 if he only had the imagination to see it.
	The opening lesson was done, and Kallan decided to open in earnest with a more traditional approach.  He sparred very lightly, very tentatively with the Were-cat, a customary feeling-out that experienced warriors wisely underwent when facing an unknown foe.  The light jabs and cuts with his spear were testing Tarrin's reflexes, his speed, his agility, and most importantly, his training.  He saw that Tarrin shifted his staff expertly, wasting not a drop of energy to parry and block the Selani's spear, moving not a finger more than necessary.  His movements were crisp, sharp, exacting, and perfect, time and time again, as Tarrin too learned much of Kallan.  He saw the precision in his movements, but they were just a bit jerky, as he adjusted to using the gloves, and his spear overextended by very slight degrees from time to time.  Tarrin saw several opportunities to strike at the Selani in those oversteps, but passed them by.  If he was anything like the other Selani had fought, Kallan had to be a wily opponent, and he very well may have been trying to bait Tarrin.  Against an opponent with Kallan's skill, if Allia's raving was any indication, it was probably a trick.
	The clack-clack of wood on wood echoed across the camp as Kallan continued to test Tarrin, pushed his skill as his spear's pointed head and shaft sought to bypass the Ironwood staff and strike soft flesh behind.  Feet and hands struck at the Were-cat as often as steel spearpoint or wooden shaft, as the Selani used the unarmed techniques for which his race was famous to try to come at the Were-cat with more weapons than he could block.  Tarrin read into his movements and saw the Selani fighting system deeply ingrained into them.  He recognized those forms intimately, and saw Allia's footprint in them.  But Kallan performed them much differently than his daughter, more flowingly, with less speed and more fluid grace.  Allia's primary asset was inhuman, unbelievable speed, and her form's style showed it.  But Kallan's movements didn't seem as fast, and what was more, the way he performed the forms seemed to have a slower style, more sweeping, more graceful.  Allia had grace, but her movements were often blurringly fast and very short, giving her a kind of staccato rhythym that never failed to bedazzle an opponent.  In fact, she used it as a means to confuse her enemies.  But Kallan's movements were wider, broader, flowing like water from one to the next, hinting at speed comparable to Var's but hiding something more, as if he were only moving as fast as he wanted Tarrin to see.  But the forms were there.  He saw them in his moves, the exact same movements and forms that Allia used, had taught to Tarrin.  And when he saw the beginning of a form, he could predict exactly what was coming next.  Allia often changed up her forms when fighting Tarrin, shifting in mid-move to surprise him because he was so familiar with her.  Had Kallan learned enough about Tarrin from his daughter to understand the danger of using movements that the Were-cat could easily predict?
	There was one way to find out.  Tarrin gave ground to the Selani male, swiping at his spear to keep it away from him, weaving and shifting his body to evade the occasional foot or hand that came at him, batting aside spear or evading feet and hands as he guessed out what the Selani was intending to do next.  When he saw him shift his weight in a specific manner, he knew what was coming.  Sliding his feet apart, Tarrin suddenly hunkered down, almost impossibly far, his chin but fingers from the ground as Kallan lifted a foot and tried to kick his shinbone into Tarrin's hip.  His foot whizzed harmlessly over Tarrin's body, and the Were-cat flowed up from that compact crouch with the open palm of his paw leading.  But where he expected to catch Kallan under his arm and carry him up into the air, the Selani twisted almost unnaturally just before his palm made contact, and it slipped by its target.  Flexing his legs, Tarrin suddenly vaulted into the air as Kallan's foot suddenly reversed direction and came sizzling back towards him, heel leading.  But it too found nothing but empty air.  Kallan looked up in time to see the nine span tall Were-cat drop from the air directly over him.  He was out of position from reversing his kick, and could not set his feet on the ground and evade in time.  Tarrin's feet landed perfectly on Kallan's shoulders, and as soon as he felt them make contact, Tarrin hunched over and put all his weight down on the Selani's unbalanced body.  He leaned over just enough to see Kallan look up at him, his expression shocked in that instant before Tarrin's weight unbalanced him and sent him toppling, but the Were-cat only smiled evilly before his face disappeared.  He pushed off the Selani, extending his body out in a layout position as he used all his weight and all of his strength to drive the Selani forward, pushing his heels against the Selani and forcing him out from underneath him with more force that even the gloves would permit the Selani to resist.
	Tarrin rotated lazily in the air and landed on all fours almost exactly where Kallan had been standing when he tried to kick Tarrin, but Kallan was staggering forward at high speed, trying mightily not to topple and fall flat on his face, windmilling his arms wildly for a second before somehow managing to ground the tip of his spear into the sandy ground.  The spear made him lever off the ground like a pole vault, and he used that sudden release from the ground that tried to trip him to right himself and land on his feet facing Tarrin.  He slid backwards almost two spans, putting a hand down to steady himself, and then came to a stop.
	Tarrin rose up again as Kallan picked up his spear, a curiously excited look on his face, then the Were-cat again lifted his staff into the end-grip and awaited the Selani's return to the match.  Tarrin had just had his question answered.  Kallan could and did shift forms to try to catch him off guard, but he had just proven that he was just as capable of unconventional tactics.
	Kallan rushed back into the fray confidently, and Tarrin could tell that the testing was over.  His spear's haft and point was seeking out Tarrin's shoulders with almost single-minded determination, and he was moving much faster and striking with much more strength than before, enough strength that Tarrin actually felt his arms recoil with every blow.  It had been a long time since he'd battled a foe of equal strength, and he'd forgotten how it felt to have his body punished in the act of defending against blows.  The Selani's attacks forced Tarrin to block high and keep his weapon up, and he understood the danger into which it put him.  Kallan was using Tarrin's height against him, making him open up his middle and legs to sudden attack from his smaller opponent, but Kallan didn't take Tarrin's staff into consideration.  It was just as long as Tarrin was tall, and it was capable of defending low in the end-grip with a deft flick of the wrists.  Tarrin tried to use his longer weapon to push the Selani out a bit, as he was trying to crowd and get inside the arc of his staff, but Kallan slid underneath it and roared forward in sudden attack, trying to get inside before Tarrin could withdraw his staff.  The Were-cat's arms flexed and the staff blurred as he snapped it around and down, turned and raised a foot in a pirouette of sorts that complemented the weapon's downward rotation, and it caught the haft of the spear just behind the head as that head was lancing in towards his unprotected middle, knocking it aside just enough to keep it from sticking him.  But the edge of the spear did make contact, slicing a hot line of pain across his stomach as the corner of the triangular spearpoint cut Tarrin's skin.  The cut healed over as quickly as it was made, but the pain of it surprised the Were-cat, as much as the realization that if he had not blocked that, Kallan would have stabbed him through the midsection.
	He wasn't playing!
	Had Allia described his regenerative advantages to her father?  Perhaps that was it.  He was willing to strike at Tarrin for true because he knew that he couldn't do him any true harm.  Allia did the same thing.  But even with that understanding, the attack still managed to irk the Were-cat.
	His eyes narrowing with sudden anger and newfound focus, Tarrin took a paw off the staff, put his foot down and bent his arm, then tried to slam the corner of his elbow down on his smaller foe as his momentum carried him within the Were-cat's reach.  But Kallan simply flowed around that attack as well, changing direction in mid-lunge and sliding back outside, then changing again to bring him to a halt, turning as if to bring his spear to bear.  Too late he identified that particular movement, as the sole of Kallan's boot came screaming around the side of his body in a rising arc.  Tarrin's head snapped to the side as the Selani's foot impacted the side of his head, actually staggering him back a step as little lights popped before his eyes.  Tarrin hadn't been hit that hard in a very long time.  Before he could right himself, the butt of the spear slammed into his jaw, knocking him even further to the side and lowering his head, then came hot blood in his mouth when Kallan's open palm struck him just under the chin in a sharp upward angle, causing him to bite off the tip of his own tongue as his head snapped back.
	Tarrin fought off the dizzying effect of three consecutive blows to his head by a foe with enough strength to make him feel it, shaking the cobwebs out just in time to see the point of Kallan's spear driving towards his left shoulder.  With sudden angry focus, Tarrin's paw snapped out and intercepted the spearpoint.  It plunged into his palm, the tip erupting from the back of his paw, but the Were-cat, eyes igniting from within with the unholy greenish aura that visibly marked his anger, pushed it out and away from him as his fingers closed over the metal spearpoint.  Kallan blanched when Tarrin, with a snarl of both pain and anger, twisted his wrist as he pushed the weapon out away from him, using the very fact that the spear's point was embedded in his palm to bend it.  The tip of the spear's head, still sticking out of the top of Tarrin's paw, remained vertical as the rest of the spear turned more and more sideways, as the metal tip bent at the point where it entered Tarrin's paw.  The Were-cat then ripped his paw free of the weapon, sending an arc of flying blood through the air as the Selani quickly withdrew his weapon.  Kallan looked at the tip of his spear and saw that it was bent heavily to the right, as well as seeing that it was covered in blood.
	Tarrin shook his paw a couple of times to get the sting out and shake off the excess blood, which would make his grip on his weapon slippery, but Kallan was looking at him with shock and surprise.  That shock became a frenzied defense as the Were-cat lashed out at him, coming at him with all his power and all his speed, trying to do nothing less than beat the Selani senseless for trying to stab him with his spear.  Tarrin's staff jabbed and slashed, came in from high and low, feinted, twisted and shivered in bizarre, almost impossible ways as the Were-cat, now righteously angry and fully devoted to beating down his foe, demonstrated a skill with a pole weapon that the Selani had never seen before.  He changed grips in mid-attack, from end grip to center grip, used both ends of the staff to strike at Kallan's hastily raised spear in rapid succession, tried to break Kallan's feet and ankles as often as he tried to smack his head right off his body.  Kallan gritted his teeth and gave ground to the incensed Were-cat, trying to ride out the frenzied assault, trying to keep up with the weaving, bobbing ends of Tarrin's staff as they tried to snake past his spear and punch deep into the Selani's body.  Kallan had no chance to do anything other than defend himself from the outraged Were-cat, whose long staff had seemingly become a pliable, bendable thing, for no other explanation could explain how both ends of the staff could seem to strike at him from different angles at the exact same time.  The Selani's speed was the only thing that kept him from getting swarmed under by the Were-cat's answering attack, a speed that was not quite Allia's, but also not far from it.  That speed let him duck under the staff, then slip to the side, then avoid the clenched paw that nearly broke his nose, then avoid the staff jabbed at him like a spear, then hop over the Were-cat's lashing tail, then give him the time to raise up his spear to catch the staff's center as the Were-cat pushed its entire length at him.  Spear caught staff and Kallan's feet dug into the ground as he pushed back with all the strength he could muster, and for a moment the two were locked together, pushing against one another with all their might.  Kallan could see the glowing, angered eyes of his taller foe, pushing down on him from his greater height, saw the formidable fangs usually hidden under pale lips.  The Were-cat had seemed a gentle and agreeable fellow before, if a little blustery in nature, but seeing him like that, Kallan had no doubt that he would strike terror into the heart of any but a Selani.
	Kallan realized his mistake almost as soon as he locked up with the Were-cat.  All of Kallan's limbs were engaged in resisting the Were-cat, but Tarrin had an extra limb available.  Tarrin's tail whipped up between his legs and struck the Selani right between his own, causing the Selani to double over in intense pain.  Tarrin shifted his weight and swept his smaller foe out from before him with a mighty twist of his body, sending him sprawling to the ground, tumbling over and over and losing his spear before coming to a halt on one knee, already starting to shrug off the pain of being struck in the one place that no male would want to be struck with any kind of force.
	The repreive lasted but seconds, testament to the legendary fighting ability of the Selani, which included the ability to ignore, block out, or endure pain.  Without a word, Kallan picked up his spear, set the bent tip on the ground, and then stomped on it to at least partially straighten it out.  Tarrin returned to the guard stance, staff in the end-grip, and he hissed threatening at the Selani as he slowly advanced back towards him.  But Kallan's approach was much more guarded now, more wary.  He had tasted Tarrin's ability when he was focused utterly on the fight, and it was an ability that demanded respect.  Tarrin's tail slashed behind him a few times before becoming still, his glowing eyes narrowed to two evil slits, and then he hissed once again, baring his formidable fangs, as he hunched down into a slouching posture, to shift his upper body closer to his foe and subsequently put more distance between Kallan's spear and his lower torso and legs.
	"You're gonna get it now!" Jasana shouted.  "You made Papa mad!"
	Despite his anger, Tarrin was clearly focused and aware that this was not an enemy to underestimate.  He was all of Allia in a fight, and though he wasn't as fast as her, he had much more experience.
	Staff met spear as the two danced around one another for long moments.  They had surprised one another and managed to score hits, but now both were cautious, content to pit skill against skill to determine who would make the first mistake.  This played right into Tarrin's paws, as he had been trained to frustrate an opponent and make him mess up, then punish him for it.  But Kallan proved to be a disciplined, patient adversary, content to meet the Were-cat on those terms, trying to goad him into making a rash mistake.  Again and again he teased Tarrin by leaving the slightest of openings, daring him to try to take advantage of it, to gamble on whether or not the Selani clan-chief had the speed to recover and defend in time.  Tarrin had seen Kallan react, so he could see them for the invitations for disaster that they were.  He knew this foe would make no unforced error.  If he wanted an opening, he was going to have to make one.
	The center grip was the key, he realized.  Kallan was familiar with the moves that were possible in an end grip, but the Selani's modified grip on his spear wasn't a true center grip.  It left one end of the weapon shorter than the other, forcing the Selani to continue to use the spear's point as the main part of the weapon's attack strategy.  Kallan had struggled when Tarrin shifted into the center grip before, for it was an unknown style to him that was mightily confusing.  After parrying aside a fast series of lightning-fast jabs of the spearpoint, the Were-cat took a step back and shifted the staff into the center grip.  He parried another jab with one end of the staff, then a second instants after the first with the other end of the staff.  He spun the weapon in his paws blurringly fast, smacking aside jab after jab as the two ends of the staff seemed to come out of nowhere to strike the spear's point and deflect it harmlessly aside.  Kallan suddenly reversed his grip on the spear and turned into it, then tried to jam Tarrin in the side with the spear's butt, a move a staff fighter would perform, but Tarrin slithered aside and lashed his tail out and down, striking Kallan across the back of both heels.  He hadn't had enough to sweep the Selani's feet, but the blow did cause him to teeter just a tiny moment before regaining himself.  Tarrin lunged in, then had to spin aside as the unbalanced teeter suddenly turned into a powerful straight kick.  Tarrin swept his staff in with him, but Kallan recovered and parried the blow with his spear, knocking the weapon back inside Tarrin's stance as the Were-cat put both feet under him.  He gave that ground back up as Kallan launched a flurry of jabs and attempts to strike with the butt of his spear, with kicks liberally peppered into them just to keep Tarrin honest.  Tarrin reverted to Allia's training then by instinct, becoming as a reed in the wind, swaying and bending, always within reach but unable to be touched, a shadow with form but no substance.  He gave back all the won ground and more as he studied Kallan's technique, which was admittedly exceptionally executed.  He watched closely, looking for any tiny hint or clue that would warn him of what was coming next, carefully studying Kallan's movements, the set of his feet, the shifting of his weight, analyzing it for any warning of what might be coming next.
	He found what he was looking for.  He continued to evade, to be smoke dancing in the breeze as Kallan continued his assault, until he saw that slight opening of the feet and shifting of weight just slightly towards the left, a move so subtle that few would even notice it.  Kallan's left foot set and his right came slightly off the ground as he lunged in with his spear point first, thrusting it out almost to arm's length, just shy of locking his elbows.  Tarrin parried the blow with an upward rotation of his staff, then instantly changed the weapon's momentum and turned away from Kallan as he retracted from his extending lunge.  Tarrin slid the staff through his paws as soon as his back was to the Selani, sliding it down into the end-grip and using his body as a shield to hide that face from his opponent.  He knew that Kallan would expect the staff to come at him as Tarrin completed his turn, possibly turn it into a sliding thrust, both of which Kallan had the agility to avoid despite recovering from a move.  Tarrin wanted to see him evade this.
	When the staff appeared as Tarrin came around, it was not where Kallan expected it to be.  He expected anything but the Were-cat holding it by its very end, with the entire length of the staff shrilly whistling through the air as it swept around the turning Were-cat.  Kallan backpedalled furiously to give him enough distance to either jump over or slip under the weapon as it swung towards him, but Tarrin twisted his torso and suddenly pulled in the staff, then thrust it out before him as the Selani was intent on backing up, his paws absolutely blurring as they walked down the length of the staff to put all of it between him and the Selani.  The staff turned a little and then rotated as Tarrin levered the end using his other paw as a fulcrum, making the tip turn a sudden wide, arcing circle that started at Kallan's middle and then suddenly dropped towards the ground in an expanding arc, dipping under the length of his partially presented spear.  The triple-feint succeeded in confusing the Selani, who didn't know whether to jump, dodge, duck, block, parry, or sidestep.  The staff's end cracked into his ankle with a highly satsifying thock, and the power behind the circular motion of the staff was more than enough to sweep the Selani's feet out from under him.  Kallan landed heavily on his side, grunting as the air was knocked out of him, but he instantly rolled away from Tarrin and all but bounced back up to his feet.  Tarrin saw immediately that Kallan was favoring the ankle that got whacked by his staff.  Though the gloves gave Kallan a strength close to Tarrin's, they didn't give him the same resistance to injury.  The increased strength did help him partially absorb the impact of blows by tensing up magically augmented muscles, but it still wasn't enough to escape injury when the blow was delivered by someone with Tarrin's strength.
	"Do you yield?" Tarrin asked, grounding his staff.
	"Over this?  You must be joking," Kallan said, flexing his ankle several times before putting his full weight back on it.  "You're much better with your staff than I am with my spear," he admitted.  "So I think it's time to level the field.  Kaila," he called, tossing the spear aside absently.  Kaila threw him his leather harness, and he caught it easily.  He pulled his two longswords free of it and tossed it aside as well, then squared off against Tarrin using new weapons.
	Tarrin knew from experience with Allia that using a single weapon against those longswords would be insane.  Kallan was probably even better with them than Allia was with her shortswords, and that meant that he could use each one independently of the other, attacking with them in ways that would make it impossible for him to deal with both weapons at the same time with just his staff.  He would not be put into a position where he would have to decide which sword to block, which would do him the lesser injury.  Tarrin knew that this was not a situation that favored his staff.  It wasn't a situation that favored any weapon at all.  If Kallan was going to fight using two weapons, Tarrin would need to counter them with two weapons of his own.
	Drawing himself up, Tarrin absently tossed his staff aside, then settled the Cat's Claws a little on his wrists so they were in proper position to block, drawing Kallan's attention to them.  Then he extended his claws and hunched down into his unarmed fighting stance, feet spread, paws wide, and back hunched, a slouch that looked deceptively vulnerable to most trained warriors.
	That stance caused Kallan to advance on him uncertainly, but the first experimental thrust with his left sword showed him immediately that he was correct in assuming that it gave Tarrin an advantage.  Tarrin smacked the sword aside using the bloodstained flat of his paw, striking the flat of the blade, and Kallan saw that the Were-cat favored the stance because it put his paws low, more at a level where an enemy would attack.  The Selani made a tentative thrust with his right sword, and it was again smacked aside contemptuously by the Were-cat's open paw.  Then, without expression, Kallan exploded into furious motion, his two longswords weaving, twisting, lancing in with dizzying speed.  Tarrin was not surprised by this sudden engagement, for the Selani already had a measure of him from fighting with his staff.  Tarin had also almost immediately recognized the system of attacks that Kallan was using, for Allia performed a similar routine of pre-arranged movements with her own swords.   He guarded against a changing of that routine, but still managed to turn aside every shallow stab and quick, light slash that the Selani had sent against him.  Chimes, like the ringing of bells, and the occasional flash of a spark emphasized the blinding speed of the attack, as well as the Were-cat's ability to catch those weapons on his bracers, the Cat's Claws, where their otherworldly metal turned aside the swords' edges.  Of all beings on Sennadar, Tarrin probably had the most experience in using forearms as shields to parry, having learned the technique when the heavy manacles had been locked around his wrists.  They had served as more than eternal reminders of the price of trust, they had also served as effective shields, giving the Were-cat a means to defend himself against weapons without having one of his own.  At first, Kallan seemed surprised that his complicated series of attacks were turned aside.  Those two metal bracers proved a powerful defense against Kallan's initial blitz.
	In the blink of an eye, Kallan's technique changed, shifting into a series of complex slashes that assaulted Tarrin's left side, working the two swords almost like knitter's needles, concentrating all his attacks on a very small area.  This was something that Tarrin had never seen before, and he was forced to rely on speed and reflexes to defend against it.  The small area allowed him to deflect the swords, but he was constantly on guard against a sudden shift in attack, never sure if the next sword slash or stab was in earnest or only a feint.  Tarrin's left bracer parried five stabs with both swords in the span of a heartbeat, and when it moved to intercept a sixth, the sword suddenly pulled wide and turned into a swipe aimed at Tarrin's face.  The Were-cat didn't even flinch when he simply pulled his head back just enough to let it whiz by, though the very tip of the sword did just barely manage to break the skin of his nose.  The other sword then knifed in at a low angle, moving upward, an attack meant to capitalize on a flinching foe and give the Selani a virtually uncontested strike, coming in on the side that would be blind when the victim of the tactic flinched away from the first weapon.  Both Tarrin's arms were out of position to deal with this threat, but as Kallan had already learned, Tarrin had more than just two arms and two legs to work with.  His tail slashed out from behind him and struck the Selani's wrist forcefully, jarring him just enough that the sword slice harmlessly before him.  The tail wrapped around the Selani's arm with the speed of a striking viper and pulled him in the direction of his momentum, trying to yank him off balance, carrying the sword's length along Tarrin's body until the sword's tip was almost touching his shoulder, the Selani's back to him.  He expected the other sword to come in and strike from the far side, maybe even above or below Kallan's body, but he never expected the Selani to jump, leave the ground and let Tarrin's tail suddenly pull him along.  Kallan twisted while in the air as Tarrin's tail released his wrist and the Were-cat tried to back away, sensing that a sword or foot could come flying at him from almost any angle if the Selani no longer held a vertical base, and his innate reaction was more than justified.  Kallan rotated his body, throwing his arms out, then his foot exploded from around his body, the instep of his boot screaming at Tarrin's head.  He only just managed to avoid it, feeling the wind it made as it flew by his head, smelling the leather and sand and dirt of it as it went by.  Tarrin retreated several steps, confused, shocked, and utterly amazed that that had happened.  He had no idea how Kallan had managed to twist around like that in the air.  It seemed an impossibility for someone not a Were-cat.  Kallan landed on one foot and one elbow, then quickly regained his feet as Tarrin tried to figure out just how Kallan had moved like that.  He had turned one way, but his legs seemed to have turned the other, and he had let Tarrin's own pull on him carry him up into the air, get his foot in position to where it could hit the much taller Were-cat in the head.
	Kallan did not let up.  He was on his feet and again attacking Tarrin with blinding speed in a heartbeat, but now his swords attacked the Were-cat anywhere and everywhere.  In a stunning display of swordsmanship, the Selani backed the Were-cat up with astoundingly complex routines, his swords almost seeming to tie themselves in a knot before the Selani as he unleashed them at the Were-cat.  Each sword feinted and attacked almost at the same time, using complicated cascading sequences that made it impossible for Tarrin to tell which was a feint and which was not.  Each blow in itself was a setup for the blow afterwards, attempting to quickly and systematically draw the Were-cat out of a defensive position by using a series of attacks that would batter him out of a defensive posture.  Every blow on the bracers of the Cat's Claws knocked his arms out wider and wider, setting him up for an inevitable stab at his middle.  Tarrin hadn't faced a foe of his strength in a very long time, and the magically augmented power behind Kallan's weapons was more than his arms could absorb without moving.  Tarrin knew it was coming, but could do very little about it as he dealt with the dizzying complexity of Kallan's assault, barely managing to discern the feints from the true attacks in time to parry them, and then getting knocked further and further out of position with every blow.
	The inevitable thrust came, just as Tarrin's right arm was knocked wide and his left was engaged in what he thought was another attack from that direction.  But it was a feint, as the weapon suddenly shifted and turned into an arcing thrust directed at Tarrin's midsection.  Tarrin twisted aside even as his left arm moved to knock the sword away from his direction of movement, but the sword suddenly changed direction again and slashed right across the direction of Tarrin's evading twist, causing the blade to bite very deeply into his upper left arm, deep enough to nearly mark the bone.  Kallan had used Tarrin's expectations against him, tricked him into trying to evade and then simply intercepted him in the middle of it.  A trick within a feint.  Very clever.
	It taught him much.  Kallan was good, but he was also smart