not taking bait. He dug into the dirt where Ruari had been standing.
The boy realized he’d been gulled. “Pavek—?”
He broke up a clod of dirt with the blade of the hoe and threw a handful of weeds over his shoulder onto the barren ground beyond the irrigated fields. Ruari’s shadow didn’t move, and neither did his mouth, for a pleasant change. Another long, silent moment passed. Pavek kicked the blade into the ground, then he headed out of the field. With a wave of his fingers, he invited Ruari to join him.
“Show me what you’ve got,” he said, and the half-elf bobbed on his toes, with his slender arms and fists in front of him.
Swearing under his breath, Pavek shook his head and turned away. “You’ll never be a brawler, Ru.” He retrieved his hoe. “Now try it,” he said, tossing the bone-shafted tool at the youth, who caught it deftly.
Everyone in the Tablelands had to know enough about fighting to defend him—or herself. Gender didn’t matter much, either in the cities or the wastelands: if you didn’t look like you could fight back, the full run of predators and scavengers took note. Quraite was protected land, but common sense said the guardian would better protect those who showed the inclination to protect themselves. Pavek had watched the Quraiters, farmers and druids alike, training one day in ten with bows and ordinary tools like the hoe Ruari held in front of him, one hand circling the shaft in a sun-wise direction, the other going the counter-way.
Pavek assessed the youth quickly and coldly, the way he himself had been taught. Then, instead of exploiting the weaknesses he saw—of which there were remarkably few (Yohan was a good trainer, Ruari’s failings were rooted in his personality, not his technique)—he tried to correct them.
They went at it through the dying light of another arid afternoon, swapping the hoe and the attack. One of two things usually happened when a man tried to teach another the finer aspects of fighting: one man got angry, the lesson ended, and a serious brawl erupted, or they found a common rhythm and the seeds of equal friendship were planted.
With the bloated sun in his eyes and the hoe in his hands, Pavek feinted to his right side, drawing Ruari’s attack. Then he swung the hoe low above the ground, letting the sweat-polished shaft slide through his fingers until the angled blade was smack against his wrists. The tactic was designed to strike an enemy’s shins and sweep him off his feet; the minimal countermeasure was a leap into the air to avoid the swinging shaft. Gladiators executed the technique with a variety of weapons. Pavek had learned it in the orphanage.
He wasn’t trying to seriously injure anyone; he expected Ruari to know the countermeasure. The half-wit should have known it, either from Yohan or from those interminable skirmishes with his elven cousins, but he leapt much too late. The shaft caught him just above the ankles, and he tumbled forward with a howl of pain. Pavek centered himself over his feet, prepared for an explosion of rage.
“You’re supposed to jump, not trip over your own big, baazrag feet,” he said, trying to make light of what he knew—from personal experience—was a very painful moment, and hoping, as the moments lengthened, that the silent, huddled-up youth wasn’t nursing broken bones.
“Now you tell me,” Ruari finally replied in a choked, quavery voice. His face was pale when he looked up, but he did a hero’s work trying to laugh. “You’re supposed to be my teacher.”
Pavek lowered the hoe and extended a hand. “Sorry, scum—didn’t think you were that stupid. Can you stand?”
Ruari nodded, but took the help that was offered. He held onto Pavek’s wrist an extra moment while he took a few hobbling steps.
“Men,” a woman grumbled from not too far away. “Never too old for child’s play.”
They both turned toward the sound. Ruari gasped: “Grandmother,” and dropped Pavek’s wrist as though it were ringed with fire. There was no guessing how long she’d been watching them, no reading her purpose through her hat’s gauzy veil.
“Yohan’s coming back. He’s on the Sun’s Fist.”
“Alone?” Pavek snaked an arm around Ruari’s shoulder before Telhami answered, ready to restrain the boy, if the answer was what he suddenly feared it would be.
“Alone,” she admitted, and for a heartbeat that broad-brimmed hat seemed to shake and shrink.
Ruari surged on wobbly ankles. Pavek caught him before he shamed himself with a fall.