Fate - First Reply A Duellist's Fury

Dusk was approaching over the open courtyard of Master Terniere's fencing school. Its open, multi-storied arcades flanked her on all sides; shadow and dying sunlight diagonally slicing the courtyard in half.

In its light side, the training dummy remained. Terniere's lesson was over and the fencing master had gone home, at this point. Xeraphine had lingered, wishing to study her new practised guard, thrusts and cuts. She engaged the lone dummy, weaving in and out of shadow and light, even as shadow crept to cover over her opponent.

In its hollow face, she imagined the faces of her enemies. It afforded strength to each jab and swipe. Estrenna Mardos. Thrust, thwack. Tel'vore Phlogis and Petrus Ritus Iskandar. Swivel, rapid upward cut, sideways slice, shwack-shwack. A splinter of wood catapulted off. Beatrice Orabela and Catherine Ulwool. Double-thrust in chest, quick step back, whack on helmet. The dummy swayed back and forth, still reeling from the impacts. A pant escaped her, heaving in her duellist's jerkin. But there was a last phantom face that deserved thorough punishment. Ormvel, wide smirk resplendent on his dusty beard. Dash forward, quick jab, and then a double-handed cleave, diagonal, cutting from shoulder to groin, launched with a mighty grunt of effort.

The blade cut between plates, sinking deep. Xeraphine stared up through tresses of dark hair, watching the blade having sunk about two inches into its wooden chest. She had to pull and wriggle the steel free to release it; and after this, she turned the blade, noting with a click of her tongue the new dent in its edge.

Anger had gotten the better of her.

The door to the training yard rattled open behind her. She brushed back hair from her face and hastily went to place the rapier back in its weapon rack. It seemed Terniere had returned. Likely he had forgotten something.

"Forgive me, Master Terniere. I seem to have chipped your dummy--"

The door closed with a heavy clatter of metal and wood. But no answer was forthcoming.

Intuition told her someone else had entered. She held the rapier in an inverted grip, about to put it back; but thought better of it -- keeping a hold on her weapon -- and turned to face the intruder.

Xeraphine's gaze trained on him like a crossbow.

She couldn't believe who had stepped into the courtyard. Who had gone from a useful fantasy to terrible reality.

Lord Petrus Ritus Iskandar himself.

Her fingers clenched tighter around the grip of her rapier. An inscrutable expression went across her features, but somehow, she turned even paler than she was. Like a passing shadow over ivory skin, her hair fell again to cover her left eye. For all her plans, for all her designs, here he had come by volition, standing bold as brass in her presence.

No one could predict Coincidence. Best laid plans scattered before Her fickle touch.

The dented steel quivered. Would it find purchase today? Would it be able to strike more than humble wood? Would it drink the blood of nobles?

The tip raised an inch, as if about to seek his back; but then pinged tinnily, as she planted it on the floor, resting her hands on the floral pommel of the rapier.

"You consider yourself a superior swordsman to the master of this school, then, my lord?"

Her voice held all the vibrant control of a tuning fork. A resonance that tickled the air with tension.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

"This is but blunted steel, my lord. Little better than pig iron. It hardly deserves veneration."

And neither do you, she thought, expressed by an absolutely cutting smile.

She noted the guard. The Fool's Guard, indeed. A faux pas to use against an experienced swordsman, to be sure, who could easily see through it. The provocation was clear.

She wondered if he was drunk. But she detected no sway in his assured stride, nor in his planted stance. Indeed, he seemed like a tree that merely lowered its branches, about to weather a storm.

And oh, how she desired to be that storm. Dreamt of it.

Accident in Master Terniere's school. Merchant Councillor brutally stabbed to death, slaughtered like a pig, over fifty gashes . . .

She could hear the town crier even now. What sweet words of comfort it would be to her ears.

No, indeed. This blade was not worthy of veneration. And nor was it suited for poetic justice. Daintily, she picked it up and placed it on the weapon rack. Then carefully chose her armaments, noting the glint of a sharp edge in his hand.

The lord desired to live dangerously. So be it. A rapier and a dagger seemed a fitting choice for a duel. She picked her favourite pair, then turned to face him, her crimson smile near sculpted on her face.

"Oh, how generous of you. I should be honoured that the great Lord Iskandar wishes to impart me with his teachings." She cocked her head a little to the side, studying his fine jerkin. "My apologies to your barber if I happen to grant you a, ah; close shave."

The rapier lifted, splitting her face in twain by a sliver of steel; smile slashed in half.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

The dagger was held for parrying. The rapier for a thrusting offence. Her smile twisted into a silent snarl, going on the offence.

First rule of Master Terniere's fencing school: whoever engaged first was at a disadvantage. Launching an attack was always more complicated than maintaining a defence. Defence merely needed to wait and present a gate of bristling blades, whether one held the door open to attack or kept it closed. Attacking required feinting, maneuvering.

But there was another rule to his teachings: hesitation killed. And if you allowed your opponent too much time to think, or yourself too much time to doubt, you were as good as finished.

She knew the counter-strike would be there. Enough thwacks from Master Terniere's wooden stick had taught her not to overextend herself. So she feigned an aggressive lunge; only to sidestep and shift her footing for the inevitable counter-attack, and swirl her blade in a sudden swipe, the dagger covering her open side.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

Xeraphine knew her footing. She knew these grounds. And she knew what the merchant lord was capable of.

It had been subtle, brief; but there. Her ankle strained, but yet she rose; in a slow swirl of fabric and lowered steel.

"I took you for many things, my lord. But I would not have taken you for a coward." Her weapons raised again. Undaunted. Unrelenting. Eyes glinting like her polished steel.

"It is true. I am learning much. Now; allow me to teach you a thing in turn."

She threw the dagger; suddenly, violently, in a rush of motion. While it sliced through air for his face, she weaved in, rapier going for a lower strike, forcing him to defend on several points.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

Master Terniere's blade rested on her shoulder. Her blunted blade poked at his protruding gut.

"You lose," Master Terniere had said simply.

"Do I? It seems rather a draw to me."

"No, it is a loss. It matters not that I lose as well. The point is not to kill your opponent. The point is to leave the duel with your life intact. Killing and dying is as poor as simply dying. It makes little difference if you cannot live to fight another day."

"So we both lose. Some might consider that a victory in itself, if their enemy suffers enough."

"Yes. Those gripped with madness might consider that a victory."

----


When Petrus stepped into her attack with a riposte of his own, a more cautious duellist would have withdrawn. A prudent fighter would have retreated from such mutual suicide, preparing to engage again with more control. But crystallised madness flared from her diamond-coloured eye, ferocious and relentless, pushing aside all reason, all thoughts of self-preservation; only grasping delicious injury.

Rapier slid with all its length against the lord's hip in a sharp, biting caress. The tip of his blade pierced her shoulder. She had managed to turn her torso sideways to avoid having her heart pierced -- but hadn't turned it enough to avoid injury altogether.

Pain exploded there, flaring like hot pokers all through her skin below the jerkin. She grunted, then hissed like an incensed snake, but still refused to withdraw. There they stood, their weapons having bypassed one another's guards, a near perfect mimicry of her earlier stand-off with Master Terniere. Except this time, their blades had been very sharp indeed. Blood trickled and wept crimson tears on the floor below them. Xeraphine took one staggering step to balance herself, feeling herself grow dizzy, but whether at the sight of her own blood or the pain, she couldn't tell; the arcades around her wobbling with drunken fervour.

"No," she snapped, still continuing their conversation, even if she had to wheeze and pant through excrutiating agony. "For letting the magical arts have its say . . . where steel alone can speak the truth."

Petrus Ritus Iskandar

Xeraphine stared with disbelief as Petrus' wound re-knit itself. Then came the punishing blow. This time she had the wit to leap back and barely catch the strike in a parry, sloping her blade downward to let his weapon glide off her side. A brief flash of sparks issued at the hard impact of steel against steel, the force rattling up through her blade to her hilt, and Xeraphine followed some of the direction of the blow, using it to gain more distance.

Blood darkened and soaked her jerkin. She felt her strength leaking with it. Panting, she fixed her cold glare on Petrus, allowing her fury to channel and compensate for any fatigue, now having retreated back by a few steps. She scoffed and let out a sardonic, if somewhat strained laughter at his invitation to test her steel again. "I shouldn't have expected a fair engagement, I suppose. Not from a councilman."

At that, while her right arm held out her rapier to keep him at bay, her weakened left arm went behind her, extricating a small black satchel filled with some strange powder from her pouch . . .

"If you wish to engage in swords and spells, I fear I have very little to even out the playing field . . ."

Petrus Ritus Iskandar