Sentinels: Forsaken Knight (10 page)

The announcer called the two of them outside and the crowd went ecstatic. Tao Long’s match had apparently been quite the spectacle. Unarmed combat wasn’t very common on the continent and very few people from there had ever been in the western islands long enough to learn their methods. The only person she knew personally who had done so was Glenn, and he returned to Delrich because he preferred the use of his lance.

"Ladies and gentlemen, lords and ladies!" the announcer shouted through his cone. "Returning for the semi-final round ...Tao Long of the Western Isles, and Amy Karst, the wandering mercenary!" The crowd chanted both of their names against one another. Apparently Anye's surprise victory had earned her some fans and hopefully some reputation. "Would the competitors please take their positions?"

Both fighters walked to their corners and readied themselves. Anye drew her swords while the western martial artist entered some sort of fighting stance.

Anye was nervous. She'd never had much training against an unarmed opponent. She knew, from some very short sparring matches with Glenn, that a trained monk from the Western Isles was much more agile than an armored foe holding metal in their hands. Fortunately it also generally meant that her armor, however thin, would help her more than usual as the punches of her opponent would have to strike extra hard to do any real damage unless he landed a blow directly to her face. She also hoped that he wouldn't be very adept at using magic since she hadn’t really felt a strong presence of it within him. If he could he was masking its presence expertly.

The announcer called the match and the two fighters ran at each other. Tao Long was slower than Yarik had been, but that wasn't necessarily indicative of his agility. When the two approached each other he jumped off the ground and stuck his foot forward, attempting to land a hard kick to her chest. Anye side-stepped the attack and immediately began a counter assault as her opponent landed.

The man was as agile as she had predicted. Each swing of her blade was avoided with some sort of odd bend at his waist. Each punch or kick he sent her way was caught with her armor, resulting in her only briefly being nudged back and forth. She thought something seemed odd though; as toned and disciplined as he seemed to be his attacks felt amateurish.

The thought passed from her mind and was immediately replaced with panic. Anye had decided to try and out maneuver her foe with a one-handed overhead slice, which he had caught with his bare hands mere inches from his face. She felt a surge of power come from him, inducing her panicked reaction, and used her second hand to attempt a horizontal slash.

Tao Long used the weight of Anye's vertical strike to accelerate a drop to the ground. That resulted in her arms colliding and the monk dodging the stumbled attack. Before Anye could react he’d flipped on his back and kicked his legs around, spinning on the ground. His foot met Anye's offhand, kicking her newly acquired sword away from her and out of the boundaries of the fighting area.

When he spun to his feet in front of Anye the surge of energy from the man gathered again. Anye's reflexes simply weren't fast enough to react to his next attack; a single foot slammed to the ground in front of Anye and both of his fists came from his sides with the force of a battering ram. The impact forced the air out of her lungs and knocked her skidding on her back to the edge of the arena.

Anye coughed as the dust around her settled, grasping for air to refill her lungs. The force of the attack was extraordinary, and she now understood the reason for the sudden surges of power. The man didn't use magical energy the way everyone she knew usually did. Depending on the spell and its strength, the user would usually be summoning the power constantly, channeling it to suit their needs. But Tao Long gathered the energy lightly while fighting and stored it for specific tasks, using it for extremely powerful attacks when it was used.

Anye had barely managed to stop coughing when she felt the surge of power again. She looked up past her feet towards where her adversary stood. He looked like he was getting ready to jump. A second later, he did with an amazing display of strength.

Anye and the crowd watched in suspense. The foreign fighter had seemingly leaped twenty feet in the air before she felt the power surge again and knew she had to act. She forced herself to roll to the side and get to her feet just has the man came down blindingly fast, burying his arm elbow-deep into the ground where she had been laying.

The show of power was terrifying, but the crowd loved it. Fear was starting to settle within Anye. She had lost one of her swords, had a feeling of intense pain in her chest from the previous hit, and had come to the realization that she hadn't managed to even wind her opponent even slightly.

Tao Long turned his head and stared at the woman as he pulled his arm from the ground and focused his strength again. The surges of power Anye had felt earlier now felt constant. She assumed it was because Tao Long had assumed she would either be out-cold or dead by that point and was becoming frustrated. That didn't make her feel any better.

And then he was on her, swinging his leg with incredible force at her side. For the first time since she was a squire in training with the sword, she didn’t know what to do, and did the first thing she could think of; she held her sword vertically with her hand flat against the side of the blade and clenched her eyes shut.

Everyone in the audience went silent. Anye remained standing, pushing back against the force of Tao Long’s leg. The energy she felt coming from him was astounding, but what was even more shocking was the fact that she remained on her feet. She felt something happening within her, but she wasn't controlling it. It felt primal, like her body was no longer her own. She opened her eyes to see Tao Long staring at her with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and fear.

Swirling air spun the dust around the two in a violent cyclone. Anye's eyes glowed brightly with the uncontrolled magical power she was somehow channeling. The crowd of people had to shield their faces from the flying debris being flung around.

“
What's going on?” she tried to say, but her mouth remained shut and the words simply echoed in her mind.

Tao Long focused himself again and quickly lowered his foot to attempt another finishing blow against the comparatively small swords-woman with his fists. Anye reacted with lightning speed, using the flat edge of her blade to meet the monk's punches. Small white fragments of pure energy exploded from the metal, halting his punch instantly.

The two of them continued their enchanted dance for another minute, astonishing everyone in attendance. Nobody cheered or even whispered to the person next to them about the exemplary skill of the two fighters. The small explosions of magic from each contact of fist, foot, and blade never ceased to temporarily blind everyone who watched, and Anye's luminous eyes amazed them all. Nobody in living memory had ever seen someone channel such power, they had only read about it in history books and fairy tales.

Eventually Tao Long got tired of his fruitless attacks and backed away. Anye didn't pursue, she merely stood there staring at him with the frightening glow in her eyes. He was getting tired after using all of his strength only to have it seemingly, and effortlessly, blocked. His robes were soaked with sweat and his breathing was heavy.

"What are you!?" he shouted at her. "What kind of power is this!?"

Anye remained quiet. She wanted to speak but her mouth just wouldn't move. She was compelled to hold her position for some reason, never letting her guard down even to speak. She simply stared.

Her silence angered the man even more. His face tightened as he shouted at Anye more. "Vile woman, I will end you here and now!"

Tao Long’s rage gave away his weakening focus. His stance shifted in a way that left a small part of his midsection exposed. A lesser force would either have missed it or decided they wouldn't be able to land the blow. Anye, at the moment, was not a lesser force.

The woman struck like a bolt of lightning without even thinking about it. To the naked eye she looked like she had simply passed through the man like he was an illusion. Anye herself didn't understand how she did what she did, but Tao Long had fallen to the ground in a cloud of dust and the mysterious power she had summoned in her panic dissipated, returning her eyes to normal and finally allowing the air around her to stop spiraling.

She finally regained control of her body and dropped her sword to the ground. Her mouth opened and she gasped for air as she fell to her knees and turned her head to face her fallen foe. Her lungs burned like she hadn't been breathing for ten minutes and her muscles shook rapidly.

The announcer carefully walked into the arena over to where Tao Long lay motionless on the ground. Anye wasn't sure if he was dead or unconscious, and while she had killed men before she had never done so when lacking self-control. The thought that she was capable of such power both shocked and unnerved her.

"Tao Long is unconscious!" the announcer yelled. "The victor of this round is Amy Karst!"

The crowd, after a dumbfounded moment of confused silence, finally resumed their cheering. Anye breathed a sigh of relief that the monk was alive but she was still confused about what exactly had happened. The last time she panicked and pulled a stunt like hoping her sword would
magically
defend her, she'd found her face half buried in the dirt because her instructor had knocked her clean off her feet and then insulted her that a woman's place was in the kitchen, or weaving tapestries, or making children. Of course the insult wasn't genuine, having only been meant to motivate and train her to not panic, which it did.

Byron hobbled up to her from his place on the side of the arena and knelt beside her. Anye could tell he was wholly concerned for her well-being at that point. If he had been amazed or excited for her the emotion had already passed and she couldn’t see it.

"Amy, are you alright?" he asked as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "You’re shaking as if you've been swimming in ice water."

"Byron, what was that?" she asked. "What did I do? I didn't feel like I was in control...I don't think I
was
in control."

Byron lifted Anye to her feet and supported her as best as he could over his shoulder to help her back towards the entrance of the waiting area. "Let's, uh, let's not think about that right now. The important thing is that you won! You've made it to the final round, which guarantees us at the least a runner up prize! Ha ha!"

Byron's subject change back to the prize money cheered Anye up slightly. Her muscles stopped shaking and she walked herself the rest of the way towards the waiting room after picking up the sword that had been knocked away from her earlier. The announcer had already called Amadi and Nitram outside, the latter of which bumped his shoulder into Anye rudely as he passed. Amadi on the other hand paused in his stride to say something to her.

"Don't worry," he told her. "I'll make this quick, and then I can tell you about what that was." His gaze was cold and stiff as he spoke.

Amadi continued off towards the arena while Anye stared at him suspiciously before continuing back inside. The unsettling feeling of not knowing how he could possibly have any idea of what was going on had returned, but there was nothing she could do about it. He knew her real name, was able to tell just from entering the same area as her that she had some prowess in magical abilities, and now he had told her that he knew exactly what had happened during the fight with Tao Long. Her best bet, and only option, to finding out what he knew and how he knew it, was to trust his words and wait for the small window between the end of his match and the final round.

______

Amadi was true to his word. Anye had only been sitting on the bench near the entry way for a few minutes before Amadi returned, victorious over his opponent. He spotted her quickly and took a seat next to her, keeping his tall staff upright in hand.

"Brutish men like him commonly make themselves out to be easy prey for mages of my caliber," he confidently told her.

Anye didn't even look him in the eye. "How do you know these things about me?" she asked bluntly with a somewhat angry tone, going straight to the point. They didn't have much time before the final round began and she wanted to know what he knew before it started, but she also suspected he wasn't going to tell her anything that would deprive him of an advantage.

"Straight to business it is," he commented. "My people, the Azubuike tribe, are renowned in our lands amongst the other tribes for our strong connection with the powers of the world, what is most commonly referred to as magic. Everything in this world is connected to it. Think of it like a giant world-wide spider web, with every individual thing acting as a point which the strands connect to. You can use this web to connect to a person's mind if you know how. I am one who can do so."

"You can read my mind?" Anye replied sarcastically. "Forgive my skepticism, Amadi, but I've studied the uses of magic extensively. There is no such ability or connection."

"And that is why you do not understand your significance, Anye," he said quickly. He shifted his gaze past her for a second, but quickly looked back at her. He looked extremely serious. "I left my village to pursue something, and you are the key to unlocking it. I can help you understand your potential, what you tapped in to earlier, but I require your assistance."

"My help?" Anye replied. "And why should I trust you?"

"Because I know what the
Sky Fire
was and who your parents were," he told her bluntly. “That is why you are here, regardless of the circumstances that brought you to this place. You are not a traitor to your king or home, Anye. You are an honorable person. This I know to be true.”

Anye turned her head sharply, staring directly into the boy's dark brown eyes. "And how could you possibly know that? You're barely even old enough to be considered a man. What could you
really
know about it?"