The duel is not long. I have been practicing with him for months. He has played at duels his entire life. The blades echo across the mov- ing river. Snow falls. Mud sticks and sloshes. We pant. Breath billows. My arms rattle as the blades clang and scrape. I'm faster than him, more fluid. Almost get his thigh, but he knows the mathematics of this game. With a little flick of his wrists to move my sword sideways, he steps in and drives his ionBlade through my armor into my belly. Tr should cauterize instantly and destroy the nerves, leaving me damaged though alive, but 12 has the ion charge off,s so I only feel fe a horrible tightness as alien metal slides into my body and warmth gushes out.
I forget to breathe. Then I gasp. My body shiv- ers. Hugs the sword. I smell Cassius's neck. He's close. Close as when he used to cup my head and call me brother. His hair is oily.
Dignity leaves me and I begin to whimper like a dog.
Throbbing pain blossoms- begins 1ike a pres- sure, a fullness of metal in my stomach, becomes an aching horror. I shudder for breaths, gulp at them. Can't breathe. It's like a black hole in my gut. I fall back moaning. There is pain. That is one thing. This is different. It is terror and fear. My body knows this is how life ends. Then the sword is gone and the misery begins. Cassius leaves me bleeding and sniveling in the mud. Ev- erything that I am goes away and I am a slave to my body. I cry.
I become a child again. I curl around the wound. Oh God, 1t is horrible. I don + under- stand the pain. It consumes me. Im no man; I'm a child. Let me die faster. I sink in the cold, cold mud. I shiver and weep. I can't help it. My body does things. It betrays me. The metal went through my guts.
My blood goes out. With it go Dancer's hopes, my father's sacrifice, Eo's dream. I can hardly think of them. The mud is dark and cold. This hurts so much. Eo. I miss her. I miss home. What was her second gift? I never found out. Her sis- ter never told me. Now I know pain. Nothing is worth this. Nothing. Let me be a slave again, let me see Eo, let me die. Just not this.