He gave a small shrug. ‘We are ready to move on, perhaps?’ he asked. She said nothing, her head tilting ever so slightly to one side, and marched off.
It took a while, but eventually the caravan got moving once more.
* * *
Two days later he was walking next to his horses when Shear came down the line of the rumbling carts and wagons. She carried two long staves, one under an arm, the other in a hand. The one in her hand she threw as she came and Dassem caught it.
He sighted down it; fairly straight. He flexed it. Not too dry – still holding a degree of suppleness. It was, not coincidentally, the length of a sword.
As they walked along Shear sighted down her wooden stave then drew out a short knife and started shaving off small strips.
Dassem went to the cart, found a knife, and started on his.
They passed the day shaping the pieces. Neither spoke.
Towards the end of the march Dassem gathered up a handful of sand and used it in his fists to roughen up the grip of his piece. He noticed Shear doing the same with hers.
Then she held it in a two-handed grip, the length of one fist between her hands, and tried a few experimental overhead cuts. She looked at him and he nodded. She gave the smallest slight inclination of agreement then headed off for the front of the caravan.
He spent most of the next day practising with his new training bokken.
That night he crouched next to his small campfire, boiling a pot of pigs’ trotters that a trader’s wife had offered him. He had a few wild potatoes to add and was trimming them when Shear emerged from the dark. She carried only her own wooden bokken, thrust through her belt, and two unlit torches.
He took the pot off the fire, dropped the potatoes in, and set it aside for later, then thrust his bokken through his belt. Next, he looked in on Nara; as usual at this time, she had fallen into that strange spell or suspended state that Hood had set upon her, and so he let the canvas fall and tied it off.
Shear tossed him one of the torches, which he lit from his fire, and they walked off into the woods. And still neither had said a word to the other.
They found a relatively clear meadow among the woods, bright and monochrome silver under the moon. Dassem set his torch at one edge; Shear hers at the other. They then set to sweeping down the taller grasses and weeds. Satisfied, they faced one another and bowed.
Shear struck a ready stance, her body held slightly sideways, her right foot forward; he mirrored her. Watching her, he found the alien conceit of the painted half-mask distracting. He wasn’t used to facing masked opponents; it disguised the eyes. Yet eyes can lie, and so he mentally dismissed the detail.
They touched bokkens, pressing in ever more strongly until the wooden blades slid apart. Dassem adjusted his footing on the dirt and didn’t like what he felt. He raised a hand for a pause. Shear slid backwards out of the kill zone, beyond the length of his weapon. He knelt and tightened the lacing on one moccasin. Shear swished her blade through the grasses, waiting.
Satisfied, he straightened, ready. She began edging in by sliding one foot forward at a time, and then their blades met with a sharp clack that echoed about the meadow. They met again, rebounding with staccato cracks that steadily picked up pace, ever quickening, until the clatter became a noise that rose and fell like a steady waterfall of thrumming.
After this long slow increase of probing – itself a basic testing that nine out of ten of his opponents failed – Dassem slid back and offered a nod of acknowledgement. Instead of answering the nod, Shear snapped her blade in a lightning cut that set him on the back foot and she kept on pressing, forcing him to retreat across his half of the meadow.
Before running up against the brush Dassem managed to circle round until she was the one held against the forest edge. At this she disengaged and offered a small acknowledging nod of her own. Dassem wanted to salute but dared not raise his weapon out of position. He slid backwards to the centre and awaited her there. She followed, swinging her arms, stretching, and rolling her shoulders.
They pressed blades together once more and began again.
Only when the moon set below the tree-line and it became quite dark did Dassem raise a hand to call a halt. It had been his best testing in years and he was sweating, though he was careful to maintain even breaths – as his teacher had lectured him, never allow your opponent to see your breathing change.
Shear straightened, and touched her splintered bokken to her brow. He answered the salute and noticed how sweat gleamed on her bare arms, chin, and neck, although her breaths also appeared completely even.
She tucked the bokken up under an arm, and said, ‘Perhaps next time you’ll really try.’ Then she walked away.
He stood for a time in the quiet of the meadow, surrounded by the trampled flat grasses, the stars gleaming overhead, and he allowed himself one deep breath. The night air chilled his back where his shirt clung to him.
Feeling a faint wind brushing through nearby branches, he cocked his head, thinking, and it occurred to him that, indeed, it had been a long time since he’d actually had to try.
* * *
Lee – whose given name was Leeopo Mulliner, though she’d die before ever revealing that – had a good thing going running Geffen’s street toughs. For five years now she’d worked organizing and managing operations all across this damned dreary island of Malaz.
It had been a sweet arrangement. These stupid sailors went off risking drowning in an accident (something she’d never put herself in the way of) or death in a raid (something else she saw no percentage in), only to bring loot back to Malaz that they exchanged for coin (of which Geffen got his cut) in order to spend it in Geffen’s taverns, brothels, and flop-houses until they found themselves destitute once more and eyeing the sea for yet another raid, whereupon the whole milking operation began again.
A lucrative system for him and for her. Until they showed up. The damned Napans and their cut-throat employer – the one with the old madman in tow. Why in all creation was someone like him wasting his time in the back of beyond on this island when he could be taking fat contracts in Unta or Cawn? It just wasn’t the way things were supposed to be done.
It wasn’t damned fair, that’s what it was.
So now she was standing on the public pier with Gef, waiting for some major player killer from the mainland. A knifer all Gef’s contacts swore by. A hireling whose price would damn well nearly clean them out.
Again, it wasn’t damned fair. But they’d driven them to it. Left them no choice. Whatever would come, it was their damned fault.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unhappy with the errand, and rubbed her right silver earring. These were the one extravagance she allowed herself: Falari silver crafted into the shape of birds – hummingbirds, in point of fact.
She noted Geffen eyeing her fidgeting, and he gave her a scowl of his own impatience. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘This guy’s top talent. Worked all over – even Genabackis. You heard a’ Genabackis?’
‘No.’
‘Well. Word is he’s also an Adept of Dark. Rashan. So you watch your attitude. Okay?’
She looked away, rolling her eyes to the sky. Whatever. Probably just a fucking waste of time and money.
The tramp two-master nudged the pier. Hands threw lines, and a gangway was wrangled into place. Passengers began disembarking. Lee crossed her arms and let out a long breath. It wasn’t a large crowd this eve, workers and petty merchants mostly. Carrying their bundles and bags, they parted round Gef and her until it seemed that no one was left.