The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 66

Part 12

“You’ll fight me because I insisted on it, because I enjoy this kind of thing even more than my companions.” Helemia told her with a grin as she stood up and Translocated out of her armor. “And I’ll fight all twenty of you at once, with no magic, and no psionic holds or attacks. You’ll fight the same way. If any of you tries to cheat by using magic or psionics against me, I’ll do the same to you, and I bet you won’t like that a bit!

“And just to keep things fair, I’m fighting you without my armor or my shield or my good weapons, since they have a lot of permanent magical enhancements. Just this.” she giggled as she held up a knife with a fifteen centimeter blade. “You can all use whatever you’ve got for weapons or armor.”

“You must be insane.” a male Sylvan said as he drew his sword.

“We’ll know in a moment, won’t we?” Helemia laughed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The Sylvan gave a snarl and chopped down at her with his sword. Helemia merely side-stepped just enough that the sword brushed her clothing as it whistled by and struck the ground, and poked him with her knife over his heart hard enough to draw a drop of blood.

“That’s it for you.” she laughed as he winced and stepped back, clutching his chest to assess the damage. “I’d have stabbed you through the heart if I wanted to.”

“Get her!” the Sylvan yelled as he attacked again, and the twenty converged. They largely got in each other’s way, as only six of them at most could directly attack her at once without hitting each other.

She danced among them, her expression grim as her concentration focused, and she set to disarming them with strikes on their hands. She had to deal out a few other blows and mild cuts as she did so to avoid injury, but most of her defense was dodging, deflecting, and blocking. She moved through them at their knee level so quickly and unpredictably that none managed an effective strike against her. When she’d disarmed them by disabling one of their hands, they picked up their weapon in their other hand and kept coming. She had to disarm most of them at least twice before the combat came to an end, with all of them standing in a circle around her with their weapons on the ground and their bleeding and broken hands held awkwardly before them. Though it had only lasted for four minutes, all of them were panting and sweating, including Helemia.

“And that’s that.” Helemia grimly declared as she settled into a stance in the center of the circle.

“We’ll Heal you now; some of you have some bad leg wounds.” Karzog declared.

“I didn’t do those, they did those to each other.” Helemia pointed out as her companions performed the Healings.

“You cheated!” A female Sylvan declared. “You were psionicly Reading us as we were fighting! You knew what we were going to do before we did it!”

“I was, but it wasn’t cheating.” Helemia responded as she suddenly grinned. “I only said I wouldn’t use psionics or magic as a weapon or to hold you, and I didn’t. Still, if you want to go again without me doing that, we can do that. But I’ll admit that I’ll need some more serious weapons for that.”

Her knife disappeared, and was replaced by two light, twin-edged, tapering short swords about sixty centimeters long each. She waved them around for a moment in a very complex swirling pattern before settling into stance again. “Any of you who want to pick up your weapons and give it another try are welcome to, and I promise not to Read you.”

All twenty of them did so, then gingerly advanced on her. She was faced with a closing ring of steel points and edges, and the Sylvan slowly moved forward together, their weapons held as far forward as their reach allowed, to keep Helemia as far from them as possible.