Rori ran through the trees. His mind was racing faster than his legs could move him. The last day had been confusing. Wonderful but confusing.
He hadn’t known he was coming here so it wasn’t like he’d had time to sort out his feelings for Karyn in advance. Thinking back to the look Nolan had given him when he’d asked where they were, clearly, Nolan had known what was probably going to happen.
Not that he’d trade the last day for anything. Sure, it was a little awkward the first time, especially since they were in a rowboat. Things had gone much better later in her bed. And the several times after that. Now he was just trying to figure out what it all meant.
He dodged through the trees trying to keep up the pace. Karyn had said there was a trail that circled the pond. At times there was, but at other times it was so overgrown there was essentially no trail at all. He’d lost the trail again several steps back and was now blundering through the woods hoping he would come across it again.
Before he could, the trees abruptly ended, and he was surprised to find that he’d already made it around the pond. He thought about going around again and on any other day he probably would have. But today he was already tired, so he turned and ran up the hill to the house. When he crested the hill, he saw Karyn and two other people sitting out at the table on the large patio.
He continued down the hill, slowing to a walk so that when he got to the house he wouldn’t be out of breath. The two new ladies and Karyn all looked to be of similar ages, and they all wore a similar style of clothes to her as well. Karyn was wearing another dress similar to the longer one he’d seen before, though this one was a pale cream color. The taller of the other two ladies was wearing a similar dress in a pale blue. The third lady was shorter than the other two and had on a white dress that was nearly the same as the one Karyn had been wearing in the boat.
The taller lady had pale blond hair that was cut shoulder length and curled under just above her collar. The other girl’s hair was very short, tousled in a way that sent most of it sticking upward and a deep dark blue color that looked quite amazing.
The shorter girl also had a gemstone stud in her left nostril. It was blue and probably a sapphire, but Rori didn’t know enough about gems to be sure. She also had three stud earrings on each ear. They ran in a row with the upper two having blue gems that matched the one on her nose. The bottom stud was on her earlobe and was a diamond in a similar setting but substantially larger.
“Rori, these are the friends I was talking about,” said Karyn. All three ladies stood as Rori got near.
“You were right,” said the shorter one in a voice that was just too loud to actually be intended to be private. “He is quite the looker.”
“Hush,” Karyn said.
“This is Alyson,” Karyn said introducing the taller lady first. “We’ve been friends forever. She’s an amazing seamstress and makes all my clothes.”
“It’s nice to meet you Rori,” Alyson said.
“It’s nice to meet you too. I thought I recognized a similarity to all of your gowns. Everything you make is impressively nice. Plain and understated at the same time it is rich and . . .” Rori trailed off searching for the word.
“Sexy,” said the shorter lady.
“Luxurious,” said Karyn.
“Lavish,” said Alyson.
“All of those together somehow,” said Rori with a smile. “Whatever the word is, they are very nice and if anything, make Karyn look that much better.”
“You’re awfully nice to say so. Though we made a mess of that description, it is essentially what I am trying to do.”
Turning to the shorter lady, Karyn said, “And this is Charity. She’s the one who’s agreed to train with you with a spiked chain.”
“I’ll try not to hurt you,” Charity said with a smile. “I know Karyn said you could handle yourself in a fight, but I have to be honest, you don’t look like you’d last too long, and I’d hate to mar that pretty face Karyn is so keen on. But if it’s all the same to you, let’s wait until after lunch if you don’t mind. We just got here and riding that far makes me tired.”
“That’s fine with me,” said Rori as all four of them sat back down at the table. “I’m pretty tired myself.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Charity in the same non-whisper as before.
‘After lunch’ had turned into late afternoon. The four of them had eaten on the patio. The three girls had tried to include Rori in their conversations, but there was too much shared history between them and not enough with Rori. Eventually, Rori had to excuse himself or he was going to fall asleep on the table. Karyn had suggested he go take a nap while they continued catching up.
So, it was with the sun much further along in its daily trek that he’d found Karyn and Alyson surrounded by fabric samples, talking about new clothes in one of the sitting rooms. Karyn solicited his opinion on several color options and then explained that Charity was waiting for him down by the pond. After stopping by the kitchen, Rori headed down to the water.
He’d found Charity at the area Karyn had described as the ‘beach’. Other than the fact that the ground sloped into the water, it didn’t have anything in common with a beach. But the ground was relatively flat and wide open so it would make a good place for sparring.
As he came upon Charity, at first, he thought she might be asleep. She was sitting completely still, legs crossed staring out into the water. As he got closer, he realized she was meditating in silence.
Charity had swapped the dress she was wearing earlier for a pair of skimpy skintight shorts. Instead of a shirt, she had taken some stretchy light brown fabric that was about half a foot wide and wrapped it several times around her chest. On her back, peeking out of the top of the fabric on her right shoulder he could make out part of a tattoo. The part he could see was all black ink that looked so new and wet it almost seemed like it was freshly drawn on. He couldn’t make out what the tattoo was but, given the part he could see, he was guessing it was a symbol or pattern and not actually a picture.
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Lying beside her on the ground was a spiked chain. It looked like a normal chain, but with every other link having wicked barbs coming out of both sides. There was also a metal circlet of about five inches in diameter exactly halfway down the length. Both ends of the chain had pointed metal ends about eight inches long that looked like they could easily have been the end of a spear.
When Rori bent down to pick it up the links rattled together.
“Careful, muffin. Those spikes aren’t for pretend.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Charity hopped up from her seated position and turned towards Rori. He hadn’t realized it before, but she was in incredibly good shape. Her small size made it seem less evident but given the muscles on her arms and her abs, she was probably stronger than most of the people in Dade’s squad.
“I had to change clothes,” she explained while taking the chain from Rori. “I wouldn’t want to fight with a spiked chain in a flouncy dress. If the wrap on top is too revealing or something, you’ll just have to deal with it. I don’t usually fight with this thing and I’m not going to take a chance on hurting myself by having my boobs bouncing and jiggling. Wrapping them up tight keeps them out of the way.”
She made the explanation with no trace of self-consciousness. Instead, the information was presented matter-of-factly. Nevertheless, Rori could still feel the ends of his ears turning red. If Charity noticed she made no mention of it. Instead, she took a couple of steps back and gave the chain a couple of experimental swings.
“There are lots of different styles of chains, but they all pretty much fight the same way. Some have two of these circles separating the chain into three sections instead of two like this one. Others don’t have any at all. The ends can vary wildly to hooks, spears, balls and more. Even the chains themselves are often different.
“If you know what you are doing you can be effective with a spiked chain without any real danger to yourself. But then that’s true of any weapon. I’ve seen people who were masters with a spiked chain that I wouldn’t stand within ten feet of if they started swinging a sword.”
“I know people like that myself,” said Rori with a smile.
“Speaking of swords, didn’t you bring one or something?” asked Charity. “I can swing the chain around a while if you’d like to watch that, but I thought we would be sparring.”
“We are,” answered Rori. “But if you don’t mind, let me watch you a little so I can get the feel for how you attack with it. Then we’ll move on from there.”
“Okay, it’s your show,” answered Charity.
She went into a display with the spiked chain that started out simple but got more elaborate as she progressed. Rori supposed she was warming up to it at first and just getting used to the weapon. She began to throw attacks at imaginary foes on all sides of her. Then at the end she got into an elaborate display with the chain whirling around her in intricate patterns. When she finished Rori began clapping.
“That was impressive. Though I’m not sure how useful the end part would be in combat.”
“Not useful at all,” said Charity eyeing Rori with an appraising look. “That’s a performance bit that looks nice and that’s about all it’s good for.”
“Did you used to be in a show or something?” asked Rori.
“Or something. That was a part of a performance we would put on every night at the whorehouse I used to work at. Made the clients feel like they were getting something exotic and worth paying extra for. And maybe it also made them think twice about getting out of line.”
“Oh,” said Rori not quite sure what to make of that statement.
“So, how is this going to work?” asked Charity shifting back into work mode without thought to the previous statements. “Do you need to run get something, or do you want to head back up to the house and spar there?”
“I guess Karyn didn’t tell you, then,” said Rori.
“She told me plenty, but not about this.”
While Rori tried to will himself not to blush he said, “Just attack me with the chain. Take it easy at first, but later if I say you can try harder to hit me, I won’t be kidding.”
“Whatever you’d like,” said Charity bringing up the chain and starting the end swinging back and forth.
Much like the first time Rori had fought without a weapon against Dade, Charity started out making basic attacks that nearly anyone could have side stepped or deflected. Rori was quickly ready to move on, but instead of telling her, he took a risk and after one of her easy swings he stepped up next to her and knocked the chain free from her hands. It went spinning through the air and landed over by the lake.
“I know you didn’t just do that!” said Charity walking over to retrieve her weapon, obviously more than a little peeved. “I thought you were eyeing me like you wanted to try something, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it. You’re going to have to pay for that.”
“You can try,” said Rori crouching low in anticipation of her attack. “You can try.”
Without any intermediate build up, Charity sprang forward with a blistering attack using both ends of the spiked chain. She turned, jumped and whirled as she attacked, and it was everything Rori could do to avoid getting hit. The barrage continued without stop, moving back and forth across the ground in front of the lake until finally Charity sprung back with the chain still raised ready to strike.
“You have got to be kidding me! Do you even have a scratch on you!?”
“You got me once on the cheek and a couple of times I had to slap the chain away with my hands.”
“I don’t even see a scratch,” said Charity with doubt in her voice.
“Oh, they’ve already healed.” Rori pulled the amulet of Meredith out from under his shirt. “This takes care of the minor things almost before I’m even aware of them.”
Rori dropped the amulet back into his shirt.
“I don’t know how much more I’ve got to show you that I can be sure won’t do some real damage if it lands,” Charity said.
“As long as you’re okay with watching me bleed a bit while the amulet patches me up, you can hit me with whatever you’ve got.”
“You just remember that you said that if later Karyn is disappointed because you’re unconscious by this lake.”
Without waiting for a response Charity began to attack again. This time the fighting roamed further than just the edge of the pond. They moved through the trees, up to the gazebo and back again to the water. The fighting was nonstop, and a lot of the surroundings took a serious beating. And though she got several good hits in on Rori, it was never enough to stop the fighting and in short order any wounds were healed.
Eventually, almost as if by mutual agreement, the two of them both separated and took a couple steps away. Charity let the spiked chain fall to the ground and Rori dropped his hands to his side. Both were breathing heavily, and they were covered in sweat, dirt and leaves from the fight. The sun had moved down the sky and was just beginning to touch the edge of the treetops in the west.
“Let’s call it a draw,” said Charity.
“Until tomorrow,” said Rori. “Then I’m going to disarm you again.”
“No chance,” said Charity.
“Care to bet on it?”
“Ask me again tomorrow. Right now, I need to get in that pond and get this sweat off of me.”
Without a pause Charity reached up and began peeling the now dark brown wrap off of her. In three quick moves she had it off and dropped it onto the ground. As she began pulling off her shorts, she looked over at Rori and said, “You coming in?”
Rori swallowed twice and mumbled something about heading back up to the house.
“Your loss, that water looks amazing” Charity said as she turned and walked naked into the water. “If you see Alyson tell her to come on down.”
With her back to him, Rori got a clear view of the tattoo on her back. It took up the upper right portion of her back and the entire thing was made with black ink that shone and still looked wet. As he’d suspected, it was some sort of symbol, but not one that he recognized. He tried to commit it to memory so that he could draw it or at the least describe it later to the others.
As Charity dove into the water, he turned and started up to the house.
