18
Joslyn flowed through the thirty-seven movements of the dance once, then two more times before she paused long enough to catch her breath. The ocean was both more peaceful and more menacing at night; with the moon no more than a fingernail in Uncle Q’Util’s sky, its light was faint, making the water beyond the whitecaps lashing the shore as black as the bottom of an abyss.
She wiped sweat from her brow, preparing to start a fourth round of the dance when a flicker of movement drew her eye towards the bluffs. She paused, squinting, holding her sword at the ready.
Then her sword relaxed and she pursed her lips, trying to decide if she was more amused or irritated.
“I can see you,” Joslyn called, not in the common tongue, but in Terintan. “You might as well stop hiding and come out.”
Sheepishly, Linna slunk down the last few steps carved into the bluff. She wore her training clothes, even a short sword at her hip. Joslyn eyed the sword, wondering where Linna had gotten it. It appeared to be from the palace armory.
“I thought I told you to stay behind,” Joslyn said.
“You seemed like you would want company. Eventually.”
Joslyn grunted. “And what made you think that?”
“Because you quarreled with the Empress.” Linna stepped onto the sand, and Joslyn observed that she was wearing Terintan sandals instead of boots. To Joslyn’s surprise, the sight sent a stab of nostalgia into her chest. “Whenever my first mistress – the tinker’s wife – got into a fight with her husband, she would claim she did not want company. But later, she would find an excuse to seek me out. Linna,” the girl said, shifting into an imitation of her former mistress, “come with me. We must go to the market. She said she wanted to be alone, but she didn’t. I think most people who say they want to be alone are like that.” The girl shrugged, glancing down to pick at an errant thread on her second-hand brigandine.
“I am not your former mistress,” Joslyn said. “And the Empress and I are not … husband and wife.”
“No, but …” Linna shrugged again instead of finishing her sentence.
“You have a short sword,” Joslyn said, deciding to change the subject. “Where did it come from?”
Linna looked up, fingering the hilt of the sword as if only now remembering it was there. “The Deputy Commander gave it to me.”
Brick.Joslyn would have to tell him to stop encouraging the girl’s fantasies of becoming a Mizana.
“He should not have given it to you,” Joslyn said. “You’ve only just begun to master the dagger. You are not ready for sword work yet. Return it to the armory at first light.”
“We’ve practiced with short swords a few times,” Linna argued. “Besides,” she added, glancing away, “the Deputy Commander gave this to me as a birthing-day gift.”
“You had a birthday recently?” Joslyn asked, surprised.
Linna winced, as though growing older might be offensive to her Commander. “I do not know when it is exactly, but I usually mark it at the end of the fourth month. I’m fifteen summers now.” She paused. “Do I really have to give the sword back?”
Joslyn thought for a moment, then sighed. Given that Linna had been a slave for her first fourteen birthing days, the sword might very well have been the first gift anyone had ever given her.
“No. Like the Deputy Commander said, it is your birthing-day gift. But,” Joslyn added, “don’t let anyone else see you with it.”
Linna nodded. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something more, but wasn’t sure where to start.
“What?”
“I’ve been practicing with the Deputy Commander,” Linna said. “Ever since he gave me the sword. He’s taught me how to use it.”
Joslyn was definitely going to have a conversation with Brick in the morning about interfering with her students. “I see. And did the Deputy Commander also show you how to integrate sword work with the dance?”
Linna didn’t answer. Obviously Brick had not, since he knew nothing of the dance.
Joslyn waved Linna forward. “Draw your sword. Show me what he has taught you.”
Linna hesitated, cocking her head to the side and studying Joslyn in the weak moonlight, perhaps to see if the Commander was being serious.
“Well?” Joslyn said.
Linna lifted her chin and pulled the sword free, approaching Joslyn with the kind of confidence that came only from novices.
Joslyn drew her own sword and waited. As soon as Linna came close enough, Joslyn lunged with a high feint. Startled, Linna lifted the sword immediately to block, but Joslyn had already shifted from her feint into viper striking. She touched the tip of her sword to Linna’s belly.
“I have just gutted you,” Joslyn said.
Linna’s eyes darted to the place where the tip of Joslyn’s sword had touched her, as if expecting to see blood pouring from the spot.
“You will bleed to death in approximately fifteen minutes unless you have a companion who acts quickly to stop the blood loss,” Joslyn continued. “But even if they are able to stop it, you are likely have a painful death within a few days once your lacerated intestines poison your blood. You will grow sick with fever, clinging to life even as you hallucinate each night, then die anyway.”
“I-I’m sorry,” said Linna.
“You’re sorry? Don’t apologize; improve. Live.”
Linna took a deep breath and reset her feet into a fighting stance.
Joslyn feinted high again, but this time, Linna didn’t fall for the ruse. She stepped out of the way of the feint and managed to parry Joslyn’s subsequent tiger’s fury. Steel rang on steel, the sound echoing against the bluffs as if a tuning fork had been struck. Surprise crossed Linna’s face, and she dropped the sword into the sand, shaking out her hand from the sting the blow had brought. She looked up at Joslyn, perhaps expecting another admonishment, but Joslyn simply waited for the girl to pick up the sword, then attacked again, this time moving through a rapid dancer’s grace to strong spear to swooping hawk. Linna wasn’t prepared for the speed of the movements coming one right after the other, and she stumbled backwards, barely keeping her sword in front of her for three steps before falling hard on her arse in the damp sand.
Joslyn sheathed her sword and walked over to Linna, offering the girl a hand to help her up.
Linna accepted the hand and came to her feet, avoiding Joslyn’s gaze.
“Do you know what the first thing my ku-sai taught me was?” Joslyn asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“He taught me that the art of the sword master is death,” Joslyn said. “You do not pick up a sword until you are ready to deal out death to another living creature. Or, for that matter, until you are ready to face your own.” Joslyn held the girl’s gaze. “You are not ready to take life.” She bent, picking up Linna’s sword from where it had fallen into the sand and handed it back to the girl, hilt first. “And whatever the Deputy Commander has taught you about sword work, it is clearly not the dance of the Seven Cities. Did it occur to you even once to connect your movements with your blade?”
Linna looked away, embarrassed. “Y-yes, but …”
“Don’t train anymore with Brick. He will fill your head with bad habits.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now. Let us go through the dance once together, but with swords in hand.”
Linna’s eyes widened at this unexpected conclusion to the conversation. Together, ku-sai and kuna-shi moved through the dance of the Seven Cities together on the dark beach, the waves acting as their steady metronome.
Joslyn sheathed her own blade once the thirty-seventh movement had been completed. She glanced behind them, where the palace loomed high above the bluffs. Lit weakly from below by lantern light, there was something ominous about it, like a monster prepared to devour everything that crossed its path.
“Come, Linna. Neither of us belongs on the beach at this hour. We should be in our beds, both of us.”
Linna nodded.