Dune by Frank Herbert Page A

manner go solemn in a comic imitation of Dr. Yueh.
    â€œWhat a dolt my father sends me for weaponry,” Paul intoned. “This doltish Gurney Halleck has forgotten the first lesson for a fighting man armed and shielded.” Paul snapped the force button at his waist, felt the crinkled-skin tingling of the defensive field at his forehead and down his back, heard external sounds take on characteristic shield-filtered flatness. “In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack,” Paul said. “Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!” Paul snapped up the rapier, feinted fast and whipped it back for a slow thrust timed to enter a shield’s mindless defenses.
    Halleck watched the action, turned at the last minute to let the blunted blade pass his chest. “Speed, excellent,” he said. “But you were wide open for an underhanded counter with a slip-tip.”
    Paul stepped back, chagrined.
    â€œI should whap your backside for such carelessness,” Halleck said. He lifted a naked kindjal from the table and held it up. “This in the hand of an enemy can let out your life’s blood! You’re an apt pupil, none better, but I’ve warned you that not even in play do you let a man inside your guard with death in his hand.”
    â€œI guess I’m not in the mood for it today,” Paul said.
    â€œMood?” Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. “What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It’s not for fighting.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Gurney.”
    â€œYou’re not sorry enough!”
    Halleck activated his own shield, crouched with kindjal outthrust in left hand, the rapier poised high in his right. “Now I say guard yourself for true!” He leaped high to one side, then forward, pressing a furious attack.
    Paul fell back, parrying. He felt the field crackling as shield edges touched and repelled each other, sensed the electric tingling of the contact along his skin. What’s gotten into Gurney? he asked himself. He’s not faking this! Paul moved his left hand, dropped his bodkin into his palm from its wrist sheath.
    â€œYou see a need for an extra blade, eh?” Halleck grunted.
    Is this betrayal? Paul wondered. Surely not Gurney!
    Around the room they fought—thrust and parry, feint and counter-feint. The air within their shield bubbles grew stale from the demands on it that the slow interchange along barrier edges could not replenish. With each new shield contact, the smell of ozone grew stronger.
    Paul continued to back, but now he directed his retreat toward the exercise table. If I can turn him beside the table, I’ll show him a trick, Paul thought. One more step, Gurney.
    Halleck took the step.
    Paul directed a parry downward, turned, saw Halleck’s rapier catch against the table’s edge. Paul flung himself aside, thrust high with rapier and came in across Halleck’s neckline with the bodkin. He stopped the blade an inch from the jugular.
    â€œIs this what you seek?” Paul whispered.
    â€œLook down, lad,” Gurney panted.
    Paul obeyed, saw Halleck’s kindjal thrust under the table’s edge, the tip almost touching Paul’s groin.
    â€œWe’d have joined each other in death,” Halleck said. “But I’ll admit you fought some better when pressed to it. You seemed to get the mood .” And he grinned wolfishly, the inkvine scar rippling along his jaw.
    â€œThe way you came at me,” Paul said. “Would you really have drawn my blood?”
    Halleck withdrew the kindjal, straightened. “If you’d fought one whit beneath your abilities, I’d have scratched