Three paces from the northern granite screen wall. There, the curving western drainage curb met the narrow threshold leading behind the six-foot stone barrier, Daro Kesh carried out his third reversal.
It was a stroke that only a seasoned Jade swordmaster wielding a twenty-four-inch short blade could have conceived in the middle of a running bind.
Having pressed Seyun’s ash staff low and outward along the western drainage gutter throughout the second exchange—drawing Seyun’s weight and his left-hand pivot point down toward the curb—Daro didn’t push harder along the outer line. Instead, at the exact instant Halin’s leading boot stepped up onto the threshold stone of the screen wall, Daro relaxed his downward pressure to zero, flipped his right wrist grip fully over inside the handle ring so the short blade lay inverted along his forearm. Then he whipped the broad steel back across the high inside line.
The reversal attacked two vulnerabilities at the same tenth of a breath. First, the heel of Daro’s inverted blade hooked low behind Seyun’s bound left calf, threatening to sweep his stitched leg out from under him if his weight was frozen on the gutter stone. Second, the rising point of the short sword flashed upward across the high inner gap between Seyun’s left shoulder and the corner of the granite screen wall. Aimed straight at the head-high space where sixteen-year-old Halin was striding upright onto the threshold ahead of Mina!
