AllFreeNovel
Share Us
18
Steel chimed against steel as Náli caught Mattias’s falling blade with both his long knives crossed in an X. Mattias hadn’t checked his swing, and the force of impact juddered all the way up to Náli’s jaw, the sound ringing out across the training yard like the strike of a gong. Náli bared his teeth in a grin, adrenaline and excitement twining in his belly, and ducked to the side, disengaging before Mattias could draw back. He heard the crunch of pebbles behind him and whirled, striking at Klemens’ middle.
Klemens stepped back with a curse, unbalanced, feet too wide apart, now.
Náli heard the whistle of Mattias’s blade at his back, tucked down, knives held carefully, and rolled through Klemens’ spread legs. He whacked him hard in the back of the knee with a knife hilt when he was clear, to the sound of more cursing, and the dropping of his body as his leg gave out.
Náli sprang back to his feet, slipped his knives into the twin sheathes strapped between his shoulders, and drew his sword, the slink of the blade leaving its sheath bringing a thrill of satisfaction.
This was what he’d needed. Not the well, not rest, not tea parties or balls. Nor a true fight like they’d faced on the road to the Midwinter Festival. But a good, old-fashioned sparring match in the gravel-paved training yard of Naus Keep, where he knew every inch of the ring, and each one of his opponents’ weaknesses, because they’d been the ones to teach him how to fight.
His training had begun at age three as games: playing tag in the garden, squealing with delight as he ran from one of his Guards, and gave chase in return. By the time he was five, he’d understood that he was receiving the instruction befitting a proper Northern knight. In the South, knights were largely for show, competing in tourneys in spotless armor to impress ladies and demonstrate their wealth. In the North, knights were warriors, expected to have bloodied their swords before they were twenty.
It had been apparent early on that Náli would lack the height and brute strength of young lords like Leif and Rune. He was slender, instead, light and quick, and so his regimen had been tailored to take the best advantage of those natural attributes. When they’d first put naked steel in his hands, it had been those twin knives, long as his forearms, light as writing quills, sharp as needles. They were slicing weapons, meant for hamstringing and gutting men, rather than bludgeoning them to death like King Erik’s two-handed broadsword. His own sword, likewise, was meant for fast, flurried engagements, rather than bold-faced beatings.
Danski and Darri came at him from either side, and he managed to parry both of them in turn in a rather stunning – if he said so himself – sequence of spins that left him crossing swords with Mattias again while the cousins stumbled into one another with muttered curses and a clatter of swords meeting.
“Little shit,” Mattias accused, teeth bared in a rare, feral smile.
Náli grinned back and tried a feint that Mattias blocked. Another, another. The steel chimed like bells as Mattias took control of the duel and forced him back one step at a time, swinging at him again and again with relentless force.
Náli thought about getting out of it – that was what all five of them had taught him to do. He could sidestep, backflip, and wiggle his way out of the most dangerous hand-to-hand duels, always ready with an unexpected countermove.
But here now, he stayed, retreating. Testing himself.
Why, he didn’t know. Mattias was bigger, and stronger, and his greatest teacher, besides; there was no way to best him like this, flat-out, in a contest of muscles and aggression.
Náli felt his smile become a grimace, teeth still bared, as the next parry sent a painful jolt through his forearms. Something in his wrist gave, a sudden flare of weakness, and that was when Mattias ran his sword all the way down to Náli’s cross-guard and sent Náli’s blade spinning away through the hazy sunlight with a deft flick of his wrist. His resultant grin was brief, but blinding in its intensity. Náli wanted a sketch of it to moon over longingly when he sat by the fire at night.
But later. For now, he couldn’t allow himself even a moment’s indulgence.
The second the hilt of his sword left his palm was the second he drew his knives and rushed in low, beneath Mattias’s guard. Mattias’s sword was too long to attempt a counteroffensive, and so Náli hit him full force in the solar plexus with his shoulder and managed to topple him. “Fuck,” he muttered on the exhale before Náli, victorious, straddled his waist and pinned him in place with a knife tip just under each collarbone.
“Ha!” he crowed. “You’re getting slow.”
Mattias, breathing hard from effort, each breath pressing his ribs into the insides of Náli’s thighs, lifted his brows and said, mildly, “Did it not occur to you that I might have let you win?”
“You didn’t,” Náli said, although, really, there was no way to be sure of that. “You didn’t,” he repeated, frowning.
Mattias shrugged. “My lord can believe what he likes.”
“You–”
“My lord,” Klemens said, a warning.
And someone started clapping.
Náli froze. It was not at all unusual to wind up in this and similar positions when he was sparring with his men, Mattias or one of the others, but this training yard was not like the one at Aeres; sparring wasn’t a spectator sport. It was generally private. And, given the personal satisfaction of straddling Mattias, it felt more than a little damning, perched like this on his hips, his long hair falling around them both like a curtain, their chests heaving as they fought to catch their breath.
Náli sheathed his knives and stood. Smoothed his hair back to the sound of a feminine voice saying, “That was well done.”
Brigida, he realized, with a loosening of his lungs, and turned to find her at the open gate, grinning at him, gloved fingers laced together. “One would never expect you capable of besting someone that much taller than you, Lord Náli.” she said, grin widening, eyes dancing.
“It’s one of my great goals in life,” he said, accepting the waterskin Klemens handed him, “to be not only full of surprises, but also surprisingly beautiful. I like to think I’ve succeeded on both counts.”
Brigida giggled.
Mattias, he noted with a quick glance, made a face and turned away, sheathing his sword.
