Duel

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 2 of 4

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Mishka raised the sword in her left hand and tried to position herself the way the Princess told her. She looked at her opponent.  He had a nice scar on his right cheek.  The Princess said she would see what she could do about that.

“You fight with your left hand?” Van Stassen said. This was not expected.

“Right-handed would be too easy,” Mishka replied.  She turned to look at her companions and winked.  She traded places again with the Princess and she was ready.

Van Stassen shrugged.  He came at her legs, her left side and right side on the backswing.  She easily parried and he stepped back.  He grinned for his companions who returned his smile.

With more determination and strength, he came at her neck and arms, left and right on the backswing.  He probably expected to break through her defenses by strength alone, but again she easily parried, and he took a step back to consider his options.

The Princess risked a word in German with her heavy Greek accent.  “Boring,” she said, and came at him with the exact same blows he aimed at her, but all four in quick succession.  Right, left, right, left.  He backed up in surprise.  He almost failed to block the last blow.  He tripped over a protruding rock and fell on his backside.  The men with him tried not to laugh, but some could not help themselves.

The Princess graciously waited for the man to get up.  He got up angry.  If he thought, he would have realized she was much better than him.  The way she moved, she appeared to be toying with him, like she was preparing to teach him a lesson.  But he did not think.  He just got angry and came at her with wide, wild swings.  Mishka later remarked that his footwork was all wrong as well.  His blows were extra strong because of his adrenalin, but she had long since learned to let such blows slide off her sword rather than try to stop them.

He swung at her legs, and she took one step back.  He swung at her head, and she took another step back.  He tried her mid-section, and she did not bother to step back.  To the untrained eye, it might have looked like he was gaining the advantage and she was losing ground, but in fact, he was tiring himself out because he had no way though her defenses, and she was looking for a weakness she could easily exploit.

He showed her when he raised his sword again to strike at her head.  He raised it too high thinking to put some extra strength from gravity into his blow, but all he did was expose his shoulder.  She stabbed.  A quick in and out.  Then she ducked a little and pointed her sword straight up, grabbing the hilt with both hands.  The swords struck near the hilt of his sword.  He may have cracked her sword, but his sword reverberated right up his arm and into his wound.  He shouted, dropped his weapon, and put his good hand to his bleeding shoulder.  When the Princess pulled her sword back and stepped back, she scraped the man’s cheek making a two-inch-long cut.

“There,” Doctor Mishka said as she returned and watched the man’s cheek turn bloody red.  “Now you have matching scars. One on each side.”

One of the men with van Stassen pulled a pistol.  He looked like he had every intention of shooting Mishka.  Decker had his rifle in his hands, as usual, and he shot first.  The man dropped his pistol, grabbed his own shoulder, and fell to the dirt.  “That is not how this game is played,” Decker bellowed.  Stefan nodded and looked at van Stassen’s second.  After a moment, the man also nodded.

Mishka put her helmet and possibly cracked sword in the back of the wagon.  She called Nanette to sit on the Buckboard beside Klaus and told Decker and Tony they had to ride in the back.  The buckboard at least cushioned the ride a bit.  Mishka mounted her horse and Walter and Stefan mounted as well.  While Klaus drove the wagon past the motor coach, Mishka stopped to face van Stassen.

“You need to respect women.  You have good nurse-midwives who will run the whole clinic if you let them, but in any case, the women come to you for help, not to be emotionally scarred and damaged by you.”  She turned to one of the men supporting van Stassen.  “Doctor Meier, I am ashamed of you.  One day, people like you who blindly follow orders and go along with the crowd will be the downfall of Germany.”  She rode off, Stefan and Walter on her tail.  She turned in her resignation letter a week ago and already argued with Kress and Stottlemeyer, so leaving Heidelberg should not be a problem.

When they got back to the housing near the University Hospital, the travelers saw that Mishka was all packed and ready to go.  “It is July,” she said.  “The Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated two Sundays past.  Whole nations are mobilizing on the verge of war.  Russia and Germany are on opposite sides.  If Serbia and Austria-Hungary fought each other, just the two of them, that would be one thing, but there are alliances and connections everywhere.  The continent is ready fall like dominoes.”

“I heard the British foreign office is trying to mediate between the parties,” Stefan said.  “Even Kaiser Wilhelm is thinking of a diplomatic solution, if my sources are correct.”

Mishka shook her head, vigorously.  “You know, tomorrow is just as much a mystery to me as it is to anyone.  The twists and turns in life are just as surprising to me as they are to you.  But every once in a while, history rises up and slaps me in the face.”  She took a brush out of what would someday be called a carryon bag.  She stared at it like she did not know what it was.  “There will be a war—A Great War, and God help us.”

“We usually ignore her when she says things like that, I mean about the future,” Walter said.

“She said she wanted to face van Stassen right before she left in case he got in a lucky blow,” Stefan added.

Mishka put the brush back in the bag without using it and latched the bag shut.  “I need to get out of here.”

“I told her she should stay,” Walter said.  “She is an excellent doctor and surgeon.  The staff will mostly be taken into the armed services, but as a woman and a foreigner she would not have to worry about that.  This could be an excellent opportunity for her. She could teach, stay on the surgical staff, oversee the women’s clinic.  She might even get promoted to van Stassen’s boss.  Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Mishka took a blouse out of a trunk and looked it over.  She frowned when she saw a small spot.  “I am going home while I still can,” she said and licked her finger to try dabbing the spot.  “Mother Russia needs doctoring.  Who knows?  With my training as a surgeon, I might join the army myself.”  She folded the blouse and repacked it, slamming the trunk lid closed.  “Sorry Walter.”

The man sighed while Stefan suggested they all troop down to the tavern for a bite of lunch before anyone leaves.

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 1 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

1914 A.D. Heidelberg

Kairos lifetime 120: Nadia Iliana Kolchenkov, Doctor Mishka

Recording …

Decker stepped out of the time gate onto a grassy knoll.  There did not appear to be anyone around.  A large, flat, field covered the ground just below him.  He saw a wagon track road that came part way into the field and stopped.  He imagined it might have been a farm field in the not-too-distant past.  Beyond that, the trees went rapidly down the hill to a wide river.  At the bottom, he saw an old stone bridge that crossed the river, and on the other bank, a city that had to be Heidelberg.

“Warm,” Nanette said as she came through the time gate.  She pulled off her shawl and stuffed it into the pack she wore at her side that doubled for her purse.  It used to be their all-important medical purse that Alexis once carried, but Doctor Mishka took most of their things.  She still had some elf bred crackers, a ball of fairy weave she could shape into a blanket and a tent, her wand, and hidden under a flap of cloth on the bottom, the Beretta that used to belong to Boston.  Nanette paused to sniff the air.  This felt like summer.  Definitely not Southern California in the spring.

Tony came through tugging on his breeches.  “This uniform has too many buckles,” he said.

“You will get used to it,” Decker responded.  He and Tony visited the marine base in the Los Angeles area and saw examples of the combat fatigues worn by marine officers in the Great War.  They imitated the look with their fairy weave clothing, but all the accessories would take some getting used to.

“Why are we here so far from the city?” Nanette asked.  “I thought Doctor Mishka, a younger version would meet us here.”  She checked the sun.  It was perhaps nine in the morning.

Decker did not respond.  He merely pointed.  A mule-drawn wagon and three people on horseback came onto the field.  They stopped where the road stopped, turned the wagon around, and the riders tied their horses to the side of the wagon.  One of the riders appeared to be a woman, and the three on the hill began to move down to intercept them.

Down below, one rider got between the woman and the back of the wagon.  “Nadia—Mishka.  You don’t have to do this.  You can still back out of the duel, and no one would blame you.”

Mishka stopped and looked at the man.  “Karl Frederic von Stassen has been put in charge of the women’s clinic since I finally got transferred to the surgical team.  But the man is a pervert.  He fondles and abuses the women put under his care. Someone needs to teach him manners, and since the men are all cowards, that leaves it up to me.”  She put her hand out to indicate the man should move out of the way, but he did not move.

The other man came up behind Mishka.  “Von Stassen is an excellent swordsman, and no stranger to the duel.  They say he has killed three men and injured a dozen more.”

“I do not doubt that.  The man is an ass.  I would imagine he has been in two dozen duels.  But this time, he has gone too far.  Move Walter.”  The man blocking the back of the wagon moved, reluctantly.

Everyone paused to look when a motor coach came to the field, followed by five men on horseback who talked and laughed like they had no concerns in the world.  At the same time, Decker, Nanette, and Tony came to the field.  Nanette called and waved, and Mishka returned the wave and a smile.

Doctor Mishka checked her hair bun and made sure every strand stayed in place.  She raised her hood, which obscured her appearance and covered her hair completely.  Then she welcomed the marines and Missus Decker.

“Colonel,” she called to the group.  “Allow me to introduce my friends Doctor Walter Wagner, my driver Klaus, and my second Graf Stefan von Hoffmann.”  She turned to the other side.  “Lieutenant Colonel Decker and his adjutant, Lieutenant Anthony Carter are United States Marines.  Nanette is Missus Lieutenant Colonel Decker.”  Mishka smiled at them, and it made Nanette smile.  The men shook hands and passed pleasantries before Stefan interrupted with a question while Mishka got a straight saber out of the back of the wagon and got a helmet with leather that fell to her shoulders and a mask that covered her mouth and nose, leaving only her blue eyes exposed. Otherwise, she stood in slacks and a loose-fitting blouse like the man across the way.

“First blood?”

Mishka merely nodded and turned to Nanette and the marines, thus turning her back on all the others.  While Stefan and Walter walked out to meet von Stassen’s second and make sure the rules were understood, she faced the Americans.

“A duel?” Decker asked.

Mishka nodded and traded places with the Princess and lowered her mask.  The Princess was an inch shorter, but no one would notice the small difference.  Her eyes were still blue, though not exactly the same shade as Mishka’s eyes.  Of course, her face and features were noticeably different, being a different person in the many lives of the Kairos, and her hair changed from Mishka’s medium brown to a very light golden brown that looked almost blonde in the morning sun, but her hair had also been put in a bun so the helmet and mask would completely disguise who she was.

“This won’t take long,” she said in Greek that the travelers could understand perfectly.  She risked a glance behind her.  The man swung his sword in wide and wild arcs to test the movement and flexibility of the weapon.  He had obviously been trained, though not too well.  She did not doubt he killed a man and injured some.  But she had years of one on one to the death—battlefield experience he could not imagine.  “I’ll try not to hurt him too badly.”

“I could just shoot him,” Decker suggested.

The Princess grinned and swung her own sword a few times. She looked down the edges to the point.  It was a good weapon, and sharp.  She traded once again with Doctor Mishka, turned to face her opponent, and walked to the center.  She found the sword in her left hand.  She left it there.  The Princess was a lefty.

“You wear a helmet?” Van Stassen’s second asked, though they had supposedly already discussed this.

“A concession to this woman,” Mishka said.  “I do not expect my opponent to hold back, and with the mask and this loose clothing, he can pretend he is fighting a man.  He does not need to see my face.”

Van Stassen seemed unconcerned about that.  He looked more than confident he would draw blood on the woman easily enough.  She called him a coward all over the university and accused him of rape and other things van Stassen’s superiors did not need to know about.  She needed to shut up.  He imagined he might even strike a killing blow.  She was welcome to wear a helmet and mask.  It would not help her and might even make it easier for him to kill her, accidentally of course.