Murder of Crows (Book One of The Icarus Trilogy) (31 page)

“What in the bloody hell are you doing out here?”  Jenkins’ eye twitched and he turned his head to see the interloper.  Norris was approaching from the doorway of the barracks and he had his hands on his hips.  The young Crow turned his eyes back to the clouds.

“Stargazing.”  He could hear Norris laughing from a closer position.

“You’re daft.  I like it.”  Jenkins turned back to face the soldier and lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, what in the bloody hell are
you
doing out here, Norris?” Jenkins asked, adopting the Englishman’s words.

“Eh, I gotta get rid of some energy.  Abrams is busy talking to her sister or something so she didn’t want to spar.  Women, right?  Problem is I still have this fuckin’ adrenaline boost from the shooting yard so I have to do something.  Thought I would get some shadow-boxing in.  Make a right show of it,” the flame-haired man said before launching into a flurry of blows against an invisible opponent.  Jenkins smiled at the jester.  If nothing else the soldier was a source of entertainment.

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Jenkins said before turning to look back at the sky.  “I’m sure I can stargaze while you pretend-fight.”  Norris stopped jabbing at the air and put his hands back on his hips.

“Ey, you prick,” he said before Jenkins turned back to look at him.  Norris put on a wide grin and gestured his hands towards his chest.  “Why don’t we have a go at it?  Let’s see what you got.” He said before jumping from side to side and changing stances.  Jenkins laughed and looked back at the ceiling of clouds.

“Nah, I don’t think so.  I got enough of that in training.  It isn’t too handy in the field.”  Norris tilted his head and rolled his eyes at the soldier.  He could tell that Jenkins was desperately in need of some mindless fun.  Norris was going to have to teach the young Crow.

“Oh, c’mon.  Abrams and me don’t do it because we need the skills.  We do it because it’s
fun
.  Or at least it is for me.  No telling what that slag is thinking,” Norris said before lifting his arms above his head to stretch.  Jenkins looked at his comrade and gave him a confused grin.

“You speak so fondly of your girlfriend.”  Norris looked at him and scoffed.

“Not my girlfriend, mate.  Sometimes we use each other.  All it is.  Now get up; I’m gonna kick your ass for a bit.”  Jenkins shook his head and sat up on the bench.  Norris was grinning and bouncing around in the dirt and Jenkins had to wonder how the man was able to be so happy.  Jenkins wondered what they had done to his brain to make that happen; he had heard the whispers about Norris.  The man was ridiculous, but Jenkins figured that he could do with a dose of levity and picked himself up from the weight bench.  The Englishman gave him an infectious smile and Jenkins couldn’t help but join him.

“So, is this just bare knuckle?  How are we going about this?” Jenkins asked.  He’d never actually watched the two Crows going at it.  It felt awkward watching Abrams and Norris doing anything.  The Englishman gave the young Crow a skeptical look and then rolled his eyes.

“You’re a special one, aren’t you?  Bare knuckle hurts like hell if you do it right.  We have pads over there, rookie.”  Norris turned and walked towards the equipment stack and pulled out two sets of shin pads and light gloves.  Jenkins walked over to the Englishman and grabbed the gloves.  They were light pieces of leather and plastic; they wouldn’t do much to stop any damage.  Jenkins gave the other soldier a quizzical look and waved around the gloves.

“These are supposed to help?”  Norris gave him a wicked smile as he slipped on his set of shin guards.

“Supposed to; the gloves are really just for show.  Don’t want bloody knuckles, do you?  The shin pads you’re gonna want for sure.  Get it all on, ya pansy,” Norris said before dancing away and shadow boxing a few meters from the stack of equipment.  Jenkins shrugged and slipped the shin pads onto his legs.  They were a bit loose, so he did his best to tighten the straps, though it didn’t seem to be working out.  Norris looked over and scoffed at the display.

“Yeah, that’s the problem with those ‘one-size-fits-all’ pieces of shit.  Wouldn’t mind speaking with the tossers who thought they were a good idea.  Hurry up,” Norris said before breathing in deep and staring at the sky.  Jenkins wondered if he was going to regret all of this as he forced his hands into the gloves, which seemed to barely fit.  He stood up and walked towards the ridiculous jester in front of him.  Norris cocked his head and winked at the soldier.

“One word for you, soldier, and that’s pretty.  You ready for this?”  Norris punctuated the question by raising his fists to the sides of his face.  Jenkins looked at the man and shrugged before getting into his boxing stance.

“Pretty sure.”

“See, the correct answer was ‘no,’” Norris said before he abandoned his stance and leapt at the young soldier.  Jenkins was barely able to react as Norris launched his right fist at the young Crow’s face.  Jenkins twisted towards the side and let the Englishman’s hand sail past his head, feeling grateful, but for half a moment Jenkins was able to see the gleeful smile stretching across Norris’ face.  Then the lithe soldier planted his foot and twisted his body to force his knee into Jenkins’ unguarded midsection.  The young soldier couldn’t help but let all the air out of his lungs.  He fell down to the ground and panicked, thinking that Norris was going to attack him again, and instinctively brought his arms up to his chest to ward off any incoming blows.

But they never came.

“So that’s ‘pretty sure,’ eh?  C’mon, get back up,” Jenkins heard Norris speaking from a meter away and let his arms fall to his sides as he sat up.  The jester was still bouncing around and striking at the air.  Jenkins grunted as he realized that he really wanted to bring the man down a peg.  The young Crow picked himself up and brought up his hands to his face once more.  He was glaring at the man when Norris finally turned his attention back to his comrade.

“So you ready, newbie?”  Jenkins clenched his fists and heard the leather creaking in between his fingers.

“I’m sure.”

“Good,” Norris said while letting another smile crease his face, “but I still don’t believe you.”  Norris jumped forward again and Jenkins wondered how the man would attack this time.  The jester closed the gap and let fly a number of crosses which Jenkins was able to dodge or parry easily.  Norris then threw a left hook which sank into Jenkins’ ribcage and the young Crow knew he was in trouble.  Norris backed up a pace and then launched his right leg into a devastating round kick aimed for Jenkins’ upper leg.  Jenkins had seen the combination before in New Chicago and knew that he didn’t want to be hit.

The slave soldier forced himself through the pain and stepped into the strike, catching only a fraction of the blow.  The Englishman hadn’t been expecting it and was caught off-guard when Jenkins grabbed at the jester’s collar with his left and threw a cross with his right.  It wasn’t enough to do any serious damage, but it was enough to shock the man into reconsidering Jenkins’ abilities.  They held each other in the clinch for a split-second before they pushed off each other and started to circle around clockwise.  Norris was still smiling, even with his newly-developed fat lip.

“I guess ‘sure’ will be good enough.  C’mon then,” he said before he closed the distance with a proper stance.  He wasn’t going to attack wildly anymore; now the fight was interesting.  Jenkins threw a couple of jabs that Norris easily avoided and he was able to step out of the way of one of Norris’ more complicated combinations.  They were testing each other now; they were realizing each other’s boundaries. 

They traded blows for a time and neither side had a complete advantage.  For every powerful hook that Jenkins delivered into Norris’ face, the elder soldier threw a few uppercuts.  For every kick that Jenkins aimed towards the Englishman’s legs that caught empty air, the older soldier spent just as much energy attacking the spots where Jenkins used to be.  The blows were doing little to stop the soldiers but after every strike each man used up more and more energy.  After a few minutes their movement became sluggish; the strikes that hit solid flesh were not nearly as strong as they could have been.

Jenkins’ chest was heaving from the efforts and he was drenched in sweat.  Even the training he had to go through after every resurrection was nothing to those five furious minutes with the Englishman.  He knew for certain that Norris was in the same boat, but it would have been difficult to tell from his face.  The smile with which he had begun the match was still twisting the jester’s appearance.  Jenkins wondered if Norris was legitimately enjoying himself or whether it was some side effect of the rumored behavioral conditioning.  He wanted to know what was going on in the man’s brain.

“You got some fight in you, mate.  We might have to do this more often.  Abrams is always a good challenge, but we pugilists always need something new,” he said, pausing between every other word to gasp in air.  Jenkins was grateful that the man sounded like he was tired, at least.  He didn’t have to hope that they were on the same level.  “So do you want to end this?”  Jenkins looked at the soldier and lowered his fists slightly.  He hadn’t expected the sparring session to end so soon; Norris and Abrams always fought for at least half an hour.  He felt slightly offended that Norris would offer the olive branch after only one round.

“It’s a bit early, don’t you think?  Are you ready to call it quits?”  Jenkins realized he didn’t care either way, but he was leaving it up to the Englishman, who started weakly laughing.

“Not at all, Jenkins.  Just thought we’d speed this up and have a victor.  We’ll just go extra hard, eh?”  Jenkins' heart sank as he realized that Norris was going easy on him.  He raised his hands just as Norris decided to rush forward and unleashed a flurry of attacks.  The Englishman seemed to be impossibly fast and even the strikes that Jenkins was able to block hurt like hell.  Jenkins realized he was completely out of his comfort zone and started panicking. 

As he tried to evade the incoming blows he noticed that Norris had let the smile drop from his appearance.  The soldier’s face was grim and without joy.  That’s when Jenkins realized that the man could really kill him without caring.  The empathy and good nature had disappeared from the man and a killing machine was slamming his fists and legs into Jenkins.  It seemed like the rumors were right about the jester’s conditioning.

Jenkins parried a strike from Norris’ left arm and noticed that another one was coming from his right.  He ducked underneath the wild hook and jabbed quickly at Norris’ exposed ribcage.  It was enough to distract and delay the Englishman and Jenkins took the opportunity to strafe around to the man’s side and started whaling on the man’s body.  The young Crow slammed his fists into the man’s midsection twice before attempting to sweep the Englishman’s legs with a low round kick.  He didn’t notice until it was too late that he had left his guard down and that a left hook was coming over his shoulder.

Jenkins staggered as he reeled from the blow.  Blackness was creeping into his field of vision and he was finding it difficult to think.  The young Crow wasn’t able to regain his balance and fell to his knees.  Jenkins knew that he had to do something and looked around in time to see Norris’ fist swinging around from his right.  He felt an explosion of pain in his nose and knew that it was broken. 

The young Crow felt the warmth of his blood flowing from his nostrils and wondered if it would be an easy fix.  He was disoriented from the strike and looked back to where he had last seen Norris.  He didn’t see the man, but Jenkins felt it when the Englishman’s shin slammed against the side of his head.  The darkness swept in from the outer reaches of his vision and covered everything.

-

“Sorry, mate, kinda lost control there after you hit me.  You ok?”  Jenkins groaned as he tried to remember what happened.  He blinked a few times before his vision stopped being so blurry and he could see Norris hunkered down on his knees next to him.  The young Crow noticed the pain in the center of his face soon after and brought up his hand to feel the damage.  He hovered over his nose for a while before mustering the courage to endure the pain the small touch would bring.

Jenkins didn’t touch it right away; his nose wasn’t where it was supposed to be.  He let his hand drift to the left side of his face and instantly regretted it as the pain shocked him.  Norris had done a number on the appendage and Jenkins started to hold a grudge against the man.  The young Crow sat up and turned to face the Englishman who was pursing his lips.

“I’m sorry, buddy boy.  Real contrite.  I got so into it that I forgot it was just a friendly sparring match.”  Jenkins glared at him but was too distracted by the pain in his face to continue being angry.  There was plenty of time for that later.  Now he had to get to the clinic.

“Neeb do see da docder.”  Jenkins was going to get much more frustrated if this is how he’d have to talk for the next half hour.  Norris shook his head and sighed.

“They’re not going to do anything special just for something like this, rookie.  We gotta fix this one ourselves.”  Jenkins slowly turned his head back to face the soldier and let the glare stay there.  The throbbing in his nose wasn’t going to be enough to distract him this time.

“Wha do you meen?”

“I’m going to set it for you.”  Jenkins furrowed his brow and regretted it.  There was too much connected tissue in that area and it set off another flash of pain.

“I cat see docder?”  Jenkins was more than just furious at this point.  Norris shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck while looking at the floor.  Jenkins could tell the man regretted it and that was a small comfort.  At least he felt bad about it. 

“Thing is they wouldn’t do anything different than what I’m about to do.  It’s not exactly like it needs to heal right; you just need to stop bleeding until the next game.  100 percent probability you’re gonna get a new nose at some point, so why fix it right?  I’m real sorry about that,” Norris said before he kneeled down on the ground next to Jenkins.  The young Crow started to hyperventilate, which aggravated the pain in the center of his face, but after a few moments he willed himself to breathe normally before looking at his compatriot.