Humiliating as her attitude was, I was eager to take advantage of her lowered guard. I moved forward and made a cautious attempt at Hands like Knives. Too cautious, and she stepped away from it without even needing to lift her hands.
I knew I was outclassed as a fighter. That meant my only hope was to play on her already hot emotions. If I could infuriate her, she might make mistakes. If she made mistakes, I might be able to win. “First came Chael,” I said, giving her my widest, most barbaric smile.
Carceret took a half step closer. “I am going to crush your pretty hands,” she hissed in perfect Aturan. As she spoke she reached out and made a vicious gripping motion at me.
She was trying to scare me, make me recoil and lose my balance. And honestly, the raw venom in her voice made me want to do just that.
But I was ready. I resisted my reflex to pull back. In doing so I froze for a moment, neither retreating nor advancing.
Of course, this is what Carceret was truly waiting for, a half-moment’s hesitation as I fought the urge to flee. She closed on me in a single easy step and caught my wrist, her hand tight as a band of iron.
Without thinking, I used Celean’s curious two-handed version of Break Lion. Perfect for a small girl struggling against a grown man, or a hopelessly outclassed musician trying to escape an Adem mercenary.
I regained control of my hand, and the unorthodox movement startled Carceret ever so slightly. I took advantage of it and struck out quickly with Sowing Barley, snapping my knuckles hard against the meat of her inner bicep.
It wasn’t a hard punch, I was too close for that. But if I managed to hit the nerve properly, the blow would numb her hand. This wouldn’t just make her weak on her left side, but it would make all the two-handed motions of the Ketan more difficult. A significant advantage.
Since I was still so close, I immediately followed Sowing Barley with Turn Millstone, giving her a short, firm push to knock her off balance. I managed to get both hands on her, and even pushed her backward by perhaps four inches, but Carceret came nowhere near to losing her balance.
Then I saw her eyes. I’d thought she’d been angry before, but it was nothing compared to now. Now I’d managed to actually strike her. Not just once, but twice. A barbarian with less than two months of training had struck her twice, while everyone in the school looked on.
I cannot describe how she looked. And even if I could, it would not impress upon you the truth of things, as her face was still almost entirely impassive. Instead let me say this. I have never seen anyone so furious in my entire life. Not Ambrose. Not Hemme. Not Denna when I criticized her song or the Maer when I defied him. Those angers were pale candles compared to the forge fire burning in Carceret’s eyes.
But even in the full flower of her fury, Carceret was perfectly in control. She didn’t lash out wildly or snarl at me. She kept her words inside her, burning them like fuel.
I couldn’t win this fight. But my hands moved automatically, trained by hundreds of hours of practice to take advantage of her nearness. I stepped forward and tried to grab hold of her for Thunder Upward. Her hands snapped out, brushing the attack away. Then she lashed out with Bargeman at the Dock.
I don’t think she expected it to connect. A more competent opponent would have avoided or blocked it. But I had let myself get slightly wrongfooted, so I was off balance, so I was slow, so her foot caught me in the stomach and pushed.
Bargeman at the Dock isn’t a quick kick meant to break bones. It is a kick that shoves the opponent off balance. As I was already off balance, it pushed me right off my feet. I landed jarringly on my back, then rolled to a stop in a messy tangle of limbs.
Now some might say that I had taken a bad fall and was obviously too stupefied to find my feet and continue the fight. Others might say that while it was messy, the fall wasn’t quite as hard as all that, and I had certainly found my feet after worse.
Personally, I think the line between being stupefied and being wise is sometimes very thin. How thin, I suppose, I will leave to you to decide.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN
Anger
“What were you thinking?” Tempi demanded. Disappointment. Fierce chastisement. “What fool sets his sword aside?”
“She threw her sword away first!” I protested.
“Only to lure you in,” Tempi said. “Only as a trap.”
I was buckling Caesura’s scabbard so the hilt hung over my shoulder. There hadn’t been any particular ceremony after I had lost. Magwyn simply returned my sword and smiled at me, patting my hand in a comforting way.
I watched the crowd slowly dispersing below, and gestured polite disbelief to Tempi. “Should I have kept my sword when she was unarmed?”
“Yes!” Absolute agreement. “She is five times the fighter you are. You might have had a chance if you had kept your sword!”
“Tempi is right,” I heard Shehyn’s voice behind me. “Knowing your enemy is in keeping with the Lethani. Once a fight is inevitable, a clever fighter takes any advantage.” I turned and saw her coming down the path. Penthe walked beside her.
I gestured polite certainty. “If I had kept my sword and won, people would have thought Carceret was a fool and resented me for gaining a rank I did not deserve. And if I had kept my sword and lost, it would have been humiliating. Neither reflects well on me.” I looked back and forth between Shehyn and Tempi. “Am I wrong in this?”
“You are not wrong in this.” Shehyn said. “But neither is Tempi wrong.”
“Victory is always to be sought,” Tempi said. Firm.
Shehyn turned to face him. “Success is key,” she said. “Victory is not always needed to succeed.”
Tempi gestured respectful disagreement and opened his mouth to respond, but Penthe spoke first, cutting him off. “Kvothe, are you hurt from your fall?”
“Not badly,” I said, moving my back gingerly. “A few bruises, perhaps.”
“Do you have anything to put on them?”
I shook my head.
Penthe stepped forward and took hold of my arm. “I have things at my house. We will leave these two to discuss the Lethani. Someone should tend to your hurts.” She held my arm with her left hand, making her statement curiously empty of any emotional content.
“Of course,” Shehyn said after a moment, and Tempi gestured a hasty agreement. But Penthe was already leading me firmly down the hill.
We walked for a quarter mile or so, Penthe holding my arm lightly.
Eventually she spoke in her lightly accented Aturan. “Are you bruised badly enough to need a salve?” she asked.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“I thought not,” she said. “But after I have lost a fight, I rarely wish to have people tell me how I lost it.” She flashed me a small, secret smile.
I smiled back.
We continued to walk, and Penthe kept hold of my arm, subtly guiding us through a grove of trees, then up a steep path carved through a small bluff. Eventually we came to a secluded dell that had a carpet of wild papavlerflower blossoming among the grass. Their loose, blood-red petals were almost exactly the same color as Penthe’s mercenary reds.
“Vashet told me barbarians have strange rituals with your sex,” Penthe said. “She told me if I wanted to bed you, I should bring you to some flowers.” She gestured around. “These are the best I could find in this season.” She looked up at me expectantly.
“Ah,” I said. “I expect Vashet was having a bit of a joke with you. Or perhaps a joke with me.” Penthe frowned and I hurried to continue. “But it is true that among the barbarians there are many rituals that lead up to sex. It is somewhat more complicated there.”