How does the duel situation benefit him?
Is Maya working me as well?
“Is there a way Dathros can train with your guy, but not be seen?”
“Of course,” Maya says.
32
Krakon
It’s insulting, but I have a bad feeling that Cat is furious with me. A kind of furious that won’t be smoothed over by some candles and sex. Giving in to her on this should go a long way to getting me out of hot water.
THESIUS, the dueling coach, throws me a spear. I catch it.
Both Maya and Cat are standing there watching us. We’re in Thesius’ gym. No one else is here. Private lesson.
The spear tips are dull, but still as heavy as real ones. A direct hit with one could still do serious damage.
We back up, holding the spears out to maximum distance, until the tips can just barely touch. That is the starting distance.
Swarm pirates train for duels. That’s why I’m not scared. Some spoiled rich fuck from out of system isn’t going to be better at dueling than a swarm pirate.
We tap our spears together. Once. Twice.
The third strike starts the duel.
I fake to the left, ready to lunge right and hit his exposed ribs, but THESIUS doesn’t flinch.
Alright, he’s better than I thought. Still, even the weakest swarm pirate wouldn’t have fallen for that. Doesn’t mean he’s that good. It was just a basic test to see if I could get an easy win.
But no. THESIUS is good. He knows his distance. A full-blooded Cygnian of my size holding a spear has a strike range of over twelve feet. The biggest mistake novices make is not understanding their max strike distance. If you’re up against someone who doesn’t intimately know their own strike distance as well as yours, it’s easy to hit them from max range, getting maybe just an inch of steel into their throat or skull is all that it takes to kill.
THESIUS and I circle each other from over twenty feet apart. His max distance plus mine means we’re staring each other down from a vast distance.
A spear duel is all about controlling the center. I’m not going to rush inside his range and let him skewer me. Our spears will make contact in the center, and then it’s all about technique rather than raw strength.
He makes his move. Our spears touch in the center, making an “X” shape as the wooden shafts touch. Now we can feel each other’s intentions through the subtle pressure and movements in our shafts. He’s coming in a bit hard. He’s applying too much pressure. If I try to match that pressure, and we both just strike, we’ll kill each other at the same time. Double kill. It’s a common end to duels between aristocrats who lack proper training.
I let him start to thrust, and I hold just enough pressure back to try to bait him into thrusting. He senses the bait, and he pulls back. Our spears lose contact, and we circle each other again.
Alright. This will be a real fight.
33
Catherine
I can’t really tell what’s happening. They touch spears several times. Sometimes it looks like Krakon is ready to strike. Other times it looks like THESIUS will. Each time they fall away. There’s some kind of mental duel happening between them, something that I can’t see or read. It must be something that you can only really understand if you know how to duel, or maybe if you’ve watched enough duels to understand it as a spectator.
“Who is winning?” I ask Maya.
Maya shakes her head. “They seem evenly matched.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes, Dathros is very disciplined with his--”
Krakon goes for the kill. He strikes. Thesius’ shaft blocks. Krakon’s spear tip slides along the shaft of Thesius’ spear, and just as I think it’s going to break through and hit Thesius’ chest, Thesius’ loose grip on the situation tightens. He flicks his spearhead up off Krakon’s shaft, and like a stone skipping off the surface of a pond, his tip jolts upward even as it deflects Krakon’s tip downward.
Krakon’s spear tip goes too low. It can’t reach Thesius’ legs.
Thesius’ spear strikes forward and up, and Krakon barely dodges it. He has to jump backward to evade the tip hitting his face.
THESIUS doesn’t go back to neutral. He jumps forward, and their spears meet again in the center.
Now Krakon seems to have the edge. He deflects Thesius’ spear tip downward, hooking it with his and pulling it down.
THESIUS plants the tip into the ground, bringing Krakon’s spear down with it. With