Legacy of the Valkyrie Page 8

  With that she stood and approached the waiting Minotaur.

  Milly fought very differently than Erica; the Katje was all speed and reflexes, whereas the Minotaur was pure strength. But like Erica she too was soon flat on her back in the dirt, although she hadn’t had the wind knocked out of her.

  “Why do you hesitate? You are stronger than me, but you hold back! Do you think that you might injure me? I can see your feeble punches coming from yesterday! Your body betrays your every move to those who know how to read it and all of your strength is useless if you are not willing to use it.”

  Kar spoke bluntly but not unkindly, and as she helped Milly to her feet she offered her a slight smile.

  “I can respect your reticence to harm others, but what I am teaching you is self-defence! Remember Milly, if someone seeks to harm you or your loved ones they deserve to face your wrath.”

  Milly swallowed, and then nodded, her eyes taking on a determined set as Kar began to show her how to carry herself in a fight. Meanwhile another of her sisters sparred with Erica, with much the same results as before.

  Each time the girls hit the ground Nameless winced sympathetically, he wasn’t very happy with the situation, but he understood why they needed it.

  After nearly an hour of punishment, Yana whistled to get their attention.

  “That is enough for this morning Kar, otherwise they won’t make it to tonight.”

  The Amazons all shared a chuckle at that.

  “As you say Warleader. Come sisters! The road calls to us.” Kar helped Milly to her feet yet again and patted her heartily on the back, brushing the dust off, her hand giving Milly’s tail a stroke and her rump a healthy squeeze while she had the opportunity; “We shall continue this tonight, if you are still willing.”

  Milly smiled and Erica nodded, albeit with less enthusiasm then she had before they had started.

  “Are you girls okay?” Nameless asked as they joined him.

  “I’m okay Master, the arena was much worse, and the Amazons are really very nice!”

  The Minotaur was far more durable than Erica, and Nameless caught the Katje giving her a somewhat dirty look.

  “My butt hurts, and not in the good way.” She meowed.

  “If you want I can train you instead.”

  Something in the way Nina spoke made Erica lean away from the Gigas and her nonchalant stare.

  “Um, no thanks Nina, I think the Amazons are good.”

  Nina nodded, and then gave the Katje a rare smile.

  “It’s cool that you’re learning how to fight. You can protect the weakling for me while I go and hit stuff with my hammer.”

  Erica and Milly shared a worried look as Nina walked away.

  The pattern continued for several days as they journeyed towards the outskirts of so-called civilized lands, passing a few farming communities that reminded Nameless a great deal of his hometown.

  Mornings and evenings Milly and Erica worked with the Amazons to learn the basics of unarmed combat. It was usually Kar who led them in their training, though one morning Yana took over for her. It took them a long while to get going that day. Yana was very thorough in her instructions.

  After Yana had finished training with the girls and they had set out that day Nameless caught a glimpse of Juni in her gourd, whispering at a floating ball of water she had formed with her hands.

  “Hey Miranda I have a question.”

  He took a few moments to formulate his query.

  “Well, spit it out.”

  “What is the difference between an Undine and a Naiad?”

  Miranda frowned, never a good sign.

  “You serious?”

  “Um… yes?”

  She let out a frustrated breath at his dithering response.

  “This is primary school stuff...”

  “Hey! I don’t know either!” Erica’s tone was indignant.

  “Me neither…” Milly added shamefacedly.

  Miranda paused in her purposeful gait, her eyes going from one monster girl to the next then she shrugged.

  “Well, you two never got to go to school right? So you get a pass but he-” She jerked a finger at Nameless; “-did, and should know better.”

  Nameless was regretting ever asking the question.

  “An Undine is an elemental, a Naiad is a spirit.” Evidently feeling that he had squirmed enough, Miranda explained; “And before you ask, an elemental has power over her element, in this case water. She can control it and use it as a focus for her magic, such as the Undine do when they cast their voices through the water.”

  “The Sacred Current!” Juni piped in, her head popping out of her gourd long enough to correct Miranda before dropping down again.

  The ball of water she had been whispering at suddenly flew out of her hands only for Jezebel’s tongue to lash out and catch it before it struck Kala’s head.

  It was an odd little game that they had begun playing a few days prior.

  Miranda fought to hold back a roll of her eyes while Yana smiled.

  “Yeah, that.”

  Milly looked thoughtful as Miranda continued to lecture them, while Nameless’s attention began to wander. The Minotaur looked so cute when she was thinking…

  “Pay attention!” Miranda snapped at him.

  “Gah! Yes!”

  “As I was saying-” She held him pinned with a stern glare for a moment; “An elemental uses the element, whereas a spirit is the element. A Naiad, for example, turns into living water when she claims a pool. A Wisp becomes the wind, a Brand becomes fire, and a Gnome becomes earth.”

  Yana chuckled and rapped one knuckle against Juni’s gourd.

  “Well, it’s more like clay, otherwise they wouldn’t move much.”

  This time Miranda couldn’t stop from rolling her eyes at the correction.

  “Anyways those are just the basic primordial ones you should have learned in school. I’m not getting into the aetheric crap unless you start taking notes.” She glared at Nameless again.

  “A spirit may embody an element, but we elementals can use it in all kinds of neat ways that a spirit can’t!” Juni’s voice suddenly sounded from the canteen on Milly’s pack; “Plus! Plus! You’ll never accidently drink an Undine!”

  Nameless eyes widened at the implication.

  “You could drink a Naiad?”

  Miranda rolled her eyes again.

  “No!”

  “Pfft, says the human…” Juni said, and then flinched as Jezebel’s tongue shot over her gourd and slurped at Yana’s cheek.

  Yana grimaced and Kala smiled.

  “Point.” The younger Amazon declared.

  “Hey! No fair! I was distracted!”

  That evening while the girls worked their bodies, Miranda decided to begin working Nameless’s mind. Together they went over various things that he should know from school but didn’t, such as the basic monster breeds, as well they went over the Aegis charter in excruciating detail.

  Nameless was a poor student but Milly and Erica’s determination had inspired him to better himself, and Miranda was a surprisingly good teacher. That and there really wasn’t much else to do except watch the girls get their asses kicked.

  “So are there any humans living in the lowlands?” He asked the following morning while he pored over a map and Miranda lectured him.

  “There are a number of monster girl villages and most will have humans living in them.” She responded with a yawn, she wasn’t a morning person at all; “There might even be a few ballsy tamers out there as well, but other than that it will probably just be us.”

  He nodded absently as he measured the distance from Kettering to the edge of the wilds with his fingers.

  “We still have a lot of walking to do don’t we?”

  “Yeah, Kettering is only considered out of the way because it’s not on any major trade routes, but Bramblewood is another story altogether, it’s deep in the lowlands. People think of it as the gateway to the wilds, tho
ugh the road turns into a rough trail long before we get there. In all honesty it would be kind of nice if we didn’t need to go that far.”

  Nameless closed his eyes and focused on the golden flicker just on the edge of his awareness, trying to rectify his sense of Volka’s location with the map in his hands.

  Miranda waited patiently, she’d seen him do this a few times by this point.

  He began to shake his head after several breaths.

  “Wherever Volka is, it’s very far away. She doesn’t seem any closer now than when we left…”

  Miranda sighed.

  “Yeah I was afraid of that. Well, Bramblewood will be our last chance to resupply, after that we’ll be relying on our own ability to forage, and any friendly monsters we come across. Now let’s get ready, Yana will want to leave soon.”

  Chapter 5:

  Promises

  Evadne was feeling restless as she stalked the halls of the Bastion. Her wings were folded at her back and her tail writhed behind her. She was clad all in black, her shirt and pants a match for her hair and wings.

  She considered her surroundings as she walked: the curtains over the windows, the little chairs beside the doors in the hall, and the pictures hanging from the walls. Little indications that humans infested the place; she remembered when they were a rare sight, when monsters had to practically hunt for a mate.

  Now the whole world was crawling with them.

  “Excuse me.”

  A tiny voice interrupted her musings.

  She glanced down at the little boy tugging at her hand. He had hopped off of one of the chairs in the quiet hallway and approached her.

  “I can’t find my mom.”

  The boy’s light-brown eyes welled with unshed tears as he sniffled.

  She stared into his tiny face for a long time, her own black eyes doing nothing to unsettle the innocent child. He looked to be about five or six, though Evadne was never any good at guessing people’s ages.

  Being well over a thousand years old made it difficult.

  Evadne sighed again.

  “Come on then.”

  She took his little hand in hers and continued her walk through the halls. The boy had to scramble to keep up with her purposeful stride.

  “What’s her name?”

  The boy sniffled again, rubbing his free hand over his nose and wiping away the snot.

  Gross.

  “Um, her name is Ceecee- um-” He furrowed his brow as he tried to work the syllables out; “Ca-cee-lee-ah.”

  “Cecilia. Right. Is she a member of the Aegis?”

  The boy nodded and Evadne resigned herself to searching for his mother. It’s what was expected, after all.

  “Um, how come, how come you’re all in black?”

  “You talk a lot.”

  It was the fourth thing he had said to her, which by her estimate was four things too many.

  “Are you sad? When I’m sad my mom scratches my back.”

  Evadne ignored him.

  “If you’re sad, um, if you’re sad you can have this.”

  He was still tottering along unsteadily at her side, but had managed to get his hand into his pocket and pull out some kind of sweet.

  She stopped and stared at his grubby hand and the wrapped candy in it, considering it for a moment before taking it with yet another sigh.

  The boy beamed at her, proud to have helped.

  “Kyle!”

  A woman in a familiar grey uniform had rounded a corner and spotted the boy and the black-clad monster girl.

  “I told you to wait in the mess hall!” The harried woman scolded as she walked towards them.

  “But I had to pee!” The child protested.

  As his mother scooped him into her arms, Evadne released his hand and considered the woman for a second.

  “Are you Cecilia?”

  The woman blinked in surprise, unsettled by the dark gaze.

  “Y-yes.”

  Evadne turned and walking away.

  “Thank you?” The woman’s uncertain voice followed her, but she ignored it.

  She left the mother and child behind, resuming her pacing through the emptier parts of the Bastion.

  “Evadne?” Sadie’s voice called to her from behind several minutes later.

  She turned to face the white-haired woman.

  “You’re back.” Her voice was neither friendly nor unfriendly.

  “We are. How is he?”

  The Chimera shrugged.

  “Asleep.”

  Sadie had to fight to not roll her eyes. In all her years she had never met a bonded monster who acted so completely indifferent to her bond-mate.

  “Well, I don’t want to give you false hope. But the new Empath is strong. Stronger even than Jonathan was at that age.”

  Evadne’s only reaction was to quirk one eyebrow.

  Sadie continued.

  “If there is anything left of him to save, Nameless is the best and only chance left to us.”

  Again with the raised eyebrow.

  “Us? There is no ‘us’. There is you, there is me, and then there is the useless sack of meat upstairs.”

  Sadie frowned, annoyed with the dismissive attitude.

  “I miss him too Evadne, he was like a son to me.”

  Evadne turned and walked away.

  Sadie shuddered, even though she knew what the monster girl was like she still found herself unsettled by her coldness.

  As she stalked away Evadne unwrapped the child’s candy and flicked away the paper wrapper before popping it into her mouth.

  Her teeth crunched down on it hard.

  __________

  Several days into their journey Nameless noticed a distinct change in the terrain: the cleared areas for farming grew farther and farther apart and the narrow birch trees seemed to have swallowed them. That and the road went downwards far more than up as they steadily descended into the lowlands.

  When they set up camp again one afternoon Milly and Erica approached Kar for their training, the duo had shown some improvement, though this time the Amazon had something else in mind for Erica.

  “Here.”

  She pulled one of her throwing knives from the brace on her wrist and handed it to her. Puzzled, the Katje took it.

  “It would be good for you to have something to fight with other than your claws, go ahead. See if you can hit that tree.”

  She pointed at a tree maybe a dozen feet away.

  Skeptical, Erica held the blade as Kar showed her and took aim. A few seconds later and there was a dull thunk as the small knife sank into the bark of the tree.

  “Well done!” Kar’s eyes were wide with surprise at the Katje’s throw.

  So were Erica’s.

  “Hey! That was easy! How come you didn’t have us do this from the start?”

  Kar snorted and laughter came from where the others worked with Milly.

  “Bah! Show us that it wasn’t beginners luck youngling!” Called out Riya.

  The other Amazon was currently sitting on Milly’s rump while the Minotaur lay face down in the dirt.

  Wordlessly Kar handed Erica two more knives.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  They sank into the bark on either side of the first.

  The laughter stopped.

  Kar walked to the tree and pulled the knives out one at a time before stalking to Erica and handing her all three of them.

  “Again, this time, aim for that tree there.”

  The Amazon pointed at a tree easily twice as far away as the first.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  The knives drew a neat line up the bark of the distant tree.

  “Okay, this is really fun!” Erica’s tail swished happily.

  Jan whistled low.

  “Could you do that?” She asked Kar.

  Kar’s reply was slow in coming.

  “Yes, but only after a great deal of practice.”

  A
t this point most of the others had gathered around at the Katje’s impressive display.

  Once more Kar retrieved the knives and handed them to Erica, and while she did Yana scooped up a large branch.

  “Here. Hit it with as many as you can.”

  Without any warning the Amazon leader gave the branch a toss, the wood sailing upwards while spinning slightly.

  Erica’s face took on a look of intense concentration and she surprised them all by throwing herself in the air as well, twirling gracefully as she let the knives fly one after another.

  A few moments later and Yana was scooping up the improvised target, the three blades sticking out of it at odd angles.

  “Could you do that?” The Wolfen asked Kar again.

  Kar shook her head.

  “Not on purpose.”

  Yana handed the small knives back to Erica again.

  “You’ve never held a blade before?”

  Erica’s mirth was gone, her eyes wide and her ears were flat to her head at the woman’s intensity.

  “Nothing but scissors, I swear.” She said defensively.

  Yana kept her stern look on her for several more seconds, then looked to Kar and raised an eyebrow.

  Kar sighed and knelt on the ground next to Erica’s hip.

  “Hey! What are you-”

  Kar removed the holster from her own wrist and lifted up Erica’s shirt to strap it to her tanned leg, lengthening the straps as she set it high enough on her thigh that her shirt would keep the tops of the blades hidden.

  “It’s my own fault. You just showed all of my sisters that you were better with my weapon than I am! Will Milly take my spear next I wonder?” She complained.

  “Oh, no I couldn’t-” Erica began.

  “You can and you will.” Yana said sternly; “You are a natural at this and it would be folly to pretend otherwise. Just remember that it is a very different thing to throw those at something living.”

  Erica gulped audibly at the imposing woman’s words. Then she let out a high pitched meow as Kar did something under her shirt that caught her off guard.

  As the Amazon got to her feet she spoke with a mischievous smirk.

  “I think that now I understand the appeal of this underwear you’re always on about, it is a nice colour on you!”

  Erica the former sex slave blushed deeply as the others laughed at Kar’s teasing words.