t something similar had
happened to my attacker.
     Our ankles had been seized by several of those hands which extended  up
through  the  ice, holding us firmly in place. And this made it Borel's turn
to smile, for though he could not lunge, I could no  longer  retreat.  Which
meant-
     His  blade flashed forward, and I parried in quarte, attacked in sixte.
He parried and feinted. Then quarte again,
coach factory outlet, and  the  next  attack.  Riposte.
Parry  sixte-  No,  that was a feint. Catch him in four. Feint. Feint again.
Hit-
     Something white and  hard  passed  over  his  shoulder  and  struck  my
forehead.  I  fell  back,  though the grasping hands kept me from collapsing
completely. Good  thing  I  sagged,  actually,  or  his  thrust  might  have
punctured  my  liver.  My reflexes or some touch of the magic I've heard may
dwell in Grayswandir threw my arm forward as my knees buckled.  I  felt  the
blade strike something, though I was not even looking in that direction, and
I  heard  Borel grunt surprisedly, then utter an oath. I heard Jurt mouthing
an oath of his own about then, too. He was out of my line of sight.
     Then came a bright flash,  even  as  I  flexed  my  legs,  stabilizing,
coach on line,
parried  a  head  cut,
coach purses,  and began rising. I saw then that I had succeeded in
cutting Borel's forearm, and fire spurted fountainlike from the  wound.  His
body began to glow,
coach clearance, his lower outline to blur.
     "It was by no skill you bested me!" he cried.
     I shrugged.
     "It isn't the Winter Olympics either," I told him.
     He  changed  his  grip  on his blade, drew back his arm, and hurled the
weapon at me-right before he dissolved into a tower of sparks and was  drawn
upward and vanished above.
     I  parried  the  blade,  and  it  passed  me to the left, buried itself
partway  in  the  ice  and  stood  vibrating  there,  like  something  in  a
Scandinavian's version of Arthurian legend. Jurt rushed toward me, kicked at
the  hands  which  held my ankles until they released me, and squ