In a last desperate effort to revive his failing joy, Saviar whirled through a glittery sprinkle of sunlight. "So, Subi," he said, in the happiest tone he could muster. "Just tell me something good that's happened to you recently."
Subikahn jerked his head toward Saviar, clearly startled by the question. His black hair hung in stringy tangles, twined through with twigs and leaves. Though his lifelong brother, Subikahn looked strangely alien that day: his features so very Eastern, his skin darker than Saviar remembered. It seemed odd to Saviar how a months-long separation could make the most intimate friends and family appear so utterly foreign. "Something good?"
"Something good," Saviar insisted. "It can't be that hard."
"Talamir…" Subikahn fairly choked on the name, and Saviar thought he saw a welling tear. "He… he said I would definitely pass my tests of manhood."
Not wanting to ruin the moment, Saviar did not mention that it no longer mattered; they had both become men through warfare. Instead, he glommed onto the positive. It was the most words Subikahn had strung together since they had started on this journey. "Mama said the same to me."
"Mama did?" Subikahn's brow furrowed, and he shook his head dubiously. "Mama? Not a chance."
Saviar stopped walking to confront his brother directly. He felt the familiar ire rising, the one he thought he had finally fully shaken. The last remnants of his forced good mood drifted away like smoke. "What do you mean, 'not a chance'? You think I'm lying?"
"I just can't see Mama saying it. No maneuver in the history of Renshai was ever done well enough to please Kevralyn Tainharsdatter."
They both added simultaneously, "Unless Calistin did it."
Stilted laughter followed. Saviar could not remember the last time he had found anything funny; but, oddly, even sharing a joke with his twin did little to lift his slumping spirits. The anger he had kept suppressed for two days seeped out, no longer containable.
Subikahn added soberly, "Well, he really is pretty amazing."
"And he's the first to admit it," Saviar could not help growling. "Damn it, now you've wrecked my mood."
"Sorry," Subikahn said, not sounding it at all. "But it seems to me you started this conversation."
"Yeah," Saviar said, not bothering to track the thread all the way back to its beginning. "I told you what Mama said, and you called me a liar."
"I didn't," Subikahn protested. "I merely stated that Mama was never, shall we say, 'free' with her praise."
"But she did believe I'd pass my tests."
"All right."
"She did!"
Subikahn snapped, "I'm not arguing with you."
"No, but you don't believe me."
"If you say it happened, it happened. Saviar, I've never known you to lie."
At the moment, no words would have soothed Saviar. He fumed, for reasons he could not wholly explain. "You think you're a better swordsman than me. Don't you?"
Subikahn stopped walking to study his brother. "I'd be a poor excuse for a Renshai if I didn't believe I was a better swordsman than everyone."
"You don't think you're better than Calistin."
Subikahn smiled. "Well, that would just be stupid."
Saviar could not understand why this conversation bothered him so much. He thought he had overcome his rage against his family, his belief that all of them had gone insane.Yet, he still found Subikahn's words an irresistible challenge. "Oh, but it's not stupid to think you're better than me?"
Subikahn heaved a deep sigh. "Look, Savi. We're both blooded, pretty much at the exact same moment. We're men now, tests or no. What does it matter who's better than who?"
"I don't know!" Saviar admitted, still shouting. "I don't know why it matters, but it does. It matters."
"Not to me."
Saviar turned away. His own irrationality frightened him, but it refused to go away. "So Talamir said you'd pass?"
"Virtually assured it."
Saviar grunted. "Well, if he's such a great torke, where is he? Why isn't he helping the Renshai when they need every sword arm?"
Subikahn's jaw set. "Leave Talamir out of this."
"Why?"
"Because I said to." Subikahn's tone went dangerously flat.
Saviar knew he had gained the upper hand, and he found himself incapable of not exploiting it. "Why? Was he detained by a phalanx of Eastern girls? Is he too much of a coward to face real Northmen?"
"That's it!" Subikahn threw up his hands. "Draw your weapon, Savi."
"Did he get waylaid by a terrifying band of roving squirrels?"
"Draw!" Subikahn hollered.
Saviar turned away, that gesture alone an implicit declaration of war. "If you'd just tell me what's going on instead of leaving me-"
"Draw, you obnoxious lumbering bastard, or I'll cut you down where you stand."
Saviar whirled back to face an angry Renshai with sword in hand. Subikahn's face had gone red as brick clay, his knuckles white around his hilt.
They had sparred before, of course; but always under the watchful eye of a torke, who could step in if a wayward stroke began to fall. Realizing he had gone too far, Saviar relented. "I'm sorry, Subi. I didn't mean any of it. It's just I'm so sick of-"
Subikahn was not so forgiving. "Draw, you sniveling coward. Or are you afraid to face a man half your size?"
"Fine." Saviar could no longer back down without appearing craven. "But, if I win, you have to tell me everything."
"All right!" There was acid in Subikahn's tone. "But, if I win, you have to shut up about Talamir. And about my having secrets."
"Fine!"
"Forever!"
"Forever?" Jarred completely from his rage, Saviar stared. "You mean, you'll never tell me anything?"
"Maybe never. If you lose." Subikahn added in that same searing tone, "You're just worried because you know you're going to lose, aren't you?"
"Not a chance!" Saviar drew his swords and lunged at his brother.
Subikahn met the attack with a deft in-and-out dodge and parry maneuver that put Saviar instantly on the defensive. Saviar freed his left sword and threw up the right to catch Subikahn's blade. Steel rang against steel, driving the birds into sudden silence and sending the squirrels scampering.
Saviar threw off Subikahn and stepped back to realign. Suddenly realizing they had never chosen an end point, Saviar announced, "It's first would-be fatal touch that wins it."
"Agreed." Subikahn dove in with a vicious offensive that left Saviar scrambling to defend. He met each blow with a block, dodge, or parry but did not manage a single riposte. Finally, an opening presented itself, and Saviar thrust for Subikahn's gut. He met empty air as the smaller man skipped aside, then disappeared into the brush.
Surprised by his brother's odd, hiding tactic, Saviar spun to prevent an attack on his flank. "You're running away, you coward? Come out and face me like half a man."
No reply followed, and Saviar abruptly realized he had absolutely no idea where his brother had gone. He lowered his body weight, moving constantly, graceful but erratic. He did not want to leave any openings for Subikahn to catch him unaware or from behind. Though rarely invoked, the Renshai maneuvers did include stealth and forest movement, lessons Subikahn had nearly single-handedly revived. Where in Hel is he?
The answer came as a blazing kidney stroke that Saviar barely dodged. For an instant, he lost his balance. A flurry of sword strokes followed as he sought to regain it, wedded only to defense until he was back in control. The strategy paid off. Soon, Saviar found himself not only stable and ready for attack, but in the superior position. Now sword to sword, he used a deadly combination of quickness, agility, and strength to batter at Subikahn, herding him steadily backward toward a waiting clump of nettles.
Now, Subikahn found himself wholly on the defense, only dodging the lethally accurate hammer blows of his twin because blocking sapped his strength. Pounded, his expression turned from cocky to concerned. Only his lithe movements spared him from two well-aimed blows, one to the side of the head and another to the throat.