Chapter 8 #2
She told herself, as she had done many times before, that it was a practical necessity. The Trials were approaching and she needed to know how Kalen's preparations were going, what progress had been made, and if any gaps remained. It was a reasonable thing for a woman in her position to do.
She arrived before the session began, coming down the upper walkway in the early morning when the stone was still cold underfoot and the sea was a flat pewter in the distance. After she reached the covered tier, she settled into the darkest shadow of the overhang to wait.
When the guards filed in through the lower arch, she noticed there were many more than usual.
Thirty, the full complement of the estate's soldiers, including the six senior fighters from Abrensia who were her private guards.
They spread across the sand in groups, stretching and checking weapons while they waited.
Soon, Kalen entered the arena, dressed in her short fighting leathers, her dark hair bound back from her face, and the guards arranged themselves around her in the centre of the area.
From her hiding place, Verna could see the line of her shoulders, and the stiff set of her spine.
There was something this morning that was different from her usual focused calm.
She looked dangerous, a suppressed coil of energy waiting to be unleashed.
Verna had seen it once before in a hunting dog, the moment before the command was given.
Kalen spoke to the guards in a low voice that didn't carry up to the stone steps. Whatever she said produced a ripple of response, a straightening and repositioning, as the women moved to spread further across the sand. Then she raised one hand and dropped it, and the first six came at her.
What followed was not like the sessions Verna had observed before.
Those were a demonstration, Kalen showing what she could do. At those, she pitted her strength against the guards' capabilities, identifying where they were strong and where they could be broken. There had been pauses, corrections, teaching embedded in the combat.
There was none of that this morning.
The first guard came in hard and fast, and Kalen met her faster than Verna had seen her move, and less restrained.
She caught the woman's wrist, redirected her momentum, and put her down onto the sand in a single fluid motion before the second reached her.
She turned into the next attack, shoulder dropping, and drove upward with enough force that the guard went off her feet entirely and sprawled onto her back three paces away.
The third and fourth came together. Kalen split them with a step between, caught the nearer one by the harness on her chest and used her as a counterweight to swing into the fourth with a strike from her elbow that snapped the woman's head back and sat her abruptly on the ground.
Then she released the third, who was already off balance, and let her fall.
Five and six hesitated for half a second. It was all Kalen needed. She crossed the distance between them in a flash and it was over.
All six guards were on the sand. A few were getting up slowly. One was having difficulty catching her breath, her hands braced on her knees.
Kalen didn’t pause. She gestured to the next group to attack her.
Verna held her breath as she watched the six senior Abrensia fighters, the best soldiers on the estate, approach Kalen.
These women who had trained since girlhood in a tradition that the rest of the Empire regarded with considerable respect.
They came at Kalen with a coordinated discipline that was entirely different from the individual attacks of the first group.
They had clearly discussed their approach, and it showed.
Two drew her attention forward while two more moved wide to the flanks, and the remaining pair held back the moment Kalen overcommitted.
It was a good strategy. Against any other opponent, it would have worked.
Kalen read it before they had taken three steps.
She collapsed her line of engagement, stepping back and back until the flanking pairs had to close inward or overextend, and then, when they adjusted, she drove forward through the narrowed gap between the two lead guards with a speed that seemed to simply skip over the laws that governed how fast a body could move.
The lead guards went down. She pivoted hard, took the flanking pair on the left with a sweeping throw that deposited both of them on the sand in a graceless heap, then turned to face the remaining two.
They looked at each other, but attacked anyhow.
Abrensia fighters weren’t cowards. Kalen took the first with a straight tackle, and the second she simply outwaited by half a breath, letting the woman commit before stepping clear and catching her by the arm as she passed.
Using her own speed, she brought her down with terrifying force into the dirt.
Then she straightened, eyeing the twelve women climbing to their feet, without pity.
The session went on. Third group, then the fourth.
Kalen didn’t slow. If anything, she grew stronger and faster as the morning went on, as if the extra exertion was helping rather than slowing her down.
By the time she systematically dispatched the fourth group to the floor, the soldiers were moving with the weariness of women who were past the limits of their endurance.
Kalen stood at the centre of it all, chest rising and falling with deep steady breaths, her hair dark with sweat and coming loose from its binding.
She said something to the guards that made three of them laugh despite their exhaustion.
Verna sat in the shadows and watched them move through the final exercises.
Much to her relief, not once since she arrived in the arena, did Kalen look up at the stands.
Finally, it came to an end and the woman filed slowly out of the arena, some limping while a couple held their sides.
Verna stayed where she was until Kalen had disappeared through the low arch below, then rose to her feet. When she turned, Kalen was standing in the doorway like before, but this time she looked furious.