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Līs gave Narin one last glower from beneath bushy eyebrows, and stepped aside, glad that the attention had been distracted from her. Rubbing her bruised knuckles, she fought a rising blush. Why hadn't she let up after the first round? No one would have criticized her if she had. No one would have criticized a doughty warrior for it, let alone a young jewellry maker. And let alone a girl; but they don't know that, she reminded herself. Nobody knows that but...
Balin. The blush rose crimson under her false beard and up to the roots of her hair. She turned away, muttering. Of all the foolish, idiotic, reckless... what would her father say? Narin's face had been bony enough, and had hurt her hand more than she expected, but she would not let that stop her next time Narin crossed her path.
But however her tenmper flared, her fists would not take another swing at Balin's craggy face. It wasn't worth the pain. She remembered the crunch as her fist met his nose with her weight behind it, and she wondered that Balin's reaction had been mostly talk. She slowly flexed her knuckles, glad that that she was known not as a soldier but as a jeweller. A soldier would have been severely disciplined for striking the commander. She would have accepted the discipline like a true dwarf, she told herself.
But nobody was clamoring for it. Their eyes, and hopes, were on the edge of the forest.
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