react in time.
But, again, something makes me move at the last possible moment, avoiding a strike that would have shattered my bones.
And so, we engage in our deadly dance in earnest.
In the midst of battle, I can hear other people gathering around, the buildup of collective breaths, more than a dozen.
Cloud’s style is very different from Valerius’. He is fluid and graceful, as if he is one with the air. He doesn’t seem to use much force, as if he can harness and master every particle of qi or energy around him. But his strikes are no less impactful, though they are aimed more to maim than to kill, unlike Valerius.
“Stop holding back,” I grit out, and step up my own pace.
“That was never my intention,” Cloud returns, and I am pleased to hear that his breathing is not entirely even.
In a move I would never have anticipated even if I still retained my sight, the warrior leaps up as if he had wings and whirls the staff like a furiously spinning windmill.
Somehow, I am not certain how, I duck and roll just in time, holding my staff out to meet his just as he smashes it straight down at my head like the split of lightning from a stormy sky.
The jarring force of the impact drives me to one knee, and the reinforced steel rod caves inward inches from my forehead, protecting my skull from being split open like a watermelon. If I had not reacted when I did, my entire body would probably be pounded into the floor of the training hall in a heap of blood and broken bones.
I know Cloud has the skills to pull back just enough at the last second. But he didn’t pull back just then. I was able to answer his lethal strike on my own merits.
Nevertheless, he won this round, and we both know it. Had we been on a real battlefield, he would have swung his staff immediately after the last strike to smash my torso in.
“Yield,” he calls out, standing a few feet away again, his staff retracted.
“Aye,” I answer, and rise to my feet.
Distantly, I hear the clapping and cheering from our impromptu audience before they disperse again to return to their own training.
“You must teach me those moves,” I say to the warrior with full admiration.
“Gladly, General,” he answers. “To be fair, our fight was not entirely on an even footing. My preferred weapon is the long staff and spear. In my human life, I was trained to wield it almost from birth. Besides, though I no longer have the transformative powers of a celestial dragon, I still retain its strength and affinity with the Elements. Perhaps the next round, with different weapons, we would be an even match.”
“Indeed,” Valerius says on my other side. “I’d like to match you with my chained scythe, General, if you are game.”
I bare my teeth in a feral grin and crook my fingers.
“Let’s dance.”
*** *** *** ***
After practice, Cloud, Valerius and I shower quickly in the communal hall and dress ourselves with efficiency.
Sophia called for a meeting with the Royal Zodiac. Though I am not an official member, I decide to attend.
No one stops me at the door to the conference room. Each member of the Elite and Circlet, Sophia’s inner counsel, greets me as I enter, as if it is natural and even expected that I be present.
One non-Zodiac member is also in attendance. I recognize his scent. Adam Morgan, if I am not mistaken. He is one of our top Chevaliers who helped the Pure Ones penetrate the underground fight clubs that Medusa created, where humans fight to the death for the pleasure of vampire spectators. Losers become food.
“Adam,” Sophia commands softly, reminding me of one of her previous incarnations, the one that I knew well—the Pure Queen Ninti.
“You have the floor.”
The human warrior addresses his audience directly, his low voice carrying from the head of the long table.
“Medusa might have mass-manufactured vampire, and now Pure One and Animal Spirit, killers—the heat-seeking bullets that adjust automatically to a specific target, but she is not the only one with access to top secret military weapons development,” Adam begins without preamble.
“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, recently canceled a program called ‘Excalibur.’”
“I like the sound of that,” Tristan interjects.
His preferred weapon is a sword called Excalibur. I understand from Sophia that there is a medieval legend called King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in human