Daughter of the Flames Read Online Free

the wall and strode ahead into the circle, clapping his hands for attention. Most of the trainees were panting and sweat-soaked, all too ready to let their weapons fall.
    “Excellent. A very good first lesson. Now, for your entertainment, Zira and I will stage a little demonstration of how the long staff can be used in the hands of experts.”
    My heart sank, though I tried to keep my expression blank. I should have known. Deo was well aware that I disliked the staff, so he made me use it every time he got the chance.
    “If you continue to work as hard as you’ve worked this afternoon,” he continued, “one day you may be able to do this. Clear those staffs away and give those gloves back – all of them!”
    He waited until the trainees had handed their weapons in and regrouped outside the ring, then reached into the barrel and pulled out, from among the short greenwood staffs, a long polished one, bound at both ends in plain brass. He tossed it to me and then picked out his own staff, lavishly carved with designs that echoed the wolf and stars of his tattoo, and capped with silver.
    “Ready?” he asked me, twirling the wooden staff idly in one hand. Show-off.
    I rolled my shoulders to loosen the tension I could feel contracting my muscles. I was tall for a Rua, a head taller than most women and an inch taller than Deo, but he had several inches on me in reach and the long staff was his favourite weapon. He was a demon with it. Resigned to the bruises I knew were coming, I took up the fighting stance, legs braced, staff held diagonally across the body, and nodded.
    The familiar grin split his face, and he struck, his staff moving in a dark blur of speed towards my chin. I threw myself forward under his strike, which passed narrowly over my head, and jabbed towards his stomach. He turned at the last instant and I missed, sliding past his belly. I allowed the momentum to carry me past him, but he brought the staff around in a one-handed whirl and it glanced off my collarbone. I sucked in a sharp, painful breath as I dropped.
    I rolled across the dirt and came back to standing with a pump of my legs, turning and kicking out sideways with my right foot in one movement, aiming for his knee. He deflected the kick, his staff hitting the sole of my boot and forcing me to drop back. As he blocked, his left side was open for a second and I brought the staff around in a horizontal two-handed strike. The brass cap thudded soundly against his side. The watching trainees gasped.
    Deo responded with a savage overhand sweep of his staff. I panicked, dropping again. My shoulder hit the ground badly this time and I hissed as I tumbled forward, flattened and dived between his legs. A faint titter of laughter rose from the children. Scorch it! The staff was not my favourite weapon.
    Deo’s weapon thudded into the ground by my head, ripping a few stray hairs out as I rolled and popped up. I slid left to avoid the powerful kick he aimed at my torso, blocked a high strike at my face and a low one at the hip, caught a sideways blow to my stomach that almost made me double over as the air whooshed from my lungs, and managed to get in a light hit on his right forearm.
    We could be at this all day, I thought. Time to try something different.
    I slammed my staff point into the dust and, still holding the other end with both hands, flung myself up and sideways in a two-footed flying kick. He brought his staff up but it was too late – my weight thudded into his shoulder and knocked him literally off his feet. I fell as he did.
    He hit the ground with a shout and rolled, hoping to knock me over as he went, but I’d already backflipped off him and out of range. He snapped to his feet at the same moment that I came upright. For a split second, we faced each other, breathing hard as the sweat made flesh-coloured runnels over our dusty skin. Then Deo lunged. I twisted left, but the turn was too slow and I recognized his manoeuvre too late. His staff