The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham Read Free Book Online

Hephron. He is good. No, wait! But don’t let that bother you. Aliver, he envies you in everything. Don’t you know that? His swagger is a pretense. In truth he wishes he were you. He follows you with his eyes always. He listens to every word said by or about you. At lessons when he sits in the back of the class, he pins his eyes to the back of your head as if he wished to drill inside you.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that Hephron is a thin person. He knows this himself and he envies you. You are a prince and your family is wonderful. You have a beautiful sister…. Okay, I am joking with you. It’s true, but I am joking. Hephron may grow into an enemy, or he may yet be a great friend. But for now, give him no feeling of triumph. Forget about that.” Melio motioned vaguely at something behind him. “Come back tomorrow as if nothing happened. Joke about it. Let him know that the small things he can do to you wash off like mud on your boots.”
    The air had grown chillier with the approach of dusk and both young men felt it fill the silence. Melio withdrew his palms and rubbed his bare arms with them. Aliver looked away, his gaze settling on a square of fuchsia sky framed between the cold shadows of two buildings. The silhouettes of three birds flew through the space like darts in pursuit of one another.
    Aliver heard himself say, “It just makes me look so stupid. I am mad that I let it happen. Made it…happen. You don’t know how it is for me.”
    Melio did not disagree. A few moments passed in silence, and then the two of them, responding to the cold, mounted the next set of stairs and progressed slowly up. “Everyone loses a duel on occasion, and all of them back there know that. But how many of them could…” He searched for the words to say what he had to delicately. “Well, how many of them could embarrass themselves like you just did and find the courage to shrug it off? That’s another way to show strength, whether they ever admit to noticing it or not. And do not pout. The expression does not suit you. Aliver, you
are
skilled with a sword. And your traditional Forms are better than anyone’s. It’s just that you know only the Forms. Actual fencing is about making us adapt them, about splicing them together, forcing us to make up unthought-of combinations in an instant. You must let them flow together so quickly that it happens in a different place than conscious thought. Like when you knock a knife off a tabletop and manage to snatch it before it hits the ground. You cannot think about doing that; it just happens. That is what you must do when fighting. And then your mind is free to deal with other things—like just how you are going to place an upstroke in that bastard’s nut sacks.”
    “Just how did you become so wise?” Aliver asked, not entirely kindly.
    Melio mounted the top of the staircase and turned to face him. He grinned. “I read it in a manual. I know a fair bit of poetry, too. The girls like that. Now look, we’ll fence together sometimes. I won’t let you off easy, of course, but we will teach each other. We can work through the Fourth Form, as you suggested. There is much we can teach each other. How about that?”
    “Maybe,” Aliver said, but he knew already what his actual answer was. He just was not ready to give it so easily.

C HAPTER
F IVE
    I t was not just the rumors of a marauding army on the loose. Not just the report about the destruction at Vedus. These were the type of exaggerated tales General Leeka Alain had rightly ignored before. This time was different. An entire patrol had been lost somewhere in the white expanse of the Mein. That was not so easily explained away. Something was truly in motion out there. He could not sleep or eat or think of anything other than shadows hidden behind the blowing whiteness. He had already sent a messenger to the king to communicate such facts as he possessed, but he knew he could not wait for a response. He