Ko-Jin sank deeper, his bottom hitting the grass. He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or vomit. “So, this,” he gave a wild gesture towards her, “this could have stopped whenever I said I’d had enough?” His shallow laughs sounded like wheezes. “If I hadn’t been so proud…”
“Pride is a useful thing,” she said. “Not as good as passion, but it will do in a pinch.” She held out a hand, offering him aid.
He was half tempted to bat her arm away, still feeling distinctly petulant, but he didn’t. She helped haul him to his feet. He groaned, every speck of his body crying out in agony.
“I think I’m dying,” he said, matter-of-factly.
She snorted. “Then you’re not going to like tomorrow morning, Sung.”
Ko-Jin absently massaged his thigh muscle as he leaned forward, watching his bunkmate. In his eleven days at Elver’s school, his muscles had not once stopped aching.
“You’re still not following through,” Ko-Jin said. He flexed his leg once, savoring the ache that was, despite the pain, strangely delicious.
He stood and mimed throwing a knife, demonstrating the moment of release, “Here. At this point.”
Despite having pleaded with Ko-Jin for days to teach him knife throwing, Colson seemed to have no real inclination to actually learn.
“You do it again,” he said.
Ko-Jin loped to the makeshift target they’d nailed to the side of their cabin and tugged the throwing knife free. He paced back a good distance—though, in truth, he could hit the dead center from much farther away. It was his one impressive skill.
“Keep both eyes open, back straight, step and release.”
He demonstrated as he spoke, and the blade flew true.
Tevnne, who always looked in awe of Ko-Jin, said something in Adourran.
“Tev’s wonderin’ how you got so good at this,” Colson said.
Ko-Jin jogged forward to retrieve the knife, wishing they had more than one to practice with. “Well, when I was a kid I didn’t get around too well. My back and foot weren’t right. But my arms worked just fine, and I always had great aim. So, I used to throw this pocketknife of mine over and over again.” It was a soothing thing, that repeated motion—then and now. “And later, when I was stronger, I found that I could throw accurately from really far away.”
“How far? Like, all the way over there?” Colson asked, pointing to a bit of rock sticking up from the dry slope.
Ko-Jin looked briefly, but his attention wandered the instant he heard a recognizable woof.
“Hey, Artello,” he said as the massive dog bounded up to him, demanding affection.
Ko-Jin fixed his eyes on the slight walking path grooved in the grass. He smoothed his hair. Zarra appeared a short moment later, as he knew she would.
“You’ve had a letter,” she said, an envelope in one hand and her walking stick in the other.
“Thanks,” he said, taking it from her. She smelt like lavender soap, as if she’d bathed since they ended their afternoon practice. “You didn’t have to bring it.”
He glanced down and smiled at the familiar slanted handwriting of the address. His friend Yarrow had kept his promise to write regularly, though the contents of his letters were pretty dry. Ko-Jin would have done better to ask his mate Arlow to write—at least his letters would contain some gossip and intrigue.
Zarra shrugged off his comment. “What are you up to?”
Ko-Jin studied her face, hoping for a hint. This was not the first time she had joined him after their training session with a rather weak pretext.
As if, perhaps, she enjoyed his company.
As if, perhaps, she liked him.
The mere thought was like static electricity. He should probably hate her—she was a ruthless tyrant of a trainer—but he didn’t. Not a bit.
“Ko-Jin was about to show us how far he can throw a knife,” Colson said.
Ko-Jin’s interest in demonstrating this feat suddenly swelled. In his near fortnight at Elver’s, he’d done little to impress.
“Is that so?” she said. “Then by all means, don’t let me interrupt.”
Ko-Jin took the knife and trotted away. Far away.
“Ready,” he called out. If he was being honest with himself, he spoke only so that Zarra could better perceive his position.
He exhaled, focused on the target, and threw. The blade left his hand at just the right instant, flew across the remarkable distance, and thunked squarely into the middle of the bull’s-eye.
Colson and Tev cheered for him, and he couldn’t help but smile at their enthusiasm. He jogged back, feeling rather pleased with himself.
Zarra didn’t look impressed, but he suspected she was. She wasn’t the sort to offer compliments. “It’s probably dinner time,” she said, disappointingly.
“Great, I’m starved!” Colson said. “Hope there’s yams again. And meat. Ooh, and those little rolls. Tev loves them, don’t you Tev?” Colson bounced, setting his curls dancing. As a group, they set out down the hill. “Hey, Zarra, you think I could ride Art?”
“No,” she said, sternly. “You’d hurt his back.”
“Yeah, I know. I mean I won’t, but in an emergency do you think I could? He looks big enough.”
“An urgent, dog-riding emergency?” Ko-Jin quipped.
Zarra gave a short, soft laugh, and he glowed. They walked on—Colson jabbering endlessly, to no one’s particular annoyance. No one’s particular notice.
Ko-Jin gripped the smooth bamboo hilt and inhaled, tasting the dryness of the air. His limbs were relaxed, ready.
The sun was only just rising, the day still cloaked in hazy dimness. Zarra looked like a shadow before him, a stark form against a violet horizon. She whipped her blade a few times, and he imitated her. It was a satisfying motion.
They bowed to each other and engaged. Ko-Jin felt his drowsiness flit away, all of his senses centered on the blade in his hand and the blade in hers.
She struck; he parried. She feinted and attacked again, thumping him on the shoulder. They bowed once more.
It had been only two weeks, but he could sense his own improvement, even if his teacher offered no praise. Where he had been indifferent a fortnight ago, now he was greedy: he wanted to be better still, to know more. Odd—he couldn’t quite say when or how this change had come about.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“How can you tell I am?” he challenged.
“Your breathing.” She batted at her hair. “So why are you smiling?”
He shrugged in answer, having no particular reason to give. He was happy, so he smiled. It was simple. Even fatigued, aching, and up before dawn, he was happy.
She frowned at him. “I’ve asked around about you, Sung,” she said.
As he opened his mouth to respond, she struck. He lifted his sword arm just in time to meet her blade with a resounding clack. He slid left and aimed a blow at her side. She anticipated him.
“I’ve heard some very interesting reports,” she said, thrusting forward.
He dodged. “Is that so?”
Her bare feet twisted in the dirt and she landed a blow on his arm. She smiled, that same wide slice of teeth that dominated her face. Then she readied herself to begin again.
“You used to be handicapped,” she said as their wasters met again.
“No kidding?” he grunted, lunging right. Zarra danced back. He followed. “What else’ve you heard?”
Half her mouth pulled up, and a trail of sweat snaked down her temple. “The girls say you’re a modern-day Verellio.”
Ko-Jin jabbed and she evaded. “What, the Adourran pirate?”
She feinted right, then struck with incredible speed towards his head. He rolled to the ground and flipped deftly back to his feet. She sensed his location immediately and avoided his next blow.
“Yes. Though they were referring to his looks, not his piracy.”
Ko-Jin stumbled mentally at this. His heart, which had been beating
rhythmically, gave several erratic jolts. “His looks?”
She smiled and slid forward on nimble feet. “Yes, you know. The face that breaks hearts.” She swung. “The biceps that break bones.” He blocked. “Women undone at his smile. Rippling pectorals. All that.”
Her waster jabbed him hard in the shoulder, and he hissed.
His fingers probed at the spot. He’d have a nice bruise. “Leave it to the Adourrans to include pectoral descriptions in their epics.”
She laughed and swatted at another rogue curl. Ko-Jin endeavored to catch his breath, hand to knee.
“The girls say you don’t flirt back.” She arched a brow. “I wonder why that is.”
He was glad she couldn’t see the flush in his cheeks. “Are you ready to go again?” he asked, lifting his weapon.
“You don’t seem to suffer from shyness,” she said, a hand on her hip. “Do you prefer men?”
“What?” Ko-Jin asked, his voice a defensive squawk. “No!”
She shrugged. “It would be fine if you did—”
“I like women, alright,” he said. “Just not the ones who look at me like I’m a juicy steak.”
She snorted. “Do they, really?”
He flicked his braid over his shoulder and frowned at her. “Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes.”
Artello, clearly thinking their fight had ended, pawed up to his mistress and whined for attention.
She knelt and rubbed his ears, and he wagged his tail in approval.
“I doubt most young men would mind.”
“People rarely understand the repercussions of getting what they want.”
She stood. “How profound, Sung,” she said sarcastically. “Stop evading. I have a theory about you, about what your problem is, and I need you to confirm it.”
“I don’t have a problem!”
“I have to walk to town and get milk again this morning,” she said, dusting off her dress. “Care to accompany me?”
His brow creased at this unexpected shift in conversation. Yes, I’d love to. “No, not really.”
“Too bad. Let’s go.”
Zarra set a quick pace, Artello at her side, stalking purposefully down the narrow dirt road that connected the Elver compound to the nearest town.
Ko-Jin sent curious glances her way as they wandered out into the uninhabited plains. What was that all about? Gnats swarmed around his sweaty face, and he swatted at them.
“You seem irritable, Sung,” she said at last, not turning her face to him.
“I can’t imagine why that would be.”
“You do have a problem, you know.” The monstrous dog barked his agreement. “Your swordplay is uninspired. You fight like a stupid man. But you aren’t a stupid man, are you?”
Ko-Jin nearly tripped. He had always valued bluntness, but was beginning to think that polite lies were underrated things. “What does that have to do with—”
Her walking stick brushed against the road. “Do you want to hear my theory?”
“No.”
She laughed. Was this woman ever offended? “Again I say, ‘too bad.’ So, here it is: you were severely handicapped for most of your life—”
“I wasn’t severely handicapped.”
Her eyebrows soared. “Could you ride a bike?”
“No. Can you?”
She snickered. “Yes, but I tend to hit things. Now, as I was saying, you were handicapped, and then suddenly you weren’t. Which, I imagine, would be a rather wonderful thing. After a while, though, you probably started to have something of an identity crisis.”
“Have you studied psychology or are you making this up as you go?”
She gestured for him to stop interrupting. “You’re making me lose my train of thought. Where was I?”
“I was having an identity crisis.”
“Right.” She smiled at the dryness of his tone. “So you were. Which is understandable. You probably felt as if the body you were living in wasn’t really you. Which is why you don’t like the women looking at you like a piece of meat.”
“Stop being so perceptive.”
She bounced a bit at his affirmation. “And the girls likely didn’t stare so much before—”
“There you are wrong. They stared, alright.”
“A different kind of stare, I take it.”
“Indeed.” He shot an accusatory glance at her. How did she get me to open up?
The town, Croenne, came into view. The sun had risen fully and Ko-Jin’s robes were already beginning to moisten with sweat, a perpetual problem.
Artello bounded off the path, drawn to an evergreen shrubbery. Zarra tapped her walking stick. “Here, boy.”
The dog looked around at her voice, but returned to his shrub with interest.
Her nose twitched. “Do you smell that?”
Ko-Jin sniffed at the air, but detected nothing unusual. “No.”
“Smells like carrion. Can you make sure Artello isn’t eating some rotting antelope for me?”
Ko-Jin stepped off the road towards the towering brown canine. As he approached, he caught the cloying smell of putrid flesh.
“Come on, Art,” he said. He pushed aside the greenery to see what was so interesting, and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Zarra asked.
Ko-Jin swallowed down the sick feeling that began to rise in his stomach. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrible sight. A young man’s body, horribly mauled, sprawled within the brush. Great gashes sliced open his chest, his entrails splayed across the dusty ground. A fly stood upon a vacant, open eye.
The wind shifted and the smell assaulted Ko-Jin’s nose. His gut contracted, but he swallowed down the desire to vomit.
“Sung?”
He took hold of Artello’s collar and pulled him back to the path. “One of your grandfather’s pupils has been missing, right?” he asked, his voice grim.
“Yes.” Her nostrils flared. “Great Sprits, is that him?”
“It’s definitely somebody. Or was somebody.”
Hervenne Elver looked grim as he stepped out of his house and bade farewell to the constable. Ko-Jin sat beside Zarra upon an overturned crate, watching the old man.
The sword master noticed them and walked over, his mouth drawn thin.
“Was it an animal, Grandfather?” Zarra asked. She sounded more weary than traumatized.
“Lion,” he said.
“Again?” she asked.
“Again?” Ko-Jin repeated. “Lion attacks are common?”
“No. But he’s the second this year to meet such an end. Don’t know why either of the lads would wander off by themselves.”
“You should get some rest, Grandfather. It’s late,” Zarra said.
Bright pricks of light in the rapidly darkening sky confirmed her statement. The day had been a long, unpleasant one. Ko-Jin hadn’t known the boy, but he still felt sick. Unclean.
Hervenne nodded. “You two will be alright?”
“Of course we will,” Zarra said. She stood and wrapped her grandfather in a tight hug.
He kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, then, girl.”
After his form had receded into the night she turned back to Ko-Jin and sighed. “This is going to trouble him. I can tell he feels responsible.”
Ko-Jin stood too. “I’ve never seen him look so…”
“Old?” she offered.
“Yes.”
They stood quietly for a moment. Ko-Jin rocked on his heels, unsure what to say.
“I feel so—” she paused. “Dirty.”
“Me too.” He thought he could still discern the horrible stench on his robes. “I’d kill to bathe.”
“We should go for a swim, then,” she said. “If you want, I mean.”
His brows rose in surprise. “Sure. Why not?”
She guided him through the night, her feet crossing the familiar terrain with confidence. Ko-Jin, who had little light to see by, stumbled several times at her side. Uncha
racteristically, she offered him no jibe.
The lake sat at the south of the compound, its waters inky in the darkness. When they came to the edge of the water, Zarra began unbuttoning her dress, and Ko-Jin gulped. He turned away, as he supposed a gentleman should, and began removing his robes and boots.
Clad in small clothes and starlight, they waded out into the water. He’d hoped it would be cool, but the lake was warm as bathwater. He dunked his head and kicked out into the depths.
“Pity Artello couldn’t join us,” Ko-Jin said, when it seemed he should say something.
She smiled and skimmed her hands over the surface of the lake, casting ripples. “He’s afraid of the water anyway.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, he might look fearsome, but really he’s a great coward.”
“Unlike his mistress.”
She made a dismissive sound.
“No, really. Is there anything you don’t do? Being blind doesn’t seemed to have deterred you in the least.”
She swam closer to him. The silvery light highlighted the sharp line of her cheekbone, the fullness of her bottom lip.
“My father, before he died, made it his mission to make me feel empowered. He believed I could do anything, so I believed it as well. I’ve had a blade in my hand since I could stand.” She turned her face to him. “You were that way too, I bet.”
He swam out a bit further, kicking his legs. “You’ve got that right. I used to get up to all kinds of mischief.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back in the water, floating. “For example?”
Ko-Jin tread back in her direction. “Well,” he said, searching his memory, “when I was about nine, I took out one of my step-dad’s boats by myself to go fishing. After a long while, I caught this huge swordfish.” He lifted his hands out of the water with a splash and held them as far apart as he could reach. “This big, I swear.”
She paddled closer and laughed. “Sung, are you demonstrating the size of the fish with your hands?”
“Ah,” he said and let his hands fall. “Right. Anyway, it was big. But I was a little guy then, and my back was twisted and my left foot didn’t work right, so I couldn’t lift off with my feet the way anyone else would. It was heavy, and it was fighting me and the line was cutting into my palms, but I refused to let the thing go. It nearly ripped me right out into the water.”
Maturation of the Marked Page 3
