Impulse by Dave Bara Read Free Book Online

seconds were a whirlwind of action, her foil flashing at me from every conceivable direction. I gave ground as fast as I could, trying to find space to set up a defense and hoping to avoid getting pinned. I circled left and tried to duck under her thrust to my open shoulder but she was too fast and caught the webbing of my tunic, sounding the scoring bell. One-nil. It had all taken mere seconds.
    â€œCome on now, Cochrane, surely you can do better than that!” she taunted me. “What
do
they teach you at that Academy? Child’s swordplay?” She went back to her mark. I took several deep breaths to buy myself time, then took my mark again, this time right-handed.
    â€œTrickery doesn’t suit you, Cochrane. I hope you’re better right-handed,” she said.
    â€œMe too,” I replied. This time I tapped her sword.
    â€œ
En garde
,” I said.
    I stepped back and this time she didn’t charge, sizing up my right-handed skills, circling the mat furiously with her foil down at her side. I kept mine fully extended.
    â€œYou can’t win if you never attack, you know,” she said. Again this was obviously designed to distract me while she plotted her strategy. I said nothing in return, but dropped my foil in reply. She hesitated only a second before charging across the mat at me.
    Our foils clashed again, hers whipping through the air with lightning precision, mine scattering from point to point, barely keeping her at bay. The thrust and parry went on nonstop. She pursued me from corner to corner, always attacking, with rarely a moment where we were not engaged. I judged we had been at it almost three minutes when she made her move.
    She came in with her foil low, in a deep crouch as she flashed at me. My parry was relatively simple until I realized her true strategy. In two short lunges she was inside my right leg with her left and pushed me backward while our foils were locked, mine inside of hers. She drove her shoulder into my chest.
    â€œOomph!” I let out as the air escaped my lungs. I started to fall backward over her leg as she pushed me down to the mat with her free hand. Instinctively my arms spread out to cushion my fall and she released her foil, whipping it into my chest nearly the same moment as I hit the mat. The scoring bell sounded again. Two-nil.
    I lay on my back, embarrassed and clearly outclassed again, or at least outsmarted. But I had learned one thing, I was good enough that I had frustrated her into making a move that was outside the rules of the game, at least the official rules. I sprang to my feet, whipping off my mask.
    â€œCommander Kierkopf!” I shouted, more than a bit angry. “I didn’t know that such tactics were allowed under the rules.”
    She turned back to me from her bench where she was taking a drink between games. “Formal fencing rules, yes. But we are engaged in sword fighting, my young man. We are in the military and this is no contest. It’s training. So you’d better learn to fight as you would in real life. Real life conflict is not a game.” I rolled my mask back down over my face to show my displeasure at her underhandedness. My mother had taught me to always respect a lady, but clearly this woman was no lady. “If you’re not up to it, we can quit now,” she said, taunting me again and challenging my pride.
    I replied by taking my mark.
    Seconds later we were engaged in battle. This time I didn’t trifle with swordplay. She lunged at my left shoulder with her foil, missing the webbing and a third point—and the match—by mere millimeters. I stepped forward into the open space she had left by her attack and grappled with her, grabbing her firmly by the wrists with both hands. She resisted and I found her surprisingly strong, sinewy and difficult to move off her mark. Both our foils fell to the mat. In a match of pure physical strength I was always going to win. As she stepped in