Chapter 12 - Preparation

Ania and her friends prepare for the most fateful days of their lives.

Ania lifted her bow as she crouched in the underbrush that thickened the forest floor all around her. She knew these woods�"they were the ones she had traveled so long ago with Alliania. She hadn’t been near them for almost six years, but now she was back.

She aimed carefully, sighting down her arrow as her concentration took hold. Everything around her target faded to white, and her focus sharpened one hundredfold. Pulling the hawk feather-fletching of her steel tipped arrow back to her cheek in one swift movement, she checked her sights one final time, and let the arrow fly.

She heard the whistle of the bladed tip as it cut through the air, saw it rotate in the wind, the star-shaped tip on an unstoppable journey toward the neck of her victim.

It hit the magic barrier, stopping just as it hit the uppermost layer of skin. The now harmless arrow falling to the ground, her would-be victim turned to face her, rubbing the growing red spot on the back of his neck.

“Interesting choice, kleide.  Might I ask why you chose that shot?” Sir Alecgorn picked up the arrow, handing it back to her where she stood leaning on her long bow.

“You were a sentry. I had to silence you quickly, and efficiently. The three critical locations of the body are the head, the neck, and the chest or back. If I were to aim at the back of your head, covered by your hood as it was, the arrow would likely have been stopped or slowed by your skull, as well as a potential helmet, causing damage, but not killing you. It is likely that if you did not pass out, you would have screamed, and even if you did pass out, you would have eventually woken up, and I would have had to waste valuable time killing you after you were on the ground.

“Had I aimed for your heart, the spinning motion of the star-tip, and the star-tip itself, would have made it unlikely that it would have made it through the closely placed bones of the rib cage. The back and chest are, once again, places where the strongest armor is likely.  Again, crippling, but not immediately lethal. You would have easily had time to scream before dying of blood loss.

“I chose your neck because it was a clear shot�"even without the other complications, the head and back were compromised locations due to low hanging branches, your cloak, and your bow sheath. There is rarely armor around the neck, as it restricts movement. The seam in the armor combined with the spinning star tip of the arrow made it a weak point in the armor, if there was any to begin with. The only major obstacle in the way of your neck was the spinal column, and because you were standing at a slight angle, I had an uninterrupted line of sight all the way to your wind pipe. Sever that, and there’s no way you’ll scream.”

“Your logic is, as always, calculating and highly accurate, Dativ Kyatei.” At this point, the BowMaster had begun circling his student, all the while talking in a calm, quiet voice. He sounded almost… intrigued.

“But…”�"she was instantly on her guard. What had she forgotten?�"“Even the most accurate shots can improve. You say there are three critical areas?”

She nodded. “Head, neck, and heart.  Blunt force trauma to the head, severing of the wind pipe, puncture wound to the heart or other major organs in the torso�"all will result in death. Range is never optimal for taking out sentries if the goal is stealth. The sound of the body falling will likely attract more enemies, and the shots that will kill swiftly and silently are very difficult to achieve with a ranged weapon. If you wish to take someone out and display your presence but not your exact location, then ranged is the best way to do it. Otherwise, if there is no way to get closer and not compromise your position…” She shrugged.

“All very well, but you have still forgotten one crucial element.” Ania racked her brain, trying to remember. She had a vague idea of what was coming, and it would not be pleasant. “Hmm… what a shame. Most people do forget this, but I did hope…” By now he was standing behind her. She sensed his movements, but they were so small she wasn’t sure what he was doing.  “The thing is, Dativ….

“There are not three critical areas.”

What?

“There are four.”

Oh, no…

“The head…”

Ania tensed, ready to spin…

“The heart…”

Her right foot lifted…

“The neck…”

She tried to step forward, but his iron grip caught her shoulder…

“And…”

She desperately tried to twist away, but it just wouldn’t come free…!

“The kidney.”

She felt his stiffened fingers ram into her lower back, hard as steel rods. Nauseating waves of pain rolled over her, locking every bone in her body as she tried to scream, but it just wouldn’t work…nothing worked…

Sir Alecgorn whispered a few words�"the trigger to a Krystyl around his neck that dispelled pain. Ania staggered from his grasp, gasping and choking on the air that came rushing into her lungs. She fell to her knees, her muscles easing up after what had seemed like an eternity of pain. It had only been a few moments, she knew, but oh, how it had hurt.

Giving her a hand up, Sir Alecgorn began speaking once more in a matter-of-fact voice. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” She shot him a glance as if to say, What do you think?  “Now imagine an arrow there. Or any sharp object.  If you were to shoot him there, your victim wouldn’t be able to scream if his life depended on it. You’ll still have to deal with the sound of the body falling, but it is still a very effective way to silence an enemy.

“You’re choice of shots was not wrong�"I myself have chosen it over all the other shots when in your situation. I just needed to make sure you didn’t forget the kidney. When you sneak up behind someone, slitting their throat will, as a general rule, be the best course of action. But say you are a prisoner, and you need to hide the fact you have a weapon for as long as possible.  It’s the most covert, and even a glancing blow will keep him quiet long enough for you to make the next move. The kidney shot will likely save your life some day.

“Remember this�"vertical flat head arrows, go for the kidney. Horizontal flat heads, the heart or neck, depending on visibility and path obstruction. Star tips, the kidney or neck. This is for stealth. Any other time, a solid shot to the chest or back.”

Nodding in agreement, Ania put the arrow back in her hip quiver and trotted back into the foliage, ready to go at it again.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Randen flew across the yard, leaning forward into the run, his twin long swords trailing behind him. A few feet from his opponent, he turned, the sword in his right hand swinging towards Elyys like a pendulum as he fought the momentum of the left sword, bringing it up over his head to slash along side its twin. Elyys jumped backwards, his broadsword coming up in desperate attempt to block both swords at once. They came to either side of the weak defense, nicking the man’s chest. The magic barrier flashed red�"nonlethal, but it was growing brighter with each hit. The scratches it would let through would not be serious, but it would generate an irritating numbing effect, just as debilitating as an actual wound. A simple wound would flash yellow, while a lethal would flash white.

Elyys staggered, thrusting his sword forward, trying to score a hit. Randen hadn’t expected it, and so he got a nasty blow to the stomach. No matter. The fight would not last long enough for it to cause any trouble.

Randen spun on his heel, lifting his right foot in a kick that would connect a booted heel with the side of Elyys’s face. Or it would have, if Elyys hadn’t correctly evaded it with a rock backwards. This kept him from receiving a nasty bruise that would have rendered him unconscious, but left him open to the real attack. Randen shot in with a double thrust forward that caught Elyys in the chest. On top of his other wounds, the hit produced a blinding white flash.

Standing over the downed opponent, Randen spoke. “My point.”

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

He took careful aim, the red and white stripes of the target filling his vision.  Aimon’s finger rested lightly on the trigger of the specially crafted crossbow, ready to fire at any moment. The six bolts that rested in the thin metal wires hung stiffly below the hard oak straight arm. After the top bolt was sent out, the metal web would pull up the next one. All he had to do was pull back the bracing hammer to let it come into place. His father had designed it. He could fire almost fifteen bolts in a single minute, when a regular crossbow could pull off maybe three. At the most. It was simple. Simple and deadly.

Hearing the quiet, almost silent step behind him, he judged the height and locked onto his sights, and then…

He spun around, catching his opponent with two bolts in the stomach. Just as he had predicted. The sound and length of the step had been smooth and quick�"the enemy was standing upright, and the weight behind it had told him they stood roughly five foot nine. The stomach being halfway to two thirds of the way up the body, he had his target. He could make the calculations for a turnabout shot in his sleep. Another perfect shot, thanks to simple, deductive reasoning. Simple, and deadly.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Echo rose up on her white gelding, Kamon, feet planted firmly on the saddle’s leather, hands keeping her upright with a steady grip on the pommel. Extending her legs and releasing the saddle with one hand, she eyes the branch that was coming at her, not thirty strides away.

Letting go with the other hand ten feet from the branch, she stood up in the saddle and grabbed the out hanging limb. Kicking off from Kamon, she swung up over the branch. At the height of her arc, she adjusted her grip and weight, so she came back down on the same side, but face back towards the rider behind her.

Matya brought her shield up, but Echo’s feet just drove it into her chest. If it weren’t for the magic barrier, the girl’s arm would have been broken, as well as a few ribs. As it were, they would just be very sore. She’d also have some serious bruising on her rear end. As Echo landed on her feet, she nearly winced at the thud produced when Matya hit the ground. She almost felt sorry for her, but that didn’t stop her foot from connecting with the side of Matya’s head.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Lyem brushed down Jimande as Maldeen and Hitame, Aimon’s charcoal grey mare, waited patiently for their turns. Over the years, it had just become generally accepted that Lyem took care of those four’s horses. Kamon was still out with Echo, but she should be in any time now. Right now, it was just him and the horses. Just how he liked it.

“Can you believe it, Ji? She’s almost made it. So close. The Lady would be so proud of her. Mother would, too. Don’t you think?” Jimande looked at him with her liquid black eyes, and he could still see the connection in those eyes. Behind the horse’s eyes, he could clearly see midnight blue ones that shone like sapphires. The Lady’s eyes. Just like his mother’s.

Lyem heaved a sigh, the hole that was left when she had died constricting his breathing, almost like a living organism, a sentient infection. He remembered how she looked when she laughed, when she cried, when she smiled. She and the Lady had been closer than sisters. They had known each other’s thoughts. At times, they had almost been the same person.

But at others they were as different as the rain and the fire. How he missed her…

Lyem thought back to the first memory he had of his mother and the Lady. The Lady had come in first, fired up about something that had happened in training. When his father had come in to say hello, his mother had entered. She picked him up, swinging him around as easily as did his father. He had only been two or three, but that had been the first time he had made the connection that his mother and the Lady were two different people.  They had always before been the same woman.

Glancing up, he saw Ania walking down the street towards him. As he gave Jimande one last quick brush, he whispered, “She’s almost made it, mother. I’ll bet you can see her right now.”

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Ania felt Mya’s foot connect with her chin through the haze of bruising and numbness. If it weren’t for the magic barrier, she knew she would have been unconscious by now. As it was, she wasn’t sure how long she had before her vision went black.

Mya had always been the best at hand to hand, better even than Aimon and Echo. Somehow she could anticipate the moves you were going to make before you made it. Nothing seemed to catch her off guard.

Ania threw punch after punch, sloppy and weak, missing widely each time. She could barely even feel her fingers, let alone form a decent fist.

Getting desperate, Ania spun on her heel, hoping to catch Mya off guard with a kick aimed at her face, but Mya just ducked. When Ania caught her balance after coming to a shaky stop, she threw out her hand, the heel of her palm leading straight for Mya’s sternum. Surely, surely this one had to connect…

Mya bent to the side, Ania hand sailing past harmlessly. She grabbed the hand, also placing her other hand under Ania’s upper arm. Ducking under it and using the arm as a lever, she flipped Ania over her own arm, wrenching the shoulder painfully.

But not as painful as the explosion of red hot agony that shot from the back of her head when she landed hard on one of the few stone slabs in the training yard. She saw white light flash around her, and vaguely felt the cheap kick Mya got in to the side of her head before the older Knight who had been monitoring the fight came running over, and Ania finally lost touch with consciousness.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Randen let out a scream of frustration as he narrowly escaped being decapitated.  Guiding Maldeen with his knees and keeping his balance with a hand to the pommel, he raised his massive great sword up over his head, then brought it down hard on Cora, a girl whose father had been the general of the Royal Cavalry for the past twenty years. She parried it easily, her twin sabers making light work of his would-be killing stroke. A jab to his ribs produced a red flash, steadily growing brighter each time she scored a hit. A few more minutes of this and he’d “die” of blood loss and trauma.

Suddenly, Cora’s horse Companion reared up, kicking up dirt and grass up into his eyes. Covering his face, he managed to deflect most of it, but it was still a few moments before his vision was cleared.

A few moments too long.

He felt Cora’s blades ram into his chest, feeling more like blunt objects that set off reactions of muted, numbing pain than actual swords. The force of the blow threw him from the saddle, landing none-too-gently on the hard ground. The white flash dissipated quickly, taking the brunt of the pain with it, but the rest of it lingered uncomfortably.

Using his magic to eat of the remaining pain, Randen leapt back up onto Maldeen, and let out a growl that he was sure sounded much like Hakem’s just before the kill.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Aimon ducked under the arm with ease, stabbing out with his long knife, and tried to get in at his opponent’s weaknesses.

The problem was, she didn’t seem to have any.

Matya moved around him as if she was dancing, making it seem like she was born fighting close range. She had two needle-tip daggers that drew blood at the slightest touch, and she always seemed two steps ahead of him. He had fought her other times�"turnabout shooting, hand to hand combat, horseback melee�"that kind of thing. He had always come out on top. But this…It was as if all the skill she lacked in other styles was channeled into this.

Ducking and weaving, Aimon was forced to stay on the defensive. Any opening he found was too small to press. She was backing him into a corner, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.

With his back against the wall�"both figuratively and literally �"Aimon finally saw something that gave him hope.

Every third strike, her swing went wide for just a moment, leaving her torso�"and the vital organs in it�"exposed for a few seconds.

Taking a few more blows to be sure of the pattern, he held his long knife firmly and drove it for her stomach.

Only to find it suddenly reversed as Matya twisted his hand around and used his own momentum against him, driving a foot of steel into his gut.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Another wave, another miss, another white flash.

Echo heaved a sigh as she picked up the knife that had made it through her defenses this time. It had come in from the side, hitting her in the waist. What was going on? For the past week, all that had happened was she missed a dagger or an arrow or a magic projectile of some kind. At first it had always been to her back, but lately it had wandered around her body, nevermore than once for each wave.

Throwing the knife back to its owner in the bushes, Echo ran through the exercise in her mind. The whistle blows, every object thrown at once. Waiting until they were five feet away, she would then rock back to give the swing of her arms the proper momentum. She would bring her arms out, all the way around her. It would be like opening a flood gate of magic. The magic would start strong, but it grew a little weaker as she reached the end of the circle.

Lately she had experimented with other ways of releasing the magic. Today she had spun on the spot, letting her arms trail behind her, the repelling magic throwing each of the projectiles back to thud into the enemies’ chest.

Except for one.

One would always get through, and it was always…

Always at the end of the circle, where the magic was weakest.

Echo thought desperately, wanting to discover the answer before the next wave.

She always released the magic by opening her arms in some way. Why? Up until this point, she had always dealt with a single object, and opening her arms concentrated the magic to a specific area.

What if there was a way…to let it out form a central point, letting it out like a ripple with no weak points?

When she released the magic, she would first let it tingle down her arms and when the time came, she just…let it out.

She heard the first whistle, the one telling the enemies to ready their weapons. She brought up the magic, but instead of letting it ride down her arms, she kept a tight hold on it forcing it to stay in her chest.

The second whistle sounded and the weapons were released. She waited, letting them come in a little closer this time, and when they reached the appointed place, she broke down the mental walls barring her magic

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Lyem walked into Yssa’s shop, the sack that was slung over his shoulder causing him to stoop slightly. The blacksmith looked up from where he sat etching a design into a curved long knife. The bulky man’s sweet wife, Ilysi, smiled at Lyem from where she was as she put the finishing touches on a leather belt.

“Yssa, Ilysi.” They both nodded, giving greetings of their own. “The latest group of Dativs is to be tested this coming month.” Again, both gave nods. Everyone in the Outer Compound knew. “One in particular I am sure you have heard of. Ania Kyatei, the… niece of Lady Alliania.” They gave him sharp looks that clearly said, Of course. What of it? Everyone in the Compound, both Inner and Outer, knew of Ania. They had all come to know her easy smile, her strange Companion, and her kind heart. They had also come to feel very protective of the sweet young woman. Lyem took a breath, hardly believing the time had come at last. “She’ll be needing the armor.”

Yssa’s eyes widened. Gesturing to the sack, he said, “Is that… hers?”

Lyem nodded. “Ania’s measurements differ only slightly. Ilysi, you know them, yes?” The blonde woman nodded. “The ceremony is on the night of the new moon. You’ll have it ready by then?”

They both nodded. They would have the Legacy Armor ready for its newest Lady on the night she became one of them.

 

.:*:.:*:.:*:.

 

Randen sat underneath the one of the garden’s many trees, relishing in the few moments of calm between the rigorous training sessions. For the past seven months, he had barely had time to breathe without having to having to dodge an attack or study some magical theory.

Looking up, he saw Ania walking towards him. He had seen very little of any of his friends aside from meal times and the occasional training session. The upside of that was that Skaught hadn’t had a chance to see her either.

She all but collapsed onto him when she sat down, saying nothing as she let the tension of another day eek out of her.

Aimon and Echo weren’t far behind her, their legs more disintegrating than actually sitting down. Silence pervaded the air for the next several moments as they let their bodies relax for what seemed the first time in months.

When they again had the energy, they turned to one another. “I guess this is it.” Aimon said in a quiet, brooding voice. “What we came here to do. It’s almost ours.”

“It feels almost unreal, like this is all a dream. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll suddenly wake up, and I’ll be twelve years old again, hiding in my room because my mother was angry at something I had said about the Knights.”

“At least that way you could come back.” Echo’s voice was barely above a whisper. “The fantasy would still be there, would be there forever. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t have come here.  This has become my life, not just my life style.”

Randen nodded. “I guess I had it easier than the rest of you. I was already a little bit a part of the Knights, already known here. My mother was all for me becoming a Knight. But I’m like Ania. I’m afraid I’ll wake up, but not as a twelve or thirteen year old. I’ll wake up as I am. I’ll wake up having broken my promise.”

Ania reached over and gave him a quick hug, and then put her hand out. “Here’s to sticking with it.” They all followed suit, placing their hands on top of hers. Glancing up at the moonless sky, Ania whispered, “One month from now, we’ll have done it. I’ll have done it, Aunt Alliania. I’ll be a Knight.”