Ink Mage Read Free

practiced only in the last few months, integrating weaponless hand fighting with fencing skills.
    He jumped, easily avoiding the sweep, but his sword went wide as he spread his arms to balance himself. Rina was already leaping to her feet, thrusting the rapier. The tip tinged off Kork’s breastplate.
    Rina’s point.
    The gathering soldiers laughed and applauded.
    She bowed, panting. “Thank you, thank you! For your further entertainment, the mighty Rina Veraiin will slay another giant after the lunch hour! Bring your friends to see the show.”
    Another small smattering of applause as the group of soldiers dissipated back to their posts.
    “Still think I don’t practice enough?”
    Kork shrugged.
    “Oh, now don’t tell me you’re pouting ,” Rina said.
    “What is it you think you’ve accomplished?” Kork asked.
    “Victory, obviously,” Rina said.
    Kork sighed, the sound of a bull ox snorting. “I have been … training you all wrong.”
    What? “Did I not just score that point? I think somebody is being a bad sport.”
    Kork scowled at her, and Rina knew she was close to stepping over a line.
    She cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”
    “I have been teaching you skills,” Kork said, “instead of combat.”
    Rina blinked, confused. “What’s the difference?”
    Kork lifted his chin in the direction of the encamped army on the other side of the Long Bridge. “That.”
    Rina shook her head. “Wait, I don’t understand why that should matter. I still beat you. I think you’re sour because you lost.”
    She regretted saying it immediately. Kork had taught her everything. Her words were the words of a bratty, spoiled duke’s daughter. And yet she couldn’t make herself take them back. Some stubbornness had seized her and refused to let go. It was a stubbornness that had infuriated her father on more than one occasion.
    Kork wasn’t fazed. He’d seen her this way many times. Up until about age eleven, the stubbornness was usually accompanied by the stomping of a little foot and a pouty lip.
    “And if you’d touched the tip of your little sword against my breastplate on the battlefield? What would that mean?”
    “It would mean—” She stopped. What would it mean?
    Kork drew the enormous hand-and-a-half sword from the sheath on his back, held it out to her with one hand. With the other, he rapped a knuckle on his breastplate. A deep metallic ring. “You want to get through this armor, then you need a weapon with heft. Take it.”
    She took the hilt in both hands.
    When Kork let go, the sword dropped, dragging her arms along with it. The tip hit the stone floor.
    “You are soooo funny,” she said. “You know I can’t lift this ridiculous thing.”
    Kork sheathed his scimitar. “I’ll even the odds for you.” He drew a small knife from a hidden pocket sewn inside his cloak. It was what they called a gentleman’s knife. The small four-inch blade folded into and out of a carved wooden handle. This one had a simple carving of a swan on a calm lake. It was a knife old men used to whittle while they sat around and gossiped about affairs of state and hunting and women.
    Kork opened the blade, held it loosely in his right hand. “Come at me.”
    “Obviously, I can’t—”
    “This isn’t a sporting duel,” Kork snapped. “You do not get your choice of weapons. You do not get to rest and regroup between points. You get to live or die.”
    Rina didn’t waste time with more talk. Kork expected her to drag out her protests as she would normally, trying to wriggle out of some unpleasant task or practice session. She had one chance to tag him and that was surprise.
    She started her hips moving first then put her shoulders into it. It was the only way she could get the sword up for a proper swing. Her back was almost to him by the time the sword came around, but at least she had it up to speed for a strike.
    One of Kork’s gigantic hands was suddenly on her wrist, pulling her through the