Weapon-Master Maren set the sealed bronze-and-mica lamp down upon the flat capstone of the starting cairn. Then, the three senior Bronze students appointed to contest Ilyra’s ascent marched past the platform apron and up the ridge to take their stations. Each wore the heavy leather shoulder-guards of the inner court. Then they carried a seven-foot proof spear whose steel head had on the surface been removed and replaced with a heavy, tube-shaped metal ring of blunted hardwood bound in rawhide.
Seyun leaned his forearms lightly on the freezing iron rail of the watching platform, studying the three test judges with the same careful attention he had given the wood-carriers’ calluses and Daro Kesh’s sword stance in Oran. In eleven years of sweeping check yards and tending under-floor chimney pipes, he had learned that a fighter’s intent showed in how they carried their weight before the horn ever blew.
The first judge, who took his post fifty yards up on the wide, windward flat stone slab terrace, was a broad-shouldered young man named Kael. He held his blunted spear with a wide two-handed grip biased toward the butt-cap. A classic heavy-sweep stance designed to use the gale coming off the western deep gap like a battering ram. That forced a climber either to plant both feet and lose forward driving force or to bring their off-hand across to brace the shaft. Kael was grinning into the wind, slapping his leather gauntlet against the ash wood to keep his fingers warm. He…
