What I'm Writing Wednesday



I still had one dagger left and Jehanne was focused on directing her remaining fighters like they were her own personal chess pieces. It would be so easy to bury the point between her shoulder blades, but even the fact that I had that thought sent a foreboding chill curling around my guts.

I was not a killer.

“Hey!” I yelled at her and she spun in surprise to face me.

She said something in French that didn’t sound like “it’s nice to see you, would you like some tea,” right before she lunged at me with her sword.

Well, crap. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Apparently, she didn’t have the same aversion to killing that I did because she wasn’t kidding around with that sword-thrust.

I dove to the side to get out of range of Jehanne’s sword, and practically fell over Connor’s clothes. I heard my mom’s voice in my head yelling at him to pick up his stuff, and in the next moment I could have kissed him for leaving it lying around because his sword was part of the pile.

Jehanne was on me again, and Connor’s sword was weighted differently than mine. For the first minute or two with it, I could only block Jehanne’s attempts to skewer me.

The sounds of the fight around me changed slightly and I thought the tide must have turned against Jehanne’s fighters. It didn’t mean much for me unless I could keep the sharp edge of her battered sword away from my intestines, which is what I was using both dagger and sword to do at that moment.

The ringing of metal from swords clashing is a distinctive sound that’s been lost to history. It should stay lost, as far as I was concerned. It was loud and sharp and carried the promise of extreme pain.

I thought Jehanne might be close to Shifting, because the look on her face, as she tried again and again to bury her sword in my body, could only be described as feral. I got Connor’s sword up just in time to avoid a slash to the neck and was trying to use the dagger in my other hand as weapon rather than a puny little shield when Jehanne suddenly flung herself at me. Except not with her sword. With her body. And my dagger managed to clip her shoulder on her way down.

Huh?

Connor’s Wolf had barreled into her from behind. He took her out at the knees and her impact with the ground knocked the wind out of her.

I stared at him, standing over her with a fierce growl that said, “move and I’ll rip your throat out.” Then I looked around to find Archer and Bas disarming a couple of French fighters and Ringo gathering weapons from the ones who had fallen.

Jehanne was struggling to sit while Connor’s Wolf hovered over her menacingly. I had enough presence of mind to kick her sword away, but I was still in a fog of disbelief that I didn’t have any fresh holes in my body.

“That girl tried to kill me.” I was breathing hard, and my voice was more of a shocked whisper than actual tone, but she heard me and glared like she’d like another shot at it.

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