The Scar by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko Page A

that for the first time in his entire dueling experience he was contending with a rival about whom, all else being even, nothing was known. However, this did not bother Egert at all: he was about to learn everything he needed to know.
    They both drew their swords: Egert indolently, his opponent calmly and indifferently, like everything else he did. The stranger did not hurry to attack; he simply stood and looked Egert in the eyes. The tip of his sword also looked Egert in the eyes, intently, seriously, and just by the way the stranger stood in his pose, Egert understood that this time he would have need of all seventeen of his defenses.
    Wishing to test his opponent, he embarked upon a trial attack, which was repelled leisurely. Egert tried another, and in similar fashion the stranger deliberately repulsed the rather cunning strike that consummated Egert’s short, newly minted combination.
    “Congratulations,” muttered Egert, “you’re not bad for your age.” His next combination was artfully composed and brilliantly executed, but the grizzled stranger just as dispassionately fended off the entire series.
    Not without pleasure, Egert realized that his opponent was worthy of his attention and that his victory would not be easy, but that would make it all the more honorable. In the depths of his soul he bitterly repented that there were no spectators around who could appreciate his brilliant improvisations, but at that very moment the stranger attacked.
    Egert was barely able to turn the attack aside; all seventeen of his defenses were wiped out as he impotently switched from one to the next. Blows fell upon him one after the other, unexpected, insidious, unrelentingly intense, and as he furiously defended against them, Egert saw steel very close to his face more than once.
    Then, just as suddenly, the attack stopped. The stranger retreated a step as if he wished to better examine Egert from head to toe.
    Egert was breathing heavily, his wet hair was sticking to his temples, trickles of sweat were pouring down his back, and his sword arm was ringing like a copper bell.
    “Not bad,” he gasped, looking into those clear eyes. “Well, you never said you were—what are you, a fencing master gone into retirement?”
    With these words he sprang forward and, had there been any witnesses to this battle, they would have confirmed without reservation that the swordsman Egert had never before produced anything like these magnificent combinations.
    He hopped like a grasshopper, simultaneously attacking from the right and left, from above and below, planning out his moves twenty steps in advance; he was fast and technically flawless; he was at the peak of his form—and yet, he did not achieve a single success, however small.
    It was as if all his blows came up against a stone wall. A bull calf might feel something similar the first time he contended with an oak tree. Not a single combination unwound to its finish; his opponent, as if he knew Egert’s thoughts in advance, turned all his plans inside out, passing into counterattack, and Egert felt the stranger’s blade touch his chest, his stomach, his face. Egert recognized, finally, the game of cat and mouse that he himself had played with the student; it was crystal clear that Egert could have been killed a good ten times, but for some reason he remained among the living.
    “Interesting,” he wheezed, retreating two steps. “I’d like to know to whom you sold your soul … for this…”
    “Are you afraid?” asked the stranger. These were his first words since the beginning of the fight.
    Egert studied this indifferent old man endowed with unprecedented strength; he studied his rugged, lined face and enormous, cold, lashless eyes. The stranger was not even breathing hard: his breath, just like his voice and his gaze, remained even.
    “Are you afraid?”
    “No,” Egert responded contemptuously, and as Glorious Heaven was his witness, it was the purest truth. Even in