“She made a bear!” she heard Marco shout. “Breen made a bear!”
Keegan drew his sword, pivoted. And didn’t quite evade the edge of slicing claws. But he leaped aside, struck out with his blade. As the bear screamed in pain and rage, began the next charge, Keegan opened the ground under him.
And sent fire after it.
Annoyance lost to fascination as Breen studied the mucky mess in the crater. “I don’t know that one. Show me.”
“Later.”
“You’ll be filling that hole, brother, or I’ll be helping Breen bloody your arse.”
Keegan just shrugged at Harken, used two hands and brought the earth back to level ground.
“I want to try that. Let me—”
“Later. Defend.”
She managed to block Keegan’s strike, but her arm sang all the way to her shoulder. She set her teeth as they eyed each other over the vibrating steel.
“You’ve improved.”
“I trained every damn day.”
He hooked a foot around hers, skewed her balance, and before she could regain it, impaled her. “And still you’re dead.”
Annoyed, she stepped back, set again. She feinted a strike with her sword, used her left hand and her power to shove a blast of air. It knocked him back, and down. She sent fire after it, turning it to water before it struck.
“That makes two of us.”
Something lit in those gorgeous eyes of his, she noted, but couldn’t tell if it was admiration or the spark of competition.
“Learned some tricks on your own, I see.” He got to his feet. “Mind your fire, as I’d sooner not go up in flames.”
“It harms no living thing—I bespelled it like the swords. You’ll get wet, but you won’t burn.”
“Well then.” He shoved a hand through his dripping hair. “Defend.”
They clashed, sword and smoke, fire and fists.
In the paddock, Harken pulled Morena in for a kiss. “I’ve cows to milk.”
As Harken wandered off, Marco pulled himself into the saddle, still craning his neck to watch the action.
He watched fire spew from Breen’s fingers, collide with a stream from Keegan’s, and burst into a flood of water. Swords sliced through it.
“Okay, I’m saying it right out loud,” he decided. “This is getting me hot. Is it like foreplay with them?”
“Sure and that may be a part of it. She’s worked hard, and it shows. Still, I can tell you he holds back. Well now, we’ll leave them to it and go have ourselves some ale and gingerbread.”
Morena spread her wings and rose up, and her hawk with her. “Along with me now, Marco. Blue knows the way home.”
Breen heard them leave, ignored them. She already hurt. The swords didn’t cut, but they sure as hell packed a sting. And every muscle in her body wanted to weep after ten minutes of sparring with him.
The fire wouldn’t burn, but God, her lungs did. And since he’d used her own trick with the fire to water (she’d thought that so very clever), she was soaked to the skin.
She could train with a sword, she knew, for a year—for ten years— and never match him there. But her magicks had grown, sharpened. More to find, more to learn, but if she could ward off his attacks with them, he might not kill her as often.
Still, even with that in her arsenal, she felt herself flagging. He didn’t even seem to be winded. Reinforcements, she thought. Why the hell not?
And brought back her were-wraith to charge him from the left flank.
When he shifted to defend, she went for him with fire and blade.
Acknowledging the killing blow, he stepped back. “That was canny.”
“You didn’t say it was against the rules.”
He pushed at his soaked hair. “The only rule in war is to defeat the enemy and live.” He lowered his sword, a signal for a break. “Where did you train in your Philadelphia?”
“In the apartment when Marco went out.”
“In that little place?”
“It’s what I had.”
“I mean to say it shows dedication. I reckoned on having to bring you back up to where you were when you left, but you’ve gained a step or two instead.”
“A compliment. Let me mark the day and the hour. Maybe the minute.”
Irritation flickered, visibly. “I’ve given you praise before.”
“In this area—pretty scarce.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, drying it this time. “Then I’ll say this. Your swordplay is weak.”
“That’s more familiar.”
“But,” he said, with the faintest edge of annoyance, “it’s better than it was, by a small margin. More, as you know it’s weak, you’ve found ways to … what is it? Compensate, using where you aren’t so weak. That’s a good trait and good tactics for any warrior.”
“I’m never going to be a warrior.”
“Bollocks to that. Apologies,” he said to the dog, who stopped chewing on a stick long enough to thump his whip of a tail. “You already are. Odran doesn’t know that. You must. You killed me a half dozen times this hour.”
She hated the fact his acknowledgment meant so damn much.
“I lost track of how many times you returned that favor.”
He shrugged at that. “When we started, you could barely hold the sword, much less use it. And though you’re not a clumsy woman, you tripped over your own feet.”
He glanced up at the sky, gauged the time by the sun. “Sure it’s too late to put you on a horse today. Did you keep up there after you left?”
“No. I didn’t have a horse or anywhere to ride.”
“Tomorrow then, we’ll work there.”
“If we’re riding, I’d like to go to the mines. I need to increase my crystal supply without always taking from Nan.”
He looked back at her, considering. “It’s a long ride, and not all of it what you’d think pleasant. Just the thing then, for getting you back in tune there. What do you have to barter?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Trolls don’t have healers as such. They send a signal if there’s a serious hurt or illness, and there hasn’t been one. But they’ll have smaller hurts and ills. You can barter basic healing.”
“Very basic.”
“You’ve enough for it,” he told her. “And if there’s a need for more, I’ve enough to help. And food. Sweets, I think. Biscuits, cakes, pies. Meat pies as well. Anything of the sort. Ask Marco. If he bakes near as well as he cooks, you’ll make fine trades.”
He looked out, over to the mountains. “A good, long ride,” he repeated. “You need the training or we’d take Cróga. We’ll have to start an hour earlier than we did today to be back by moonsrise.”
“All right. If we’re done for today, I can get Marco and start baking.”
“Does it look like dusk to you?” He lifted his sword, and his smile came more challenging than friendly. “Defend.”
When dusk finally came, she felt like she’d been run over by a truck, then dragged behind it for a full mile before being run over by it again.
“You did well enough for the first time back at it.”
“Please.” Pride ordered her not to just slide to the ground and moan. “Such effusive praise will give me a big head.”
He ignored that. “Next for combat, I’m thinking we’ll start you with a bow.”
“I don’t suppose you mean and a fiddle.”
“I don’t. And here are Morena and Marco now. You pleased him with the bracelet, settled yourself some with the protection of it. When you’ve gathered your own supplies, you might make more of the sort— for different purposes. For gifts and bartering. You’ll want that when we go to the Capital.”
“To the Capital? You never said—”
“My mother comes to the valley in a few days more, to visit, to see her grandchildren. To be here for Samhain. And when she goes back in the next month, we’ll go with her. The people need to see you, and you them. The valley isn’t the whole of the world. For me, perhaps the best of it, but not the whole.”