Dragon Blood

Chapter 8

“The Sairo Exchange is a training exercise. I close distance and try to hit you. You block my advance with your back hand, then switch with your forward hand. Next, use your back hand to trap my arm agains’ my chest before striking with your forward hand. I block your advance and the cycle continues.”

Keriya hadn’t understood a word he’d said—and it wasn’t because half the Jidaelni language consisted of variations of words in the ancient tongue. Close distance? Block advance? What was he expecting on her first day of training?

“Attack,” he instructed.

“You want me to hit you?”

“Never question your sullsai,” he growled. “Thumb on the outside of your fingers. Lead with your first two knuckles. Aim at the bridge of my nose and jab.”

She obeyed, albeit halfheartedly—she didn’t think punching her teacher in front of his class was a great idea. Ithrin took advantage of her hesitance. He blocked her from landing her blow, trapped her arm against her chest with brutal force, and jabbed in retaliation.

It all happened so fast, and because Keriya didn’t understand how the exercise worked, she didn’t counter his attack. The sullsai’s fist collided with her face. She fell backwards on the ground, warmth gushing from her left nostril. Holding a hand to her b****y nose and blinking stars out of her vision, she shoved herself up. Part of her was furious with Ithrin. Part of her was ashamed he’d bested her with such ease.

“Never leave yourself unguarded. Your enemies will exploit any perceived weaknesses in you. Do it again.”

Keriya jabbed with much more force. Now she wanted to cave his arrogant face in. He blocked her fist and pinned her arm against her chest, wrenching her shoulder. With his back hand, he jabbed.

She failed to stop his blow. A sickly metallic tang filled her mouth. Coughing and spitting out a gob of blood, Keriya sensed the other apprentices slacking off to watch the unfolding battle.

Twice more Ithrin demanded she attack him, and twice more she failed to land her punches.

“You’re trying to remember the motions of the exercise. You must flow from one form to the next. Move on instinct—good instincts make good warriors. It’s a hard lesson, apprentice,” Ithrin said with a little smirk.

Keriya doubted he’d torment male apprentices like this, forcing them to fight without first teaching them the bare basics of combat. She launched at him, heedless of the exercise she was supposed to be learning. She had only one purpose: land a blow on Ithrin, no matter the damage she sustained in doing so, to pay him back in some small part. To prove a point. To prove she could.

Ithrin blocked her swing. She threw her free fist at him and he caught it. Keriya pushed against him, but Ithrin was at least twice her weight and had the advantage of height. He brought his knee into her gut.

Keriya crumpled to the ground, unable to draw breath. She felt blood leaking down her side from beneath the covai bandage. Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Again she stood. She thought she saw a glimmer of something besides grouchiness on Ithrin’s face—surprise, maybe?

She limped around him, stalking her prey. He was talking, but she wasn’t listening. She watched, waiting for a chance to strike. Ithrin’s sandal twisted on a pebble and Keriya lunged, raising her arm as if to jab at his face. At the last moment, she ducked beneath his hands and barreled headlong into his stomach. He grunted as the two of them fell, and Keriya’s heart swelled with a savage pride. She had succeeded. She had hit him.

Ithrin barely touched the ground before he sprang up. Keriya didn’t have time to rise—he darted forward and placed his foot on her neck.

“Never,” Ithrin said from high above, his words floating toward her through a ringing in her ears, “sacrifice yourself to take down your enemy unless there is no other way. A battle you both lose is still a battle you have lost. Think before you act. Plan every move.”

Too bad, thought Keriya. I’ve never been a planner.

She’d gone too far, she was sure. She had offended the sullsai and disregarded his rules. She was shocked, therefore, when he removed his foot and thrust a hand in front of her face.

“The Warrior’s Code decrees that you offer your enemy an honorable end to your battle,” he said gruffly. “Whether that is helping him rise or ending his life.”

Keriya was too sore to move, so Ithrin grabbed her elbow and yanked her to her feet.

“Back to work,” he snapped at his other students. They returned to their exercises. Keriya drew a ragged breath. Aches spread through her chest and stomach where Ithrin had kneed her.

“Apprentice, cycle off with Wallis and Taion,” said Ithrin. She swallowed a groan and hobbled to the boys.

“You alrigh’?” Wallis asked when the other boy switched out to let her have a turn.

“Do I look alright?” she grumbled. For some reason, Wallis thought she was trying to be funny. He laughed guilelessly and threw a punch at her.

Adrenaline shot through Keriya upon seeing another fist flying toward her. With her forward hand, she blocked. For an instant they both froze, surprised she’d done it. Then instinct took over, and Keriya swung with her free fist. Wallis blocked, grinning.

Keriya slogged through the rest of Hand Combat until a toll from the clock tower echoed across the valley, signifying the end of the lesson.

“Drink and move on,” Ithrin instructed as two servants appeared from behind the barracks, pulling a large, wheeled keg. The apprentices assembled in a neat line as the servants produced a ceramic cup and opened the tap. Crystal water poured forth.

As soon as Keriya saw the water, she realized how parched she was. The coppery taste of blood lingered on her tongue and she had a headache—from dehydration or the traumas she’d sustained, she didn’t know.

She slunk to the end of the line, waiting with growing impatience as the servants filled the cup and handed it to each apprentice in turn. They looked askance at Keriya when she reached them. The shorter one offered her the cup and she thanked him profusely. She poured half her water ration over her face to wipe off the grime and crusted blood, though she was sure all she did was smear the mess. Then she raised the cup to her lips.

Someone knocked into her from behind, causing her to spill the precious contents. She gasped in horror as the water splattered on the sand at her feet. Glaring over her shoulder, she found two lingering apprentices grinning malevolently.

“We’re making bets on how long you’ll last,” one said in a conversational voice.

“I doubt it’ll be more than a sennight,” sneered the other.

“She already looks dead on her legs—she won’t make it to dinner.”

The two strode off, laughing. Schooling herself to calm, Keriya turned to the servants. With a pleading look she raised the cup, hoping for a refill.

“One cup per apprentice,” said the shorter servant, and he took it away. He hadn’t done it to be cruel—she was sure it was strict policy, for water was scarce in Jidaeln—but she felt the man had done her a worse crime than Ithrin had during her beating.

“Wait,” she said thickly, digging in the pocket of her robes and fishing out her crumpled schedule. “Could you tell me where I need to go next?”

The servant glanced at it. “Beginner Marksmanship,” he said, pointing her in the right direction. “With Sullsai Terlain.”

“Thank you,” she wheezed, and hurried off.

By the time she found the shooting range on the far side of the clothier, she was late again. Sullsai Terlain was tall and thin as a whip, and he had a voice that cracked like one. He berated her for being late and made a spectacle of her, as Ithrin had.

“You missed stringing your longbow and suiting up,” said Terlain. “Here’s a weapon and an arm guard.”

He held a bow and string in one hand, and a leather wrap in the other. Keriya took both, dismayed at the weight of the tool. She’d never held a bow, let alone strung one, but how hard could it be? She had seen people bend these to their wills before, people like—

No. Goosebumps rose on her skin, though the heat was oppressive. She couldn’t think of her Allentrian friends without risking misery, distraction, or outright panic attacks.

Keriya wrapped the guard around her left forearm before turning her attention to the bow. Try as she might, she couldn’t bend it. Terlain let her struggle for a good minute before he snatched it from her.

“Like this,” he growled. The unforgiving wood bent beneath his hands as if it were a stringy willow branch. He strung it and threw it back to her. “Grip with your non-dominant hand. Lower. Nock the arrow to the string—not like that, never grab the fletching! Use your gobbin’ brain if you have one!”

Keriya’s innards burned, just as her skin was burning under the sun. She hadn’t been born knowing how to string a bow or shoot an arrow; was it her fault she was doing everything wrong? This harpy-like shrieking couldn’t possibly be considered a good teaching technique.

“Release,” cried Terlain.

She cried out as the bowstring snapped forward. She hadn’t wrapped her armguard correctly, and as a result, the string had scraped the leather—and a bit of her skin—with it, bunching it around her wrist.

“That’s why you keep your elbow bent and suit up properly,” said Terlain. “Do it again!”

Keriya toiled until the servants and their water cart reappeared at the end of class. The boys stored their equipment, but before she could do the same, Terlain was on her like an angry hornet.

“Apprentice, you haven’ hit a single mark. You will remain here until you do so.”

This was discrimination, pure and simple, because the youngest boy in class—who’d also failed to hit his target—was at the front of the line, drinking deeply from the cup.

Infuriated by this injustice, Keriya hefted her bow. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. Her head was pounding and her side was throbbing. How would she ever sink an arrow into one of those targets, which seemed farther away than Allentria?

Though he could keep her from her water ration, Terlain couldn’t keep her from her next class. After the servants trundled off, he dismissed her with a volley of insults.

“Wait, Sullsai Terlain.” She produced her schedule. “Could you please direct me to my next class so I’m not late again?”

He glowered at the paper. “Other side of the valley, by the arsenal. Beginner Swords with Sullsai Hanso.”

She perked up at the prospect of learning something useful. As she jogged south, she spotted a building at the end of the field with golden blades crossed over its entrance. That had to be the arsenal. A group of apprentices was assembled outside, and there was Sullsai Hanso.

“You’re late, apprentice,” Hanso rumbled. Keriya braced herself, awaiting punishment. “Make sure it never happens again.”

“Yes, Sullsai Hanso,” she said, stunned he’d left her alone.

Hanso told the apprentices to fetch wooden swords from the arsenal and pair off to practice parry-dor and parry-cai moves. Though Keriya was feeling less and less confident about this class, given how badly the last two had gone, she was delighted to see Wallis. This time she caught his eye before he could find someone else to work with.

“Partners?” she asked hopefully.

“Sure, I—Ra’s teeth, Kayah. You look like you’ve been trampled by an aurochs.”

“Mm,” she said, unable to think of a polite response. She observed Wallis’s stance and positioned herself the same way. She recalled that she’d lost her footing and tripped in her final battle with Necrovar. How different might the world be if she’d managed to stay upright?