perform. He briefly closed his eyes before straightening and spurring his mount forward.
“Corporal!” Tsai Lin called out. “Sheath your sword and get back in formation.”
“Piss off, third egg,” Wei replied in irritation, not bothering to turn. “I answer to the Dai Shin.”
“Not today.” Tsai Lin trotted his mount directly into Wei’s path. “Today you answer to me.” The Dai Lo reached up to unclip the iron star from his shoulder guard, taking a second to look into the face of the soldiers on either side of Wei before speaking on. “This man has insulted me and impugned my honour. I forsake privilege of rank and insist upon satisfaction. Bear witness to his cowardice if he refuses.”
This brought a brief round of laughter, the mirth soon fading into a nervous silence as Tsai Lin continued to stare expectantly at Corporal Wei. The man coughed and slammed his sword back into its scabbard, muttering, “My steel’s too good to sully on this scum.”
“Stop!” Tsai Lin barked as the corporal began to turn his horse, Vaelin seeing the man’s face flush red as he froze in the saddle. “Challenge is given and has not been answered,” Tsai Lin went on. “Give your answer, Corporal.”
The soldiers on either side of Wei began to edge their mounts away when repeated glances at their stone-faced captain made it clear he had no intention of intervening. Wei sat in his saddle a moment longer, reddened features quivering until he let out a guttural snarl and dismounted. “All right then, whelp. You want a beating, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
He began to divest himself of his armour, undoing the ties on his breastplate and casting it aside whilst Tsai Lin climbed down from his horse and did the same, albeit with markedly less agitation. Soon the two faced each other bare chested, the Red Scouts forming a loose circle around them. Vaelin saw Ellese angle her head in appreciation at the sight of Tsai Lin’s finely muscled torso, a lean and honed contrast to the broad stockiness of his opponent. The Dai Lo’s flesh was also bare of any scars whilst the corporal’s bore many.
“He’s not going to step in,” Wei said, jerking his head at Sho Tsai. “You know that, right, whelp?”
“Yes,” Tsai Lin replied. “For which I apologise.” His tone possessed no mockery, merely a faint expression of genuine regret.
Vaelin recalled a morsel of Master Sollis’s wisdom from the practice ground: Only a fool picks a fight he can’t finish. Tsai Lin, as he well knew by now, was no fool.
Wei laughed, turning to his comrades with a wink before abruptly lowering his head and charging at Tsai Lin, his right fist sweeping a punch towards the younger man’s jaw. It was a standard trick of the experienced brawler, a distraction playing into the expectation of prolonged threats and banter before the real fight started. However, it transpired Tsai Lin was neither easily distracted nor a brawler.
His left arm rose in a blur, blocking the corporal’s punch. Tsai Lin’s right arm flicked out, moving too fast to easily follow, before he stepped back, ducking under a clumsy left swing that sent Wei into an untidy spin, blood flying from his nose, which now sat at a crooked angle on his blocky features. Tsai Lin turned away and began to don his armour as the corporal staggered about, reddened spittle pluming from his mangled lips as they attempted to form words. By the time he fell, his face producing a wince-inducing thwack as it connected with the hard-packed earth, Tsai Lin had already refastened his breastplate.
“Get him on his horse,” he told the onlooking soldiers as he strode to his mount. “He’ll wake by nightfall. The next man to break ranks without orders won’t receive such leniency.”
Climbing into the saddle he took hold of the reins, then paused to regard the cluster of beggared people still lingering on the roadside, their anger now replaced by simple bafflement. “Also,” Tsai Lin continued, “each man will take half his rations and share them with these people. I think you lot could benefit from a day or two with a growling belly.”
The soldiers’ faces darkened at this but none raised a voice in complaint as they went about their orders, Vaelin catching a few mutters spoken in a tone of resentful awe rather than anger. “Temple of Spears, I’m telling you,” he heard one murmur to his comrade as they hauled Wei’s inert bulk onto the back of his horse.