opportunity. My tactics stayed much the same—Kelos had kept me on the defensive from our first moment of engagement—but my attitude shifted. Instead of fighting a sense of defeat as well as Kelos, I embraced it. I was going to lose. The best I could do was lose with style.
I saw an opening that I wouldn’t have tried for before—too risky, too little chance of scoring a point. This time, I went for it hard. I missed, but Kelos had to actually hop back to keep my edge away from his skin. I had surprised him, and he grinned. He likes surprises. Another minute went by with me somehow managing to keep him from scoring that final point. I saw a second opening—low, and riskier even than the last. If I missed, Kelos couldn’t help but finish me off.
Why not?
I started a lunge at Kelos’s chest, but at the last moment I let my forward leg collapse, dropping my whole body toward the floor. I released my left-hand sword and caught myself on the palm of that hand. My thrusting hand shifted with me as I fell, angling up now at the meaty part of Kelos’s thigh rather than straight into his chest, just as I had planned.
My point went home, sinking a good inch into his leg before I had the presence of mind to stop my thrust, sounexpected was my success. We both froze then, him standing, me balanced precariously on knee and toes and palm. A trickle of blood ran down half the length of my blade before meeting the edge and dripping to the deck in a series of bright drops.
I didn’t know what to do or say. In all the years I’d known Kelos, and all the times I’d sparred with him, I had never once needed to pull a blow before. Even in those moments where I’d scored a point as a boy I had never been in any danger of actually hurting him, so thoroughly had he controlled our exchanges.
“I . . . I’m sorry. . . .” I stammered as I reverted briefly to nine. “I didn’t . . . I . . .”
Kelos stepped back, pulling himself free of my sword. “Good point, boy. Excellent!” He had a huge smile on his face. “Totally unexpected and you’d have hit bone if you hadn’t pulled it. No one’s pricked me that solidly since Nuriko.”
“I didn’t think I would actually hit you,” I said. “You’re so much better than I am . . . I just . . .”
“Stop apologizing, Aral. That thrust was a thing of beauty. Riskier than anything you’d want to try if you didn’t have to, but I
am
better than you are, and if you can’t outfence an opponent you have to outrisk them. You’re a thinker and a planner, always have been, and damned good at it. But that’s made you overly cautious. Sometimes you simply have to take a leap in the dark and hope.”
I realized then that I was grinning like a madman, and mentally kicked myself. I hated that praise from this man could still light me up like a fucking schoolboy. But somewhere, deep down inside, no matter how much I hated what he had done to the goddess and my order, no matter how much I might hate
him
, he was still
my
master, still the man whose approval mattered most to me.
Would I ever be able to let that go?
* * *
Whether it was the two weeks on untamed water, or simply that the last of the risen who had attacked us in Wall hadfallen to the forces of the Magelanders, I couldn’t say, but we didn’t encounter any more of them in Uln or on our way into the mountains above. The series of high passes that led from there into Dalridia were little more than goat tracks, totally unsuitable for trade or anything other than the fittest of foot traffic.
We climbed higher and higher, now edging our way along the narrowest of tracks, now skirting huge drops, now scrabbling up one of the many short vertical climbs that punctuated the trail. Often, as we negotiated a particularly difficult stretch, I thought back to my last passage this way hauling three badly injured comrades and wondered how we had made it at all.
It snowed twice. Both falls were light
I saw an opening that I wouldn’t have tried for before—too risky, too little chance of scoring a point. This time, I went for it hard. I missed, but Kelos had to actually hop back to keep my edge away from his skin. I had surprised him, and he grinned. He likes surprises. Another minute went by with me somehow managing to keep him from scoring that final point. I saw a second opening—low, and riskier even than the last. If I missed, Kelos couldn’t help but finish me off.
Why not?
I started a lunge at Kelos’s chest, but at the last moment I let my forward leg collapse, dropping my whole body toward the floor. I released my left-hand sword and caught myself on the palm of that hand. My thrusting hand shifted with me as I fell, angling up now at the meaty part of Kelos’s thigh rather than straight into his chest, just as I had planned.
My point went home, sinking a good inch into his leg before I had the presence of mind to stop my thrust, sounexpected was my success. We both froze then, him standing, me balanced precariously on knee and toes and palm. A trickle of blood ran down half the length of my blade before meeting the edge and dripping to the deck in a series of bright drops.
I didn’t know what to do or say. In all the years I’d known Kelos, and all the times I’d sparred with him, I had never once needed to pull a blow before. Even in those moments where I’d scored a point as a boy I had never been in any danger of actually hurting him, so thoroughly had he controlled our exchanges.
“I . . . I’m sorry. . . .” I stammered as I reverted briefly to nine. “I didn’t . . . I . . .”
Kelos stepped back, pulling himself free of my sword. “Good point, boy. Excellent!” He had a huge smile on his face. “Totally unexpected and you’d have hit bone if you hadn’t pulled it. No one’s pricked me that solidly since Nuriko.”
“I didn’t think I would actually hit you,” I said. “You’re so much better than I am . . . I just . . .”
“Stop apologizing, Aral. That thrust was a thing of beauty. Riskier than anything you’d want to try if you didn’t have to, but I
am
better than you are, and if you can’t outfence an opponent you have to outrisk them. You’re a thinker and a planner, always have been, and damned good at it. But that’s made you overly cautious. Sometimes you simply have to take a leap in the dark and hope.”
I realized then that I was grinning like a madman, and mentally kicked myself. I hated that praise from this man could still light me up like a fucking schoolboy. But somewhere, deep down inside, no matter how much I hated what he had done to the goddess and my order, no matter how much I might hate
him
, he was still
my
master, still the man whose approval mattered most to me.
Would I ever be able to let that go?
* * *
Whether it was the two weeks on untamed water, or simply that the last of the risen who had attacked us in Wall hadfallen to the forces of the Magelanders, I couldn’t say, but we didn’t encounter any more of them in Uln or on our way into the mountains above. The series of high passes that led from there into Dalridia were little more than goat tracks, totally unsuitable for trade or anything other than the fittest of foot traffic.
We climbed higher and higher, now edging our way along the narrowest of tracks, now skirting huge drops, now scrabbling up one of the many short vertical climbs that punctuated the trail. Often, as we negotiated a particularly difficult stretch, I thought back to my last passage this way hauling three badly injured comrades and wondered how we had made it at all.
It snowed twice. Both falls were light
Similar Books
