The walled courtyard of Shallow Pit’s town guard was the best pce the Armsmasters found to spar, wide and bright and out of sight. Mayor Boros had gdly allowed them to use it in their free time.

  Aien was done with his usual practice: a run to warm his body followed by dozens of swings, shifting in and out of his stances until he had worked up a sweat, when Yshnim and Ren arrived.

  He turned at the approaching footsteps to see the two walking up to a weapon’s rack. Shallow Pit didn’t have much variety when it came to weapons, but they had a couple blunt swords and spears used for training.

  “You were right, he was here,” Yshnim said, nodding at him.

  “Told you, he’ll be right at home in Farhill,” said Ren.

  Yshnim smiled. “It’s a lot rougher there.”

  Aien approached, sword still in his hand.

  “In my previous group I was often the first to wake up. They’d wake up by the time I was done practicing, then I’d use the time they spent on breakfast to rest before we started on the road.”

  “Things would be much easier if everyone was as disciplined as you are,” Yshnim said, testing the weight of a blunt longsword. “Trystan sure took his time learning that. One-handed or two-handed?”

  Finally, he thought.

  Ren answered at the same moment that Aien opened his mouth to speak. “Two-handed.”

  “Yshnim,” Aien called, then continued when she turned her gaze his way, “Can we spar?”

  “You’re sweating from your practice. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “A real fight isn’t going to be fair.”

  Yshnim shook her head. “You misunderstood me. I want you to take the most out of it you can. Rest while I try to teach Ren something, then we can spar.”

  “Are you implying you won’t break a sweat with me?” Ren asked, sounding pyful.

  A thin smile came to Yshnim’s lips. “You know I always take you seriously.”

  Aien sheathed his sword, repressing the urge to compin. He didn’t know where Yshnim got the idea that he was restless from. The denials and deys weren’t teaching him anything, but he didn’t have much choice but to wait.

  He walked to a shadowed corned to rest and slumped down on a bench. Igbol appeared in the entrance at about the same time, gnced at the two armed women and walked up to stand by Aien’s side.

  Yshnim pnted her foot on the ground, gripping the longsword’s hilt with both hands, each coming from a different angle and positioning it at the side of her head, bde pointing forward.

  “Care to expin what you asked me to do?” Yshnim asked.

  Ren nodded, drawing her rondel and parrying dagger.

  She didn’t take her eyes off of Yshnim as she answered, “I asked to attack you with the intent of hurting, because I want to feel what it’s like to not be able to break someone’s guard.”

  Yshnim said nothing in return.

  Ren stepped forward.

  It was completely different from when Ren sparred with Aien. Instead of entering his range to bait attacks, she edged forward with her posture low, unsure. It would be easier to approach someone with a one-handed sword, but she had asked for a longer one.

  Yshnim moved in a blur. Aien barely had a moment to wonder why she was putting so much strength into a feint when the blunt sword cut the air in front of Ren’s nose.

  Aien blinked. Blunt bde or not, that would have seriously hurt, perhaps even broken her nose.

  As soon as the bde was past, Ren lunged forward, thrusting her rondel. Yshnim brought the sword around with a twist of her hip, blocking from below and up. Steel hit against steel, Ren’s arm being pushed away by the heavier bde. She sshed with her parrying dagger, aiming for Yshnim’s closest arm, but she simply pulled it back, bringing the sword-tip to stand in front of Ren’s eyes.

  “Seriously?” Ren asked, frozen in pce.

  “Again.”

  At Yshnim’s command, Ren retreated, reassumed her stance and lunged again.

  This time she feinted, and Aien would have fallen for it. Yshnim feinted her own block, just enough to ensure Ren couldn’t force her rondel to strike true at her chest.

  They baited each other a second time. Ren was fooled first, raising her parrying dagger too high to grab a ssh that never came, giving Yshnim free room to pull the sword back and thrust.

  Ren batted the sword aside with her rondel but Yshnim resumed her push. Bdes crossed for a moment, then Ren retreated out of range.

  Yshnim hadn’t even moved. There was no footwork involved. That she was wielding a blunt weapon against a dangerous bde that could have cut deep into her arm a mere moments ago didn’t seem to matter. Aien knew how dangerous flinching was in a fight, but he wouldn’t have kept to this seeming rule of standing in one pce knowing he was the only one without a sharp edge.

  Aien gnced up at Igbol, who was still standing.

  “Why doesn’t Yshnim fight with a longsword?”

  “She has mastered it, but it’s too much of a nuisance to carry around, with the whip-sword and all. She needs to be able to snap it from around her waist in a heartbeat. It has more reach than a longsword, and she’s good enough at it to keep everyone away. Besides, even if someone manages to approach, we always fight together.”

  Igbol tilted his head towards the two fighting.

  Yshnim smacked Ren’s forearm hard with the ft side of the bde. For her part, Ren stayed in range, managing to grab the sword with the teeth of her parrying dagger, recovering her stance and sshing a long arc with the rondel, aimed at Yshnim’s side.

  Releasing one hand from the sword, Yshnim brought her arm to the side in a snap, pushing against Ren’s wrist as she gripped it.

  “You broke your stance,” Ren said, grinning.

  “But I haven’t moved yet.”

  They broke from one another and resumed sparring.

  “Then how does that Ninth Bde carry around nine weapons?”

  “Who told you he does?” Igbol asked.

  “I—He—,” Aien stammered. “I just assumed.”

  “I don’t believe it’s all nine, but he carries then around in a bundle, throws it to the ground and chooses what he wants. Not something I’d recommend.”

  “Seems to be working for him.”

  “Yshnim would tell you to worry about mastering your first weapon before you start thinking about how to carry more around.”

  It didn’t take much longer for Ren to raise her daggers in defeat.

  Yshnim spoke, “If you wanted to know what it was like to struggle to break someone’s guard even when they let you approach, then pay attention to the bruises I gave you. They’re showing where you are easiest to hit. I want you to figure out how you can fix it, then we can try again.” She tapped her own head.

  “Think for myself. I know,” Ren answered. “Can I ask you something?”

  Yshnim raised an eyebrow.

  “There were plenty of times where I could have kicked you. What would you have done then?”

  “You’re better than this, Ren. I trusted you to keep this to the bdes. If you really want me to pummel you someday, you’re going to have to give me a good reason to.”

  “Not happening. Sorry.” Ren moved away to lie down on her own bench.

  Her eyes met Aien’s for a single moment.

  You weren’t really thinking about telling her, where you?

  Since learning that Cromer was a tavern guard, Aien and Ren had visited the pce twice, only to make themselves seen. The man had done a good job at pretending nothing was happening, and already Aien thought that was pushing their luck a little. Not because of Cromer, but because one of the others could notice something was up. There could always have been someone that saw the two following Li and entering her house, but if that was the case then they didn’t have any reasons to think much of it. At least there were no rumors, so far.

  Shaking those thoughts away, Aien stood up when Yshnim gestured for him to approach.

  “One-handed or two-handed?”

  “Can you do hand-and-a-half? Whatever is the closest in length and weight to my sword.”

  Saying nothing, Yshnim approached the weapons rack.

  “How do you want to do this, Aien?” Yshnim asked as she looked for a bde of simir length.

  I want to try something.

  “Just average sparring. We attack and block as we find openings.”

  It didn’t take long for Yshnim to find a good bde. Blunt, but he was well aware of how dangerous it could be after seeing what their Fourth Bde did to Ren.

  Aien unsheathed his sword and assumed the same stance Yshnim had used previously. Grip to the side of the head and bde pointing forward.

  Yshnim simply thrusted forward from a standing position to a lunge.

  He had gotten used to parrying closer to a bde’s tip, but Aien barely managed to bat the sword aside before it reached his chest.

  Aien shifted forward, sshing from down and up. Yshnim met his bde with ease, legs to either side.

  She remained on that stance, bringing steel against steel, neither retreating nor advancing but simply blocking.

  Until Aien grasped her timing.

  He surprised her by bringing the pommel in for a strike, one which she took for a feint and merely brought her sword in position for a block. Swiping from the position his sword was left at, Aien struck vertically, down towards her shoulders.

  Yet, somehow, she did the same, striking with the pommel to divert his swing, which left him open for a thrust that never came, as Yshnim took a step back to regard him.

  “Is that what you wanted to try? That one move?”

  I surprised her.

  “No, not that move. I wanted to try and read your timing so I could change mine when you least expected it.”

  “It seems I’ll have to be rougher with you, Aien.”

  “Why—”

  A lunge, followed by a feint and a backhand swing. Aien stepped away from the first and blocked the second, but that did nothing to slow her barrage.

  He stepped back again, then twice more, barely reacting in time to each attack. The sword would have cut his forearm if it had an edge. Then the left shin and the right thigh.

  Fuck this. Grunting, he moved to take a blow and strike back.

  The point of Yshnim’s bde dug into his chest. A stop-thrust that he walked right into. Pain shot through his chest as he stepped back, but Yshnim pursued.

  His back hit the wall and Yshnim’s bde rested against his neck. Cold to the touch.

  “What did I do?” he snarled at her, mad at being punished for being better than she expected.

  “Getting the upper hand at a spar just for the sake of it means nothing, Aien. First you have to learn how to survive, then we can teach you how to kill.”

  He saw Loho’s face over Yshnim’s. The mocking grin was there, then it was gone.

  “I saw a Headhunter doing this. He waited for his opponents to show their rhythm and surprised them. I saw him kill fourteen men better than me in a row.”

  “Listen closely,” Yshnim said, drawing away from him, “do you think you would have the time to study me, after the way I pushed you back now?”

  “Most people aren’t as good as you,” Aien answered, confused.

  “I expect you to be.”

  What?

  “Then why do this?”

  Yshnim took a long moment to answer. Ren and Igbol were quietly watching.

  “Aien, you grinned at me. I could see your satisfaction. You have the foundations of a great swordsman in you, and you seem to have done well so far, but whatever is going in your head, it’s going to get you killed. You pull what you just did here in Farhill, and some of the Armsmasters will kick you in your sleep.”

  Every word she uttered only made him more confused. She was saying he had the potential to be a great fighter, but at the same time he was being schooled for being good?

  And he was grinning with satisfaction? No, I fucking wasn’t.

  He looked for help Ren’s way, but she simply stared back. Then he turned at Igbol.

  “I think he gets it, Yshnim. If you want, I can start holding his hand more than you do with Ren.”

  Finally lowering her sword, Yshnim presented a hand to Aien.

  When someone reaches out their hand to you, you take it.

  Sighing, he forced himself to take her hand. Yshnim pulled him away from the wall. Already Aien knew he’d spent the rest of the day mulling over it.

  Ren and Igbol had turned the other way. Sniffer was standing at guard’s office exit.

  “Sorry to barge in, Armsmasters, but the mayor is asking for you.”

  Yshnim moved to deliver the practice sword back to the weapon’s rack. Aien followed Igbol and Ren away from the courtyard.

  Was I grinning?