It’s All Up Hill From Here

Here we are, once again it’s Thursday. And I’m only a little over 1,000 words behind.

As messy as this book is turning out to be, I think once it’s cleaned up and buffed and polished, it’s going to be the best Elemental book yet.

I’m learning so much about the Illezie – stuff I wish I’d known for the first four books. But then again, if I’d known all this I probably would have wanted to include more of it, and they wouldn’t have been as mysterious as they are.

This week’s excerpt sort of follows the first excerpt I posted, the one where Kaine is dreaming. The Adraci/Elementals he’s been staying with are worried about him – he drinks too much and keeps too much to himself, and they want to change that.

One of Rayne’s ideas for making Kaine feel more included was to host a dinner for which he would be the unofficial guest of honour. Though dubious as to whether it would have the outcome they wanted, Taja was all for the idea and enlisted Nakeisha to help with the planning. Having hosted many a diplomatic dinner by this time, Nakeisha was right in her element (so to speak). The only problem to arise was convincing Kaine to attend.

“But I am not an elemental,” he pointed out. “Nor even an Ardraci. I would not wish to sully the ambience of your gathering.”

“Chaney is not Ardraci either,” Taja told him. “You would be doing him a favour – he must be getting weary of being the only non-Ardraci in the group.”

“Very well,” he said with a sigh, knowing there was no point in arguing when Taja set her mind to something. She seemed to feel that just because he’d saved her life they had some kind of bond – not like she had with Ravi of course, more like that of siblings. “But in return I wish to set up a sparring date with you. I find this life of leisure I’ve been leading has made me somewhat soft.”

Her eyes lit up. “I know exactly what you mean. It would be my pleasure.”

Since the dinner was to be held the following evening, they scheduled the sparring match for one hour hence. In the short time it took for them to get ready a small crowd had gathered in the gallery overlooking the practice room. Taja seemed a little surprised by it, but Kaine barely acknowledged their audience.

“Hand to hand or weapons?” Taja asked.

Kaine thought about it for a moment. Though he was larger and heavy, he knew better than to think it would be to his advantage during hand to hand combat.

“I think our audience would appreciate seeing our skills with weapons,” he told her. “And seeing as I was the one who issued the challenge, I leave it to you to choose the weapons.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Taja responded with a grin. She’d already had a weapon in mind – the Bohran fighting sticks.

The last time she and Kaine had sparred, she had discovered his love for archaic weapons. That time it had been wooden staves, and she had grossly underestimated his skill with them. The Bohran fighting sticks were rarely seen off world, and even on Bohran they were used only for ceremonial purposes now. Her teacher had been Bohranian and been reluctant to teach a woman at first…until he’d seen how quickly she became skilled at them.

The attendant brought out a long, flat box. Nestled inside on a bed of silk were the two fighting sticks. They almost looked like wooden swords, save they were broader through the middle with a straight edge with a razor sharp band of metal imbedded in it and a deep, curved edge studded with teeth of volcanic rock.

She watched surreptitiously as Kaine took a hold of one of the sticks, hefting it in his hand before running through a series of warm up exercises while holding it.

Up in the gallery, bets were taking place.

Chaney ran into Ravi as he was placing a bet for Nakeisha. “Aren’t you getting in on the action?” he asked. “Nakeisha assures me that Taja is a sure winner. One of her instructors was from Bohran.”

“I well know Taja’s skill, they are evenly matched in all but weapons prowess,” Ravi said, “However I also know that Kaine spent considerable time on Bohran. It bodes to be a most entertaining match.”

“Interesting, and does Taja know this?”

“No, she does not,” Ravi said with a grin.

Chaney looked at him askance.

“As I said, it will be quite an interesting match.”