Changing of the Guard

composure. A champion would have attacked his weakness and made them strengths. A champion would have kept training and practicing until he won. McManus wasn’t in that class.

“You’ll see,” McManus said. He reached for his mask.

But that wasn’t what Thorn wanted. More importantly, right at this moment, that wasn’t what Thorn needed.

“Here’s an idea,” Thorn said. “Leave the jacket and mask on the bench. We fence as though this were a real duel — not to first blood, but to the death. The first real touch, one that would have been a serious or fatal injury if the swords were sharp, wins. No flicks, no whip-overs, no gamesmanship taps on the arm. We use the blades as if they were real.”

McManus hesitated. He frowned.

“What’s the matter, Rapier? Leave your guts at home?”

McManus gritted his teeth. His jaw muscles flexed and bulged.

“You challenged me, pal,” Thorn said. “Would you rather just pack it up and leave?”

“No!”

Thorn offered the tip of his epee, to show the button was firmly affixed. McManus touched it, tested the tightness.

“You could cheat,” the man said. “Pretend that a touch wasn’t valid.”

Thorn waved. “And so could you. But what’s the point? There’s no one else here. There are no hidden cameras watching us, no audience to cheer, and no director to fool. It’s just you and me. One of us scores, we’ll both know, and that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

Thorn stripped off his shirt, glad that he had kept in good enough shape so that wouldn’t be embarrassing. He tossed the shirt onto the bench, turned his back, and walked to the middle of the mat. He turned around, his weapon pointed down.

“Fish or cut bait, Rapier. Your choice.”

McManus practically tore his shirt off, and he hadn’t gotten fat in his middle age, either. He strode onto the mat toward Thorn. They faced each other from six feet away. Thorn raised his blade in salute. McManus mirrored him.

“En garde!” Thorn said.

He expected McManus to be tentative. This was unfamiliar territory for both of them, fencing without protection, and while there was little chance of a fatal injury, it would be all too easy to lose an eye. McManus knew that as well as he did, and so he assumed they would both start slowly, each one trying to measure his opponent before the action got hot and heavy.

He was wrong.

McManus stomped his front foot, hard, trying to distract him, then threw himself into a lunge. His point started high, flicking toward Thorn’s face, then dropping down into an attempt at binding Thorn’s blade.

McManus had been practicing. Or at least he’d stayed in shape. He’d thrown that move tightly, and at speed. Good.

Thorn smiled and stepped back, out of range, declining the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with his opponent. As McManus came back to guard, Thorn threw him a brief salute.

“Nice try,” he said.

McManus didn’t reply. He merely dipped his point and advanced once more.

McManus liked to infight. Thorn knew that. He also liked to control his opponent’s blade, beating and binding at every opportunity. Thorn knew that, too. The question was, what could he do with that knowledge?

As his opponent came forward, Thorn let his own point drift high, raising his guard as though he were going to press at McManus’s face.

As he’d expected, McManus threw a quick beat at Thorn’s blade, gauging, testing, probing. Thorn disengaged, dropping below the blade and taking a small step back, still pressing high.

McManus beat again, and again Thorn disengaged, setting up a rhythm, setting up an expectation, setting up his opponent.

Beat, disengage, advance, retreat.

Again.

Thorn knew this wasn’t VR. He didn’t have an infinite amount of room behind him, and couldn’t keep retreating forever. But then, he didn’t think he’d have to. McManus had never been patient.

He saw McManus’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, something that would never have been visible had they been wearing masks, and thought, This is it.

Beat.

Disengage.

Only this time, McManus anticipated his movement, stepping forward more quickly to close the distance, his own blade following Thorn’s and trying to bind it. His point came out of line, his hand lifting away from the guard position as he tried to take Thorn’s blade.

Anticipation, Thorn thought, will get you killed.

As McManus stepped forward, Thorn did, too, his own point circling away from any contact with his opponent’s epee.

As they closed, their hips touched. In a tournament, the director would have called halt, but this was not a tournament, and there was no director.

McManus reacted well, using the momentum of his attempted bind to try and bring his point around, lifting his hand, his arm, his shoulder even to try and strike at Thorn, but Thorn was ahead of him.

Thorn’s point had passed above McManus’s shoulder. He raised his own hand now, using his right elbow to keep McManus’s point away from him, and drove his point solidly downward, striking McManus hard right at the base of his spine.

Touch.

A killing blow.

Touche.

Both fencers froze, Thorn in victory, McManus in shock.

“E la,” Thorn whispered, the traditional French phrase that literaly meant, “And there,” but in reality meant, “In your face.”

Then, still smiling, he turned his back and started to walk away.

Behind him, belatedly, McManus came back to life. There was a pause, then a gasp, and then Thorn heard him shout, “No!”

A moment later he heard another sound, one he had not expected. He heard a thud as McManus drove his own point into the floor, hard. He heard the stress of the metal as McManus continued to press. And then he heard the sudden snap as the tip broke off.

All that in an instant.

And then he heard the sound of McManus rushing toward him, broken blade in hand.

Thorn spun, his own blade flashing in front of him as he tried to come back to guard, but McManus was on top of him and there was no time for anything but pure reaction.

Thorn’s blade was still pointed downward. He drew it sideways, intercepting McManus’s broken tip, and executed a perfect clockwise bind, taking McManus’s blade to the side. This took Thorn’s own point away from the other man, but Thorn was no longer interested in scoring touches. He’d won. Now it was time to end this.

McManus stood before him, a look of unthinking rage on his face. His blade was off to Thorn’s left, trapped — for the moment. Thorn’s tip was pointed toward the floor, his blade locked tightly against McManus, his bell guard beside his own left ear.

Without thinking, Thorn drove his bell guard into McManus’s face, striking him hard at the bridge of his nose.

McManus cried out and fell down, blood flowing.

Thorn stepped forward one last time, standing over his fallen opponent, his left foot on McManus’s broken blade, right foot resting lightly on his chest. He pressed the tip of his epee into McManus’s throat.

“You’re beaten,” he said. “It’s over.”