Noble Beginnings by D.W. Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

than you can blink an eye.
Got it?"
    Marcus's eyes were glinting with excitement,
and Dorran reflected that he was looking forward to seeing how the
youth performed in the exercise. "Understood."
    "Good. I'll be trying to make things harder
for her, working with you two for the most part and playing off of
Marcus some of the time. Don't worry about what I'm doing, it's my
job to focus on you." He hefted his sword. "In battle, talented
fighters like Edith are important to wipe out as soon as possible.
Let's see how quickly we can put her down, shall we?"
    They nodded, and his small knot of soldiers
broke, moving to their starting positions. Edith raised her sword
and crouched, anchoring herself in the ground. She wasn't planning
on retreating in this fight.
    The plan worked well, though not quite as
well as Dorran had hoped. Edith had eyes in the back of her head,
and the power of their superior numbers was impeded by the fact
that Dorran and Kell spent most of their time trying to coordinate
smoothly with the two younger, inexperienced swordsmen. Edith only
had to worry about herself and didn't take it easy on any of them.
As always, she fought with a fierceness and drive of someone with
something to prove. Dorran took some touches trying to draw her
away from the others, but they managed to avoid getting hit for the
most part.
    Edith knew that in a real battle scenario,
she would have only a few minutes at most before she would be
overwhelmed by yet more enemies, so as the battle continued, she
started to pick up her pace, taking more risks. In the end she
lunged just a bit too far in an effort to separate Kell and Iain,
and Marcus jumped in for an opening. She saw him out of the corner
of her eye and corrected her lunge in a near-impossible feat of
flexibility.
    Dorran, watching, realized what was going to
happen a split second before it did and moved on instinct. The next
thing he knew, Edith's sword was poking hard into his side, but his
was in a swing towards her throat. He carefully twisted the blade
at the last second so that the flat of it smacked against her skin.
The rest of the fighters froze on instinct, waiting for the
communal verdict.
    "Hm," he said, trying not to gasp from the
pain that throbbed from the hit that would turn into an ugly bruise
in a few hours. "Mutual kill?"
    "Probably," she admitted. "Certainly, given
this one..." She indicated Iain with her head; the youth was frozen
in a lunge with his blade aimed for Edith's heart, with Kell
covering him, ready to parry or counterattack. "I'll have killed
you first, but I'd follow you right after."
    Dorran grinned and stepped back, hissing a
bit as he fingered the few layers of broken skin where the edge of
Edith's sword had dug deepest into his flesh. "Well, I'm just as
dead either way. I guess that's a draw."
    "A draw with three more fighters on your
side," Edith pointed out, a small smile gracing her fine features.
"Not really that impressive on your part."
    "You know that isn't how it works," Dorran
retorted casually, but he wasn't really interested in the argument
at this point. "I think I made a decent team player, and you did
very well on your own." Edith shrugged, and he continued, forcing
himself to keep the casual tone. "Want to try a different
style?"
    She shrugged and settled into stance, the
hint of a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. "One-on-one?"
    "Your wish is my command," he replied
quickly, then looked over his shoulder at the others. "You may want
to get back I think she wants to prove a point and whoever gets in
her way might need a bandage or two."
    About an hour later, both of them were slick
with sweat. Dorran could feel bruises blossoming in half a dozen
spots across his body, and suspected that Edith was in similar
shape or a part of him at least hoped she was. Edith wasn't the
kind of fighter he could afford to pull punches on, though he did
try not to be unnecessarily forceful. "I think you win," he
admitted with a shaky