6 #3

He left the strap on the wall. Isolde looked toward the slab where the weapon lay. She wanted to ask who had helped him leave that place and how much of that help he still owed. Kaoran’s eyes were fixed on the clasp.

“Today you came into the field with me,” she said.

“Today I knew where a trench needed opening.”

They both listened to the water running through the repaired channel. Isolde left her remaining questions for another day.

Isolde studied their earth-stained hands. She had thought of her return as a sword reclaimed: appear, name the betrayal, and cut through the lie. Darian had planted roots in the Council, the Guard, and the food routes. A burst of flame could strike anyone living among them.

“I won’t use Rheskan to prove who I am,” she said.

“That decision belongs to him too.”

“I’ll ask him if I find him.”

“Good.”

A pulse traveled through the stone of the wall. Isolde kept her hand where she had felt it. The vein might be responding to the afternoon’s heat; yet it had that slowness she sought whenever she thought of Ydrael.

“I think something heard us,” she said.

Kaoran rested his fingers on the rock. They waited. The pulse had disappeared.

“They hold stories longer than ours.”

“They hold grudges too.”

“They have the right. What they do with them will be their choice.”

They finished pulling out the roots at dusk.

The first autumn rains came two weeks later. New grain sprouted in green lines over the burned earth. There were gaps where heat had destroyed the seed. Isolde replanted each one by hand.

When the last strip was covered, Kaoran removed the sword from the slab.

He cleaned it, repaired the nick, and wrapped it again.

“I’ve done what I agreed,” Isolde said.

“Yes.”

“Then train me.”

Kaoran laid the long weapon above the fireplace. Then he took the pale-handled knife he had given her for her birthday.

“You start with this.”

“I already know how to use a knife.”

“You know how to use it with the body you had.”

Isolde took the short blade. The guard protected her left hand, and the strap steadied her fingers. Its weight sat close to her wrist, so she could recover her position without help from the other arm.

Kaoran planted a single willow switch in the yard.

“Cut it.”

Isolde put her right foot forward. The stance protected her knee but closed her arm’s angle. She shifted her hip. Her side was free. Her left leg served as a rear support.

She advanced.

The knife cut through the switch with a short stroke.

“Another,” Kaoran said.

Isolde picked up the willow and planted it again.

Kaoran replaced it with a thicker switch.

“A short blade needs short range,” he said. “If you try to fight as you used to, your opponent will reach you first.”

“I can get beneath his weapon.”

“When your leg allows it.”

He held the staff before his chest. Isolde advanced with her right foot, deflected the wood with the guard, and sought his side. Kaoran withdrew the target. The knife stopped a handspan from his shirt.

“You chased my body,” he said.

“That was the target.”

“The ground was the distance. You’ve already lost it.”

He extended the staff. Isolde had to retreat. Her left heel found a stone, and her knee veered sideways. Kaoran touched her shoulder with the tip.

“Again.”

They repeated the attack until dark. Isolde managed to get inside four times. None ended with a touch. The short blade felt light at first and heavy after a hundred movements. The strap held her fingers closed, but her forearm took the strain and ended up burning.

The next day, Kaoran marked a circle beneath her feet. Isolde had to cut without lifting her heel from the line. Wide strokes took her outside the space; she shortened her arm’s movement and let the point travel small distances.

Kaoran threw seeds from different angles.

Isolde missed twenty before touching one with the guard.

By afternoon, she managed three in a row with an aching forearm.

When he replaced the seeds with sandbags, she had to learn to deflect their weight.

The strap held her fingers in place; each set ended when Isolde could no longer feel the fastening.

During the first week, Isolde tried to defeat the staff through speed.

Kaoran controlled the distance; she had to stop each set as soon as she recognized the tremor in her knee.

During the second, she attacked the hand holding the wood.

He changed his grip and struck her shoulder from the opposite end.

In the third, Isolde stopped chasing the tip.

She waited for the movement that brought Kaoran’s body closer.

The knife touched his sleeve.

“One,” she said.

“Cloth.”

“In a fight, there would be skin beneath it.”

“In a fight, I’d wear another sleeve.”

Kaoran cut away the grazed piece and left it on the table. Isolde kept it with her notes.

They worked on the transition between weapon and fire with a burning rod and a rope she had to preserve. Kaoran guarded the approach with the staff. Isolde took too long to release the knife strap, and the rope burned.

On the second attempt, she dropped the weapon and reached the bucket of sand. She put out the rod, but Kaoran touched her chest with the staff while both her hands were still occupied.

“You got there,” he said. “Now you have to get out.”

Isolde changed the strap for a fastening she could open with her thumb.

On the third attempt, she deflected the staff, dropped the weapon inside her circle, and rolled toward the sand.

She put out the rod. Kaoran went for her back.

She turned with one knee on the ground and threw the empty bucket at his legs.

The old man had to jump.

“The bucket wasn’t intended as a weapon,” he said.

“You brought it onto the field.”

Kaoran picked up the bucket.

“I find it unpleasant when you learn.”

The training advanced with the rains. Shoots covered the burned field. Isolde practiced between the green lines and took care not to step on them. The boundary forced her to control every retreat. A fall could destroy weeks of repair.

Kaoran added a wooden sword in his other hand.

Its reach was twice the knife’s. Isolde had to learn to enter as he prepared a blow and leave before he recovered.

Her left leg served as an anchor; her right sought angles.

Her wounded side stopped relying on a rigid posture for protection and began taking part in small turns.

The first time she completed ten bouts, she vomited beside the ditch.

“You stopped breathing during the last three,” Kaoran said.

“You were hitting me.”

“Opponents tend to do that.”

“You could give warning.”

“I used a wooden sword almost a yard long. I thought the warning was visible.”

Isolde drank water, waited for her stomach to settle, and returned to the circle.

“Ten more.”

“Five.”

“Ten.”

“Five with air are worth more than ten without it.”

She agreed. Before the last bout, Kaoran indicated the level of her side with the padded end of the staff.

“Shall we try here?”

Isolde took a while to nod. They had practiced the escape unarmed for two days; now the blade pulled at her hand, and fear weighed more.

She saw the movement begin, released the knife, and caught the wood with her right forearm.

The core warmed as she turned out of line.

Kaoran held the weapon and lowered the tip as soon as Isolde raised her hand.

She was still standing. She needed a while before she could fasten the glove again.

“You let go of the blade,” he said.

“I kept my body.”

“And the fire?”

“Waiting for another need.”

Kaoran handed her the knife.

At the end of autumn, he placed seven switches in the yard again. He reproduced the heights, stones, and posts of the first day. Isolde carried the short blade in her left hand. The fastening held her damaged fingers. Her right stayed free to balance, strike, or take the weapon if her hand tired.

The first switch fell to a low cut.

The second required a turn that Isolde made around her right foot.

At the third, she dropped to one knee and rose without using her hands.

She circled the fourth switch’s stone.

She deflected the fifth with the guard and broke it on the return.

The sixth stood behind the post. Isolde struck the support, changed her angle as the wood vibrated, and reached the switch.

The seventh moved in the wind.

She waited.

The willow entered her range. The blade moved barely a handspan. The switch fell onto the shoots without damaging them.

Kaoran took the longsword from above the fireplace. Isolde thought he was going to give it to her. He carried it to the chest and locked it away.

“When will I use it?” she asked.

“When there is a need that calls for that sword.”

Isolde cleaned the knife and fastened the sheath’s strap.

Her hand still shook. Isolde opened the fastening with her thumb, massaged the two fingers, and left the knife where she could reach it in the morning. The seven cut switches lay beside the wall. She gathered them for the hearth, separating damp stems from those that would burn well.

Across the field, the first frost had whitened the ditch.