Chapter 384: Room to Recover

Chapter 384: Room to Recover

On Wednesday morning, the old Thornwatch stone went dark in Jin’s hand.

He felt it before he saw it. The last thread came out thin and tired, with almost no grit in it, and when he reached for the next one there was nothing to take.

The stone in his palm was just a stone: frosted, cool, ordinary.

"That’s empty," Brand said, watching her tablet. "Remember what that felt like. Next time you’ll know without me."

She took it from him, looked at it, and dropped it into a tray on her desk with a small click.

Then she unwrapped one of the big new ones and put it in his hand.

There was a deeper pressure beneath its surface. Jin eased a thin thread free, found it coarser than the exhausted stone’s last traces, and spent longer refining it before drawing again.

Brand watched for several minutes before returning to her notes. He kept half expecting her to interrupt. When she finally asked him to stop, it was to check the readings, and she seemed pleased with them.

He left with the big stone partly drawn, wrapped back in its cloth on its own, separate from the nine untouched ones in the box.

Lucian was waiting in yard three at four, already warmed up and bouncing on his toes, his forearm dressing looking smaller than it had on Monday.

"I’ve been thinking about my feet all day," he said. "It’s ruining my life."

They began without skills, varying the approaches. Lucian changed his speed and sometimes stopped halfway, leaving Jin to decide whether to move at all. After a break, they added a few brief casts within the marked area.

Jin’s lean was smaller, but his first pulse came late while he fussed over his feet. Lucian stepped round the patch and tapped his shoulder.

"Better late and somewhere else," Jin said, before Lucian could.

"I was going to say that."

"I know."

Lucian worked on his stopping step between Jin’s turns. During one of the short sets with Stormstep, he arrived balanced, stave already raised. Jin instinctively backed away.

"That one," Jin said. "Do that again."

Lucian tried, overshot, and looked at him before he could point. Jin lowered his hand, grinning. They put the stave aside and rested.

They sat on the low wall at the end of the lane afterward, sharing a flask of water that tasted of the flask. Kite came down from the stable roof and landed on the wall beside Lucian.

She inspected the chipped claw tip before settling comfortably beside his hand. Lucian checked it too, despite her impatient shuffle.

"Same time tomorrow?" Lucian asked.

"Same time."

That night, Jin went back to the Pillar Court and didn’t fight.

Glitch stayed inside the southern passage, with room to withdraw. Flicker would scout, keeping height available above each approach. Jin had decided beforehand that no tempting opening would bring Glitch into the court tonight.

The ram was in its recess.

Flicker’s avatar did the work. She went out high and wide and flew a slow, irritating line across the far end of the court, low enough to be noticed.

She returned to the passage between passes while Jin checked her route. Several times, the ram followed her out. He watched how it gathered itself before moving.

The first was short. Flicker had come low near the recess, and the ram came out at her in five or six quick strides, and when she pulled up out of reach, it stopped.

It planted its forelegs and swung its hindquarters round in a single heavy movement, and it was facing the other way before Jin had finished blinking. That was Tuesday’s charge. It hadn’t been tired. It had been ready.

The second was different.

Flicker had drifted out over the far end of the court, thirty meters from the recess, and the ram decided she was worth the effort.

It started from a walk, its head dropping as its strides lengthened. By the middle of the court, it was moving far faster than during its short rushes.

Flicker went up and away. The ram couldn’t stop.

It couldn’t plant and pivot as sharply at that speed. Its hooves scraped on the dry floor, and its hindquarters slewed sideways as it braked.

It took four long, stiff-legged strides and a wide, swinging arc to get turned round. Then it stood there, head low, and this time it was blowing hard.

Two seconds, Jin thought. Maybe three.

He saw another long approach before withdrawing the avatars. The ram needed several steps to recover again. There was a difference he could watch for: the lowered head and lengthening stride, the speed that a short rush never reached.

He wrote it down. Then he drew the court on the back of a care sheet: the recesses, the pillars, the broad stump near the middle, the south passage.

The next problem was the ram. It didn’t have to give him the long charge just because he wanted one.

On Thursday, he found that out.

He started both avatars well, from the passage mouth, with the plan from his sketch. He’d keep Glitch out on open ground, far from the pillars and the walls, where nothing could pin him.

Flicker would draw the ram out of its recess, and he’d wait for a long run.

The ram came out for Flicker and charged her short. It came out for Glitch and charged short again.

It went back into its recess when Flicker hit it with an Ember Shot, came out when Glitch went near the overhang, and charged short a third time, then a fourth.

Jin let every one of them go and kept Glitch clear.

Then, after twenty minutes, it gave him a long one.

It came off the east wall at Glitch, from a walk, head going lower, building speed across the court. Jin’s heart jumped. It was the charge he wanted, coming straight at Glitch.

Then he looked at where Glitch was.

He’d drifted. In twenty minutes of dodging short charges, Glitch had worked his way toward the west wall.

Glitch had reached the lower end of the west wall. A standing pillar crowded the space to his north; the wall blocked a retreat to the west. Jin had left him almost the same choice as Tuesday: squeeze into a gap or meet the ram head-on.

The southern edge of the pillar was clear. Beyond it lay the route to the passage, provided he moved now.

No.

"Glitch. South. Passage. Flicker, with him."

Glitch turned and ran, heavily, for the south end. The ram’s charge caught the edge of his hindquarters as he went, a glancing blow off the plating that sent him stumbling.

[Avatar Condition — Glitch: 91%]

Glitch reached the passage with Flicker overhead. The ram slewed round behind them, losing ground while it recovered from the charge. Jin kept both avatars moving. By the time it followed to the entrance, they were well down the slope; after a few steps into the passage, it turned back.

Jin closed the Engine with both avatars alive and sat on the crate with his heart going.

He’d had the charge. He’d had it and been in the wrong place, and the only reason he still had four Lives was that he’d recognised it a second earlier than he had on Tuesday.

He took out the care-sheet sketch and drew a circle round the broad stump in the middle of the court.

Beside the broad stump. Clear approach along its east side. Retreat around the southern curve.

Draw it north first. Leave room for a longer approach.

Don’t chase. Make it run.

He looked at the real Flicker on her perch. She was asleep, with her head tucked under her wing and the faint gold of the sun mark glowing through her feathers.

He remembered her furious pursuit of the marten. She had kept trying long after he stopped expecting her to catch it, and still found the movement that let them close the net.

Her avatar could do so much more. He wanted to bring some of that strength into her real body, to see her attacks matter against the enemies that currently forced her to keep her distance.

He would need to prepare another Sync carefully. Tonight’s mistake was a fair warning about wanting an opening badly enough to stop checking it.

He turned off the light.