The rain from the night before had left the dirt yard soft and gray. Water stood in the shallow depressions of the flagstones, cold enough to bite through the worn soles of James's boots.
In the center of the yard sat the salt block.
It was a rough, heavy cube of rock salt, pinkish-red and smelling faintly of minerals and river silt. Beside it stood the lard tub, its wooden staves greasy and dark. If they didn't get the salt broken and worked into the fat by afternoon, the damp air would start to turn the lard.
Drake knelt in the wet dirt. His left hand was tucked into his belt, the dead forearm held flat against his stomach. In his right hand, he held the iron chisel. He tried to set the point against the corner of the salt, but without his left hand to steady the shaft, the heavy iron wobbled, sliding off the slick red surface.
James stood three paces back, his left bootlaces dragging in the mud. He watched Drake's right shoulder. He watched the way Drake's right heel dug into the soft ground, trying to find an anchor to offset the weight of his useless left side.
"Let me," James said.
Drake didn't look up. He adjusted his knee in the mud. "No."
"You're dragging," James said. His voice was flat, not angry, just stating what was there. "We've been on the first corner."
"I have it," Drake said.
He gripped the chisel tighter, trying to brace the iron shaft against his own shin while he raised the heavy wooden mallet with his right hand. It was an awkward, twisted posture. He swung.
The mallet clipped the side of the chisel. The iron spun out of his grip, clattering across the wet flagstones and splashing into a puddle. A tiny, useless flake of red salt drifted into the dirt.
Drake didn't move. He sat on his heels, his right hand still wrapped around the mallet handle, his knuckles white.
"Again," Chawng said from the porch.
The old man wasn't watching them. He was leaning against the doorframe, a small knife in his hand, shaving a thin sliver of pine from a kindling stick.
James walked over, picked up the wet chisel, and wiped the mud off on his thigh. He stood over the salt block, set his feet exactly where Drake had set his, and tilted his pelvis to the left to mirror Drake's lean.
He raised the mallet.
"Don't," Xander said. He was sitting on the low barracks step, his thumbs twitching against his knees. "If you align like that without the—"
Xander stopped. He looked at Chawng's knife shaving the wood. He looked down at his own wet boots.
"Never mind," Xander muttered.
James ignored him. He swung the mallet down toward the chisel head.
Because his own left arm wasn't dead weight—because his body was whole and balanced—the deliberate tilt in his hips threw the swing off by two inches. The mallet missed the iron entirely, striking the top of the salt block with a dull, wet thud. The vibration traveled straight up James's wrist, numbing his fingers. He dropped the mallet.
"It doesn't work," James said, staring at his palm.
"You're too light on the left," Drake said, his voice low and gravelly. He stood up, wiping his muddy knee. "You're copying the lean. You don't have the weight."
"I can do the stance," James said, his gray slit eye narrowing as he looked at the mallet in the dirt. "I had the stance."
"You had *my* stance," Drake said. "You don't have this."
He pointed to his own left arm, hanging limp and quiet under his belt.
James stared at the dead arm, then at his own hands. He had spent his entire life looking at people who were whole, copying their perfect lines, their clean deliveries, their completed arcs. He didn't know how to mirror a body that had to fight its own framework just to stand straight. He couldn't borrow the empty space.
Near the stove, Kara leaned against the doorframe, her hands buried deep in her pockets. She looked at the greasy lard tub, then at the sky.
"We're going to be eating gray fat by Thursday," she said.
"We won't," Luna said.
She walked out into the middle of the yard. Her boots didn't make a sound in the wet dirt. She didn't look at James, and she didn't look at Drake. She simply sat on her heels in front of the red block, reached out her hands, and took hold of the cold iron chisel.
She pressed the point flat against the red seam.
Her fingers were small and pale against the dark iron. She didn't look up to see if Drake was ready. She just held the steel straight, her shoulders dropped, her breathing even.
Drake looked at her hands. He looked at the heavy mallet.
He didn't ask her if she was sure. He didn't tell her to move her fingers.
He took two steps back, adjusting his trailing heel until it locked against the edge of a dry flagstone. He let his right shoulder drop, letting the weight of his body settle down through his spine into his heel. His dead left arm stayed quiet against his ribs.
He swung.
*Clack.*
The mallet hit the center of the chisel head with a clean, dry ring. A thick, red wedge of rock salt sheared off the corner of the block, tumbling into the mud between Luna's knees.
Luna didn't flinch. She picked up the wedge, blew the wet dirt from the salt, and dropped it into the wooden tub.
"Again," she said.
She moved the chisel an inch to the left.
Drake adjusted his heel. He didn't look at the sky, or the high stone wall, or the loud world on the other side of the fence.
He swung.
From the porch, Chawng closed his knife. He didn't look at the tub, and he didn't look at the three of them sitting in the dirt. He pointed his shaving blade toward the small red wedge in Luna's hand.
"Salt," Chawng said.
Then he went inside.
The morning bell rang four times over the wall—the start of the tactical practicals.
Inside, the yard was quiet again, save for the steady, rhythmic *clack* of the iron meeting the stone.