Dragon's Trail

I: OVERTURE-3

His blog posts and videos—Judo-flipping and leg-sweeping in full 15th-Century field harnesses with swords—had snared the attention of a director in Hollywood who flew Jarrod out to advise for a television series whose fight sequences, once produced, had raised the ire of pretty much every professional fight choreographer in the world simultaneously before becoming the new standard.

The years that followed brought magazine interviews and movie consults, capped with a History Channel special and a move up to 16th in the world in saber.

To say Jarrod had a gift was an understatement. Hailed as the Bruce Lee of medieval combat, he was, more than any other man, responsible for the recent revival in historical European martial arts. The cover of Sports Illustrated had called him The Deadliest Man Alive.

Then, the kid’s fall from grace: Jarrod’s dismissal from the International Fencing Federation on his way to the U.S. Olympic team amidst world-rocking scandal. A rivalry in Paris—a stupid thing, an argument over a girl—had escalated into a duel and left a world-class sabreur dead in the cold rain of the Latin Quarter.

The trial, the acquittal; nonstop coverage. The Jarrod Torrealday Story ran twenty-four seven. Young, handsome, promising, lethal. The media loved hating him. Rumor had it he’d even been offered his own reality show as the underground dueling clubs cropped up across the world.

Jarrod had resurfaced in Greece a year later, consulting for a sword and sorcery film with a laughable budget. A TV tabloid found him at a nearby bar, raving drunk. The resulting interview still spawned memes for a man at rock bottom.

Fifteen years older, Carter could imagine what Jarrod had gone through. Jarrod had hit his peak at age twenty-six, and then tripped over it and fell off the far side. Long goddamned way down, too.

But good on him for the Isabella Barnes thing.

Carter knew Jarrod would rise again, and it would be entertaining to see how.

He himself had had several peaks. College ball at Penn, then three years with the Patriots, and a blown knee in the playoffs at about Jarrod’s age. A Master’s in medieval history and a private school teaching job, coaching varsity through his years of rehab, and then a pretty good tour in MMA until the knee went out again. He’d walked—well, limped—away from teaching to chase a TV career that never quite materialized—a few neo-gladiatorial TV shows, even a short professional wrestling stint—before cashing in and starting his gym.

And selling it. What a pain in the ass that whole thing had become. So much hard sell, so little training.

And now he had a small nest egg, a trusty diesel pickup, and renters in the house. Time to figure out the Next Thing.

Maybe Iceland with Jarrod Torrealday. Why the hell not?

He checked his watch. One-ten. C’mon. Punctuality.

More sirens. Something big was happening up the coast. He checked out the window, saw no smoke, and finished his coffee.

At one-twelve there was a tap on his shoulder.

“Parking trouble? Oh, uh,” he stammered, realizing that it wasn’t the person he thought it would be. “Hi.”

It was one of the Renaissance guys, leaning on a staff. He needed a shower.

Carter eyed Crius up and down clinically, then guessed. “Dave Grohl stars as the moody young Gascon?”

Crius stared in incomprehension.

Carter made the metal horns with one hand. “Dude.”

Crius returned the sign feebly, staring at his own hand for a moment, first. “Doo-ood,” he answered.

“Exactly,” Carter said. “What’s up?”

“Jarrod,” said Crius.

“He’ll be here in a minute,” said Carter.

Crius grunted once, politely begging to differ. “No, he won’t.”

His tone had unaccountably melted into something Carter couldn’t quite nail down as malice, but a stern, out-of-place, grave-sort-of-something Carter instinctively knew he shouldn’t like. He shifted his weight uneasily around the booth.

“Why—uh—hmm. What makes you say that?” he leaned back a bit in feigned curiosity.

“Jarrod needs your help,” said Crius, telepathically driving it home with such emphasis that Carter stood and pulled on his battered Patriots jacket before he even knew why he was getting upset.

Carter unfolded a fiver and left it on the table. “What is it? Renaldo?”

“Yes. Hurry.”

Carter cracked his knuckles and his neck, shook life into his head. His voice was alive, his hands itching. “Let’s go.” He was already heading for the door.

Crius followed, having to move quickly to keep up with Carter’s broad stride, and grabbed Carter’s hand.

“Hey, none of that,” Carter pulled his hand away and pushed the door open.

There was a moment of distress when his hand didn’t find the door, punctuated by a heavy blow to the crown of his skull.

“Ow! Ffff—!” He doubled over, holding his head with both hands and swearing. “What the hell?”

From between his forearms, he could see that he had stepped out of Pete’s Chowder house into a tiny, stone room, with a large desk. Thick timbers crisscrossed the ceiling, vanishing into darkness above him. He’d hit his head on one. “What the hell?” he re-iterated.

A fire glowed in a fireplace, though it was daytime outside a nearby window. With a flick of Crius’s hand, it grew into a blaze of white flames.

Carter’s mind scrabbled for an explanation as his heart sledgehammered against his chest. The throbbing in his head was Thor’s hammer, hurled at him from way down his family tree. He slammed air into his lungs, looking about for something to hit.

The door behind them opened, and a soldier in a long shirt of black mail with a short spear entered the room. He babbled in a language Carter didn’t understand, looking back and forth between them as he spoke. He aimed the spear at Carter.

Carter stepped up to him, hands in the air, fingers spread, and then he grabbed the spear, twisted it free, and wrapped the guy up as it flipped away and clattered. They grappled, Carter noting that the man must have been built out of bricks under the mail, quick and solid, until Carter tripped him backwards and ran him back six steps, full-speed into the wall.

Carter stepped back and left the soldier on the floor, groaning.

Yeah, I bet that hurt.

Carter drove a deep breath out through the thumping in his skull. He did this again, and his hands stopped shaking, at which point he picked up the spear and took a step back.

The wood in his hands was dense, smooth, and dark. The head was triangular instead of flat, ensuring a slow-healing wound. Gorgeous work. “All right,” he growled to Crius, “Explain.”

“You’re going to feel disoriented,” said Crius. “You’ve just made quite a journey.”

Carter glanced around again. “Oh, ya think? What is this?”

“There’s no need to harm anyone.”

“I’ll decide that. Start talking.” The guard stirred, and Carter threatened him with the spear. “Don’t f*****g move.” He’d ripped a fingernail on the mail and it throbbed.

Crius continued, “You feel threatened, and I understand. I brought you here the way I did because you wouldn’t have believed any of this otherwise.”

Carter looked around the room, at the stone walls and timber beams, the raging fire, this grunge-rock wizard’s insane sincerity, and the groaning guy on the floor. Who, to be fair, had given him a better fight than he’d expect from any LARP-er.

And this spear, he thought, looking at it again. Sweet Jesus.

Across the room, a glassless window showed an expanse of sky, cloudless, with a gentle magenta tint that he unconsciously tried to blink away. The sun beyond was far brighter, the breeze through the window far colder, than Maine had been.

Carter stared out the window, squinting at the odd light. A black-armored warrior on a black pegasus glided into view maybe a hundred yards out, wheeled, and leaped away again. He moved closer for another look.

It was—blinking again—definitely a pegasus.

The rider was out there doing steeplechase in the air, just playing around, in what appeared to be the winged-horse equivalent of burning donuts in the parking lot. Past the rider he saw a long, low castle wall with fat, squat towers, and an ocean of wide plains beyond.

A horn sounded in the distance.

Carter leaned the spear against the wall, then walked over and gave the soldier a hand up to his feet. “Apologize to him for me,” he told Crius.

The soldier grumbled something as Carter brushed him off and clapped him on the upper arm in the universal sign for good game.

Behind the helmet, the soldier—or knight, or whatever he was—smiled and shook his head, saying something that Carter accepted as a compliment. Carter put out a hand, and the man shook it, his gloved hand around Carter’s forearm.

“He says his name is Sir Dar, he’s a knight, and he hopes that I brought you here to teach his men,” said Crius.

Carter turned to Crius. “Well, funny you should mention it. I’m a pretty good coach and I’m looking for work.”

“Yes. I saw you with your big sword, yesterday, teaching. We would like to extend an offer of employment to you.”

With those words, Carter realized that he wasn’t hearing in his ears what he was hearing in his head, but rather, it was as if the scruffy kid was playing a subtitled movie in his mind as he talked. He only noticed now that this had been going on since Pete’s Chowder House.

It seemed there was going to be a lot to take in.

Carter pulled out the chair in front of Crius’s desk, antique, soft leather, immensely comfortable, and settled in before the fire. Sir Dar took his spear, put his fist over his heart and bowed to Carter, and showed himself out.

“Let’s talk,” Carter said to Crius, “but slowly.”