She felt cold, deliberate fury exude from her pores, drenching her body, banishing her weariness.
At the command, Enns drove in as before. This time she held her ground. He was caught completely off guard, had to attempt his thrust early. She easily twisted aside and let him run into her jab. A thick glob of pigment stained the left breast of his handsome tunic.
She smiled impishly at him. The mask could not disguise his anger.
Troy made no reaction other than to utter the next starting command.
Enns charged again, this time in a less headlong fashion, aiming a good, strong thrust to her upper chest. She dropped to her knees, extending her sword. His tip split empty air over her head. Hers landed squarely in his groin.
Enns stopped abruptly, emitting a deep, sudden grunt. Elenya twirled to the side, out of counterstrike range, not because she feared a response-Enns did not look likely to mount one soon-but simply because it was proper fencing strategy, which Troy would notice.
For the first time that day, she stared directly into her instructor's eyes. He met her gaze with an equally firm one of his own. That only fueled her state of mind, keeping the flow of energy open to her tortured limbs.
She faced Enns, smiling. It was his turn to have difficulty standing up straight. As he had not done with her, Troy gave the boy a moment to recover. She thought Enns looked ridiculous with a red crotch, and recalled the rude, typically boyish joke he had made one day when she had been "wounded" there. The memory kept her at peak in spite of the delay.
Troy gave the command. Enns assumed an en garde position, preparing to move in, this time with full caution, but she did not wait. She leaped in, aimed low, then high, then middle. He parried frantically. Knowing how good he was at defense, she did not let up, did not give in to her protesting arms, until she scored with a high cut.
At first, Enns did not acknowledge that the contest was over. "Stop!" Troy called harshly, and the youth froze.
Enns walked stiffly back to his place. Elenya took hers, her limbs shaking uncontrollably. Her body felt light, almost ethereal, like a rythni in flight. At last she had driven a response out of Troy. She was responsible for his raised voice, for Enns's loss of favor, and, best of all, for the undisguised respect in the eyes of the other boys.
She bent low at the waist, mocking Enns for his virtually nonexistent bow.
"Enns may retire," Troy said curtly. He paused, just long enough to dissolve Elenya's sense of victory. "Sit down and rest," he told her.
She sat, knees forward, buttocks resting on her heels, and felt her stomach grow heavy and the parched sensation in her throat become fierce. Once again she had incorrectly assumed that she had fought her last match.
She glanced at Alemar. He scowled in protest. But what could either of them do? They were twelve years old. Lord Dran did not tolerate children defying their tutors. "Noble blood should have a proper dose of humility," said he, adding that the only time to learn to be modest was before coming of age.
When her breathing had slowed to a relatively normal rate, Troy fitted his mask over his head and picked up his practice blade.
"Once more, girl. Try your best."
He did not advance. Furthermore he left her a wide, obvious opening. She hesitated, suspicious. Avoiding the bait, she aimed elsewhere. He shifted so little that her sword blunt missed by only a finger-width, but it was enough.
He planted a mark on her chest with a plain, almost casual gesture.
"You should have taken the opening," he said. "I won't give you another."
He was true to his word. The second time he tagged her in the belly almost before she realized he was charging. His head and shoulders did not shift when he moved, his spine stayed straight, his body upright. Only his legs, and at the end, his sword arm, gave away his intent. She could not anticipate his tactics.
The third time, as if mocking her, he performed exactly the same technique. The only difference was that her sword nicked his as it was withdrawn, a reflex rather than a conscious reaction.
Tears welled in her eyes. She stared at the crushed, pungent grass, avoiding Alemar's sympathetic frown and Enns's smug sneer.
"You've got a way to go, girl," Troy said. He pulled out his polishing cloth and rubbed the paint off his blade. "You're excused. Get a drink of water. You look like you need one."
She stalked off, jaws clenched. Someday, she vowed, I will be the best.
Without opening her eyes, she became aware of her surroundings: Alemar's scent, the wind batting the tent cloth, the woven texture of the blanket underneath her. She shuddered violently, tears squeezing out between tightly-shut lids. Her throat ached.
She did not understand how the memory of a single incident could evoke such agony. Look, Alemar insisted, and in her mind's eye she saw a network of bright lines, each one a filament of pain, each one ultimately stemming from a single junction-the embarrassment and humiliation she had felt on that day at the age of twelve. The filaments ran through the years, bits of suffering piled onto the old, until the aggregate formed a wound too raw to be faced. Therefore she had buried it.
Alemar guided her vision toward other, lesser junctions. She withdrew, trying to cover them up again, but with firm, compassionate maneuvering, Alemar made her look.
The barn smelled of fresh hay. Streamers of light blazed in through knot holes and around the edges of the wide double doors, illuminating the dust and hay particles in the atmosphere. Around the opening of the loft Alemar and four of the keep boys hung like vultures. The dim, striated interior of the barn made it a challenge to follow the movements of the two combatants on the ground.
Elenya vaulted a bale of hay and slashed. Troy side-stepped, putting another bale between them. She hopped back to outdistance his counterthrust. The spectators bit back their exclamations; the only sounds in the barn consisted of the loud breathing of the participants, the impact of their feet, and from time to time, the rasp of sword contact.
Troy darted down a corridor between two high stacks, out of sight of Elenya and the boys in the loft. She circled to the left, stepping carefully through a patch of loose straw. Troy chose that moment to reappear, charging, forcing an instant response. She kept her footing, parrying three times, countering once. He retreated. She backed out of the straw, waited for him to follow. He declined, vanishing around the stacks once again.
She glided to the center of the open area, listening carefully for signs of Troy's movements behind the hay. She counted silently to five. As they were supposed to do any time either combatant paused under the loft opening, the boys shoved armloads of straw at her. She danced away from the downpour, and was ready when Troy sprang out of concealment.
They fought their way around the low bales. Elenya paid close attention to her breathing. Troy understood far better than she how to conserve energy. Though she was fifteen and he nearly forty, stamina was his advantage. After half an hour of sparring, she was at the edge of losing her wind.
Yet, as they continued, the edge receded. Though using obstacles to simulate true battle conditions was one of the most difficult types of fencing, she had matched Troy blow for blow, strategy for strategy. She had two red marks on her tunic, and so did he. For the first time in four years of instruction, she stood within one point of winning against him.
Sweat dripped from Troy's eyebrows. He blew out a sharp breath between pursed lips. Elenya concentrated on his expression, as he had taught her to do whenever they fenced without masks. He glanced down. She thrust.
A sudden pain flared in her wrist. Her rapier careened through the air, landed with a hush against a loose bale, and slid to the ground. She gawked, not comprehending how he could have disarmed her. The boys above murmured in awe.