Page 50 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Yes…” I breathed, striding forward and grabbing Selene’s hand, helping her up, then inspecting each wound I’d left, wincing at each one. “I can’t promise results, but…”

I stared into the Wolf Maiden’s eyes then, part apology, part plea.

“I think you’ll find that we are willing to help you discover ways to help protect yourselves.”

Selene nodded to me slowly, her grip on my hand tightening, as if the two of us had just struck a deal.

25

“What did it feel like?” Selene asked Gael and I quietly.

We’d lined the ladies up, got them practice swords and then got them started with some very basic strikes. Just as I had, they were forced to perform them over and over, building the strength of their arms and helping them develop the muscle memory of what to do. The grumbles coming down the line were familiar ones, because when I’d been starting out, I’d made them too. When you were ready to learn how to fight, often you wanted to go straight into heroic hacking and slashing, not lunging over and over with your sword outstretched.

“I…” Gael’s voice trailed away. “It was like battle fever.”

“That’s what it looked like,” Selene said grimly, but her focus was on the ladies. She stepped forward to help a slender girl of about thirteen hold her sword correctly, then moved away. “But you came back from it.” She glanced at us. “How?”

“You,” I said, shooting her a sidelong look, then focussing back on the ladies. “I saw your face, saw the blood I’d spilled and initially that just drove me harder. I wanted it. Wanted your blood and your pain and to show that I was the best and you weren’t. I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t be,” she said with a smirk. “It’s a difficult mindset for any woman to take, but a queen? She can’t be dilly dallying around worrying about every bastard’s quibbles.”

That comment just made me think of Aurora and her blasted machinations.

“But then she made me see what was coming if I persisted. I saw you dead and bleeding out on the sand and that’s what stopped me.”

“She, as in the Morrigan?” Selene asked, and her lips thinned when I nodded. “That needs addressing sooner rather than later. But what you saw, that can’t stop you when you duel the queen, you know that.” I did and indicated that. “Because she won’t stop. She’ll be fantasising about you being in the exact same position, and she’ll be surrounding herself with people who will be telling her that’s how it will be. If there’s anyone or anything that can give her a leg up in this fight, she’ll be looking. She’s coming to kill you.”

And I wouldn’t hesitate when I met Aurora on the field. I stared at each woman in turn, cataloguing the ways they tried to perform the strike, all the ways they failed and all the ways they tried again. Each time those swords stabbed into the air though, I felt like I stabbed with them.

“The goddess will decide,” I said and there seemed to a ceremonial weight to those words.

“So she will,” Selene replied.

The two of us walked around the women, correcting form and stopping people, demonstrating the right and wrong ways to do things before getting them started again. I saw a lot of the initial fervour fade. The ladies had clustered closer, chattering excitedly when we gave them practise swords, but we were losing that. A lot of what we did with a sword was boring, repetitive, and more of a science than a ferocious art. It was about conditioning their bodies to know what to do when faced with a threat.

“I consider myself a strong woman,” one lady said, setting the tip of her sword into the sand. “I’ve gone out all day hoeing fields and planting potatoes with my husband, but this…” She shook her head, then looked speculatively at her weapon. “Perhaps I’m not made out for this.”

“That’s up to you,” I said. “If you want to train, we’ll train you, but just as you couldn’t work all day in the fields as a small child, you won’t learn much about fighting in a day. You have built up muscles over time to allow you to work all day. You’ll have to do the same for fighting.”

“And why should we, when the king has his army?” another woman said with a frown, walking over and putting her sword back on the rack. “Isn’t this the men’s job?”

“It might be if you have a man,” Annis shot back. “Many of us don’t anymore. And some of us want to know what to do no matter what our marriage status.” Her jaw firmed and her eyes flashed. “I didn’t feel weak in childbed when I almost bled to death. I didn’t feel weak when my… when my Thomas died of the coughing sickness when he was but five.” Women murmured their support at that. “But when those bastards came into my farm, my home, and ripped apart everything they could get their hands on, everything we’d built…”

She shook her head, then stood taller, seeming to swell in size.

“Just as with everything else I’ve ever learned, I’ll have to take small steps to get anywhere with it,” she said, then raised her sword. “And I’m willing to take them as long as Lady Darcy and Lady Selene are willing to show me.”

Some women followed the first one’s lead and set their swords back into the rack, shooting us an apologetic look as they returned to their washing, collecting up their baskets and going back inside. But others, they looked to us, wanting to learn the next step. Gael moved forward to sort out the mess they’d made of the racks, shoving weapons where they weren’t supposed to be, when he faltered.

My head whipped around as I felt a tremendous wrench, not of my power, but his. He stumbled, one knee giving out and the other looking to do the same when I dove forward.

“Gael? Gael!”

I dived under him, his weight too heavy for me to take, and Selene rushed in to help. Although her putting her hands on him set my teeth on edge, I shoved that feeling to one side as we set him down on the sand. I fell down beside him, my hands fluttering over his body, his face.

“Gael, what happened? Are you alright? Gael?”

“What the bloody hell is going on?”

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