Andy Gorham's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

A week after Ava's warning, a stranger walked through the gate arch. He was thick through the shoulders and moved slow, like a man who had never lost. A brown dog trotted at his heel, tongue out, tail swinging. The dog looked friendly. The man did not. He stopped in the yard and studied Andy's six students where they knelt, drawing fight diagrams in the dirt. "So this is the school," the man said. He toed one diagram flat. "Lines in the mud. Cute." He pointed at the youngest student. "Send your best. I'll show them what real fighting looks like." Andy's stomach dropped. He knew the game. If he fought the man himself and won, he taught nothing, and the students would learn they still needed him to save them. If a student fought and lost, they would scatter by nightfall. Ava had said someone would come to break the school. Here he was. "No," Andy said. "You fight her." He nodded at the youngest. She went pale. She had swept Andy once, but this man was a wall. Andy crouched beside her fast. He did not tell her a move. He drew three quick marks in the dirt. "Force the flinch. Read the weight. Strike the empty side. You've done it." The man laughed and squared up. The girl was tiny in front of him. Andy's chest went tight. He almost stepped in. He didn't. The girl looked down. The brown dog sat near the man's feet, panting. She snapped her fingers at it. "Here, boy!" The dog lunged toward her, happy. The man flinched and glanced down at his own dog. His weight rolled onto his front foot. That was the moment. The girl swept his loaded ankle clean. The wall of a man crashed flat on his back in the dirt. The dog licked his face. Silence. Then the other students roared. The girl stood over the man, shaking, grinning. Andy did not gloat. He turned to his students. "See what she did? She made him flinch with the dog. She read his weight. She struck the empty side. Same three rules. Anything can be the flinch." The man got up slow. He brushed off his coat and looked at Andy with new, hard eyes. "You didn't just win," he said. "You taught them to win." He whistled for his dog and walked out the gate. At the arch he paused. "The one who sent me won't like that. She's coming herself." The gate emptied. The students crowded around the girl. Ava stepped from the shadow of the gatehouse, where she had watched the whole thing. Her face was grim. "That was a scout," she said. "You passed his test." She rubbed her trembling hand. "But you just told the real one you can't be scared off. She won't send a stranger next time. She'll come to take the school apart herself."