Deathbringer

CHAPTER 6

Beatrix had always heard that anticipation was one of the worst feelings. Or at least, that's what her mum used to always say. Only now did she truly understand the feeling of it. She bounced on the balls of her feet as she awaited her turn in the ring. In her mind, she played and replayed Jamie's words from the previous evening.

You're fairly tall. With a shorter opponent, you could use them long limbs to your advantage. A werewolf is bound to be taller than you though, so you'll want to get up close nice and fast, get the element of surprise.

Luckily, she was quite fast. With any luck, she'd be able to get in, strike fast, and get out without getting too hurt. No telling with a werewolf though. She gave Fenris a sideways glance. He had his fist in front of him and was studying it, clenching and unclenching his hand. He studied the scars between the hills of his knuckles, where his claws came through. Werewolves healed fast, but those scars were one of the only things that never healed, due to werewolves changing and shifting so often.

Know your strengths. You can't use magic, but if you have any other strengths, anything you can get away with using, then use it to your advantage.

Beatrix was sure she didn't have any strengths. What could she do that no one else could? She was just a sickly girl from Rumelt. She wasn't even from some magical town like the rest of the recruits. In fact, she didn't even live near one of the magical towns, as far as she could tell. From what she'd heard, the closest one to Rumelt was Aramastus, but even that was dozens of miles away. Several normal towns and villages lay between them. And Aramastus was surrounded by acres of forest anyway; the vampires would hunt the animals there for blood.

Time was moving much too fast for Beatrix's liking; the clock had already moved forward fifteen minutes. She tried to focus on the fight between Oma and Laurel, but her mind kept worrying about the next fight, her fight. As soon as this one was over, she'd be called into the ring to fight Fenris.

She watched laurel dance out of Oma's reach, wings fluttering, only to be pulled back down by the ankle. She began to count.

One...

Laurel crashed to the floor. Her head smacked the floor of the ring with a sickening thud, but she crawled to her knees.

Two...

Laurel dived at Oma. Oma dodged and threw a punch at Laurel, who grabbed her wrist and yanked, hard.

Three...

Oma crashed to the floor and didn't move. There was a second of silence.

Four...

Oma crawled slowly to her feet. She wiped the blood from her chin. Beatrix didn't know how she was still going. All she knew was that this was wrong. This was wrong and there was no way she could do it.

Five...

Oma and laurel were a blur of flailing fists and grunts but they were slowing down. They were slowing down.

Six...

 Beatrix didn't know why one of them didn't just give in. They were both injured. They were both tired. They were just being stubborn, though maybe that was the point. She knew Oma was fairly proud. Being a Valkyrie, she could probably never just walk away from a fight. Laurel was...just stubborn. Beatrix didn't think it was a pixie thing; she had a sneaking suspicion that laurel was just stubborn because she could be.

But it looked like Laurel was just that little bit more stubborn than Oma. With a determined grunt, she flung a fist towards Oma's head, connecting with the side of her skull with a solid thud. Oma dropped to floor and didn't move. They waited. This time she didn't get up.