The Children of the Sun by Christopher Buecheler Read Free Book Online

defensive stance. Two did the same. She heard the crowd around the ring go quiet. Jakob had been right: her match was drawing a lot more interest than the other juvenile fighters had. She hoped she could give them all a good show.
    “ Tenor Ay’Araf !” Mike shouted, and he sprang forward, going for an immediate and obvious slashing attempt at her right arm. Two parried it easily, sidestepping, staying on the balls of her feet. She brought her sword around in a wide arc, aiming for his back, but Mike jerked out of the way. He feinted left and, despite Jakob’s earlier warning, Two bit on it, moving her sword to parry a blow that wasn’t coming. Mike switch his sword from one hand to the other in a single, fluid motion and swung backhand at her unprotected right side.
    “Shit!” Two cried, springing backward and twisting her body, avoiding the blow by less than an inch. Mike grinned.
    “Almost!” he said.
    “No rewards for ‘almost,’” Two replied.
    She circled him, blade held out, waiting. Mike gathered himself and stepped back toward her. He tried the left feint again, but this time Two was ready for it and held her blade steady. She parried again, spun, and faked a forward lunge. Mike brought his blade crashing down in front of him, but Two came instead from the side. Off balance, he was still able to switch his blade from hand to hand again and stop her attack. They separated for a moment.
    “Don’t press,” Jakob called from the stands. Two ignored him. She knew what to do; the hard part was managing to avoid being carved up while she waited for an opportunity.
    For the next five minutes, the fight went back and forth in a series of unspectacular but technically solid exchanges. Two advanced, Mike parried and returned. Mike went on the attack and Two defended, the blades clanging against each other. She felt warm and loose now, breathing easy, comfortable in her body. Stephen had left her with a “maintenance” training regimen intended to keep her at her peak physical form – Two rarely strayed from it, working out for an hour every evening when she woke up.
    She had not identified any flaws in Mike’s form, though she was sure Jakob could have given her a laundry list of them. Instead, she thought she had found a problem with his approach; he was almost too textbook. It was a sort of dance: she stepped here, he stepped there, and she had to make the next step. If she could find a way to break that up, to step somewhere she shouldn’t be or swing her sword in a direction that wasn’t expected, she thought she might be able to get him off balance.
    Mike wasn’t giving her a lot opportunity to plan, constantly moving forward into her space. His strategy at this point was plain: be the aggressor, make her expend all of her effort on defense, keep her off balance. He seemed comfortable, and comfort was not something she wanted him to be feeling.
    She parried another of his blows and sprung sideways, swinging her left arm outward. Using the leather band on her wrist, she hit Mike’s blade directly, knocking it aside. For the first time in the battle, he looked surprised by her actions, and it was only with a desperate and lucky effort that he was able to parry her next blow. Undaunted, Two refused to let Mike regain his footing. She slid her blade down the length of his sword, aiming at his hands, forcing him to let go of the hilt with his left and pull the blade away, leaping backward.
    Now was the time to press. Two advanced on him with all the formidable speed that Theroen’s blood had given her, blade flashing as she swung back and forth, clashing with Mike’s desperate attempts to parry. There wasn’t much room left; in a moment more she would have him on the ropes, impeding his ability to move his arms. Mike glanced quickly over his shoulder, realized this, and attempted to circle to the left. Two lunged in that direction, cutting him off. She could hear people shouting behind her, but she