Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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His wooden sword quartered down from the left, neck-cut. Shield up like the wing of a soaring gull,
around to stop the blow, her sword stabbing low. His shield locked against the guard of her sword, and
they stood locked corps-a-corps for an instant, no open flesh to kick; he pushed, and his sword-hand
and shield-hand were like the halves of a giant vise.
She waited till her armsmust give way, part of a second, used his strength to throw herself back. She
could hear the crowd behind, distant, half yelling for him, half good-naturedly, to her amazement, for her.
They're so fucking confident, too, that they want to make it harder for him . She'd moved twenty
yards back in three passages; that had to stop. The sun, out fully now, shone in his eyes but didn't slow
his responses.If there were sand I might try to kick some into his face; but they were on thick sod.
And it might do no good anyway.
If you can't win, cheat. A trick she'd learned from a Senlaw street-bravo, impossible to block. She
attacked hard, faster than she could maintain, pushing herself past the reserve against extremity; he
defended, waiting for her last strength to wear out.Beautiful, beautiful, nothing wasted . All her strikes
were high-line, advancing a series of running fleches to the throat, long-lunge. He parried against the tip of
the sword, stopping her movement with the threat of running herself onto his point. Once she tried to hit
his wrist, but the steel band of his wristlet glanced her point.Bad luck —but the exchange distracted him
from her shield.
She'd been working her arm out of the grips. One last high-line, the point stabbing down with the hilt
above her head, and she snapped it at his shins, like a giant discus, threw herself forward on one hand,
body level with the ground and sword extended.
Impossible to block—but he quartered, out of the way, switching stance so fast she didn't see his feet
move. The shield flew by him, and his came down to pin her blade. On the back of her neck, she felt a
light tap, barely a touch, of wood.
"Shit," she said. "That usually works."
"I can see it would," Chevenga answered breathlessly, grinning, reaching out a hand to help her up. She
could barely hear him for cheers and a rush of metal clankings, those wrist-sheaths being banged
together, the Yeoli way of applauding. "I'm honored to spar you, thank you," he said, too sincerely to be
a pure formality. "I may again soon, I hope? And all my Elite? And everyone else you've got time for?
You have tricks I've never seen—from across the water, I guess?"
"Ia, kras, what's mine is yours," she said. She felt her face flushed, with exhilaration as well as effort; his
was the same. "It's been a long time since I met someone better than me with a sword. I needed to be
stretched again, if I'm going to keep learning."
"Well, I'm hardly going to pretendyou didn't stretchme ," he answered. "Or teach me."
No harm in praise, either to swell a head or be taken as flattery, she thought,if it's spoken true.
Besides he wouldn't take it wrong; by the harmony sparring could bring between two souls, she knew
that. "The warrior's philosophy—skill uses least effort for greatest effect— I've rarely seen applied so
well," she said. "I see why they call you Invincible."
"Eh. Philosophy, shmilosophy," he answered. Somehow it was suddenly strange, almost unimaginable,
that he spoke Enchian, not Kommanzanu like a child of the same kin-fast, and in fact didn't even know it,
to think in it.Things of the body are deeper than language . "I just plaincan't ." He gestured to his
scars. "Too much of this. Last summer I keeled over from exhaustion, and ever since then I'm sworn off