Read Online The Refuge Song by Francesca Haig - Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€œCould 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.
    â€œAre you thinking of leaving?”
    She shook her head but dodged my eyes.
    â€œTell me the truth,” I said.
    â€œJust 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. Mostof the time it’s grappling, close and ugly. There’s nothing pretty about fighting.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œGood,” 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 backward 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.
    â€œDon’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 defense: 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 signaling 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.
    â€œI don’t want to know this,” I said, grimacing.
    â€œYou’re enjoying it,” she said. “For once you’re not slouching around. You’ve 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 timeI 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,