The Oathbreaker's Shadow Read Free

blade and scratched more notches into his metal stick. When finished, he threaded the stick through the eye cut into the hollowed-out wood and pulled back with all his strength. For a second, the disc jumped and hovered above the invention as if surprised to be mobile. Then it spun off hastily over the field. This time, it didn’t come back.
    Khareh looked delighted. ‘Don’t have to be a sage to make things fly!’ He flipped the blade back to Raim.
    ‘No, you’d have to exist first. Sages are legend, make-believe.’
    ‘Gods, your ignorance is really annoying sometimes. Don’t the Yun teach their students anything? Anyone who says sages don’t exist is a fool. I’ve read about them. There were magicians in the past who could command wholearmies with their power, who could self-heal and levitate things, like swords – they could even make themselves fly!’
    ‘Sounds to me like you’re the fool, for believing in that goat’s dung.’
    ‘It’s not goat’s dung. Anyway, I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about it. I hear the real sages are south. In Aqben.’
    ‘Let them rot there, then. Aqben houses only devils,’ Raim said,
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div.shading-50-whiteor7K‘The repeating the typical adage used whenever the south was mentioned.
    Khareh raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. ‘So, you’re not worried about the whole first-chance-to-fight-to-be-Yun thing, are you?’ he asked, changing the subject.
    Raim bit his lip. ‘If it was an ordinary fight, I wouldn’t be. But this is
it
. I heard one of the other villagers saying they’d crossed with Lars’s tribe not a month ago. His father was saying he’s really bulked up this year, as big as an ox. And that he’s going to have a Yun for a son, soon.’
    Khareh grimaced. ‘What would the warlord know about his son anyway? He’s probably not seen him since we last did. Lars has been off training with his mentor.’
    It was Raim’s turn to grimace this time. ‘While I’ve been stuck here herding goats.’ Then he shrugged. ‘But it’s not like I could leave Dharma and my grandfather alone to go off to train, especially with Tarik wrapped up with his studies. And I’m lucky that my mentor has been here, so I have had plenty of practice.’
    ‘True. Besides, that’s not the real issue, is it? Isn’t thisLars’s third and final try? It’s not you who should be worried, it’s him. With you as his opponent, it looks like we might be watching heads roll this tournament after all!’
    ‘No, it’s his second try. It’s Jendo’s final one though.’ Raim frowned. Every Yun apprentice knew that if you didn’t pass the third try, your life was forfeit. It was why he couldn’t joke about it as Khareh did. It could be his reality in another two years, should he fail all three bouts.
    Khareh seemed to read his mind and shrugged. ‘You’re the best fighter the Yun has trained in generations and you know it. Well—’ He broke into a maniacal grin. ‘Except they never had me, of course.’
    ‘Is that a challenge?’ Raim’s eyes darted around and spied a metal pole Khareh had discarded while making his invention. He grabbed it and spun it around in his hands. Khareh was partially right. As a prince, Khareh couldn’t join the Yun, since he needed to study and be trained in his royal duties. But he had studied sword fighting for as long as Raim, and he was the only sparring partner – other than Raim’s own Yun mentor, Mhara – who always gave him a good run. And Mhara was Batar-Khan’s official Protector, and chief of all the Yun.
    Lars was older. No one really expected a Yun apprentice to win their first attempt – after all, Lars had a whole year of growth and experience on Raim. But still, he felt confident. His training had settled into his muscles like knots tying everything into its rightful place, joining all the movements together. If he couldn’t trust his body’spromise to execute the moves his mind asked it to, then what could he