Sunto walked to a nearby towel rack. He wiped the sweat off his face and slung the towel over the back of his neck. “Is there a problem with me training here?” he asked over his shoulder.
No Green Bone in Janloon, friend or enemy, would speak to the Pillar of the No Peak clan in such a curt and rude way, turning his back, not saluting or showing proper respect. “No problem,” Hilo said. “It’s only that I heard there was an Espenian Navy Angel living and training here in Janloon, and I had to come see for myself.”
“Ex-Angel,” Sunto corrected. “I left a couple years ago.”
“Word has gotten out among my Fists that you’re a serious sparring partner,” the Pillar said, strolling a partial circle around Sunto with his hands in his pockets. “They say you broke Heike’s nose.”
“An accident he deserved.” Sunto spoke Kekonese fluently but with an obvious Espenian accent. “He got carried away throwing Deflections and didn’t keep his guard up.”
“You’ve been teaching classes around here.”
“A few seminars. IBJCS basics, small arms concealment, nonlethal submission, that sort of thing. People have asked, and it’s extra money for me.” Sunto remained standing in place casually, but the suspicion was naked in his voice, and he kept glancing from side to side, as if expecting to see the clan’s Fists closing in from all directions.
Hilo said, “Let’s go somewhere to talk, Lieutenant.”
“I’d rather talk right here, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Hilo dropped a hand onto the man’s shoulder. Sunto reacted at once, twisting away from the hold, seizing and locking Hilo’s wrist. Hilo’s other hand was already moving, Channeling into the man’s right lung. The strike was far from the heart and would not do any permanent damage, but it would be terribly painful, collapse Sunto to the ground, and make it hard to breathe for minutes.
To Hilo’s surprise, Sunto dropped the wristlock, Steeled, and cross-Channeled in one quick twist of his upper body, dispelling the attack and sending a muscle-cramping pain shooting into the socket of the Pillar’s shoulder. The blast to Sunto’s chest was still enough to double him up coughing, but despite having the air knocked out of him, the man did not hesitate; he brought a shin up into Hilo’s groin.
Even Steeling didn’t stop Hilo’s eyes from watering in agony as he fell to one knee. Sunto dropped a knife-hand strike toward his carotid artery. Hilo drove himself sideways; the incapacitating blow glanced harmlessly off his shoulder as he hurled a precise horizontal Deflection that clotheslined Sunto at the waist and knocked him to the ground a few feet away. Regaining his footing, the Pillar sprang Light and landed with his full crushing Strength, not on top of Sunto’s torso, but next to him, flattening the mat instead of the man’s rib cage.
Sunto rolled to his feet in an instant, crouched defensively, but Hilo stood with a lopsided smile and walked up with his hands open, limping and bent forward slightly from the radiating pain in his abdomen. “I was wondering if your Espenian military training was real, or just a lot of big talk.”
Sunto frowned in confusion. “So you’re not here to kill me or beat the shit out of me.”
“Did I say I was?” Hilo asked.
Sunto straightened slowly and skeptically, wincing and rubbing his chest. “The leader of one of the biggest Green Bone clans shows up unexpectedly to talk? You can’t blame me for thinking I might not be walking out of here. A lot of people in this city don’t like Espenian soldiers, even retired ones with Kekonese ancestry.”
Every person in the Seventh Discipline gym had stopped to stare at the extraordinary sight of No Peak’s Pillar matching himself against an ex–Navy Angel. Someone was taking out a compact 35 mm camera. Hilo glanced over and snapped, “None of that, go back to whatever you were doing. I’m talking to a visitor here, can’t you see that?” The chastised Fingers mumbled apologies and reluctantly drew away from the scene. Hilo turned back to Sunto. “If you were in trouble with me, you would know it for sure by now. I said I came to talk, didn’t I? There’s a restaurant across the street. I’ll buy you a drink for that kick.”
_______
They had the Two Tigers Taproom to themselves, since the place was not technically open yet. Hilo had the manager bring two glasses of Espenian amber lager. Sunto refused the cigarette Hilo offered him, so the Pillar sat back and lit one for himself. The ex-Angel’s jade aura was still bristly with suspicion, but he drank his beer and said, “What do you want to talk about?”