The Jyoro

"Proceed."

The stacatto tattoo of wood on wood was immediate as the two students began the dance of attack and retreat, offense and defense. The wooden lokken is a staff measuring four feet in length and half the diameter of a man's wrist. Fashioned of dense xlaptlua wood and tapered at each end, it is the jyoro's most basic weapon in the instruction of armed combat.

Kyle shifted his weight from haunch to haunch as he watched the students in the circle do battle. Without turning his head he could feel Anen Taemporo's gaze upon him. He would be called next, he knew. He nudged the boy next to him, but Esmorai was terrified - more terrified than most of the other boys here, and with good reason - of unduly attracting Taemporo's attention. Esmorai continued to stare straight ahead, desperately pretending to focus on the action in the circle.

A distant rustle of robes led to the pad of bare feet on the wooden floor slats directly behind Kyle. He had deliberately sat in the third and last row, he knew his name would be called -

"Kyle-ai. You will face the winner."

Taemporo-anen's voice barely rose above a whisper. In fact, both master and pupil had known Kyle would stand in the circle next, the element of timing was the student's only question.

He turned his head to fix upon the aged man's lined face, to seek the outline of the lips from which the words had issued, behind the copious and immaculately trimmed white beard that flowed forever below his chin.

In the circle the grunts and thuds escalated as lokken found unguarded flesh with its brutal caress.

"Taemporo-anen, the current match is not over."

"It is, now."

The younger combatant was shorter in stature than the dark-haired youth he faced, though equal in age. It was a small wonder that he wielded the lokken with such speed, he was barely taller than it was ! Blood dripped from a gash on his temple where he had been wounded, but most of the onlookers were transfixed by something else - the look of fear in his eyes.

The dark-haired one was relentless. For a youth of fourteen his biceps were preternaturally large, traced through with angry veins that now pulsed as if to strain free of the skin that bound them. With stroke after stroke, left to right and back, overhead and diagonally, he hammered the defenses of the shorter one as fast as they could be erected.

"Aaaaah !"

The finishing blow was no different from any of the preceding other than that it found its mark. Short, sharp, to the left side of the neck. The short one collapsed immediately, limbs relieved of their duty to support his unconscious body.

Kyle turned his head back to the circle and began to rise in the same motion. He padded barefoot to the circle after bowing to Taemporo; bowed again to his opponent as he reached the center of the ring. The dark-haired youth's bow in return was perfunctory. Taemporo-anen would never have tolerated an outright sneer on the youth's face, but it was there in his eyes. The veins in his neck were raised ridges and his face was flushed with something other than exertion. Pride ? Hatred ?

"Proceed."

Kyle might have been able to tell were he focusing on the youth's visage, but he had already withdrawn into The Loosing of the Heron From Its Trap.

Breathe, go down - unwrap the cord from the leg of the heron.

In his mind's eye the beautiful bird, its plumage the color of indolent clouds in a clear blue sky, battered its wings in vain as it tried to lift skyward. The red cord was still curled around its slender right leg, binding it to the earth.

Don't struggle, I'm letting you go.

The dark-haired one had raised his lokken. His brown eyes met Kyle's green eyes as he began an intricate puzzle of feints, thrusts, slashing probes of Kyle's defenses. Kyle parried them not-consciously as he sank deeper into the Loosing of the Heron. Wood on wood, the explosive percussions filling every corner of the jyoro.

I'm letting you go. Don't struggle... fly !

He saw the heron beat its wings again as the red cord he had loosed from its leg fell to the marsh floor. Without restraint it was free to rise toward that blue sky. The familiar relaxation began to envelop him.

Shtluaxl, I call you now. The heron has been loosed. I ask you to let me Fly With the Heron.

The audience was entirely quiet, not a sideways glance cast nor a breath released. Hairs raised on the backs of youthful necks as the spirit presence - felt but not seen - was summoned and steadily grew.

The dark-haired one was reaching the peak of his exertion. Every muscle, every fiber of his being endeavored to overcome Kyle. The ease with which he countered the incoming blows exposed the dark-haired one to ridicule among his peers, and that was unacceptable.

A low slashing feint, left to right, was quickly reversed as Kyle angled his lokken diagonally across his body to counter. No contact. Withdrawn, redirected as a forward thrust toward Kyle's sternum, almost as quick as the speed of thought.

The edge of the dark-haired one's staff seemed about to pierce Kyle's torso when suddenly he was not there. In one motion, with his right foot remaining planted on the polished floor, he had brought his leading left foot back and continued to pivot 180 degrees counterclockwise, away from the thrust. Kyle's back was now in front and to the left of his opponent, his lokken held horizontally in a center grip. His opponent was still fully extended at the end of the thrusting forward motion. Smoothly, Kyle pivoted again and smacked the left side of his assailant's head, once, twice. The lokken seemed to increase in weight as it travelled downward, so loud was the twin report of the blows. To the onlookers though, the motion registered as one blow. Their eyes were not quick enough to catch the first strike.

A fount of blood streamed from the other's ear as his eardrum ruptured.

"One Flies With the Heron only to find the weakness of a superior opponent. You defeated this one before you entered the circle."

So clear were Shtluaxl's words that Kyle was almost startled into full consciousness. He almost turned to scan the faces of the rapt audience to determine whether they too had heard the voice. But he did not.

I want to utterly destroy him.

The dark-haired one had bent to one knee, lokken hanging limply in his left hand. His head was bowed as he gasped deeply and supported himself with his right palm on the jyoro floor. He could not even reach up to stem the flow of sticky red blood staining the collar of his white robe, much less defend another blow.

"Does he deserve destruction ? Defeat is enough."

I hate him. He must be destroyed ! He insulted my father's lineage, once.

"You cannot Fly With the Heron without discipline. Defeat is enough for this one."

Kyle's hands moved from the center grip to hold the lokken hand-over-hand at one end. Fully erect over his kneeling rival, he began to sit into the Eagle Strikes From Above form. Deadly enough as an open-hand technique, the lokken would magnify the power of the strike many scores of times, even if the practitioner was not adept with the Heron style. At the last moment, Kyle slowed the speed of his downward descent. Nevertheless, the end of the lokken crashed into an already bloodied mop of black hair with crushing velocity, compressing neck and spinal column all the way to the tailbone.

This youth would never walk again, never mind fight. But this was the rule of the ring even in training. This was the rule of [ed.: insert the name of the military class, here]. This was the rule of life, and of the universe.

Kyle returned to the center of the ring, bowed, and began to pad back to his seat on the jyoro floor. He caught Esmorai's eye first and suppressed the momentary surge of pride at the mix of awe and disbelief on his friend's face. He found Taemoro-anen's eyes next. Still half in the realm of the spirit, he sensed that the impassive eyes did not betray the true emotion beneath that weathered visage. Anen Taemoro would have preferred that he withheld the final blow, but he was not displeased (this was the rule of life, and of the universe).

Kyle permitted himself a fleeting smile. Master was... proud !