Fade to Black by Francis Knight Page B

her face. Where the Storad had been confident and showy, she looked absolutely calm and collected, as though every movement was smoothly calculated. Her face showed nothing as she looked down at him and her eyes held only a wary reckoning. As the cheers and screams peaked she began a measured, graceful walk down the ramp; fluid, confident and sexy as all hell.
    She reached the sand and the Storad gave her a small mocking bow before he raised his sword with both hands. It was almost as big as she was. She stood looking at him as the music tailed away, her eyes flicking between his face and the tip of his sword, then to his feet. The noise of the crowd above me subsided to a dull roar. He didn’t wait for her to pull a weapon but attacked with a blinding thrust and a twist of his body.
    Before I’d even realised she’d moved, she had a sword in each hand. She parried his thrust and made one of her own with her left hand, and they were away, into a world of their own. We didn’t matter, I could see it in both of them. They weren’t aware the crowd was there as they slashed and parried and danced around each other, Jake always that little bit quicker, more nimble than him.
    When I tore myself away for a moment, Pasha’s face was set in a grimace and the skin stretched over his knuckles as he grasped at the arm of his chair. He was breathing oddly, asthough it was him that fought. A shout from the crowd drew me back into the fight.
    I could see why she was so good, why the crowd loved her. She didn’t just use her swords, she wasn’t just fighting; she was entertaining. Every part of her was a weapon. The Storad seemed restricted to his blade, with little use for anything else, and if he hit with it he wouldn’t
need
anything else. But she dodged every blow with a swirl of panache that made the crowd chant her name, and when she did he felt the smack of her elbow or a foot would come up and crunch into his knee before she spun out of his reach. It was almost as though she was toying with him, playing up to the howls of the crowd, giving them what they wanted. The bewilderment on his face was in stark contrast to the confident swagger of five minutes ago.
    He threw out a sudden roar that made me jump and Pasha almost come out of his chair beside me, then the Storad was on the attack. His blade moved smoothly in a well-practised series of manoeuvres that I was sure would have taken the head off any other person in the place. Jake fell back before him, her swords glittering as she blocked and dodged, but she seemed beaten at last, her speed nothing before his power. I felt sure I imagined the little twitch at the corner of her mouth.
    She hesitated a split second too long as his sword swept round at waist height. Pasha let out a panicked “Shit!” and dropped his glass. But she bent backwards at the waist, likea reed in water, just enough so the sword passed her. The Storad, sure he had her at last, was left off balance and she wasted no time now. She seemed to run up his body; a foot blasted into his groin followed by a straight-legged kick to his nose that spread it over his face before she flipped herself over and landed lightly, crouched on the sand.
    He let out a bellow of rage, lost among the roar of the crowd, as he flew backwards, blood spraying, to land on his back, hand loose on his sword. A foot landed on his right arm with the slap of stiff leather on skin. Her other foot landed no more than half an inch from his head in a puff of sand. When he looked up through pain-filled eyes there were two sword-tips touching his cheeks. Jake’s mouth was hooked up in a grin, her face alight with some emotion, pride maybe, or just the sheer rush of not being sliced to ribbons.
    The Storad glared upwards and the muscles in his arms moved as though he would try to raise his weapon, but the tips of Jake’s swords moved almost imperceptibly forwards, the points pricking his skin. Then she leapt up and brought both feet down on