Chapter 51: The Second Strike

Chapter 51: The Second Strike

The first thing Silas learned in the shortblade course was that he had been paying far too much attention to hitting people.

He discovered this when Instructor Renn hit him back.

Her padded blade caught his chest panel before he had recovered from his own cut. It wasn’t a hard blow, but it pushed the breath out of him and left him staring at the wooden weapon resting against his ribs.

"Again," she said.

Silas returned to his mark. The morning after his assessment, his forearm still ached inside its expensive new guard. He’d registered for the earliest introductory lesson available, feeling rather pleased with himself at the time.

Renn waited until he raised his blade.

He cut toward her shoulder. She stepped aside, let him miss, and touched the same spot on his chest.

This time, he had seen it coming.

That was somehow worse.

"What are you trying to do?" Renn asked.

"Return to guard," Silas said.

"Before that," Renn said.

Silas glanced at her shoulder. "Hit you."

"You’re still trying after I’ve moved." Renn tapped the outside of his blade. "You reach farther. Your shoulder follows. Then you have all of yourself to bring back."

He looked down at his feet. The rear heel had lifted without his noticing.

Around them, five other students practiced in marked lanes. A tall elven girl worked through a sequence beside a wall mirror, while a human boy with a bandaged thumb kept stopping at the same turn. Nobody appeared particularly interested in watching Silas get prodded. They had their own difficulties.

He found that more reassuring than encouragement would have been.

Renn was a compact woman with dark hair clipped above her jaw and an old scar across two knuckles. She had read Ferrow’s recommendation, examined Silas’s bracers, and asked him to show her how he fought. She hadn’t mentioned his cousins.

"Remote Grasp," she said. "Use it this time."

Silas caught her practice blade as she raised it. The resistance was immediate. He abandoned the attempt to hold it still and pressed sideways instead, stepping in behind his own weapon.

Renn let the pressure turn her blade. Her hand followed, bringing the hilt against his guard, and the padded tip came around underneath.

Silas felt the touch at his stomach.

He released the Talent with an irritated breath.

Fine. She can have that spot too.

"Good adjustment," Renn said.

He looked at her.

"You stopped trying to overpower me. Now learn what to do when moving the other person’s weapon doesn’t end the exchange."

She lowered her blade and directed him toward the wall display.

The art was called Returning Edge. Tier Two, Middle-grade. Its introductory sequence showed a fighter cutting, turning off the line of a counterattack, and recovering the blade through a short second cut. Silas watched the demonstration twice.

Nothing flew across the room. There was no spectacular arc of light.

The second time, he noticed that the fighter never needed a separate movement to bring the weapon back between himself and his opponent.

"The first sequence is suitable for Rank One," Renn said. "We begin with the steps. Then reinforcement through the turn. The later forms demand more than you can currently supply."

Silas enlarged the diagram showing the mana route through the forearm and grip. A narrow current reinforced the changing angle while the weapon recovered. Forcing more mana through it would not help if his wrist and elbow moved at the wrong time.

"Can I use the first return with my Talent?" he asked.

Renn took his communicator, opened the course demonstration, and marked a point where the opponent’s blade slid past.

"Possibly there. Show me a reliable ordinary return first. I need to know which mistake we’re correcting."

She gave the device back and went to help the boy with the bandaged thumb.

Silas practiced the step without striking. His body kept wanting to move straight backward. Turning aside felt as though he was offering his ribs to an attack, even at a speed slow enough for him to think through every movement.

He remembered Lydia following him through the studio, her blade reaching places he’d thought were safe.

His grip tightened.

Then he noticed it and eased his fingers. This floor was dry. Nobody was trying to kill him. He had time to put his foot in the right place.

By the time Renn returned, he could manage the turn without crossing his feet. Adding the cut spoiled it again.

They worked on that until sweat began running down his back.

Silas nearly made the same mistake on the last attempt.

Renn moved away from his opening cut, leaving her shoulder just beyond his reach. He wanted to follow. He could probably have reached it with Burst Motion, if he were willing to explain why a C-rank grasping Talent suddenly made him accelerate across the floor.

Instead, he let the cut finish short.

Her counter came toward his chest. He turned his lead foot, brought his rear foot around without crossing, and drew the blade back along the line she’d taught him. A thin reinforcement current held through his forearm.

Wood struck wood. His guard wavered, but it stayed between them.

Renn’s blade passed his shoulder.

He was still standing properly. His weapon was ready for another movement.

Silas stared at the space where the counter had gone, then looked back at her.

"Again?" he asked.

Renn smiled for the first time. "After you drink something."

He managed two more clean returns before fatigue made the third untidy. She stopped the lesson there, assigned slow repetitions, and set his next supervised session for two mornings later.

He left carrying his practice notes, still replaying the moment her counter had passed him. He wanted to be able to do that without knowing the strike was coming.

At home, Nim was trying to put the bent spoon beneath Silas’s pillow.

"That’s where my head goes," Silas said.

Nim pushed the spoon farther in. "There’s room."

Silas put down his bag and removed it. The spirit watched with such obvious disapproval that he fetched a shallow dish from the kitchenette and placed it on the windowsill.

"For anything you don’t want to keep in your space."

Nim inspected the dish, carried the spoon over, and spent some time deciding which way it should face. Silas left him to it.

The studio’s familiar relief spread through his tired muscles. He washed, ate, and let his mana recover before attempting the assigned movements. Doing them here was easier. That made it tempting to speed up, but Renn had asked for a sequence he could repeat in her hall.

He kept the movements slow and ordinary. When he finally added Remote Grasp, he used it on a suspended practice strap, easing it aside as he recovered his blade. The strap swung back and slapped his wrist.

Nim looked up from the dish.

"It came back," the spirit observed.

"Yes. I’ve been learning about that."

Silas lowered the weapon. He could already see a use for the turn when ending a short burst of speed, but trying both together in a furnished studio seemed an excellent way to repay Vessa for her craftsmanship by breaking his own arm.

He wrote the idea beneath his lesson notes for a later private practice session.

His communicator lit up beside the book Elyra had lent him. A message from Maelin asked how the assessment had gone. He’d told her when it was happening, then neglected to tell her the result.

He sent the recommendation and a brief account of the lesson. After a moment, he added an invitation to dinner the following evening.

He started to mention the lantern, then stopped.

There was no lantern work he needed her for. His temporary slot was occupied, and Shadow Passage had been his for weeks. He simply wanted to see her.

Her reply arrived while he was putting away the practice strap.

What are we working on?

Silas sat on the edge of the bed.

Nothing. I thought we could eat. There’s also someone you haven’t met.

Nim pulled the spoon out of its dish and carried it back toward the pillow.

Silas caught him halfway.

"You can explain this arrangement to her yourself," he said.

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