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Chapter V: A Length of Rope

Summer 4
1

In her dreams, Jame heard a voice:

Kinzi-kin, it was crying. Such a lost, plaintive sound, she thought, but fearful too, and hushed, as if afraid of being heard.

Kinzi Keen-eyed was her great-grandmother, slain some thirty-odd years ago in the massacre that had claimed all but one of the Knorth ladies at Gothregor. Who would call her by that long dead name?

She rose from her nest of blankets, went to the hole in the slanting roof, and looked down. It was early morning, barely light, with shreds of mist floating through the trees. A ghostly figure stood below, looking up. Again came that desolate cry:

Kinzi-kin!

Jame leaned out. "Here!" she called down.

The stranger appeared to be a woman clothed in filmy white, but the face raised to Jame was almost triangular, broad across the forehead, tapering down to a small mouth and chin. Ears pricked through the long, tangled locks that veiled half her face. Her single, visible eye was large and dark.

Aahhh . . . she breathed, in a long shuddering sigh. Nemesis. Then, in a pale flicker, she was gone.

The morning horn sounded and below feet hit the floor. Jame stood by the window, wondering if it had been a dream. Below, however, were hoof-marks in the rain-softened earth.

So began the third day of tests.

Hastily dressing, Jame wondered if she had been insane to believe she could ever qualify as a cadet. The Kendar against whom she was competing had prepared all their lives for this. Her own training had been at once more intense than theirs and more limited, including precious few weapons. She had only scraped through sword practice because at first her opponents couldn't bring themselves to look her in the face. Vant had broken that with a set glare, and then had thoroughly trounced her into the bargain.

She had thought she was doing well with the knife, only to be penalized for her unfamiliar style.

True, she had enjoyed plotting the overthrow of a citadel, only to realize when she turned in her closely written five pages that most cadets were still laboriously scrawling their first paragraph. That was the first time she had ever seen Brier Iron-thorn sweat.

She also thought she might eventually get the hang of the quarter-staff and bow, but not in time to help now.

As for riding, the less said, the better. Several of the horses had been found to have burrs lodged under their tails, which accounted for a great deal. Her own mount had been clean except for strange scratches along his crest that looked almost like claw marks. Jame was hardly going to explain how those had come about.

There were nine tests in all, three or four a day, administered at random as far as Jame could tell. For each, her ten-command was paired with a ten of a different house, and the twenty of them were sent wherever the appropriate officer waited. With so many tests all conducted more or less at the same time, Tentir and its environs swarmed with sweating cadets and shouting randon. Each time, a candidate was ranked from first place to twentieth, and the scores added as he or she went. A perfect (but unlikely) over-all score would be nine; the worst, one hundred and eighty. No one knew for certain, but the cut-off for admission to the college was believed to be around one hundred and thirty. The Randon Council, comprised of past and present commandants of Tentir, would set the final mark when all scores were in.

After seven tests, Brier was leading Vant by thirteen to his twenty-one.

Jame, on the other hand, had already nearly accumulated the fatal number. To qualify as a cadet, she would have to do very well indeed on the last two tests.

One of them was bound to be unarmed combat, the Senethar.

Jame only knew that the other took place in the great hall of Old Tentir, and that cadets often emerged from it pale and shaking. A few didn't return at all. Those who had passed refused to say exactly what had happened, on orders of the randon. Each day left a smaller, increasingly apprehensive number of the uninitiated. Finally, among the Knorth only Jame's ten had yet to face the nameless ordeal.

"I've heard some candidates choose the white knife rather than do whatever-it-is," said one of her cadets at the breakfast table.

That was Quill, thought Jame, the one whose mother had wanted him to become a scrollsman, hence the name. It had suddenly struck her that despite all they had been through together—raiding Restormir, careening down the Silver in a stolen barge in the middle of an earthquake, riding Mount Alban all the way to the Southern Wastes and back—the only two of the ten whom she knew by name were Briar and Rue. But now they were her ten, her responsibility.

"If they killed themselves, where are the pyres?"

That was Erim, clumsy, beetle-browed, and slow of speech, who looked stupid but, she suspected, wasn't.

"Idiot, they would send the bodies home for the burning."

Mint. Pretty, with green eyes and a touch of Highborn refinement in her bones. A flirt who liked to set male and sometimes female Kendar against each other, just for fun.

"Or salt them for the winter larder," said Rue. "God's claws, I'm only joking! Five, what do you think?"

Brier Iron-thorn, as usual, had drawn her bench slightly back from the table and was taking no part in the nervous chatter. "I think the missing cadets failed the test and went home, all right, too embarrassed to stay."

"Or in disgrace." Vant flung this from the neighboring table. His ten had undergone the mysterious ordeal early and all had emerged unscathed, if shaken. "What will you tell your lord, shortie, when you come crawling back to him?"

Rue flushed. "I'd rather die, or be eaten."

"Maybe they'll give you a choice. Fried, broiled, jerked . . . you're about the right size for a roast suckling pig, though."

"Ten," said Jame, "shut up."

Vant sketched her a salute. "As you wish, lady."

His cadets tittered nervously, unsure if they should follow his lead. He believed he would be rid of her soon, Jame thought. He might be right.

In the square, the horn blared its summons and all rushed outside to take formation.

Although they had been half-expecting it, the order that the Knorth and a Danior ten should report to Old Tentir still came as an unpleasant shock.

Entering the dim great hall, Jame looked around. It didn't appear to be any more of a torture chamber than usual—less, in fact, now that its floor was clean and its roof mended. House banners still hung portentously against the lower walls and randon collars still winked farther up in the gloom. The only difference took a moment to spot: a rope, stretched from one side of the hall to the other from the third story railings.

Behind her, a cadet gagged. Jame turned to find them all staring up at that innocent length of hemp as if they expected momentarily to be hanged with it.

Then she understood. Many Kendar suffered intense vertigo and nausea when faced with heights—a potentially fatal drawback for a professional soldier. It made sense that any cadet who couldn't overcome this weakness had no place at the college. Still, what a test to set them so early in their careers!

A cold voice spoke from the upper gallery: "Come up."

Above, a gaunt Randir officer waited for them. "So you would be randon," she said, with a thin smile at their carefully blank faces. "And what is that, eh? Would you master others? Can you master yourselves? Here, we find out."

She began to pace slowly up and down their rigid line, from the Danior ten at one end to Jame at the other and back. Her long coat swished as she moved, like the dry hiss of scales on stone. Her arms folded tight across her chest seemed to hold in and concentrate her malice. In a soft, almost caressing tone she spoke of a randon's duties, harmless stuff often heard before, but beneath the surface ran another voice like the murmur of black water under ice. Jame heard it most clearly when the woman paused before her and fixed her with dark, unblinking eyes.

"Don't think you'll get away with it," came that subtle whisper inside her mind, echoing her fears and doubts.

The woman's eyes seemed to be almost all black pupil now, holes plunging into an abyss, and someone else watched through them.

"Fail one more test, and you are gone. Pass, and how long will it be before we drive you out? Fool. Abomination. Besides, you have hurt my cousin and crossed my lady, who is far from done with you. Run. Hide. But in the end, in the dark, she will find you."

Then she smiled. Her teeth were very white and the incisors chiseled to needle points. Then she passed on, leaving Jame as breathless as if those tightly clasped arms had crushed the air out of her.

What was she doing here? (Fool.) What could she expect to accomplish, except her brother's ruin and her own? (Abomination.) What place was there anywhere for such a creature as herself, bred to darkling service, in futile rebellion against her own nature?

Wait a minute, she thought. I hurt her cousin? Who in Perimal's name was that . . . and of whom do those sharpened teeth remind me?

Then she caught a fragment of what the randon was saying under her breath to Rue: "Border brat. Runt. What made you think that you could fit in here, among your superiors? Give up. Go home. Die. No one cares which."

This randon's lady was Rawneth, the Randir Matriarch, the Witch of Wilden, who perhaps had been behind the slaughter of the Knorth women thirty-four years ago; and yes, Jame meant to cross her at every possible turn until she not only knew the truth but could prove it.

Now she recognized the power in the randon's voice. It was similar to that of Brenwyr, called the Iron Matriarch for her fierce self-control—a good thing, too, because she was a Shanir maledight who could kill with a curse.

"Rootless and roofless. . ."

No, Jame thought, pushing Brenwyr's words out of her mind. I'll prove her wrong yet. I must.

Another word floated up in her mind: tempter. That was this Randir's power, aligned with the third face of god, and that was her role: to taunt her victims to destruction, if they were weak enough to fall.

Beside her, Rue was shivering like a drenched puppy. In a moment, she would stumble forward to end this ordeal one way or another. Jame touched her arm as she moved, stopping her.

"Age before innocence."

The randon had reached the other end of the line, and so didn't see Jame step forward. A gasp from the cadets made her turn to find the Knorth already standing on the balcony rail. As they all watched, horrified, she spread her arms and stepped gracefully out onto the rope.

At last, thought Jame, something at which she was good. Not only had she no fear of heights, but a year of playing tag-you're-dead with the Cloudies across the rooftops of Tai-tastigon had given her considerable experience in such aerial sports.

She was half way across the hall when a choked exclamation from below broke both her concentration and her balance.

Jame recovered enough to part with the rope on her own terms and to catch it as she fell past. Swinging, looking down, she saw the violently foreshortened figure of Harn Grip-hard, who was staring aghast up at her.

"What in Perimal's name are you doing?" he demanded hoarsely.

"I was trying to pass a test. Sorry, ran," she added, seeing his stricken face.

"Come back." If a voice could have chipped stone, the Randir's would have.

Jame reversed and returned, hand over hand this time. She thought, as she neared the rail, that the rope gave slightly, but the stark face of the waiting randon held her attention. As she swung herself back over the rail into the gallery, she saw half the cadets bent over heaving up their breakfasts and the rest barely retaining theirs. One boy had fainted.

Kest, she thought. The cadet who had suffered so terribly from height-sickness on their climb up Lord Caldane's tower that even Kindrie couldn't help him.

Only Brier Iron-thorn watched her with cold detachment, as if the witness to a mountebank's failed trick.

"Now, why did you do that?" asked the Randir, very softly. Under her voice, the cold currents ran swift and deep. "Did you think these brats would admire your courage and skill? Do you need their approval so badly? Just what were you trying to prove, and to whom?"

Someone said, "Look!" and when they all did, there was Rue, starting across the rope hand over hand, do or die, her face white and sweating, her eyes screwed shut.

She was half way across when the rope groaned and sagged. Rue's eyes snapped open. Paralyzed with fear, she stared down at the cruel stones thirty feet below.

Her mates lined the rail, discipline forgotten.

"Come back!" some cried.

"Go on!" shouted others.

Below, Harn was roaring, "Where are the bloody mats?"

The rope sagged again. It was parting, strand by strand, some ten feet beyond the rail.

Brier started forward, but Jame stopped her. "I know you've a good head for heights, Five, but you weigh half again more than I do."

As she swung a leg over the rail, the Randir grabbed her arm. "Stay here," she hissed. "Haven't you done enough harm already?"

Jame broke the randon's grip. Black rage flared in her, driving everyone back. "Never. Touch. Me. Again."

She wanted to keep her anger, to kindle it with all the misery of the past three days into a full berserker flare that would return to her all the power that others had tried to strip away. What she really needed now, however, was self-control. She regained it with a fierce effort. A moment to gauge distances, and out again over the void.

Here was the weakened section of the rope, between her hands. The outer strands had been pried apart and the inner ones notched. To all but the closest scrutiny, the rope would have appeared to be sound, and so it had proved under her slight weight. She swung past and on to where Rue helplessly dangled.

"Rue, move."

"Can't," said the cadet through clenched teeth.

"Must. Just a bit farther. Do it."

With a sob, Rue loosened the fingers of one hand, groped ahead, and clutched.

"Again. Good girl. And again."

The rope parted. Jame tightened her grip on it as it plunged away and wrapped her legs around Rue's body. They swung down with a heart-stopping rush toward the far wall and into the fibrous mass that was the Caineron banner. As Jame had hoped, it cushioned their impact nicely, if with a choking billow of dust. She let the rope slide through her gloved hands. They hit the floor harder than she would have liked, given her already sore bottom, but that was nothing compared to what it would have been like if Rue hadn't inched forward those last, vital few feet.

"Yow," said Jame, letting out her breath.

The shock-headed cadet gulped, turned, and cast herself into Jame's arms, bursting into tears. Jame held her, oddly touched. She looked up to see Sheth Sharp-tongue standing over them.

"All right, children?"

"Yes, ran," she answered for them both. "In a minute."

The other cadets came scrambling down the stair, slowing in a wary gaggle as they recognized the Commandant.

"Return to your barracks and rest," he said, addressing both squads. "You are excused this trial until later in the year, with a provisional pass for now. Your last test will take place this afternoon."

Harn reentered the hall, dragging a large, heavy floor mat. He dropped it, panting, when he saw that they were safe. "This was bundled up in a side room. And why was that rope slung three stories up instead of the usual two? What in Perimal's name is going on? Here, you!"

He stalked toward the Randir, who was descending the stair more slowly than the cadets into the hall. The Commandant sauntered over to join them.

"Take the squads back to their quarters," Jame told Brier. "I'll be along shortly."

The big Southron gave her an unreadable look, and a curt nod.

Jame was left irresolute, watching the three senior officers. Two of them were immortal in song and legend, the greatest randon of their generation. Who was she to interfere? However, she had stayed because Harn Grip-hard was her brother's oldest friend, and a berserker with reputedly failing self-control. She could easily guess what the Randir Tempter was saying to him under her soft voice, between those sharp, sharp teeth:

"Give in to your rage. Let it devour you. Become the beast that you know you are . . ."

And the Commandant merely watched, as he had when Tori had fought Ardeth for mastery of the Kencyrath's very soul.

"You say the hall was set up as you found it." Harn loomed over the smaller woman, his big fists clenched at his sides. "You say the rope appeared to be sound. But you know we don't set it that high this soon, much less without safeguards. And before that, arrows in the wood, as if anyone would conduct an archery trial there! What the hell are you Randir playing at?"

"Let go. Give in."

Harn shook. Veins stood out on his neck and burst in his eyes, turning them red. Sheth drew back a step, as if to enjoy a better view. The Randir woman smiled.

This was intolerable.

Jame slipped between the Knorth Kendar and the Randir. "Ran Harn," she said, raising her voice and her hands to stop him. He caught her by the wrists in a brutal grip. Bones ground together. Both Highborn and Kendar might be called berserkers, but with the former it was a colder, more considering thing. A Kendar like Harn could rip a foe limb from limb, only later realizing what he had done.

"Harn," she repeated, louder, trying not to wince, "Blackie trusts you."

Finally he looked down at her, blinking blood-shot eyes, then thrust her aside and blundered out of the hall.

Jame watched him go, rubbing her bruised wrists.

"If he should break," said the Commandant mildly, behind her, "better it be among his peers, who can defend themselves, than among his students, who cannot. You, perhaps, are an exception." She turned to find him regarding her speculatively. "I haven't quite figured you out yet, child."

"No, ran. Nor I, you."

He smiled and flicked her under the chin with a careless finger. "No doubt we will both eventually succeed." With that, he strolled away, his white scarf the last thing to melt into the shadows of Old Tentir.

Jame turned to confront the Randir. She put all the strength she had left into her voice, where it echoed hollowly. "Ropes and arrows, burrs and notched bows . . . whatever is going on, ran, it's between your precious Witch of Wilden and me. Leave my friends out of it."

The Randir raised an eyebrow. "You blame us? Why should we wish you to fail more than, oh, say a dozen others? You don't belong here, girl. Your mere presence tarnishes the honor of all randon, alive or dead, just as it calls into question the sanity of the brother who sent you. I, too, have reason to wish you ill, all the more so because the cause means so little to you that you can't even remember it. And who are these precious friends of yours? If they exist, which I doubt, point them out to me so that we may mark them too. Tentir has no place for fools."

Then she turned on her heel and was gone.

Alone at last, Jame sagged against the wall, feeling utterly spent. It had already been a very long morning, and quite likely it was only an hour past breakfast.

The Kendar had a phrase: to ride a rathorn. It meant to take on a task too dangerous to let go. Also, since the rathorn was a beast associated with madness, it implied that to ride one was to go insane.

Like father, like son, like daughter?

"Oh, Tori," she said, looking up at the Knorth banner with its double horned, rampant emblem. "We are truly riding the rathorn now."

II

Moments later, it seems, someone was shaking her awake.

Jame surged out of dwar sleep to find herself in the attic of the Knorth quarters. She noted, bemused, that someone had changed her mildewed blankets for clean bedding. Brier was bending over her. Then she came fully, horrifying awake.

"How did I get here?" she cried, struggling to rise. "What time is it? Have I missed the last test?"

"You walked in," said Brier, "it's early afternoon, and the only thing you've missed so far is the noon meal. Here." She indicated a slab of buttered bread and a jug of milk on a nearby tray. "Eat quickly. The rally will sound any minute now."

Jame gulped the milk and bolted the bread, all the time scrambling to collect her wits. She remembered now walking back into the barracks to find it full of both Knorth and Danior. The sudden silence that had greeted her entrance. The stairs. The nest of smelly blankets. And escape into dwar sleep.

That was an unusual reaction for her, even after such a morning. She suspected that the Randir had something to do with it. However, if that woman had said anything at the end in her soft, serpent's voice, Jame couldn't remember it.

She did, vaguely, remember something else from the depths of dwar sleep—another voice, other words: "What is love, Jamie? What is honor?"

Tirandys. Senethari.

But he was dead. She had stood beside his pyre, watched him burn. A darkling changer he may have been, but whatever good there was in her she owed to him. The rest of the dream was gone.

"Brier," she said abruptly, "I'm sorry about your demotion. That was the last thing I intended, coming here. And I'm sorry I showed off on the rope. I never meant to make light of the Kendars' fear of heights."

The big Southron regarded her, no expression at all on her sun-dark face. "You never intend, lady. That's the problem."

III

The last test took place in the training square of New Tentir, under the Commandant's balcony. Cadet candidates knelt in a circle around the place of combat, ten Ardeth and ten Knorth, Timmon smiling on one side, Jame intent on the other.

She meant to be very proper and restrained this time. Remembering Tirandys had also reminded her of the dignity inherent in the Senethar, that first and most unique of the Kencyrath's unarmed fighting skills.

As with the other trials judged by single combat, two out of three contests determined victory. The winner went on to face a new challenger; the loser waited to confront whoever lost the ensuing match. After two defeats, a cadet's score was established and he or she retired to watch the superior fighters continue. Thus, at the least one fought two opponents, at the most all twenty, up to the coveted first rank.

Jame's chance came early, against a large, slow Ardeth who could hardly bear to look her in the face, much less lay hands on her. She tricked him off-balance and threw him with a crisp earth-moving maneuver that used his own size against him. The instructor, who had turned his head to speak to someone, looked back at the thud and blinked.

"Again," he said.

The second time took perhaps ten seconds longer, but with the same result.

After that, at first, things went quickly. The cautious tended to use earth-moving; the timid, water-flowing; the aggressive, fire-leaping; the ambitious, wind-blowing (usually poorly), all to the same effect or lack thereof. Their opponent had been very well trained.

"That's pure, classic Tirandys," said one senior randon quietly to another. "I haven't seen a move yet less than three thousand years old. Who in Perimal's name was her teacher?"

"Tirandys developed his form specifically for Highborn women," said the other. "Some say it was a love gift to Jamethiel Dream-weaver, although she favored the Senetha version. What if they still teach it in the Women's Halls, and their lords none the wiser?"

"Now that," said the first, "is a truly frightening thought."

Jame was aware, as the trials continued, that more and more randon were coming up to watch, but she put them out of her mind. It was a long time since she had been in regular training and she felt the lack of it acutely. Moreover, few of her adversaries in recent years had been Kencyr. She needed all her wits about her now. As she met more and more skillful opponents, she began to lose the occasional fall, but still managed two out of three wins. The instructor called increasingly frequent rest breaks.

The sun set behind the Snowthorns and shadows rolled down into the valley. Torches were kindled around the square. By now, all the other contests had ended and Kendar were returning to quarters, some to settle in as cadets, others to pack and leave. As she knelt in a space of silence during a break, amidst a growing, chattering thong, Jame tried to add up her points but couldn't. At the moment, it didn't seem important. All that mattered now was that she do her best in the last two rounds.

The instructor clapped. Timmon rose and stepped into the ring to exchange salutes with her.

Not to Jame's surprise, he favored the showy aggression of fire-leaping. She countered with water-flowing which meets and turns aside attacks, all the time studying his technique. He could be made to lose patience, and soon did, over-extending in a kick that would have sent her flying if it had connected. Instead, she slid in under it and swept his foot out from under him.

"First win, Knorth," announced the instructor.

Timmon picked himself up, looking amazed. Then he grinned and came to attention, awaiting the second round.

This time he fought with more respect for his opponent, and finally caught her out with a slick, earth-moving wrist-lock.

"Second win, Ardeth."

By now, they had taken each other's measure and had found themselves well-matched. The third round moved smoothly from earth to fire to water, with a touch of wind-blowing, back and forth, give and take, though torchlight and shadow. Senethar flowed into Senetha. They no longer fought but moved together in the ancient patterns of the dance. All voices around them ceased as the glamour spread. Their movements mirrored each other. Hands moved, almost but not quite touching. Body slid by lithe body, each tracing the other's contours on the air, and the senses tinged as they passed.

Someone began softly to play a flute. It was a common exercise, by name the Sene, to alternate between fight and dance, changing instantly from the former to the latter when the music began, changing back when it stopped. The two dancers had shifted to wind blowing. They hardly touched the ground, almost weightless with balance and soaring poise. The Ardeth was good, but the Knorth . . .

Space seemed to open out around her. Instead of the practice square, she danced with golden-eyed shadows on a floor of cold marble shot with green. Darkness breathed around her:

"Ahhhh . . . ."

The instructor shook himself and clapped twice, loudly.

The flute fell silent. Later, no one would admit to having played it, and some would claim to have heard nothing.

Jame started, suddenly awake, aware, and shaken to the core. Sweet Trinity, she had nearly reaped that boy's soul.

Timmon's hand moved past her face. She caught it, turned, and twisted. He seemed to whirl past, a sleep-dancer waking in mid-flight, too startled to break his own fall.

"Third win and match, Knorth."

"So," said the first senior randon to the second as a shaken Timmon rose, brushing himself off with unsteady hands. "Senethar and Senetha. Tirandys and the Dream-weaver both have come to Tentir, in one, small person, and with her more than a touch of their darkling glamour. What next, I wonder."

Next and last came Briar Iron-thorn.

Highborn and Southron Kendar saluted and began to circle each other. Somehow, Jame had never believed that things would go this far, nor did she know what to do now that they had. Dancing was out of the question, but she didn't want to fight Brier either. Cadets began to clap softly in unison to urge them on. This was ridiculous, she told herself. After all, it was only a contest.

She feigned a blow to draw the Kendar out. Brier slapped aside her hand, nearly snaring it in a water-flowing lock.

It occurred to Jame that she had never before seen the other fight. For such a large woman, Brier's reflexes were very fast, and she was undoubtedly much stronger than Jame. Still, this was the sort of unequal contest for which Jame had been trained.

Right, she thought, and settled down to it.

The first match was cautious on both sides, with a stress on defensive, water-flowing moves. The cadets clapped louder, an insistent, impatient beat. They wanted to see what these two champions could do. Jame caught Brier out and threw her.

"First win, ah . . . Highborn."

The second match went faster. They were striking at each other now, fire-leaping countered by wind-blowing, earth-moving against water-flowing. Brier caught Jame mid-leap and slammed her down, hard.

"Second win, Kendar."

Some cadets cheered.

Jame rose gingerly, shaken in every bone. If she had held back before, so had Brier. Now, she knew she was in trouble. Did the other's hard, green eyes see her at all, or only one of the hated Highborn? Here and now, did it matter? She tried to disable her adversary with a strike to the transverse crease of the wrist between the tendons, which should at least have numbed her hand, at best have made her knees buckle. Instead, Brier caught her wrist, pivoted and struck at Jame's ribcage with her heel. Only a quick water-flowing turn caused her to miss. Trinity, that blow could have broken Jame's ribs, even collapsed a lung. Was the Kendar trying to kill her?

"Only a Kencyr can destroy a Tyr-ridan," Kirien had told the haunt singer Ashe; and she, Jame, might one day become Nemesis, the personification of That-Which-Destroys, the Third Face of God.

Ironic, that an ally could kill her more easily than an enemy.

She knew she was almost spent. This kind of light-headedness only improved with rest, and the instructor just sat there stony-faced, waiting for the end. She didn't mind losing. She could simply fall down and lie there until Brier's win was called. It wasn't in her nature, however, to give up.

Dumb, stupid pride, she thought muzzily.

Then Brier moved—in a blur, it seemed to Jame—and she was on the ground.

"Third win and match . . ." began the instructor, but was cut off by a general uproar.

Jame felt hands supporting her. She spat and stared dully at the resulting spatter of blood, a tooth glimmering in the midst of in it.

Brier stood back, watching her with as white a face as her deep tan allowed.

"Careful," said Jame, thickly. "I may be a blood-binder."

Why did you say that? one part of her mind demanded as some Kendar recoiled. Because they had to know, said the other.

Meanwhile, the argument raged on:

". . . a fair win. . ."

". . . an unorthodox move . . ."

". . . but effective . . ."

". . .Kothifir street fighting . . ."

". . . preserve the purity of our traditions . . ."

"All right, all right!" said the instructor, throwing up his hands. "Third win and match, Highborn."

"Now wait a minute," said Jame thickly, but was drowned out with cries of delight. The Kendar, cheering her? Nothing made sense.

Rue hoisted her to her feet.

"Oh no," Timmon was saying in the background. "I'm not going to fight that giantess. I'm happy with third place. Let her have second."

"I'm confused," said Jame, whistling slightly through the gap where one of her front teeth had been. "But then I usually am."

"Just take the win, lady," hissed Rue. "You need it."

While Jame tried to sort this out, someone began to clap. All other noises died. Cadets backed away. A newcomer stood at the edge of the circle, striking his hands together with slow, heavy emphasis. He was only a few years older than the cadets around him, but his rich riding coat already strained to conceal the beginnings of a pouch. And he had his father's heavy, hooded eyes.

"Well, well, well," said the Caineron Lordan. "First blood already. This is going to be more amusing than I thought."

 

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