Guardians Book One - Magic Rising

Chapter Twenty

At first, training wasn't hard. Kath wondered if Lady was just testing her physical fitness; if so, no problems there! They jogged laps up and down the riverside, pausing for press ups and squats. Lady did allow Kath to hold the dirk and practise drawing it, holding it straight, and testing which hand was more dominant with it, but she didn't have her actually stab anything yet. After a few days of seemingly endless circuit training, broken only by light meals and having Innocence jump out on her from behind doors and curtains to check how she was doing, even in full armour, Kath was getting bored.

"When d'we get to the kicking arse bit?" she called to Lady, who was standing, arms crossed, in kiba-dachi stance, waiting while Kath took a long drink of water. Lady hiked an eyebrow at her. Kath tossed the bottle down and threw a mock punch in Lady's vague direction; Lady's expression fell.

"I see we shall have to start with some basics," she said. "You do not wish to break your wrist, I believe?" Kath winced and pulled back her limply-waving hand.

"That bad?"

Lady, with unusual tact, didn't answer.

Learning was a slow process. Clearly when Lady had been taught, her instructors had moved her hands and legs about to correct her; Lady, however, seemed unwilling to touch Kath, although her hands moved awkwardly to Kath's wonky punches where she clearly wanted to, but she always pulled her hand back at the last moment, attempting to demonstrate instead. But Kath was not a visual learner.

"You can just grab me, you know?" Kath said, exasperated, after the fifteenth failure to achieve what Lady had termed 'turn velocity' with her wrist. "I don't mind. I'm used to being chucked about."

Lady pursed her lips. "It feels wrong to lay a hand on someone without meaning them harm."

"You're alright with Pes," Kath teased. Lady's gaze turned frosty.

"That," she said, with dignity, "Is slightly different. I have spent my entire life with Pes. There are few boundaries it would be...improper to cross; it is as touching myself. He is...my oldest, dearest friend. I have also never needed to teach him such things." She sighed. "You have enthusiasm. I fear what you lack is...aggression."

Kath blinked. "Eh?"

"You have to hit as if you mean it," Lady said. "Not to hit or kick someone; to hit or kick right through them. You are aiming for the other side of their body, not the skin in front. You aim to lay out a living being, in anger, in war. I see you are not weak or incompetent. Yet you do not focus. This...is not training for competition or challenge. It is something greater - darker. That is something I cannot teach you – indeed...I would not wish to. Those feelings. It can harm you in return...one rarely sees what is in front of one's face. One cannot afford to." She trailed off, looking away and swinging her left leg up to head height and back down a few times, idly, distractingly. A shadow seemed to have fallen over her face.

"Maybe we should...uh, try the gun or the dirk thing or something?" said Kath. You've got me on your side whether you like it or not. I can be aggressive. It ain't that hard – I like to win. I can smash through things. I got this! Why won't she give me a chance? And I can't just...not. Her father agrees. I need to know this stuff. I can help. I know I can. I'm not...useless.

"Perhaps," said Lady. "Yes. Very well. Let us try some target practise. This is a safe place to practise; plenty of farmers have game shoots, so nobody shall question. I have targets set up."

When Kath rounded the corner to the targets, she understood slightly what Lady meant.

"They're...very realistic," she whispered. Lined up against a wooden fence were the torsos of Lady herself, her parents, a few faces she could only assume were Guardians she hadn't met – photographs pasted onto wooden backings, riddled with bullet holes.

"You have to focus," said Lady. "The only way to do so, in a war, is to disassociate. Any way I had to try to learn that, I had to take. Some Guardians can shapeshift." She gave Kath a look both piercing and apologetic. "I would have spared you this, if I could."

"Do I have a choice?" Kath murmured, already knowing the answer.

Lady once again did not reply, and handed her a loaded pistol.

By the end of that session, Kath was pleased her aim was accurate, although shooting the image of Lady in the face repeatedly had been strangely shaking, especially since the real-life version was next to her, calmly firing round after round into the images of a robed figure, and her own father. This is another world. Is this likely? I mean...has she had to...? Lady's impassive face gave away no secrets. She said she killed a Guardian once. Was it...? But there was no way she could ask, surely. She wouldn't tell me, anyway. What the hell did it do to her?

"We should close for the day," Lady said, eventually. "Mama will have made dinner, and you need to rest, as well. A hot bath would perhaps help your muscles." She stared up into the darkening sky. "Father will be back soon, also." Kath had seen him drive off earlier that day; Pes had told her he was going to check with the estate agents on the London flat. Does that mean we're going back? She wasn't sure how to feel about that, any more. She knew it was coming, and yet...the break on the moor was becoming endless and timeless. Reality seemed like another lifetime.

"No kidding on the bath," Kath made herself laugh in reply to Lady, remembering many an after-match morning-after ache.

And as she stood there, clutching the gun, something in the air shifted, oh-so subtly. She frowned.

"What's that?"

Lady tilted her head at her. "Hmm?"

"No, I can feel something," Kath insisted, closing her eyes. "Not the guys inside. Not Pes. There's..." Heat, the world is burning, the heart of the sun, tearing the flesh from my bones – blackened bones and smoke. Her throat suddenly tight, she hacked a cough, waving a hand towards where the sensation was coming from. "Some...thing. There..."

Lady froze, pulling herself upright, her eyes distant for a moment. "Not here," she growled. "Surely not? We are warded in iron!"

Kath wheezed, and Lady flapped her hands at the door.

"Get inside, call the others! Call Pes..." And she was off, sprinting in the direction Kath had motioned.

"Not again!" Instinct told Kath to chase her, but this time, a little more practicality kicked in. She forced some air into her lungs and ran back to the house; Pes was in the kitchen with Wisdom, laying out the table for dinner. They both stared at her flushed face as she entered.

"Something's here!" she panted, and Pes' face paled.

"On holy ground?" Wisdom snapped, and Kath nodded. The Guardian held up a hand, her fingers glistening with a flare of magic. "They broke the wards. With..." She tossed her head. "The trail of a true name, the knowledge of identity. Not our nameless souls, not the protected names of the Lord and his wife...the oldest magic of all. A calling." The two Guardians turned to stare at Kath. Pes' thin cheeks were hollower than usual, and Kath blanched.

"Me. It's me. Oh...crap..."

"We didn't think, and you wouldn't know..." Pes reached out a hand to her, but her fingers had already tightened again around the pistol she was still clutching.

"It's me they want? It's me they're gonna get, then." And, concentrating on the hideous burning in her mind, Kath flung back the door and ran before the Guardians could stop her.