Phoenix by Jeff Stone Page B

would be critical, because one false move by either individual with even a practice spear could mean serious injury, and I had the scars to prove it. Doing the form with an unknown partner who was holding a sharpened spear—a snake-head spear, no less—was practically suicidal. I hoped he knew this form as well as I did. There was only one way to find out.
    “Say Sow Seh!”
I challenged.
    The old monk smiled and attacked, his foot-long spear tip heading straight for my liver. I weaved out of the way like an undulating serpent. As he pulled the spear back, he sliced at my thigh, attempting to sever my femoral artery, but I spun clear, keeping low to the ground.
    The spear tip changed direction suddenly, and theold man thrust it at my back. I rolled forward, snaking around a tree as the razor-sharp blade barely missed me, cutting a wide swath of bark from an elm.
    The old monk clearly knew the form, but he was playing for keeps. It made my blood boil. I emerged from behind the tree and spat like a cobra, raising my hands into snake-head fists.
    The monk lifted the spear high over his head and began to spin it like a helicopter blade. Now it was my turn. I coiled and struck, lashing out at his abdomen with rigid fingers. I managed to hit my target before he could twist out of the way; however, I wished I hadn’t. His stomach was as hard as steel.
    “Ow!” I said.
    As I shook my tingling hands, he took a swing at my head with the spinning spear. I nearly forgot to duck.
    I rolled backward and popped to my feet. The monk stopped swinging the spear. I readied myself for the next attack, which would be at my throat, when I heard a bloodcurdling scream from behind the old man.
    My eyes widened as Hú Dié burst through the trees atop Trixie, pulling a high-speed wheelie. The old monk turned to see what was going on, and Hú Dié rammed him square in the chest with Trixie’s front tire. The monk went down awkwardly, the spear still in his hands.
    Hú Dié released her grip on Trixie’s handlebars and unclipped her shoes, jumping off her bike. She landed on top of the huge old man, who was lying on his back.
    “Hú Dié, NO!” I shouted.
    She didn’t seem to hear. She clasped her handstogether over her head and dropped to her knees, swinging her arms down toward the monk’s head as though she were swinging a sledgehammer.
    The old man raised the thick spear shaft in front of his face to protect himself, but Hú Dié’s forearms smashed through the shaft as if it were a number-two pencil. The monk moved his head just in time to dodge the rest of Hú Dié’s brutal blow, which blasted an impressive crater in the dirt.
    The old monk hissed like a dragon and shrugged Hú Dié off him. He sprang to his feet, and Hú Dié sprang to hers.
    “Hú Dié!” I shouted again. “Stop! Everything is okay!”
    Hú Dié shook her head as though clearing it of cobwebs. She turned to me. “Huh?”
    I raised my arms in the universal gesture of surrender. “Everything is cool. He wasn’t attacking me for real. We were just doing a two-man kung fu form.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You know kung fu?”
    “Yeah. I’m actually pretty good at it. Ask him.” I pointed toward the old monk.
    The old man nodded. “Phoenix is quite good, and so are you, young lady. That trick with the bicycle was ingenious, and you shattered my favorite spear with your bare arms. Iron Forearm training, I presume?”
    Hú Dié stared hard at the old monk. “None of your business. Who are you?”
    The monk seemed taken aback by her disrespectful response. For a moment, I thought he was going to clubher with one of the broken spear halves. But then his face softened, and he lowered his voice.
    “Fair enough,” the old monk said. “Perhaps you do deserve some answers. You certainly have fought hard enough to earn them. Come, let me show you who I am.”

Hú Dié and I followed the old monk through the patch of new-growth forest. The old man carried the broken