Free The Sea of Time by P C Hodgell

thrust the gilded boot, the winner of the boys’ run. So that was how they chose the Challenger, which she nearly had become. Again.
    The boys bowed to each other, then crouched and began to glide back and forth, sweeping alternate legs behind them. At first their movements were slow, almost ritualistic, and incredibly fluid. One swung his foot at the other, who ducked under it, then swung in his turn. Thus they pinwheeled across the open space between fiery sigils and back again. The Favorite in red aimed a leg sweep at his opponent. The Challenger in green jumped over it. In the middle of a cartwheel, the Challenger launched a roundhouse kick at the other’s face. They were seriously going at it now, weaving back and forth, striking and dodging in a fury of limbs.
    Jame watched intently. She had learned the basics of Kothifiran street fighting from Brier, but had never before seen two experts engaged in it. They barely used their hands at all except to block foot strikes, and their legs seemed to be everywhere in graceful, swinging arcs. Some moves were like water-flowing and some like fire-leaping, but in surprising combinations. No wonder first Brier and then Torisen had beaten her at the beginning and the end of her college career, both knocking out the same tooth now barely grown back.
    The Challenger leaped and twisted. His foot, scything through the air, caught the Favorite a solid blow on the jaw that dropped him where he stood.
    The crowd roared. All the women in it rushed into Sacred Space, collapsing it, converging on the new Favorite whose smug look turned to one of dawning horror. A moment later they had overwhelmed him.
    “There,” said Kroaky, patting Jame on the back. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t win the run?”

CHAPTER IV
    Red Dust
    Summer 100  
    I
    THE ARCHERY BUTTS were manikins made of twisted straw, mounted on the backs of giant racing tortoises. Each tortoise had a handler and spiked collars that prevented it from drawing in its head or limbs. There were two dozen of them in all, straining with slow, ponderous strength against their leashes. Two cadet ten-commands waited on their mounts with bows strung while the handlers wrangled their unwieldy charges into a loose battle formation.
    It was a hot, windless afternoon on the dusty training field south of the Host’s camp, and one of many such lessons there. Jame wiped sweat off her forehead with a sleeve. Like the other cadets, she was wearing a muslin cheche as protection against the sun. Her burn had peeled away and a tan was starting in its place. Still, she wasn’t used to the southern heat.
    Timmon nudged his horse closer.
    “You should be riding that precious rathorn of yours, Jamethiel, not a Whinno-hir.”
    Jame made a face. Timmon kept teasing her with her true name until she almost wished that she hadn’t revealed it. On the other hand, while other Highborn had been horrified, Timmon seemed merely amused that she had such a dire namesake, commenting at the time, “Oh, well, that explains everything.”
    She stroked Bel-tairi’s silken neck. “True, Bel is an easier ride, but we’re supposed to perforate, not decapitate. Besides, Death’s-head is off hunting.”
    “You did warn him about the local livestock, I hope.”
    “He never preyed on the herds near Tentir, and he prefers his chickens roasted, not raw.”
    Timmon’s mount sidled and tossed its head, sensing his mood.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing. Everything. Look, they’re ready.”
    The handlers had unleashed their charges and were backing away. Behind the ten-commands was a pile of bruised fruit. The tortoises started for it, necks outstretched, snapping at each other to gain room.
    “Go!” said the sargent in charge of the exercise.
    A Knorth and an Ardeth spurred forward. They wove through the oncoming mass, one shooting to the right, the other to the left. With both hands occupied, they had to steer with their knees, making this also a test of