sword to stab him right in the thick leather over his chest. If he hadn’t been wearing armor, she would have skewered his heart with her first blow.
“Hey!” he shouted, leaping back in surprise.
“You didn’t think I was paying attention during practice, did you?” she asked, grinning wickedly. Without waiting for an answer, she attacked again, this time with a slash at his midsection which he parried easily enough, but she flicked her blade around to the other side with lightning speed and hit the armor over his left flank.
Jedra belatedly struck back at her, slashing down toward her heavily armored chest, but she raised her shield and blocked him easily.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” she said. Then, in a mocking voice, she said, “Come on, fight! Do you expect me to do everything?”
Jedra laughed. They were going to make it. Kitarak was here to rescue them, and all was right with the world. “Brace yourself,” he said, and he launched into what Sahalik had called a windmill attack, bringing his blade down on her shield, whipping it around on the rebound to clang against her sword, using the rebound from that to reverse direction again and slash at her side, and so on back and forth in an even rhythm that looked impressive but was one that she could predict and counter with ease. She struck back in the midst of his attack, of course, setting up a rhythm of her own that he countered just as easily.
This was a sophisticated audience, though. They knew a mock battle when they saw one, and they began to boo. More fruit flew. The psionic battering Jedra and Kayan had felt earlier had died down when they began to fight, but now it picked up again as the frustrated crowd tried to force the fight in a bloodier direction.
“We’re losing them,” Jedra said, panting now from the exertion. “Kitarak had better hurry up.”
“Let’s make it flashier,” Kayan said, and to show what she meant she attacked him psionically with a burst of light and thunder. Jedra rocked back, his ears ringing, and barely parried her accompanying sword attack.
“Hah!” he shouted, recovering after a couple of steps back. “You think that’s flashy—watch this.” He concentrated on the air around her, whipping it into a wind that blew her hair out straight behind her and nearly wrenched her shield from her grip. Then, not sensing any restrictions on his power yet, he froze the air until frost swirled beside her, dumping the heat into a tiny spot of ground a few feet to her right, which after a few seconds exploded in a shower of hot sand which the wind blew away from both of them.
The crowd cheered, but Kayan said mockingly, “Big deal. How about this?” The air shimmered around her, and suddenly there were two of her, then four, then eight, all lunging toward Jedra at once. Only one of them was real, but he didn’t know which one, not until he felt a blade bite deep into the armor over his right biceps.
“Ow!” he shouted, twisting away. She’d cut right through the leather. A rivulet of blood ran out from under his armor.
“Jedra!” Kayan shouted. The phantom copies of her vanished, and she reached toward him, instinctively wanting to comfort and heal him.
No! he mindsent, at the same time slashing at her as if he feared her approach. Don’t ruin the effect!
The effect? You’re hurt!
We’re supposed to be trying to kill each other, Jedra pointed out. He feinted left, then swung right, reaching past Kayan’s guard and nicking her right forearm.
“That hurts!” she yelled.
I’m sorry, but I had to do it. Jedra mindsent. Numb the pain, but let it bleed a while.
The crowd cheered at the sight of blood, but Jedra didn’t know how much longer they could keep up the deception with superficial wounds. He directed a thought toward Kitarak in the eastern stands: Hurry up, or we’ll have to hurt each other worse than this.
Kitarak’s voice spoke in his mind again. You must do just that. You must kill Kayan.
“What?” Jedra shouted aloud.
Kayan must have heard his message as well. She completely dropped her guard, not to let Jedra carry out their mentor’s command, but out of shock.
To cover for her, Jedra made a flash of light, then in a burst of inspiration he bent the light to create an illusion just as she had, but instead of making copies of himself he made dozens of giant