Page 21 of The Tricksters Deception

“There is something you could do.” He states, dismounting. Cautiously copying him, I get off the horse. I hadn’t yet decided on a name for her. I was thinking of just calling her White. Corvu pulls on the blanket he had secured to his horse earlier that day, from it dropped an assortment of weapons. I step back, startled. He pulls out a quiver and bow, then holds it out to Gecko. “It’s fastened better than yours.” He explains, trying really hard to keep a stoic expression as Gecko accepts the gift with excitement. “And for the Princess,” He says, pulling out a sheathed rapier with a silver handle, “, you’re going to learn to defend yourself. That’s what you can do for me.” I take the sheathed sword hesitantly and slowly pull it out to see the blade. It’s genuinely sharp - no blunt instruments here. I am so worried about this. I’m pretty sure it will take me less than five minutes of training before someone accidentally loses a finger, and with my luck it will probably be me. The blade itself wasn’t particularly special or unique, but the handle was strapped with a black fabric delicately intertwined with silver. Thankfully, it also wasn’t very heavy, which is probably why Corvu picked it for me.

“I want to say thank you,” I sigh, “, but I have no idea how to use this thing.”

He chuckles, “That’s why I’m going to teach you. Strap it on, we’ll start with some basics.” I pull on the straps that are attached to the sheath, trying to buckle it around me. Why are there so many buckles? Where do they go? I try putting the longest one around my waist, similar to Corvu’s, but I can’t get the sword to stay by my side. It keeps slipping behind me. Frustrated, I grunt.

“I need help.” I state, already defeated.

“Are you sure?” He questions. I’m not sure why he asked, there was no way I was able to get this thing secured around my waist. One of the buckles seemed way too small and another was facing the wrong direction.

“Yes, I’m confused.”

“Okay.” He says, coming over to me, pulling the strap around my waist, which makes me step closer to him involuntarily. Undoing the only buckle I had managed to close, he moves the straps around until they’re in the right position, “Arms up.” Following his instruction I do so, and he leans into me so get the strap around my waist, then squats to secure one around my thigh. No wonder I couldn’t figure this out. I can feel my heart race as his hands go around my legs. I don’t usually like people getting too close to me physically, but I could bear with it if it meant learning how to strap this thing on myself from now on. When he’s done he stands up. His face is really close. His eyes are darker than they were a moment ago, though I don’t understand why I think so. He takes a step back and pulls his sword out of its sheath. “Are you ready for your first lesson?” He questions. I manage to pull out the sword with little trouble and mockingly hold it up and say,

“En garde!” I smile, but he just seems confused. Even Gecko who was taking the horses further away whipped his head around to look at me. “Oh, right. That’s French. I take it no one here knows French.” I drop my arm holding onto the sword, further defeated than I previously was.

Corvu chuckles, “I think I understand what you meant based on that stance you used. We don't usually say anything here, the stance is more than enough. But we aren’t starting with battle. Let’s just start with basics. We will stop three times a day for half an hour of practice, increasing as you learn more.” I nod. “We’re going to focus on defence for you, until you’re strong enough to actually plunge that thing into someone.”

“Wait. What?” He didn’t say anything about killing anyone.

“That reaction is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s clear to me in your world humans are weak and uneducated in self preservation. What are you going to do when a giant Daemonaria comes out of nowhere and starts destroying your city? Do you just run screaming?” I resisted the urge to tell him about all the movies where that actually happens.

“Monsters and Daemonaria don’t exist in my world.”

“We’ve established that. They exist here, where you are, and if you don’t learn to defend yourself, you won’t be seeing that unusually peaceful world of yours ever again. You’ll be dead.” That last word rang in my ears over and over again. He was right. This wasn’t my world. I can get hurt. I can die. “The Orcs especially will be out to get you and they will not hesitate to flatten your head with a club. So why should you hesitate to cut off theirs?”

Gulping I respond, “Cause they’re tall and I can’t reach?” He clearly wasn’t expecting that as a response, he chuckles before continuing.

“You need to learn basics, unfortunately basics is all your opponent needs to kill you as well.” He takes a couple steps closer to me as his voice deepens, “Lesson one,” I let out a startled scream as he swiftly brings the sword to the side of my neck, “, distancing. You need to make sure your opponent is where you want them. Being within their grasp is not only going to make it easy for them to kill you, but they may also decide to go for your weapon.” I feel like I should be writing this down, but I’d just have to take it all in and write it down later. “Lift your sword.” He commands me, taking a step backward. I do as he asks but with another swift motion he uses his sword to knock mine so hard it flies out of my hand, it’s tip cutting into the grass beside me. “Lesson two, try not letting your sword fly out of your hand every time you do battle with someone.”

It didn’t take much but I could already tell this was not my day.

Chapter twelve

Corvu spends a little longer than half an hour teaching me how to keep a grip on my sword, but I end up with more bruises than when I fell off that cart last week. I’ve been here for so long already. It means I’ve missed a few shifts at work, so surely someone has noticed I’m missing by now. It’s not that I expect anyone to come looking for me; I just don’t want to be forgotten. Maybe I should have tried harder to make more friends. I’d hate to think I’d go completely unnoticed. I do have a good friend—we grew up at the orphanage together. She was adopted, but we never lost touch. She calls me once a month and visits every few months or so. She lives in New Jersey, so the subway ride can be a little long. I miss her.

It’s night, and even though we don’t have to worry about Skellys anymore, I’m still uneasy about sleeping in the middle of a forest. It’s not as cold as it was a couple of nights ago, which is a relief, but I can’t sit as close to the fire as I’d like without getting a mouthful of smoke. Gecko finds a spot next to a crevice, giving us an advantage should anyone try to approach us from that side. He’s dead asleep on top of the boulder we built the fire next to. It has been a long day, especially with our interrupted sleep the night before.

“Hey,” Corvu somewhat whispers, coming over to sit down next to me against the fallen tree stump. In his hand he holds a canteen, which he passes to me. I smile and accept it, but after taking a sip I realize it’s not water, but grapey? It’s very sweet.

“What is this?” I ask him,

“Do you not have wine in your world?” He questions, raising a curious brow.

“Oh,” I respond, a little surprised, I wasn’t expecting him to carry around wine.

“Sophii gave me a couple of these, she picked the grapes and Gharp did the rest.”

“That’s really cool.” I smile, taking another small sip.

“‘Cool’?”

“Yeah, that’s our slang for saying something is really awesome or amazing.” He nods, a hint of a smile sitting on his lips. Taking the canteen from me he takes a sip as well. I normally don’t like sharing food and drink because of germs, but in this world dying from sharing a canteen of wine was not my highest concern. “So, you said that even you had a reason to want to use the amulet, do you mind if I ask what it is your searching for?"

He scoffs, “Even if I did mind, you'd ask anyway.” He hands the canteen back to me once again to take a drink, “I'm looking for someone.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“My parents. I don't really know what happened to them.” The sentence alone made me feel so much sadness, but there were so many questions that stemmed from it,

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