Read Online Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin by Caren J. Werlinger - Free Book Online Page B

heavily on his back and lay there, gasping for air as Cíana stood over him, her stick held to his throat.
    “Well done!” Ivar came over to them.
    “He’ll be angry as a wet wasp over that,” Daina whispered as Gai pushed to his feet.
    “Why?” Ash saw no reason to be angry if an opponent bested her. When an animal lost a fight over a mate or territory, it was best to retreat and fight again another day. Staying only led to injury and death.
    “He’s told us so many times how he was taught to fight by his father’s warriors, and he thinks he should never be beaten.”
    Ash frowned. “Can anyone never be beaten?”
    Ivar gestured to Ash and Diarmit. They took their places as Gai and Cíana sat to rest. Ivar showed them again how to hold their fake swords, and took them through slow-motion moves, some attacking, some defending. He then stepped back to allow them to practice what they had been taught. Diarmit advanced, and Ash stumbled backward, falling to the ground.
    Gai laughed, and Cíana elbowed him to be quiet.
    “Again,” Ivar said.
    Ash scrambled to her feet.
    A short time later, Diarmit knocked Ash to the ground for the twelfth time. She couldn’t seem to move fast enough to get her sword in position to block his blows, and his greater size overpowered her every time.
    “Enough.” Ivar looked angry, his black brows furrowed over his fierce eyes. Ash stood, sweaty and panting, her fake sword hanging at her side. “Sit and rest.”
    He dismissed them. Dejected, Ash got a long drink of water and sat with the others to watch two of the older ones spar. Méav’s long black braids whipped through the air as she spun, swinging her staff at Fergus. He moved just as fast, their staffs a blur of movement as they fought. Ash thought they looked like two of the gods in Neela’s tales. Farther away, the other three – Una, Ronan and Niall – all practiced throwing long, thin spears that impaled their targets like needles piercing cloth.
    “I will never be able to do that,” Ash murmured.
    “Not to worry,” Cíana said, laying a consoling hand on Ash’s shoulder. “It took me a long time as well.”
    Ash suspected that was not true, but her heart lightened a little at Cíana’s words.

    “Focus,” Neela said. “Try and pull the smoke toward you.”
    What Ash lacked in fighting skills, she made up for in her other lessons.
    “The elements existed long before us,” Neela had told them. “They will exist with or without us. They do not depend upon us in order to be.”
    This Ash understood, intuitively, without really having to be taught. Living with the badgers, she had seen that humans could make fire, but so could lightning. Streams could overrun their beds, the earth could heave and move when wet enough.
    “Fire and smoke can be used to create a protective screen,” Neela said. “Water is harder, but it can be manipulated to allow you to cross a stream to safety or to create a flood to keep your enemies on the other side. Earth is very difficult and takes a tremendous amount of energy. You must be careful. Once you start a spell, you may not be able to stop, and the energy it demands can kill you.”
    Each of them sat with a candle. Ash stared at hers, feeling the power build inside. With a flick of her hand, the wick sparked and lit. She made the flame grow and then shrink, and then made smoke rise densely from the flame, twisting and coiling sinuously.
    She felt the energy draining from her the longer and the more intricately she tried to control it, but it left her with a feeling of exhilaration that here was something she was good at. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself one with the fire, asking it to assume the shape she desired.
    “How do you do that?” Diarmit asked in frustration as Ash made the flames rise in the shape of a crow.
    “You cannot force anything to do your bidding,” Ash told him. “You must ask; you must become the fire or the smoke.”
    Diarmit frowned, clearly