“Dragon bone, eh?” the joker said. “He must be a spoiled rich kid to be able to afford such expensive medicine. I guess that is how it works when you are Mong’s son.”
Seh felt anger begin to rise within him, but he fought off the urge to be rude. He decided to give the men a short explanation to try to ease the growing tension. Then he would move on with teaching the class.
“The dragon bone was a gift from a black market dealer called HukJee—Black Pig,” Seh told the group. “HukJee learned that some friends of mine were looking for dragon bone, and a healer friend of our camp named PawPaw realized that dragon bone might be able to help me with my condition. It is true that I have lost my sight, but it has been returning more each week. Today’s lesson will be that vision isn’t everything. I can use other senses to defeat opponents.”
“Like your sense of taste?” the joker asked. “To help with your projectile vomiting?”
The same recruits laughed, and Seh wondered how men more than twice his age found these childish comments funny.
Seh turned away from the group and walked under a large tent frame that had not been covered with fabric. He could vaguely discern the outlines of several round clay pots hanging at different heights from the crossbeams. The pots were filled with sand, and dangling from the bottom of each was a square sheet of metal roughly the size of his hand.
Seh subconsciously pushed a lock of his fast-growing hair out of his mostly sightless eyes and pointed more or less in the direction of the man who had spoken up for him. It was time for a little demonstration.
“Please, come here,” Seh said.
The man came forward, and Seh nodded toward the pots. “I want you to hit each of those dangling sheets of metal, then get out of the way as quickly as you can.”
“Okay,” the man replied.
Seh heard five distinct clangs, and the moment he saw the man’s shadowy form hurry off to one side, he sprang into action. He rushed forward, swinging his iron-tipped spear in a wide swath, smashing three of the pots in dramatic fashion on the first pass. He felt the satisfying thunk as the clay vessels exploded, and registered the distinctive hiss of sand flying through the air.
He keyed in on the faint tones emitted by the two remaining metal sheets, and he went after them with all the focus of a kung fu master. He thrust the spear tip at one of the pots, shattering it. Then he pulled his spear back as though to smash the remaining pot, but instead snapped his right foot forward, shouting, “Ki-ya!”
It was a direct hit. The ball of his foot connected with the final pot, and the pot erupted, sending a shower of hardened clay fragments and sand in every direction as the metal sheet dropped to the ground.
Seh landed on his knees for show, his spear held high over his head. He jumped to his feet, bowed quickly to the line of men, and began to dust himself off.
Several of the recruits murmured their approval. The joker scoffed. “I’ll be sure to remember this lesson if I’m ever blindfolded and attacked by a troop of killer flowerpots.”
“Is there something you would like to discuss?” Seh asked the joker.
“Yeah,” the joker replied. “I want to know why you are wasting our time. Breaking pots serves no purpose.”
“That is not true,” Seh said. “Those pots are the same diameter as a human head, and they are hung at different levels to represent opponents of different heights. The force required to shatter one when it is filled with sand is the same amount of force necessary to crack a human skull. It is important practice.”
The joker laughed. “Pots don’t fight back, young man. People do. People also move around. A person would simply get out of your way.”
Seh clenched his teeth. “Would you like to try it?”
“Attack some harmless flowerpots?”
“No. Attempt to get out of my way.”
The joker’s tone grew serious. “Are you saying that you want to fight me, boy?”
“I prefer the term sparring,” Seh said. “Unless you are afraid, old man.”
“Old man!” the joker roared. “I’ll show you!”
Seh heard the man’s heavy boots begin to pound across the ground in his direction. It did not surprise him that the joker acted so spontaneously. In fact, he had been counting on it. Embarrassing this man here and now would earn Seh the respect of the entire group.
Seh sank into a deep Horse Stance and gripped his spear with two hands, holding the wooden shaft parallel to the ground with the metal tip facing forward. He held the shaft’s center balance point tight in his left hand at waist level and positioned his right hand near the blunt back end.