The wooden sword was lighter in Rii's hands than was perfectly comfortable. She was used to her own broadsword.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt anyway.
One of the boys–his name was Keita, apparently–sidestepped nervously, sweat beading on his forehead. He'd already been training for at least half an hour, Rii surmised.
She smiled at him. His face twitched under the mask that he didn't seem to be quite happy about.
"Well?" she asked, tapping the tip of the practice sword lightly against the packed earth between them. "Are you going to fight me, or only blink?"
The other boy laughed. He was standing off to one side, his own wooden sword lowered against his leg. Daisuke. Twin brother, if Rii had heard right.
Keita's eyes narrowed. "I'll fight."
"Hm." She tilted her head. "Then stop announcing it with your face."
His flush was visible even above the cloth. He shifted his feet once more, then brought the wooden blade up in front of himself, both hands on the hilt.
Rii watched him for a moment.
He had strength in the shoulders. Too much of it, perhaps, for the level of control his wrists currently possessed. Boys that age usually liked to strike as if noise itself could defeat an enemy. The mask didn't help matters, either. He kept breathing against it as if offended by the fact that it existed.
"Come on," Daisuke muttered helpfully. "You said you wanted to see if you were any good."
Keita took a breath and lunged.
Rii barely moved. His blade came down too hard and too straight, all effort and no deception. She shifted half a step to the outside line and let his strike pass her shoulder. At the same instant, her own practice sword flicked sharply across the backs of his hands.
Keita yelped and nearly dropped the hilt.
"Again," Rii said.
He stared at her. "What was that?"
"A correction." She smiled slightly. "Again."
Keita's jaw tightened. This time he circled left before striking, trying for her shoulder instead of her head.
Better–but still not good.
Rii met the blow only long enough to feel where his strength was going, then turned her wrist and slid his blade away instead of blocking it. His strike drifted past her. Her own sword tapped him lightly on the ribs.
He grunted and stumbled a pace backwards.
Daisuke's eyebrows rose. "I didn't even see that."
"That is because your brother is dramatic," Rii returned, breathing slightly heavier than she had been.
Keita scowled. "So what am I doing wrong?"
She lowered her blade. "Everything. But only because no one has taught you properly."
The boys exchanged a look. Rii saw the curiosity in it. Also the caution. Villages had that effect on people. A stranger was a stranger, even a woman with tired eyes and a smile.
She stepped forward and pointed the wooden sword at Keita's hands.
"When you strike," she said, "you try to break through the man in front of you. That works if he's weaker, slower, frightened, or stupid. If he's not, then all you've done is hand him your balance."
Keita blinked.
Rii moved before either boy could comment. Her sword rose, then stopped in front of Keita's face.
"If I strike here," she said, "what do you do?"
He swallowed. "Block."
"Good. Then block."
He did. Instantly, both hands raising the practice sword in front of his face.
Rii's blade never touched his. Instead she stepped slightly right, letting his guard move where she wanted it, and tapped his exposed wrist with two fingers of her free hand.
Keita stared at his own arm.
"Oh," Daisuke breathed.
Rii smiled. "Yes. Oh."
She withdrew and planted the sword against her shoulder. "A man's sword is not the same thing as his whole body. Make him defend where you want, and something else is left open. Usually something important."
Keita frowned. "So… feint?"
"That depends," she said. "Can you feint without making it obvious?"
His face answered for him.
Rii laughed.
Just like Saemon.
"No. You can't. Not yet."
Daisuke snorted. Keita shot him a murderous look.
"Then what do I do?" Keita demanded.
Rii turned the sword in her hands. The wood creaked faintly.
"You make him step."
The twins said nothing.
Rii pointed to the ground between them. "Most boys think swordplay is about the hands. It isn't. It begins with the feet. If I can make you put one foot where I want it, then I already know where your shoulders will go next. And if I know where your shoulders go, I know where your sword goes. Then I don't have to guess."
She looked at Daisuke. "You. Come here."
The second boy started, but he obeyed, moving to stand where his brother had been.
Rii positioned herself opposite him. "Lift your sword."
Daisuke did. More smoothly than Keita had, she noticed.
Interesting.
Rii shifted her own front foot half an inch forward. Daisuke's eyes flicked down without meaning to.
"Good," she murmured. "You watch feet."
Then she made the tiniest pressure forward with her blade. Not a strike. Barely even an invitation.
Daisuke stepped back.
"There," she said instantly. "That's what I mean. He stepped because he thought I was about to force him. But he stepped straight backward." She looked between the two boys. "Never step where your enemy expects you to go."
Keita frowned. "So where am I supposed to go?"
"To the side," Rii said simply. "Or forward. Or nowhere. Just not backward by instinct like a frightened sheep."
Daisuke flushed. Rii let him. Lessons remembered through embarrassment tended to stay remembered.
She reset his feet with the toe of her boot.
"When someone presses here," she said, tapping his blade lightly, "you do not give him a line. You turn off it."
She demonstrated slowly, stepping out and forward at the same time, her shoulder rotating just enough that her own blade would have cleared his and found his neck if it had been steel.
Daisuke's eyes widened.
Keita's mouth opened.
"That," Rii informed them, "is how smaller warriors live longer."
Now Keita brightened. "So if someone stronger comes at me–"
"You don't stop him," she finished. "You let him pass where you are no longer standing."
The boy grinned despite himself.
There. Better.
"Again," Rii said, and this time she made them take turns with the movement until their boots stopped tangling and their shoulders began to understand what their feet were doing.
Keita was quicker to commit, though too eager. Daisuke was slower, but cleaner. Rii said so.
Keita groaned. "You like him better."
"No," Rii said. "I like his patience better. Your stubbornness has uses, though."
Daisuke's face brightened. Keita's darkened.
Rii made them switch again.
When she was satisfied they could at least step off line without falling over each other, she added the next lesson.
"Now," she said, "when you have made him miss, don't waste time striking his armor. Strike what controls the weapon."
"The wrist?" Daisuke guessed.
"The wrist," Rii nodded. "Or the fingers. Or the elbow, if you have room. Not because you have to kill a man's hand. Because once the grip weakens, the rest of him follows."
Keita nodded slowly. "That's what you did to me."
"Yes." She smiled. "And then to your ribs, because you were still thinking about your hands."
Daisuke laughed. Keita shoved him with his shoulder.
The next half hour passed more quickly than the previous one had, perhaps because now the boys had something to do besides swing like lumberjacks. Rii made Keita attack in three-strike combinations while Daisuke was forced to step outside line and answer only after the final strike. Then she made them reverse roles.
"Don't chase the blade," she snapped once as Keita overreached. "Make your brother recover it himself."
"How?" he panted.
She stepped in, placed her sword against his, and turned her wrist with a short, ugly motion.
Keita's practice sword was shoved across his own body so abruptly that he nearly spun.
"There," she said. "If his weapon is moving across him, he must either bring it all the way back or let go. Both take time. Time is where you live."
Daisuke tried it on the next exchange and nearly got it right. Keita did not appreciate that.
Rii watched them with increasing quiet satisfaction.
They were village boys, yes. Barely trained. Probably taught by someone who knew enough not to get embarrassed in front of children. But they learned quickly. More importantly, they wanted to learn.
That was rarer.
At one point Keita came in too high and too hard again. Rii stepped inside his swing, struck his forearm with the flat of the wooden blade, and then hooked the hilt behind his knee.
He landed in the dirt with a startled oath.
Daisuke burst into laughter.
Keita sat up and glared. "How was that fair?"
Rii's eyebrows rose. "Was the ground unfair?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
"Huh," he muttered.
She offered him a hand up. He took it, still frowning, but this time there was admiration tangled in the annoyance.
"Again," he said.
Rii let the word sit in the air for a moment.
Then she nodded.
They went on.