He rubbed his beard. “Ah, there’s the girl that slapped me for a toy, I knew yeh were there somewhere.” He tossed Wardley’s sword at her, and Dinah managed to catch it without slicing her hand open. This, however, was to be the highlight of her day. The rest of that morning was spent getting bruised, hit, and cut open by the blunt end of Sir Gorrann’s sword. Every strike was deflected and every move of her body was dissected in an effort to find her weaknesses, which turned out to be everything.
As he flew around her, his voice never stopped lecturing. “Any move off balance and yeh belong to the enemy. A good swordsman can tell when his opponent is off balance and will use it to his advantage.”
Dinah tried to maintain perfect balance while wielding the sword but it never worked—she was always tipped slightly to one side or the other. The Spade continued to knock her to the ground with ease, but after a few times she leapt up quickly, at the ready to fight again.
“That was good. Work on getting up. Getting back in the fight. Yeh aren’t used to getting knocked down. Yeh must learn to expect it, to respond quickly when yer down. It can make the difference between victory and defeat. Every good fighter gets knocked down now and then. Now, give me back yer sword. We’ll try again tomorrow to correct yer balance, but until then yeh do not deserve it.”
Dinah clutched Wardley’s blade close to her chest. I have earned the right to this blade, she thought, I will not give it up so easily. She felt bold. “Come and take it!” she declared.
He did, and left her lying on a rocky ledge, out of breath, with a bloody nose. Once the morning ended, Sir Gorrann erased all traces of them at the campsite and they continued to weave their way deeper and deeper into the Yurkei Mountains. The terrain was ever changing. The ground rose and fell in rocky slopes, like waves of rock that crested and broke upon the valleys, spilling their huge boulders upon gorgeous green valleys before rising again. It was a physically exhausting climb, and Dinah periodically looked longingly at Morte, only to have him ignore her completely. Only once, when Dinah slipped on a rock and tore her shin open from top to bottom did Morte pause and lift his leg. Dinah wearily climbed up onto his massive back while Sir Gorrann watched with fascination.
“Thank you,” she breathed to him, letting her hand run over his smooth neck before he nipped at her. She loved the rhythm of Morte’s muscles beneath her, the ocean of black that coated his whole body. He climbed easily through the jagged peaks with which Sir Gorrann’s brown mare, Cyndy, seemed to increasingly struggle. The air became thinner and cleaner, and Dinah relished the sharp, cold breaths that cleared her mind.
They stopped to camp for the night, and Dinah was allowed her one question as the Spade stoked his nightfire. She asked about Harris, and learned that he had been imprisoned in the Black Towers. He was part of a group of prisoners being forced into slave labor, helping to reinforce the Iron Gates, and so Sir Gorrann said that Harris was outside for a few hours most days. He confessed that the old man looked broken, weary and sad. He was often covered with bruises and cuts inflicted by the Clubs. This news broke Dinah’s heart, and there wasn’t a day after that that she didn’t think of Harris’s kind face and soft hands. He had delivered her from her mother’s womb, loved her the way her father should have, taught her everything she knew, and now he was in pain. It was unforgivable, and the white-hot rage she felt toward her father could have burned the Twisted Wood to the ground. To her devastation, she learned that Emily had been beheaded in a shabby public execution, based on the testimony of Nanda and Palma, Vittiore’s ladies-in-waiting. The Spade didn’t talk to her for the rest of that evening, and Dinah was grateful. She stared out at the Wonderland stars, bunched together in small clusters, and didn’t bother to wipe the tears that dripped down her face.