Radu returned Tal's gaze but said nothing. He had finished lacing his padded tunic and hooked the back of his ankle over the stretching bar. He bent as gracefully as a swan, touching his high forehead to his shin.
'Be careful,' said Chaney. 'If you beat him too badly, you'll have to watch your back for a month.'
'That's your job,' replied Tal. 'Which means showing some mercy to the local vineyards for a while.'
'Curses!' spat Chaney. He shot Tal a genuinely grateful smile. 'But it's the least I can do for my faithful bodyguard.'
'The very least,' agreed Tal.
Alale announced his readiness with an imperious sniff. He stood upon the middle circle of the central practice ring. Half the diameter of the red outer boundary and twice that of the green inner circle, the black line represented balance and equal opposition.
Tal took his place opposite Alale and met his opponent's eyes, as Master Ferrick always insisted. They donned their wicker helmets. Without another word, the two swordsmen saluted, Alale affecting a delicate little Tethyrian flourish at the end. The maneuver seemed clumsy and ridiculous with a wooden sword.
'Be careful, Tal,' called Chaney. 'He means to tickle you into submission.'
Alale kept his eyes on Tal, but he scowled at the taunt. Tal grinned. He loved sword practice, and he had a mind to do a little tickling of his own.
'Stand the middle…' said Chaney,'… attack!'
Tal stood his ground at first, watching as Alale crossed over left, then forward, then back. Instead of obliging his opponent's invitation to dance, Tal exploded forward in a loud, stamping rush that startled Alale into a premature parry. Tal's attack, a beat later than anticipated, rapped Alale smartly across the knuckles. Alale didn't drop his weapon, but as it fell out of guard, Tal lunged and smacked the top of Alale's helmet.
'One,' said Tal, returning to his position in the middle ring. He could almost see the red glow of Alale's cheeks beneath the nose and cheek guards of his practice helmet.
'One,' agreed Alale crisply. He sounded as if he wanted to complain about the ignoble attack, but he knew it was perfectly fair. He should have been more careful.
'Stand…' called Chaney,'… attack!'
This time, Alale came on in a direct but cautious attack. First he explored Tal's outer guard, always careful of a riposte. Tal restrained himself from a counterattack at first, looking for a chance to strike a particularly humiliating blow instead of settling for an ordinary cut.
Alale's feints were good, and soon he added a low cut with a thrusting riposte. The first one nearly came through, and Tal realized that remaining on the defensive would be more difficult than he had expected.
Before he could change tactics, however, Tal misjudged a low cut by half a beat and felt a smart blow to the thigh.
'One and one,' said Alale triumphantly. Tal shrugged an apology at Chaney and took his place again.
In the next pass, Tal tried to take the offensive once more. He beat Alale's blade to the outside with all of his strength. Rather than lunge forward for the point, however, Tal whirled around, taking the blade from his right hand to his left, throwing an ambitious backhanded sweeping cut at Alale's padded shoulder.
It would have been spectacular, had it landed.
Instead, Tal nearly threw his arm out of joint as Alale thrust the tip of his wooden blade into his shoulder.
'I suppose that sort of thing appeals to the groundlings,' observed Alale scornfully. Normally immune to such barbs, Tal felt his cheeks warm. It was a silly attack, but it might turn into something good for the next show. If it had landed, how Alale would have simmered!
Tal evened the score in the next pass by pressing with his superior strength, then luring Alale into a hasty counterattack. Tal deftly deflected the cut to his head and thrust under Alale's blade to poke him with a two-handed thrust in the biceps. Annoyed, Alale slapped the wooden blade away before Tal could withdraw it.
As he took his position for the final pass, Tal noticed that Radu Malveen stood outside the fighting circle, opposite Chaney. Even when he turned his eyes back to Alale, Tal could feel Radu's leaden gaze upon his back.
'… attack!' Tal realized that he had lost his concentration almost too late to parry Alale's running thrust. Had Alale moved before the command? Tal twisted to evade Alale's body, then quickly raised his blade to block a quick but weak slash as Alale recovered from his lunge. Unfortunately, the maneuver left Tal on one knee. Before Tal could recover, Alale kicked the side of his forward knee, spinning him to the right and opening his entire left flank to attack.
Ignoring the pain in his knee, Tal threw himself to the right, rolling to evade the attack. Alale followed him, the sharp rap of his sword against the floor striking three times just behind Tal's helmet before he came to his feet in a low guard position. Tal feared he might have rolled out of bounds, but he heard no call from Radu or Chaney.
Without looking down, Tal knew he stood on the red outer line. If he took one step backward, the touch would go to Alale, who even now unleashed a furious attack designed to make Tal retreat. Tal was determined not to move.
As he pushed aside his burning embarrassment at putting himself in such a weak position, Tal felt a gentle calm envelope him.
Tal's blade moved faster as his heart grew quiet. Soon he could no longer feel the weapon in his hands, then his arms were more a memory than a tangible presence. His blade was no longer his conscious defense. It had become the mirror of Alale's own weapon, moving where it did not by will but simply because it must.
Frustration built on Alale's face, and Tal didn't sense so much as he later remembered when the man's fury broke into a desperate lunge. Instead of another sword strike, Alale threw his entire weight toward Tal's chest.
Tal shrugged as smoothly as if donning a robe, rolling beside and behind Alale as his opponent threw himself out of the red circle.
Alale landed with a painful crunch and a muffled curse.
'Yes!' shouted Chaney gleefully.
Tal blinked as if coming out of a trance. Then he grinned and turned toward Chaney. 'I thought he had me,' said Tal, shucking off his helmet.
Chaney didn't have time to voice a shout, but the expression on his face was warning enough. Tal dropped and spun to the right, just in time to see Alale's practice blade slash down where his unprotected head had been an instant earlier.
Before Alale could recover, Tal had the man's wrist in his hand, squeezing hard. 'That's enough,' said Tal.
Alale's face was white with hatred. Tal saw his eyes go wide and watery as Tal squeezed his wrist harder, feeling the bones grind together before Alale gasped. The wooden practice sword clattered on the floor.
Alale choked back furious tears as Tal released him. 'You'll regret that, Uskevren.'
Tal growled, low and throaty. The inhuman sound transfixed Alale. For long seconds he stood looking up into the eyes of the bigger man with naked terror in his eyes.
The moment passed, and Alale twisted his thin lips an ugly, flickering sneer. Still, he kept his tongue still as he scurried away to stand near Radu Malveen.
Radu looked at the frightened man with the expression of one noticing that he was standing next to a pile of steaming dung. With the barest widening of his nostrils, Radu stepped gracefully away, turning his back on Alale.
Abandoned Alale scurried off to collect his things and left, still cradling his bruised wrist.
'That went well,' suggested Chaney. 'Don't you think?'
Outside the fighting school, Tal and Chaney blinked into the strong sea breeze that wound through the warehouses. They paused for a passing ale wagon before entering the street. As they did, Radu Malveen appeared beside them. Tal noticed that the wind did not disturb the man's hair or clothing and wondered what sort of enchantment he carried for the effect.
Tal barely knew the man, but Radu's younger brother, Pietro, had been on the ill-fated hunting party. Fortunately for the Malveens, Pietro was one of the few who reached their horses in the early moments of the
