Kiren.
Even his damn name sounded clean. Like silk sliding over lacquered wood. The kind of name that probably came with scrolls and mentors and rice that wasn't burnt at the bottom.
Tegüs muttered it to himself as he scraped crusted blood from the inside of his nose. Left nostril. That was where the spear-butt caught him last.
He hadn't gone looking for that fight last week. Not really. He just hated the way the boy moved. Like the ground owed him gratitude. Like his arms were painting the air every time he spun that spear around. No weight behind it, no grit, just all that "flow" the soft-faced idiots kept whispering about like it was the key to immortality.
But Kiren wasn't a weakling. That much, Tegüs had to admit. He moved soft, but when he hit, it felt like getting slammed by the wind if the wind had bones.
Still.
> Pretty hits don't matter if you can't keep landing them.
Tegüs sat alone again that night, bones sore, ribs still angry. He didn't sleep. Not really. Just stared at the fire and thought.
He didn't want to move like water.
He wanted to hit like falling timber and walk away with less bruises.
---
Someone mentioned the madman the next morning — in passing, during a piss break.
"Old one-armed bastard up near the cliffs, throws rocks at kids and calls it 'training.' Got his arm bit off by a tiger or maybe a woman — depends who you ask."
That was all Tegüs needed.
---
It took most of the day and a goat with a limp, but he made it.
And there he was: sitting under a broken yurt pole with a beard that looked like horse hair and eyes that had stopped blinking sometime last winter.
He didn't speak when Tegüs arrived. Didn't look surprised. Just picked up a rock the size of a fist and flung it without warning.
Tegüs didn't dodge.
Didn't even flinch.
Got nailed in the gut and wheezed like a stepped-on flute.
The old man spat. "First lesson learned."
---
Tegüs didn't ask for more. He didn't need to.
The next three days were pain. Sharp pain, dull pain, pain he couldn't find until nightfall. The old bastard never gave a name, just threw rocks, bones, wood, once a dead hare. No rhythm. No telegraphing. Sometimes with both hands. Sometimes with a grunt. Sometimes not at all.
Tegüs got better because he had to. He started flinching the right way. His feet started moving before he thought. When he ducked, he stayed ducked. When he slipped, he braced. The cuts on his arms healed slower, but the bruises didn't sting as long.
He learned nothing about styles. Nothing about chi or balance or breath.
Just how not to die.
And that, to him, seemed worth more than any of Kiren's poems.
---
On the fifth day, he caught a rock mid-air.
Just a reflex. Instinct. Surprise hit harder than the stone did.
He smiled, proud. Looked at the old man like he'd just grown a second head.
The bastard only grunted. "Break it now."
"What?"
"Your hand. You caught it wrong."
A minute later, the swelling proved him right.
---
Tegüs limped back into camp that evening — sore, bleeding, fingers blackened, but walking straighter than he had before.
He didn't talk much. Didn't shout or joke or throw his arms around like usual.
He just watched.
Watched the way Bolor leaned before he swung a slap. Watched the way people flinched when wind changed. Watched how everyone moved before they moved.
When Bolor tried to fake a punch as a joke, Tegüs sidestepped, swept his leg, and let him land in the yak shit pile behind the tents.
No grin. Just a shrug.
"Telegraphed it too much," he muttered, mostly to himself.
---
Kiren saw him from across the circle later that evening. Tegüs saw him too.
The spear-boy didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
But his expression had changed — only slightly. Like someone tasting spoiled wine and not knowing why.
> Good, Tegüs thought. Let him wonder what I've been chewing on. It weren't scrolls.
He didn't need poetry.
He needed results