Free Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin by Caren J. Werlinger Page A

learning quickly, and this after you started with so much less.”
    “But… but I cannot fight,” Ash sputtered.
    Enat gave an impatient wave of her hand. “Fighting. Bah. ’Tis necessary to know how to fight, yes, but it’s the least important thing we teach you. I don’t care if you never defeat an enemy with a sword or staff.”
    Ash laughed and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth at the unexpected sound. Enat smiled.
    “That is good,” Ash said, lowering her hand. “Because I probably never will.”
    “All the better. Those who can, tend to rely on physical force to get their way. I would be very happy if you never do that.”
    They reached their cottage. Ash squatted to light the fire – “without magic,” Enat reminded her. Ash grinned and struck the steel to the flint. The spark ignited the tinder, and flames began to lick at the little branches and fibers she had piled up. As the flames grew, she added a few blocks of peat. When the fire was burning well, she took the pail to the stream to fetch water for their dinner.
    When she got back to the cottage, Enat poured some of the water into a kettle on the fire to heat. She ladled more of the water onto some ground flour to make some loaves while Ash chopped carrots and turnips, dropping them into the kettle.
    “It would be a worthwhile thing,” Enat said as she kneaded the flour mix, “if you could find a way to be friendly with Gai.”
    “That is easier to say than to do.”
    “Many things are.”

CHAPTER 6
    Provocation and Promise
    W eeks passed, and still Ash could not overcome any of the others when they sparred. Time and again, whether it was Diarmit or Cíana or Gai or Daina, Ash was forced off-balance, unable to raise her weapon quickly enough to counter their blows.
    Ivar fumed as he watched. “She is hopeless.”
    “She is not,” Enat said sharply. “You have simply not learned how to get the best from her.”
    Enat rarely came to the sparring ground, but she began to appear more regularly. While Ivar coached the apprentices in the use of sword and staff, Enat taught them how to use a bow. There were bows of varying thicknesses and weights with the other weapons, but Enat’s bow was beautiful, made of smooth black wood, carved with intricate designs.
    “This is a woman’s weapon,” Gai said, dropping his bow and picking up a sword, hefting it with both hands.
    Enat whirled, shooting an arrow at Niall’s feet, a hundred paces away.
    “It is much more effective to keep your enemy at a distance if you can,” she said with a reproving glance in Gai’s direction. “By the time he gets close enough for you to use a sword or staff, you may have already lost your advantage.”
    Ash struggled with this as she had with sword and staff. Her scarred right arm wouldn’t straighten enough to allow her to draw the bow as the others did, with the left arm already extended, so she learned to nock the arrow and grasp the bowstring first, and then push the bow out with her left arm.
    “It’s not the right way,” Gai complained.
    “It works,” Enat said. “That’s all that will matter if she ever has to use it.”
    Ash’s arms trembled trying to hold the draw and aim. Even using the lightest bow, she could only hold the draw for a heartbeat or two, and her arrows flew wildly. She practiced every chance she got, raising welts on the inside of her left elbow from the twang of the bowstring. Enat made her a leather guard to tie around her arm. Despite Ash’s reluctance to wear anything leather, the relief the guard offered was welcome. For days and days, she practiced, gradually getting stronger until she could hold the draw, her right thumb resting against her jaw as she settled to take aim.
    “Well done,” Enat said as Ash loosed an arrow and it joined the others bristling from the center of the target. Ash smiled as Enat walked on.
    Ivar and Niall came over from where they had been practicing, using real swords. Breathing hard,