The next morning at the third hour, before the older afternoon pupils arrived from the river wards, Seyun and Daro stood six paces apart on the swept gravel of the courtyard holding matched three-foot sticks of seasoned hickory. Kes sat on the top porch step with a sharpening stone and a bundle of wooden practice swords across his knees. Meanwhile, Archivist Vel paused by the study window with a mug of hot water to watch.
Both fighters wore their medical restrictions in plain sight. Seyun’s left shoulder remained bound in Mina’s figure-eight linen wrap beneath his rolled-up hemp shirt, limiting his left hand to light guiding contact at waist level. Meanwhile, his right hand carried the hickory stick. Across the chalk line, Daro Kesh stood without his oak cane, his stitched right thigh wrapped in a firm woollen support bandage over his trousers, his stance deliberately shortened so his back knee never bent past the thirty-degree limit Mina had prescribed.
Neither man kindled a Flame mantle, hardened a Bronze edge, or called up a whisper of Jade depth. Under the terms they had set in the study, they were two battered martial practitioners working at plain Coal speed with forty ounces of plain hickory.
