It also returned to this weakened state after it was killed.

The Mouse King we fought was with a pregnant female, so it matched up with what the book told me. And it also confirmed my own suspicions that we had just got lucky. If we’d encountered it at full strength, it would have torn us to pieces.

“It’s amazing The Avengers were able to kill the Mouse King, isn’t it?” Laney was standing next to me, peering at the open book in my hands.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s very impressive.”

“I know it was you, Colin,” Laney whispered. She had a glint in her eye. “I know you were the ones who killed the Mouse King.”

I thought about denying it, but she didn’t look like she was bluffing. There was no way she would credit me with the kill if she didn’t have some kind of proof. I snapped the book shut.

“How did you find out?”

“I heard you talking to Daddy. I thought you were lying at first, but what’s the point of claiming you did it but not wanting people to know? It didn’t makes sense, at first. But then I remembered this book I read, where the hero pretends to be weak and pathetic, but secretly he has a  special ability. He can change into a giant wolf.” She looked at me expectantly, like I was about to transform before her eyes.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Laney, but I’m not a werewolf. And I’m not pretending to be weak and pathetic, I really am weak and pathetic.”

“Then how did you kill the Mouse King?”

I took out the spike from my belt and showed it to her. “With this. I managed to stab it in the eye. It was very messy, blood and bits of brain everywhere. And screaming, lots of screaming. Mainly by me. So please put any romantic notions about heroes and hidden abilities back in your books where they belong. And don’t talk to anyone about it, either.”

She looked disappointed. “I know how to keep a secret. Even a boring one. Are you sure you aren’t secretly super strong or anything?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Another book caught my eye, this one on swordfighting.

I flicked through the pages. There were lots of diagrams of a man with a big moustache in various poses with a sword. There were a lot of complicated arrows and directions. I closed my eyes and tried to visualise the steps in the book. I hoped the moustache wasn’t compulsory.

“What are you thinking about?” whispered a voice uncomfortably close to my ear. “Are you imagining what you would like do to me if we were alone?”

I opened my eyes and looked around the empty room. “Laney, we
are
alone. And the only thing I’d like is to read this book, and maybe a few more sandwiches.”

The seductive leer—which more closely resembled a baby about to pass wind—fell from Laney’s face, to be replaced by a more age appropriate pout. She snatched the book from my hands.

“I suppose you think you can learn how to use a sword from a book, too,” she said.

“Yep.”

“Idiot. You don’t learn by reading, you learn by doing. Trust me, I’ve been trained in the art of swordsmanship since I was three. There’s no substitute for the real thing.”

“Then teach me,” I said. Yes, she was only thirteen, but I only needed to learn the basics. And I was a lot less likely to get hurt practicing with her than some huge warrior. Or so I thought.

“Why should I? Do you think I have nothing better to do?”

“Because I’m making it my second request.”

She put the book back on the shelf and made a pa-pa-pa noise with her lips as she thought about it. “So you want to be in the same room as me when I have a sword in my hand?”

“I’m relying on you wanting your horse to stay alive more than you want to see me dead.”

She nodded contemplatively. “I just have to make sure you don’t die, right?” Then she smiled, which was terrifying.

The training hall was in a separate building, next to the barracks behind the Palace. Soldiers were working out on gym gear or sparring with weapons when we walked in.

“Everybody out!” yelled Laney. They all stopped what they were doing, put down any equipment, and headed for the door.

“Hurry up! Or do you want to stay here and play dollies with me?”

I don’t know what ‘playing dollies’ consisted of, but you’ve never seen a room clear out so fast. There was genuine fear on the faces of the men who rushed past me. I had visions of burly soldiers being forced to march around a parade ground in frilly dresses and big bows on their heads.

Once they’d gone, Laney went over to a rack of swords and picked out two wooden ones. They didn’t look very fancy, just sticks with hilts.

“Here.” She handed me one. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Without waiting for an answer, she came at me.

In a game, you find the special training master and he teaches you a special move. Seismic Slash! Blade Fury! Leaping Hurricane! And then you go out and one-shot all the mobs.

My little sensei had something else to teach me—pain.

She wasn’t a big girl. Her arms were skinny and nothing about her would indicate she was any stronger than a regular teenage girl, so I didn’t feel too intimidated about getting hit. And the first couple of times, I hardly felt anything.

The tenth time it kind of hurt. By the twentieth hit, I was grimacing with pain. She was just too fast. All I was hitting was air as she smacked my knuckles, my elbows, my thighs—pretty much anywhere she wanted.

“Terrible.” Whack. “Where’s your defence?” Poke. “Block it!” Crack.

Laney did not hold back. The first five minutes were spent beating the crap out of me. She always knew where I was going to aim next, and sidestepped to avoid it, followed by a thwack against my leg or arm. If she’d had a real sword, I’d be cut to pieces.

“Did you really kill the Mouse King? I can’t imagine you hitting anything. You’d probably miss the ground if you fell over.”

I rubbed my arm where I had been pummelled with repeated strokes. “A little instruction might help.”

She rested the end of her sword on the floor. “You don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t know what your opponent is planning. Swordsmanship is about speed and anticipation. You have neither. You don’t even know the basic stances. Your only hope is to learn oops.”

“Oops?”

“Strike me on the head.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I took two steps forward and brought my sword down. She flicked her sword up and swatted mine away to the side. My arm went swinging wide to the right. Leaving me wide open.

“Now you’re out of position and I can do this.” She lunged forward and drove the point of her sword into my stomach, knocking the air out of me.

“Ugh,” I managed to say as I fell on my backside.

“Out of position. O. O. P. Oops. It’s what they teach women and children in case they get into a desperate situation. The way I see it, every situation will be desperate as far as you’re concerned.”

Really? My special move was going to be called ‘oops’?

“Will it really work?” I asked through ragged breaths.

“You aren’t going to beat anyone on pure strength or skill, and as far as stamina, you don’t have any, so your only hope is to get them out of position. But even if you succeed, you’ll have less than a second to strike, so you’ll need what?”

“To be quick?” I said from the floor.

She cracked me on the head with her sword. “Good footwork.” Followed by another teeth-jarring tap on the noggin.

“Ow.” I covered my head with my arms.

She smiled at me. “This isn’t as boring as I thought it would be. Come on, get up. I’ll take you through the basics.”

We went through all the most common opening moves. I copied her to learn them, but my goal was to be able to identify them rather than be able to perform them myself. If I could predict which attack was coming, I could shove it out of the way and go in for the kill. It was a wild and reckless approach, and if I failed to connect I’d be left wide open to my opponent’s follow up.

“So make sure you hit something important,” Laney advised me.

It was difficult. I had zero experience of swordfighting and all the moves looked the same to me. Getting good would take years of training, not a couple of lessons.  Even after she showed me the giveaway signs of my opponent’s intentions, I didn’t have time to read the body language and attack at the same time.

She rained down blow after blow without meeting any resistance from me. “If you can’t tell, then guess. If you get it wrong, you’re dead, but who knows, you might get lucky.”

The next attack, I just guessed and went for it. I guessed right and knocked Laney’s sword to the side. She was so surprised by my success, she hesitated and left her arm where I’d pushed it. Not wanting to miss a golden opportunity, I brought my sword down as hard as I could, smashing it into her other arm.

The Princess screamed, dropping her sword and fell to her knees, clutching her arm.

“Shit, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t—”

“No, that was good.” Her eyes were ablaze and she was grinning like a lunatic. “Again.” She grabbed her sword and stood up.

We went at it over and over. Every time I got a lucky hit it—about one in ten—I’d hit her as hard as I could and her eyes would light up. I figured that although she had been trained by the best, they had probably held back. After all, you don’t want to end up seriously hurting the King’s daughter. I had no such qualms. For the first time in her life someone was treating her as an equal and she seemed to find it invigorating. Either that, or I had knocked her final screw loose.

Of course, when I whiffed, her counterstrikes would leave me reeling. My full out attacks encouraged her to do likewise and she roared with laughter every time I yelled out in pain.

There was some improvement—it’s amazing how pain can sharpen your reflexes and focus the mind—and my hit percentage went up. Two out of ten instead of just one. After about an hour of beating each other into the ground, we both ended up flat on our backs, gasping for air.

“That was fun,” said the Princess, panting. “We should do this again.”
 

I moaned. My whole body ached and throbbed, while the only sign of any real damage on her was a little bleeding from her lip where a wild swing had barely scraped her. Although, she probably had a few bruises under her clothes.

“Sure. Give me a week to recover.”

She sat up, eyes still dancing, but not with her usual madness. She actually seemed happy. “No, tomorrow.”

“Laney, I can hardly move.”

She punched me in the arm. Hard. “Man up, you bitch. You don’t have time to take it slow and steady. Death waits around every corner. You have to get good fast. Tomorrow.” She hit me again. “Tomorrow.”

“Okay, okay. Tomorrow.” I staggered to my feet so she couldn’t hit me again.

“Same time. I’ll leave your name at the gate.” She lay down and stretched like a cat in the sun, her eyes closed and a big smile plastered across her face.

I stumbled out of there and looked around. I only had a rough idea of how to get back and slowly headed into the Palace. I don’t know how long it took, but somehow I found my way back to the waiting area. The Avengers were still sat in the same seats.

“‘Sup,” I said as I shuffled past them, battered and bruised.

“Colin!” called out a voice from behind me.

I turned to see Princess Laney walking towards me.

“You forgot this.” She was holding my belt and sword, which I had taken off when we were practising.

“Thanks.” I took them from her and tried to put the belt on, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

“Let me.” Laney took the belt and put it on around my waist. “Are you going to be all right getting back?”

“Probably not. You could have been a little more gentle on my first time. I can’t even walk straight. How about you? Are you still bleeding?”

“I told you, it’s nothing. If it doesn’t hurt, you didn’t do it right.”

I turned to look at our audience who were staring, open-mouthed. Jenny in particular was glaring at me. I thought about what I had said to the Princess. If you didn’t know what we were talking about, it might sound a little bit sexual.

“It’s not what you think,” I said.

Laney looked up at me. She was still fiddling with my belt buckle. She turned and saw the looks on their faces and then back at where her hands were. She jumped back like she’d been hit by a bolt of electricity.

“Wait, you don’t think that I… With him… Are you people crazy!? With him? I was just showing him how to use his sword.”

I wasn’t sure that made it sound any better. The Avengers just sat there, saying nothing.

“What’s wrong with you people,” she wailed at them. “Disgusting perverts!” She stormed off, turning just before she rounded the corner to point at me. “And you, don’t be late tomorrow. I’m going to give you a licking you won’t forget.”

And then she was gone.

Anything I said would probably only make it sound worse, so I just turned and limped away as quickly as I could.