The butt of Nara Soth’s walking staff came through the center gap on a rising slanted that caught the middle of Seyun’s ash stave across both of his hands. Again, her throttled force didn’t exceed mature Bronze—yet the shape of the lever was merciless. She had placed her staff across his cross-guard at an exact forty-degree wedge where the downward vector ran straight through his left back muscle into the two-slat linen band supporting his fifth and sixth ribs.
In the span of half a breath, Seyun’s Deeper Bronze channels measured the two physical options available to his feet. If he planted his boots on the center flat stone slab. Then he locked his core to hold the space directly in front of Master Uren’s hanging tablet, his Deeper Bronze stave was strong enough to stop her mature Bronze blow right there. The staff wouldn’t break—but the unbuffered downward shear would drive his left elbow into his ribs hard enough to crack the five-day callus bridge on his fifth rib and violate the rule he had just spoken before Daro and Mina.
The butt of Nara Soth’s walking staff pivoted into the center gap on the second beat of Exchange One. Then, the wooden shaft met Seyun’s cross-guard at a forty-degree downward wedge aimed straight down the line of his left back muscle toward his braced fifth and sixth ribs. By the eastern pillar, Daro Kesh leaned forward half an inch, watching how Seyun’s boots would answer the lever. By…
