Tamsin moved.
One moment, he stood six paces away. The next he was three, having closed the distance with a blur of short, quick steps that kicked up little puffs of dust. Jacob's first instinct was to swing. The guidance rune tried to settle his arm into the cleanest diagonal cut.
He ignored it.
Instead, he stepped back and to the side, bringing his sword across his body in a tight block.
Steel hit steel. The impact jolted his arms, but the braking curve shunted some of it away, turning what should have been a bone-ringing clash into a hard push. Tamsin's second blade kissed his sleeve and skated along the brigandine, seeking a gap. The coat's runes spread the force, turning the bite into a shove.
Jacob felt the armor take it as a dull thump against his ribs.
Tamsin flowed away before Jacob could riposte, circling, eyes narrowed.
"Not bad," the gnome said. "Again."
They came together a second time, faster. This time, Jacob let the sword's guidance do what it wanted. His cut snapped into a cleaner arc than he could have managed alone, forcing Tamsin to respect the edge and knock it aside rather than ignoring it completely.
The scout twisted under the blade, dropped low, and Jacob barely brought his knee up in time. Tamsin's knife bit into his greave with a sharp ring that would have opened his leg to the bone without the rune work.
Pain bloomed, but it was from the pressure, not from a cut. His shin would bruise. It did not fold.
Jacob kicked Tamsin away on instinct. The gnome rode the blow into a roll and came up grinning.
"Definitely not bad."
The fight settled into a rhythm. Tamsin darted in and out, blades flashing. Jacob blocked, parried, and sometimes simply let the armor earn its keep. A stab to the gut that would have gutted him turned into a breath-stealing punch. A slice at his arm left his bicep numb but not open. Each time, he felt the patterns catch the danger and spread it thin.
He was still losing ground.
Tamsin was faster, lighter, and infinitely more experienced. Every time Jacob thought he saw an opening, it turned out to be bait. Every time he tried to press, Tamsin was gone, sliding out of reach.
Sweat started to sting Jacob's eyes. His arms burned. His breathing grew ragged.
Tamsin's did not.
A feint to the shoulder drew Jacob's guard high. The real attack came in low, a hook of the gnome's foot behind Jacob's ankle. For an instant, Jacob thought he could ride it out. Then the world tilted, and the sky jumped into view.
He hit the dirt on his back. Air rushed out of him. His sword arm started to move, but Tamsin was already there, one knee on Jacob's coat, knife poised against the side of his throat where there was no plate.
The blade did not touch skin. It hovered close enough that Jacob could feel the cold of it.
"Stop," Carlos called.
The field went quiet except for Jacob's harsh breaths.
Tamsin held the position for a second longer, making sure the lesson landed, then slid the knife away and stood. He offered Jacob a hand.
"On your feet, boy," the gnome said. "You did not embarrass yourself."
Jacob gripped the small, strong hand and let himself be hauled up. His legs wobbled. His ribs ached. His shin felt like it had kissed a rock. He looked down at his armor.
Not a single plate was cut through.
Carlos walked onto the field, boots crunching in the frost-hardened dirt.
"Well," he said. "You lost."
Jacob dragged in a breath.
"I noticed," he rasped.
Carlos's mouth twitched.
"But you did not fold in one hit. You did not panic. Your armor took blows that would have turned a normal village boy into a smear. Tamsin?"
The gnome sheathed his blades.
"If he comes in behind us, stays where I tell him, and understands that if I say lie down, he lies down, I do not see him dying on the first floor," Tamsin said. "As long as he accepts he is baggage that can swing a sword, not a front liner."
Jacob opened his mouth, then shut it. Baggage that could swing a sword was still inside the dungeon.
A faint, almost inaudible ripple brushed the air around the party again. The dwarf shifted his weight. The elf's eyes unfocused for a moment as if she were reading something that hovered just out of sight. Carlos's jaw worked, then settled.
He looked back at Jacob.
"All right," Carlos said. "Here is what I am willing to do. We are taking another run at that gate tomorrow. I will talk to your parents, and if they agree, you can come with us on very strict terms. You stay in the back, follow orders, and do not play hero. You watch, you learn, and you go home alive. Understood?"
Jacob's heart pounded so hard he almost could not hear the rest.
"Understood," he said.
"Good." Carlos clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "Now go home before your father decides to storm the tavern and drag you back himself."
Jacob managed a shaky grin.
"He told me to yield if it was stupid," he said. "You stopped it first."
"Then we are already doing better than most fathers and sons who come through here," Carlos replied.
Jacob sheathed his sword and left the field. Each step hurt a little, but it was the good kind of hurt, solid and earned. The links to his armor glowed steady in the back of his mind, humming with the memory of real strikes.
By the time he cleared the edge of town and the fields opened up toward home, his limp had faded to a spring.
He had lost.
But he had also gotten exactly what he wanted.