Sweat was sticking my tunic to the small of my back. Ranne called a halt and we stopped before the emperor, who was dressed in royal yellow and enthroned above the darkened mirror of the Lost Dragon. I dropped to my knees, the sand hot through the silk. Van’s voice echoed in my head. Count to ten. Don’t look up. Don’t look around.
I lost the count. Panicking, I raised my eyes, looking for a cue to move. My gaze was pulled into the dull mirror in front of me. No reflection, just a dark blank that swallowed the day’s brightness. Beside me, Quon tensed, preparing to stand. I followed his lead, pushing myself upright. For a moment, the sun rippled across the mirror’s black surface, making it buckle and heave. A strange trick of the light. We marched in our two lines toward it, to wait underneath its dark expanse. A gold dragon undulated across its top, a pearl ball held in its ruby claws. I stared into the inky glass, but nothing else stirred.
At Ranne’s command we turned, facing the arena, and dropped once more to our knees, swords held in crossed salute. I narrowed my eyes to soften the glare that bounced off the sand. It felt as though every bit of moisture in my body was being sucked away.
Another fanfare. This time for the imperial herald. They emerged in a neat line, a chorus of eight men matched in voice and height, crouching into bows as they ran to the center of the arena. The crowd stamped and roared. The herald, their short blue tunics like wedges of summer sky, positioned themselves into a royal octagon, smartly turning to face the audience. They raised small bronze gongs over their heads and, as one, sounded a deep resonating note. Immediately, the crowd quieted.
“The cycle of twelve turns again,” they chanted in perfect unison. Each voice blended with the others to create one penetrating herald-call. “Pig turns to Rat. Apprentice turns to Dragoneye. Candidate turns to Apprentice. The cycle of twelve turns again.”
The crowd whistled and stamped their approval. The men lifted the gongs again and sounded another note. It ricocheted off the mirrors, cutting through the crowd’s noise to leave a sudden silence.
“The Rat Dragon seeks a new apprentice. Twelve await to show their worth. By His Imperial Majesty’s approval and order of the Dragoneye Council, worth will not be found in exhibition this cycle. Worth will be found in combat!”
For a moment, there was no response. Then the crowd screamed, the hammering of feet on the boards like the fury of the thunder gods. The show had suddenly become a lot more exciting.
I licked my parched lips. Somewhere in the Heuris seats, behind Lord Ido, was my master. I tried to distinguish him in the two rows of dark robed figures set apart from the crowd by their shocked stillness. Then he moved, a familiar squaring of thin shoulders. A defiance of unbeatable odds.
The gong sounded again.
“Candidate Hannon, approach the mirrors,” the imperial herald chanted. “Face Swordmaster Jin-pa and show the Rat Dragon your worth.”
The crowd clapped and yelled as the eight men bowed gracefully, then re-formed into a line and ran to the edge of the arena.
Although we were all kneeling at salute, there was a soft shifting of position as Jin-pa and Hannon started their walk to the combat area. It was our chance to watch the competition, gather information, gauge our chances. I pushed my left knee deeper into the sand and followed the momentum until I leaned into a better view. Even as my weight transferred, I realized my hip no longer ached.
In the center of the arena, Jin-pa and Hannon bowed to the Rat Dragon mirror and then one another over their sword hilts—the formal combat courtesy. The crowd subsided into expectant silence. Hannon swung his swords into starting position, his side presented to Jin-pa, weight on the back leg, one sword outstretched, the other drawn back above his head. Jin-pa mirrored the stance, then with a twist of both wrists lowered his swords into two whirring figure eights. The Ox Dragon. Hannon recognized the sequence and stepped into the first form. The easiest of the three. He broke through the defense with a neat swinging back cut, but Jin-pa blocked his blade easily in the crossed hilts of his swords.
Hannon pulled his sword free and retreated, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Jin-pa shifted into the second form of the Ox. The offense. He pressed forward, the rotating blades moving toward Hannon’s head. The Ox was all about walls—solid walls of blade that pushed a defender backward and off balance. Hannon needed to block with his right sword and swing his left into the less protected gut area. He managed the block, but his lower cut was too wild, the weight of the sword dragging him onto the wrong foot for the third form; the most difficult. Jin-pa lunged, making the most of Hannon’s imbalance, forcing him to stop an overhead blow with a clumsy block, the blade at the wrong angle. He nearly recovered, but Jin-pa countered Hannon’s desperate twirl and low cut with a block and head attack that landed the flat of his sword against Hannon’s cheekbone. The slap of the blade was like the crack of ice on a frozen river. Hannon shook his head as the crowd groaned, their excited commentaries rising like the hiss from a nest of snakes.
It did not improve from there. Hannon struggled to keep up with Jin-pa, although the swordmaster subtly slowed the pace of each form and pulled his blows. I couldn’t help flinching as Jin-pa brought the flat of his blade down on Hannon’s body time after time. What was wrong? Hannon was as good as Baret in the approach sequence. He knew each form perfectly and had spent hours refining each move. Was that the problem? Had he learned by rote and now couldn’t translate the moves against an opponent?
In the very last form, he managed to hold his technique together. Dropping to the ground on all fours, he kicked backward, disabling Jin-pa’s left sword, then twisted around and swung his own right blade across Jin-pa’s body, nearly breaking through the swordmaster’s hurried defense. A creditable Mirror Dragon Whips Tail. The form that I couldn’t do. I glanced up at Ranne. He was rolling his shoulders, warming up for the next candidate. Would he honor my dispensation?