The Great Ellini (Book One of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twenty Four: Valkyrie

Jack blinked once, wiped the blood from his nose, and then rolled sideways, as the blade of a sword swung down and bit like an axe into the grass beside him. He grinned up at the sky and rolled onto his feet, dodging another sword-swipe right before it disembowelled him.

God, she was brilliant! How did you climb walls wearing two hundred pounds of metal without making a sound? How did you leap, kick, somersault, and land facing your opponent, with your sword drawn up, ready to strike his head off before he'd even worked out what was going on?

"It's Valerie, yes?" he said, to the spiky, angry shadow that was bearing down on him. "Valerie Warner? Do you remember me?"

The blade whistled past him again, but he was getting the hang of dodging it now. The broadsword was huge, and she gripped it in both hands, which meant that, every time she swung it at him and missed, she overbalanced slightly, and would be tantalizingly easy to trip up. Of course, you would have to be very quick to ensure that she missed in the first place, and even quicker to dart in and kick her legs out from under her without getting caught up in the ensuing avalanche of metal and flesh.

Still, he might as well try talking to her first.

"We met at Pandemonium once," he said, while Val circled warily around him, her sword drawn upwards, poised for another swing. "You used to spend a lot of time in the armoury, trying on everything at once? I'm glad to see it's a habit you've not got out of."

"There's a sword in that flowerbed just to your right," said Val matter-of-factly. "You'd better pick it up. I give you my word I won't kill you while you're getting it."

"That's very sweet of you, Val, but I think I'd better not."

"It's your only chance to live."

"You know, I should mention," said Jack, clapping his hands together and beaming up at her. "I belong to a sort of band of mercenaries—really good people, and it's profitable work. We could really use someone like you—"

She swung the sword at him again, and this time, he felt it pierce his shirt and graze the skin against his ribs. It was strangely invigorating, like being splashed in the face with cold water.

"Are you going to pick up the sword?" she demanded.

"You know, she wants to go with me, Val. I don't know if that makes any difference to you?"

"She wants all kinds of things that are bad for her!" Val protested. "Do you know you have to remind her to eat? Do you know she'll just read and read until she passes out at her desk, and then, the next night, she'll do exactly the same thing again?"

"Well, see, now we're getting somewhere," said Jack soothingly. "I didn't know that—let's talk about that."

Val lunged at him with a short, upward thrust that could have skewered every vital organ from his stomach to his vocal cords. He avoided it, but not by much.

"Just pick up the sword," she said, through gritted teeth.

Jack was extremely good at recognizing the point where he'd pushed people's patience too far, so he sighed, backed towards the flowerbed, and risked a glance down. One of Val's swipes had neatly decapitated a line of marigolds. There was a sword in there, but it was a lot shorter than Val's broadsword.

He picked it up and hefted it in his hands for a few seconds. It was poorly-balanced too, and this made him sad on Val's behalf, because she was too talented to need such trickery, and it was a shame—although possibly a useful shame—that she didn't know that.