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want to underestimate the opponent’s force, but it was a valuable maneuver in that you could use the opponent’s energy to initiate your own moves, thereby starting the next motion with a boost, before the enemy had recovered. It was an energy-saving method if one faced a long struggle, as had Gerta when she fought the twin brothers Talack and Tullus and their three wolf dogs.
    After this the pupils divided up to practice the Forms. These were routines that derived from age-old reconstructions of specific sequences of moves by specific persons in ancient battles. The first was Edifus at Carni, when he fought singly against a tribal leader. The second was Aliss, a woman from Aushenia who killed the Madman of Careven with only a short sword. It was a unique Form, in that Aushenians themselves did not honor Aliss as much as Acacians did. Indeed, the Madman of Careven was considered to be somewhat more of a hero to Aushenians since he had fought to protect their old religions against the secular movement Aliss championed. The Third Form was that of the knight Bethenri, who went to battle with devil’s forks, short weapons similar to daggers but with long prongs stretching alongside of the central blade. Skilled hands used these to snap opponents’ swords.
    Other Forms followed, each more complicated than the one preceding it, up until the Tenth and most difficult, that of Telamathon against the Five Disciples of the god Reelos. Aliver had his doubts as to whether Telamathon, the Five Disciples, or the god Reelos ever existed, but he looked forward to learning the Form. A large section of it, he knew, recounted how Telamathon fought weaponless and with one shoulder dislocated. Even so incapacitated he managed to beat back his opponents with a dazzling whirlwind of aerial kicks.
    The other students were working through the Fourth Form. Aliver, as per tradition, worked on the Fifth Form, learning the method by which the Priest of Adaval went to work on the twenty wolf-headed guards of the rebellious cult of Andar. The prince had just begun the study of this. For most of his lesson he stood holding the birchwood staff, listening, and trying to imagine the scene his instructor detailed. As usual, the Form detailed an almost impossible triumph, the old priest managing to crack skull after canine skull with only a sapling for a weapon.
    Aliver sometimes felt the eyes of the others on him. At other times he could not help but glance at them, interspersed as they were among the pillars, almost a hundred of them in total, so many pairs in the stop-start motion of swordplay. Every now and then a student would get caught by another’s winning strike. With the padded swords this was almost a pleasure, a thing to be laughed at, yielding oaths and promises of revenge. Not so when the hard ashwood swords stung someone’s thigh or jabbed unprotected ribs. Aliver was never prey to such contact, and he was keenly aware of it each time someone called out in pain.
    When the day’s session concluded, the instructors left the students to return the weapons to their rightful places. Privileged sons and daughters that they were, they should still learn reverence for the tools of war. Aliver, once more mingling with the others, did the best he could to banter in a natural style. He tried to throw about casual comments, the jibes and jokes of youth. But what seemed to come effortlessly to the others was as concentrated an effort for Aliver as anything in his training.
    It was with a feeling of relief that he slipped on his soft leather boots, rose from the floor, and gathered up his training vest and slippers. As he passed a cluster of boys near the exit, Hephron rose from a squatting position. He spoke under his breath, ostensibly to the youth standing near him, but loud enough and at just the right moment for the prince to hear. “I wonder how you lose when you only fight the air or how you win? Strange that some of us are measured against each