The resulting session gave her a whole new set of bruises and the very nasty suspicion that Kessligh had been going easy on her, even during her better bouts against him in the past. Certainly he'd warned her of the need to improve her high extension for a long time, but she could not recall him having exploited it so ruthlessly before. And she'd thought she'd been approaching his standard. It was time, it seemed, to think again. Like on so many things, of late.
Finally her late swing barely intercepted a slashing cut that collected her arm and cracked the left side of her head. She stumbled to one knee, clutching a hand over her ear, as her head rang like the inside of a great temple bell. Kessligh, crouching opposite, held her shoulder to be sure of her balance. When she did not fall, he stared into her eyes, drawing her attention.
"Sasha. Sasha, are you well? Focus on me." She tried, though it hurt. She brought the hand away from her ear and looked at it. There was blood on her fingers, though not much. A small cut. Kessligh's perfunctory glance proved as much. "Slow and sloppy, that's what happens when your shoulders get tired so quickly. Watch my fingertip."
She focused on it, as he moved it closer, then further back, then side to side. Her bruise throbbed in a familiar, straight line where the stanch had struck. High defence was difficult to practise without helms. Sometimes, they'd used them… but svaalverd fighters rarely wore such restrictive armour in combat. Mostly, they were careful and knew each other's capabilities well enough to avoid injury. Mostly.
"Stand up." She did, and found her balance was good. In fact, there was little, if any, dizziness. It just hurt. Kessligh saw as much, grimly. "You always had a thick skull," he said. "Now run. To the ridge and back."
Sasha glared at him. "In a moment."
"In combat, there are no moments to choose. Now."
Sasha seriously considered hitting him. It wasn't the first time. Then, as now, she refrained… if for no other reason than she was highly unlikely to connect. And fist-fighting was one thing she could never afford to do with bigger, stronger men. Kessligh's expression was utterly unsympathetic.
"Fine," she snarled, turning away to unstrap her banda. Once done, she flung it away and set off running gingerly across the slope as the wind howled across the open, wet grass, and the horses snorted and galloped nervously within the enclosure.
The rain began before she'd even reached the steepest part of the ridge path. Trees shrieked in protest as the wind roared and water fell in great, enveloping sheets that quickly drenched what little of her clothing was not already wet. Sasha gritted her teeth and slogged slowly up the steepening path, feet quickly soaking within her boots, avoiding the slippery rocks and mud. Her head ached with each struggling step, her vision blurred with pouring water, and she cursed Kessligh with every gasping breath.
The rock atop the ridge was shining wet beneath blasting, sideways sheets of rain. Sasha paused a moment upon the edge of the hilltop clearing, gasping for air… and could not help but marvel at the raw power of the storm, the trees bending and thrashing like wild things, the howling roar of rain and wind that obliterated all view of the surrounding hills. There was a loud crack as a branch broke. Then a sudden boom and rumble of thunder that made her jump and sent a new chill through her soaked, cold limbs…
She made a fast spirit sign to her forehead and turned back the way she'd come. Despite the blinding rain and slippery path, she knew this trail well. She descended fast, taking her weight upon each pounding, downward impact with practised skill. A brilliant blue flash lit up all the blackened sky, followed by a booming, bass rumble that nearly stood her hair on end. She increased her pace as the path dropped yet more steeply, hurdling one intervening outcrop with a downward rush…
Her ankle twisted in a flash of pain, and suddenly she was falling, crashing and rolling downslope, a tangle of sliding earth and mud, her leg hit a tree, spinning her about as the ground fell from under her… and she crashed painfully into a harsh tangle of bushes. For a moment, she just breathed and hoped she hadn't hurt anything worse than her ankle. Unfolding herself one limb at a time from the bushes, it didn't seem so.
Cold, muddy, bruised, drenched and with a throbbing head, she was now in quite possibly the foulest mood she could recall since her worst childhood tempers in Baen-Tar. Some achievement. Thunder boomed and rumbled in nearby displeasure. She hauled herself gingerly to her feet and hissed in pain at the weight on her right ankle. So now she could barely walk. Just wonderful.
Limping down the slippery path took an age. Moving slowly, and trusting one foot with all her weight, she had to search for secure footing as water poured down the path and any smooth surface became treacherous. Twice, she slipped again, once sliding several strides on her backside, accumulating yet more bruises. Finally, at the bottom of the steepest slope, the rain and wind eased somewhat… but she was now shivering with cold.
Worse, her excellently crafted boot had ceased to fit her right foot snugly and now every step was agony. Sasha sat down to remove it and found the ankle swollen and ugly. Limping onward, her bare foot quickly chilled in the mud and water.
The hillside was darkening fast as she emerged from the ridgetop treeline onto the vast, grassy shoulder, the blackened sky quickly losing whatever daylight it had retained. Here on the southern slope, the northerly wind merely gusted and swirled. The house itself remained distant yet, a small shape in the gathering gloom beneath the spidery vertyn tree. There seemed to be a light at the rear and one at the stables. Kessligh, she hoped, had taken in the horses.
Then there came the unmistakable shape of a galloping horse and rider along the lower fence. It rounded the corner post and came straight for her. Sasha recognised the horse-Terjellyn, with his familiar, elegant gait. She did not stop limping.
Kessligh reined Terjellyn to a halt before her. "Bad?" he asked her from that height, eyeing her limp and the boot in her hand. Sasha kept moving, ignoring both horse and rider. Kessligh held a hand down to her. "Come on, get up." And stared in blank disbelief as Sasha continued limping straight past him, eyes fixed on the distant house with grim determination.
For a moment, Kessligh sat in his saddle and watched her. Sasha thought he might simply ride back and leave her to finish the journey alone. She didn't care. Strangely, at that moment, she didn't care about anything. Movement behind her, then, as Terjellyn trotted easily to her side.
"Sasha, you'll make the ankle worse." A calm, matter-of-fact statement. No alarm. No concern. Sasha felt a spark of fury. She limped on, relishing the pain each cold, shivering step caused. "With treatment, it might only trouble you for a few days. But if you keep walking on it, that could be longer. If you need to fight, you won't be able to."
Always the practical concern. Always worried about her "role" as his uma. Always interested in what she could do for him, no concern for what she wanted herself. She kept limping. She'd reach the house herself if it were cause for amputation.
"Sasha, don't be a damn fool." With tired irritation, now. No anger. He didn't care enough to be angry. She was just another strategic exercise to him. A project for his beloved Nasi-Keth. "Sasha? I'm warning you, get up on the damn horse. I don't have time for this childish nonsense."
She limped onward. Behind, there came a light thud as Kessligh leaped from the saddle. Footsteps approached, then a hand grasped her shoulder, hard, pulling her about with precious little concern for the ankle. Pain stabbed, and Sasha swung at him in blind fury… and struck a glancing blow to his head as he ducked, grabbing that arm. She tried to rip her arm clear, lashing with her left fist, which caught him squarely in the mouth. He spun back, still grabbing her arm, twisting it as she was yanked off her feet, scrambling to her knees then as Kessligh wrenched that arm behind her, trying to immobilise the other arm now.
Sasha's left hand had found the knife in her belt before she could think, pulling it free… but Kessligh abandoned her right arm to take the left instead. She tried to slash clear, but a sudden twist and pressure on her
elbow threw her face-down on the grass and rolling onto her back, the left arm now painfully beneath her and Kessligh's own knife at her chest in lightning, dangerous reflex. Sasha stopped struggling, her uman's knee in her stomach, knife blade hovering with a clear, obvious line to her throat. There was blood on his lower lip, which was cut and appearing to swell. His eyes were dark and dangerous in the cold, windswept gloom.
"Go on and do it!" Sasha yelled at his face. "Go on and waste the last twelve years of your life! Serve you bloody well right, that would!"
Kessligh blinked at her, shock rapidly replacing deadly instinct. He threw the knife away, as if suddenly discovering it were a poisonous snake. Took a deep, gasping breath, and another. It was a look Sasha had never seen before. Fear. The sight of it gave her a surge of vicious satisfaction. Kessligh released her and moved back, still kneeling.
"Some uman you turned out to be!" Sasha snarled at him, retrieving her arm from behind and struggling to a seat. Still the knife was in her hand. "The first one gets killed when you're not looking and then you nearly do the second yourself?"
Anger blazed in Kessligh's eyes. "Sasha… you stupid, contemptible idiot!" He was really angry now. She liked this much better. "Never draw a blade on me! I've warned you many times, never surprise me like that! I have no safe reflexes, Sasha! They're all dangerous! All of them!"
"You're never to blame for anything, are you?" Sasha retorted, far, far beyond any semblance of self-control. "Godsdamn it, you're always accusing me of immaturity. I have twenty summers and I know I'm not perfect! When's it going to dawn on you, Master Swordsman?"
Kessligh stared at her, incredulously. "What in the nine hells are you…?"
"You've never thought about anyone but yourself in your whole blasted life, have you? You didn't ride out from Petrodor all those years ago to save the poor, suffering Lenay people-you did it for yourself? Yourself and your own stupid, blind conviction that your view of the world is all powerful!
"You didn't save Lenayin because it was the right thing to do! You wanted payment! And you took it! First you took my brother, the person I loved most in all the world, and then when it got him killed, it's suddenly my turn!"
"Don't you ever suggest I never cared for Krystoffl" It was as close as Kessligh had ever come to genuinely yelling at her. "I loved him like a son!"
"And why is it that you never had your own real sons? Why not inflict this destiny upon your own flesh and blood? Why do it to someone else's?"
"Because it's not the Nasi-Keth way!" He stared at her, kneeling on the lower slope, seeming torn between anger and consternation. Then he put both hands to his hair, as if to tear out several great handfuls. "Gods blast it, Sasha, what do you want? I gave you the life you wanted, didn't I? You were miserable in Baen-Tar, you swore anything would be better than that life! Deny to me that you don't love it here?"
"I never thought I was a pawn in one of your damn power games!" she yelled at him. "You never told me it was all a set-up!"
"I've tried to tell you so many times," Kessligh continued, with increasing forcefulness, "there's no easy choices in life! Your father is king and he suffers for it daily! Damon is a prince, yet he fears the weight of that responsibility! I chose the Nasi-Keth, for they seemed to offer the best chance of escape from the many hardships and terrors of human life.
"And you… you had the choice between a princess of Lenayin, or uma to a senior Nasi-Keth. You chose me. And I put it to you, my uma, that you have had precious little cause for complaint until now. Damon has suffered far worse than you-all your siblings have. Royalty has its responsibilities and hardships, but you… you were born for this-running about in the wilds, rearing horses and learning svaalverd. It's in your blood; you'd choose this life whether I was your uman or not. Did you seriously think it would go on being perfect forever? There's always a trade, Sasha. Always. Not even you can escape it."
"You lied to me!" Sasha yelled at him. It wasn't fair that he should start making sense, now of all times. He couldn't be right. She wouldn't let him. "You never told me what it was all about! I didn't volunteer for your blasted war!"
"You did," said Kessligh. Rain plastered hair to his brow. Blood trickled a slim rivulet to the point of his jaw. His eyes were as grim and as penetrating as Sasha had ever seen them. "If you think hard, you'll even recall the day."
Sasha stared at him. Recalling, suddenly, the eyes of Master Daran, fixed upon her with a similar, grim contemplation. She'd been curled on her bed in her Baen-Tar chambers. The Master himself had attended her chambers, after she'd attacked the maid posted there previously with a knitting needle and drawn blood. Stray shards of glass had crunched beneath his foot, where the remnants of the fitting mirror had escaped the maids' brooms. Several other items of her chambers' furnishings had disappeared after she'd smashed them, or tried to. She'd been restrained, and slapped, and forcefed her dinner until most of it had ended on her face, in her hair or up her nose.
Eventually all the fury, and all the urge to break and to smash and to vent her despair upon any person or object within reach, had dissipated, and left her drained, weak and vacant. Krystoff was dead, and her life was over. And so she had sat on her bed, watched over by Master Daran, the senior court official in whose meticulous hands had rested the education and deportment of all the royal siblings. Master Daran had brought in his notes and papers, and had worked at her desk with a scribble of ink and quill, positioned precisely between bed and door. Occasionally he had glanced her way, to find she had not moved. Occasionally he had tried to talk, and to reason, to no result.
Then, Kessligh had entered. Sasha recalled her mild surprise. She could not recall Kessligh ever having entered her chambers before. He was a godlike figure of the barracks and the training hall, he did not belong in such mundane places as little girls' bedrooms. He had asked Master Daran to leave them. Then he'd taken the chair Master Daran had been sitting on and carried it to her bedside, all resplendent in uniform purple and green, with squeaking leather boots and a cloak that was almost a cape.
He'd sat upon the edge of the chair and leaned forward, with elbows on knees. His expression had been very sombre and very subdued. Sasha remembered the wash of relief that it had been Kessligh who'd come and not one of the others. Not one of the stupid jesters with their silly shoes and sillier hats, with bells and whistles and stupid tricks to try and cheer her up. Not one of the matrons, with their commanding, "motherly" presence, to which she was somehow supposed to respond in some fit of feminine empathy. And certainly not big brother Koenyg, who had never particularly liked Krystoff, and could certainly never replace him. She'd looked at his rough, uncompromising face, and had known that, unlike the others, he would always take her seriously. Here was a man who would never lie to her. Would never baby her and coddle her with soft lies and half-truths. Here was a man to whom her slim, remaining sanity could cling to.
"I offered to take you as my uma that day," Kessligh said, above the hissing rain and distant, rumbling thunder. "I told you what that would mean. I said that you would become Nasi-Keth and that your future would belong to them. And when you agreed too hastily, I left you to think about it for seven days. On each day, I explained it to you again. I told you, Sasha. And you agreed. Had you stayed where you were, I think it quite likely you would have given up hope and died."
"I didn't…" There were tears in her eyes. Suddenly, she was back in her room in Baen-Tar and could feel the leaden, oppressive weight of dark stone all about. The grief and despair were as fresh as before in overwhelming intensity. "I didn't think I'd have to kill people! I didn't think so many people would hate me!"
Kessligh leaned forward intently, his expression incredulous. "Sasha, you picked that fight against the Hadryn all by yourself. I warned you what would happen! Now you decide you don't like the taste of blood? What's the matter with you? What do you really want, Sasha? All the rest of this is manure. What do you want?"
Sasha's face contorted in grief
. "Why are you leaving me?" she barely managed to sob, as composure left her completely. "I can't do this alone. I can't abandon the Goeren-yai. And now you're going to leave me, and I can't do this on my own…"
Emotion struggled to find purchase in Kessligh's eyes. He grabbed her and hugged her close as she sobbed upon his shoulder in the pouring rain upon the sodden, darkening hillside.
"There's a war coming, Sasha," he murmured in her ear as she clung to him, desperately. "The Nasi-Keth must be strong, for only we can find a middle way between two opposing sides. Yet the Nasi-Keth in Petrodor are divided and weak. I must return to them. And one day soon, you must join me there, for I cannot do what needs to be done without you.
"And yet, when I took you as my uma, I swore that I would give you the freedom to walk your own path." He released her and took her face in both hands, to stare firmly into her tear-blurred eyes. "Walk the path, Sasha. Go to Baen-Tar. Reason with your father and brother. Save that idiot Krayliss's neck, if you can.
"When the Nasi-Keth spread out from the Bacosh hundreds of years ago, they thought to bring their enlightenment to all human lands, not by force but by reason. I knew that when I took Krystoff as uma, and I knew it when I took you. Don't be angry with me. I love Lenayin. I owe much to Lenayin. When I rode here from Petrodor as a young man, I swore that I was doing it not so that Lenayin could serve the Nasi-Keth, but so that the Nasi-Keth could serve Lenayin.
"I have taught you as best I can, Sasha. You have surpassed my wildest hopes." Sasha could only stare, disbelief joining grief upon her face. "I have given so much to Lenayin, but now, I find I have no more left to give. But you do. Whatever you set your mind to, you can achieve. It is your gift. Be very careful what you set your mind to, for not all achievements are great. But know also that you make me proud beyond words."
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