The stubborn bastard. Muscles popped in Kael’s arm as he held his sword out and while I knew they wouldn’t start shaking for some time, it would happen.
“Kael…” Lorien hissed, looking meaningfully at his friend, then me. “Kael?—”
“It’s alright,” I said. “Your grip is excellent.” With a step closer, I inspected Lorien’s hand. “Loose enough that you can shift the sword in any direction at a second’s notice.”
“Learned that when I started wielding daggers.” He dared a sidelong look at Kael, but his attention returned to me. “Need to be fluid, responsive, otherwise you just get cut.”
With a nod, I turned to Kael.
“My father told me something about communicating with students. Some need to hear instruction, some need to see it set out in diagrams or described in words on a page, which is why he wrote his treatise and started selling it. But others…” My gaze locked with Kael’s. “They have to experience a thing for it to make sense, and I think that’s the way you learn.”
With a step backwards, I had my sword out, facing him with my free hand behind my back. My knees were loose, my stance ready.
“I think that’s the case here.”
Other students were starting to mumble and I knew what was happening. Men liked to mock women for their gossiping, but I found my own sex was just as bad. People would have noted the animosity between Kael and I, but that’s not what was going on here. I might want to toss him off the parapets the moment I saw him take Fern into his arms, but that part of me was set aside as soon as I walked into the training room. Here I was a teacher, the recipient of all of my father’s wisdom, and I would not sully that with baser feeling.
“You know how to wield a sword?” I asked Kael almost idly.
“Enough that I don’t see the point of classes like this, but if the general wants to waste my time for a year to grant methe lands I already possess,” he growled, “who am I to complain?”
“Then you can show me what you’ve learned.”
The rest of the class began to gather around us, creating a loose circle, and didn’t that remind me of my cadet days? Of being allowed to challenge someone at the end of a lesson, Soren overseeing the process, making sure no one got hurt. I saw another cadet for just a second, even though her boyish figure was nothing like Kael’s, but no one ever won a sword fight by focusing on the past. With a blink, I came abruptly back to the room. My focus was the tip of my blade and beyond.
Without warning, Kael’s blade chopped down, aiming to smack me on my wrist and if the blow landed, it’d hurt like hell, right as my muscles spasmed, forcing me to drop my sword. A nice win for him in front of the whole class, if he succeeded.
Of course, he didn’t.
With a swivel of my wrist, I was shifting out from under his blow, blocking his blade, then twisting to perform my own. His mouth fell open as the tip of the sword dug into his chest. Kael looked down, studying my weapon, as if unable to believe the strike had landed. I reversed the blow, then let my hand fall down by my side.
“So hopefully you can see that keeping your grip loose allows you greater range of movement. It will tighten when you commit to a strike?—”
“Like this?”
Kael’s voice didn’t give him away. Dad had spent hours and hours teaching me to be aware of my surroundings, creeping up on me when I was still a small child, then tapping me on the butt each time he caught me unawares. Keeping your focus diffuse, picking up every tiny thing around you until that became an unconscious thing, was his aim. The dull whistle of a wooden blade passing through the air, the riffle of a small breeze on the back of my neck had me turning on my heel, my sword already upraised and blocking Kael’s blow before it could land. My wrist twisted, tossing his blade backwards while mine sliced down,touching the other man’s shoulder, his chest, then the flat of it pressing against his neck, forcing him to stare into my eyes.
“Ahh, Lieutenant, sir…” Lorien shifted closer. “Kael didn’t mean no harm?—”
“The hell I didn’t,” the other man ground out.
“He did.” I shrugged in response. “And he should.” With that, I glanced at the rest of the class, seeing I had their rapt attention. I should’ve thanked the bastard for making my students so receptive to the lesson I was teaching. “If you’re going to draw a blade on someone in earnest, then you need to do whatever it takes to make sure you survive that fight.”
Was I getting through to Kael? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t really care. Dad always talked about leading horses to water and all that, but I don’t think I’d have cried any tears if Kael decided to let himself die from stubbornness.
“That’s what I can teach you to do.” I stepped away and addressed the rest of the class. “Not only to be effective on the battlefield, but to survive anyone who tries to attack you. Now, I need everyone to form lines, no more than five people per line. Stretch your arms out as you find your place, because you don’t want to be too close to the person next to you…”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead ten times over, but Kael held his tongue and did as he was told, just like everyone else. I had the class move through the basics, drilling them over and over, trying to build that muscle memory. Trouble is, it wasn’t my father I saw as I walked up and down the lines, nor my old drill sergeant, or even Pippin, my former classmate.
It was Fern.
I’d taken this job to get closer to her, but ended up being dragged into meetings and discussions with the general.
All stuff that didn’t matter to me.
As students mastered the manoeuvres, my mind began to wander. It wasn’t their bodies that held my attention, but hers. The feel of her in my arms, the way we had moved around the dance floor. It was like the perfect sword strike. Every part of me workedin time with every part of her and if I’d realised it would be like that, I’d have paid the orchestra to string out the song for longer, just to give me an excuse to keep whisking her across the floor.
Well, I’d see if I could convince her to come dancing with me again when lunchtime came around.
