Authors: Scott V. Duff
“I’m pretty sure I saw more than a hundred brownies in the first caravan alone,” Richard said, leading us through the back serving line and into the main room of the hall.
“Yeah,” I said, laughing lightly. “And what they were carrying had to be gathered by the sprites in the field. They may be fast, but not that fast. Jimmy must be allowing it or they wouldn’t be doing it and I’m gonna have to let them earn their keep some time.” We did a lot of smiling and nodding in acknowledgment at the men and few women we passed on the way to the sparring rings where Jimmy waited and watched. “You know, all the men are pretty happy, too. What’s up with that?”
“I’m not sure,” Richard said. “But I have to admit the jog down the Road left me exhilarated. Maybe that combined with the emotional state the brownies are putting out is affecting the soldiers.”
He shrugged noncommittally at his suggestion as we entered the gym, for lack of a better word. This was definitely a military facility and its workout area showed that inclination. Blunted practice swords of both wood and metal lining a section of a far wall. Blunt-tipped arrows and bolts filled another small section above targets of various sizes and shapes and practice figures of differing forms, both humanoid and not. The entire far wall was one kind of practice weapon or shield of some kind. I realized that this was the same basic premise as my workout room down to the mirrored wall, except my weapons weren’t exactly for practice.
We stood at the door for a moment before plunging into the melee. I headed for a spot slightly off center of the room, where Jimmy’s aura shined brightly above everyone else’s. As we pressed through the mass of groaning and grunting men, the one common factor was that they were having fun. Just as Ellorn had said, they were playing. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.
Jimmy faced us when we were ten feet away, smiling and glowing in Gilán’s blue tint. “Lord Daybreak,” he said with a short bow, elbowing Byrnes in the side to follow suit. Once greetings were done and out of the way, he waved a hand round the room and said, “Everyone seems to be adapting well for the moment and you know the situation in the kitchen.” Byrnes scrunched his face in question at Jimmy, confused by the statement.
“What are you watching?” I asked Jimmy, ignoring Byrnes’ look. They’d either figure this stuff out or not, but I couldn’t keep explaining it to them.
“They fancy themselves as experts at medieval weaponry,” Jimmy said. “So they’re showing me what they got in hopes of challenging me.” He grinned at me as he said it.
“You’d kill ‘em. You can’t do that,” I objected mildly. Gilán would keep him safe against them.
“I know, but I have learned a thing or two by watching them,” Jimmy said in appreciation of their skills. “The two in the middle are pretty good.”
“Come on, First! It’s just sparring!” called one of the men on the mats. His opponent was on the floor heaving for breath, tired and worn out.
“Yeah, but one mis-timed swing and your head is bouncing off the ceiling!” Jimmy yelled back, laughing at the man.
“And re-attaching heads is outside of my skill set,” I added with equal joviality.
“Well, why don’t you show them what you mean? You and Jimmy spar for a few minutes,” Richard suggested slyly.
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“Why not?” Richard asked. “He needs some practice and it would show everyone here a little about how elves actually fight. And frankly, who else is there for either one of you?”
“Kieran, Ethan, and Peter come immediately to mind,” I said. “But that’s a reasonably valid point.” Looking at Jimmy, I could see the eagerness in him, not to fight so much as to just move. I could relate to that. “Okay.”
The shouts shocked me, I admit. Thirty to forty men yelling “hurrah” will do that. I reached into my armory, into the section of staffs, and selected a shimmering blue rod that promised similar strength to the one Jimmy carried. He pulled his truncheon loose from its holster and with a casual flip of his wrist, formed it into a full-sized quarterstaff of alabaster wood. We moved uneasily into position on the mats, eyeing the edges as close to a hundred men pressed in on the sides to watch. We both came to the same conclusion.
“We need more room,” Jimmy said, standing up straight out of his defensive crouch.
“Yeah,” I agreed. Turning to the corner of the mat and facing the two walls of men, I started waving the men back, pushing until we had seventy feet to a side. Reviewing the field quickly, I joined Jimmy at the center of the ring, noticing that we were gathering more spectators with time. All other activities stopped and more men and women poured in, entering from the pools and bunkrooms. The Deas flew excitedly over the heads of all, making a beeline for us.
“You guys wanna keep score?” Jimmy asked.
“You think you’ll score on him?” Deacon asked skeptically, sending Deason into chittering laughter that turned into a roar in the men around us.
“Shall we begin?” I asked him while the noise levels were still high. If we waited, we’d be here all night.
“Certainly,” he answered, bringing his rod up to match mine. When the staffs touched, the blue flames of Jimmy’s power erupted, wrapping him protectively in their energy. Good, I grinned, driving the bottom of my staff forward at his left shin for the first shot, tagging him once. Then I had to move. He was swinging his rod straight down on me with his right, his low guard. A simple twist turned me out of that path when the pain of my blow finally hit him.
“Point to Daybreak!” Deason squealed loudly.
“You’ll have to move faster than that, First,” I taunted him, twirling my staff on my arm several feet away while Jimmy hopped on one foot, holding his shin.
Grinning, he planted his feet and twirled his staff in both hands. Then we advanced on each other in the classic staff fighter’s pose and traded blows, slowly at first then with increasing quickness. The clatter of the staves could have been machine driven, it was that constant and repetitious. We ranged the entire floor, too, thrusting through each other’s defenses only to be parried and met by the other.
Once I had him penned into a corner, though, he got more sophisticated. Jimmy shrunk his staff suddenly and threw it at me. I turned to avoid the projectile, following its path to the far side of the ring. Jimmy leapt at me, slamming his shoulder into my side and knocking me over. The Road pulsed outside the barracks and Jimmy poured on the speed, catching his truncheon eight inches away from the ruddy face of a wrestler watching at the edge of the mats. Hoots and grunts of approval at the display rocked through the room in heavy bass.
Rolling through his tackle, I came up and ran to the unoccupied corner, watching Jimmy as his Road-driven speed dwindled. He knew, though. He could catch me if he was fast enough, but he didn’t pull the Road again—that would be cheating. Instead, he lengthened his staff. Jimmy would tag me before I could bring my staff around to block. If I was going where he thought I was going, anyway.
Jimmy shifted his weight in the run and bore down harder at me, dropping the staff down to swing like a bat. I shoved the butt of mine into the floor and leapt up, using the rod as a lever to throw me to the ceiling. Turning in the air and swinging the staff at right angles, I pushed off of the ceiling just as Jimmy’s swing pulled him through the space I would have been. Landing in virtually the same spot I leapt from, I swept my staff through a half-circle behind Jimmy, catching him behind the knees and sending him falling onto his back.
“Point Daybreak!” cried Deason and the room roared louder than the first time. Jimmy pulled his legs to his chest and jumped straight up to standing, one of those moves you only see in the movies. I grinned and moved back to the center of the ring. I’d give him another chance, but we were both breathing hard now and sweating pretty good and having fun. It was contagious.
We met in the middle of the ring again, trading a furious barrage of thrusts and parries, driving each other around and I was glad I increased the size of the ring. We’d been at this for a minute—a very long time when you’re moving this fast—when Jimmy once again got more sophisticated in his attacks. First, he broke his staff into two pieces, swinging them like clubs in separate directions, both in on me. So I went in on him.
Taking advantage of the slight lurch in Jimmy’s momentum as he changed his direction on one side of his body, I brought my momentum into the staff, twisting around the pole and inside Jimmy’s guard. His newly split sticks hit my staff on the outside, missing me completely. Throwing a hard elbow into his chest, I sent Jimmy flying backward fifteen feet or so. His breath and his sticks stayed with me, though. I reached back and lightly tapped his leg with my rod.
“Point and match to Daybreak!” Deason squealed. The room erupted again. I felt like I was at the Arena again, for a split second. The men surrounded Jimmy in seconds, consoling him and helping him to his feet. Deason and Deacon buzzed in circles overhead, watching protectively over him. The camaraderie Jimmy gained from this was good for him, especially considering how badly his ego was pummeled over that last few months.
Major Byrnes yelled something to me, reaching out to shake my hand. I couldn’t hear him, but shook anyway, then pointed to the hall leading to the locker rooms. Sending my staff back to my armory, I picked up Jimmy’s truncheon off the floor. It had reformed itself from the split staff. He’d come for it once he extricated himself, knowing that I had it. Anyone else who touched it without permission would receive quite a shocking experience. Magical weapons were particular that way.
“Jimmy was better than I expected,” I said once we were in the relative quiet of the hallway. “He almost had me twice.” Mike snickered at me while Richard laughed outright.
“It was an amazing fight! That’s for sure,” Major Byrnes said, awed and shaking his head. “I couldn’t follow most of the blows, the two of you were moving so fast at times. Simply amazing.”
“You should see him when he’s actually trying to kill something,” Mike said to Byrnes, using his amused, airy posh accent.
“Mike, quit scaring Major Byrnes,” I said lightly.
Byrnes snorted. “I’m already afraid of you.”
Richard and Mike laughed at his admission as Jimmy pushed on Gilán’s aura around him briefly. It kicked the flames on his skin higher and brighter and pushed the closest men back. He started through the crowd after us slowly, enjoying the accolades they gave him but feeling them unwarranted. I sat on the first bench we came to, still breathing hard.
“Are we alone in here?” I asked looking back into the room, then sending my senses further out. “Huh, yep. Except for the kitchen staff, everyone is in the gym right now. Over three hundred and fifty people wanted to watch Jimmy and me spar for, what, eight, nine minutes?”
“If you can call seeing those blurs watching…” Richard said amused. Mike was still chuckling from before.
“It was like a bloody railway yard, clackety-clackety,” Mike said, laying on the bench behind me and laughing again.
“I’d say you were easily amused, but that was a lot of work!” Jimmy complained as he walked in.
“You did very well, First,” I said, tossing his stick to him casually. He caught it with easy grace and snapped it into its case. “You surprised me twice.”
“Thank you, Seth, that means a lot,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, ya’ did,” Mike agreed, nodding. “And if ya’ think about it, against somebody else, you wouldn’t have pulled your punches or limited yourself to that field or weapon. Course, neither would he.”
Richard laughed. “You had a chance to hit your boss and you pulled your punches? Dude, we gotta talk!” ‘Dude’? From Richard?
“Did you learn anything from him?” Mike asked Jimmy.
“A few things,” Jimmy answered. Turning to me, he asked, “You jumped off the ceiling?”
“I needed a little extra speed,” I said, shrugging and grinning. “Major, the Mess has fresh fruits and vegetables available as well as a large supply of something the government calls a ‘Meal Ready to Eat.’ Somehow I doubt the veracity of the name.”
“They’re not that bad,” muttered Byrnes, his face not quite a grimace and not quite a smile.
“Where is everybody?” Richard asked leaning over slightly to look up the hall.
I glanced through the walls and saw Deason and Deacon flying in lazy circles in front of the passageway. Roughly thirty men and six women milled around nearby, talking amicably and waiting. “Hey, guys,” I called out loudly, “thanks for guarding the door. You can let them in now.”
The fairies whistled sharply across the gym and announced the locker rooms and showers were again available, then flew down the hall to us. They split up when they found us, Deacon taking a wide swing to my side and Deason swinging to Jimmy’s. They hovered over our right shoulders while the men flowed into the locker rooms to shower and change into their limited clothing. Everyone acknowledged us with a nod and a smile but kept moving without a word.
“Did you say both caravans were back?” Jimmy asked once the parade dwindled to nothing. Accepting my nod as a ‘yes,’ he continued, “Then Steve and David should have a more complete supply list ready now. It’s… surprisingly short, in a long sort of way.”
Mike and I laughed at him. “That doesn’t make any sense, Jimmy,” I said, laughing all the way through the statement.