“The kid’s determined.”
Raithe backed up the steps to see over the heads of the sweaty men gathering in a ring around Sebek and Tesh. The two used actual swords, no shields, and were naked to the waist like everyone else. As always, Sebek held both his swords, Nagon and Tibor. Tesh had his own pair of Roan-made iron short swords.
Over the course of eight months, Tesh had excelled at combat training. The boy, who had marked his sixteenth birthday just two months before, had thrown himself into learning everything he could about fighting. He was out before dawn and came back to his bed late each night, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the mattress. At least twice he never made it to the bed, and Raithe found him asleep on the floor or table with a half-eaten meal beside him. All the exercise and ample food had turned the onetime cadaverous whelp into a lean, muscular lad. Still lanky, still not as tall as he would likely one day be, Tesh was already well on his way toward his goal of mastering the disciplines of the Galantians.
“Up for another beating?” Sebek grinned, spinning Tibor in his grip.
Tesh didn’t reply. He was crouched, blades up, concentrating, staring into Sebek’s eyes.
No one fought Sebek except Tesh. The Fhrey didn’t teach, he humiliated. He also injured. Everyone knew Sebek was talented enough to avoid injuring his opponents, but he was easily irritated by weak competition and showed his disappointment by drawing blood. During one match, a terrified farmer from Menahan started crying, and Sebek responded by cutting off the man’s little finger. No one fought Sebek after that—no one except Tesh. The lad desperately wanted to beat the master. The desire had turned into an obsession.
The kid invited Sebek to come at him, and Sebek obliged. His two blades looked more like ten as they whirled in circles, crisscrossing their course in a weaving pattern that left only streaks. The blades themselves moved too fast to be seen. When Tesh’s swords collided with Sebek’s, the sound was the crash of metal waves upon a metal shore. There were sparks. Raithe never saw any other colliding blades spark. He had witnessed the Galantians sparring with each other. Vorath and Tekchin frequently held grudge matches, but their clashes didn’t kick sparks. When Tesh fought Sebek, it always produced a light show.
The boy fell back. He always did. An onslaught from Sebek was a force of nature that couldn’t be resisted or contained. Raithe remembered the one time he’d battled Sebek, and it had been nothing like this. The Fhrey had calculatingly probed and then disarmed Raithe with his bare hand. Tesh was genuinely trying to win. He managed to catch strokes he couldn’t see, deflecting blind thrusts and ducking swipes even before they were made. Tesh looked like he was reading the Fhrey’s mind. And still Sebek was way out ahead, planning three strokes in advance, knowing not only that Tesh would manage to block, but how he would block—Sebek formulated attacks to counter Tesh’s moves before the lad even thought of them.
All forty-eight men stood in the field intently watching what was sure to be the most amazing display of combat any of them had ever seen. The spectators winced, gasped, and cringed, always after the fact—after disaster almost happened. Reactions were too slow to keep pace.
By Mari’s name, the kid is really good. Raithe wondered how such a thing was possible after only a year. No, not just a year. He’s Dureyan. That kid’s been fighting his whole life. He remembered how Tesh had brandished a dagger the day they first met, and how the boy had tripped him numerous times when the two sparred on the beaches of Dahl Tirre. Raithe had thought Tesh was entertaining. He’d had no idea what the kid was capable of.
He might have been able to kill me, even back then. It was like I was playing with a lion cub, and now it outweighs me.
Raithe never saw it happen. Everything was too quick. He heard it, though, an off-note, a clang instead of a ping, and one of Tesh’s swords flew from his hands.
Sebek didn’t let up; he attacked with unrelenting aggression. Tesh couldn’t block both of Sebek’s swords with just his one. The boy caught the first, but the second came across his open side. Sebek was going to exact payment for the fight; he was going to cut Tesh across the chest, leave a mark his opponent wouldn’t forget. But that didn’t happen.
Tesh slapped the blade away with his bare hand.
He did it three times before Sebek stopped the fight and lowered his blades. He nodded. “Better.”