Where Danger Lies - Part 8

But in a moment, he was gone.

Blackthorn watched – she watched closely, more closely than the rest, and she could not see how he'd done it.

That irritating boy, with that confident smile sitting on his lips, all throughout the time they sparred.

And yet the man was a liar. She could see that. No man would smile with that sort of pain in his eyes. The way he fought now, it proved it. Trickery - a trickery that betrayed even the onlookers. He brought the lumbering beast that was Bournemouth in close, offering him his head, lowered and ready, as if on a platter…

Then in the next moment, he was gone. Blackthorn looked, but she couldn't see. She couldn't understand. She didn't have the ability to. More than anything, that frustrated her. She couldn't see how she could get stronger. She'd practised harder than anyone and yet—

CRASH!

A strike from a wooden blade, weighted though it was, brought forth with the fury of a man that had climbed out of the pits of hell.