UNSHEATHED

Chapter Nine

At an hour past noon a crowd gathered around the circle in the courtyard. Many locals from the village across the river came, as well as members of Liran's guard and household. The courtyard was crowded with people. News of Elena's challenge had travelled fast.

He walked around the circle, avoiding eye contact with his subjects. He needed to maintain his focus in order to meet the challenge. He stepped inside the circle boundaries.

The Captain was already there. She stood slightly back from the centre with her eyes closed. A meditative focusing, Liran thought. It was different from how his teacher instructed him to prepare with his eyes open but fixed forward on his opponent alone, his mind blocking out everyone else. It was a kind of tunnel vision he could now turn on at will.

"Choose your weapon," said the Captain, opening up her eyes. It was his prerogative as the one receiving the challenge.

"I return the right to my challenger," he answered. Perhaps she would last a few minutes longer this way.

She shrugged and walked over to a rack with a variety of practice weapons piled on it. She reached out her hand as if ready to choose, but held it there for a moment, thinking. With one swift motion she grabbed a short sword and tested its balance. She returned to her place in the circle.

Liran wasn't sure what to think about her choice. In her place, he would have selected a long staff. The longer the weapon, the easier it is to stay out of reach of your opponent. Especially since he had much longer arms to begin with.

He selected a similar weapon, but one with a little more weight. He stood across from her in the circle and waited for the arbiter to give the signal to begin. A gong rang, its echoes filling the yard. The two bowed to the arbiter and then to one another and the match began.

Both took a ready stance, legs spread and bent slightly, to leap any way needed without notice. Liran was prepared to be cautious, not wishing to hurt the Captain accidentally, but he knew he must make the show of effort or he would look bad too.

The Captain ran forward so fast that Liran was taken aback, but after years of practice he parried her effort by instinct. She began the zatara number eight with this move, which was a difficult form. He followed her move and they began the patterns of the dance that were the forms. Strike and parry; strike and parry.

It was an ancient art. The forms were developed so long ago; their history had long since been forgotten. A zatara was a combination of patterns. There were many of these, and they took years to learn and master. They could be used in training or performed in challenges. But in challenges the zatara could be followed in order, or switched at any point. It was the ability to respond and overtake the challenger and impose one's own choice of zatara that determined who would be the winner and it would be the arbiter's decision as to who performed the best.

Continuing to follow the Captain's lead in her choice of Zatara for the moment, Liran waited to force a change in the pattern to one of his own choosing. He wanted to see what his adversary was capable of. While the zatara she selected was difficult, it wasn't especially so, which made it tricky to make an assessment.

Several moves of this dance had passed and it was time for Liran to advance the match. A sideways sweep from right to left with her sword should have indicated to him to lean back and avoid the blade, but instead he leaped over it and spun around which forced the pattern into a new zatara: number seventeen.

Elena didn't appear troubled by this. She rolled away as he lowered his blade from above to where she had been. With sharpened blades, this was no game to play lightly, even if points were taken away for a stumble or if a weapon ever did touch flesh.