Between the stone well-house and the front timber gate lay a twenty-foot square of packed river gravel that Daro Kesh had left unplowed so farm wagons could turn around inside the compound. After a quick midday meal of cold barley bread and willow-bark tea, Bren and Tella swept the loose frost-heaved pebbles from that gravel square. Meanwhile, Ilyra stood on the porch fitting a heavy, blunt iron practice metal ring over the marsh-iron point of her spear, securing the leather cross-straps with her left hand and her teeth.
“Your right shoulder took forty upward parries in the ravine yesterday morning, Lady Ilyra,” Daro Kesh said as he stood in the center of the gravel square, rolling his shoulders in his sleeveless hemp training vest and testing the balance of his live Bronze broadsword. “If drawing a full Bronze wake today is going to tear Tella’s stitches open before we march north, say so now. I don’t want a polite thrust pulled at the elbow.”
Ilyra gave the ash shaft of her spear a crisp, one-handed spin and settled the butt-spike against her boot heel, her dark eyes cool and focused. “Tella’s figure-eight wrap holds the shoulder muscle clean if I keep my rear elbow tucked below the collarbone, Master Kesh,” she answered evenly. “And if I ever threw a flattering spear at a sworn rival’s second mark just to make him look wise in front of his students, Seyun would write the insult into his little book and read it…
