by Aaron Hicks
Uktesh didn’t think, didn’t fear. He acted. With a quick scan of the layout of the room, the height of the ceiling, the remains of the door, ladder, and his distance from the saber rabbit, he seemed to glide in one long lunge, that ended with Sword Raises the Sky. Sword Raises the Sky was an imperfect attack. Ordinarily Uktesh would’ve had to have moved from balanced to imperfect, but there wasn’t enough time, space, or chance for failure.
If he had been better at perfect stance he would’ve tried Farmer Scythes the Wheat, even though he knew it would’ve killed him. This’ll probably kill me as it is. He thought resigned, but I will die a man, not a coward! Tears blurred his vision as he felt a muscle in his shoulder tear. His sword point slid across the floor, before it suddenly flashed up. It met resistance; skin, muscle, then bone, all parted before his attack’s strength. The rabbit’s two front paws left its body. Before his sword’s upward arc could hit the beast’s neck, the rabbit reared up faster than his imperfect attack could move.
Maybe its last thought before it died was to attack, or maybe the only thing left for its clenched leg muscles to do was spring forward. Uktesh didn’t know. All he knew was that once his sword was lifted high in the air the rabbit flashed out from beneath the loft and sprang towards Heathyr and Laurilli!
He moved again, and jumped to the side, he mirrored its path. Everyone knew that a saber rabbit was faster than any human, and that once its coiled back leg muscles uncoiled, it was faster than an arrow. But he had to try!
He felt his left leg push off the ground, and then the muscles down his leg tore. He would be too late! He pivoted in the air, he had one option left. He flowed into the perfect stance and performed one of the three one legged perfect attacks, Serpent Strikes. As he sprung forward, he didn’t think about the improbability of being able to keep pace with a saber rabbit. He didn’t assume that his speed wouldn’t be enough. He just coiled the muscles in his right side and Struck. He felt the sword Strike, his shoulder gave out, then his head hit the beast, and then he knew no more.
He woke up and was unable to stop the scream that escaped his throat. His whole body was cramped into a ball. Quickly he remembered his lessons, and he relaxed first one then the next muscle, until he could think of something other than the pain, and how to make it stop. Laurilli was next to him. He first saw, then felt, her hands massage his right calf. As startled as that made him feel he next realized it was night. Then he realized he was not in the same clothes as when he fought the saber rabbit. Who changed my clothes! Then he realized that if either of them changed him it would have been embarrassment enough, but I don’t know if I could handle it if Laurilli did it. There was a glass of water by his bed, and he quickly drank it all. He gulped it down like he hadn’t had anything to drink in days. “Mom! He’s awake again!”
Again? What happened? The saber rabbit! He tried to sit up too quickly and his stomach muscle cramped again. He arced his back and forced his resistant abs to relax.
He felt Heathyr place her hand gently on his shoulder and the back of her hand on his sweaty forehead, “His fever’s broken.” She sagged into his view and he saw past his pained tears, that her eyes were sunk in, and that she had dark circles under her eyes. I don’t remember those? How long have I been out? Laurilli also came into his view and like her mother, she looked clearly exhausted to Uktesh. But Laurilli’s eyes were clearly red as well, was she crying?
“What happened?” he croaked.
“You saved us!” Laurilli said before she unexpectedly burst into tears and flung herself on his chest. He tried not to show how much pain her action caused him, and must’ve succeeded because Heathyr didn’t immediately ask her to get off of him.
“How long have I been out?” His voice was getting slightly better and Heathyr filled his glass with water.
“This is the fourth night. Since then,” said Heathyr, “you’ve woke up twice to scream mindlessly. Mother Esrun said that if you made it through the first night you would probably make it, but other than bruises and your dislocated shoulder you didn’t have a mark on you. I’m afraid that news of your valor spread before we could stop it. At first people were amazed that any one person could kill a saber rabbit, much less survive the process.”
“Then they started whispers that your unnatural sickness was not caused by the rabbit, ‘How else could a boy be able to kill a saber rabbit?’ They would ask me. I told them you were not Afflicted, just greatly skilled in weapons, but by then the damage was already done. For a while I would recommend you stay inside, at least until you get better.”
“I’ll stay with you the whole time!”
“Between the three of us, though, how did,” she emphasized the word, “you kill that beast? I saw it lunge at us. Then out of nowhere it was pinned against the wall, slammed there by you and your sword. By the time I was able to process what had happened, and they we were safe, you were already unconscious.”
Uktesh knew that even though he had saved her, she was scared of him. He looked at Laurilli and saw her frown at her mother. “You may not know this, but I’m from Beletaria. We train from a young age to be warriors and out of all the students training, I was the best by far. I’m not there anymore because I’m a coward. When my village was attacked, I froze up and ran away. I guess the reason that I could fight the saber rabbit is because I’ve hunted before. This was just a more dangerous hunt.”
He glanced at Laurilli and knew the real reason he was able to fight. “Where I come from there are grand masters who can,” he paused to collect his thoughts, “First I should tell you about the three forms, balanced, imperfect, and perfect. Well I guess some of the grand masters say there’s a form above perfect, but no one knows for sure. I guess there is also unbalanced, which is trying to do balanced, but doing it wrong. When you fight, good fighters will be able to move from balanced to imperfect without any injury to themselves.”
“How would an imperfect attack hurt the user?” asked Heathyr.
“Well normally it wouldn’t, if you started in balanced. Balanced is the way to begin everything, either an attack or a defense. It’s basically how to move and dodge. Only by making sure to start in balanced should a warrior move to, or ‘flow’ to imperfect. This form puts great stress on the body, if it isn’t used properly, but it enhances what the body can do. I become faster and stronger in the form. Flowing from balanced to imperfect allows the stress on the body to be lowered to nothing, if you’re a master, or to very little if you do it right.”
“Is that how you were hurt? Did you do it wrong?”
“Yes and no.” He knew that the grin he felt on his face was a prideful one, “I don’t do it wrong anymore. What I did was I skipped balanced, and attacked in imperfect. Without the balanced buffer, I was hurt doing it. What really hurt was that I amplified myself up from there to perfect form.”
“Why would you do that?” asked Heathyr.
Again Uktesh glanced at Laurilli, but answered Heathyr, “It would’ve killed you, or Laurilli, or maybe both of you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“From what you’ve been telling us though you put yourself at great risk attacking in this ‘perfect’ form without properly buffering yourself.”
Uktesh was impressed with Heathyr’s’ ability to understand what he’d told them, “Actually, I didn’t expect to live. Imperfect only allows you to be twice as fast and twice as strong, but perfect makes you ten times.” Laurilli gasped. “The stress on your body is equally increased, which is why only masters are trained to use it, and grand masters can use it with little effect to their bodies.”
“Then,” Laurilli asked, “are you a grand master?”
Uktesh smiled, even though it hurt to do so, “No, I’m not able to-” he stopped talking. I should be dead, doing what I did. I have been able to recently use perfect form without many consequences, if any. Uktesh continued, “I don’t know. Maybe I am or maybe I’m lucky, or maybe my body’s more resilient to the damaging effects of the backl
ash.”
“So that’s why you were able to move faster than a saber rabbit?” asked Laurilli.
“Yeah, I guess, though I’ve never heard of a master or grand master using perfect to see who was faster. I always thought that nothing moved as fast as a saber rabbit.”
“And you want to teach my daughter to use these dangerous techniques?”
The sudden switch in conversational direction threw Uktesh off for a moment, then he shrugged and said, “Yeah.”
“Why do you think I would allow that?”
“Why wouldn’t you? The techniques in and of themselves don’t hurt to learn. It’s doing them incorrectly, or out of order, that hurts a person. I was only injured because I chose to do so.”
“And do you truly believe that if my daughter had been in the same situation she wouldn’t have done what you did resulting in her getting herself hurt or killed?”
“I would like to believe that, if in my situation, everyone would do what I did.”
“So you would teach my daughter the techniques to be able to kill herself doing the right thing?”
“Yes. Better that, than not having the ability to do anything, and possibly dying because of it.”
“You have given me much to think on, and I will leave you to the care of my daughter.” She left the room and gently shut the door after her.
“You were willing to die for me?” she asked as she moved to where Heathyr had stood by his head, her hair hid her face from Uktesh.
“Of course. You’re my ‘best friend.’”
“You won’t let that go will you?” she looked him in the eyes and he saw unshed tears cloud the normally radiant blue of her eyes.
Taken aback Uktesh said, “Only if it means keeping you.”
“Fine, I understand that you want to marry me, but I’ve only known you for five days, and you’ve been unconscious for four of them. So for us ‘best friend’ will mean that we get to be together long enough to know if we’re right for each other. Is that alright with you?”
“So then you’re my girlfriend?”
“Oh my,” she huffed out a breath and laughed, “is best friends not good enough for you?”
“Not if you’re willing to be more.”
“Fine, we’re dating. But that’s it for now, and if you keep this up, we won’t be dating for long!” she said it with a smile that dazzled him, and he found that the moment was missing one important element.
“This feels like a moment that I should kiss you, but I can’t move without pain.”
“You’re so useless.” She said as her smile grew wider, but she said it while she moved closer.
“As long as I’m-” her lips touched his and he lost track of whatever he was going to say. She left him slightly light headed and soon after that and he drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
The next morning he was able to move on his own without pain, which was good because he had a very full bladder to take care of. He could smell the aroma of breakfast and realized that he was in Laurilli’s room! He decided not to ask if he’d wet the bed or worse during his four day rest, but he assumed that after four days he had, and he felt ashamed, even though mentally he knew he wasn’t at fault.
By the door he found his sword in its sheath. He left the house barefoot, but armed with his sword and limped to the outhouse. Once he was finished he limped back into the house and washed his dirty feet before going back into the house. He dried his feet on the mat by the door and sat at the kitchen table thankful that he could do two chores in one trip, relieve himself, and feed himself.
Already, both Heathyr and Laurilli looked better, and he guessed that after he woke up last night they’d been able to get a full night’s sleep. “Morning.” Heathyr said to him as she put a plate of eggs and saber rabbit meat in front of him. He suddenly realized just how hungry he was! He tried to eat slowly, to make sure he didn’t eat too quickly and get sick, but even though he tried that, he was finished as Heathyr and Laurilli set their own plates down. Laurilli picked up his plate with a smile and then brought it back with more eggs and meat on it.
“Morning Heathyr. Sorry, I’m not sure if I said it back to you earlier.”
“You didn’t.” Said Laurilli with a smug grin.
“You had other things on your mind.”
“Still, I apologize for my rudeness, but the food was simply too alluring for me to ignore.” They ate in silence, and though he was still hungry after his second helping, he knew that any type of meat doesn’t come cheap. So he pushed his plate towards the center to give himself some elbow room on the table, “I’m sorry Laurilli to have taken your room over for these past days.”
“It’s ok. We couldn’t move you. I didn’t mind sleeping with mom, her bed’s bigger anyway. It fit the two of us just fine.”
“Plus,” Heathyr said, “if it hadn’t been for you we would be dead right now. You’ve more than earned a place in our home for as long as you would like.” Uktesh couldn’t hide the pleasure he felt at finally being accepted. It was different from the way that his father had accepted him. Here, though, after finally being able to harness the skill that he had honed for years, the women were able to accept him as “Uktesh, interested in Laurilli, great hunter, and family.”
“I wish that I had more to give you than the training I’d already promised Laurilli, but that’s all that I can give right now.
“If you can make me half as good as you are, I’ll be more than happy.”
“I’m even better with the bow than with the sword. I’m the youngest grand master archer ever. The way we tested archery was: n an expert can accurately hit a target at one hundred, a master at two hundred, and a grand master at three hundred yards. The day that I took my grand master test was a windy day too. Most of the grandmasters were shocked that I could shoot an arrow that far in the wind, much less with any accuracy. But even with that, I wasn’t accepted because people were unsure if, like with hand to hand, I would freeze up in real combat. I wasn’t really sure either, but I also figured that I wouldn’t need to worry about that because we would never be at war with anyone. But I guess I was wrong about that on both counts.”
“As children we always look at the people in our lives, and we believe the best of people. It’s only after we grow up that we no longer assume that there is inherent good in every person. That’s when you start to pick and choose who you will trust implicitly. The older you get the smaller that number becomes, as more and more people don’t honor the trust you’ve given them.”
“Mom! I didn’t know you felt that way! Is that because of how the villagers here treat you whenever dad’s gone?”
“Basically. But even if they treated me like one of the people who have lived here their whole life, I wouldn’t trust everyone, just like you don’t trust Dekan and Baloce. In my case there are fewer people because I have had less people who wanted to try to get to know me.” They were silent for a while and during that time Heathyr and Laurilli finished their food. “Enough about my woes, though, Uktesh you should get some more rest, and Laurilli will you help me clear away these dishes?”
They moved in concert and together they quickly cleaned the dishes while Uktesh put on one of Thulmann’s pair of socks and stomped his feet into his boots.
“Why are you putting your boots on?” asked Heathyr.
“Laurilli and I have to start training.”
“But you’re injured. You can barely walk. How are you going to train me?” asked Laurilli.
“You’re the one who’s going to be working the hardest, my ‘work’ will be walking to the training spot.”
“Where’s that?”
“Out back where the wood is chopped. That way I’ll have a nice place to site and instruct, and Heathyr will be able to check up on us.”
“I don’t know if this is a good idea. You’ve been badly injured and should be resting,” said Heathyr.
“I’ve rested long enough. Now, I need Laurilli to change into something
she can move in without showing me her delicates. While you change I’m going to look for a stick I can use as a practice axe. Thankfully my bow was not broken when I threw it at the saber rabbit, so we can practice with that as well soon, but today will be about axe forms.”
“Axe? What won’t I be trained in, the sword forms?”
“Do you own a sword?”
“No,” she said and pouted prettily.
“So if you get attacked while I’m gone you need to know how to defend yourself with the only weapon available.”
“You could leave with the axe,” she said quickly.
“Laurilli! You apologize! Uktesh is helping you. Don’t be rude. It’s his sword he gets to use it.”
“It’s true, though, Heathyr. I could leave with the axe.” Uktesh said, “however Laurilli you’ve lived here for thirteen years without an attack, on my trip here I witnessed three attacks, four if you count my village. Plus my sword is about three times as heavy as the axe outside. Besides as a woman who will not be joining an army, the thing we’re going to train the most with is hand to hand combat and daggers. That’ll be for another day, though, because today we’re going to start conditioning your bod-” he paused and looked at Heathyr, “start conditioning you to be able to fight against men.”
“Were you going to talk about my body?” Laurilli asked as she played with her hair coyly and looked at him through her eyelashes in a mock demure.
“We need to start training,” Uktesh said as he tried to ignore the heat as it spread across his face.
“So you can start conditioning my body?”
“So you don’t get killed.”
“So that my body isn’t harmed?”
“You’re in danger of injury right now.”
“So you wish to lay hands upon my body?”
“I wish you to stop talking.”
“So that you may-” but thankfully Heathyr laughingly cut her off.