Yelena Tried to Kill Me

by Trey Dowell

About the Author: Trey Dowell is a three-time finalist for the Derringer Award for his crime/mystery short fiction. His work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Abyss & Apex, and Close to the Bone, as well as several print anthologies. His debut novel "The Protectors" was published by Simon & Schuster in 2014.

Excerpt

The first time I saw Yelena Nevsky, she tried to kill me.

I didn’t know who she was—hell, I didn’t even know she was a she. Hidden underneath an authentic kit of Russian medieval chain mail, brandishing dual swords, Yelena was just a whirling dervish trying to go through the only thing standing between her and the Maryland Renaissance Fair’s Grand Champion title.

Me. A guy wearing home-made heavy plate armor, lugging around a shield, and trying to breathe through tiny slits in a ten-pound steel helm.

Lighter, faster, and able to see better in a helmet that only partially covered her face, Yelena made me look like a drunk armadillo. She used both swords to hack away at my legs and my shield, keeping me backpedaling and focused solely on defense. And just as I thought I could anticipate her movements well enough to slip in an attack of my own, she did something I’d never seen before: she jumped at me. Spun around in mid-air. While wearing at least thirty pounds of armor.

For an instant, she was eight feet tall, swords spinning like helicopter rotors. I barely raised the shield in time—the clang of metal-on-metal vibrated my teeth. The voice of the crowd swelled in appreciation, then dissipated into groans as her gutsy move failed to bring home victory. Raucous cheering for the jumping-spin lunge, though, led to her first and only mistake: she tried it again.

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