We stay like that a moment longer and then break apart, a kind of rueful smile exchanged. Still sad, but something freeing about the air being cleared like this. Even if it hurts.
I glance back as I reach the top of the platform. She’s still watching. Raises a hand in farewell, and I mirror the motion. Wondering when I will see her again.
Maybe not for a long, long time.
I join the others, and we board the Transvect for Solivagus.
XXXV
SWEAT BURNS MY UNBLINKING EYES AND EVAPORATESinto steam off my bare torso as Conor and I circle each other in the icy dawn, breathing hard, staves at the ready. In the background, fog still hangs low and heavy over our hidden valley; up here on the heather-strewn slope we can see only the lazy billowing of the cloud’s top, highlighted by a peeking summer sun that I already know won’t burn away the rest of the damp for at least another hour.
Somewhere down beneath lies Loch Traenala. Each morning its mirror surface wreathed in white. Each morning hauntingly still and silent and beautiful.
The crack of wood meeting wood echoes and then is swallowed by the mists as Conor leaps forward again and I swivel, barely bracing my cloth-blunted spear enough to withstand the shivering blow. I dance back. A motion I’m not unfamiliar with, these days.
“Give yourself to the fight, Leathf hear.” Pádraig’s growl is directed at me. The enormous, bearded man just spent five minutes working with me, adjusting my positioning and grip, showing me the best way to hold the haft so that it’s balanced and I can stay agile. A surprisingly patient teacher. “The weapon must become anextensionof you.”
I grunt a curt response. I’ve only been here a week, but it’s already a recognisable refrain. More meaning to it than I’ve grasped, I think, despite my understanding of the Tongue having improved significantly thanks to our nightly camps during the shore-hugging, crawling, more than monthlong voyage here. I do know the broad strokes of it well, now. Can communicate my thoughts with concision and accuracy. But on occasion, I admit, some of the subtleties still escape me.
Conor begins probing my left side through a series of feinting thrusts, which I command already tensed muscles not to react to. Instead I try again to settle, to keep my focus on his movements. I’ve sparred with him before—I’ve sparred with each of the dozen watching students, now, at various points over the past week—and they’re all very good. Well trained and disciplined, reactions instinctual and unerringly accurate. Back at the Academy, I always had theadvantage of having been taught combat from a young age, more strenuously and more consistently than anyone else.
Here, I am behind even on that.
Conor is fiery-tempered, though. A loud and impatient and boisterous sixteen-year-old, not particularly cunning. The smart thing for him to do is to wait for me to make a move, to inevitably open myself up for a counter. Instead he leaps forward. Staff blurring in his hands, his control sharp and movements deft as he strikes again and again, focusing once more on my weak left but not so much that I can avoid guarding the right.
I dodge and block and dodge again, backpedalling, looking for an opening. It never comes. The loose circle of onlookers shuffles as I get too close to them, giving me more room.
A little desperate, I feint forward. Instead of falling for it, Conor lunges, cracking me on my left shoulder. I cry out at the shuddering impact but he doesn’t stop, swivelling smoothly and taking advantage of my momentary shock to sweep my feet from beneath me. Air explodes from my lungs as my back slams into the grass and dirt.
“You must use your body and the ground to brace your weapon more. The techniques you used were ineffective,” says Pádraig over my groans. “You are still thinking like a man with two arms.”
“A man with only one doesn’t usually bother with a spear,” I mutter as Conor leans down and offers a hand. The sandy-haired boy is frustratingly cheerful, not smug or acting in any way superior. They do this so often here that it’s rare anyone takes victories or losses personally. I let him haul me up.
“And yet that is your weapon.” Pádraig says it simply, no chiding in his tone even if it’s implied. “You must make yourself worthy of it.”
“I have repurposed them for our fight, warrior. Their processing capability is limited,” I murmur in Vetusian.
He frowns at me. Not understanding the language. “What?”
I shake my head uneasily, trying to clear it. I didn’t mean to say it; the words were just … there. Did I hit my head that hard? I exhale. Take in the faces of the other students surrounding us. I am among the oldest of the two dozen or so training at Loch Traenala, I soon realised when we arrived. Some are as young as twelve. “Of course, Udar Pádraig.”
Pádraig continues to frown, but lets my strange muttering slide. “You are trying to protect yourself too much,” he continues. “You are twisting away from the fight.”
“Yes. I lost my arm,” I point out, somewhat snippily this time.
“The bigger problem is that you lost your nerve.”
A ripple goes through the gathered group. I redden. Straighten. He delivers the words calm and rock steady as always, but there’s no doubting he’s trying to goad me.
And I have to let him. I’m by far the worst of the oldest half dozen students, and while I intend to keep it that way, I still need to look like I’m doing everything I can to prove myself.
Not that it’s hard. I have never liked losing.
“Fine.” I snatch my wrapped spear off the ground. “Let’s try again.”
I don’t have to feign the majority of my anger. I am bigger than Conor, taller and older, though much of my bulk from the Academy has been lost to a more stringy leanness now. I’m not ashamed that he beat me—he is genuinely talented, as is everyone here. I am more than annoyed that Pádraig seems to think it is my spirit, not my injury, that is at fault.
Conor shrugs and we circle again. I’m smarting from where he made contact, both side and shoulder. I let the pain focus me.
