Fae Werewolf Helm: By Nathan Anderson

    By raising his own shield, he exposed a tiny area of his waist and Fae felt two jarring impacts, the first being his lance deflecting off her shield with a mighty bang, and the second was her own lance smashing into the plate guarding his midriff.

    The lance exploded, or at least that was how it seemed to her. She gripped tight with her thighs but was still pummelled back in her seat. She stayed atop her dragon but the tall prince was evicted from his.

    Fae discarded the ruined remains of the lance, casting it aside, and slowed Storm Rider to a halt. She turned the beast to trot back, but stopped opposite the fallen prince, reaching back to draw the katana as he forced himself into a sitting position.

    Fae leaned over and snared the little girl’s faveur on the sword tip from where it lay amid the splinters, before tying it about her right arm where it would not get lost again.

    She raised her visor as he regained his feet and lifted his also.

    “Still want to bed me?” she said loudly, for the benefit of his wife.

    Two points all, but still she needed a point to win whereas the prince just need a point for her to lose.

    One final lance to settle the issue and the dragons once again charged.

    Fae saw that this time he was aiming at her face, and she knew that, unlike hers, it was not a bluff.

    Fae again aimed for the sweet spot on his shield, determining not to raise her own but just before they met she ordered Storm Rider to close with the rail.

    It was a perilous thing to do as many a leg had been lost to that rail, she felt it brush her calf but Hagar’s tip, which was aimed at her eye slit, missed its mark.

    She was still hit, but by the shaft against the side of her helmet, whilst her own lance struck the point that she desired.

    Hagar was flung backwards, almost losing his seat, and Fae too had to grab at her saddle or be again flung to the ground. She abandoned her shield in the process and gripped the saddle two handed.

    Prince Hagar hung on long enough to earn the point for staying aboard before letting go and hitting the ground.

    Three points each and they could have taken a fourth pass with a lance or agreed on a draw but she did not give him the chance. His lance was intended to kill or blind her and she was not in a conciliatory mood.

    Fae regained her balance but did not slow her mount, it reached his end of the field and tore around it, now on his side where her presence declared Pas de compromis, no compromise, no draw, just win or lose.

         Prince Hagar hurriedly found his feet, using the rail to pull himself up, gripping his shield but he was still trying to draw his sword when Fae arrived, flinging herself off Storm Rider without stopping, landing at a dead run and drawing the katana from over her shoulder as she ran at him.

    She was outmatched by a larger, stronger opponent, and one with a bigger, heavier sword as well as a shield to hide behind. She jumped high, drop kicking the shield he had just raised, and sent him backwards over the rail where he landed inverted, losing his grip of it.

    Fae tore off her own helmet and cast it aside, vaulting the rail and was on him, kicking the shield out of reach and having him at her mercy, still trying to rise again.

    Inexplicably, at least to many eyes, she then let him get to one knee and draw his sword.

    She took a step backwards with her right foot, raising the katana to the vertical, to the position of In-no-Kamae before lowering the tip to the point where she was staring along the upturned, razor sharp edge, directly between his eyes.

    She waited for him to either cast the sword aside or attempt to stand and fight.

    He looked in her eyes and saw no timidity, no over confidence and absolutely no evidence to support the alleged hyped reputation.

    She was a killer.

    He lunged upright, holding his blade before him but she sprang forwards, her own blade feigning a stab at his visored face and he back pedalled, parrying one blow after another aimed at his head and face behind the visor.

    The crowd were hushed, some were struck dumb with horror whilst others were awestruck, depending on who they were supporting.

    The sound of clashing steel reverberated around the arena and his breath could be heard coming in pants, but Fae was completely silent.

    Ponytail bobbing, she drove him back until he was before the royal box and only there did she seem to lose momentum, allowing him to halt his retreat and defensive stance, rallying his strength to lunge at her.

    She ducked low, the katana’s blade spinning about in her grip so that the strike she delivered beneath his guard arrived with the broad, heavy spine of her sword. It hammered, full force, against the side of one knee.

    Neither knee nor elbow joints in a suit of armour plate have much padding beneath them lest their pin-jointed slats become fouled by the padding’s wool wadding.

    The shock of the blow was transferred to the knee joint and he bellowed in pain as the leg collapsed.

    Fae rose, reversing the swing until the blade was overhead and she brought it down vertically, hammering his sword tip to the ground whereupon she stamped down, trapping it underfoot.

    The katana’s tip speared forward at the apertures in Prince Hagar’s visor and Fae, finally, gave voice.

    “Kiai!”

    The Princess Royal screamed and fainted, a collective moan of despair arose from the nobles as the point, unerringly, entered an eye slit.

    She held steady for a very long moment before withdrawing the tip and Prince Hagar blinked, his eye itching due the point that had touched an eyelash and stopped.

    For the second time in twenty-four hours, she used her katana’s point to hook away his sword, where it caught the light as it spun to land with a loud clang.

    The king at last leaned over to look at her, this woman who had twice defeated his realm’s champion and had now knocked him out of the tournament in its very first hour.

    Fae raised her sword in salute, it would have been bad form to do anything other, and although she bent the knee, he was left in no illusion that it was anything but a gesture. She looked him in the eye, not away, and he was reminded that her kind had once defeated his country’s armies and stormed the walls behind him simply to make a point.