Free Lakhoni by Jared Garrett Page B

and rolled around this
training circle enough to know where all of the depressions and bumps were.
Looking around, he was glad that most of the people were still at Gimno’s
circle, leaving him free to work alone. He didn’t like having an audience,
especially when he was practicing feather leaps.
    He
placed his feet shoulder-width apart and closed his eyes, letting out a slow
breath. He focused on the feeling of his feet on the stone, willing his body to
become completely still. In a brief moment, he had centered, his body feeling
one with the stone beneath him. Gimno said that he would learn to center so
well at some point that if a running boar were to slam into him full-tilt he
would not be moved.
    Lakhoni
didn’t know yet if he believed that, but he knew that more strength infused him
with each moment that he stood still and calm.
    Willing
his heart to beat calmly, Lakhoni began to flex his leg muscles. He pushed them
to become tighter and tighter, forcing his breathing to remain even. When he
felt his legs might snap, he bent his legs slightly and launched himself
forward. He stretched his right leg forward, aiming the ball of the foot at a
small rise on the ground. He tightened the muscles of his leg until the moment
before his foot came into contact with the rise. Pushing off almost before he
landed, he flung himself to the left now, his left leg tight and his foot aimed
carefully at another small rise.
    This
was the feather leap; it was how Gimno had descended the entrance shaft to the cavern
of the Separated on the night that Lakhoni had first been taken in. The
objective was to be in such control of your muscles and actions that you could
push off anything quickly and easily—and through this be able to change your
direction with astonishing speed. Gimno insisted that a man could dodge arrows
from an army with the feather leap.
    Lakhoni
could probably dodge a stone thrown by a child, but that might be the limit of
his abilities. He intended to master this technique. Pushing off his left leg,
he sprang across the ring to another rise, and then another. Soon he was
nearing the portal stones. Elation filled him. He was spending too much time on
the ground before each succeeding leap, but he also knew he was doing better
than ever before.
    Gathering
all of his strength and forcing it into his right leg until it practically
hummed with tension, he pushed off the last rise. He shot off the ground and
reached toward the top of the stone. Gimno had done this and had leapt easily
to the top of the same portal stone two weeks previously.
    He
was going to make it!
    His
knees slammed into the stone with an explosion of hot pain. Just as he began to
slide down, he understood that if he were to hit the ground askew as he was, he
could break a leg. He instinctively pushed off the stone with his arms and
feet. He arched his back as far backward as he could, envisioning himself doing
a back flip and landing on all fours. He had to tuck his legs— like this —tight
up to his body and fling his arms hard in the direction of his mid-air tumble.
    He
hit the ground, balls of his feet landing first, his legs bending fluidly to
absorb the impact and his right hand coming down immediately after. He stopped
moving, feeling as if he had landed lighter than he could have hoped for.
    Lakhoni
stayed that way for a moment. The dark brown and black hues of the cavern floor
filled his vision. By the Fathers . He glanced at his posture. He had
landed like a cat, or a spider—lightly and in total control. The flip he had
done passed through his mind; he could see what he had made his body do.
    “How
did I do that?” he asked the ground. He pushed himself to his feet and glanced
around. Nobody was near; nobody had seen. He briefly wondered why he cared that
none of the Separated had seen him, but the thought left him as a glimmer of
understanding lit his mind. “I thought I was going to make it. I lost focus on
my actions and forgot the