“Have you never seen a grandmother without her cloak before?” And from behind her back she brought an ax with a shaft of dark wood and a thin, bearded blade. A beautiful weapon, snakes of strange letters etched into the bright steel. She held up her other hand, thumb folded in and fingers pressed together. “Here is my sword. A blade fit for the songs, no? Put me in the sea, boy, if you can.”
Skifr began to move. It was a baffling performance, lurching like a drunkard, floppy as a doll, and she swung that ax back and forth, knocking the boards and striking splinters. Brand watched her over his shield’s rim, trying to find some pattern to it, but he’d no idea where her next footstep might fall. So he waited for the ax to swing wide, then aimed a cautious swipe at her.
He could hardly believe how fast she moved. His wooden blade missed her by a hair as she darted in, caught the rim of his shield with that hooked ax and dragged it away, slipped past his sword arm and jabbed him hard in the chest with her fingertips, making him grunt and stagger back on his heels.
“You are dead,” she said.
The ax flashed down and Brand jerked his shield up to meet it. But the blow never came. Instead he winced as Skifr’s fingers jabbed him in the groin, and looking down saw her smirking face beneath the bottom rim of his shield.
“You are dead twice.”
He tried to barge her away but he might as well have barged the breeze. She somehow slipped around him, fingers jabbing under his ear and making his whole side throb.
“Dead.”
She chopped him in the kidneys with the edge of her hand as he tried to turn.
“Dead.”
He reeled around, teeth bared, sword flashing at neck height but she was gone. Something trapped his ankle, turning his war cry to a gurgle of shock, and he kept spinning, balance gone, lurching off the edge of the wharf—
He stopped, choking as something caught him around the neck.
“You are the deadest boy in Roystock.”
Skifr had one foot on his heel, the bearded blade of her ax hooked into his collar to keep him from falling, leaning sharply away to balance his weight. He was held helpless, teetering over the cold sea. The watching crowd had fallen silent, almost as dumbstruck at Skifr’s display as Brand was.
“You will not beat a strong man with strength any more than I will beat you with youth,” Skifr hissed at Thorn. “You must be quicker to strike and quicker when you do. You must be tougher and cleverer, you must always look to attack, and you must fight without honor, without conscience, without pity. Do you understand?”
Thorn slowly nodded. Of all those in the training square, she’d been the one who hated most being taught. But she’d been the one quickest to learn.
“Whatever happened here?” Dosduvoi had strolled up and stood staring at Brand as he dangled spluttering over the water.
“They’re training,” called Koll, who’d leaned out from the mast to flip a copper coin nimbly across his knuckles. “Why are you back so soon?”
“I lost terribly at dice.” He rubbed sadly at his great forearm, where a couple of silver rings had gone missing. “Awful luck, it was.”
Skifr gave a disgusted hiss. “Those with bad luck should at least attempt to balance it with good sense.” She twisted her wrist. The ax blade tore through Brand’s shirt collar and it was his turn to plunge flailing into cold water. His turn to drag himself up the ladder. His turn to stand dripping under the scorn of the crowd.
He found he enjoyed his turn even less than he had Thorn’s.
The Vansterman threw Skifr’s ragged cloak back to her. “An impressive performance.”
“Like magic!” Koll tossed his coin high but fumbled it on the way back so it flickered down towards the sea.
“Magic?” The old woman darted out a hand to pluck Koll’s coin from the air between finger and thumb. “That was training, and experience, and discipline. Perhaps I will show you magic another day, but let us all hope not.” She flicked the coin spinning far into the air and Koll laughed as he caught it. “Magic has costs you will not wish to pay.”
Skifr shrugged her coat back on with a snapping of cloth. “This style of fighting you have learned,” she said to Thorn, “standing in a row with shield and mail and heavy blade, it does not suit you. It is not meant to suit you.” Skifr dragged the shield from Thorn’s arm and tossed it rattling among the chests on the South Wind. “You will fight with lighter, quicker weapons. You will fight in lighter armor.”
“How will I stand in the shield wall without a shield?”
“Stand?” Skifr’s eyes went wide as cups. “You are a killer, girl! You are the storm, always moving! You rush to meet your enemy, or you trick him into meeting you, and on the ground of your choosing, in the manner of your choosing, you kill him.”
“My father was a famous warrior, he always said—”
“Where is your father?”
Thorn frowned for a moment, mouth half open, then touched her hand to a lump in her damp shirt, and slowly shut it. “Dead.”