The crier announced the fight, saying, "Last week you watched one of these combatants cut off a wild tigone's paws one at a time before taking its head for a trophy. The other team you watched argue over tactics and dispute the honor of dealing the final blow. Today, who knows what amusement awaits when... Braxa of the House of Gnorr fights... Jedra and Kayan of House Rokur."
Since Braxa had been named first, she stepped into the arena first. She spun her knife and sword in circles before her, scattering reflections off the glistening blades and drawing an enthusiastic cheer from the audience.
Her jewel-encrusted brass brassiere and equally sparkling chain-link loincloth-revealing an alarming amount of bare skin for a gladiator, woman or not-no doubt added to their excitement.
As Jedra and Kayan followed her, Kayan looked disdainfully at her own saber, a slightly curved, single-edged blade about as long as her arm, and said almost casually, "Maybe if I distract her with my neck you'll have a chance to stab her in the back."
"What?" Jedra said, shocked. "Kayan, don't talk like that. We'll win this one easy."
"Sure we will." She spun her own sword around in a circle, but she didn't flex her arm right and the blade flew out of her grasp on the upswing, to land point-first in the sand a few feet away. The crowd roared with laughter while she bent to retrieve it.
"That's good," Jedra said. "Make her think we're clumsy." And maybe make the psionicists think we need our psionic talent to help make a fair fight, he thought, but he couldn't risk saying that. He promptly fumbled his own blade, though, wincing as if he'd just cut himself with it.
The woman, Braxa of House Gnorr, sneered. "Make your jests while you can," she said, "but the final laugh will be mine."
"And a good day to you, too," Jedra said, bowing slightly. He was afraid his voice would crack and reveal his real terror at facing her experienced blade, but he had to hold on for Kayan's sake. If he could convince her that he was confident, maybe she would grow more so herself.
The crier, standing a few paces away, spread his arms out, then raised them high. "Begin!" he shouted.
This time Jedra leaped first. He stabbed straight for Braxa's bare bosom, and his sword hit home, but instead of piercing her ribs and sliding into her heart, the point lodged in a link of the chain holding her brassiere cups together, barely scratching the tender skin beneath.
She flipped her long sword up, inside Jedra's guard.
He felt the edge bite into the soft underside of his upper arm, but before she could shove the point into his chest he twisted away, pulling his sword free and disengaging.
Kayan hadn't moved. "Come on, give me a hand here!" Jedra yelled at her, and she belatedly swung at Braxa, but the experienced gladiator parried her blow without effort and only Jedra's sudden lunge toward her exposed side kept her from replying with a deadly attack of her own.
"Fight, damn it!" he shouted at Kayan. "Don't give up before the battle's even begun!"
Braxa swung at him while he was distracted, and metal clanged against metal as he blocked her and then let his blade slide down to slice at her legs. She danced out of the way easily and struck again, raining blows down on him faster and faster until the arena echoed with the clang of blade upon blade.
Jedra could feel himself tiring. The cut in his arm bled and stung furiously, but he didn't want to change hands. He wasn't good enough with his left to last ten seconds against this demonic woman. He tried using psionics on her, tried pushing her blade aside telekinetically, tried throwing sand in her eyes the way he had done with Lothar, but neither attempt got through the psionicist guards' restricting shields. Only when he tried blasting her with amplified light and sound did he get a flash and a boom around her head, but she fought on as if nothing had happened.
She wasn't mad enough, Jedra realized. She was terrified, and defending herself, but to come out of this alive they needed to win, and to win they both needed to attack. And as Sahalik had taught him during that first week of practice, to get someone to attack when they didn't want to, you had to make them mad.
Braxa stepped back, also growing tired from swinging her sword continuously, and in the momentary lull in battle, Jedra slapped Kayan on the butt with the flat of his sword. "Go after her!" he shouted. "Come on, have you forgotten everything we learned? Don't let her rest. We can wear her out if we work together, but I can't do this all by myself."
She shot him a look of such hatred that Jedra was afraid she would turn on him, but instead she mindsent, I'm doing all I can!
Try psionics, then, he sent back, but do something.
He felt the psionicists' shield descend on him, blanketing his mind from further contact. He didn't know if she'd heard him or not, so he repeated aloud, "Do something!"
With that, he raised his sword and advanced on Braxa again, circling around to put her between him and Kayan. She knew better than to allow that, though; she sidestepped ahead of him until he tried to duck around the other side, but she dodged around him that way, too.
"Shall we dance?" she asked, laughing. "Perhaps that would amuse the crowd more than your pitiful showing so far."
"We're just getting started," Jedra said. "Right, Kayan? Kayan!" Braxa had lunged at him, and he nearly tripped over Kayan's feet when he backpedaled to get clear. She had been right behind him.
"Damn it, fight with me or get out of the way!" he shouted.
The crowd had been unusually quiet, listening to them bicker, but they laughed long and loud at that. That seemed to humiliate Kayan into action; she jumped out of the way to the side and kept going in the same direction, trying to circle around Braxa just as Jedra had. Braxa pressed the attack against her, but Kayan's sword became a blur every bit as fast as Braxa's, and the arena echoed again with the clash of metal on metal.
While her sword arm was held high, Jedra took the opportunity to spring in behind Braxa and slash at her exposed right side, cutting deep into the soft flesh just below her ribs, and when she whirled around to defend herself he swung in under her guard and raked his blade across her neck. Blood spilled down her chest and over her brass brassiere. She staggered back a step, her eyes wide and frightened, then she sank to her knees.
There was no need for a final blow; Jedra had hit a major artery, and within seconds the formidable amazon lay face down in the sand.
He looked up at Kayan. "Thanks," he said, sighing heavily.