“What were you trying to do?” he asked her.
“Use your grip on me to pull you off balance,” she answered. It was important that they were always communicating the thoughts behind the actions. “I wanted to throw you.”
“I was on your leg,” he stated, motioning down with his chin. During this part, they always moved very slowly, reenacting the previous combat. “Where is your leverage?”
She thought a moment. “Ah!” she said. “I was trying to pull you toward me. You flopped on top of me. I should have used the Unbreakable Arm and pulled you this way.” Her arm went rigid as she twisted, pulling him backward. Paedrin felt the shift in his posture and the momentum carried him over onto his back, pulling her on top of him, knife blade still caught by his wrist, but now she was on top.
Her hair tickled his face.
“Correct,” he praised. “That would have worked better.”
She gazed down at him, her eyes narrowing slowly, her expression shifting into another of her mercurial moods.
“I’m getting closer now,” she said softly. “Closer to cutting you. I don’t think we should practice with the dagger.”
“You weren’t that close.”
“Part of me still holds back though,” she said, shaking her head. The tips of her hair were vastly annoying on his cheek. “I don’t want to cut you.”
“If I get cut, I deserve to be cut,” he answered. “You are getting better though. I will admit that. Your hand forms need some work still. Practice your stretches for a while. There is still daylight left.”
She nodded, tickling his face one more time with a smirk, then pushed up to her feet. She sheathed the dagger in her belt then extended one leg in front and curled the other leg behind. Leaning forward, she stretched, clutching her bare foot with her hands and pulled herself as low as she could. Paedrin’s flexibility had been instilled since childhood. Hers improved vastly day by day. She never complained about the pain of the stretching. She threw herself into it, as if the knotting feeling in her stomach was a joy instead of agony. Pain is a teacher. She seemed to relish being a student.
Paedrin stood and brushed the grass from his Bhikhu robes and scanned the land ahead. They were well outside the range of the pack dogs of Kenatos, in the grassy hillocks south of Silvandom and north of Stonehollow. Another day of traveling would bring them inside the forests of Lydi. But even from the great distance where they were, they could see the flat blue line of the ocean. He had always imagined what that would be like. The vastness of it was beyond his previous imagination. The horizon stretched as far as he could see, nothing but a flat, gray-blue line. They were still several leagues away from it, high in the hills. A broad forest stretched out in front of them. But the port city of Lydi was clearly visible in the horizon to the south. There were easily thousands of ships anchored there, clotting the port like beetles.
The vastness of the ocean had caught him unprepared. It was not the smelly waters of the lake surrounding Kenatos, but the real, foaming oceans that his forefathers had sailed generations before. The anticipation of it was delicious. They had chosen to stop and train on the hilltop, providing a view of the land west as well as the path east where they had come from.
Hettie finished the stretch and then switched legs, leaning down the length of her leg, her back arched. Paedrin knelt in the grass behind her and placed both hands against her lower back and pushed.
“Harder,” she said, stifling a groan. He put more of his weight into it and felt her breath quicken with pain. He leaned against her, seeing her jaw muscles clench with the suffering of the stretch and held it for several moments before easing up.
“Again,” she panted, shaking her head. “Push again.”
“You truly defy everything, including pain,” he said, then obliged her. He pushed even harder, feeling her firm muscles. He waited longer, knowing it was excruciating to her. Yet she did not complain. He eased up the grip. She gasped with relief.