The noodle bowls were cleared and stacked in the kitchen tub. Then, the afternoon sun warmed the courtyard gravel to a bright, clean gold.
Down between the stone well and the hemp-wrapped white-oak post, Ilyra and Kes lined up the eighteen young students. Fourteen sword pupils from the Black-Roof School paired with the four visiting spear new students from White Heron Hall. Ilyra used her plain mountain-ash spear. She showed the opening exercise she and Kes had designed. One student had to carry a brimming wooden dipper of well water from the side garden gate to the porch steps while their partner used a branching spear or sword ward to deflect a third student’s wooden stick. With the strict rule that if the defender pushed or crowded the carrier off their chosen path to make the block easier, the pass failed as surely as if the stick had hit them.
Seyun sat on the top step of the porch with his back against the warm pine pillar and his thinner Practice Notebook resting on his knee. He watched eleven-year-old Benn and a fourteen-year-old White Heron girl work through the drill together. The girl’s spear shaft drifted too close to Benn’s shoulder. Then, Benn used Kes’s water-bucket wrist hinge to step smoothly around the oak post without spilling a drop, and Ilyra nodded in quiet test.
