Page 102 of Red Demon

Asher froze in the doorway. Uncertain, he looked between us as we sat up in bed. “You good, Faruhar?”

She squinted at her notes in charcoal on the nightstand. “Asher? Yeah. We’re going to Uyr Elderven. You talked Asri rebels into sparing my life, and I’m very impressed by that.”

He blinked, then his brilliant smile bloomed. “Thanks. You two up for a little training before we get on the road? We’ll need to stay sharp.”

Training at dawn, a bit of normalcy. And, well, I needed to get some energy out just then. “Sure thing, Brother.”

The clearing by the house bathed itself in the golden light of sunrise. Frost-laden grass crackled underfoot as we circled each other. Faruhar, with her two swords held in a practiced grip, looked menacing, flawless. Ash, in his Chout-disguised face, looked kinda weird.

“Fight to disarm?” she said.

“No injuries sounds good,” I said.

We had no training blades. Ash and I wore our Chaeten leather, freshly washed and dried by the fire. Faruhar wore the best armor one might salvage from stripping Noé’s dead.

I charged in a blur, disarming Ash in under a minute.

“Get back in here, Ash,” Faruhar said, although she disarmed him seconds after he did. After a while, he stopped trying, and I focused on Far.

I surprised myself, rising to her challenge. I found I could match her speed, my reflexes honing to her every feint and parry. But voids, she was so hard to read. It took all my concentration to fend off two limbs that seemed to attack with independent thought, all lightning-fast strikes and agile dodges. I met her like a storm cloud: powerful blows she needed her full rally to deflect. The clash of steel echoed through the clearing, punctuated by the hiss of one of Faruhar’s blades slicing my face.

The scent of pine mingled with the metallic tang of blood, but the nick wasn’t deep enough to worry about.

“Sorry,” she said.

“You will be.” I winked, holding my face. “The not ugly face is under here too.”

She rolled her eyes at me.

I pressed my attack, forcing her on the defensive. Simmering in frustration, I was unable to land a solid blow. Faruhar danced around all my swings as I pressed hard. She evaded me around a copse of trees.

The forest fell silent. I’d lost track of her, but I knew to look up. My gaze darted through the brush, heart pounding in my chest. Then, a whisper of movement, and a glint of steel. Faruhar came from behind me, her twin swords crossed in a clang across my face, the sharp edge cold on my throat.

“You’re too loud,” she murmured in my ear, her smoky voice shivering down my spine. “I want you to practice being as quiet as you can.” The warmth of her body pressed against mine was too much, almost. My breath caught.

“I can be quiet if you want. I can be whatever you want,” I said, not thinking about tracking and silent maneuvers through trees just then. The pressure of her blades eased, and I felt her breath rustle my hair before she turned away, face flushed.

A cough from the edge of the forest shattered the spell. Asher stood there, eyebrows raised in a way that made me think of Taam before a lecture. “I’m going to go make breakfast. You two keep doing your thing.”

“Thanks Ash,” I said, my voice weak as I went to go pick up my weapon.

Faruhar pushed me to my limit on multiple levels before we walked back to the farmhouse. I went to forage on my own when I couldn’t take it anymore, stopping to pick some chicory root for what my dad liked to call “camper’s coffee.”

Far met me outside the farmhouse with raspberries. Inside, we presented our offerings to Asher, who looked down at pancakes he’d made with ground beechnuts and the last of our flour.

“What’s wrong, Ash?” Faruhar eased closer.

He looked up, arms braced on the table. “Just thinking things through.”

I dropped my bundle of chicory. “Like what?”

“I made a lot of promises to Telesilla. I need to keep them all.”

“Like what?”

“Disabling some of Mahakal’s military tech.” He shrugged. “I told them I could dissect a fabricator and a code sequencer, so I should be able to figure a magic blocker out.”

“Maybe you’re overthinking this. Can we bash any of that tech with a sword?” I asked, cutting up my washed chicory for roasting.