talented as James, they managed to hold their own. Jason plunged his sword into the side of his opponent, but he was too slow to pull it back out of the man. I screamed when another warrior swung an axe at Jason’s head, ruffling his hair as the blade barely missed.
Jason ducked and rolled across the ground as if he’d done it a million times before. He picked up a saber off one of the fallen corpses and raised it just in time to block a strike to his shoulder.
A second warrior rushed Jason from behind, and before I could take a step to help, a flash of silver shot past me. The warrior grasped at his throat as blood shot through his fingers, and I glimpsed one of the twins’ throwing stars lodged within his carotid artery. I glanced back to see Mason give me a grin as he held up another one of the stars that I’d given him for Christmas. Mason spun around and threw it at a warrior painted in blue before a Roman rushed him, and he had to raise his sword again.
“They left you undefended,” a deep voice chuckled behind me.
I spun around quickly and fought to catch my balance when my right foot slid on grass slick with blood and other things I didn’t want to think about. The man who’d spoken was huge – even larger than Cody. He was carrying a battle-axe that would have no problem cleaving me completely in half, and he was giving me a bloodthirsty look.
I raised my chin and held the knife the way James had shown me during one of our fighting lessons. Keep your body loose, be ready to move in any direction. James’ words floated to me from one of my memories, and I got ready to meet an attack.
The huge warrior hefted his battle-axe, and with a cry, raced toward me.
I’d like to say that I stood strong and bravely faced down a guy twice my size. If this were a movie, I’d probably do some slick move like twirl around him and then slice his ankle with my tiny knife. But I didn’t do any of those things. I took one look at the three hundred pounds of man and weapon rushing toward me like a bull out for the kill, and I ran.
I darted behind a boulder that was about waist high, and my opponent smiled as he stopped on the other side. I kept the boulder between us as he tried to stalk toward me, the two of us circling around the rock in the middle.
“You can’t escape,” he said with a frown. “Face me.”
“Like a man?” I said sarcastically.
“Like you deserve to pass through us,” he corrected me. “I tire of this existence, but I will do my best to slaughter you, just like I have every other who has come to this place. It’s my sacred duty.”
I took a deep breath and stopped moving, holding my pitiful knife up as if that had any chance of stopping him from hacking me apart. He rushed toward me, raising the axe as he went.
I saw my death in his eyes. I knew he thought it would take only one strike to eliminate me from this world. However, I wasn’t willing to go down that easily. When he charged toward me, I waited until the last moment to avoid his strike. The disadvantage of using a huge, heavy weapon was that once you swung it with all your strength, it wasn’t easy to change its trajectory.
His axe clipped my shirt as I moved, but it didn’t touch my flesh. It hit the boulder between us with a clang, and before he could pick it back up to swing at me again, I lunged for him. My knife sank into his armpit, right where there was a gap in his chain mail. He needed both arms to swing that monstrosity efficiently, and my intention was to make that impossible.
The warrior hissed as my blade sank into his flesh, and he moved away from me quicker than I’d expected. He dropped his axe and reached for my throat with both hands. I avoided his grasp and turned in an attempt to try to outrun him, but he grabbed me by the hair.
He yanked me toward him with one arm and then wrapped the other around my neck, choking the life out of me. Luckily, he went for an arm-bar strangle instead of