Chapter four
Gafard, the King’s Striker, the Sea-ZhantilThe secluded courtyard of the Jade Palace echoed with the clash of combat, the quick breaths of fighting-men, the spurting gasps of effort. The streaming lights of Antares flooded down to illuminate the yellow stone wall and the vines rioting in gorgeous colors on their trellises, sparkling in the upflung jets of water from the stone lips of stone fishes surrounding the lily-pool.
I switched up the shortsword and felt the shock of Gafard’s point hitting just below my breastbone. We were both stripped to the waist. Gafard’s muscular body glistened with sweat. He bellowed to me.
“Again, you fambly! You do not have a great long bar of steel in your hand! You have a shortsword — a Genodder, the great slayer — fashioned by the genius of
