Gauntlet

The Mirror of the puddle rippled as shards of black hair fell from San’s dagger, trying her best to cut her own hair. It had been two weeks since the men had come into the forest looking for her. It wasn’t not like she was hoping they would come, but she was on edge.

Spending her time meditating, not on clearing her mind and finding self-enlightenment, but instead mentally preparing as she visualized each and every fight. Thinking about bloodshed that in her mind was in self-defense.

San had finished her morning's training and had just dried off from meditating under the waterfall, she had been using her free time to learn more about the forest, finding an interesting frog that excreted a poison that didn’t seem strong enough to kill. She watched as other animals attempt to eat the frog and simply fell to the forest floor, petrified and twitching as the frog leapt from their jowls unscathed, only paralyzing its foolish attackers.

Knowing this, she took the sword she bent from the last intruder and smashed it into shards with the gauntlet, attaching each one of the metal shards to darts carved of wood. She then cut herself a narrow stem of bamboo, primed to shoot out her blow darts after gently petting the frog with the tip of each dart.

The most frustrating thing about this weapon was storing the loaded darts, she couldn’t just willy nilly throw them in her bag and hope they didn’t pierce the fabric and prick her skin. So, she removed the leather from the handle of the broken sword and wrapped each dart in a cluster by their metal shards, sacrificing one of her froggy friends and drying him by a campfire to be used as a pin cushion, making sure the toxin wouldn’t be rubbed off. She made sure to wrap the thick leather around the pincushion as well.

Certified foolproof she thought to herself. That afternoon, as she practiced shooting darts across the treetops, she spotted them. A band of five soldiers slashing their way through the forest floor, her fist clenched as she watched them walk in a cross formation with the one standing in the middle seeming very different from the other four.

She appeared to be the first female soldier San had ever witnessed, long orange hair wafted in the breeze as they marched, her skin looking angelically pale.

Despite San’s curiosity and wandering mind, the intruders were out of range of her blow darts so regardless, she had to go in for a closer look.

Making sure they were a safe distance ahead of her, San crept down the base of her tree and found a sheltered bush to launch her assault from. Carefully reaching into her bag, she pulled a loaded dart from the bundle and took a deep breath as she trained her sights on the soldier’s constantly exposed necks.

Their helmets must be incredibly uncomfortable if only one man was ever caught alive wearing one she thought, tensing her diaphragm, she shot a quick puff of air out the end of her bamboo pipe before quickly reloading and firing a second.

Landing both hits, the guards’ bodies dropped like rocks, and San took the opportunity of confusion to find her next vantage point, darting around the leafy cover, positioning herself to the right of the party who were far too preoccupied with what had just happened to their men to notice her movement between shaking bushes.

Loading and firing off another, she was pleased to see the third man go limp and fall like the rest. With only two soldiers left, the last man came charging in her direction. As San kept her head covered, he only vaguely knew where to go.

But it was futile as she emerged feet from where he had stopped to scan the area and popped him at her closest shot yet.

“Idiot,” the orange-haired woman muttered as she stepped forward with her hands up. “I mean you no harm,” she called out as San slid back into hiding. Out of darts, she planned to tackle the next foe head-on, but the orange-haired woman had her eyes trained on the shaking leaves and predicted where san would lunge from.

San came out swinging, dagger in hand, she was out for blood. But the woman anticipated every stroke, casually stepping back to avoid San’s blade, eventually drawing her own when it was clear diplomacy wasn’t working.

Striking back, San easily blocked her slow swing with the gauntlet. “So, you are real,” the orange-haired woman said to herself, continuing to attack, much faster than before, now forcing San to sacrifice ground as her back hit the wood of a nearby ancient tree. Assuming she had won, the woman took a final swing. San ducked, bounding back up with the gauntlet drawn back, firing her metal fist at a fraction of her strength, into the intruder’s breastplate. San not only dented her armor, but she thought her ego too.

Knocking the weapon out of her hand as the woman went flying, San quickly pinned her down with the gauntlet’s fingers spread across her torso and her dagger held to her neck, ultimately pleased she didn’t kill her with the reduced strike. “Who are you, who sent you, and why do they want the gauntlet?” San demanded, her knees resting on the woman’s arms, and for once, San seemed to outweigh someone, thanks to the growing gauntlet’s armor that had continued to spread diagonally now, covering to her left shoulder and top of her hip.

“I am Princess Aurora, my brother sent me because he believes that with the power of that gauntlet, he can conquer the throne of the Capital, along with anything else in his path.”

Accepting her answer as truth, San struck a deal, “You can leave with your life if you promise to stop people from coming to this forest.”

“Deal,” Arora said, keeping a calm demeanor as if she was never really in danger. As Arora got up, she beat the dust off her uniform. “To be clear, I can’t actually control where my brother sends his men, but if you want to protect this place, I recommend leaving, as it seems like nothing will stop him from having you.”

“That’s fine, I didn’t plan on staying. But may I ask, why isn’t the throne his birthright?”

“My father, King Elrick, made the ruling that upon his death, his son was forbidden from accepting the throne until he could best any warrior in combat. Fabian was born with conditions that stopped him from being physically able to lead, and father wasn’t about to embarrass the family name letting my brother faint on the battlefield.”

A silence stirred between them as San processed the family drama.

“If that’s all, I’ll just show myself out,” the Princes said as she poked one of her fallen men with her boot, making sure he couldn’t walk or repeat her conversation with San to anyone. “I’ll tell them we found no trace of you, but a passerby mentioned you had retreated to the ice caps of Hortons to the east.”

“I appreciate it. If there’s ever anything I can do…” San said, as her cheeks felt a flush.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll have need of you yet,” she said, unrolling a large tarp from her bag, effortlessly throwing bodies onto her makeshift gurney. Dragging the four men out by herself at a brisk pace was a truly impressive act that showed she could have at any time stopped San from pinning her, but she didn’t…

Turning to make her way back to the camp, San’s trained eye could no longer be fooled as standing in plain sight, camouflaged as a tree, Hyde had been watching the entire time.

“Blow darts huh?” Hyde said breaking character as he stepped out of the leaves toward her.

“Yeah,” San muttered, looking at the ground, ashamed she hadn’t told him first that she had thought about leaving and he had to hear it from eavesdropping.

“You know you don’t need to go.”

“I know, but my goal isn’t to be this ultimate warrior, cursed with an unquenched blood lust. More than anything now, I just want it off, so I’ll pack and leave for the wizard tomorrow morning, maybe he can destroy the stupid thing.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Hyde said moving closer to hug the girl.

“I’ll come back when it’s done,” San said, accepting his rigid embrace, his stomach scratching her cheek.

“Come on, don’t get sappy, let’s just forage, feast, and forget about our troubles, just for one more night, then you can pack up and take off tomorrow.”

“Deal,” she said, letting go of him and looking up to see a loose tear, caught in the cracks of his bark-like skin.