This evening, as they walked to an isolated spot for their sword practice, Shear was even more quiet and curt. He was not altogether surprised – in three days the caravan would reach Fedal, its destination in the southern confederacy of Itko Kan, and from there he planned to head onward to Horan on the coast to hire transport out to the isle of Malaz. It was probable that neither of them would ever find another training partner of such skill – at least not for some time – and he, too, regretted their parting for this very reason.
They came to the broad gravel shore of a creek low in its course. The pale water-worn stones shone silver in the moonlight and the creek chuckled and hissed just loudly enough to smother the incessant drone of the night insects. Bats flickered overhead targeting that chorus.
Shear faced him, her wooden bokken still pushed through her wide sash. Her painted mask was a dark oval against her face and her long black hair blew about unbound. She seemed to be regarding him with particular intensity this eve.
‘This will be our last bout,’ she announced.
‘I am not leaving quite yet,’ he answered. ‘There still may be time.’
She shook her head. ‘No. No more practice. We now recognize each other as plausible rivals. I am satisfied of this, as are you. Therefore, we must settle the matter.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that among my people, the Seguleh, hierarchy is everything. All know their place.’ She motioned to indicate the two of them. ‘We must now establish rank between us.’
He shook his head. ‘Such things do not concern me.’
She slid one foot forward, her eyes within the mask narrowing. ‘You must take this seriously.’
He peered round at the darkness as if helpless. ‘Shear, I … very well.’ He opened his arms. ‘You win. I concede.’
She drew in a swift blur that cut the air. ‘I warn you – I shall force you to defend yourself! Do not dare to dismiss me. Fight with all you have. Or I shall not relent.’
He still had not drawn his bokken. ‘Shear, please … this is not necessary.’
‘It is necessary to me,’ she answered, and charged.
She came with bokken raised high, her sandalled feet shushing the gravel, and still he made no move. The wooden blade swept down in a savage stroke aimed at his neck only to clack against his blade at the very last instant.
He slid backwards, blade held readied; he was certain that cut would have broken his neck had he not caught it. ‘Shear … please.’
She came on again, unhesitating, holding nothing back in her speed and power. Her assault drove him to yield ground, which he did, circling. Her skill astonished him; so far in his young career he’d faced no better – other than his teacher, of course. She’d obviously trained under the very best, and faced the strongest of opponents.
Yet after all these weeks of studying her technique – which was as close to flawless as he’d seen – it seemed to him that it possessed one weakness: a certain blindness to variety. Clearly she was extraordinarily well taught, yet that teaching had been limited within a single school of thought.
Whereas his training had involved exposure to countless.
And so he decided to defend for a time, letting her expend her first reserves. Though he did not fool himself into thinking she would weaken; her endurance was as formidable as her skill.
So they circled, feet shuffling among the gravel, swords clacking and grating. An onlooker could not have separated the intricacy of entwined feint, counter-feint, attack and riposte.
No prior true crossing of swords had ever lasted so long for Dassem. As veterans will say, most duels last only for one or two passes; superiority – or luck – usually reveals itself quickly.
She and he, however, had had time to become acquainted with one another’s style and potential. This ruled out one of the main reasons behind the speed of most encounters: ignorance of the true ability of one’s opponent. Their rigorous training also ruled out more commonplace explanations – overconfidence, impetuousness, and plain simple panic.
As Shear continued to push him it became clear that he would have to end this convincingly; no false yielding would satisfy her. So he gave veiled retreat while quickly changing angles before turning to the attack. Now she gave ground before him.
In mid-advance he suddenly switched to a new style that he had not yet used with her, a more raw brawling technique of the southern confederacy, and surprised her for an instant. This fraction of a second of advantage was all it bought him, yet it was enough to brush his blade across her forearm. She pulled back, disengaging, and stood openly breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. She raised her bokken to her mask, acknowledging the touch, then sheathed it savagely through her sash. Both knew that in a bout as even as theirs such a wound – though certainly not fatal – would tip the scales in Dassem’s favour. The match was over.
He sheathed his own bokken. ‘An excellent fight,’ he began, but Shear simply turned and walked away into the moonlight. Frowning, he hurried after her. ‘Please do not be upset. One of us had to win, the other not. You knew this.’
He was surprised to see her wiping at her face beneath her mask. ‘You do not understand.’
‘Will you not explain?’
She grasped her sash tightly. ‘Among my people,’ she began, clearing her throat, ‘I held a certain rank among the most skilled. Now I must abandon that rank.’
‘Because you lost to an outsider?’
‘Because I lost.’
‘Ah.’ He walked silently with her for a time. The night wind was chill and he enjoyed the sensation as it crossed his sweaty face and cooled his sweat-soaked shirt. ‘Do not be hard upon yourself. You should not take this defeat as meaning anything.’
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘Because I am not like any other.’
Her lips quirked in amusement and she spared him one quick glance. ‘Forgive me, but that sounds vain.’
‘It is true. It was not a fair fight.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because I am already dead.’
She halted amid the tall grass and, surprised, he halted as well. She studied him closely, then shook her head. ‘Now you sound deluded, or insane.’
‘No, it is true.’ He invited her onward. ‘Walk with me and I will tell you a story I have never told anyone else.’
Still she did not move. ‘And what is this tale?’
‘The story of my youth.’
She set a palm to the pommel of her bokken and peered round at the empty shadowed rustling grasslands; it was not yet midnight. Grinding out a breath, she walked on. ‘If you must.’
He caught up, tucked his hands into his sash.
‘I was born on the Dal Hon savanna. I never knew my father. Our village bordered a hilly region of dry caves, sinkholes and gorges. Here we children often went to play our games of brigands, raiders, and champions. And it was here that my journey began.
‘One eve we played too long among the dusty gorges and ravines. Dusk came quickly, as it does in equatorial regions. Perceiving our negligence, and our danger, we ran for the village. I was among the youngest of the band, and the last straggler. That was when we heard the hunting growl of a leopard closer than we’d ever heard it before.
‘We all screamed and ran in a blind panic, of course. We all knew the danger. These predators patrolled the boundaries of our village nightly, and we all knew someone – a cousin, or a neighbour’s daughter – who had been taken over the years.’
Shear had her bokken out and was swishing it through the tall grass. ‘Do not tell me you were eaten by a leopard.’
‘No. Something even stranger. In the darkness and panic I fell into one of the many sinkholes and caves that pocketed the hills. Down I tumbled and struck my head.’ He looked to the starred night sky, frowned in recollection. ‘I arose – dazed from the blow to my head – and groped through the tunnels and caverns in a fog. How long I wandered I know not. All I know is that eventually I collapsed, perhaps from pain, or exhaustion, or even starvation.’