The Scar by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

contentedly wiped his wet fingers on his napkin, and his enormous nostrils swelled. “Do you have enough courage to take the next step?”
    Egert lowered his sword; its tip rasped along the stones, drawing a curvy line at the feet of the stranger.
    “Good.” The grizzled boarder of the Noble Sword was satisfied, although his gaze, as before, remained entirely indifferent. “Only, I will not fight in a tavern. Name the place and time.”
    “By the bridge beyond the city gates,” Egert forced himself to squeeze the words out. “Tomorrow at dawn.”
    The stranger took out his purse, extracted a coin from it, and laid it on the table next to the wine-stained napkin. He nodded to the innkeeper and started for the door; Egert just had time to throw words at his back, “Who will be your seconds?”
    The boarder of the Noble Sword stopped in the doorway. Over his shoulder he said, “I have no need of seconds. Bring someone for yourself.”
    Lowering his head under the lintel, the stranger left. The heavy door swung shut.
    *   *   *
     
    A good half of all the duels in Kavarren took place by the bridge beyond the city gates. The choice warranted itself: walking only a few steps from the road, duelists found themselves in an unpopulated place, concealed from the road by a wall of old spruces; furthermore, in the early morning dueling hour, the road and bridge were still so deserted that they seemed long since abandoned.
    The combatants got to the bridge at almost the same time. Egert arrived a bit in advance of the grizzled stranger, and he stared into the dark water while he waited.
    The cloudy spring river carried swollen shards of wood, clumps of river grass, and lifeless shreds of last fall’s leaves in its current. Here and there small whirlpools eddied around stones, and Egert liked to peer into the very depths of their black funnels: they reminded him of the intoxicating sensation of danger. The railing of the bridge was completely rotten, but Egert leaned against it with his entire body as if tempting fate.
    His adversary finally mounted the bridge, and it seemed to Egert that he was quite out of breath. At this moment, the stranger appeared truly old, much older than Egert’s father, and Egert was stunned: Would there really be a duel? But meeting those eyes, cold and clear as ice, he immediately forgot that thought.
    “Where is your friend?” asked the stranger.
    Egert had been beyond stern when he forbade Karver to accompany him. If his opponent chose to defy the rules and forgo a second, why on earth should he, Egert, behave any differently?
    “And if I should suddenly attack you with a dishonorable maneuver?” asked the grizzled man, not taking his eyes off Egert.
    Egert sneered. He could have said that he had little fear of pushy old men and their dishonorable ways, that he had little use for empty chatter, and that he had conquered numerous opponents in his short life, but he saved his breath, contenting himself with this eloquent sneer.
    Without uttering another word, the duelists left the road. Egert walked in front, carelessly exposing his back to his opponent, by which action he meant to shame the stranger, to demonstrate his complete dismissal of any villainy. They passed by the spruce grove and came out into a clearing, circular like an arena and tramped down by the boots of countless generations of Kavarren’s duelists.
    It was damp there from the river. Removing his uniform jacket with its firmly sewn epaulets, Egert regretfully thought that the spring this year had been extremely cold and long, and that the outing he had planned for the day after tomorrow would have to be deferred until the days became warmer. The dew weighed the grass down to the ground and rolled down the tree trunks in large drops. It seemed as though the trees were weeping for someone. Egert’s well-made boots were also covered in drops of dew.
    The adversaries stood opposite each other. Egert realized with amazement