The Continent (The Continent #1)(63)

“I say you’ve got a good start, Vaela Sun,” Takashi says, and tosses me an apple from his pack. “And you’re freakishly strong for such a small thing, you know that? You have a nice, firm grip. Well done.”

“Do you feel confident in your progress?” Noro asks.

“I think I do,” I say, surprised. I wouldn’t want to try my luck with a Topi warrior, but I know more than I did this morning. Like how to avoid getting shoved to the ground by Takashi.

“Good. Now we must teach you all the ways to kill a man with a knife.”

I crinkle my nose. “You have a way with words.”

“There is no point in pretending about what we must do, Vaela. I do not teach you these things for sport—I hope to provide you with a way to defend yourself.” He taps himself on the chest. “Would you stab me here?”

“No.”

“Good. Why?”

“Your…breastbone. It’s in the way.”

“Excellent.” He points to the spot below his ribs, on his left side. “Here?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

I stare at the spot. “What do you mean, ‘how?’”

“Show me with your knife how you would do it.”

I gape at him. “I’m having an apple, Noro! We’re supposed to be resting!”

“All right,” he says, and reclines, resting his head in his hands. “Enjoy your fruit.”

“Thank you.”

“If I were a Topi, it would be your last meal.”

Takashi laughs. “Oh, let her eat, Noro.”

“Yes, let me eat,” I say, “Then I’ll stab you wherever you please.”

I lie back on the cool grass, lost beneath a sea of billowing white clouds. “That one looks like a great fir,” I say. Noro looks up, twists his head, then moves to my side, his head on the ground next to mine. On the other side of him, Takashi does the same.

“A wheelbarrow,” Takashi says, pointing.

“Where?” I say.

“That big one above the mountain.”

“How can you possibly think that looks like a wheelbarrow?” Yuki asks.

Takashi points again, jabbing his finger into the air. “See the handles there?” His hand makes a loop. “And the wheel. The big wheel—how do you not see it?”

Noro gives an exasperated sigh. “You do realize that where you’re pointing is different from my perspective than from yours?”

Takashi points again. “Right there.”

“I see a sailboat,” Noro says.

“Ohhh, I see a sailboat, too!” I say. “With a great tall mast!”

Yuki leans forward. “I see it as well!”

Takashi groans.

We are quiet for a moment. Then I start to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Noro asks.

My giggle evolves into the kind of laughter which, when you’re in the midst of it, makes it hard to breathe. I roll onto my side, my shoulders shaking, but I can’t stop. Noro, Takashi, and Yuki have no idea what I’m laughing about; even so, they join in. I point to the cloud above us, trying desperately to speak, but this only makes me laugh harder. Finally, with tears in my eyes, I manage a few words: “That one… it…it looks…like Shoshi.”

Now we are all laughing together, with Takashi repeating I see it, I see it again and again. I’ve never seen Noro in stitches like this before. I bury my face in his shoulder, the warm sun like a kiss on my cheek, and laugh and laugh and laugh.

*

The following day, the four of us hike out to the meadow once again. The clouds today are dark and heavy, burdened with rain. From time to time, I feel a drop of water on my face.

“We’ll stay until it pours,” Noro says. “A little water never hurt anyone.”

“Tell that to my cousin,” Takashi says. “He once saw a thunderstorm at Sana-Zo that flooded the entire valley. People were whisked away, carried right off! Never heard from again.”

Yuki glances at me, then says, “Is this the same cousin who saw the Topi hurling rocks? The one who watched them eat their dead after a battle? The cousin who lives farther south than we do, but spends more time observing the Topi than anyone alive?”

Takashi’s face goes red. “They did eat their dead. He saw it.”

“I’ve heard they eat babies,” I say.

“Really?” Takashi says, his eyes wide.

“That’s what Keiji says.”

Noro sighs. “Can we focus, please?”

A large raindrop splashes onto his face, right between his eyes; Takashi and I both smother a laugh. Yuki chuckles and plunks herself down on a flat rock nearby.

“All right, all right,” I say, trying to compose myself. I bow deeply. “Proceed, battlemaster.”

“Today, you will learn another way to kill with a knife. Takashi, turn around.”

Takashi turns to face the mountains, and Noro pokes him beneath the left shoulder blade. “This spot, this spot here, it will give you the quickest kill of all. You drive the blade upward beneath this bone—” here, he demonstrates with my wooden knife “—directly into the heart. If you cut a man’s throat, he will take minutes to bleed out, and sometimes makes noise; if you pierce his heart, he will die at once.”