No prior true crossing of swords had ever lasted so long for Dassem. As veterans will say, most duels last only for one or two passes; superiority – or luck – usually reveals itself quickly.
She and he, however, had had time to become acquainted with one another’s style and potential. This ruled out one of the main reasons behind the speed of most encounters: ignorance of the true ability of one’s opponent. Their rigorous training also ruled out more commonplace explanations – overconfidence, impetuousness, and plain simple panic.
As Shear continued to push him it became clear that he would have to end this convincingly; no false yielding would satisfy her. So he gave veiled retreat while quickly changing angles before turning to the attack. Now she gave ground before him.
In mid-advance he suddenly switched to a new style that he had not yet used with her, a more raw brawling technique of the southern confederacy, and surprised her for an instant. This fraction of a second of advantage was all it bought him, yet it was enough to brush his blade across her forearm. She pulled back, disengaging, and stood openly breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. She raised her bokken to her mask, acknowledging the touch, then sheathed it savagely through her sash. Both knew that in a bout as even as theirs such a wound – though certainly not fatal – would tip the scales in Dassem’s favour. The match was over.
He sheathed his own bokken. ‘An excellent fight,’ he began, but Shear simply turned and walked away into the moonlight. Frowning, he hurried after her. ‘Please do not be upset. One of us had to win, the other not. You knew this.’
He was surprised to see her wiping at her face beneath her mask. ‘You do not understand.’
‘Will you not explain?’
She grasped her sash tightly. ‘Among my people,’ she began, clearing her throat, ‘I held a certain rank among the most skilled. Now I must abandon that rank.’
‘Because you lost to an outsider?’
‘Because I lost.’
‘Ah.’ He walked silently with her for a time. The night wind was chill and he enjoyed the sensation as it crossed his sweaty face and cooled his sweat-soaked shirt. ‘Do not be hard upon yourself. You should not take this defeat as meaning anything.’
‘Oh? And why is that?’
‘Because I am not like any other.’
Her lips quirked in amusement and she spared him one quick glance. ‘Forgive me, but that sounds vain.’
‘It is true. It was not a fair fight.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because I am already dead.’
She halted amid the tall grass and, surprised, he halted as well. She studied him closely, then shook her head. ‘Now you sound deluded, or insane.’
‘No, it is true.’ He invited her onward. ‘Walk with me and I will tell you a story I have never told anyone else.’
Still she did not move. ‘And what is this tale?’
‘The story of my youth.’
She set a palm to the pommel of her bokken and peered round at the empty shadowed rustling grasslands; it was not yet midnight. Grinding out a breath, she walked on. ‘If you must.’
He caught up, tucked his hands into his sash.
‘I was born on the Dal Hon savanna. I never knew my father. Our village bordered a hilly region of dry caves, sinkholes and gorges. Here we children often went to play our games of brigands, raiders, and champions. And it was here that my journey began.
‘One eve we played too long among the dusty gorges and ravines. Dusk came quickly, as it does in equatorial regions. Perceiving our negligence, and our danger, we ran for the village. I was among the youngest of the band, and the last straggler. That was when we heard the hunting growl of a leopard closer than we’d ever heard it before.
‘We all screamed and ran in a blind panic, of course. We all knew the danger. These predators patrolled the boundaries of our village nightly, and we all knew someone – a cousin, or a neighbour’s daughter – who had been taken over the years.’
Shear had her bokken out and was swishing it through the tall grass. ‘Do not tell me you were eaten by a leopard.’
‘No. Something even stranger. In the darkness and panic I fell into one of the many sinkholes and caves that pocketed the hills. Down I tumbled and struck my head.’ He looked to the starred night sky, frowned in recollection. ‘I arose – dazed from the blow to my head – and groped through the tunnels and caverns in a fog. How long I wandered I know not. All I know is that eventually I collapsed, perhaps from pain, or exhaustion, or even starvation.’
He glanced to Shear, awaiting another glib comment, but she was silent, evidently content to listen for the moment. He continued, ‘I awoke to the light of a small fire, and I was not alone. Someone sat across the fire. At the time I thought him just a skinny old man, but later I realized that he was in fact a dried and desiccated corpse – perhaps the remains of another victim of the sinkholes. He told me that if I wished to escape the caves and return to my family I had to defeat him, and he tossed an old rusted hook-blade to me.’
‘What did you do?’ Shear asked, wonder now colouring her voice.
Dassem laughed. ‘First I ran! I searched every foot of the caverns for escape. But there was none. The only way out was through him. And so I picked up the old blade and had at him.’
‘And what happened?’ Shear breathed.
He shrugged. ‘He beat me down, of course. And when I straightened once more he corrected my grip. The next time he showed me a stance.’ He let out a shaky breath then, as if reliving the terror of those lightless days. ‘And so it went. On and on. Eventually I would become sleepy and lie down. When I awoke a small meal would be ready by the fire – a seared lizard or snake, a handful of old stale rice. And then we would fight again.
‘As the days passed, I came to realize that I would never defeat this creature, whatever it was. So I threw down the blade. I told it I would not cooperate; that it had to let me pass.’
‘And what happened?’ Shear asked for a second time.
He shrugged again. ‘It struck me down. When I awoke, I repeated my demand. And it struck me down once more. This kept on for some time, until, eventually, for some unknown reason, it relented and allowed me to pass.’
‘I see,’ Shear said quietly. ‘So that is why you are different? Not like other swordmasters?’
They had stopped walking, as the camp was near. Its torches and lamps shone among the wagons and tents like a constellation brought to earth.