Three Acts of Penance [01] Attrition: The First Act of Penance

by S. G. Night

  It reminded Racath of an old Rotenic phrase: asia’spé lingenem non dokk’a — ‘hindsight suffers no cataracts.’

  “There are no rules that govern how you fight a war, Racath.” Oron continued to circle. “You don’t wait for your enemy to be ready. You strike him while he’s down. You do whatever you have to; you exploit whatever you can in order to be victorious. You cheat, in any way you can, so that righteousness can prevail.”

  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Racath’s neck prickled; Oron was behind him. He could feel the older Majiski raise his training sword to batter him again.

  “There is only one rule in a war like ours — a war of survival,” Oron declared. “Win. By any means necessary.”

  Racath ran, trying to sprint out of reach, but Oron’s swing caught him by the foot. His momentum carried him forward, stumbling and tripping.

  Oron jumped, soaring over Racath’s head in a somersault, landing in front of him in time to swipe his legs out from under him again. Racath shouted wordlessly before his face sprawled into the sand.

  “Control yourself,” Oron barked. “Instinct is useful, but flight-or-flight reflexes are unwieldy. Think before every action. Don’t try and run if you can’t get away.”

  Racath was blind, face buried in the pit floor. He could feel Oron drawing closer, the kestrel hovering above him. Racath wasn’t even the mouse anymore. Now he was just a corpse, carrion waiting to be picked clean. Assaulted by an enemy he could not defeat. He hated it. He hated being weak. Hated being the prey.

  It made him angry — he was better than this. He knew he was. Racath Thanjel was nobody’s victim. Nobody’s.

  He tried to get a better grip on his sword, but no matter how he held it, it felt overlong and unbalanced. The weapon was nothing to him but a hindrance. He had to change the game.

  Gritting his teeth, he lay still in the sand. He rallied his anger, focused it, letting it fill his muscles with raw, regulated power. The etheria in his blood flooded his extremities with tension. His body became an iron spring. With each passing second, he coiled tighter, becoming an entity of pure potential energy. He reached his peak, held it, locked it in place. The spring was loaded.

  “What are you doing?” Oron demanded. Racath heard his teacher raise his training sword to deliver a punishing blow. “Never get caught on the ground.”

  In that instant, Racath raised his face from the sand and met Nelle’s eyes. She saw what he was about to do. Grinning at him, she nodded.

  Oron struck. The spring snapped.

  In a blur of black Shadow, Racath flipped himself over onto his back and surged into a crouch, left arm held up. There was a glint of bright steel, a clack, and his Stinger sprang out of his gauntlet. The blade caught Oron’s training sword, biting deep into the wood, stopping it cold.

  Surprise marred Oron’s face. Racath took his chance. He yanked his Stinger-arm back, ripping Oron’s sword away and pulling himself back to his feet. At the same time, Racath jabbed the rounded end of his own wooden weapon into Oron’s sternum, shoving him backward. Shutting his Stinger, Racath dropped his training sword and slammed three punches into Oron’s face.

  The game was changed. He was the kestrel again. Free of the training sword, Racath became a retaliatory hurricane, driving Oron back with a hail of clenched knuckles and hard elbows. He struck the older Majiski in any place he could reach — mouth, gut, jaw, temple, chest, forehead. Each blow landed hard and square, denying Oron the chance to recover before the next impact came.

  Oron tried to grab Racath’s arm and twist, but Racath spun away and launched a side kick into Oron’s breastbone. The kick took Oron off the ground with an oomph! He landed hard five feet away.

  Racath stood tall again, smirking, brushing sand from the sleeves of his Shadow. Nelle applauded.

  Wiping blood from a split lip, Oron shook his head clear and sat up on his haunches. “Good!” he coughed, grinning. “Very good, indeed. You did exactly what you should have done, right there.”

  Racath swelled smugly, but his anger was only temporarily abated. “Did I now?”

  “You demonstrated what I just taught you,” Oron elaborated. “You were placed in a situation where there was no way to win by fighting fair. You realized that the sword was holding you back, so you changed tactics, fought dirty, and used whatever resources you had. Also, you appear to have learned another lesson all on your own — using anger as a weapon.”

  “Oh?”

  Oron nodded, gingerly touching a purpling bruise on his forehead. “In fiction,” he said. “Particularly in the works of Isaachar Basti, like Eldin of the Fae, they talk a lot about the corrupting influences of anger and hatred. But anger is a potent tool if applied correctly. It’s one of those useful ways of cheating. If you concentrate, focus the anger, and direct it, you can release the power of a crazed frenzy without losing control and making mistakes.”

  Racath tried not to glow with haughty pride.

  “But,” Oron said, holding up a finger. “While I appreciate your ability to adapt, it is essential for you to learn how to use the sword. So I would ask that you please try and stay to the sword while we’re working with it.”

  The scowl returned to Racath’s face. “Right.”

  Oron paused, getting back to his feet; he worked his jaw up and down, rubbing at the places Racath had struck him. “You punch with your fists,” he noted.

  Racath raised an eyebrow. “Is there another way to punch?”

  “We Majiski have very high bone density,” Oron explained. “Because of that, we can punch with near impunity without any fear of damaging our hands.”

  “I’m not exactly sure I see where you’re going with this.”

  Oron sighed patiently. “The High Scholars performed dozens of studies on Majiski strength during the Third Age. According to them, an average adult male Majiski has the strength of five Human men.”

  He looked Racath up and down from head to toe, furrowing his eyebrows as though calculating. “You could probably launch a punch at a little bit more than one hundred feet per second. With your mass…that’d be about fourteen-hundred hefts of force. Now, imagine punching a Demon in the face like that.”

  He thought back to the Demon on the Milonok Bridge. Briz’nar, whose skull had stopped a crossbow bolt. Racath winced, massaging his knuckles unconsciously.

  “Get it now?” Oron asked. “If you broke your fist against a Demon’s chin, what would happen? He would have a broken jaw, and you would have a pulverized hand. He doesn’t need his jaw to kill you. You, however, will need both hands.”

  “So what would you suggest instead?”

  Oron smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll see.”

  The response brought Racath up short. “Pardon?”

  The older Majiski nodded his head at something behind Racath. “Heads up.”

  Racath turned to look just in time to see Nelle as she clouted him around the ear with a cupped hand. Disoriented, Racath stumbled away, struggling not to trip.

  “What—!” Racath demanded, stymied. “What the faul was that?! Did you just slap—?!”

  Nelle did not give him time to finish. Golden hair flying, Nelle laid into him with a stream of open-handed strikes to his chest and face, driving him backward. Most of the attacks were hard, straight impacts as she drove the heel of her palm into him; the rest were glancing slaps to his face that left his ears ringing and his eyes blurred.

  “An open hand can reach more versatile angles than a fist,” Oron instructed him from somewhere beyond the lightning storm of Nelle’s hands. “You can get a lot more force into your palm, and you don’t run the risk of breaking your knuckles.”

  “Noted!” Racath grunted through the impacts. He thrashed, clawing desperately at Nelle, and managed to catch one of her arms. She twisted away, taking a few steps back. The gap between them afforded Racath the time to recover from her surprise assault; dizzy but focused, he held up his hands in a ready stance.
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br />   Nelle chuckled throatily at him. “Oh, come now, Racath,” she joked. “You wouldn’t hit a girl, would you?” Without any other warning, she lunged at him, her hand lashing at his nose.

  Racath swatted the attack aside with his forearm and employed the new open-handed technique himself as he swung his palm at Nelle’s jaw. The augur leaned backward on her heels like grass bending in the wind; Racath’s hand caught only air. He followed up with three more attempts at her face, all of which Nelle evaded.

  Another volley of slaps and open-handed strikes flew at him, most of which he managed to dodge or block. He returned her hostility, and she defended.

  After several minutes, Racath finally succeeded in landing a hard open-handed punch across Nelle’s cheek. The blow knocked her off balance and sent her staggering backward, clutching her face.

  “Oh, piss!” Racath gasped, mortified. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?!”

  Nelle laughed a coy laugh. She untied a leather strap from her wrist and used it to pull her hair into a tail. She grinned wryly at him. “Oh-ho…now you’ve asked for it.”

  Racath had enough presence of mind to shield his face before her next tidal wave of strikes crashed into him. She was faster now, stronger than before. With mounting dread, Racath realized that she had been holding back on him. Of course, he thought: she’s been training with Oron and the Scorpions for decades. She was just as good — probably better — than any Genshwin.

  Racath finally managed to dodge one attack and caught Nelle’s arm. He pinned it to her body, imprisoning her in a hold of tangled limbs. They stood eye to eye, almost as if they were embracing.

  Nelle did not struggle against the full-body-lock. Instead, she grinned again, raising her eyebrows at him pointedly. “Um. Thanjel?”

  “What?!” he snapped — he was too exasperated and generally pissed off to be civil.

  Nelle glanced downward meaningfully. Following her eyes, Racath realized that in his attempt to keep her paralyzed, one of his hands had found a strong purchase on her breast.

  I should tell you that it was actually Nelle who described this incident to me, not Racath. According to her, Racath’s blush changed color a half-dozen times before it eventually settled on deep purple.

  He floundered. “Uhh….”

  “Ha!” Nelle exclaimed. Taking advantage of his slackened grip, she reversed his hold and tripped him. They landed flat in the sand, she astride him. Nelle trapped his arms and put all her weight onto his chest, their noses almost touching as she lay on top of him. Racath grunted as he struggled fruitlessly to escape her. “Pinned ya!” she beamed at him, bumping her forehead playfully against his.

  Never in his life had Racath ever been more at a loss for words.

  “Well then,” Oron huffed from the sideline, as if to remind them that he still existed. “That doesn’t look suggestive at all. That’s enough, I think. You can let him go, Nelle.”

  Nelle took the time to wink at Racath before hopping off him and extending a hand to help him up. He lay speechless in the sand for a moment before he took it. Oron gave the two of them a significant look, chuckling to himself.

  “What?” Racath demanded angrily, his face burning.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Oron smirked. “Just thinking.”

  “Thinking what?” Racath noticed Nelle blushing bashfully beside him. Her eyes were downcast, but Racath could see her smiling.

  “Just that you two…fight well together,” Oron answered vaguely, his grin spreading. “This could work. Try the staves again. Let’s see how you hold up against her.”

  ——

  The next few hours were spent going through the pile of practice weapons, testing Racath’s proficiency with each. Between each new weapon, Racath and Nelle would spar with the wooden staves again. She was good — infinitely better than he was — but not as merciless as Oron had been. From the sidelines, Oron would interject instructions, guiding Racath’s footwork and technique.

  Nelle beat him handily eight bouts of eight; by the end, he had managed to land a grand total of five strikes, all to the legs and shoulders. His only excuse: he still wasn’t used to the training sword. Learning the sword was going to be an arduous process.

  He found vindication in the other weapons, however. While she could best him with the sword, the shortsword, and hand-to-hand combat, he proved his superiority with the long knife, throwing knives, and quarter staff.

  ——

  “The best for last,” Oron declared, holding up two pairs of Genshwin training gauntlets. “Stingers. Mrak tells me you’re a master with these?” His words curved upward into a question at the end.

  Racath grinned evilly, replaced his real Stingers with the mock weapons. “You could say that.”

  Damn right you could. No one beat him with Stingers. He hoped to God that Oron would be the one to spar him with these, so he could work in a little bit more revenge. But no such luck. Nelle took the second pair.

  “We’ll see about that,” Nelle snorted teasingly. Racath noticed that Nelle did not remove her gloves, but rather she slipped the gauntlets on over them.

  A wry smirk pulled at the corners of Racath’s mouth as he opened the training Stingers. These pseudo-blades did not have the intricate rotendry of Alexis’s real work, so Racath had to open them manually by pressing on a switch on each gauntlet. Their sound was unfamiliar, very different from the metallic clack of a Stinger made of Ioan steel — this was more like a wooden thunk. The blades were long, thin rectangles made of the same polished wood as the staves. Their edges were blunt, their tips rounded.

  They weren’t the same as the real thing, but they had the right balance and weight. Racath shut his eyes, feeling their heft on his wrists. They became extensions of his arms, natural appendages like a raptor’s talon. Like scorpion stings.

  Oron backed away to make room. Nelle set her stance: right leg bent and left leg straight back like a sprinter’s lunge, right Stinger held in front of her chest, left Stinger pointed backward parallel to her left leg. It was the prime stance of the Stinger echelon of Lioness.

  Racath chuckled to himself. He had read Atticus Forren’s taj Shaeyul’Dirik cover-to-cover for the first time when he was sixteen. At that time, he had picked up on a little-known detail that not even his trainers had been aware of — when Forren had laid out the basis of the Stinger echelons, he had done it in such a way that each echelon had a mate. For every attack, defense, stance, or movement within an echelon, there was a correlating attack, defense, stance or movement in another that countered it perfectly.

  And Nelle had chosen Lioness, the echelon focusing on aggressive, pouncing stabs. It was a difficult form to defend against: hard blocks were nearly useless against a leaping stab, which forced the victim to either awkwardly deflect it, or throw themselves off balance to avoid it.

  But it was also the echelon countered best by, as luck would have it, Kestrel, Racath’s preferred form. He assumed the position — a half crouch, left Stinger held on guard in front of his chest, right Stinger cocked back in a fist. In that position, he could easily swat any stab aside with his left defensive arm, and follow it up with a right forehand. He dug in his feet. Set his jaw. The Kestrel was ready.

  The Lioness watched him, her expression a slate. They both remained perfectly still, eyes locked together, smelted by molten anticipation. Neither moved for a long, silent moment. And then Racath stood straight again, his arms open wide, feet together. Peacock pose — an invitation to attack. A bait. A taunt. A snare for a Lioness. He winked at her.

  The Lioness pounced. Springing off her foot, Nelle flew at him, her right Stinger thrusting directly at his chest. Racath stepped seamlessly back into Kestrel and slid sideways, out of harm’s way.

  Nelle made a sound of surprise and attempted desperately to block as Racath swung a retaliatory forehand at her head. Racath knew that Lioness was designed to set an enemy on the defensive. It was mostly aggressive in nature, and so possessed very little tech
niques for defending against attacks. What few blocking maneuvers it did possess were based on the prime stance, using the left Stinger to defend against blows from overhead. This gave it power over the echelon of Wasp, which focused on overhand attacks.

  But Kestrel was also an aggressive echelon, one which possessed a greater layer of defense, and powerful fore- and backhands that usurped the Lioness’ guard altogether.

  So Racath laid into her before she could reset her stance, a Kestrel clawing at a Lioness from high above. He landed blow after blow to her shoulders, arms, and sides. The fleshy thwap of the training Stinger against her body echoed off the stone walls of the pit.

  Snarling, Nelle leapt away from him, far enough away to face off again. Her teeth were grinding and her face was scarlet, sweat wetting the hair around her brow. She had clearly seen her disadvantage and she shifted her form. Turning so that her left shoulder was pointed at him, she extended her left Stinger arm like a pointing finger, her right blade held back with the tip pointed skyward.

  She was the Wasp now, queen of stinging overhands and hard parries. While it was not the echelon that would counter Kestrel, it would prove more of a match than Lioness had. Racath could easily stay with the Kestrel, but he knew that if he were to prove himself, he had to be as ruthless as possible. Thus, he stepped into Wasp’s natural nemesis: ironically, Lioness.

  He lunged, his stab slipping under her guard to jab her in the gut. Nelle grunted as the hard, blunt end of the weapon shoved her back a few steps. For a second time, Racath came at her relentlessly, landing five solid hits before she escaped and changed forms again.

  She became the Kestrel. So Racath shut his left Stinger, snatched a wooden training knife from the pile of weapons nearby, and entered Adder. It was the echelon that Jared had used against him in Milonok, dedicated to strong defense and counter attacks.

  When she attacked again and met failure once more, she changed again, this time into Bear, swinging heavy, broad attacks at him. He became the Wasp, stopping her with hard blocks and cutting through her with heavy overhands.