At the fall of Mother Renn’s stick, the ten paces of gravel between the two men vanished in a single breath of open Consolidated Jade.
Daro Kesh attacked along a high, driving slanted from right to left, the broad dark blade of his fire-rib short sword cutting the air with a low, ringing hum that made the water in the stone well ripple. Seyun met the first line three paces north of the oak garden post, angling his mountain-ash staff across his body with both hands. His healed left shoulder taking the full upper lever-load without a tremor. Meanwhile, his right forearm stayed lined up dead-center with the grain of the wood, correcting the quarter-inch elbow drift he had written on the first page of his Practice Notebook the night before.
Clang!
Ash wood sheathed in Consolidated Jade met spirit-hardened fire iron. Neither weapon bounced.
In the instant of contact, Daro carried out the exact live-pressure shift that had sliced open Seyun’s forearm in the seal court before the Twelfth Night. Without lifting his blade from the ash shaft, Daro shifted his back hip and changed the depth of his Jade plane mid-slide. Turning a heavy forward bind into a sudden, yielding drop that let his short sword slip down the wood like an otter diving under a log, aiming straight for Seyun’s lead wrist.
