Blade Dancer

by S. L. Viehl

  Guilt made my face hot. “I’ll watch Birdie’s back.”

  “For every moment of every session?” His hand chopped the air. “You cannot.”

  “I didn’t ask her to come here, did I? I didn’t ask any of you!” So I was yelling. It was better than shoving

  his face into the disposal. “If you can’t handle it, go back to Joren.”

  His hand clamped on my shoulder. “We are your kin. We stay together; we fight as one.”

  “First the religious garbage, then the HouseClan shit. God, you are so predictable.” I pushed his hand

  away. “I don’t care what my mother said, Kol. You are not my kin. You’re a bunch of strangers who

  tagged along for the ride, and I’m getting really tired of carrying your weight.” I would have shoved past

  him, but he wasn’t giving me any space. “Get out of my face.”

  Instead of being wise and backing off, he took my tunic in his fists and pinned me against the cleansing

  unit. “You dishonor me. You dishonor us.”

  I looked down at his hands. “I can do worse.”

  “I would see you try,” he said, so close his breath warmed my face and his scent enveloped me. Different

  this time—more rain than pine. And hotter, like it had come from a cloud on fire.

  The threat should have made my claws spring, but the rage simmering inside me felt different from any I’d

  felt before. More personal than defensive. Every inch of my skin seemed to be heating up. “Let go.”

  “We are Jorenian,” he muttered, still moving in. “Say it.”

  “No, we’re not.” As his heavy body pressed into mine, I understood what was happening. If that wasn’t

  surprising enough, I realized I wanted it. My hands slid up his chest, and I pulled his head down to mine.

  “Not now.”

  Kissing had never interested me. Rijor had considered it an unsanitary custom, and no one on the

  homeworld had ever tempted me to find out why other species liked it so much. I got my first clue when

  Kol’s mouth touched mine.

  Nothing had ever felt like this.

  The initial jolt shot through me like a triple penalty. The shock of tasting him, his hands moving down my

  back, our hearts pounding in rapid, heavy sync. The feel and smell of him, the way his muscles tightened

  and flexed, all so close I felt as if we might sink into each other.

  “You smell like jaspkerry and safira,” he muttered against my mouth.

  The door of the cleansing unit gave way, and we staggered back together into it. The port sensor

  snapped on, and a steady stream of warm water poured over us.

  All that, and still the kiss went on, changing and deepening until my lungs burned for air and his fingers

  dug into my hips. The two soggy layers of material separating us became intolerable—I needed his hands

  on my bare skin, wanted to rip his tunic apart so I could get at him.

  Something banged on the other side of the door panel.

  “Kol?” Danea sounded tired and grumpy. “What are you doing in there?”

  I wrenched my mouth away, dragging in air, seeing the shock echo in his eyes. Water ran down his face,

  beaded on his dark lashes. I smiled slowly and leaned in to lick a drop from his chin. “You want to kill

  her, or should I?”

  “A moment, Danea.” He guided me out of the unit, then stepped away. His eyes and expression went

  blank. “Your pardon, Sajora, I should not have”—he paused to take a deep breath, then let it out—“I

  mean to say, we should not have done this. It is unseemly.”

  Unseemly?

  I blinked some water from my eyes. “What?” He couldn’t be brushing me off. Not after all the heat we’d

  just generated. Maybe there were some ritual words that had to be said. God knew Jorenians had them

  for everything else. “What did I do wrong?”

  “You did nothing,” he said, making another, very formal gesture of apology. “It is not your fault; you do

  not understand.”

  “Then explain it to me so I do.”

  “We do not share a bond.” He looked a little uncomfortable. “Sexual intimacy outside bond is forbidden

  to us.”

  Mom had told me her people stayed virgins until they got married, but I’d thought she was joking.

  “You’re kidding. Why?”

  “Choice is more than marriage. It is the bearing of children.”

  “Uh, no. Thanks.” I grimaced. “I’ve already decided I’m not the maternal type. Forget about me having

  kids.”

  He wiped a hand over the sparkling black stubble on his skull. “We Choose our bondmates for life, and

  bond only with them.”

  He was dead serious. “And you can’t break this rule? Ever?”

  “No.”

  Danea hit the door panel again. “Come out of there!”

  I ignored her. “Kol, I hate to be the bearer of lousy tidings, but no Jorenian will ever Choose either of us.

  We’re crossbreeds sired outside a bond. They consider us bloodline pollution. You know that.”

  “That may be so. Still, I hold to the customs of my people.” He looked over my head. “I cannot take

  you.”

  “Really.” I grabbed his soaked tunic and jerked until he was down on my eye level. “What if I decide to

  take you?”

  “Think for moment, Sajora. It is not only a question of Choice.” He trailed his fingers over my damp

  cheek. “We may share the same sire.”

  My offcoach used to break up fights by dousing two players with a bucket of ice chips. Kol’s warning

  worked just as effectively, and I shoved him away. “Right. I’ll remember that. ClanBrother.”

  “My heart—”

  “Save it.” I punched the door release and knocked Danea aside going out. I barely felt the sizzle of pain

  from the brief contact with her corporeal field.

  “What were you doing in there?” she demanded.

  “Scrubbing each other’s backs.” Realizing everyone was still awake and watching me, I went to my mat.

  Galena, who had parked her mat next to mine, stared as I stretched out. “Jory. You are all wet.”

  “I know.” I closed my eyes. “I’ll get over it.”

  Despite Kol’s orders, I had no intention of dodging Fayne. Hiding from a bully was useless. But she

  didn’t appear on the second level again, and after a few days it became apparent that the confrontation

  had either scared off all the lesser bullies, or they were content to wait for Blondie to take care of us.

  Our training progressed, and by the time we learned how to function on four hours of sleep, Dursano

  appeared to award us with yellow bands, which we discovered entitled us to six-hour rest periods. We

  also earned extra time for meal intervals, which we used to speculate on when we would be advanced

  while we watched a few bouts in the student quad.

  “The targeting trainer says we do not qualify for advancement until we complete seven rotations of

  training without a single error.” Galena sounded glum. “That shall be some time for me, I fear.”

  “We have yet to enter blade training,” Osrea said. “You will improve with time.”

  “Get out of the way.” Cirilo and one of Fayne’s bug pals plowed through the center of our group,

  knocking into Birdie so hard she was thrown to the floor. “Idiot yellows.”

  I glanced to see Os snatch her completely up off the red-lined floor, preventing her from getting a shock,

  then saw Kol’s arm whip out to grab Nalek’s. They used their arms to clothesline Cirilo, who went down,

  stunned. Before the bug could react, Danea slapped a h
and on its back to give it a jolt.

  I had my blade out and in Pinhead’s face before he could rise. “Which eye would you like to lose? The

  right, the left, or the middle one?”

  “You’re dead,” he said, grinning as his gray-haired primate friends joined us. “Fayne will see to it.”

  “Fayne has problems seeing over her footgear.” I stepped back as the apes got Pinhead up from the

  floor. “Don’t mess with us, Cirilo.”

  “Already dead.” He started laughing as he and his pals walked off. “Already dead.”

  After three more weeks of learning to dodge strikes, wrestle, conceal ourselves, and crawl through

  various simulated environments undetected, we went from yellow to orange bands, and were ordered as

  a group to report from movement directly to bladework. From that day, the trainer drone informed us,

  we would be actively using everything we’d learned since beginning second-level training.

  “Finally.” I touched the hilt of my tån. “This blade probably has rust growing on it.”

  The class trainer replaced the yellow band around my upper arm with the orange. “Your weapon does

  not rust. See to it that your skills learned here do not, as well.” It scanned the rest of our group. “You are

  welcome to return to my session for additional practice after bladework at any time. Good luck.”

  We weren’t the only students sent to the class, which was five times larger than any of the others. Some

  twenty of our peers from other sessions also walked in with us. Already waiting were more than thirty

  other students, paired off on one side of the room. They were all sparring with various transmutations of

  their tåns, although none of them were using their blades in the split osu form.

  One shrouded figure pacing the perimeter around the fifteen pairs called a halt, and turned to us. “Assume

  positions on those marks”—it indicated a series of short lines carved into long stretches of the

  floor—“and kneel.”

  We stayed together, surrounded by the other rookies, while the experienced students took positions at

  the very back of the room. As we knelt, the trainer went up to the front and stepped up on a raised

  platform. He removed his obek-la, revealing a thin, badly scarred humanoid face with large, beautiful

  brown eyes. Patches of tawny fur grew in an irregular wreath around his brow and chin, which, guessing

  from the scar tissue, had been burned or scoured off sometime in the distant past.

  With the dimsilk shroud removed, I could see he was very small—barely five feet tall. Yet he wore a

  black dancer’s band around his forehead.

  Guess size isn’t everything.

  “I am Bek, a Chakaran male.” As he said this, he displayed abbreviated fangs instead of teeth. “You will

  address me as Bek or Trainer.” He studied the four lines of kneeling forms. “There is only one rule here:

  You will follow my instructions. If I tell you to put down your weapon, you will do so. If I tell you to

  stand on your cranial case, you will do so. If I tell you to kill, you will do so. If you understand and

  accept this, stand. If you do not, leave.”

  After some hesitant glances all around the room, everyone stood.

  “Excellent.” He pointed to the first line of rookies. “You ten, move to the south corner. Second line, to the

  north. Third and fourth, you will observe from your present positions. Sparring students, return to your

  form practice.”

  The seven of us were all in the third line, so we stayed put.

  Bek went to the north and south groups, and ordered them to remove their tåns. “Look upon what you

  hold. On most worlds, the bladed weapon was created for a single purpose: to open living flesh. Here on

  Reytalon, the tån was created to train those who wish to kill. It is not the weapon—you are.”

  The way the trainer said that made a shiver crawl up my spine.

  “A novice knows nothing about plying the blade, or the capacity one has for self-preservation. When a

  blow is struck”—the trainer whipped out his blade and slashed at the nearest student, who threw up an

  arm, trying to fend off the blow—“the novice parries instinctively, defending himself.” Bek turned to the

  rest of us. “Before you can wield the blade, you must overcome this instinct.”

  One of the students behind us made a chuffing sound. “We must allow ourselves to be stabbed?”

  “No.” Bek showed more fang. “You will learn shahada—the movements and patterns that allow you to

  strike first.”

  The first day in bladework was exhausting. Bek drove the class relentlessly, beginning with our blades in

  raen-tån form. While we knelt and watched, he had a pair of experienced students demonstrate the

  two-handed grips required to wield the long sword, then the most basic of cuts, thrusts, and parries.

  Then we paced in a widely spaced circle, practicing the moves by slicing at the air.

  I’d never kept my blade in raen-tån form before, and discovered the holographite increased in density

  along with size. After a few minutes the weight began to drag at my arms, and within the first hour my

  muscles cramped. I didn’t complain. Some of the other students did, and Bek immediately dismissed

  them from the class.

  “When your trainers certify that your upper-body strength has improved by twenty percent,” he told

  them, “then you may return.”

  “So there are two rules,” I said in a low voice to Galena as I kept moving. “Do what he says, and no

  complaining.”

  Bek’s ears flicked. “You may complain if you like, Saj. After the session is finished.”

  It was also good to know the Chakaran had ears like a bat. “Will do, Trainer.”

  We were all ready to drop when Bek finally called a halt, and sent us for a short meal interval. That was

  when we discovered that having orange bands meant a new, mandatory change in diet, and we had to sit

  in a special area reserved for students in blade training.

  “I think it is protein of some kind.” Birdie sniffed at the bland-looking stew we’d been served, and made a

  face. She was a devoted vegetarian. “Does anyone want my portion?”

  “Eat it if you can, ClanSister.” Although he wasn’t fond of meat, either, Kol dug into his. “This may be the

  only fare we are permitted for some time.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked. I liked meat, when I could identify it. I didn’t know anything, real or synthetic, that

  cooked up this particular shade of gray.

  “Given the nature of this new training, maintaining our muscle mass is imperative. Doubtless this has been

  designed to aid, and perhaps improve, our physical conditions.”

  I tasted the stew, which was about as appetizing as it looked. “Or we pissed off someone in the kitchen.”

  A drone unit brought by a trolley loaded with fresh fruit from a variety of worlds. “When you finish your

  meal, you may help yourselves.” It waited like a stern parent, watching the levels in our bowls.

  Galena gave the fruit a wistful glance and picked up her spoon. “This had better help me grow back my

  feathers.”

  After the meal, we returned to the bladework room. The experienced students stood around the

  challenge quad, watching a bout between two blues.

  “I wonder what Scar-Face is going to do to us now,” I said as we walked through the door panel. Then

  we stopped, and looked up with everyone else.

  Dozens of bodies had been hung on cords from the ceiling, and swayed gently over our hea
ds. They

  were swaddled in plain white fabric from head to foot, and the cords had been tied tightly around their

  necks.

  Osrea muttered a short prayer, then added, “I did not think the stew was that bad.”

  “They’re not real.” I reached up and felt the foot of one of the “bodies.” “Stuffed.”

  “These are practice targets,” Bek said. He went to a wall console and pressed something, and the cords

  began lowering the figures. I saw how the cords were attached to alloy poles fitted into scrolling tracks

  on the ceiling. He flicked another switch, and red lights glowed beneath the white fabric shrouds. “The

  lighted areas are kill zones. Use the forms you have practiced today to strike these areas. Take your line

  positions.”

  We resumed our places, with a practice form dangling in front of each of us. I thought mine looked a little

  like Fayne.

  “Remove your blades and transmute to raen-tån.” Bek looked around the room, and when everyone was