The Scar by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko Page B

the face of inevitable death, Egert did not experience trepidation.
    The stranger understood this; his lips elongated the way they had in the tavern. “Well…”
    Ringing, their blades crossed. The stranger performed a subtle circular motion with his blade, and Egert shrieked in pain as his wrist bent backwards. His fingers opened of their own accord, and his hereditary sword flew through the steel gray sky in an arc, thudded into a pile of last year’s leaves, and sank from sight.
    Clutching his injured wrist, Egert retreated, not meeting his opponent’s eyes. He was mortified that the feeble old man could have quickly disarmed him in the very first minute of the battle by this maneuver, and that the battle they had just had was nothing more than a farce, a game, like suicide chess.
    The stranger looked at him calmly, without speaking.
    “Are you just going to stand there?” asked Egert, outraged but not frightened. “What comes next?”
    The stranger remained silent, and Egert realized that his own bravery and scorn of death were a weapon he could use to debase his conqueror.
    “Well, go ahead and kill me,” he laughed. “What else can you do to me? I’m not some abject student who trembles in the face of death. You want to see the truth of it? Strike me!”
    Something changed in the stranger’s face. He stepped forward, and Egert was shocked to realize that the other man really did want to strike him down.
    Killing an unarmed man was, to Egert’s eyes, the greatest possible infamy. He smirked as scornfully as he could. The vanquisher lifted his blade. Not turning his eyes away, Egert gazed intrepidly at the naked edge near his face.
    “Well?”
    The stranger struck.
    Egert saw how the steel edge of the sword swept through the air like the shining blade of a fan. He awaited the blow and death, but instead he felt a sharp pain on his cheek.
    Not understanding what had happened, he raised his hand to his face. Warm liquid flowed down his chin. The cuff of his shirt was immediately stained with blood. In passing, Egert gave thanks that he had taken off his coat and thus saved it from being ruined.
    He raised his eyes toward the stranger, and saw his back. He was sheathing his sword in its scabbard as he walked leisurely away.
    “Hey!” shouted Egert, scrambling to his feet like a fool. “Don’t you have anything else to say, you long-toothed louse?”
    But the grizzled boarder of the Noble Sword did not look back. And so he left, without turning around a single time.
    Pressing a kerchief to his cheek, he picked up his family sword and tossed his coat over his shoulder. Egert was wholeheartedly grateful that he had come to the duel without Karver. A whipping was a whipping, even if the hoary stranger had been as skilled with a blade as Khars, Protector of Warriors. All the same, he was not Khars. The Protector of Warriors valued tradition; there was no way that he would have ended a duel in such a strange and absurd way.
    Dragging himself to the shore of the river, Egert got on all fours and peered into the dark, perpetually rippling mirror of the water. A long, deep gash, reflected in the water, loomed on the cheek of Egert Soll. It ran from his cheekbone to his chin. At the sight of it, the reflection pursed its lips incredulously. A few warm, red drops fell and dissolved into the cold water.

2
     
    When he returned to town, Egert really did not want to meet any of his acquaintances, which is probably exactly why he found Karver, who was extremely overwrought, at the first intersection.
    “That graybeard returned to the inn as whole as a full moon. I was wondering … What’s that on your face?”
    “A cat scratched me,” Egert spat through his teeth.
    “Ah,” drawled Karver ruefully. “I was thinking about going down to the bridge.”
    “What, to consign my cold, dead body to the ground?” Egert tried to stifle his irritation. The deep gash on his cheek had stopped bleeding, but it burned as if it