Captain's Fury (Page 61)

Tavi hardly knew how to respond to that. He lapsed into silence for another several minutes. Then he asked, "Your opinion. Can we do it?"

Araris replied without hesitation. "I don’t see how it’s possible."

Tavi grunted and chewed on his lip.

Araris sighed and spoke with reluctance. "But that’s never really stopped you before, has it?"

Tavi barked out a short laugh, and he saw Araris smile beside him.

"You should get some sleep," Araris said. "You’ll need it. Practice tomorrow."

"Practice?" Tavi asked.

Araris Valerian nodded. "You’ve got your basics with a sword. You’re ready for some serious training."

Tavi blinked. He had thought himself… well. Quite skilled with a blade. "Do you really think that’s necessary?"

Araris laughed. "Your father used to ask me the same thing."

"What did you tell him?"

"As you wish, milord," Araris responded. His smile faded. "And someone killed him. So you’re practicing tomorrow, and every day after. And you’ll keep it up until I’m satisfied."

"When will that be?"

"When you can beat me," Araris said. He bowed his head to Tavi and nodded toward the cabin. "Get some rest, milord."

Chapter 24

Isana watched as Tavi’s bare back slammed into the bulkhead of the Slives cabin for the ninth time in thirty minutes. The young man bounced back wheezing, but his sword kept moving, catching and turning two slashes and sliding aside a long thrust from his opponent. He wasn’t quite fast enough, though, and a string of scarlet beads appeared along one of his ribs.

Isana winced, more at the flash of frustration and chagrin that came from Tavi than from sympathy for his pain. The wound was a minor one, and Isana could close it without trouble, after practice. It wouldn’t even scar. Araris would never inflict anything more serious upon any student, much less upon this one.

Tavi’d had the wind knocked out of him, and it showed when he let out a weak yell and pressed a furious attack against Araris. The singulare blocked every single attack, seemingly by the barest of margins, then made a peculiar, circular motion of his wrist. Tavi’s sword rolled abruptly from his grasp and fell to the deck.

Tavi didn’t wait a second, pressing in close and getting a grip on Araris’s sword arm. He slammed his forehead against Araris’s cheekbone, and drove a hard blow into his ribs with another yell. Isana tensed suddenly, half-rising, as she sensed the wave of pure anger now rolling from her son.

Araris absorbed the blows like an anvil-they simply impacted him, to no apparent effect. He seized the wrist of Tavi’s gripping arm with his own free hand, then turned, weight shifting in a little up-and-down bobbing motion.

Tavi, suddenly drawn off-balance, flipped entirely over, and Araris guided his back down onto the wooden deck. He hit hard enough to make Isana wince again-but not, she was certain, as hard he could have.

Tavi lay there on the deck, blinking up at the sails and the sky, stunned. The sailors, most of whom had been watching the practice, let out a chorus of cheers, jeers, and advice, accompanied by more than a little laughter.

"Temper," Araris said, his voice steady. He wasn’t so much as breathing hard. "You’re a naturally aggressive fighter, but anger is not your ally in a match like this. You’ve got to keep yourself centered and thinking. Use the anger. Don’t let it use you."

He sheathed his sword and offered Tavi a hand up. The younger man glowered at the older for a moment, then shook his head and took his hand. "What was that wristlock?" he wheezed. "I’ve never seen that one before."

"It’s fairly simple," Araris replied. "You’ve had enough for one day, though. I’ll show you tomorrow, if you like."

"I’m all right," Tavi said. "Show me now."

Araris tilted his head, his lips pursed in thought, then suddenly grinned. "As you wish. Get some water, and we’ll go another round. If you can keep your head, I’ll show you the lock and the counter."

Tavi recovered his sword from the deck, saluted Araris, and sheathed it. Then he walked over to the water barrel beside where Isana sat on a small folding stool. He smiled at her, dunked a wooden cup into the water, and drank it all down, followed by a second. In the two days since he’d begun recovering from his seasickness, his color had returned, and he’d been shoveling down enough food for two at mealtimes-despite the rather questionable provender to be had from the Slive’s cook.

Tavi and Araris were sparring shirtless, apparently to keep Tavi from having all of his shirts cut to ribbons and stained with blood. Isana had been studiously avoiding staring at Araris. She would not have thought that a man his age would look so athletic, without the use of watercraft-but he was very nearly as lean as Tavi, his body hard with flat, ropy muscle. Of course, he’d spent all those years in the forge back at the steadholt, and she’d once seen him practicing there by the light of dying embers, late one night, using an iron bar in place of an actual weapon.

Araris had grown confident and strong again, no longer the broken man he’d become after Septimus’s death, and seeing him like that was both immensely gratifying to Isana and more than a little distracting. Her fingertips almost itched with the raw desire to trace those muscles. Instead, she turned back to her sewing, mending one of Kitai’s pairs of trousers, where both her eyes and her fingers would have less trouble behaving in an appropriate manner.

"Would you like me to close that for you?" she asked Tavi quietly. "I won’t need a tub for something that small."

Tavi glanced at her, and a complex little cloud of emotions drifted around him for a second. Then he shook his head and closed down on them, until Isana could no longer sense anything except for a vague dissatisfaction. "No, thank you. It’s not leaking anymore." The words came out with a small, harsh edge. He gave her a guilty little glance, and then a half-forced smile appeared on his face. "Though at the rate I’m going, I might need you to patch up my pride."

Ehren appeared from within the cabin in time to say, waving vaguely at the sea, "I don’t think there’s enough water available."

Tavi arched an eyebrow. "Why don’t you come practice with us and say that again, little man?"

Ehren raised a modest hand. "Thank you, no. I get confused about which end of the sword I should hold. I wouldn’t dream of slowing down the advanced class." He turned the gesture into a mocking little fencer’s salute and strode off toward the back of the ship, presumably to speak with their captain again.

"Some annoying little person is going to get thrown into the drink someday," Tavi called after him. Then he shook his head, grinning, and turned back to Araris. Isana watched, between stitches. She knew barely enough about sword-play to be able to watch it, but it seemed to her that Tavi was moving more slowly, but also more certainly. She caught a flicker of satisfaction from Araris, as the young man defended against half a dozen swift strokes.