then tore free.
Now she was reeling and in imminent danger of toppling backward. Avos surged up out of his squat and rushed her, his short sword leveled at her breast. Some of his comrades cheered in anticipation of the death thrust.
As well they might, for, utterly bereft of balance as she was, Shamur could neither parry, dodge, nor attempt a counterattack. She reckoned that all she could do was finish falling, and so she endeavored to do so as quickly as possible, hurling herself down to the cold, hard concrete floor.
As she'd hoped, Avos blundered right over the top of her. She tried to hook his ankle with her gaff before he could wheel back around to face her, but she missed.
She grinned as she scrambled back to her feet. Sometimes, for some perverse reason, it struck her funny when she cheated death by a hair, and this was one of those occasions.
'Very good,' she said to Avos, 'you nearly had me. But I think I'm starting to get the hang of this game. Feint, deceive, then attack, just like in ordinary fencing.'
He sneered. 'Got it figured out already, have you?' Advancing, he swung his gaff like a war club, whipping the head in a backhanded strike at her face.
She stepped back out of distance and kept on retreating around the circle, counterattacking and riposting vigorously enough to keep him from pressing her as hard as he might have otherwise, but essentially remaining on the defensive while she waited for him to use the same high feint, drop, and hook to the leg he'd tried before. She reckoned it was only a matter of time. The combination had almost won him the fight. Eventually he was bound to try it again. She just had to stay alive until he did.
Actually, that wasn't turning out to be an enormous problem. He was discovering the same thing she had learned while chasing Thamalon about the clearing. It was difficult to hurt an opponent who constantly gave ground. Indeed, she began to enjoy thwarting him, and grinned at the frustration in his ruddy, sweaty face and porcine eyes.
At last he threatened her shoulder, and her instincts told her he was attempting the compound attack she wanted him to make. She parried anyway, to convince him the trick was working and to protect herself in case she was mistaken, and he dropped to one knee. His gaff swept at her leg.
Having anticipated the attack, she hopped to one side and easily avoided it. Before he could come back to any sort of guard, she lashed her own gaff at his head.
She meant to set the barb in his flesh, but, perhaps because of her unfamiliarity with this peculiar weapon, that didn't happen. Still, clanking against his skull, the steel hook split open his scalp.
The spectators roared. Shamur aimed her short sword and lunged. Avos blindly swept his gaff up in a blow that, though it failed to connect solidly, brushed her back and gave him time to lurch to his feet.
Blood streamed from the scalp wound, trickling down the ruffian's face. Shamur relished the sight of it, and his shocked expression even more so.
'I told you I was getting the hang of it,' she said.
Avos shouted and rushed her. She retreated, waiting for the right opportunity, and, thirty seconds later, bashed him again.
Thamalon supposed he should have been too concerned about the fundamental question of their survival to dwell on lesser matters, but once again, as at other moments during the past two days, he found himself marveling at Shamur's deportment in the face of danger.
The Uskevren lord had done plenty of fighting during his long and turbulent life. He liked to think he had seen it through with reasonable fortitude. But while he had certainly savored his victories, and taken pleasure in fencing and jousting for sport, he had never enjoyed the actual experience of mortal combat. That chilling awareness that if his opponent proved the better warrior, or perchance merely the luckier one, his life was quite possibly going to end.
Shamur, on the other hand, clearly did delight in it. Though she must be sore from the beating she d taken, her pleasure was manifest in her smile and the gleam in her eyes, a show of vivacity such as he had seldom seen from her in over a quarter century of marriage. Ilmater's tears, now and again she even laughed, generally immediately after a close call that would have left many people white and sick with shock.
When he'd first learned her secret, and she'd told him she needed this sort of stimulation to be happy, he had, in his consternation and anger, assumed she was talking nonsense. Now, however, he could see that her assertion might well be true, and sensed just how profoundly she had denied her own nature when she assumed her grand-niece's identity.
Perhaps her love of risk was part of what made her such a superb fighter, for that she surely was. Avos was younger, stronger, had the superior reach, and possessed the substantial advantage of having trained with the odd set of weapons, yet Shamur was beating him. Thamaion was glad that, assuming the Quippers honored their pledge, she at least was likely to leave this wretched.
Or so he thought until he chanced to glimpse a flicker of motion from the corner of his eye.
He turned his head to spy the galltrit flying upward toward the high ceiling. The stealthy little creature carried what appeared to be a toy crossbow in its diminutive hands.
Thamaion suspected the quarrel was poisoned. In all likelihood, no spectator would notice the tiny missile striking its target, yet the venom would be potent enough to hamper Shamur and allow the hard-pressed Avos to overcome her, win the duel by a cheat, and still maintain the respect of his underlings.
Thamaion would have liked to point out the gremlins obvious intent to the other Quippers, but there was no time. The rogues were focused on the duel, and by the time he managed to divert one's attention, the galltrit would already have taken its shot and fluttered away. Nor would it be efficacious to shout and warn Shamur. The way the crowd was yelling, she likely wouldn't hear him, and even if she did, the distraction might provide Avos with just the chance he needed to land a telling blow.
Fortunately. Thamalon's guards were as interested in the duel as everyone else, too interested to watch him especially closely. Exploding into motion, he shoved one away, snatched the poniard from the other's sheath, pushed him away as well, turned, and hurled the dagger.
The poniard wasn't well balanced for throwing, but it flew true anyway, and pierced the galltrit's breast. The bat-winged imp gave a thin, quavering cry and fell, thudding down in the combat circle.
By that time several ruffians were moving in on Thamaion with blades in their hands and murder in their eyes. Suspecting they had at best only a murky idea of what had just occurred, the noble pointed frantically at the gray, diminutive corpse.
'Look at the gremlin!' he roared in his most imperious tone. 'Look at that little crossbow. The cursed thing was going to cheat on behalf of its master, and if I'm to be harmed for killing it to keep the fight fair, then by Тут Grimjaws, you stinking Quippers have no honor at all!'
The ruffians hesitated, then black-bearded Donvan said, 'His lordship's got a point, and besides, we want to sell him, not kill him. Put up your weapons and watch the rest of the show.'
The galltrit's body thumped down inside the dueling circle. As soon as Shamur caught sight of the little crossbow in the creature's hand, she understood what it had been up to. She grinned at Avos. 'Did you signal the gremlin somehow, or did it simply know to intervene whenever you were losing a challenge?'
An ugly muttering started through the crowd. Some of the Quippers had no doubt watched Avos slaughter their friends inside this ring. Now they had reason to doubt that he'd beaten them fairly.
For a moment, Avos looked stricken. Aghast. Then his square, ruddy face grew redder still, and pure rage blazed in his pale blue eyes. He bellowed and charged, swinging the gaff at Shamur's face.
She parried, and the force of his blow sent a shock down her arm. Instantly, contemptuous of any attempt she might have made to riposte, he stepped through with his back foot and drove his short sword at her chest.
She parried with her blade and attempted a thrust of her own, but he was still surging forward, spoiling her aim, and instead of piercing his bowels, her point simply grazed along his ribs.
Seemingly unfazed by this new wound, Avos slammed into her and sent her staggering. He tried to hook her leg and she barely managed to bat his gaff away with her own. Instantly he sprang forward and lashed the weapon at her head.
