Bitterlich’s heart hammered with the urge to intervene. “Do you expect her to win?”

“To learn,” Djordji said.

“I still need her in one piece,” Jean-Claude said mildly.

“Train her yourself if you don’t like my methods,” Djordji said. “I trains half the fellhands in the world today. Only loses one, and that’s to dysentery.”

Long Thom kicked, his long leg swinging like a loose yardarm. He caught Marie midthigh with a thump like a butcher’s cleaver hitting bone. Marie left the deck, flipped over, and landed in a graceless heap. She shoved up to hands and knees. Long Thom swung a fist like a block and tackle on course to take off her head.

Bitterlich reached for his sorcery and his skin rippled in anticipation of change.

Yet before he could pounce, Marie lurched to the side and Thom caught nothing but air. Never did Marie’s face show pain or distress, but she came up limping, hobbling away from his blows. She couldn’t slither away from him anymore, and he forced her into a corner.

“Got you!” Thom grabbed for her, hands splayed like the talons of some great eagle.

Quick as a cat, Marie ducked under his arm, seized one long finger with her whole hand and wrenched it backward. Long Thom howled in pain. Marie turned his hand over and guided him forward and down, face-first into the ship’s bulwark. Pitting her whole body against his arm, she levered it up behind him and kicked him once, twice, thrice in the meaty thews of his upper arms. He heaved away and staggered to his feet, but his arm hung limp at his side.

“Saints,” Bitterlich muttered. He forced his rising power back down. Marie had been a handmaid but a few months ago, but she fought like one who had been born to battle.

“Yield,” Marie demanded.

“I’ll smash you flat,” Long Thom growled, too angry to think straight.

Djordji’s rapier appeared from nowhere and touched Thom in the chest. “Nay, lad, yer done in.”

Long Thom stopped just short of impaling himself. “I’m not beat,” he said, still seething. “Damn she-Torment.”

“Ain’t about beating. It’s about learning. Yer down an arm already, you don’t need to be down two. Need you for the ship, see.”

Thom swung his arm limp from his shoulder, his hand twitching, and winced. “What’d she do to me?”

“Dislocated your finger and kicked you in the nerves,” Marie said.

Djordji said, “You’ll be able to feel your arm again, but you’ll wish ye couldn’t. See the sawbones and have him put that finger right.”

At last, Long Thom grunted by way of acquiescence. Marie touched her temple in salute, and he grudgingly did the same with his working hand.

Djordji turned a wicked eye to Jean-Claude. “Yer turn, ye creaking barnacle.”