Authors: Joel Shepherd
“Speak Saalsi,” Kessligh instructed. “You're tripping your tongue already.”
Sasha took a deep breath, trying to order her thoughts. “I have sufficient power across the dimensions,” she said…or thought that she said. So many words in Saalsi had multiple translations depending on context. “I cannot master all things simultaneously…I need to focus my training or…”
“Focus is manifold,” Kessligh replied, in far more fluent and commanding Saalsi. “You separate the inseparable. All is one. I have only ever taught you one thing. Draw it into your centre. Find the symmetry. You'll find that each new thing I teach is not truly new, only a variation of that one thing which you already know.”
Sasha frowned as she finished her straps. Gave a yank of hard leather upon the cold, wet shirt beneath. Confusion aside, Saalsi described the svaalverd far better than Lenay ever could…or Torovan, for that matter. A word could be one thing, or it could be another, with a subtle shift of contextual grammar…just as a svaalverd stroke could be many things, either offensive or defensive, depending on the slightest slide of a foot, or the angle of a wrist to the hilt and blade. Saalsi forced her to think, to consider every word. Sometimes she thought that was also Kessligh's intention.
They began with a series of high offensive combinations, Kessligh attacking with rare speed and fury. Sasha defended each with a rapid retreat and flashing stanch, occasionally feinting or misdirecting to a sidestep for the offensive counter…yet rarely, today, did her counterattacks find success. Always Kessligh's strokes found the limits of her high arm extension, straining her shoulders as her arms struggled to hold their form above her head. Once, she simply lost the grip with a hard impact, the stanch snapping back to clip her skull as she ducked. Another blow caught her a glancing strike on the forearm as she hissed in pain and clutched at the bruise. The next time an attack came from that quarter, she was ready with a hard slash and counter…yet Kessligh's own reverse caught her hard across the middle with a lightning
thud!
upon the banda that drove breath from her lungs.
“You overcompensate,” he told her in hard, calm Saalsi. Wind whipped the untidy hair about his brow, as wild as the rugged lines of his face. “You know that's your weakness. You overcompensate and leave your opposing quarter unguarded. A good fighter or a lucky fighter may find that opening and split you. If you were less lazy on the arm strength, you'd be better.”
Sasha breathed hard, regaining her composure as she leaned upon her stanch. “If I build too much shoulder strength,” she said through gritted teeth, “I get stiff. Stiffness is the surest way to limit my extension…”
“
Bhareth'tei
, not
bhareth'as
,” Kessligh said. “You're implying the theoretical, this is practical.” Sasha rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Combat is the place where the unlikely becomes probable,” he continued. “You do not think your weakness great, yet I exploit it even now. Few soldiers ever see the stroke that kills them. Once more.”
The resulting session gave her a whole new set of bruises and the very nasty suspicion that Kessligh had been going easy on her, even during her better bouts against him in the past. Certainly he'd warned her of the need to improve her high extension for a long time, but she could not recall him having exploited it so ruthlessly before. And she'd thought she'd been approaching his standard. It was time, it seemed, to think again. Like on so many things, of late.
Finally her late swing barely intercepted a slashing cut that collected her arm and cracked the left side of her head. She stumbled to one knee, clutching a hand over her ear, as her head rang like the inside of a great temple bell. Kessligh, crouching opposite, held her shoulder to be sure of her balance. When she did not fall, he stared into her eyes, drawing her attention.
“Sasha. Sasha, are you well? Focus on me.” She tried, though it hurt. She brought the hand away from her ear and looked at it. There was blood on her fingers, though not much. A small cut. Kessligh's perfunctory glance proved as much. “Slow and sloppy, that's what happens when your shoulders get tired so quickly. Watch my fingertip.”
She focused on it, as he moved it closer, then further back, then side to side. Her bruise throbbed in a familiar, straight line where the stanch had struck. High defence was difficult to practise without helms. Sometimes, they'd used them…but svaalverd fighters rarely wore such restrictive armour in combat. Mostly, they were careful and knew each other's capabilities well enough to avoid injury. Mostly.
“Stand up.” She did, and found her balance was good. In fact, there was little, if any, dizziness. It just hurt. Kessligh saw as much, grimly. “You always had a thick skull,” he said. “Now run. To the ridge and back.”
Sasha glared at him. “In a moment.”
“In combat, there are no moments to choose. Now.”
Sasha seriously considered hitting him. It wasn't the first time. Then, as now, she refrained…if for no other reason than she was highly unlikely to connect. And fist fighting was one thing she could never afford to do with bigger, stronger men. Kessligh's expression was utterly unsympathetic.
“Fine,” she snarled, turning away to unstrap her banda. Once done, she flung it away and set off running gingerly across the slope as the wind howled across the open, wet grass, and the horses snorted and galloped nervously within the enclosure.
The rain began before she'd even reached the steepest part of the ridge path. Trees shrieked in protest as the wind roared and water fell in great, enveloping sheets that quickly drenched what little of her clothing was not already wet. Sasha gritted her teeth and slogged slowly up the steepening path, feet quickly soaking within her boots, avoiding the slippery rocks and mud. Her head ached with each struggling step, her vision blurred with pouring water, and she cursed Kessligh with every gasping breath.
The rock atop the ridge was shining wet beneath blasting, sideways sheets of rain. Sasha paused a moment upon the edge of the hilltop clearing, gasping for air…and could not help but marvel at the raw power of the storm, the trees bending and thrashing like wild things, the howling roar of rain and wind that obliterated all view of the surrounding hills. There was a loud crack as a branch broke. Then a sudden boom and rumble of thunder that made her jump and sent a new chill through her soaked, cold limbs…
She made a fast spirit sign to her forehead and turned back the way she'd come. Despite the blinding rain and slippery path, she knew this trail well. She descended fast, taking her weight upon each pounding, downward impact with practised skill. A brilliant blue flash lit up all the blackened sky, followed by a booming, bass rumble that nearly stood her hair on end. She increased her pace as the path dropped yet more steeply, hurdling one intervening outcrop with a downward rush…
Her ankle twisted in a flash of pain, and suddenly she was falling, crashing and rolling downslope, a tangle of sliding earth and mud, her leg hit a tree, spinning her about as the ground fell from under her…and she crashed painfully into a harsh tangle of bushes. For a moment, she just breathed and hoped she hadn't hurt anything worse than her ankle. Unfolding herself one limb at a time from the bushes, it didn't seem so.
Cold, muddy, bruised, drenched and with a throbbing head, she was now in quite possibly the foulest mood she could recall since her worst childhood tempers in Baen-Tar. Some achievement. Thunder boomed and rumbled in nearby displeasure. She hauled herself gingerly to her feet and hissed in pain at the weight on her right ankle. So now she could barely walk. Just wonderful.
Limping down the slippery path took an age. Moving slowly, and trusting one foot with all her weight, she had to search for secure footing as water poured down the path and any smooth surface became treacherous. Twice, she slipped again, once sliding several strides on her backside, accumulating yet more bruises. Finally, at the bottom of the steepest slope, the rain and wind eased somewhat…but she was now shivering with cold.
Worse, her excellently crafted boot had ceased to fit her right foot snugly and now every step was agony. Sasha sat down to remove it and found the ankle swollen and ugly. Limping onward, her bare foot quickly chilled in the mud and water.
The hillside was darkening fast as she emerged from the ridgetop treeline onto the vast, grassy shoulder, the blackened sky quickly losing whatever daylight it had retained. Here on the southern slope, the northerly wind merely gusted and swirled. The house itself remained distant yet, a small shape in the gathering gloom beneath the spidery vertyn tree. There seemed to be a light at the rear and one at the stables. Kessligh, she hoped, had taken in the horses.
Then there came the unmistakable shape of a galloping horse and rider along the lower fence. It rounded the corner post and came straight for her. Sasha recognised the horse—Terjellyn, with his familiar, elegant gait. She did not stop limping.
Kessligh reined Terjellyn to a halt before her. “Bad?” he asked her from that height, eyeing her limp and the boot in her hand. Sasha kept moving, ignoring both horse and rider. Kessligh held a hand down to her. “Come on, get up.” And stared in blank disbelief as Sasha continued limping straight past him, eyes fixed on the distant house with grim determination.
For a moment, Kessligh sat in his saddle and watched her. Sasha thought he might simply ride back and leave her to finish the journey alone. She didn't care. Strangely, at that moment, she didn't care about anything. Movement behind her, then, as Terjellyn trotted easily to her side.
“Sasha, you'll make the ankle worse.” A calm, matter-of-fact statement. No alarm. No concern. Sasha felt a spark of fury. She limped on, relishing the pain each cold, shivering step caused. “With treatment, it might only trouble you for a few days. But if you keep walking on it, that could be longer. If you need to fight, you won't be able to.”
Always the practical concern. Always worried about her “role” as his uma. Always interested in what she could do for him, no concern for what she wanted herself. She kept limping. She'd reach the house herself if it were cause for amputation.
“Sasha, don't be a damn fool.” With tired irritation, now. No anger. He didn't care enough to be angry. She was just another strategic exercise to him. A project for his beloved Nasi-Keth. “Sasha? I'm warning you, get up on the damn horse. I don't have time for this childish nonsense.”
She limped onward. Behind, there came a light thud as Kessligh leaped from the saddle. Footsteps approached, then a hand grasped her shoulder, hard, pulling her about with precious little concern for the ankle. Pain stabbed, and Sasha swung at him in blind fury…and struck a glancing blow to his head as he ducked, grabbing that arm. She tried to rip her arm clear, lashing with her left fist, which caught him squarely in the mouth. He spun back, still grabbing her arm, twisting it as she was yanked off her feet, scrambling to her knees then as Kessligh wrenched that arm behind her, trying to immobilise the other arm now.
Sasha's left hand had found the knife in her belt before she could think, pulling it free…but Kessligh abandoned her right arm to take the left instead. She tried to slash clear, but a sudden twist and pressure on her elbow threw her face down on the grass and rolling onto her back, the left arm now painfully beneath her and Kessligh's own knife at her chest in lightning, dangerous reflex. Sasha stopped struggling, her uman's knee in her stomach, knife blade hovering with a clear, obvious line to her throat. There was blood on his lower lip, which was cut and appearing to swell. His eyes were dark and dangerous in the cold, windswept gloom.
“Go on and do it!” Sasha yelled at his face. “Go on and waste the last twelve years of your life! Serve you bloody well right, that would!”
Kessligh blinked at her, shock rapidly replacing deadly instinct. He threw the knife away, as if suddenly discovering it were a poisonous snake. Took a deep, gasping breath, and another. It was a look Sasha had never seen before. Fear. The sight of it gave her a surge of vicious satisfaction. Kessligh released her and moved back, still kneeling.
“Some uman you turned out to be!” Sasha snarled at him, retrieving her arm from behind and struggling to a seat. Still the knife was in her hand. “The first one gets killed when you're not looking and then you nearly do the second yourself!”
Anger blazed in Kessligh's eyes. “Sasha…you stupid, contemptible idiot!” He was
really
angry now. She liked this much better. “
Never
draw a blade on me! I've warned you many times, never surprise me like that! I have no safe reflexes, Sasha! They're all dangerous! All of them!”
“You're never to blame for anything, are you?” Sasha retorted, far, far beyond any semblance of self-control. “Godsdamn it, you're always accusing
me
of immaturity. I have twenty summers and I
know
I'm not perfect! When's it going to dawn on
you
, Master Swordsman?”
Kessligh stared at her, incredulously. “What in the nine hells are you…?”
“You've never thought about anyone but yourself in your whole blasted life, have you? You didn't ride out from Petrodor all those years ago to save the poor, suffering Lenay people—you did it for yourself! Yourself and your own stupid, blind conviction that your view of the world is all powerful!
“You didn't save Lenayin because it was the right thing to do! You wanted payment! And you took it! First you took my brother, the person I loved most in all the world, and then when it got him killed, it's suddenly my turn!”
“Don't you
ever
suggest I never cared for Krystoff!” It was as close as Kessligh had ever come to genuinely yelling at her. “I loved him like a son!”
“And why is it that you never had your own real sons? Why not inflict this destiny upon your own flesh and blood? Why do it to someone else's?”
“Because it's not the Nasi-Keth way!” He stared at her, kneeling on the lower slope, seeming torn between anger and consternation. Then he put both hands to his hair, as if to tear out several great handfuls. “Gods blast it, Sasha, what do you
want
? I gave you the life you wanted, didn't I? You were
miserable
in Baen-Tar, you swore
anything
would be better than that life! Deny to me that you don't love it here?”