Free The Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein

to repeat the moves: downstroke,
clash, flex and slide, step forward, guard-to-guard, and vicious
twist—
    "That's right." They disengaged. "Now look."
Bel held up her sword for Rowan's inspection.
    Where the blade joined the guard, the metal
edging showed the faintest dent. Rowan put her hand over Bel's and
turned the sword in the grayish light. On either side of the dent,
the metal had lifted slightly from the wood. Bel indicated it.
"That's the weakest point on an Outskirter sword," she said, "where
the metal comes up to the hilt guard."
    Rowan considered the implications. "And it's
the strongest part of my sword."
    "That's right. You'll never see two
Outskirters with wood-and-metal swords using this technique,
because it sets weakness against weakness. But for you, it's your
strength against their weakness." She took up her position.
"Again."
    A long drill, and they did not stop this
time. Applying the new technique, Rowan found that she shifted
stance more often, more completely, and more abruptly than was her
former habit. She struggled to adapt; then she caught the feverish
rhythm, moved with it, felt her effectiveness grow, and a strange
wild joy rose in her. She began to love it.
    "Halt!" Bel called out, and pulled away.
Rowan found she was exhausted without having been aware of it. She
leaned forward, hands on knees, and drew long deep breaths. Bel
came forward and displayed her weapon.
    At the guard, one side of the edging had
completely lifted from the wooden blade, in a short battered curve.
"When you reach this point, try to get your edge under the loose
end, and work it up."
    Rowan wiped her forehead against her
shoulder. "If I pull away, I'll leave myself open."
    "Don't pull out—get under the edging, and
then slide your blade alongside your opponent's." Bel took both
swords and demonstrated the configuration and movement: a
scissoring action. Rowan could see that in battle the force would
peel away the metal from the wood.
    She was impressed. "I can completely destroy
the other fighter's weapon."
    "That's right."
    "That's quite an advantage." Something
occurred to her. "When you won your metal sword, were you using a
wooden?"
    "Yes."
    "How did you ever manage to win?"
    The Outskirter grinned and stepped back.
"Like this."
    They set to again, the same drill, and Rowan
found her moment: parry, flex and slide, forward, hilt-to-hilt—
    Bel shifted, spun, vanished.
    Battered metal lay lightly across the back of
Rowan's neck. Bel's voice came from behind. "You'll have to watch
out for that one."

 
7
    T hey resigned
themselves to traveling in the rain.
    Every second day, they stopped early to dry
their clothing by damp, smoky fires, which they extinguished at
dark. They practiced swordplay until Rowan had successfully
destroyed the tanglewood sword; Rowan updated her logbook, its
pages limp with dampness in the shelter of the tarp; and Bel found
occupation for idle hours in trying to learn to read and write,
clumsily scratching letters in the muddy earth with a stick.
    They counted miles.
    "This can't continue," Rowan stated. The
older forest was slowly being left behind, tall spruce and birches
grudgingly abdicating to scrub pine, briar, blackberry.
    Bel made no reply, disentangling herself from
a net of brambles.
    "It's going to take forever." They were
making less than fifteen miles a day.
    "Isn't Hanlys's information of any use?" Bel
asked.
    Rowan made a wordless comment of
disgruntlement. The raider tribe's seyoh had proved to have a very
vague understanding of mileage. "The brushland should break—at some
point," Rowan said. "Then some wide greengrass meadowlands with
occasional young copses. It's going to take longer than we
thought."
    Bel did not reply; Rowan knew that the
Outskirter's thoughts, like Rowan's own, were on their food
supply.
    From the start, Bel had maintained that the
Outskirts had no game, and that only association with a tribe, with
its attendant herd, could insure survival. Rowan,