Soul of Ice

Chapter Three

The sharp clang of the guard's powerful, downward blow against her dagger nearly sent her careening back to the ground. She pushed against the guard's blade, hard, enough that he let the whistle fall out of his mouth to focus on the fight before him. She rose to her full height to pull out the short sword she'd strapped to her back, under her cloak. In the process, her hood fell back.

The guard's eyes widened as he took in her features. Her identity confirmed, the guard pressed back against her sword and yelled, "I found your wraith, Captain!" His movements were swift and fast, and Astra struggled to keep up with the blows from his longer sword with her shorter one. Her sword was awkward in her hand. It was unbalanced—she'd picked it up from a rundown armory—and unfamiliar in her hands. Besides, the sword had never been her preferred weapon.

The people on the road had quickly cleared the area around them. Nearby, a few other guards were guiding the civilians away and barricading the particular part of the road they were on. Thank the Seam they weren't all bloodthirsty—she wasn't sure she could take on more than one guard with this swordplay charade.

Sweat beads traced down her neck as she and the guard circled around each other, the latter with the clear advantage, though she'd never admit it. Astra whipped forward to try and get at his exposed legs, but the guard parried her sword away as she did. The guard seemed almost bored as he anticipated her attacks and gave her scratches and cuts along her arms when he could, blood blooming and soaking her as it followed where his steel flashed. Astra sucked in her lower lip. He was good. Perhaps too good to be a lowly city guard. And she was atrociously out of practice for someone in a country that focused on the sword as the primary weapon of choice. She stuck the dagger into her belt and switched the sword to her left hand. Her right arm was on the verge of being strained from trying to compensate for the awkward weight of the sword, and the last thing she needed was a dead throwing arm.

A series of whistles sounded from the other guards. The sharp sound ripped through her mind again, and she faltered for a second as her opponent's sword sliced another shallow line across her forearm before she was able to fortify her defense again. The ice magic still coursed through her veins, enough left that she reached out with her right hand, clenched her fist, and felt a pressure within her chest burst as six whistles simultaneously shattered into frozen shards of silver. The terrible noise wavered unnaturally for several long seconds despite the loss of its source, and then finally died.

The sound of the shards dropping and tinkling on the ground over the shouts of fear and confusion and metal was like music to her ears. But with that, she had nothing left. The last burst of power left her breathing heavily as she continued to spar with the guard, her blocks and strikes even weaker and slower from before. Her guard though was undeterred by the destroyed whistle at his feet as his strikes flew faster and faster, until they were merely gray blurs flashing in front of her eyes.

"Grab her quickly, but don't hurt her beyond repair!" Pascal's voice rang out. Authority laced his every word. "And watch out—she's dangerous." Astra wanted to laugh at that. If they thought she was dangerous now with inadequate weaponry and the dregs of the magic she had left—and already spent—they should've seen her when she was at the height of her power. Glory, wealth, and so, so much power. Too much power. Her smile cut off midway as she recalled exactly what that much power had led to.

That was her second mistake of the day—recalling the past. Astra's wrist flipped in the opposite direction with her sword, and she failed to correct the sword quickly with its uneven nature. The guard nearly took off her hand. Another flick of his wrist had him twisting her sword out of her hand and into his.

Her opponent advanced, twin swords in his hands, leaving Astra to back up until her heels knocked back against the wall.

"Ma'am, you can either come with us without putting up another fight or—" Funny how he still called her a "ma'am". For all his perceptiveness, he never saw the small throwing knife she had hidden in the sleeves of her cloak. He dropped down and died with the sharp metal imbedded in his throat.