So, the day had turned out to be one very long, ever-changing game between Var and Denai, as challenges were conceived and offered, then accepted and contended. They had battled over things as serious as finding food, and as silly as who could reach the next rock spire first. There were very few boundaries to their competitions, even going so far as to see who could tie the better tent knot. Had he not been so preoccupied, he would have found their antics to be rather funny. Sarraya surely did. The only real areas not contested were areas of specialty, such as Var's Scout eyesight or Denai's obe knowledge of languages.

All of that, the entire day of silly games had only been a precursor for this. The challenge of who was the better fighter. He watched them from a safe distance as they battled one another in the Dance, and from his short assessment of them, he had already chosen the winner. Denai was fast and strong, but she was still very young, barely more than an adult. Var had about fifteen years on her, and that difference in experience was the telling trait. Denai was good, but Var would eventually beat her. But Denai wasn't going to admit that easily. Their fighting was full contact, and both of them were already sporting what were going to be some pretty impressive bruises. Denai seemed to have a knack for getting Var to lower his guard on the right side, so his right eye was pretty swollen. Denai, on the other hand, had a tendency to raise her guard, and Var was coming in underneath her arms and putting some shots in on her belly, hips, and legs more or less uncontested. For some reason, Denai wouldn't block with her legs. That was a defensive technique basic to the Dance. But then he remembered that she was obe, and that her training in the Dance had probably been slowed down compared to others because of her additional duties. She was making novice mistakes, but to give her the benefit of the doubt, she hadn't been as thoroughly trained as others her age.

No need to make this easy. Tarrin stood up and moved towards where the two of them were scrapping, in a nice flat dusty clearing not far from the oasis plants. Sarraya flitted over to his side, and that made him stop.

"Don't interfere," Sarraya told him. "This is something they need to do. I think it's a racial custom. They're establishing the pecking order."

"That's not social, that's instinctual," Tarrin replied gruffly. "And I already know who's going to win."

"Who?"

"Var. Denai's making too many mistakes."

"We'll see. Experience isn't everything."

"Think what you want," Tarrin shrugged, and they fell silent. But not for very long. Var came at Denai on her left side, and baited her into shifting her guard to her strong side-Denai was left-handed-then he turned his side to her and kicked her in the hip with a thrusted foot. Denai was squared against him, and the impact sent her driving to the side, and that totally lowered her defenses. One of her arms came out, and the agile Var grabbed it in both hands and whipped her over his shoulder into the ground. Denai had the presence of mind to bring up a foot and kick over her own head, but Var was expecting such a move, and had turned so that her foot only struck his shoulder. He still had hold of her arm, and knelt behind her and twisted it behind her back, threatening to break it. She struggled from her seated position to grab him with her other hand, kicking and squirming, but she couldn't get her arm behind her enough to grab anything sensitive enough to make him let her go.

" Aija!" Denai gasped when Var wrenched her arm. It was the Selani word for yield. Denai was submitting.

"You were saying?" Tarrin asked.

"Hmph. Denai should have grabbed him between the legs. That would have stopped him."

"You're talking about something most men go to great lengths to protect," Tarrin told her. "Var would have seen that coming from a longspan away."

Var released Denai, standing up as she rolled her arm in her shoulder socket a few times to work out the sting. He was rubbing his face gingerly, from where she had walloped him a few good times. Var had won, but it was obvious that it wasn't an easy victory.

"How did you do that?" Denai demanded from the ground. "I never put my arm out."

Var was about to respond, but he backed off when he realized that Tarrin had come so close that he was looming over the smaller Selani. Denai scrambled to her feet, and when Tarrin suddenly cocked a fist back as if to strike her, she raised her arms into the basic guard defense, a position from which she could move quickly to block nearly anything from any direction. But her arms were too high.

"That's how," Tarrin told her bluntly. "You keep your arms too high, and you don't block with your legs. Var kicked you in the hip to turn you, and you threw your arm out to balance yourself. You defeated yourself, Denai."

"I was going to tell you that myself," Var told her calmly.

"Teach her," Tarrin ordered Var, then he backed away from them enough to turn around without them being within striking distance of his back.

He had his own issues at the moment. Jegojah was coming, and just the thought of it made him snarl in anger and clench his fists. He hadn't done any real fighting for three months, and against the Doomwalker, he had to be totally sharp. Yet out here, there was nobody suitable against which to spar. Var and Denai were too small, too weak, not as skilled, unable to challenge him in the slightest. There were inu and kajat, but they were animals, and didn't fight with the same levels of subtlety he needed to sharpen his skills in preparation. He had few options other than running the forms alone, but that wasn't as beneficial as actual sparring.

Yet another reason to miss Allia.

He considered trying to spar with Var and Denai in human form, but it wouldn't work. He had a different body in his natural form, and training in one form and fighting in another would not work. To train as a human would be to confine himself to a human's abilities, and that would get him killed against Jegojah. The Doomwalker was no opponent that a human could defeat. He turned back and watched as Var held up his arms with Denai in the guard stance, showing her where to adjust. Denai had everything she needed to improve, a teacher better than her. Var would teach her the right way to do things, and she would get better. But Tarrin's teacher wasn't with him… and truth be told, she had stopped teaching him long ago. Allia considered him trained, which meant that she had taught him everything she knew, and she could teach him no more. Only the application of that knowledge through experience separated them, and that was something that he had to do for himself.

He distanced himself from the others, on the other side of the oasis, and did the only thing that he could. He sparred against empty air, conjuring up an image of Jegojah in his mind, dredging up everything he remembered about the Doomwalker, and imagining it attacking. Jegojah was more than an undead creature or a magic-user, it had proven itself to be exceptionally skilled in fighting, among the paramount warriors in the world. Even if it didn't have its magical powers-

No. It was wrong to think of Jegojah as an it. The Doomwalker had shown personality. It was not an unthinking automaton, a magical weapon. It was individual, unique, with thoughts and feelings. Jegojah was a he. He certainly wasn't very friendly, but he had shown a propensity for honor. That was a good indicator that the Doomwalker was more than just another magical creation. He remembered past fights with him, how he had saluted him with his sword, how he had spoken of honor and fairness. He remembered infusing Jegojah's body, feeling the link that ran back to his soul, the soul that Kravon used to animate the Doomwalker's body. He remembered Dolanna and Phandebrass explaining exactly what a Doomwalker was, how they were created.