8 - The greatest warrior

The next day I was back in training again. We had kraiya-long wooden sticks, and I was swinging mine absently, waiting for Esora-e to call us into line, when the whim struck me to aim it at Nyera’s head, the closest target at hand, for a joke. To my horror, she did not duck, but stood dead-still like one blind. I was not quick enough at that age to check its flight, and so for an instant had to helplessly watch what my hands did, the knobbed end streaking in, a hand-width, two finger-widths, one finger-width, away from her blond ringlets—then hitting with a thwack that hummed through my fingers.

She stumbled one step, then turned around, her face first pop-eyed with surprise, then black with rage. To her credit, she dropped her stick and came after me with her hands. Being angry while I was bewildered, she was on top of me in no time and grinding my face in the dirt when Esora-e lifted her off me.

He got an earful of truth without asking. “He hit me with his stick! From behind!” “I didn’t mean to hit her, she didn’t duck!” “I was facing the other way!” “So you should have ducked anyway!” “How could I!? You snuck up on me!” “I wasn’t sneaking, you knew I was there, you’re just trying to get me into trouble!” “I am not! Master, he’s lying! I wasn’t looking and he knows it!” “You still should have ducked!” And so on.

To my surprise, since in my mind I was entirely innocent, Esora-e was looking darkest at me. By this time all the children in the ground had gathered around, standing on tiptoe to see over each other’s heads. “Fourth Chevenga,” he said finally, “I’d like you to demonstrate what you think Nyera should have done.” He picked up my stick, and handed it to her. “Turn around.” I did. It was a pleasure to turn my back on her.

It was pleasure she planned to have, too. No one relishes revenge so much as a child granted permission to take it. I wasn’t sure how she was going to get it, though; she brought the stick around whistling, and I ducked just as Esora-e had asked.

Silence fell. “Again,” he said. This time Nyera aimed from the other side. I did the same. The other children stared as if they were seeing magic. Why is this such a big thing to them? “Again.” This time she did a down-stroke and I side-stepped. “No fair!!” she screamed.

He had Nyera give me the stick then, much to her disappointment, and tied his spare sweat-rag around my eyes, making sure not a single crack of light could get through. As always, in training, he was wearing his sword; now I felt him draw it, and kneel down in front of me to match my height. Slowly at first, he ran me through the Eight Blocks. I’d only ever practiced them with my hands before, but of course I’d seen them done with swords, so it was easy enough to extrapolate. I heard him spit, before he checked my blindfold, then tied another rag over it. The second time he went faster. By this time the children were all yelling with delight, cheering me on, and I was enjoying myself. “Try harder, shadow-father,” I teased him. Instead he banged his sword into its scabbard, ordered Urakaila to watch us, and leapt up from his knees straight into a dead run, his footfalls thumping towards the door of the School of the Sword.

“How are you doing that?” Mana said to me.

I yanked off the rags. “Doing what?”

“The blocks, without being able to see!”

I didn’t know how to explain; I’d never had to and never thought I would. “It’s… it’s… it’s the feel without touch. Like when you watch a fight with your eyes shut.” He just stared at me. “You’re all staring at me with your mouths flapping,” I said. “Why?” It took them some time to get it through my skull that none of the rest of them could do this, not even Urakaila; if they could not see or touch a weapon, they didn’t know where it was. That filled me with horror, and then awe for their courage; how could they even consider becoming warriors, so handicapped? Then my shadow-father came back with Azaila, who was the war-teacher of all the war-teachers, and a good half of the other war-teachers.

He got me to do it again, and when he pulled the blindfold off, the younger teachers, grown-ups all, sweaty with the exertion he’d drawn them away from, were staring at me no less astonished then the children had.

From then on I was Azaila’s, and only Azaila’s, student, at least formally.

After training was done, Esora-e took me back into the room where the Sword hung.

“You thought everyone had weapon-sense like yours, didn’t you?” he said. I signed chalk. I had been thinking; this explained the strange apparent blindnesses afflicting other people that I had always noticed. His eyes were bright as if he’d just been fighting, his cheeks flushed. “Azaila does; that’s why it must be him who teaches you. So do some of the other teachers. But they’ve trained fifty years for it. You were born with it. Do you know what that means?”

I found myself afraid to know, my heart drifting back to the edge of the cliff. I signed charcoal. He took my face between his hands again.

“If you always work as hard as you can in training, always do your best—which you always have so far—you, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, could be the greatest warrior in the world.”

I stood silent. I didn’t know what to say. His face split into a wide grin, and he touseled my hair. “Aren’t you glad you chose to stay with it?”