The following is an excerpt from a book that happens later in series from the part already posted. I consider this to not be a sequel, which tells more of a continuing story, but a follow on, which tells a whole new one.
Karen is introduced in Act 4-5 of the Book One story started in the previous post. She ends up married to Caspian by the middle of the Book Two. Book Three tells of them returning to his farm and why. Books Four and Five are about their further adventures. Book Five Karen takes a blind apprentice.
This segment is from early in Book Five, Story 3, Act 1.
Abey is a tertiary character in Book One, Act 2-3, part of whose underlying purposes are causing character growth and some exposition. She then disappears by the end of Act 3 and is not heard from again until this point.
This is written rough, needing rewriting, but that is the point of posting - to get some feedback.
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Karen was feeding the chickens. She had her sai’s under her skirt, and her bracers and knives under her long sleeves. She had sensed Aladela prepping and planning. Here she came now, in her usual civilian costume.
Aladela: “Master, I realize that I have been away for two years, but don’t you think I have more to learn?”
Karen: “Do you want a formal class?” She put the feed bucket down, and started to collect the eggs out of the nests.
Aladela: “I mean anything. I’ve been here two days. The only people to express any interest in my skills are those mercenaries.”
Karen: “How long did it take you to figure them out?”
Aladela: “Getting them in range, and listening to their mindset. About thirty paces, while bringing those wounded men in.”
Karen: “You were distracted, and still scanned a group of strangers, figuring them out rapidly. Good. You followed my instructions in non-lethal force. Good. You had a doppelganger play your harp. Good. While a full day away. Better. You demonstrated some archery skills and impressed the mercenaries. Good. You have long since impressed me with your apothecary skills. And I expect with your memory that they are as good as ever.
The only things left are to evaluate your physical skills in general, and give you an assignment to kill someone.”
Aladela: “And if I don’t want to kill?”
Karen: “It’s too late to refuse Apprenticeship.”
Karen’s skirt fluttered down as she lunged, her silver sai’s in hand. Aladela had to backup and dodge, Karen was too close to draw any weapon of her own with which Aladela had practiced. Aladela stepped in and caught both of Karen’s arms in quick grips and found the knives on Karen’s inner arms. Doing a sudden twist of Karen’s arms Aladela came away with a stiletto in one hand and a broad knife in the other. Karen kicked and Aladela went back three times her own height. She kept her feet and stopped. Karen advanced, grimly concentrating.
Aladela felt Karen building up her psionic energy, around her sai’s.
They clashed and the knives went flying, being unsuitable for countering at the speed Karen was going, by themselves.
Aladela stepped in again, blocking Karen’s arms with her own, moving to infighting at psionic speed with power channeled to her durability. She managed to knock Karen’s sai’s from her hands, vaguely wondering whether she broke any bones as she did.
They fought a bit, Karen pushing Aladela to her limits, then suddenly Karen had another knife in hand and almost marked Aladela’s cheek, startling her, and Aladela pushed back away.
Karen paused as Aladela got back to her equilibrium.
Karen: “Very good. Now go get your toys, and meet me in the meadow.”
Karen shrouded herself psionicaly, and disappeared almost completely from Aladela’s senses. Psionically she matched herself to the air, and dampened her all the noise she made. She then quickly gathered her weapons, as Aladela gathered herself and went into the house. Karen wondered how aware Aladela was, being blind, of when she was using her psionics or not. Karen had recently broken some of her own barriers while teaching her own children, and now put those to use.
Karen energized her body and ran up to the meadow. She reached out to her husband and asked him to magically send her a few things as she ran. She got to her favorite rock in the meadow and found her request filled, with a love note from her husband. Karen put her harness on, securing it to place, then, while listening to Aladela’s progress, she set up a handful of traps and snares, and then hid herself.
Aladela came up the game trail, as Karen expected, and stepped over the tripwires as she came to them.
Karen smiled. Trip wires were all they were. The first snare was magic, and the tangle foot plant.
Aladela triggered the snare, and figured it done. Then the tangle foot caught her. It wrapped around her ankles, holding her fast. The only way to get it to let go is to cut the stem at the roots, and then into segments short enough to keep it from wrapping up; or to burn it.
Aladela blasted it loose, showing enough control to only remove the tangle foot. Then she burnt it, root and all, psionically controlling the fire.
Next was finding Karen herself, psioncially camouflaged to match the rock. This rock was on the south side of the meadow as the meadow ran approximately east to west. The game trails were all on the north side in the woods. The mountain on the south side was very mineral rich, but too rocky for much vegetation to take root.
Aladela got her short bow out, and nocked an arrow, as she advanced across the meadow.
Karen touched a directionless level, and spoke her thoughts.
“The traps were simple enough, until later. In a city, I would be testing all your skills, but we are not in a city, so I have had to change the test some:
“With your bow, harvest a creature for its pelt. We will deal with cleaning it later. Bring me the herbs in this meadow for poisoning, and their neutralizers. Last is to show me your current skill levels with your primary weapons.”
Karen then watched.
Aladela first turned and aimed with the short bow, and pined a bunny to where it was nibbling. She then switched to her long bow, and aimed across the meadow. A group of three deer were watching the meadow. Aladela took aim and charged the shaft with energy, then loosed the shaft. It flew faster than a normal arrow should, and entered one of the deer between its shoulder and neck, and into its vitals where its energy discharged and the animal stumbled and fell; startled by the noise and fall of their companion, the other two took flight into the woods.
Aladela moved at psionic speed and collected the bunny; as she moved across the meadow and climbed up to the deer she stopped here and there collecting bits of plants as she went. In good time, she had the deer and bunny hung from a branch of a good tree to bleed out. Aladela arrayed her collection of herbs from the whole meadow nearby on her cloak. Many leaves, sprigs, roots, berries, mushrooms, and even some barks were in array. Last she turned in the still meadow and opened her active senses fully, looking for Karen.
For her part, Karen had sat motionless on the rock the whole time, meditating as she paid awareness to Aladela’s activities. She wondered how effective her camouflage was, and Aladela’s memory.
Karen felt Aladela’s attention scythe through the meadow, then she redrew her longbow, and knocked an arrow.
Karen again went directionless. “You’ve shown me that, already.”
The weapon was unstrung, as was its smaller counterpart, and the sheath unshipped from Aladela’s hip and put down on the cloak with them. Aladela still had her swords and knives. She walked to the center of the meadow, scanning the whole of it. She stopped at the middle, paused, and then turned and focused her attention in Karen’s direction.
Aladela: “That rock is too big, and has too much metal in it, from what I remember.”
Karen released her camouflage and in a fluid movement went from sitting on the rock to standing before it. “When did you sense this?”
Aladela: “Only in my detailed scan, but I would have sensed your intent, if you had moved to attack. I’ve sensed your observation all along.”
Karen: “Pick your first weapon.”
Aladela drew her long and short elfin swords. Holding each at her waist, she stood waiting.
Karen redrew her sai’s.
Both women stood, then moved. An outside observer would have only seen both women blur and seemingly disappear for the speed of their movements. Then followed a rapid chiming of metal on metal and a rapid blur with some rising dust and crunching plants as they swirled in the middle of the meadow. The backed off, each in a ready stance.
Karen: “Very good. You’ve improved.” Karen stood and put her sai’s away, and drew a silver scimitar approximately the same size as Aladela’s short sword from its sheath across her back.
Karen: “Now let’s try your foot work.”
Aladela came at Karen as she backed up toward the trees, and the sheer rock face in the hill beyond. Karen was within the first row of trees when she used a psionic blast to blow the long sword from Aladela’s grip. They continued with the short ones in the close quarters through the trees.
Then Karen forced Aladela against a tree, and made her leap up it. Karen stuck herself to the tree, and followed. Aladela tried to telekinetically retrieve her long sword, but Karen slapped it aside, and paused the fight.
Karen: “I’m pleased to see you can do that. But pick it up later.”
Karen leapt at Aladela to continue the fight. They went from tree to tree, Karen leading or driving, until they came to the rocks. Karen moved to force Aladela onto and up the rock face. Aladela at first got a hand and toe hold, then stuck herself to it. Karen simply landed against it and stuck to it as if it was the ground.
Now Karen took a risk, and quickly disarmed Aladela of her short sword.
Karen: “You’ve one left.”
Aladela rapidly drew the sword from her back. The hilt had been her mothers, as the blade had originally been. Karen had broken this sword once, in the tunnels under Skarg. Aladela had kept it, and in the time since, when she was with her grandsire, had reforged it. A small bit of her mother’s essence was still in the blade, but it now had Aladela’s in the folded core.
The silver blades chimed against each other, beginning to glow as each woman poured power into their respective blades.
Karen happily found that Aladela knew how to use the known native properties of this kind of sword, as anything psionic that Karen tried to attack with was ineffective.
Then Aladela got past Karen’s guard and slapped her with the blade and Karen fell. Her instincts buttressed Karen against the impact with the ground as Aladela came floating down to see it she was OK.
Finding nothing broken, Karen rolled over and sat up against the wall, breathing hard. Aladela stood by, catching her own breath, sword still in hand.
Karen: “Very good. The only skills I have question of are your stealth abilities. We can test those tonight. Then you can show me more of what you have learned in the last two years.
Aladela helped Karen to her feet. Karen retrieved and sheathed her sword, as Aladela sheathed her own. They went back to the hanging animals and the herb test.
Abey: “Where are we going?”
Aladela: “Skarg. I have business there. Then I can go north with you.”
Abey: “What sort of business?”
Aladela: “One does not just leave The Guild.”
Abey: “Which Guild?”
Aladela smiled. “You’re a smart fighter. You figure it out.”
Aladela led Abey up into the hills east of town at a good trot.
Abey had to stop for a breather. “Why are we going this way? Skarg is south.”
Aladela stood waiting. “The (underground) Road. Most surface dwellers don’t know it exists. It takes three days off of the trip from here to Skarg. Come on.” Aladela took off up the trail, loping along like a predator.
Abey still did not understand, but was guessing at the truth, and coming up mostly right. “This Guild: you tried to leave it once before and they took your eyes.”
Aladela shook her heed. “No. My older brother was dissatisfied with the training The Guild was giving him, and me, so he took my eyes to force them to train me. Master Karen was tasked with hunting him down, and teaching me. We did both. I gave him the final blow myself, then went to live with my Grandfather for a time. Now I need to report to The Guild that my training is complete.”
Abey: “Isn’t that your Master’s decision?”
Aladela: “I am beyond her instruction now, as well as most Guildsmen. But there is no point to my saying with them. Skarg society and politics don’t interest me.”
Abey listened as Aladela told about the testing that Karen had given her over the last days. She told of the sparing at the chicken cook, and then the tests in the meadow. Then Aladela stopped, though Abey could tell that there was more to the story.
Abey: “And your stealth skills test?”
Aladela: “I make a cat sound noisy. My master said that if I want out of the guild, I need to go tell them formally.”
