Iron Edge Read online

  Iron Edge

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2016

  Chapter one

  Thankfully the half-expected warping of his personal reality didn’t come until after he got home from work that day. Sometimes things happened earlier, while he had things to do, and that messed with his life far too much. Not that there was any real choice in what happened. Not when it took place, either. There never was.

  George didn’t get a lot of time to think about what was going on this time, after he slipped onto his old, well worn, brown sofa. It was comfortable, though a thing that had seen a lot of life. He made decent money as a mechanic, but not enough to buy new furniture sets when people were going to let things like the one he had go. His current set up, the slightly dusty and dinged things that filled his low rent apartment, had all come from Craigslist. Most of them cheap, some of it free.

  The first shock wasn’t that he felt anything in particular happening. It was never all that impressive when the world switched and changed around him. There was no sense of tingling first, or dramatic muscle spasms. There weren’t even any cool blue lights as special effects to jazz things up for him. No, it was that his eyes simply closed on their own, a hard blink, instead of him feeling like he was passing out, then he opened them on a different scene. One just as complete and colorful as what he’d just left. As completely real seeming.

  This time it was all about a hard-looking man, wearing leather gloves, punching him in the head.

  Trying to, at any rate. Scrambling to catch up to the action, George slipped to the left instantly, without even thinking about it. His well callused hands coming up to defend himself. Empty, he noticed. That was meaningful. This time the person across from him was new, not one his regular training partners from this second world or his master, Cleot. This fellow was grizzled, hard, and after a moment of adjusting to the fact that George wasn’t on his fairly comfortable couch anymore, getting it greasy from his day in the garage, it became clear that the man wasn’t all that great at fighting.

  That, or holding back a lot more than anyone sane would do if they were going to have to fight the likes of him. Being a Weapons Master, even one only partly trained, meant something. A whole hell of a lot more than being a black belt did in his other world. Even unarmed he was dangerous.

  It sometimes took longer than others to work out what was really going on when a warp happened. So, at first he blocked, buying time to get the lay of the land. Meaning he shuffled back and tried to feel out the situation instead of trying to destroy the fellow in front of him instantly. Normally in a fight, he would have gone for a kill without hesitation.

  The man was in leather, which was brown, but had a bright red tunic visible under the vest, which marked him as an army recruiter. The guy didn’t seem drunk or even that angry, and, when he finally glanced around, ready to stop the man for real, it became clear they were in the normal practice square. That told George a whole lot about what might be happening.

  This wasn’t a real attack, or a drunk trying to kick his no doubt insulting ass, in particular. That didn’t mean he couldn’t lose a few teeth if he weren’t careful. The rules for even practice fights in Stena, the other world he went to at times, were hard and a bit unforgiving. At least if you were a Weapons Master. Which, along with his day job of being a cartwright, he was.

  At least he was close enough that no one should want to get into anything with him, if they had half a freaking brain. Most people were idiots though, so he could see that one as being possible. Then again, he was probably insane. Most people didn’t live in two worlds for real. That probably meant he was gone in the head. Hopefully living peacefully, playing video games and napping on the sofa, instead of flailing at people in the street thinking reality was different than it really was.

  After getting that part down, why he was fighting, he worked out a plan. After all, there was a reason he was fighting the recruiter, even if he wasn’t really certain he knew what it was at the moment. It could have been to test the skills of the other fellow, who, given his age and the scars on his face, was probably a war vet. George had that going on as well, though not there, in the world he stood at the moment. Back in the other world, he’d gone to Iraq, a few years before. Many years now. His body there held signs of battle that were different than what the man before him had going on, but was just as telling, if you knew how to look.

  In Stena, he was doing better that way. His body was younger, for one thing, which never had made a lot of sense to him. It was almost like time didn’t flow at the same rate. It was, probably, that his mind had simply created a world in which he could be healthy and fun for him. Not that he wasn’t that way in both places. It was hard to hide a certain level of crazy, but he worked that one hard, every day. It kind of worked.

  The war vet managed to hit him in the middle then, then grinned as if a little tap was a big deal and tried to close, for an awkward tackle-like throw. The rules there were that you fought to submission, not a pin, so George just sat down suddenly, wrapped the man with his legs and turned him onto his back, then tapped him a few times in the face, right at the point of the jaw. It was lacking in power, on purpose but the other guy seemed to understand that wasn’t because of weakness on the other fighter’s part. At least he looked worried, as he scrambled to get out from under him.

  That didn’t work, since the man wasn’t an inspired grappler. Weapons Master basically meant fighting master, after all. Everyone knew that, more or less. It took about half a minute, but when the man finally tried to pull a small dagger from his side, George got a decent lock on his blade arm and twisted it back, resting on top of the man. There was actually a lot that they could have been doing, as far as full out, brutal fighting, that neither of them was. Pulling a knife was just part of practice there however, if you were losing. No one cried foul from the sidelines even.

  Unarmed fighting was either meant to save you when you lost all your weapons, or to let you handle people that shouldn’t have been fighting with you. Town kids that got upset, say. Maybe soldiers that drank a bit too much and wanted to prove how manly they were. That meant you always had to stay ready for it to become armed, at any point. Always.

  Gasping, the man, who had a lot of gray in his slightly matted beard and hair that was a bit greasy and long for a fighter, coughed.

  “Fine then, boy. I yield… before you rip my arm off, if it’s all the same?”

  They stood then, warily, since fake yielding was also a long held tradition in the practice yard. Everything was allowed, after all. Any trick was considered worthy, if it let you survive and win. Almost anything. At least for the Weapons Masters.

  From the side, his clean shaved and mustached master barked at them, his tone unforgiving, as if he’d seen all the errors that had come into play in the fight. That wasn’t just possible, it was nearly certain. At the point that George had come into things, he’d stopped for a second, which in the middle of a fight probably seemed like a loss of focus.

  Which it was.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a thing that could be helped either. After all, as far as he knew, there was no way to control his shifting between worlds. Worse, while he was only aware of what he, personally, saw and felt, it was really clear that he kept doing things in both worlds, while he was away. His body moving around without him. Making decisions and creating problems for him. Like getting him into matches with Army Recruiters, without warning.

  Except that one probably made sense, or would have, if he’d been there mentally the entire time. In the main he didn’t have huge issues with that other part of him doing the wrong thing. If anything, he tended to be disciplined and bland when that kind of thing happened and his mind was away.
r />   “Weapons next. Knife against long staff. Catch.”

  Cleot was dressed in decent clothing, with a bright blue and green sash over his normal workday outfit. The rest of them, standing around the edge of the dirt were in whatever they wore to work each day. Except the women, who had on trousers, which wasn’t the normal custom otherwise. Unless they were out in the fields doing farm labor. Weapons Masters would be at a disadvantage in skirts, after all. Not that the girls didn’t practice that way sometimes.

  That one was one of the funny things there. The men didn’t practice that way, since no one could even imagine how a man might have to be dressed up in something other than trousers. That was lacking in a few ways however, since being a monk was a real enough idea. There were several different orders. Even there in Homess, the town he lived in, the priest wore a heavy brown thing all the time. It was a thing to think about, actually.

  He caught the weapon meant for him, which, unsurprisingly was a tiny wooden paddle that was meant to approximate a knife. The shape was flat, heavy and more like a cleaver than a dagger. It would change the way he fought with it. Mainly due to the fact that only an idiot would pick that kind of thing to go against a long staff. Cleot frowned at him from the side of his eye, not grinning at the prank. It was a sign of something then.

  The master wasn’t against games to keep things interesting after all. It showed on his face when he did that kind of thing, however. The other man had a long staff, making the whole thing seem like a farce. Six feet of painful thumping stick. Oak, even, which made it a real weapon, unlike what he had. It was really easy for almost anyone to swing one around and keep others at bay. On the other hand, it was nearly impossible for anyone to actually move in with a knife on a person armed that way, if they were aggressive about it. Flailing around without skill was nearly enough to control the situation.

  When that kind of thing worked at all, it normally required jumping in, using great speed and wonderful timing, to stab the other fighter before you were knocked out. Most of the time, even in practice, it just didn’t work. With the weapon that he’d been given, it was nearly impossible. Given the look on the face of the soldier in front of him, that part wasn’t lost on the man. He might not be an inspired fighter, but everyone knew that a staff or spear was a superior weapon to a blade. Even compared to a sword, much less his tiny fake knife.

  The next minutes were painful ones, since the other man did his best to thrash George in the legs and arms hard. Not that he wasn’t aiming for the head, and thrusting for the middle as if they had a personal beef, instead of just having a friendly match. That, a decently solid beating, kept going until George finally managed to catch the other man with his practice paddle on the back of the left hand. Nothing snapped, indicating a break, but the man yelped in pain, and had to try to fight with only one hand. It wasn’t because of rules, either. The guy was going to have a bruise going on in the morning the next day.

  That didn't last long at all, since George just stepped in and took the longer weapon away with a prying motion. Then, tucking the blade substitute into his belt, he got ready to thrash the man back, since that was how things went in the yard. You didn’t get to stop fighting just because your weapon broke or you got slightly injured.

  Interestingly, Cleot laughed then.

  “Switch to midweight blades. Battle field rules.”

  They weren’t in armor, which meant that things would get bloody, fast, most likely.

  The blades this time weren’t sharp, but were made of hardened iron. Steel, actually. High in carbon and strength. George wasn’t a metal smith, or a scientist, but he could tell that much. That didn’t mean much, since they didn't have shields at the moment. It meant fighting blade to blade, which on the battlefield both happened, and was considered nearly suicidal. If your weapon broke, you were probably going to die, after all. The other man was better with a sword, too. Very much so. He’d been weak, unarmed, but his weapons skills weren’t at all horrible.

  Which was probably the point of the moment. Cleot wasn’t at all against the idea of his students learning that they weren’t really all that, when it came to fighting. They were tanners, cartwrights and even a few farmers, not hardened soldiers, used to war. That said, they were still generally better at fighting than the army men would be. That didn’t mean they were used to the conditions of the battlefield.

  He was, more than the others, but it didn't have anything to do with his life there in Stena. No, that was all down to what had happened in his other world. The one that he wasn’t certain was real at all. Where he worked on nearly magical machines, and had fought against people with firearms and bombs. Or had, before he’d finally managed to get out of the army. Unless they reactivated him, due to his special skills. It was a thing that he, out of all of them there, except possibly Cleot and the man he was fighting, understood. In a real battle, you had to survive first. That meant anything went.

  The fight was more brutal then, with hair pulling, which George took full advantage of, several attempts at eye poking from both of them, use of swords in almost every way possible and a few low kicks that were attempts to trip or knock back the other person, rather than anything flashy. If you fell down in a real fight, you died. It made sense to limit that kind of thing. Especially since no one had ever come up with anything except wooden or leather soles for shoes there. They were flat and smooth on the bottom, which made them slippery, compared to running shoes.

  The fight ended, with George barely winning, managing to clip the other man in the jaw hard enough for him to fall. It wasn’t a knock out, but instead of allowing the blow to the back of the neck which was starting to fall, one of the proctors, who was holding a polearm that was meant to slap flying blades or other things from hitting the observers, called out.

  Her voice was hard about it. As if she saw something about to happen. Like the other man dying.

  “Hold!”

  Instantly, her long wooden staff, made of hard wood, moved out, in order to prevent the sword in his own hand from falling. They didn’t connect, George just moving back, staying ready to fight. Cleot didn't say anything about it, just nodding and stepping in, taking both blades back.

  “There we go, Renner. Are you pleased enough with what you see, or perhaps you’d like to try one of the others on for size first? George here isn’t the worst fighter we have, but not a master yet, either. Close, I won’t lie to you, but…” The words were actually filled with something near good humor. Once the fighting stopped, it was his personal way.

  The man wasn’t a jerk or anything. Apparently, after he stood, the recruiter didn’t seem to be either. He chuckled at least and then smiled.

  “All right, old friend, you’ve proved your point. Still, I need to get your kids here out for a march or two, and then see what they can do on a defensive line. I have to think that putting them in as line troops is a poor use of all their hard work. Guards, maybe? That, or assassins.” There was a smirk then, as the man glanced around, as if he expected everyone to groan at that idea as being beneath them.

  If so, he wasn’t wrong. Cleot didn’t bother with that reaction, holding still, but everyone else, other than George, did. He’d been that kind of killer, in his own war, since he was a trained sniper. For several years, he’d made some of the worst people in the world stop being, to protect others. At least that had been his job, until he’d caught a bit of shrapnel to the brain, thanks to a road side bomb. That had been years before. In another place. Probably the thing that had made him go insane.

  Looking at his hands briefly, he was surprised to see that there was no dark grease on them. There had been when he’d sat on the sofa.

  The calluses were in about the same place. There was, interestingly, some oily substance on the back, though that was a deep reddish brown. Grease, but the wrong color for a car. The kind they used to allow the cart and wagon wheels to turn easily.

  “Here, here! We aren’t killers!” That came from Degra,
the proctor for the match who had stopped it.

  She wasn’t a pretty woman. Her face having been battered a long time before, many times, by her first husband. The second one didn’t try to beat her nearly as much, George had heard. She was tough, now, after five years of training. Probably less than that. He’d started with Cleot before she had, but only by about three years. It was really hard to know, even though he remembered his entire life.

  Only, he recalled it all in both places. That messed with things for him. Now that he had a chance to think, not being hit in the head at the moment, he recalled Renner being introduced, since he worked for the Stenic army and was, as had been mentioned, a childhood friend of Cleot. They’d served in the last great war together. That part was mainly a convention of speech, calling the wars great. That simply meant that people had to leave their homes to fight. Probably not the women, so Degra was actually right in a way. She, at the very least, wouldn’t be expected to become a killer. The rules weren’t as kind for the men.

  Renner, shaking his head, reached out slowly and patted George on the arm.

  “You’ve got skills there, boy. As good as any I’ve fought, to be truthful. Still, war is different than practice. We’ve need of men who can go and kill the enemy. That, and no disrespect, Missus, but the truth is, all soldiers of worth are killers. There’s no difference in war about how a body dies, neither. You kill the top man in the war, whenever possible. Doing elsewise just leads to more death, for everyone.” He glanced at Degra then, his face not all that hard now. In fact, it was nearly bemused in its sympathy for what the kids from the town had to be feeling.

  Cleot nodded, but it was clear the others there didn’t get the idea. Not really. Stena, as a land, was decently hard, but they held to rather polite rules about some things. Like killing being wrong, and there being a certain honor required in war. In many ways, they were better people than the ones from the United States, that way. Most of the people at the garage would call for nuclear strikes against their enemies half the time, if they’d had the power. It was one of the reasons that George tried to keep his mouth shut at work about things like that. He wasn’t for mass killing of innocent people.