“A little better,” Jade said. “There may be a few old ladies who’d be fooled by that move—or too arthritic to counter it. But if you want to fight Commancors, you’ll have to do a lot better than that.”
Fastal rose unsteadily, shook the dirt from his hair and the cobwebs from his mind, and started again. His movements became progressively less energetic, but more calculated. Jade watched him with analytical eyes, keeping her own movements to a minimum. She seldom retreated more than half a step, yet somehow his blade never came close to her.
After forty-five minutes they took a brief break, then returned for some work on what Jade had identified as some of Fastal’s worst problems. His initial anger at himself for being so clumsy had dissolved as his respect for Jade’s skills as a warrior
