Conquest of Avalon

Camille IV: The Duelist

“En garde!” Lucien stood sideways in a fencer’s stance, his blunted training rapier extending from his hand like it was part of his body. The wind from the sea blew his ponytail behind him, casting a streak of red over the blue backdrop of the water.

Camille clutched her own tightly, holding it ready in the starting position. Her feet were planted firmly on the arena platform where she had executed the robber mere days ago, and where the advanced matches of the mêlée would be held in a matter of weeks. She would be ready.

As Lucien advanced a step, she shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, prepared for anything he might send her way. He lunged, but Camille was already moving, her blade pointed down to the inside in the Prime position. As Lucien’s blade darted towards her, she slammed it out of the way with the side of her own.

She followed it up with a riposte, but Lucien had begun retreating the moment his attack had failed. He didn’t even need to parry. Camille kept up the offensive, driving him back towards the edge. As he neared it, he finally stopped to parry her in the Quarte position, circling his blade to effortlessly drive hers off-target.

She blocked his riposte with a circle of her own, this time in Sixte, her arm burning with the exertion. Before she could counterattack, Lucien advanced further, immediately following up with his own.

Camille stepped to the side, sending Lucien tumbling past with a frustrated sigh.

“What?” She smiled innocently. “Mad that I won the exchange?”

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re not supposed to move sideways. You advance or retreat, but the whole thing is in a straight line, so if you move outside the strip, you’d be penalized.”

She wrinkled her nose. “But that’s not how the mêlée works, or how it would be in a real battle. Who cares?”

Lucien tilted his head back, showing an exasperation that Camille thought rather unearned. “I said we were going to start with dueling to get a basis for the positions. It’s safer too. This is how it works, Camille. Once you’re ready, we can move on to more freeform training.”

“Still, I did pretty well, did I not?”

“Eh.” He shrugged. “Your instincts for parrying are good, but you’re putting way too much force into it. Anything more than you need to block an attack is too much. No offense, but with your stamina, it’s all the more important. I could have lunged three or four more times, and you’d probably have had to drop your sword.”

“How many times am I really going to need to parry? It’s all a last resort anyway.” Really, if it could buy her a few seconds to gather more water, that would be enough to justify it. She wasn’t overly concerned with becoming a master swordswoman.

“Look, I appreciate you changing your mind about this, but this is kinda my thing, alright? Can you just trust me to teach it the right way? Like I trusted you back at the council meeting?” He stared into her soul with those damnably vivid green eyes.

“Of course.” She sighed. “But in the interest of doing better in the mêlée, can we try one with tournament rules? Just one, and then call it a day?” That was probably about all she could take without her arm falling off.

“A rapier isn’t exactly what I’d use in a tournament mêlée. It’s only sharp at the tip, and a practice sword is blunted there too. Without the ability to pierce, I’d want something a bit heftier to deflect and disarm…” Lucien tilted his head up, contemplating. “If that’s what you want, sure. Just be careful not to waste too much of your spirit energy on this.”

“I know exactly what I can spare, don’t worry. It’ll barely take anything to beat you, anyway.”

He smirked. “You want to bet? One hundred florins say you’re wrong.”

“Why not make it interesting? Five.”

“Alright then.” He laughed slightly as he made his way around to the starting position halfway across the radius of the platform while Camille sauntered back to her own. “You’re on.”

Lucien maintained the fencer’s stance, holding his sword in the neutral position as he advanced towards the center of the platform. She could have summoned a massive wave to carry him off and win the match, but be had been right that it would be stupid to waste too much power on a friendly spar.

Fortunately, she had subtler options available.

Willing a narrow tendril of water up from the highest wave just as it crested, she kept her eyes firmly planted on Lucien. No wider than her finger, and only a few times as long, it was easy enough to keep out of sight against the blue backdrop of the sky and sea.

Once he was a few yards away, she pushed it to the ground in front of him, a bit splashing up onto his ankles. “Really?” He raised an eyebrow.

Camille smiled, expending more power to rapidly chill the water. That trick had been written in her mother’s notes, inherited from Castille Leclaire after defeating the winter sages of the Sunderé Dominion, and seeing them melt the snow to attack. If they could manage that, the Leclaires could do the reverse; it was all water, in the end. Lucien took another step forward and slipped on the ice, his foot sliding out from under him.

She folded her arms, ready to bask in the victory, but Lucien dropped his sword and rolled, regaining his feet in a moment. He began a headlong sprint towards her as she tried to grab another small bit of water to stop him.

This time she cooled it as it sailed through the air, smashing a rod of ice into his ankles. But now Lucien was ready, leaping over it at the last moment and tackling Camille, landing on top and pinning her down..

“Would you like to forfeit?” he whispered into her ear. “Or should I toss you over the side? We did say official tournament rules.”

“Khali’s curse!” Camille slammed her first down against the wooden floor. “I forfeit. How did you even do that?”

“I know you too well.” Lucien stood, offering her a hand. “That was really creative with the ice though. Big return for a small power expenditure.

“Not good enough though,” she muttered.

“Well, I’ve been focused on fighting my entire life. Avalon binders have a lot of the same abilities as sages, and I need to be able to beat them too. Would be nice to win the tournament, in the meantime, so I’ve picked up a few things.”

“Oh?” She took the offered hand and hoisted herself up.

“Well, practically everyone thinks a sage is guaranteed to win a one on one fight, especially sages.”

“They ought to. Anything a normal person could do, a sage could as well.” She walked over to the edge of the platform facing the beach, spotting the top of the ladder clinging to the side. “And you aren’t going to know the other ones the way you know me.”

“Sure, but there’s only so much time in the day, you know? Sages don’t tend to practice much regular fighting, I’ve noticed, and the limits on spiritual energy mean they can’t practice with their biggest tricks either. It would be a total waste. So often what you get is big and powerful, yes, but crude and untrained, and in limited supply. If you can dodge the biggest hits, they’ll be too exhausted of spiritual energy to do much while you close the gap and beat them down.”

“And if they’re smart about their energy? If they use less consumptive attacks purposefully, so it’s hard to wear them out? Now that you’ve said that, if we were fighting seriously, I’d know to avoid the giant crashing wave strategy and stick to the small stuff.”

Lucien chuckled. “You’re a bad example, really. Laura Bougitte, Aurelian Lumière, Adrian Couteau… none of the sages I’ve fought have been half as creative. And Duke Fouchand says binders tend to do the same thing. It’s like, a big burst of power has always worked for them, so they don’t bother to try anything else. And when you know that, you can plan around it. It’s not foolproof, but…”

“Hmm.” Camille bit her lip as she began to descend the ladder. “That makes sense, I suppose. I can certainly believe that I’m better than everyone else.” She smirked. “Though you should be wary of a sage’s last resort. They won’t turn to it in a tourney, but in a battle? Anything is better than death.”

“True.” His face hardened as he followed after her down the ladder..

When they reached the bottom, she stepped across the water lightly, making Lucien swim after her to get to shore. Perhaps a bit petty, but the snort as he plunged in let her know he took it in good humor. And once they reached the shore, she did shake him dry with a flick of her fingers.

“Double or nothing, I beat you in the real mêlée,” she offered as they mounted their horses.

Lucien laughed. “You can’t be sure we’ll meet in the bracket.”

“If neither of us lose, then eventually we’ll have to.”

He smiled, undoing the tie around his hair and shaking it free. “Excellent point. I accept.”

They had to part ways there, since Camille had agreed to help Annette with some of the preparations, over at the Bureau of the Sea. As a sage of Levian, there was a lot she could do to help her friend out, if need be, from removing derelict vessels to catching smugglers.

Of course, this time she was largely there to help administer preparations for the tournament. Annette would run herself ragged otherwise. Well, more ragged. Especially when her cousin, head of the Bureau of Land, offered precisely zero help with this massive undertaking. He could just barely summon the effort to convey the Duke’s instructions to his underlings before retiring to the tavern.

The Bureau of the Sea was a squat, ugly building of yellow stucco and wood, a box clinging to the western wall like a sore. A building for practicality, rather than aesthetic. Had the Duke asked her before constructing it, Camille might have pointed out the practicality of an elegant, imposing building to house the customs offices and harbor guards, the effects it would have on morale and institutional respect, but she had not been consulted. Of course, being eight years old might have had something to do with that.

Annette was buried in a pile of papers as Camille walked in, towering atop her desk like a particularly precarious spire. “Who is it?” Annette called out.

“Guy Valvert. I’m finally here to help you, cousin.”

“Pff.” Annette laughed, standing up from behind her desk. Of course, given her diminutive stature, the papers still covered all but the top of her head. Even with a limited view, her brown hair had a gloss to it, as if it hadn’t been washed in some time.

“Did you call me here to give you a bath?” Camille stepped around the desk to face Annette. “It looks like you could use one.”

“I saw the last person you covered in water. No thank you.” Annette set her ink pen down at the desk. “Besides, there’s no time.”

“Is there ever?” Camille raised an eyebrow. “You have to stop to take a breath every once and while, Annette. Maybe even sleep, if your veins of pure pixie powder will let you.”

“After the Festival.” She gestured to the monument of work before her. “I’ve got a harbor full of ships, some of them would-be smugglers or pirates, and I have to approve permits for vendors to sell their wares on the tournament grounds.”

“That last one sounds like a matter for the Bureau of Land.”

Annette snorted. “Shall I go ask Guy, then?”

“Well, you could ask the Duke, or I could. Lord Valvert listens to him, at least. Begrudgingly and incompetently, but he does listen.”

“Nah.” Annette waved the back of her hand. “It’s not worth it.” She stepped out from behind the desk. “I was hoping you could help me with something though. I could use your unique abilities.”

“How so?”

“It’s probably better if I just show you.”

A short walk down had them on the other side of the walls, a narrow strip that would vanish to nothing at high tide. It was nothing like the harbor to the north, with none of the docks or moorings, and the water was not even deep enough to bring larger ships in very close.

And yet, there was the Seaward Folly, the famous ship stolen from the capital of Avalon by the pirate Robin Verrou. It had that same narrow clipper design as the ones that had attacked Malin, all those years ago.

Camille stared at Annette incredulously.

“What? Duke Fouchand said I needed to keep it hidden from Magnifico, and this was the best I could manage on short notice.”

“What if he asks for a tour of the walls?” Camille’s eye twitched. With such a design so obviously matching the Avalon navy, there would be no way to explain its presence.

“Worst case? I’ll die.” Annette shrugged. “Anyway, that’s why I brought you. I figure with you working your water magic, we can do a lot better.”

“Why couldn’t he have dropped it farther up the coast? Khali’s curse, anywhere else?”

Annette frowned. “Not a lot of other harbors around. It’s kind of why the city exists in the first place.”

Camille sighed. “The ship has an anchor, doesn’t it?”

“Verrou’s in town for the duration of the festival, and if he returns to his ship dashed against the rocks I have to think he’ll up our fee for the latest set of plans by an undesirably high amount. Like I said, not a lot of good harbors nearby.”

“You really should have asked me first.” Camille tilted her head back in a wordless plea to the sky. “But I do think I have an idea. It’ll take a lot of power, though.”

“I’ve got a few criminals locked up, tried to steal one of the merchant ships and tossed one of my men into the harbor when they were caught; you could have your pick of them to sacrifice.”

“The merchant?”

Annette slid her finger across her throat. “In his sleep, at least. Of course, that’s what they’d say, and it’s not like we can verify. Sorting out next of kin to claim the ship is another headache that landed on my plate, by the way. He captained it himself, and the first mate refuses to take it off my hands, says it belongs to a son in Dorseille and it wouldn’t be respectful to, but it’s clogging up my harbor until he comes to claim it and the mate won’t hear about moving it.”

“Sorry.” Camille bit her lip. “Anyway, if I can replenish with that, we should be fine. Let me see go see the captain and we can tell them to get ready.”

“Do you need me?”

She shook her head, stepping out over the water to walk up to the ship. Each step expended energy, pushing up with the water against her feet, but now she had an assurance of more soon.

The annoying thing was that if she’d known that, she could have done so much more against Lucien, but ultimately she could live with that. He had yet to see her using the fullness of her power.

She began rising above the waves on steps of water as she approached the ship, stepping off onto the deck once she was at the right height. “Hello?” she called out. “Robin Verrou?”

“I’m afraid he’s not here.” A gaunt-looking woman of perhaps twenty stepped out from the cabin door, short brown hair not quite reaching her shoulders. She was wearing some kind of sleeved leather jerkin, either dyed black and faded or intentionally colored a mottled dark grey, along with a short brown petticoat over trousers or breeches. Sailors.

“Then could I speak to the first mate?”

“Not here either.”

“Second mate?”

The woman smiled smugly, emphasizing her too-thin lips. “No.”

Camille sighed. “Who is the highest ranking person currently on board?”

“The quartermaster.”

“Excellent. Could you bring them out, then?”

Folding her arms, the woman leaned back against the mast. “I could, sure.”

Ugh, this was agonizing. “Will you, please?”

She nodded, stepping forward. “I’m Eloise, quartermaster extraordinaire.” Her tone was entirely flat, as if she hadn’t just wasted all that time for no reason. “Also, currently, the only person aboard. What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to hide your ship.”

“Why?”

Camille’s eye twitched. “I’m beginning to wonder that, myself. But this is for a friend.”

“No, I mean, why hide the ship at all? We seem to be fine behind the wall.”

“Surely even you can see that this is not a sustainable concealment.” Camille gestured to the wall. “Anyone atop that can see you easily. If Magnifico were to notice, it would cause massive diplomatic problems with Avalon.”

“And?”

It was getting very difficult not to knock this woman off the side of the ship. “And it would mean the end of Duke Fouchand paying top dollar for the plans your captain steals. With all of the other nobles in the city, I would not be surprised if it halted things with Duke Etienne of Condilla, Lady Merlan of Plagette, all of your best buyers. It would become politically unfeasible.”

Eloise shrugged. “It’s politically unfeasible now, they just all cover it up.”

“If they find the Seaward Folly, the cover-up is over. We would all have to stop. Are you this dense, or just an awful person?” Camille asked with surprising sincerity.

“Awful person,” Eloise answered, leaning back against the mast again. “You should try it sometime. Very amusing to piss off haughty aristocrats.”

Camille swept her hand up, and a massive wave gradually swelled up behind her.

The sudden look of fear on the quartermaster’s face was the best thing Camille had seen all day. “I see your point.” Eloise gulped. “How are you going to hide it?”

Camille smiled, bringing the wave down over the ship. She held it at bay around the mast and the top of the deck, keeping them dry as she began pulling water out from under it, bringing the entire ship to the floor of the sea. Her ancestor had created a bubble to endure for centuries with decades of her life, but this only needed to last a few weeks, and her power would be replenished soon anyway.

After a few minutes, the ship settled into place, the water held suspended above it.

“Ok, admittedly, that was pretty impressive.” Eloise gazed up through the water. “Even if someone finds it, they’ll just think it’s a wreck.”

“Your crew will need to find lodgings in the city. It’s not an easy trip back and forth. You have my word as a Lady that the ship will be returned to the surface when it is time to depart.”

Eloise snorted. “Your word as a lady? Sure, thanks. But how do I get up?”

Camille smiled. “Swim.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, come on! I have notebooks and supply manifests that can’t get wet. If I’m going to the surface, leaving them behind is not an option.” That was the most emotion she’d put into her voice for the entire conversation.

“Fine,” she relented. “Stand close to me, and I’ll get us out dry.”

Eloise approached awkwardly, stopping about two feet away.

“Good enough.” Camille stepping into a gap she’d created in the water, Eloise following closely behind. Once they both stood on water, Camille closed the bubble again, and began moving it up.

Most of the trepidation seemed to have left the quartermaster by the time they reached the surface. She was simply staring through the water in awe. “I’ll credit you this: that’s quite a way to travel.”

Camille shrugged. “You get used to it pretty quickly.”

Eloise patted her notebook, making sure it was dry. “Hey, do you want to go get a drink? It’s always nice to relieve stress when you’re ashore.”

Camille blinked. “What, with you? No, of course not. This ‘haughty aristocrat’ isn’t in a mood to be further ‘pissed off’.”

“Fine.” Eloise narrowed her eyes. “Just trying to give a peace offering.”

With a sigh, Camille turned back to the wall behind them. “I’m afraid I have rather too much to do at the moment. I can recommend the Singer’s Lounge tonight though, if you’re in the mood for some entertainment. The Avalon bard has some strange music contraption rigged up there, it’s like nothing you’ve heard in your life.”

“Interesting.” Eloise’s tone had gone flat again. “I’d say ‘thank you’, but that’s not really my thing.”

“Charming.” Camille began walking south to get back around the wall. “Send my regards to your captain.”

She reached the castle just in time to see Lord Aurelian burning a man alive in the courtyard, the flames flickering between orange and gold. He smiled wide, the fire reflected in his golden eyes as he pulled a white glove from his breast pocket. “Hello, Camille.” The glove glowed yellow as he threw it onto the pyre. “Consider that my challenge.”