Steel flashed underneath the afternoon arclight; the tip of Adeya’s sword clipped Kyen’s arm, slicing flesh, flinging out a drop of blood.
“Ow!” He leapt back.
Adeya stood opposite him, mouth agape, gripping her longsword at the end of its slash.
Shifting his hilt to one hand, he looked at the cut; it leaked a rivulet of red down his arm.
Her eyes grew wide with alarm. “Oh no! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“Let me get my salve.”
“Don’t bother.”
“But you’re bleeding!”
“I’m alright. Really.” He shook out his arm, Adeya watching with bright eyes as he slung the blood off.
The two stood in a clearing on the mountain slope. Bushes rimmed one side and a half-buried boulder on the other seated the only spectators: their pack and two cloaks.
Kyen reset his stance and lifted his sword, impassive to the blood that ran down his arm and dripped off his elbow. “Let’s continue.”
As Adeya looked at him, a frown rose to her face. “How did that even happen?”
He blinked in surprise.
“You’re the greatest swordsman in all Ellunon,” she continued. He started to say, “I’m really not—” but she ran right over him with: “How did I, a novice, cut you? How did I even come close?”
He looked bewildered.
“Are you going easy on me?” She shook her sword at him like a long condemning finger.
“I—uh, I…”
“You’re letting me win, aren’t you?”
“Not… not—”
“Kyen of Avanna!” She swelled, clenching her fist. “What am I supposed to do against a fiend? Tell me that! A fiend isn’t going to go easy on me.”
“I know.” He shrank under her glare.
“Then stop going easy on me!”
“Why are you mad?”
“I’m NOT mad!”
He shifted, looking at his toes, while he waited for her to huff through a few breaths.
“I’m not mad,” she repeated. “I’m serious. I want to learn properly. So fight me like it’s serious, Kyen!”
“Alright.”
“Good.”
Straightening out of his stance, Kyen flipped his sword backhand. She stared as he slipped the blade back into the sheath at his hip; the hilt hit the scabbard with a clank. He fixed his attention on her. “Ready.”
A lock of hair slid out from behind her ear as both her face and mouth worked for some sort of understanding. Neither found any.
“What?” Kyen asked.
She swept the hair away with a flick and a huff. “You’re sure you’re ready?”
“Yup.”
“But your sword.”
“What? You can come at me.”
“Oh, never mind…” She took up her blade with both hands; its edge glinted in the late afternoon light “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Adeya gripped her hilt with both hands. All at once she charged him. He stood at ease until she slashed out. He flashed forward, a loud smack rang through the clearing, and Adeya stumbled back to find the point of her own sword at her throat.
Kyen, holding the hilt high next to his cheek, looked concerned as he pointed the blade at her. “Sorry.”
She stared back, wide-eyed.
“Do you want to try again?” he asked, lowering the sword a little.
“How did you—oh, ow…” Adeya winced and cradled her hand. “Ow!”
“Are you alright?” He hurried over. “Did I break anything? I’m so sorry!”
“Fine! It’s—fine!” She blinked back tears, and with an effort shook her hand out. “Let me try again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, again. Like a real sword fight.” She snatched her sword back and brandished it at him.
He held his hands up as if in surrender. “Okay.”
Walking back to her starting position, Adeya tossed her hair out of her face. She dug in her toes then charged Kyen again. This time she stabbed, but Kyen sidestepped. She whirled around to slash but he’d already vanished, darting behind her. There he lingered. Adeya whipped first one side, then the other, looking for him, but he leaned this way and that to stay out of her line of vision. Suddenly, she frowned. Whipping around, she slashed out at him, but he side-stepped it with ease. A smile crept onto his face.
“Stop laughing at me! Be serious!”
“I’m trying.” Kyen danced out of range as she came slashing after him.
Yelling, she lobbed at him, but he ducked under her guard and grabbed her hilt.
“You’re swinging wide.”
“Give! It! Back!” She wrenched her sword back and forth, but he hung on.
“You’d do better if you calmed down.”
“I am—CALM!” Adeya threw herself into jerking her sword free—and Kyen let go. She staggered backwards and fell, landing with a crash into the bushes. She whimpered. “Ow…”
“I’m sorry! Are you alright?” He trotted after her.
Adeya stirred as he neared, struggling to sit up. He stopped, about to offer her a hand up, when she sat up with a “Ha!” and smacked the flat of her blade on his shin.
His jaw tightened, but otherwise he remained unmoved by the blow. “That wasn’t fair.”
“I win!” She popped out of the bushes with her arms in the air. “It’s over.”
“A real battle is only over when one of us is dead, Adeya.”
She poked the blade at his throat, glaring at him.
Kyen sighed and shook his head.
“Being a fair damsel has its advantages, you know.” Beaming, Adeya sheathed her sword. “It’s easy to lure honorable swordsmen into a false sense of security.” She walked with Kyen, chin held high, a hand on her hilt, and, together, they returned to the boulder where they’d left their things.
“Nobody will believe that I defeated the legendary Kyen of Avanna,” she said. “Does that make me the greatest swordswoman in Ellunon now?”
“Can you get a fire going?” he asked.
“Don’t be a sore loser.” She plopped to her knees and dragged the pack over. Digging out the flint and tinder, she shot him a glance.
At the edge of the camp, Kyen bent to collect fallen branches and brush with a forlorn expression. His gray eyes gazed unseeing at the wood he piled in his arms.
“I never thought I’d miss roads. But after three days in the foothills...” Adeya shook her head. “What I wouldn’t give for a bath!”
He deposited the pile of wood next to her.
“Your black eye is looking better,” she said to his back as he walked away. Without an answer, he began to collect twigs and pine cones, so Adeya formed a nest in the tinder.
“I don’t know how you expect me to be trekking mountains all day, then training all evening.” She struck several sparks into the tinder and blew into the nest. It smoked then flared to flame. She set the nest down while Kyen brought over a mess of sticks.
He broke one and fed it to the growing flame.
“I bet you never had to train so hard.” Adeya, folding her hands in her lap, looked at him archly.
A smile quirked the side of his mouth.
“What? What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie, Kyen of Avanna.” She fixed him with an intense stare.
He picked up a pine cone. Crunching it in his hand, he scattered the bits into the fire. The flame licked at them eagerly. “Our blademasters would drive us into the Five Frowning Men—”
“The what?”
He looked up and nodded at the mountains. “The furthest peaks that ridge Norgard. Blades all the morning, then run the mountains—when we weren’t climbing—sometimes until full dark, before another session with blades.”
Adeya gaped at him. “Run?”
“Rather run than be flogged.” The flame danced in Kyen’s stormy eyes.
She grew pale.
“It’s how children of Avanna trained for the test where they’d earn their sword,” he said.
Her mouth fell open.
“At least, those that survived the mountains.” Kyen turned his gray eyes on her. “Does it really seem strange to you?”
“It seems terrible!” She sat up straight, outraged, and repeated, “Children?”
“My people were warriors—trained to deal death and to die well. It’s all they lived for,” he said. “I’m sure Isea is unpleasant in ways, too?”
“Like fathers constantly arranging suitors for their daughters? Absolutely.” Adeya snapped a branch and fed it to the growing campfire.
Kyen tumbled the rest of his sticks in.
Watching him gaze into the fire, she spoke up, “How come you never talk about Avanna?”
He prodded the fire, frowning.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you mention it,” she said.
“It’s… It’s not... What’s there to say?”
“I don’t know. You had a family? Friends? A town you grew up in?”
“None of it seems worth mentioning.” He kept prodding the fire.
“Don’t you have any good memories?”
“I suppose so…” said Kyen. “Most everyone is dead now. Dwelling on memories doesn’t do me any good.”
Adeya’s eyes grew bright as she watched him, but Kyen avoided looking at her. He sat back, his gaze wandering to the mountains’ peaks.
The Arc had long disappeared behind them. The clouds, spreading down from the Five Frowning Men, cascaded around the shoulders of the nearer peaks. Great thunderheads rose up behind them.
“We might need a more sheltered campsite tonight,” said Kyen.
She followed his gaze up and moaned. “Not another storm?”