Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

‘Back for more.’ Zole watched her, unsmiling.

Nona offered a fierce grin and shrugged. She had practised the Torca moves Zole favoured and paid close attention as the ice-triber threw the rest of Grey Class around.

They closed, feet making a dozen rapid adjustments before either laid hand upon the other. Nona braced, held her core tight, body low, all counters to the throws Zole liked to use. Zole’s hand gripped her habit just above her breast. Nona reached for the elbow, sinking lower still to resist the throw, but Zole let her grip slide, her other arm fluttering past Nona’s defence in a slow and fluid motion that should have been easy to intercept – but wasn’t. Both Zole’s hands reached Nona’s face. Nona clung to the elbow of one but hadn’t the strength to stop the larger girl. Zole didn’t punch, the lack of speed that had fooled Nona meant there wasn’t much power in the blow – rather she achieved some combination of buffeting and slapping that left Nona stumbling past her, disoriented.

‘Noi-tal soft-hands!’ Sister Tallow called out. ‘Just because you have seen your foe fight one way against a previous opponent do not let this make you over-commit to the countertactics. Variety is important. A predictable warrior, no matter how talented, will end up dead sooner than a less skilled warrior who can less easily be anticipated.’

Zole remained inscrutable. Nona would have preferred a sneer or a mocking smile: at least then she would have felt noticed.

Sister Tallow saved the final humiliation for six-day afternoon, ahead of the seven-day break and their early morning departure for Verity as the new week began.

‘Break.’ Sister Tallow snapped the word like a whip, and across Blade Hall pairs of novices stopped their sparring. Nona stood panting, grinning at Clera, who faked a stagger, though the sweat dripping from her fringe wasn’t faked. They’d fought each other to a standstill with blinding combinations of punches, blocks and snap-kicks. Nona no longer lacked that much in height against Clera and was perhaps a fraction quicker, but Clera made up for that fraction with low cunning and creativity.

‘Zole!’ Sister Tallow pointed at Sherzal’s ward and Nona groaned, thinking they were to be skewered yet again on the sharp point of the girl’s versatility. She’d already been left eating sand on at least four occasions over the past three days. But Zole simply nodded and walked to the main doors, opening one and leaning out. A moment later she was walking back, with Yisht at her heels.

Yisht followed Zole into the novices’ midst where she stood surveying them with dead eyes set above raw and prominent cheekbones. She wore her usual black coat, black leather belts beneath it, slung across a tunic that might once have been yellowish, now gone to brown with dirt and age.

Sister Tallow crossed to stand beside the bodyguard. ‘Yisht-Raani here is a warrior of some renown whose sword commands a high price. I’ve asked her to demonstrate her martial skills this afternoon. Unarmed of course – I’d rather there were survivors to take to the Caltess.’

Nona started to raise her hand to volunteer. A fire burned in her and that fire wanted to see Yisht bleed. But something in the woman’s shark-dead eyes made her hesitate. She found her hand trembling, and realized that what held her back was fear.

‘Who’s she going to fight?’ asked Darla, face still red from her bout with Jula. She stood a head taller than Yisht and thicker in both body and limb.

‘All of you,’ Sister Tallow said, as if it were a stupid question.

‘Who first?’ Darla rarely knew when to stop.

‘Together.’

The novices, twelve in all, lined up, ready and eager to attack. Zole positioned herself at the rear of the group and Nona fell back to join her.

‘What are you doing?’ Clera hissed as Yisht took her position close to the wall and set her blades against the stonework. ‘This is going to be fun!’

‘Sister Tallow isn’t stupid,’ Nona hissed back. ‘This woman’s dangerous. I want to see how she fights. Be careful against her. I mean it!’

‘Come.’ Yisht beckoned her opponents forward.

Darla, Ara, and Ketti were first to reach her, the others having to crowd in around the sides or wait their turn. Yisht ducked into Darla, evading her blow. The big girl’s momentum carried her over Yisht’s shoulder and on into the wall. In the meantime Darla’s hefty body, flying through the air, provided a shield, beneath which Yisht continued to move, emerging at a surprising angle just in time to catch Ara’s wrist in one hand and deflect Ketti’s kick with the other.

Once she was caught, Ara’s speed meant little: controlled as she was by the desire not to have her wrist broken, she had no option other than to allow Yisht to steer her into the wall. Alata moved in with Leeni, the dark girl landing a heavy punch into Yisht’s ribs as she spun with Ara, the pale girl attempting to grapple Yisht’s legs and catching one of them. Sister Tallow had not spent long on teamwork as Red Sisters are most likely to be called on to act alone, but she had drilled them on working together against a superior foe. Leeni was following those instructions, making herself vulnerable but isolating a limb. If others did the same the fight should be a short one.

Yisht seemed untroubled by Alata’s punch and smacked her elbow into the girl’s neck. The ice-triber moved quickly but lacked hunska speed. Somehow though she deflected another kick from Ketti, turning it on her shoulder, and caught Clera’s arm as a punch cracked in towards her face.

‘She knows.’ Nona said it to herself but Zole grunted in affirmation beside her. Yisht seemed to anticipate every attack and end up positioned to defeat it even though the hunska novices were considerably faster than her.

In three short seconds three more girls were on the sand – Jula, Katcha, and Ruli – none of them keen to get up again. Darla and Ara lay stunned at the base of the wall. Leeni had Yisht’s foot on her throat and had released the other leg. Ketti, with her legs swept away, landed heavily on her back.

Nona leapt in over Alata’s collapse, Zole following behind, Sheelar and Croy closing along the wall from opposite directions, Clera still trying to kick even as Yisht twisted her wrist.

Yisht released Clera – already off-balance and falling – and reached out, catching Sheelar’s arm while having her other arm caught by Croy, advancing on the left. With this support Yisht lifted up both legs, a kick to Clera’s chest propelling her into Zole’s path. Nona, already in the air and under gravity’s control, found herself sailing towards Yisht’s outstretched foot.

With both arms crossed before her to cushion the blow Nona crashed into Yisht’s foot and a moment later everyone seemed to be falling. By the time Nona rose from the sand clutching her ribs Yisht had somehow contrived to smash Sheelar into Croy leaving neither fit to fight on. Clera lay behind Nona now, struggling to heave breath back into her lungs. And Zole … Zole landed, having leapt over Clera. She stood ready to strike as Yisht twisted out from beneath Croy and Sheelar. Zole had her arm crooked, ready to punch the exposed back of the warrior’s neck.

Yisht raised a hand acknowledging defeat and Zole stepped back, her blow unstruck. All around them novices lay in the sand, ten in all. Several, Clera included, were in the process of getting up, ready to rejoin the fray, but more than half weren’t getting up any time soon, Ara among them.