throne, her eyes glued on his body, and she was not looking at his face. He saw a sharp little red tongue lick around her wide mouth and again he thought of a snake.
Blade faced Gutar. He had the reach with the rapier, his arms were longer, but there was the net that could entrap either Blade or his weapon. He began to circle Gutar, moving slowly to the right, hoping that the other would rush him. If he did Blade could end it quickly.
Gutar was too wise to rush. Now that the fight had actually begun he seemed to have lost his rage This, Blade knew, was an old hand. A cool hand. Already he sensed the reasons why Gutar was champion of all the Pethcines.
Gutar turned with Blade's movement, moving his sword in short glittering circles but making no effort to rush.
'Kill, Gutar! Kill-kill-kill-kill!'
It was, Blade thought wryly, something of a partisan crowd.
Gutar flung the net. He was skillful. Blade had been expecting it, yet he could not move fast enough to avoid it. The net settled over his head and shoulder, not heavy, but binding him and cramping his sword arm. Gutar rushed at him, his broad flat face contorted in a grin of malice. He did not swing the short sword, as Blade had expected, but thrust with it in an upward disemboweling stroke.
Blade's sword arm was netted. He acted without thought, and dropped the shield and tossed the rapier from his useless right hand to his free left hand. It was a dangerous move. If he dropped the rapier while still netted he was finished.
Blade did not miss. He caught the rapier in time to parry Guitar\rquote s thrust down and away from his naked belly. The point ripped his inner thigh, a slight wound. At the same time Blade butted Gutar in the face with his head and swung a chopping hand blow to the Pethcines temple. The net impeded him, but still he got enormous force into the blow. Gutar fell away, mouthing curses, f ailing on all fours.
Blade leaped backward as Gutar, still on his knees, swung in a backhand slash at his exposed genitals. Blade ripped off the net and twirled it at the crouching man and in the same fluid motion retrieved his shield and changed his rapier back to his right hand.
He went in a long feral lunge trying to take Gutar from behind and beneath the left shoulder blade.
Gutar rolled away from the fluttering net. He had never dropped his sword. He kept rolling. Blade's lunge missed. Gutar was on his feet and again on the defensive, backing away slowly, his left hand up and fumbling for the quiver now.
Blade leaped with the net and went into the attack again. He feinted in tierce, to force Gutar to parry high. Gutar did as he must to save his eyes. Blade stepped, leaned, and went into a long quarter thrust that would ram the teksin through the Pethcine's heart and out the back.
By some miracle Gutar's clumsy blade was back in position, parrying the lunge. Blade frowned. Miracle? No. This savage, this barbarian, was as skillful with his crude sword as Blade was with the rapier. In that instant Blade knew he was in for a real fight. One he could possibly lose. His foot touched one of the heads and he kicked it away without looking. His head might be on the sand if he made any more mistakes. Blade had never really been afraid of anything in his life, and he did not know fear now, but he did become cautious. He must begin to plan a strategy, a campaign. This was going to take skill and brains. Blade knew that he was not going to wear Gutar down physically. Blade was in superb shape, as he always was, but he guessed that Gutar was, too.
Neither of them was sweating yet. Gutar was still backing nimbly away, trying to get his bow down off his shoulder. He now had an arrow clutched in his teeth. Blade went swirling into the attack again. Gutar managed to parry the thrusts but the bow was still on his shoulder. Every time he reached for it Blade slashed at him furiously. The shield he clutched in his left hand was growing smaller every moment.
Blade kept up his furious attack. The slim rapier darted and spun and glimmered and kept probing for Gutar's heart. Gutar parried frantically, sometimes barely, but he parried. He gave up the attempt to get the bow off his shoulder and trudged slowly backward, at times using his sword with two hands, turning Blade's thrusts again and again.
A small worry nudged at Blade. He was beginning to breathe a little hard. Not so the Pethcine. His deep chest moved in an easy rhythm; his eyes were slits of hate, staring at Blade out of the flat Mongoloid face.
Blade began to work Gutar around toward the great stone where lay the Sacred Sword. Gutar realized instantly what was happening and tried to swerve away, but Blade would have none of it. The rapier licked in and out, a dainty sliver with a deadly sting, and at last Blade drew blood. He ran Gutar through the right shoulder, but high and ripping only a few muscles. Blood streamed. Gutar sneered and spat at Blade and paid no attention to the blood. Nor did he try again to get to the bow. Blade gave him no time.
Steadily now Blade worked him back toward the stone. When he got him backed against it he could finish him off. Soon. A feather of panic stirred in Blade. He was sweating now and the breath was whistling in his nostrils. Who would have thought that this creature could be so skillful, or keep it up so long?
Gutar backed against the stone. He tried to sidle away to his right and Blade blooded him. Gutar tried it to his left and Blade nicked his chest. He began a series of feints designed to draw Gutar's defense higher and higher. Blade, now that the end was near, found new energy and a cruelty he had not known he possessed. He began to toy with Gutar, continually feinting his guard high and higher, then nicking him before the sword could come down again. Half a dozen times Blade could have run the Pethcine through and did not.
But now Gutar was gushing blood in half a dozen places. The roaring of the mob was one vast incessant dinning wall of noise that Blade had long ago shut out of his mind.
Now! Blade felt an instant's shame. He had been playing with Gutar and that was cruel, and he had not been cruel before. Nor had he ever relished killing before. Now he was cruel and he did relish killing. He was going to enjoy killing Gutar.
The rapier went driving in for the kill. Gutar was faster. He bent, stooped, so low that the rapier got him in the left shoulder, scraping the bone, instead of the heart. Gutar scooped a handful of sand and flung it in Blade's face. His aim was perfect. Blade, both eyes full of sand, stinging and tearing, staggered backward. He caught his balance and lowered the rapier for defense, at the same time clawing and scraping at his eyes. They began to clear, just in time to see Gutar stoop again and throw something at him. More sand. Blade took a backward step and shielded his eyes with his hand. That trick would not work again.
Gutar had not thrown sand. The head, whirled by the hair and hurled with all the Pethcine's vast strength, struck Blade like a cannonball full in the face.
