Zeph Kaizen's Arc

Chapter 51 of 51

The fourth horn faded into the pines. Zeph watched Kaine finish tying the strip of cloth around his shoulder. Blood had already soaked through it. Kaine flexed his hand, and two fingers were slow to close. His blade sat point-down in the dirt beside him. He was not going to stand at Zeph's back this time. "You're done," Zeph said. Kaine did not argue. "Arm won't lift past my chest. If it flanks you, I won't reach it in time." He looked east. "And it will flank you. That's what a thing like that does." Zeph felt the steady gold along his arms. He had carried it against three. He did not know if he could carry it against one and watch his own back at the same time. He pressed two fingers to the bracelet on his wrist and closed his eyes. The shaft opened a hand's width. The boy sat at the bottom on flat stone, gold hair bright, palms on the rock. Zento stood behind him. "Kaine is spent," Zeph said. "It will come around me." "Then stop turning," Zento said. "You have been fighting with your eyes. Fight with the floor." "I don't understand." "The boy feels the ground before you see it. Carry from him and stand still. Let the thing show you its back by walking into your reach." Zeph opened his eyes. The trees at the east edge cracked. Something long-bodied came out low to the grass, four-legged, head swinging. It did not charge. It circled. "Stay behind me," Zeph told Kaine. "On the stone. Don't move." Kaine sat down against a broken pillar of the old training ground and set the blade across his knees. "Go." Zeph stood in the middle of the clearing and did not turn. He kept his eyes on the tree line where the creature had first shown itself. He let the bracelet sit warm against his pulse and drew from the boy slow, the way he had learned to carry. The creature moved to his right. He felt it in his heel before he heard it. He waited. It came in from behind at his shoulder, low and fast. He stepped sideways without looking, dropped his weight, and drove his elbow down into the base of its skull. The bone crunched under his arm. The body slid past him and stopped in the wet grass. He stood over it a moment. He had not turned once. Kaine let out a breath against the pillar. "You didn't need me." "I needed the floor," Zeph said. He looked east. A fifth horn had not sounded yet. It would. "I can hold alone now." Kaine nodded and closed his eyes. Zeph stayed standing over the dead thing, gold quiet along his arms, waiting for what came next.