“Are they teaching the Khlamir method at Tochar now?” the war leader asked. Noetos essayed a couple of stabbing flicks, leaning in with his upper body. His opponent danced away, untroubled.
“I have no idea,” Noetos answered. “I learned to fight like this in the grounds of the Summer Palace at Raceme, under the tutelage of a remarkable old man.” Another downward cut, begun slowly but with a disconcerting acceleration: a Cyclamere specialty, and hard to master. The war leader defended the blow, though with a little difficulty. “I wasn’t much of a pupil though.”
“I tutored a few noblemen in Raceme,” said the Khlamir. “They were all as old then as you are now, and none had your skill. Who are you? I will have answers!”
“You’ll kill me for them?”
A feint to the left, then a short downward cut from the shoulder. His blade rang on the swordmaster’s, skittering across the steel with a rasping sound.
“No. But I have no doubt I will wound you. You are surprisingly proficient, too skilled to be disarmed unhurt. Better to hand over your sword.”
Another blow from Noetos, another block from his opponent.
“A further question occurs to me,” the man said. “You are large, if a little slow, and have obviously been well trained. Why are you not trying to use your weight against me?”
“Because,” Noetos replied, shaping a two-handed blow from his left shoulder, “my swordmaster taught me better.”
A blow from the right, then another, both parried with ease. Time to speed things. Time to gamble.
Arathé! See my need!
The effect was much as it had been that day in Raceme’s Summer Palace. All motion around him slowed as though time had been carved into discrete moments and then spread apart. He could act in and between the moments, while the swordmaster was confined to normal time.
A third blow from the right, taking the man’s blade near the hilt as he drew it back. Then a smart slap to his exposed right shoulder with the flat of Duon’s blade. A step back and pause, allowing the man to catch up.
“Not possible,” the war leader hissed, his eyes wide.
“No, it is not,” Noetos agreed, and readied himself.
“I will not be toyed with,” the man said, and launched a furious attack. Blows from high, then low, one continuous movement; a spin, then two further strikes from left and right, one from the shoulder, the other from the hip. All delivered with main strength, designed to drive Noetos back from the platform and onto the unstable bridge.
Even in this strange magical state, Noetos had some difficulty meeting the swordmaster’s attack. The man disguised the direction of each stroke, giving Noetos no time to respond. Fortunately the fisherman had something other than normal time in which to frame his response. Taking each blow on his sword, he allowed himself to smile, catching and holding his opponent’s gaze.
“You are too slow, friend,” he said. “Past your best.”
“I have been past my best for a century,” the man said, panting heavily. “Still there has been no one in Old Roudhos to match me.”
“And still there is not,” Noetos said, lowering his sword. “I have a secret, Cyclamere.” The man blinked at his use of the name. “You once told me I’d never make a swords-man, but I practised after you left our service. I even took your advice about leading with my left shoulder.”
Cyclamere brought the point of his sword up, then lowered it as his eyes narrowed. “Noetos?” he said, his voice rough, as though he had just woken from a deep sleep. “But you died along with your family.”
“So everyone was told.”
The man licked ashen lips. “You have been in hiding ever since?”
“Aye,” Noetos said.
“I looked for you,” Cyclamere told him after a pause. The man’s eyes had begun to water. “A year I searched, and found no evidence you were alive.”
“I hid well.”
His old arms tutor puffed out his cheeks. “As I live, it is you. You have Noetos’s lip as well as his build. Or the build he would likely have grown into.”
“I learned to like vegetables,” Noetos said.
“Aye, I can see. I am… glad you live. And angry that your family died.”
“I am pleased to hear you searched for me,” Noetos offered in exchange.
An awkward silence fell between two men unused to unmasking their emotions.
“I will tell you this, Cyclamere,” Noetos said eventually. “I am travelling north to make the Lord of Bhrudwo account for his crimes.” He was aware