Unmaking Percy

Part IV - I, continued (The Parted Glade)

The first to charge them were the two men who had pinned Valeria down, blissfully unaware that their earlier achievement was more miraculous than routine. It dawned on them soon enough. They had barely reached her when she pushed them away so forcefully that they staggered backwards, tripped on their cloaks and neatly rolled themselves into a tangled ball of yarn.

New fury steeled itself in the other men and flashed in their eyes. They rushed forward as one, swords and daggers in hand and an iron cry in their throats. Percy dodged the first man who reached him, leaning with a nimble twist of his body to swerve the coming blade. He parried the next strike, and the next, and the next, and by the fourth time he easily deflected a clumsy advance, he was convinced he was benefitting from a half-hearted attack by a man who still believed him to be the chosen one. And yet, his opponent's expression was set with grim determination, his knuckles white as he gripped the weapon with clear fervour. A sudden horror came over Percy at the thought of harming this man, whom he now noticed to be a boy. Veering to the side, Percy raised his elbow and knocked the back of the boy's neck, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Percy swivelled on his heels just in time to parry the sword swinging at him now. Its wielder was older, more practiced, and came at him with confounding eagerness. A moment of inattention earned Percy a grazing cut to his shoulder, as he ducked out of the way a hair too late. He drew a breath in sharply, feeling a warm pain pool and throb over him.

A blast shook the world to his right. He turned wide-eyed to Myrtle, who had just fired her musket-shawm, aiming at the ground that three of the men were about to tread. It was just a warning shot; but it was powerful enough to warn off into singed nothingness the tips of their shoes and the hems of their cloaks. A charred patch of grass cowered under the shawm's fuming muzzle.

"Bloody hell, Myrtle!"

"As you can see" she called out, her hands trembling without respite, "I have a weapon which I'm very afraid to use, but will use anyway!"

On Percy's left, Valeria and Evans fought off a crawling number of men, pushing and slamming them away with the same devastating strength Percy had seen them fight with before. Valeria was far from sharing his reluctance to slash at their foes, and she cleaved through them with ruthless ease. Faced with her sword they became little more than creeping vines in her path, cut down with barely the snap of a root to offer resistance. As for Evans, though his gestures were not fuelled by the same fury that flamed her on, he still swept through his attackers with a brutal energy that sent most of them crashing down.

A lanky young man lunged at Percy, tackling him to the ground. His back hit the forest floor hard, knocking his air out in a gasp. Percy struggled to get up, but the man was already heavy on him, pinning him down. His every movement simmered with rage. Percy had noticed him earlier: he was the one kneeling at a portable writing desk, scribbling away feverishly. He looked no less feverish now. Percy noted, with momentary relief, that this was the scribe of the troupe. But he regretted his relief immediately.

The man raised his dagger, with exactly the same tilt of his arm as when he had earlier raised his pen. But he hesitated, the blade hissing an inch from Percy's face, as though he was suddenly uncertain on how to spell "murder". Percy rolled to the side to dodge the blow. The scribe stabbed at him repeatedly, missing him each time by a split second, driving the blade into the fleshy earth instead.

"Stop! Stop!" Percy cried.

"Stop? Why stop? Oh, I'm just the scribe, is that it? Go on, say it! Say – it –" the man stabbed each word into the ground as Percy twisted his body back and forth to avoid the blade. "When you're dead, they'll still have need of me to write your story!"