Francesca Haig - The Map of Bones

And it was a kind of courage, to turn his back on us and take those steps. His soldiers were too far away to help him. His death would be a matter of moments. I knew exactly how Piper would draw back his arm. The precise movement with which he would throw the knife: his arm straightening; the knife not tossed but released, unwavering, to bury itself in the back of The Ringmaster’s neck.

‘Don’t do it.’ I grabbed Piper’s raised arm, his muscles taut beneath my fingertips. He didn’t shift when I wrapped my hands around his forearm. His knife was poised, his eyes following The Ringmaster’s path amongst the broken ghosts of poles. Next to him, Zoe had a knife raised too, assessing the soldiers waiting beyond The Ringmaster.

‘Give me one good reason why he should live,’ said Piper.

‘No.’

He looked down at me, as if hearing me for the first time.

‘I’m not going to play that game,’ I went on. ‘It’s the same thing you asked me on the island, when the others wanted me dead. I won’t do it – trading lives, weighing lives against others.’

‘He’s a risk to us, now,’ Piper said. ‘It’s not safe to let him live. And he’s a Councillor, for crying out loud. A terrible man.’

All of that was true, but I still didn’t release Piper’s arm.

‘The world’s full of terrible people. But he came to talk, not to harm us. What gives us the right to kill him, and his twin?’

In the silence that followed, The Ringmaster’s words rang in my head: I suppose it’s a question of how alike you are.

The Ringmaster had almost reached his soldiers when Piper shook free of my arm and strode after him.

‘Wait,’ Piper commanded.

The soldiers rushed to surround The Ringmaster, who had turned back to face Piper. The swordsmen had their weapons raised. Even the archer, his right hand still clutching the knife hilt buried in his shoulder, had drawn a dagger from his belt and raised it towards Piper with his shaking left hand.

‘You have something of ours,’ Piper said, leaning forward and calmly pulling Zoe’s blade from the archer’s flesh. The man inhaled sharply and gave a strangled curse, but under The Ringmaster’s impassive gaze he didn’t retaliate, just pressed his hand tighter against the wound. Fresh blood surged between his fingers and spilled down his knuckles.

The Ringmaster nodded once at Piper, then looked beyond him to me.

‘When you change your mind, come to me,’ he said. Then he turned and walked away, calling his soldiers to follow him.

‘You need to learn to fight,’ Zoe said the next morning. Piper was on lookout, and Zoe and I were supposed to be resting, but our encounter with The Ringmaster had left us both edgy.

‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘Nobody’s suggesting that you’re going to become some kind of super-assassin,’ she said. ‘But Piper and I haven’t got time to save you every five minutes.’

‘I don’t want to kill.’ I remembered the blood smell from the battle of the island, and how each death had been doubled for me, my visions showing me not just those slain in the battle, but also their twins, ambushed by their own deaths.

‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘People like The Ringmaster – they’re going to keep coming for you. You need to be able to defend yourself. And I can’t always be here. Piper either.’

‘I hate the idea of it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to kill. Not even Council soldiers. What about their twins?’

‘You think I enjoy it?’ said Zoe quietly.

I was silent for a few moments. Finally, I said, ‘I won’t fight unless I’m being attacked.’

‘Only a few times a week, then, the way you’re going lately.’

When she raised one eyebrow like that, she reminded me of Kip.

‘Get out your knife,’ she said.

From its sheath at my belt, I pulled the dagger that Piper had given to me on the island. It was about as long as my forearm, the blade sharp on both sides, and narrowing to a vicious point. The hilt was wrapped in leather, wound tightly and sweat-darkened to almost black.

‘Could I learn to throw it, like you and Piper?’

She laughed, taking the dagger from me. ‘You’d be more likely to take your own ear off. This isn’t a throwing knife, anyway – not balanced right.’ She spun it casually between her forefinger and thumb. ‘And I’m not giving you any of my knives. But you can learn some basics, so you won’t be completely useless if we’re not around to save you.’

I looked up at her. Despite our arguments, it was hard to imagine her not being around. Her sarcastic asides were as familiar to me now as her wide shoulders, her restless hands. When we sat around the fire at night, the flick of her blade on her fingernails was as normal as the cicadas’ rasping.

‘Are you thinking of leaving?’

She shook her head but dodged my eyes.

‘Tell me the truth,’ I said.

‘Just concentrate,’ she said. ‘You need to learn this stuff.’ She tossed my dagger on the ground. ‘You won’t need that for now. And forget about high-kicks or backflips or any of that dramatic-looking stuff. Most of the time it’s grappling, close and ugly. There’s nothing pretty about fighting.’

‘I know that,’ I said. I’d seen it on the island: the clumsiness of desperation. Swords slipping in bloodied hands. Bodies that became slashed sacks, emptied of blood.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then we can get started.’

For the first few hours, she wouldn’t let me use my blade at all. Instead, she showed me how to use my elbows and knees to strike in close quarters. She showed me how to drive my elbow backwards into the guts of an attacker holding me from behind, and how to throw my head back and upwards to connect with his nose. She taught me how to bring my knee up to bury it sharply in an assailant’s groin, and how to throw my whole body weight behind the sideways jab of an elbow to the jaw.

‘Don’t hit at somebody,’ she said, ‘or you’ll make no impact. Hit through them. You have to follow through. Aim for a spot six inches under the skin.’

I was sweaty and tired by the time she let me try with the knife. Even then, at first she didn’t teach me anything but defence: how to block a strike with my blade, shielding my hand with the hilt. How to stand side-on so that I presented a smaller target, and to keep my knees bent, legs wide, so that I couldn’t easily be knocked over.

Then she got to the blade itself. How to strike without signalling it beforehand. How to go for the arteries between groin and thigh. How to make a low slash at the stomach, and how to twist the blade on the way out.

‘I don’t want to know this,’ I said, grimacing.

‘You’re enjoying it,’ she said. ‘For once you’re not slouching around. You haven’t looked this animated in weeks.’

I wondered if it were true. There was a satisfaction in the mastery of each move, in feeling the actions become familiar. But at the same time I was repulsed by the idea of gutting anyone. Could actions and their consequences be so neatly separated? The movements permitted no uncertainty, and no ambiguity: you did them. That was it. All morning we’d repeated them, again and again. It was comforting, in the same way that biting my nails was comforting: a mindless action that gave some respite from thought. But when I bit my nails, all I ended up with was my own fingers raw-tipped and sore. The routines Zoe was teaching me would leave a body sundered, robbed of blood. Somewhere a twin, too, would bleed out, and it would be my hand dealing that double death.

Zoe resumed the fighting stance, waiting for me to mirror her.

‘There’s no point if you don’t practise,’ she said. ‘It needs to be so that your knife’s in your hand before you realise you need it. It needs to feel seamless – so it comes to you without thinking.’