We broke off and made our bows to our teacher, Darkfistz trying to hide his shame at overstepping the sparring rules, though I wasn’t sure if it was at having attempted to plaster me to the wall, or just being caught at it. On Master Brandon’s command we squared off and began sparring again. My partner went back to his see-I’m-letting-you-win strikes again, which I barely moved to dodge.
“Mr. Dark! You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to land anything on Ms. Sami! Go on now, ‘careful’ doesn’t mean ‘don’t’. If your Stone Stance is deep enough, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried, I just don’t want to hurt her, that’s all. You know how they can be.”
“’They’ who?” Master Brandon’s eyes were twinkling but not smiling, and I decided I’d had enough of Mr. Darkfistz. I danced in and kicked him, hard, just below the knee, pushing his weight over the one part of the ankle that can’t roll to absorb it. It’s a tricky attack for the tall races, but it’s right in the middle of a halfling’s strike zone. Darkfistz stumbled, but I didn’t press the attack. I wasn’t trying to hurt him, just to engage him so we could demonstrate our training.
“Stone Stance, Mr. Darkfistz! Sink into the floor and she won’t topple you.”
The half-dwarf flushed red, resettled himself, and began striking at me in earnest, punches and kicks rushing past my head. Finally! I settled into my own zone, which was a floating bubble in the breeze, and evaded his limbs as if he were fighting through honey. Master Brandon called out advice, encouragement, and the occasional rumble of warning to Darkfistz to slow down, and in my peripheral attention I noticed the rest of the class had stopped their own sparring to watch us. “Stone versus Wind,” Marka whispered to Gritsmith. “I’ve read about this! There are famous fights between the Grandmasters to settle the debate over which is more powerful.”
“Oh?” He seemed intrigued. “And what do th’ Grandmasters say?”
“Smart money is usually on Stone. Air has to elude every time, but Stone only needs to get lucky once.”
She had a point. If Darkfistz landed a single hit on me, I had nothing beneath my feet to anchor and absorb the energy, as Stone did so excellently. Meanwhile, my own blows didn’t have the power to do much more than annoy my bigger opponent, since I was forbidden from fighting dirty. It was all very well to say my technique would have been highly effective against someone who didn’t out-mass me by so much—but my experience is that you don’t get picked on by soloist bullies who are smaller than you.
If my strikes are only good for annoying him, then I will do what I’m good at. I stopped trying to land a disabling blow of any kind and just started lightly hitting the half-dwarf whenever I got the chance. Jump in, dodge, tag, spin away. Jump, dodge, tag, spin. Jump, dodge, tag, spin!
It was working. Every tag provoked an angry retaliation that went whooshing by me in a massive expenditure of energy, while I spent almost nothing, floating easily on the air. I did Autumn Leaf Drifting several times over, danced my way through Cat, and even managed the first half of Sphinx Ascending, all while I cartwheeled and tumbled around Darkfistz in a tango with the wind that looked supernatural to everyone who could only see one of the dancers. Voice oscillated between gushing enthusiastic critique of how cool the moves looked, and narrating everything in a ridiculous accent that dropped the L’s and referred to everyone as “grasshopper”. Darkfistz’s strikes whirred past me, always a moment too late, to his mounting fury—and then, finally, it happened.
His Stone Stance cracked. Not by much, and with his next punch it was back in place, but I could see him fatiguing. Jump, dodge, tag, spin! I moved in, temptingly close, and then spun mockingly away, just out of reach, and he did it again—his heels left the floor as he overbalanced, trying to land a blow.
Ha! I thought at him. Now I’ve got you. I jumped in again, dodged, and then, just as he was ignoring Master Brandon’s call of “Stay centered, Mr. Dark!” I paused, leapt up, and came down with my full weight on the back of Darkfistz’s knee. His Stone Stance, no longer rooted, collapsed, and he with it.
This time I didn’t waste my opening. As my opponent went down, I followed him, jumped, executed a tight midair somersault (thank you for the practice, Talarian Sandals), and drove all the pent up centrifugal energy down into my feet as I landed straddling Darkfistz’s head. I stopped my elbow a centimeter above the soft part of his temple, and froze there, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
“Done!” Master Brandon bellowed. “Match to Ms. Samiel!”
To anybody watching with trained eyes, that last move of mine demonstrated all of the power and control I had not unleashed during the rest of our sparring match; I could easily have put the force of my movement into his head instead of the floor.
Darkfistz was still blinking in confusion, wondering how he had lost without taking a blow, but under our teacher’s watchful eye, he ignored my offer to help him up and made a stiff bow in my direction. Marka cheered, Adalaide smiled proudly, and I bowed back.
I had won.
[Feat1 acquired: Master of Katas2]
The dojo gleamed for the belt testing ceremony. After sneaking off for dinner to La Baleine, I brought Dwade back a mushroom and mozzarella calzone, and we scrubbed every inch of the factory until our palms broke out in blisters, and then we wrapped them up in rags made from old uniforms and polished every inch we had just scrubbed. It was well after midnight when I swept the last speck of dust out the back door and into the rain, and Dwade finally put away his mop.
After a few hours of sleep, we woke up early and met Adalaide, who had promised us streamers and ribbons to decorate with, and my Wind Stance got some more practice as I danced around the rafters hanging the fluttering bits of color. Dwade repainted the front door banner and added a smaller sign proclaiming “Welcome everybody! Come in and see the Way in action!” and by the time we were all lined up for morning class, Uncle Brandon’s Black Belt Factory looked as sharp as it ever had. The low clouds outside threatened thunder, but did not yet deliver.
The students, too, had freshly laundered and ironed uniforms, except of course for the belts, which Master Brandon explained to our bafflement were traditionally never washed. This had sat with Marissa like a pile of dead goblin skins, and I had finally solved the issue by hiding my belt here at the dojo when I visited La Baleine—if Marissa and her bucket of bleach had their way, my belt would grow as thin as Master Brandon’s, then dissolve and die of old age before it ever lost its gleaming white virginity.
Excitement ran through us all like a live current this morning. We held Waiting Stance like pros until Master Brandon bowed us in, and we bowed back, in unison, and even Gritsmith kind of rolled forward on his belly without toppling over.
“Good morning, class!” boomed Master Brandon. “Are y’all ready to be tested?”
“Yes!” we chorused back, except for Marka, who just looked as white as her uniform.
“Are y’all ready to break some boards?”
“Yes!”
“Good! Because today marks your first milestone along the Way. And just so we can get past it without stumbling, let me tell you how belt testing is going to go…”
There was much more ceremony than I expected for the belt testing, which mostly consisted of us bowing a lot, moving around, sitting down (I got to be in the front), watching the higher level students demonstrate advanced forms (which I memorized with raptured envy), standing up, bowing some more, and listening to speeches by Master Brandon and recitations of the philosophy of the Way by other students. Even the class from the children’s program, the Nano Ninjas, were here.
I eventually figured out that every student in the school participated in the ceremony in some way. Students who were not ready to test demonstrated
katas appropriate to their level, or articulated the deeper meanings of stances, preferably while holding or embodying said stance. Students who were testing had to do all of the above, although out of consideration for the intimidation factor of all of the staring strangers, the Nano Ninjas got to test with a partner.
It seemed like the new white belts tested last, which I thought was a kind and practical way of showing us how it was done, but not all of the new students were so patient. Gritsmith turned and pointedly glared at Darkfistz, who was fidgeting nervously.
“Quitcher squirmin’!” he growled, earning us a look from Master Brandon. Darkfistz wiped a sleeve across his sweating forehead, clutching a much rumpled piece of paper, while Gritsmith gave Master Brandon his best look of wide eyed innocence. Marka, equally nervous, was at least still.
“It’s ok.” Marka whispered to him with a smile once Master Brandon turned back to the test. “You’ll do great.” Darkfistz just scowled.
A couple of Nano Ninjas were performing Tumbling Pebbles when a latecomer entered through the door on the far side of the dojo. The cold breeze drafted in, causing the scar on my face to suddenly ache. Who would come late to a belt testing ceremony? The stranger was not a student, judging by the black robes and deep hood that hid their face. I frowned.
Adalaide, who was waiting with the students rather than the instructors, stood up, and with a small bow of apology, went over to see what the dripping apparition wanted. She approached, stiffened, and with a motion as smooth and quick as a riptide, yanked the hood off the pale face of a vampire.
Murmurs and confusion ran through the dojo, but the vampire only stood there, smiling and dripping, until Master Brandon himself stood up and boomed at her, “You are interrupting a private ceremony. What is your business here?”
“Oh, but it’s not private.” she said, her voice dry and grating, and for all that the tone and timber of it were different, I swear she had a very familiar mocking sneer. “I believe the sign specifically said ‘everyone welcome’.”
The testing had come to halt. Most of the new students were still seated, if tense, but the highest level students had managed to work their way into a ring around the woman, and the gold belts were edging their way into a barrier between her and the white and yellow belts.
“As for what I want…” She shrugged one narrow shoulder. “Nothing. I’m just the distraction.”
[Quest bestowed: Defend the Dojo]
We didn’t even have time to process this before the upper windows shattered and half a dozen more hooded figures in black cascaded into the room. Discipline did not hold. Half of the crowd tried to run away, thwarted by yet more vampires coming in through each exit, and the other half of the crowd leapt forward to test out their favorite kata. Within seconds the dojo was in complete chaos.
I darted forward, trying to see what was going on between a sea of legs. I heard rather than saw Gritsmith doing what I had mentally dubbed the Mountain On The Move Kata, which is kind of what Stone Stance would look like if it came at you like a small screaming avalanche with a long beard. He tackled a vampire at waist level, who folded up like so much origami, and the two of them went rolling off onto the sparring mat. I shouted an unheard warning at him to be careful, but these vampires moved strangely, uncoordinated, without the furious focus of attention I was used to.
“There you are!” one snarled at me, and I whirled around, but I did not know him. Besides the usual pallor, he had a wide nose, weak chin, and a haircut suggesting that a rogue hair color fairy was moonlighting as a mad barber who thought large amounts of alcohol were a very important part of the creative process.
The vampire opened his fists with a snap, long black claws where the fingernails had once been, and I answered with Wind Stance, concentrating on my ki and feeling it float within me, light as a bubble. This wasn’t a sparring match, and I didn’t wait for my opponent to go first. I darted forward and landed a knife hand chop just above his knee cap—the same spot that would have left Darkfistz’s leg a numb mess for thirty seconds, but it hardly slowed this one down at all.
The vampire answered with a swipe at my head, the only part of my anatomy readily available to the tall races, and I threw myself backwards in my haste to avoid it—overbalancing, but you’re never overbalanced when the air is your medium—and so turned it into a back handspring instead. A second vampire moved behind me as if to block off my escape, but I wasn’t trying to escape. I came out of my handspring feet first, twisted a bit midair, and brought my heel down on the second vamp’s nose with a satisfying crunch.
Special Hair swung at me again, two inward curving swipes meant to flay me open, and almost succeeded. But the air was my friend, not theirs, and they missed me by a breath.
I ignored Voice and concentrated on not getting hit. The vampires alternated in attacking me, their attention bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball, and I stayed a step ahead of their long, ill-kept claws. Off to my side I heard an enraged scream from Gritsmith as the vampire he was wrestling with sunk its teeth into his shoulder.
I took my attention from my fight long enough to look over, which gave me just enough warning to drop flat on the ground as Mr. Origami was bodily picked up by the dwarf and hurled at my opponents. They dodged, and Origami hit the wooden training dummy behind them at about chest height, shattering the frame and snapping the broom handle arms. With the lumbering inevitability of a boulder, Gritsmith advanced, chambering one fist up by his ear to paste the vampire all over my carefully polished dojo.
Then, suddenly, the faces of Special Hair and his cousin went slack, and Mr. Origami locked eyes with Gritsmith—who stumbled, his eyes going cloudy as his fist relaxed, and then gripped at the bleeding wound on his shoulder. “No…” he moaned.
“Walk away.” Mr. Origami sneered at him, sitting up amongst the splinters. “Just walk away, and maybe I won’t make you eat your own children.”
The dwarf came to a halt, clouded eyes staring at nothing, and then, as painfully as if he were losing an arm wrestling contest, he put one foot behind him, and then another. “No…” he said again, but weaker this time.
I was as angry as I’d ever been at anything, watching this, and I wished right now I had practiced Flame Stance just so I had something to do with all that rage, but I didn’t have Flame. I had Wind.
I ran forward as fast as my legs would carry me, using Gritsmith’s bulk to shield me from the vampire’s view, and then leapt up onto the dwarf’s shoulders, gathering my ki, my essence, into a bubble within me. Then I leapt upwards, as high as I would go, riding my ki towards the sky as if “up” were the only direction in the world, as if the very possibility of “down” never even occurred to me… and at the very apex of my leap, when the slow and ponderous attention of gravity had me once more in its grasp, I flipped around, bringing my feet over my head and then down, down, falling like a rock, like a Stone, and executed the finale of Cometfall Kata as I landed on Mr. Origami’s chest. He crunched like a bug beneath my feet as my momentum
impaled him on one of the broken splinters of the training dummy, and I stumbled myself as his body dissolved into dust. Gritsmith shook his head as his eyes cleared.
[Defend the Dojo: Vampires defeated 1/15]
<15?> Voice screeched in outrage.
Behind me Special Hair and Special Hair’s Cousin started moving again, and I whirled to face them, my hands groping in the dust about me for a jagged piece of wood, but then Master Brandon was there, his Flame Stance roaring like a bonfire, mustache swinging.
Voice started making drumming noises, and then chanting:
Only Master Brandon’s eyes betrayed the volcano of rage beneath the surface. His moves were as precise and controlled and perfectly executed as the most practiced dance. As they must be, I suddenly understood. Flame Stance was not about passion so much as it was about harnessing passion. Power and control, in perfect balance. Power is worth nothing, unconstrained.
[Defend the Dojo: Vampires defeated 4/15]
The black robed figures threw themselves at him, and he struck them out of the air like target practice. His Tumbling Pebbles smashed their heads like eggs, his Sphinx Ascending ripped one nearly in half, and his Sea Kata bowled them over like so much driftwood. Gritsmith and I nodded to each other, and without a word exchanged, we snatched up pieces of the training dummy and stabbed any vampire not dusted outright by the violence of the katas unleashed on them. Gritsmith held them down while I staked them through their unbeating hearts. Adalaide quickly caught our drift and began staking her own vamps (except for the one whose head she took off with a piece of glass and a quick rendition of Autumn Leaf Drifting), while Marka nervously followed her around with an armful of splintered wood, reprovisioning as necessary. Jayleen was trying to keep the remainder of the students from either panicking and hurting themselves or panicking and hurting someone else.
For A Few Minutes More Page 11