No Present Like Time Read Free Page A

taught his students enough for them to Challenge him. But it seemed that Wrenn had reinvented all Serein’s techniques from scratch, and added his own innovations.
    Serein deliberately made an out-of-distance attack, trying to draw Wrenn in. Wrenn was having none of it, he kept his body well away. Serein tried a better angle, this time Wrenn’s dagger parried low. Serein’s rapier drove straight at it. The blades shunted together. Serein punched his swept hilt at Wrenn’s fist. The dagger shot from Wrenn’s stunned hand like a dart.
    Wrenn did not look for it but changed his rapier to his right hand, wringing his fingers. He was at a serious disadvantage. Serein’s eyes tracked Wrenn’s expression as he deigned a smile.
    “It’s only a matter of time…” Lightning said.
    Wrenn knocked Serein’s rapier up with his sword’s forte, sliced across Serein’s stomach. Serein kept his arms out of the way. His confidence peaked; he didn’t need to give ground. He could just wait.
    “Serein will stick him like a pig.”
    Wrenn made a straight thrust in quarte, Serein turned it easily. Everyone watched Serein beating Wrenn back across the releager, step by step until they were right underneath the Emperor’s box. Wrenn was beginning to look from Serein’s rapier to dagger, and I could see his mouth was open.
    Serein was lining up a way to end this. He feinted with the dagger, swung his rapier around in an outside moulinet for force, straight down at Wrenn’s head.
    And Wrenn stepped into the blow.
    He caught the inside of Serein’s hand on the grip with his own wrist, forced it aside. His rapier arrested Serein’s dagger and he stretched that arm fully to the other side. He tilted his blade; the tip lowered to Serein’s throat. Serein struggled, stopped. Face-to-face they were so close their chests nearly touched. Wrenn looked Serein straight in the eyes, made an almost imperceptible movement of the point and a red trickle ran down below the Swordsman’s larynx, between his collar bones into the front of his shirt. First blood.
    Wrenn punched both arms into the air. “Yes!” he yelled. “I did it! I really fucking did it!”
     

    F or a second there was silence, and I could tell the same thought was running through every mind in the throng: how brave have you got to be to step into a cut in prime? Wrenn was prepared to die if his trick failed. Knowing he has to die sometime, he risked it for the ultimate reward. Serein had lost that mortal determination—well, all us Eszai are living on borrowed time.
    The crowd erupted. A lady next to me put her hands over her ears, the cheering was so loud.
    “What timing,” Lightning breathed. “What bloody timing.” He vaulted the low wall and sprinted across the pitch. I got to the duelists first, saw Lightning throw a brotherly arm around Wrenn’s shoulders. Wrenn lowered his rapier, swayed on his feet. He was about to faint.
    I was suddenly at the focal point, and almost deafened by the crowds. Outside the lit ground the stands were invisible but the applause was like a wall of sound. A chant caught like city-fire and spread through the stands: “Wrenn for Serein! Wrenn for Serein!” Fyrd swordsmen stamped their feet on the wooden benches; the thunder went on and on. Soldiers in civvies began to spill out onto the pitch. I clapped my hands until the palms stung.
    “Yes!” yelled Tornado, with one fist in the air. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a long whistle.
    “Well done!” Lightning exclaimed. “Well done, my friend!” He turned Wrenn to the yelling crowd and raised Wrenn’s shaking arm. “The victor!”
    Serein, beaten, opened his hands and let his dagger and rapier fall to the trodden sand. They smelled weakly of disinfectant. He looked around for a place to lie, knelt down, then curled up from humiliation and sheer exhaustion with his hands over his head.
    Wrenn seemed frightened. He looked more terrified the more he realized how many