Starside novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Duel

Weapons hung on a rack at the edge of the ring, and Marek got to it first.

He took a long straight sword with a fat hilt and swung it twice to test the weight.

I walked over and looked at what was left.

A short sword, a spear, a boar knife.

I took the short sword and turned it over in the white light.

My father had taught me to read steel before I could read letters.

This blade had a dark seam an inch from the tip, where the smith had rushed the fold.

"It'll break," Dain said at my shoulder, keeping his voice down. "Take the spear."

"The spear's worse. Watch his sword when it swings."

"What am I looking at?"

"Everything that isn't the edge."

The third bell rang, and the glass floor shivered under our boots.

Fifteen pairs began at once, and the ring filled with noise.

Marek came at me straight and fast.

He was twice my weight, and he swung the long sword with both hands, wide and hard.

I slid left and his blade scraped the glass beside me, throwing sparks.

I hit him across the ribs with the flat of mine.

It made a loud crack, and he grunted and kept coming.

The second swing nearly took my head, and I ducked under it and felt it part my hair.

"She told me you'd be quick," he said, breathing hard.

"Told you what else?"

"That you'd be mine."

He drove the sword at my stomach.

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