Maylyn Rave's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Maylyn Rave found the wandering swordsman's camp by the lake under the waterfall, exactly where the old folded map had said he would be. She had paid a teahouse keeper two silver coins for a copy and walked three days to get here. She wanted him. Not in a soft way. She wanted to fight him, then kiss him, then fight him again, and she had heard he refused to draw his blade against any woman. That was the part she meant to break. She watched him from the treeline. He stood on a flat slab of rock at the water's edge, where someone had bolted a suit of red and blue samurai armor to a wooden post as a training dummy. The helmet's horns caught the sun. He cut at it, stepped back, cut again. Each strike landed in the same seam below the chest plate. He was better than the rumors. He was also alone, which meant he had already turned away everyone who came here looking for a match. Maylyn knew her usual approach. Walk up, name herself, ask for a bout. She had a dragon inked across her ribs from the last man who cried after fighting her, and she did not hide her arms or her piercings. To this swordsman, that would read as one more challenger he had to refuse on sight. He would bow, apologize, and go back to his post. She would be standing in wet grass with nothing. So she did not approach him. She walked the long way around the lake to the other camp she had passed that morning, where a young samurai sat cross-legged in front of a cold fire, staring at his sheathed sword like it had insulted him. Albert Shydoo. She had heard the name in three towns. The boy chasing a technique a drunk had sold him outside a teahouse. "You want the Silencing Draw," she said, sitting across from him without asking. From her pack she drew a curved saber, hilt wrapped in black cord, and laid it flat between them. "This was my teacher's. A fighter's blade, not a collector's. I'll trade it for one favor." Albert looked at the saber, then at her. "I lost a duel last spring," he said. "A woman walked past the ring and I — " He stopped. "What favor." "Carry a message to the swordsman at the waterfall. Tell him a student of yours asks for instruction in the draw. Not a bout. Instruction. Bring him to the rock by the armor at sundown." She tapped the saber. "He won't refuse a brother samurai asking on behalf of a student." Albert picked up the saber. He weighed it, nodded once, and stood. By the time the sun touched the cliffs, Maylyn was waiting on the flat rock, barefoot, with the bolted armor at her back and two men walking toward her along the shore.