Page 124 of The Black Table
It’s vicious. Moroslav advances immediately, quick on his feet, with sneaky flicks of the blade and shoulder slams that seem to take Kingston by surprise. It’s so hard to know. Hard because I don’t fully understand the sport. Hard because both of their faces are shrouded from view. And hard because Kingston’s about as easy to get through to as a lead blanket over a brick wall.
But I can still sense something.
That Moroslav is out for blood.
Suddenly, I’m very grateful for the masks. My eyes flick to the sidelines, where Luther Pendragon sits, watching. The only person more impassive than his stone-faced son. And in the split second it takes me to look back at the action, they’ve made it to the other side of the piste, and are coming back.
“Come on, King,” Lanz is muttering next to me, his leg bouncing up and down with nervous energy. “Come on, find his tempo.”
I chew my bottom lip, thinking the same thing, with only half a notion of what it means.Find the tempo, Kingston.
And he does. His feet settle in to a rhythm, not yielding space anymore, as his foil flicks like a silver slash of lightning. Parry, parry, riposte, parry. Every move driving Moroslav back. Aggressive, unrelenting, precise. He lunges. And the blade buries itself in Moroslav’s chest guard with satisfying force.
Bzzzt.
“Touch left,” says the official. “Point Caliburn.”
This time the crowd doesn’t wait for the end of the match. They roar with approval, stamping on the bleachers and clapping and hooting. I feel the energy inside me, like a heartbeat, like a pulse. But I’m too nervous to clap, clutching my arms to my chest, just intent on not missing a single blow of the action when it resumes.
“Swordsmen, to your places,” says the official. “En garde. Ready—allez!”
Moroslav’s angry. I can tell. Not the type to shrug off a loss of the first point. He doubles down, hard, fast, and a little wilder, the tip of his blade arcing everywhere that Kingston is, but just a microsecond too slowly to touch him.
Kingston’s on the defensive, ducking, dodging. Bolting backwards, the crowd gasps—oh!—as Moroslav lunges, and Kingston launches himself backwards, curling his body to the back to avoid the touch, and landing in a crouch, blade up, like Spider-Man.
Moroslav glances at the scoring table.
“No touch,” the officials report.
He makes some half-hearted expression of dismay when Kingston roars back. And, drives his blade forward, right into the stomach.
Bzzzt.
“Touch left.”
The noise is deafening, pounding like it’s coming from inside my skull. Loud as a fire alarm or a tornado siren.
You wouldn’t know it looking at Kingston, though. He simply resumes his place, walking a small circle, shaking out his limbs. Somehow,somehow, he’s kept the world at bay. Locked it all outside of his head until he can get the job done. He could have every eye in the world on him and never trip. He’s trained for it. And that’s incredible.
“Swordsman, take your places. En garde. Ready? Allez?—”
Moroslav barely waits. He attacks. Attacks like he wants to hurt Kingston and cut him down more than just score a point.
“Waste of energy,” Callahan says, on my left. “He’s gonna spiral out.”
“I don’t know,” Lanz murmurs. “Maybe it’s a tactic. Some kind of berserker mode thing?”
Kingston keeps pace. Parry, riposte. But there’s something different now. Like Moroslav is a machine. No strategy, simply forward motion. He slices inches from Kingston’s head as he ducks, then brings the foil back around, uneven, his blade landing with awkward force as he thrusts. Kingston parries, hard, and?—
Crack.
Something hits the ground. The tip of Kingston’s foil, sheared off entirely.
“Halt,” calls one of the referees. “Broken blade. Fencer will replace equipment.”
Kingston freezes, hands at his side.
But Moroslav doesn’t. He lunges, hard, and not at Kingston’s chest guard—at his calf.
