Silver Blades: A Duel Nature

Part 2, Section 3 - Damaged Goods

Paolo.

Clasicant's steel seared across my upper arm, under the leather rerebrace. Pain lanced through me, and still that slippery son of an eel twisted at the last instant to take my thrust in the arm instead of his chest.

My blade bit into stone, pinning him, and I grabbed his weapon's hilt in my left hand to prevent him from using it to any advantage.

"What will you teach me now, eh?" Satisfaction seethed through me. My sword hadn't caught the vein, missing it by a finger's breadth, but the barely contained agony on his face was priceless. He was pale, close to fainting, but it was too soon—I wasn't done. I was ecstatic.

I felt power coursing through me, and as if opening my heart to a cyclone of all the evil, hate and rage between this world and heaven, I exulted in my imminent victory.

I had spent so many years loathing the ballads and shanties sung in his honor; hearing of his conquests, lamenting the inequality of competing with those of his kind. The roar of the crowd—the focused rage of my people—was nothing less than the infernal victory chorus fueling my black triumph.

When I didn't release him, Clasicant cringed in pain, struggling in vain against my iron grip.

"Nothing?" I taunted, showing all my teeth. I opened and rearranged my hold on Heartseeker, my instrument of vengeance. I lowered my voice to a cruel whisper near his pointed ear. "Well, I have something to teach you."

I withdrew my sword and, to a chorus of gasps and groans from the crowd, deliberately sawed it sideways out of his upper arm as if carving raw meat.

At that, the great Lord Koray "Riposte" Clasicant of Dumon screamed. Screamed like a little girl. In my left hand, his other wrist was shivering, as weak as a babe's. He just barely held onto his blade, but I cared not. It was harmless.

It doesn't matter how experienced or battle hardened you are, if someone saws your arm nearly in half, while you watch, with a blade as barely edged as a rapier, you scream.

And he screamed wonderfully for me.

"Rip!" Cried Sir Pertuli, Clasicant's tilly sidekick, or bedmate perhaps, enriching my satisfaction. No one was allowed to aid my opponent without forfeiting the match for him, along with his honor, so the flamboyant knight kept his distance.

My steel snagged in the leather of his jack, but that too soon parted under my newfound strength.

I danced away, raising my blade to the heavens so the gods themselves could bear witness. The crowd had fallen silent in awe.

"Oh gods be damned," Clasicant swore, with ironic timing. He heaved a great shuddering sigh, recovering his breath after sobbing exhale. "You spiteful bastard."

I smiled, and threw my hands in the air as if to the applause of the crowd. No one clapped. They were stunned. They couldn't believe someone had finally done it—bested the First Wandeer at his own game.

If I was going to seize the mantle of ultimate duelist for humankind, I had to milk the moment for every dram of glory and make great the stories they would tell in taverns from this day forward.

I walked a slow circuit of the garden, looking my people in the eye and glaring defiance at the grave looks returned by the few tilwen in the crowd.

I didn't care what they thought. Even now their kind were being enslaved by the hundreds in the north by Imperial Migar, and although the empire was our enemy I had a sense that the tilwens' time among men was coming to an end.