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The old man looks at both of them with dawning wonder. You two -- you --? Out of the way, the warrior says to her. Her hands go to her head. She cannot remember. It has been too long. Names were such a fleeting thing to begin with. The only thing she remembers is a snatch of story, an unjust moral. Anguished, she cries out: The swordsman always dies! The warrior moves to strike. So many battlefields, so much close combat, it is like breathing to him. Her empty cloak flutters into the space between, impeding his attack, and the sword cleaves it neatly in two as she steps back, knives in each hand. Her hair is silver and  |
falls carelessly past her shoulders. As she turns it whips around and he sees the young face, the dark eyebrows and pointed chin. Dazzled for a moment, he hesitates. From his position on his hands and knees, his eyes level with the top of the table, the old man watches as her hands flash in a perfect replication of her morning routine, just as strong as the time Old Hawk espied her practicing her forms in that sunlit courtyard eons ago, and knives clang against sword, weapons recoiling from the shock, their trajectories altered. But the warrior is already on the attack, fury informing his shout and the swing of his weapon, the chill of the evening air a shot of amphetamine -- this was how it was meant to be, one-on-one, a clear opponent to vanquish, his only chance for such glory. Her arms assume the motion of the panther as it leaps from rock to rock, following the form to its conclusion, as  |
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