A Series Of Fantasy Novellas
Light And Shadow Chronicles Novellas by D.M. Cain
Series Excerpt
After seven hours or more of sleep, Callista awoke groggily. Tom was nowhere to be seen. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she was immediately wide awake. She jumped to her feet, calling frantically for him as she shot out of the tent to find him stoking the fire in the middle of the camp.
She heaved a huge sigh of relief. “You terrified me. I thought you were gone.”
“Never,” he replied with a smile. “I fashioned a makeshift trap out of an old box I found in the hedges and managed to catch some rabbits. Want some breakfast?”
Callista hadn’t realised just how ravenous she was, and her stomach growled as if on command. She sat down beside him and watched as he skinned and roasted the rabbits. The meat tasted more delicious and succulent than anything she had eaten before.
With the freshly cooked meal still warm in their stomachs and contented from the nourishment, they set off again. A few hours or more into their trek, their bodies were reacting on instinct, working on sheer adrenaline, no longer concentrating on the dull landscape they traversed. It was when their attention slipped that it happened.
First came loud shouts of aggression before three men ambushed them from the side of the road. Their voices were strained and desperate as they demanded everything Callista and Tom had. From the look of the men, they were tired and hungry and most likely as terrified as Tom and Callista were.
“Woah,” said Tom, holding both hands aloft in a show of surrender. “We don’t mean any harm. If these are your lands, we’ll move right on. Please just let us pass in peace.”
The men repeated their demands, looking nervous and desperate. Both Tom and Callista were ready, their bodies flexed and ready for an imminent attack.
“No,” Tom said firmly, his hands balling into fists at his side. “We’re just trying to find someplace to go. You don’t need to pick a fight. We’re no threat to you.”
But the madness and desperation in the men’s eyes were absolute, and they were not ready to listen to logic. Before Tom had another chance to reason with them, they launched an attack. They ran for Tom and Callista at the same time, brandishing sticks and rocks as weapons. The largest darted for Tom with a rock held high in his hands, bringing it crashing down towards his head with devastating force. Tom was too quick and ducked the blow, countering with a powerful punch to the man’s stomach, making him double over in pain. Tom delivered another brutal punch to the side of the man’s jaw, and he dropped to the ground. Another man lunged at him, this one more prepared for a fair fight, and they circled each other, fists at the ready. After a brief moment of respectful hesitation, they launched at each other, throwing punches in a flurry of movements. Grappling with one another, they fell to the ground. Tom wrapped his powerful arms around the other man’s, delivering punch after punch to the back of his head and shoulders.
Callista might have been concerned for Tom, but she was attacked before she had the chance to worry. The third man, a scrawny youngster of no more than seventeen, threw himself at her, aiming a punch to knock her down. Callista dodged, utilising her sparring skills. Raising her fists in a block, she readied herself, knowing it would be no trouble to fend off an unpractised, starving boy. But when the attack came, it wasn’t anything like what she expected. Accustomed to rigid rules, she hadn’t been expecting attacks that fell outside of sparring regulations.
He threw punches at her left and right. She managed to knock the majority aside, but the sheer energy behind his attacks surprised her. She was battered painfully and sent reeling before she had time to plan her defence.
Dragging herself back up, she managed to land one hard swing to his jaw.
It didn’t keep him down for long though. The man got to his feet and threw himself at her midriff, knocking her down. Callista tried to block with her arms again, but he drove a fist into her lower abdomen, below her belt level, and she crumpled in pain.
She lashed out with a sharp kick and caught his left knee. He shrieked with pain as he fell beside her, but he was far from finished. His hand clamped around her throat and squeezed down on her windpipe with brutal force. Callista lashed out at the man with all of her strength, trying to beat him away with her fists, but nothing she did even slowed him down. There was pleasure in his bloodthirsty eyes, and he licked his lips in excitement as he crushed her windpipe tighter. He was going to kill her, and he was going to enjoy it.
The sight of his demented face would have been the last thing she saw, but as she started to drift into darkness, something smashed into the man’s head, knocking him off her and sending him sprawling to the ground with a bloody gash on the side of his head.
“Stay the hell away from her, or I’ll kill you. I will kill you,” Tom repeated with a furious hiss as the man staggered to his feet, wiped the trickling blood from his eyes and stumbled away from them.
Callista choked and rubbed at her sore neck to relieve the pressure that had threatened to crush her windpipe. When she tried to speak again, her throat was agonisingly painful.
“Thank you, Tom,” she croaked.
“Are you OK?” he asked, tilting her chin up so he could get a look at her neck. “You’ll have some bruising there, but it doesn’t look like he did any more damage than that.”
She felt like she could cry, and she clung with both hands to his fingers that rested just below her chin. He clutched her hand, offering comfort. “I don’t…I don’t understand. We’re all just trying to survive. Why would they do that to us?”
“It’s every man for himself now. Are you OK?”
She hesitated. “Yes…no…I don’t know. I don’t know why I…” Her words drifted away into silence, and she found herself gritting her teeth. “I don’t know why I couldn’t fight him off. I’ve sparred hundreds of times, Tom. I’ve won medals and trophies. One of the best, that’s what the sensei said. How come I couldn’t fight off some dumb kid?”
Tom sighed with a handsome frown. “Because you haven’t really learnt to fight.”
“Yes, I have. I fight all the time. I’ve fought you. I know how to fight.”
“No, you don’t. You know how to spar. It’s completely different. In sparring, there are rules and regulations. It’s fair and orderly, and there is a referee. Fighting for survival is totally different. It’s wild and dirty. There are no rules. The only aim is to hurt the other person. No chivalry or honour. Just pure aggression.”
Callista couldn’t help her face screwing up into an angry frown. “I was one of the best.”
“I know, Callista. You beat me at sparring enough times. But that guy didn’t care how well you knew the stances and techniques, did he? He just wanted to hit you. You can spar, but you don’t know how to fight. I’m not blaming you. It isn’t your fault. You’ve never had to fight properly before.”
“And you have?” she snapped, feeling embarrassed to have been beaten in front of Tom.
“Yes, I have,” he replied. “I’ve been in so many fights you wouldn’t believe it. Fights at school, fights on the streets with my foster brothers. I’ve been beaten up and left for dead numerous times. I’ve learnt a lot.”
She stared at him with disbelieving eyes. “You were beaten up?”
He grinned, and she was suddenly aware that she still had a hold on his fingers. She quickly let go. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Callista,” he said. “It toughened me up. It was exactly what I needed.”
Callista doubted that was really the way for him to be brought up, but she said nothing. Tom’s background had been a subject of contention for a long time. She never failed to be surprised at how decently he had turned out, considering his sad and unstable past.
“Tom, will you teach me how to fight? Street fight, I mean?”
That grin again. “You want me to teach you how to fight dirty? You’re on.”
For the next few hours, Tom taught Callista all the moves he had learnt on the street—how to get out of holds and grabs, how to wrestle people to the ground and how to do counter-attacks that didn’t fall under the list of “accepted strikes.” It didn’t take long for Callista to pick up the basics, and she began to feel more confident under his tuition.
Sweating profusely, and both smiling after the exertion, they rested a while, then headed onwards.
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