The Dragon's Legacy by Deborah A. Wolf

Author:Deborah A. Wolf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

TWENTY - FIVE

The tintinnabulation which at first seemed to echo so musically from the blacksmiths’ tents had become a cacophony of pain that lodged itself between his ears and throbbed in time to the constant ringing of hammer against metal.

Worse, the air was thick with the smell of meat from the smoke-tents, and him with a belly full of pemmican, journey-bread, and flat water. His first journey into adulthood was three times cursed— word had come through the vash’ai that slavers’ ships had been seen in the waters near Aish Kalumm, so the First Warrior had taken her warriors and left the Ja’Sajani, the craftmasters, and the disgracefully young new-bonded Zeeravashani bereft of female companionship.

A shamsi hung from a belt at Ismai’s waist, a sword of the Sun Dragon forged of red steel from the Seared Lands. His mother had handed him this sword with her own two hands, had kissed him upon both cheeks and called him the child of her heart in front of Tammas and half the pride. The blue veils of a Ja’Sajani’s touar slapped at his face and got in his mouth when he tried to talk, but in that moment Ismai had been glad of them, for they had hidden his tears.

That was then. Now, the blue robes and headdress of the Ja’Sajani seemed to gather all the heat and stink of the day and hold it close to his body, and the veils wrapped so closely around his head likewise held in every unhappy and sleep-deprived thought. His shamsi, the sun-forged and salt-quenched Quarabalese blade that marked him out as his mother’s favorite son, was heaviest of all. It was not an especially heavy blade, but as Istaz Aadl ran them through the first three forms over and over and over and over again, Ismai’s shoulders burned hotter than the forges at midsun, and his arms trembled like grass in the wind.

“Enough!” the youthmaster bellowed. He never spoke to the boys in his normal voice—if he had a normal voice—and he never spoke to Ismai at all except to threaten or demean him.

Jasin groaned and dropped his sword in the sand. “Why do the rest of us have to suffer just because this majdoube does not know his forms?”

The youthmaster closed the distance between himself and the boys and backhanded Jasin across the mouth. “Pick up your sword, you limp gewad. Go on. Now you will hold your sword in Catching the Cat stance until I tell you otherwise.”

Jasin looked as if he had bitten into horse shit, but bowed to his Istaz and did as he had been told.

Catching the Cat was a more advanced stance than Ismai had yet managed. One foot was meant to be tucked behind the other, a body’s weight carried on the ball of the forward foot, with a twist at the waist and hands upraised as if to catch a cat that had been springing at one’s back. Add the weight of a sword and Ismai winced in sympathy.

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