Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

He saw it coming from a mile away, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had backed off until he ran out of circle. He had blocked and parried until he lost the feeling in his fingers. This time, when he raised his aching arm and there was the crash of metal on metal, one tired foot slipped and he tumbled squawking from the ring, floundering on his side, his short steel spinning from his twitching fingers. His face slapped against the ground and he took a gritty mouthful of sand. It was a painful and embarrassing fall, but he felt too tired and too battered to be all that disappointed. He was almost relieved that the punishment was over, if only for a moment.

“One to Gorst!” shouted the referee. A light dusting of applause was crushed beneath hoots of derision, but the big man seemed scarcely to notice, shuffling back to his mark with his head down and already preparing for the next touch.

Jezal rolled slowly onto his hands and knees, flexing his aching hands and taking his time getting up. He needed a moment to breathe and make ready, to think up some strategy. Gorst waited for him: big, silent, still. Jezal brushed the sand from his shirt, mind racing. How to beat him? How? He stepped cautiously back to his mark, raised his steels.

“Begin!”

This time Gorst came out even harder, slashing away as if he was scything wheat, making Jezal dance around the circle. One blow passed so close to his left side that he could feel the wind from it on his cheek. The next missed him by a margin no greater on his right. Then Gorst flung a sideways sweep aimed at his head and Jezal saw an opening. He ducked beneath it, sure the blade tore at the hairs on top of his scalp. He closed the distance as the heavy long steel swung away, almost catching the referee in the face on the back-swing, leaving Gorst’s right side all but undefended.

Jezal lunged at the big bastard, sure he had finally got through, knowing he had made it one touch apiece. But Gorst caught the thrust on his short steel and forced it just wide, the guards of the two blades scraping then locking together. Jezal cut at him viciously with his short steel but somehow Gorst blocked that too, bringing up his other sword just in time, catching Jezal’s blade and holding it just short of his chest.

For a moment their four steels were locked together, hilts grating, their faces just a few inches apart. Jezal was snarling like a dog, teeth bared, the muscles of his face a rigid mask. Gorst’s heavy features showed little sign of effort. He looked like a man having a piss: involved in a mundane and faintly distasteful task that must simply be done with as quickly as possible.

For a moment their blades were locked together, Jezal pushing with every grain of strength, each hard-trained muscle flexing: legs straining against the ground, stomach straining to twist his arms, arms straining to push his hands, hands gripped around the hilts of his steels like grim death. Every muscle, every sinew, every tendon. He knew he had the better position, the big man was off balance, if only he could push him back a step… an inch…

For that moment their steels were locked together, then Gorst dipped his shoulder, and grunted, and flung Jezal away as a child might fling away a boring toy.

He tumbled back, mouth and eyes wide open with surprise, feet kicking at the dirt, all his attention focused on staying upright. He heard Gorst growl again, and was shocked to see the heavy long steel already curving through the air towards him. He was in no position to dodge, and there was no time anyway. He raised his left arm on an instinct, but the thick, blunted blade tore his short steel away like a straw on the wind and crashed into his ribs, hammering the breath from his body in a wail of pain that echoed round and round the silent arena. His legs crumpled under him and he sprawled out on the turf, limbs flopping, sighing like a split bellows.

This time there was not even the shadow of applause. The crowd roared their hatred, booing and hissing at Gorst for all they were worth as he trudged back to his enclosure.

“Damn you, Gorst, you thug!”

“Get up Luthar! Up and at him!”

“Go home, you brute!”

“You damn savage!”

Their hisses turned to half-hearted cheers as Jezal picked himself up off the grass, his whole left side pulsing. He would have screamed with the pain if he had any breath left in him. For all his effort, for all his training, he was utterly outclassed and he knew it. The thought of doing it all again next year made him want to vomit. He did his best to appear undaunted as he struggled back to his enclosure, but he could not help sagging down heavily in his chair when he got there, dropping his notched steels on the flags and gasping for breath.

West bent over him and pulled up his shirt to check the damage. Jezal peered down gingerly, half expecting to see a great hole caved in his side, but there was only an ugly red welt across his ribs, some bruising already coming up around it.

“Anything broken?” asked Marshal Varuz, peering over West’s shoulder.

Jezal fought back the tears as the Major probed his side. “I don’t think so, but damn it!” West threw his towel down in disgust. “You call this the beautiful sport? Is there no rule against these heavy steels?”

Varuz shook his head grimly. “They all have to be the same length, but there’s no rule for the weight. I mean, why would anyone want heavy ones?”

“Now we know, don’t we!” snapped West. “Are you sure we shouldn’t stop this before that bastard takes his head off?”

Varuz ignored him. “Now look here,” said the old Marshal, leaning down to talk in Jezal’s face. “It’s the best of seven touches! First to four! There’s still time!”

Time for what? For Jezal to get cut in half, blunted steels or no? “He’s too strong!” Jezal gasped.

“Too strong? No one’s too strong for you!” But even Varuz looked doubtful. “There’s still time! You can beat him!” The old Marshal tugged at his moustaches. “You can beat him!”

But Jezal noticed he did not suggest how.

Glokta was becoming worried he might choke, so convulsive was his laughter. He tried to think of something he would rather see than Jezal dan Luthar being smashed around a fencing circle, and failed. The young man winced as he just barely blocked a raking cut. He had not been handling his left side at all well since he took that blow in the ribs, and Glokta could almost feel his pain. And my, my, how nice it is to feel someone else’s for a change. The crowd sulked, silent and brooding as Gorst harried their favourite around with his brutal slashes, while Glokta spluttered giggles through his clenched gums.

Luthar was quick and flashy, and he moved well once he saw the steels coming. A competent fighter. Good enough to win a Contest, no doubt, in a mediocre year. Quick feet, and quick hands, but his mind is not as sharp as it should be. As it needs to be. He is too predictable.

Gorst was an entirely different proposition. He seemed to be swinging, and swinging, without a thought in his head. But Glokta knew better. He has a whole new way of doing things. It was all jab, jab in my day. By next year’s Contest they’ll all be chopping away with these big, heavy steels. Glokta wondered idly if he could have beaten Gorst, at his best. It would have been a bout worth seeing anyway—a damn sight better than this mismatch.

Gorst easily dealt with a couple of limp jabs, then Glokta winced and the crowd hissed as Luthar just barely parried another great butcher’s chop, the force of it nearly lifting him off his feet. He had no way to avoid the next swing, pressed against the edge of the circle as he was, and he was forced to jump back into the sand.