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Chapter Six: To the Battlements
“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Surely I will bring a sword upon you and cut off from you man and beast.’” —Ezekiel 29:8
“Hey! Wait for me!” Derek called from the scowled in irritation, but Dianne eased her pack to the ground to wait for Derek. Takima and Laura stopped a few steps down the road.
“English class first?” Dianne asked cheerfully as Derek caught up with her and the girls started moving again.
“You bet,” Derek said, grinning.
The warm late August air was as clear and crisp as boiling water–which is to say, muggy and uncomfortable. The sky was a vibrant hue of blue, with just a hint of clouds. Though the sun beat down upon her, Dianne was sure she could smell rain on its way.
“So how were the geeks?” Dianne asked gleefully.
Derek smiled. “Not too bad. Adaru and me got along fine, actually.”
“Adaru?” Laura asked, her eyebrow raised.
Derek nodded. “He’s a tech nerd like me. Japanese, I think.”
Dianne and Susan exchanged glances, then tried very hard not to laugh.
But Susan just couldn’t help herself, saying, “With a name like that, he’s not likely to be Polish,” which set Dianne to cracking up.
“Knock it off,” Derek said, frowning, as they strolled casually along the wooded pathway. “He’s a nice guy. Focused, if a bit flippant.”
“I didn’t see anyone like that at breakfast,” Takima frowned thoughtfully.
“Yeah, why were you so late?” Dianne asked suspiciously.
“Well–you wouldn’t have,” Derek said abruptly, put off by Dianne’s tone. “I forgot to set our alarm clock.”
Laura blinked. “Where did you get an alarm clock?”
“I heard they didn’t work at Japrissa,” Takima frowned.
“I brought mine from home,” Derek explained. He paused, then went on, “I made it.”
“Oh!” Dianne’s eyes lit up. “So that’s why it works!”
“Technopath, remember?” Derek reminded the rest of them. “If you want one, I’m sure I could cobble something together.”
Susan frowned, and looked away.
“I would certainly like one,” Laura proclaimed.
“Me too,” Takima asserted.
“Why do you need two alarm clocks?” Dianne asked the roommates quizzically.
“Good point,” Derek said. Dianne thought it looked as though he was gazing down at the road, fervently wishing he had said nothing.
“Hey, relax, Derek—” Dianne broke off what she had been about to say as her excellent ears caught the sound of a rustling bush up ahead and the hint of a whisper.
“Ouch! You just stepped on my foot–”
“Watch it! We don’t want them to know we’re here before we’re on them, do we?”
“Shut up!”
Dianne unsheathed her sword in one quick motion, catching her friends off guard.
“What—” Laura began, stunned. Susan stared at the blade in horror.
“Ambush up ahead,” Dianne muttered out of the side of her mouth, stalking forward. Susan didn’t relax a bit, looking even more likely to turn tail and run.
“Where’d that sword come from?” Takima wanted to know, as she pressed closer to Dianne. “It just appeared out of thin air!”
Dianne grinned menacingly. “Invisible scabbard. Ready, Derek?”
“Yeah,” he said tersely, fingering something in his pocket.
Takima screamed as three thugs in cloaks rushed at them from the undergrowth, determined to fight even without the advantage of surprise. She ducked and completely lost her head.
“Hide me, hide me, hide me!” Takima yelled, squatting on the path behind Dianne. Her hands clamped onto Dianne’s legs, hampering her movement.
Laura wasn’t much better, standing rooted in the ground as she was, and only ducking from the first thug’s fists when he was right on top of her, but Susan at least was some help.
“Aaaaiiiiiiieeeee!” Susan called, climbing a tree and throwing acorns down at the attackers.
Dianne had her hands full fending off both her attacker and Laura’s, but Derek’s man kept stumbling toward him as Derek fumbled with one of his pockets.
“I guess that was a no,” Dianne called to him, as she turned the flat of her blade to connect with the back of Laura’s attacker’s head. At the same time, her own attacker landed a punch in Dianne’s kidney and swept her feet out from under her.
Dianne tried to get up, moaning, but as she reached for her sword–two inches, and a mile, it seemed from her fingertips–he kicked her in the gut and she doubled up again.
She looked up. He had his foot raised, high, about to crunch down on her windpipe—
And then he was on the ground next to her, groaning, with an electrical pulse jolting through his body.
Dianne blinked, realizing that the fight was almost over, with the only one left advancing slowly on Derek.
She snatched up her sword and, with a roll, swung with all her might at knee height–and then it was done. Their final attacker’s screams rung through the air, his hamstrings a bloody mess.
Hesitantly standing, Dianne exhaled, then stooped to wipe off her sword in the grass.
“Not exactly the way I expected to start out the morning,” Susan commented, scrambling down the tree.
“Yeah,” Takima mumbled, rubbing her ankle. “Who are these guys, anyway?”
Dianne looked at them grimly as she sheathed her sword and it disappeared from view. “Warlocks, Takima. These are some of those who hunt me.” She paused. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.”
“Nonsense,” Laura said firmly, touching her scalp and finding blood. “In you we have a stalwart protector, right?”
Dianne glanced at Derek, who was breathing heavily and retrieving his pulsers, which looked curiously like microchips. “You all right, Derek?”
“I’ll live,” he said, wincing.
“We’ll all live,” Susan said firmly, the only one of them who was unhurt. “We have an English class to go to, after all.”
Takima giggled cautiously, and Dianne smiled.
“Besides,” Laura put in, “this gives me a chance to cultivate the Nurse now, right?”
Dianne heaved a sigh, “If warlocks are willing to attack this soon after I got here, I suspect very soon we will all know the Nurse on a first-name basis.”
“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t just heal us,” Takima mentioned, blotting at her bloody lip.
“Most of what I can do is by accident or instinct. We would all be better off waiting to visit the healer,” Laura said, shaking her head, then touching her hand to her scalp again.
Dianne looked at her concernedly as they searched for their English classroom. “You sure you’re okay enough to go to class?”
Laura winced. “I’ll be fine. Just a mild headache. And I’ll probably end up needing stitches.”
“It’s not like anything’s broken,” Takima put in, who had been using a dead branch as a crutch.
“You probably should have gone to the Nurse right away,” Derek reminded her. He glanced at Laura. “Both of you, that is.”
“You and Derek aren’t much better off than we are,” Laura said exasperatedly. “That slice on your knee, Derek—”
“Hey, I said I was sorry,” Dianne managed, feeling a twinge of guilt that her sword had accidentally swung too far.
“—and you’ve probably got a bushel of bruises, Dianne,” Laura continued.
The door in front of them opened and Jack Adrian peered out at them.
“I thought I heard your voices,” Mr. Adrian said calmly. “Won’t you come inside and join the rest of the class?”
Dianne hunched and nodded, and Susan seemed to be trying to make herself look as small as possible. Laura turned bright red and mumbled a hasty apology while Derek fingered the back of his head, where a large bump throbbed.
Takima, however, took the other approach.
“Sure thing, Mr. Adrian. I’d be quite glad to get off this ankle,” Takima remarked, limping through the door and taking an empty seat in the middle of the front row.
Dianne followed her, bringing up the rear in front of Mr. Adrian. The class was half-full, but Dianne didn’t see more than one familiar face–and that one belonged to Titania Rimter, who she was not at all inclined to sit by. Instead, she ended up sitting in the second row, with Derek on one side and Susan on the other. Takima and Laura sat in front of them, with an empty desk in front of Derek.
Mr. Adrian looked at them sternly. “I do not usually tolerate latecomers,” he informed them. “But as this is the first day, for all of you—”
The door slammed open, and in walked the most gorgeous guy Dianne had ever seen. Green hair, a slight hint of mischief in his tilted brown eyes, he stood in the doorway coolly, taking them all in. With a smile, he met Dianne’s eyes, and her heart seemed to stop beating.
Mr. Adrian, rather annoyed, had sharp eyes. “Sit down, Adaru. And if you’re late to class again, it’ll be detention.”
As the boy’s gaze passed on, Dianne let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. When he found Derek in the crowd, the boy beamed and slid into the seat in front of Derek.
Dianne felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle, and glanced back. Titania was staring at her, scowling. Dianne gave her a wry smile and faced forward again.
Mr. Adrian cleared his throat. “Some of you know me already. To the rest of you–Mr. Jack Adrian, at your service. You’ll find me friendly outside of class–but inside, please, no shenanigans and we’ll get along fine.
“Freshmen English at Mooncastle consists of two components, which should be familiar to you. We will be reading and discussing several well-known plays, short stories, and a couple of novels. You will be expected to write literary papers as well as short poems.”
Dianne tugged on Derek’s sleeve. “That’s Adaru?”
Derek grinned. “Not at all like you expected him?”
I should say so! Dianne thought wildly. She tried to impose the image of a good-guy, glasses-wearing short Asian geek that she had imagined onto the handsome Adaru just introduced and nearly burst out laughing.
Mr. Adrian hadn’t noticed, continuing, “In fact, only one area of this course is at all different from any other English course at any other high school.”
Dianne looked at him, jolted out of her reverie. This can’t be good.
“Spells, charms, and curses,” Mr. Adrian finished. “You will be taught to recognize these for what they are, and distinguish references to these in the course material.”
Dianne couldn’t quite believe her ears. “What?”
Mr. Adrian looked at her unhappily. “See me after class, Miss Warder.”
“Yes, sir,” Dianne said quietly. She knew how this sort of browbeating worked.
Mr. Adrian resumed his discussion of the course syllabus. “I won’t be teaching you how to make these enchantments work–you would only learn that if you were currently in Suncastle. Instead, I will teach you how to identify them. How to defeat them. Because this kind of magic will affect even you, among the chosen few.”
Dianne blushed, embarrassed, and she heard a sharp bark of laughter from the back of the class, which turned her flush even darker.
“The first spell we will be covering, the most prevalent in today’s culture, is the Trance. It first became wildly popular in the seventies, when it was attached to the widely available drugs known as narcotics. The best-known way to fight the Trance is to avoid it if at all possible. It is usually induced in a victim by a rhyme combined with some substance indicating the behavior of the entranced. The only way to discern what a particular Trance is meant to do is to determine the ingredients used and decipher the rhyme. The Trance is used mostly in literature dealing with characters doing what is against their nature, or more subtly, in romance novels,” Mr. Adrian explained, pausing at intervals to let the tittering die down.
Finishing, he informed his class, “In conjunction with this spell, please read Faust and be ready to discuss it on Friday.”
Susan, looking puzzled, raised her hand. “Sir, where can we find a copy of this?”
Mr. Adrian frowned. “In the school store, of course. You are excused. All except for you,” he added as Dianne sprang to her feet.
Dianne sighed, and sat back down as the rest of her classmates filed outside.
“We’ll wait for you,” Derek mouthed. But Dianne shook her head.
“Go on. I’ll manage,” she assured her friend.
As Derek closed the door behind him, Mr. Adrian frowned intensely at her.
The frown vanished, however, the second Derek was out of sight.
“Got yourself in a spot of trouble, I see,” Jack remarked, eyeing the bruises that were still forming in places Dianne wasn’t even aware she had hurt.
Dianne shrugged. “It happens.”
“It shouldn’t,” Jack told her point-blank. “Be careful who you choose as friends, Miss Warder. If you pull your friends into danger, it will be on your head.”
Dianne lowered her eyes. “I know.” She began again. “I tried to give them a way out. Several times. But—”
“You have a magnetic personality,” Jack said, not unkindly. “Unfortunately, you attract not only friends, but enemies.”
Dianne looked away guiltily. “I don’t know what you mean,” she demurred.
“Come on,” Jack said irritably. “You can’t deny the animosity between you and Miss Rimter. I saw that plainly. And someone has certainly got warlocks on your tail.”
Dianne pressed her lips together and glanced at Jack. “I know.”
“As the Guardian, you put your friends in harm’s way just by being with them,” Jack said, the harsh words coming out in a comforting voice.
“I know,” Dianne said shortly, heading for the door.
“Wait,” Jack commanded, his face contorting.
Dianne turned around to face him. “What?”
“There’s something else you need to know,” Jack began. “Dianne, the warlocks are searching for the map, and they’ll do anything to find it. Don’t—”
“What?” Dianne shot back. “Don’t endanger my friends by doing something stupid?”
“No,” Jack said, reaching toward her. “Don’t put them in harm’s way by pushing them away.”
Dianne paused, stunned. “What?”
“Warlocks are dangerous, but your friends are far more safe with you than by themselves,” Jack admitted. “And you are safer with them than by yourself, as well.”
“Well, thanks,” Dianne said, put off her guard.
“Which is why you have to be careful who you choose as friends,” Jack continued. “It may well save your life. And theirs.”
He smiled. “But speaking of your friends, it’s possible that soon you’ll all be too busy to find time to deal with warlocks, or they with you. A phenomenal event will be taking place this semester, and I thought you and your friends might be interested.”
“Very funny, Derek,” Susan said, frowning. “Knock it off.”
“Knock what off?” Derek asked her, bewildered. Takima and Laura glanced back at him.
It was at that moment that a disheveled figure with a brown cloak emerged from the shadows. Derek readied a pulser as Laura screamed and Takima gasped.
Susan dropped her jaw. “Jakob?”
Derek lowered his weapon, and the other girls straightened from their shrunken positions.
“Hi, Susan,” Jakob said wearily. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course,” Susan said, frowning as he led her away from the others. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t talk too much now,” Jakob said quickly. “I just came to warn you—”
“—That some of your warlock buddies were coming to attack us?” Susan cut in. “Yeah, we know, thanks.”
“I warned them not to hurt you,” Jakob said anxiously. “That gang was hell-bent on trying to kill Dianne.”
“And you were afraid we’d be caught in the crossfire?” Susan demanded. “Thanks. So kind of you to be concerned about us.”
Jakob shook his head. “Not them. Just you. I’ve promised them, and anyone else who tries to attack your friends, if someone hurts you, I will kill him.”
Susan gasped. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“Not where you’re concerned,” Jakob said grimly. “I care for you, Susan. And I will keep you safe.”
And then, without so much as a goodbye, Jakob disappeared.
Susan blinked, and shook her head, trying to clear it. Surely he didn’t just proclaim himself my protector. What call has he to love me? We’ve barely met each other!
“Are you okay, Susan?” Laura asked, as Susan stumbled back onto the path.
“Fine,” Susan answered distractedly. But how wonderful of him to volunteer his services. Maybe–hopefully—
“You sure?” Takima asked, squinting at her.
“I said I’m fine,” Susan replied, pausing. “But . . . I don’t think any of us have anything to worry about from Jakob. He’s offered me his protection.”
“Against whom? The other warlocks?” Derek demanded. When Susan nodded, he snorted in disgust.
“Hey, he’s all right, okay? And I won’t hear another word against him,” Susan declared. “So just live with it.”
Derek grunted.
“Isn’t this a bit soon to be positive of something like this?” Laura put forth timidly.
Susan dismissed the notion. “No, I’m positive. He’s trying to help us, right?”
“Are you sure?” Takima asked, her troubled gaze meeting Susan’s eyes. “I think it’s just you he’s trying to help.”
“That’s true,” Susan admitted. “But give him time. And you can be sure that Jakob is one warlock who won’t be coming after us.”
I wouldn’t have met Derek, though, that way, Dianne reminded herself. The thought of not seeing what a marvelous person Derek could be shook Dianne out of her misery. Things could definitely be worse. I could be alone—
Dianne was alone. And suddenly, her preoccupied thoughts brought her back to the present.
Luckily, this time in her lapse of vigilance, no one had attacked her, but Dianne was not nearly so lucky that she thought she would get off free next time. Stop watching the shadows and you become one, Dianne recalled Father saying. It was apt for her lack of judgement.
A twig behind her cracked and she barely had time to draw her sword and thrust it between her head and the oncoming blade, which unchecked would surely have chopped her head in twain. Just another shadow, Dianne thought wryly, but then she had no more time for wry comments. She was fighting for her very life.
Her swift blade met Sundance Flashing with an upsweep of Scaring the Crows, which morphed quickly into an offensive Mirror Image that was stopped by Flight of the Swan, and Dianne became glad for the hour of sword practice every day since she was four. Even with having missed this morning’s session, her technique was not a bit lacking.
Then her able-bodied, brown-swathed opponent kicked her in the knee and she groaned, sagging to the ground. Dianne ducked her head just in time to prevent it from coming clean off her shoulders and thrust her sword upward.
Her eyes tightly shut, Dianne heard an “Urk” from right above her, and the thud of a sword hitting the soft dirt surface. Risking a peek up, her stomach lurched as she realized she would need to, once more, clean her sword.
It had been a lucky thrust, Dianne knew that, and he would have killed her, but still she felt sick. She’d never killed anyone before. And while naturally it was a case of self-defense, Dianne had to stumble off to one side of the dirt path to be violently sick before cleaning and resheathing her sword–in something that had not once been a living, breathing human being.
Did the eyes usually bulge out like that? She wondered, closing the eyelids of her former attacker. Her fingers came away bloody–but now that she noticed, blood seemed to be everywhere. She was spattered with the lifeblood of the one she had killed.
Self-defense, Dianne reminded herself weakly. The boy’s soul still haunted the back of her mind.
Dianne nodded, wincing as her bruises hit the back of the chair. “I couldn’t help it,” she said apologetically. “Mr. Adrian kept me back, ma’am.”
It was true that her lateness couldn’t be helped, Dianne reflected. Rinsing off blood and changing clothes did take time, especially with all that armor hampering her.
“That’s not an excuse,” the woman told her sharply. “Class started half an hour ago. Do not be late again.”
As the woman returned to what she had been talking about before Dianne’s arrival, Susan leaned over and whispered so only she could hear.
“Where have you been?” Susan asked in hushed tones.
“Got attacked again,” Dianne muttered out of the corner of her mouth. She could feel her heart beating irregularly. What if the boy’s corpse was found and she was blamed? Dianne was nervous about the possibility of going to jail. Not even one day into my classes and I’m already done for, she thought dully. A nervous squeamishness was settling in around her abdomen, as well as an alarming shortness of breath.
Oh, and look, I missed some of the blood, Dianne noticed with a jolt.
“Are you okay?” Susan asked worriedly, her fingers playing with the ends of her paired, curly braids.
“—a system in which numbers are thought to dictate the future,” the teacher’s clear voice was ringing though the classroom.
Dianne paused before answering, pretending to be interested in what the Algebra teacher had to say, but only really noticing that her name was Mrs. Mueller. Finally, Dianne couldn’t take it anymore. The guilt was eating her alive.
Dianne lowered her voice, even from a whisper, so that she was barely making any sound at all. “I killed someone.”
“What?” Susan asked, clearly not having heard her.
Dianne shook her head almost imperceptively. “I’ll tell you later.” She twinged with guilt again. What a way to start off the school year. Late to both classes, and a boy was dead. And it was still only morning!
Juvenile delinquency has reached a new height, Dianne thought wretchedly. Or maybe a new low.
There was nothing to be done, really. Takima had said that even when the bodies were found, charges were never pressed. Dianne tried to relax, but it was hard. Even in as relaxed a pose as she could muster, the tension in her body lay right under the surface.
Dianne winced. Trying to relax brought her bruises right into contact with the hard chair back. She eased upright again.
Susan gave her an exasperated look. “Could you just sit still?” She asked, for once sounding more like a mother hen than a bookish ten-year-old.
Dianne shrugged, and winced again. Maybe I’d better go to the healer. She glanced around the room. It seemed to her that the same twenty or so people who had been at the English class were here now. Takima still had her makeshift crutch, and every now and then, Laura would touch her scalp and wince. Derek seemed to be the only one listening to what Mrs. Mueller had to say, other than Susan.
And I keep fidgeting, Dianne thought, amused, as Susan shot her another glare. Ah, well. At least somebody’s getting some use out of this boring class.
“The number of letters in a person’s name is thought to convey their personality,” a trail of Mrs. Mueller’s syllables leaked into Dianne’s brain. People actually believe this idiocy? Dianne wondered. Might as well believe in fairy dust.
Dianne blinked in surprise at that thought. Why couldn’t fairies exist? There was that barmaid who had wings. Why couldn’t fairies exist within the map? Probably did, in fact. And if fairies could exist . . . could there be some thread of truth in this math teacher’s lesson?
Dianne had to stumble to rise with the rest of her classmates as the course ended, not having noticed Mrs. Mueller speak words of finality, such as “Get out.”
Laura pointed back toward Mooncastle. “To the Nurse, now?”
Takima nodded, a grim set to her mouth.
Dianne sighed, and said, “Let’s just hope we get there alive.”
Susan blinked. “What happened to you?”
“Swordsman,” Dianne said grimly. She hesitated, then made her choice. “I had to kill him.”
There was silence for a few seconds, and then Derek slid his arm around her shoulders. “Self-defense, right?”
“Of course,” Susan said, pausing.
“It doesn’t matter,” Takima said flatly. “Nobody gets in trouble for killing.”
Laura had dropped her eyes, but at Takima’s words, Laura lifted her face, chin jutting out importantly.
“There has to be a way to cure death,” Laura announced firmly. Her voice softened, and she continued, “But we’ve been waiting long enough to visit the Nurse. Derek and Takima need some care, at the very least.”
“Mmm. You, too,” Dianne said firmly, to Laura’s scowl. Dianne lowered her voice. “And me.”
“I don’t need to go,” Susan said, frowning. “I don’t think I’ll ever need to, with Jakob’s warning in place.”
She held up her hands in surrender as all four of her friends scowled at her. “All right, all right–how about I go get all of us lunch, when we get back to Mooncastle, and I’ll meet you at the Nurse’s office?”
That did, indeed, seem satisfactory, Dianne noted.
