Dr freeman!

~~~

One thing that the denizens of Venderbight have in abundance is time. How to best spend it often weighs heavily on their minds: some, particularly those denied rest their whole lives, choose to remain sedate and sessile, content to collect dust like an ornament on a mantlepiece. Others despise this apathy and pursue an active lifestyle, getting into all sorts of troubles that would have seen them ejected from polite society in London, but are par for the course in the Tomb Colonies.

Compounding this effect is an increasingly blasé attitude towards death. 'What's another few hours or days in the Boatman's company? Better that than mouldering away in some forgotten corner until senility, fragility or the moths take you.' It is for perhaps these reasons that in the years since London's fall Venderbight had seen a renaissance of that bygone practise, the duel. Some blame the soldiers that came en masse following the failed invasion of Hell and the Hinterlands. Others claim that a Prussian master, supposedly exiled from the Palace after bringing true death to a duke, brought with him the Germanic spirit of stoically accepting blow after blow on an unguarded head. Yet more point to the cities that came before, to Mongols and Maya whose own warrior cultures merged into something at once new and quite old.

Whatever the cause: duelling with sabre, backsword, longsword, rapier, messer and schläger were all the rage among the bandaged not-quite-dead, and Venderbight's many plazas rang out with the clash of steel at all hours. A Creaking Fencer stood at the end of one such plaza, among a crowd of several dozen other tomb colonists. Tables had been laid out for an open-air meal and though plates of zee-fish, arrangements of mushrooms and bowls of steaming broth were slowly filling the space, few of the attendents were sitting.

The Creaking Fencer stood with his companions, all adorned in peligin-dyed zailor's caps. Other groups congregated in matching colours: violant and irrigo-capped colonists obscured one another in an eye-watering display. The groups in viric and cosmogone mingled around the ruins of a Second City obelisk, jutting from the broken flagstones like an old, yellowed tooth. Those in gant milled around the edges of the other groups striking up conversation while those in apocyan were, of course, playing chess to pass the time.

Standing aside from the crowd, a small collection of judges flanked an elder in a magnificent headdress, topped with the flowering head of a bromeliad. They gestured with a shaking hand, and the hubbub ceased.

"Brothers and sisters," they began, barely above a croaking whisper, but all listened in reverent silence, "we welcome you all to another collegiate tournament. May your skill and courage bring honour to your cohort. Fight well, and show no fear!"

The gathered colonists cheered, the sound echoing off ancient temples. The judges dispersed into the crowd and circles were drawn. The Creaking Fencer sought out his counterpart, a Blighted Swashbuckler proudly wearing a bright viric cap.

"Archie," rasped the Fencer.

"Harry!" returned the Swashbuckler, jauntily, "looking more decrepit than ever, I see!"

The Fencer laughed, the sound half-strangled through years of scars on his windpipe. "No more than you - is the gangrene new, or am I being blinded by your hideous hat?"

"Oh tut-tut Harry, that's a low blow. I didn't say anything about the awful racket your knees make as you stumble about, now did I?"

They both fixed one another with a glare, but quickly fell about laughing. Formal duties of insult concluded, the Swashbuckler threw an arm around the Fencer's shoulders and they staggered together towards one of the rings. Their seconds were already waiting, blades freshly sharpened by teams of rattus faber that scurried about the heels of the crowd.

The Fencer and the Swashbuckler took up their razor-sharp, viciously thin blades and stood just far enough apart that their outstretched fingertips could touch. This was the mensur, the measure, permitted by their code. No retreat, no room for advance, no flinching or ducking. You parried the blow, or you were cut. Each raised their sword high above their head, tips pointing down just below eye-level, and waited for the word from their apocyan-capped referee.

The instant the syllables left the referee's lips, the blades were whirring with machine-like precision. The seconds watched with keen eyes as each blow was parried by another, neither the Fencer nor the Swashbuckler moving an inch, each focused intently on striking the other in a moment of miscalculation.

"Halt!" cried the referee, and the seconds thrust their swords upwards, blocking the windmill of steel. A length of bandage fell away from the Swashbuckler's face, revealing taut, green-veined skin. The referee noted the hit, stepped back, and gave the word to continue.

This continued for round after round. Every few moments - sometimes, rarely, stretching to half a minute - they would call halt and examine the blow. Tattered scraps of linen littered the floor between the two combatants, joined by tufts of hair and trickles of blood. The bandages around their faces had been shredded, while crimson stained those around their necks and shoulders.

The Fencer looked directly into the eyes of his opponent. He didn't need to look at the blades, he knew simply from the Swashbuckler's minute twitches of muscle, precisely where and how a strike would be made, and how to parry it. The strain was beginning to show on his face, now, and not just because it had been uncovered by the Fencer's skilled strikes. All that remained was a strip across his nose, hanging ends about his cheeks, and one long, winding bandage around the forehead. The Fencer focused all his intent on one last, decisive strike that would cut both coverings. His wrist rattled as it twirled, old bones and worn ligaments barely holding together, the sound covered only by the ringing of the blades as they clattered again and again.

Then, a louder, more piercing ring. The Fencer stumbled, his blade meeting nothing as the Swashbuckler's own had shattered, sending shards flying in all directions. Both stopped, expecting the call for 'halt', but it didn't come. They turned as one to see the referee laid out on the floor, several inches of steel jutting from their skull.

"Ah," said the Swashbuckler.

"I believe that hands me the match, Archie."

"It would seem so. Shame! Good fight."

"And you. See you at home?"

The Swashbuckler stepped forward and kissed the Fencer on his split lip, taking a second to admire his own handiwork.