Daughter Of The Moon

Chapter 15

Luna

"You're not even trying." He mocks, parrying my blow with ease and knocking the sword out of my hand. "My grandmother could beat you at swordplay."

I don't like sword fighting. After breakfast, the Apollo cabin explained to me exactly how this whole rota works, and the cabin had picked sword fighting for first activity, which eventually led me to my current position: fighting with Felix Took, and failing miserably.

Should have stuck to archery, Luna. I think ruefully to myself as I look down at my sword, lying limply on the sand at my feet.

I bunch my fists and stoop down to pick up the weapon, all the time glaring at Felix. "Again." I say through my teeth.

I thrust at his shoulder, but he blocks it easily, telling me how obvious it was. He then starts a complex sequence which starts to push me backwards, making it harder and harder to defend myself. He then lunges and nicks my arm with the blade, making me hiss in pain as a cut opens up on my forearm and starts to drip blood down onto my hand.

"You're loosing ground. Loose your ground and you loose your life." He says, smirking as he knocks the sword out of my hand again and catches it before holding it mockingly at my throat.

"Loose your attitude or you loose your life." I snarl back at him, snatching my sword out of his hand. We start at it again: he jabs at my stomach, and I skip to the side, bringing the sword up in defence before swinging the flat of my sword at his head, knocking his helmet off and making him stumble to the ground, stunned.

"Whatever. You'll still never be good at anything but archery." He says, spitting a clot of blood on the floor at my feet and getting into a sitting position, rubbing the side of his head.

"Oh, you little-" My fingers inch towards my hunting knife -the newest addition to my weapons of favour- and pull it out of its sheath, ready to pounce on him and hold it to his throat like that time at the archery competition.

That would show him. I may not be good at swordplay, but I sure as hell can-

"Easy there, Jacey. Don't get your petticoats in a twist." Says a lazy voice from behind me, and I whip around to see Kai walking towards me. Well, walking is the wrong word; he saunters into the sword fighting arena like he owns the place, and I get a feeling by the way the crowds part as he walks that he is a very good swordsman.

"You see, as much as I'd like to see you slice Felix to ribbons, I'm on arena clean-up duty tonight, and you know how hard it is to get blood off the floor." He drawls, "So why don't we make this a little less messy, eh? I'll defend your honour by beating the beans out of this messenger-boy, which mind you, I can do without spilling blood, and then you can drag him out of here and turn him into a human pretzel." He regards Felix as if he is something that he found on the sole of his shoe, and Felix winces slightly.

"I don't need you to defend my honour. I can do this myself." I say defiantly, straightening up. "And you don't need to beat him again, I already got him down." To prove my point, I take my knife fully out of its sheath and throw it at Felix, pinning his shirt cuff to the ground and watching him nearly faint in relief as he realises it didn't actually cut his hand.

I have to hide a smile.

"True." Kai says, his green eyes glittering with amusement. "But, say, do you think you could beat me?"

I bite my lip and look at him, calculating my chances. I'm guessing by his arrogance that he's good at this sort of thing, which would mean that if I can win, I'll get a lot of glory, but if I loose, it will be playing right into his hands.