The audience in the seats laughed and cheered him on.
Sara spat in his face. She struggled wildly, trying to break his grip. Realizing that her panicked struggles got her nowhere, she forced her fear back and tried to think-quickly! Her son, Steel, had spent hours teaching her methods of self-defense, but she hadn't practiced them in so long, she had forgotten much of what she had learned. Leverage was everything, he used to say to her. Leverage… sparks of memory fired in her mind. Images became clearer. Phrases and words came back to her.
Another little snippet of information swam back into clarity. The gully dwarf had said Massard had a bad knee. It was too bad he hadn't told her which one.
These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, and in the time it took for Massard to tighten his grip on her chain mail, let go of her wrist, and pull back his fist to punch her in the mouth, she decided what to do next.
Immediately she collapsed her knees and dropped to a crouch. Her move took him by surprise and forced his balance forward over his toes. Sara abruptly straightened her legs, driving her shoulder into his stomach. She grabbed his arm and, using his forward balance to assist her, deftly flipped him over her back. The knight crashed to the ground and lay gasping in the sand.
"Kill him!" The words echoed from one side of the arena to the other. "Kill him!"
Sara groped in the sand for her knife. Massard rolled over and staggered up. He pulled a second knife, a black stiletto, from his boot and reared back to stab her. Shifting her weight to her arms, Sara lashed out with a booted foot at Massard's left knee, the one she had noticed he favored in the past. Her hunch was right. The force of her blow slammed his knee sideways, and he fell like a stricken ox. His knife dropped to the sand.
But if Sara hoped he would lie on the ground and groan or nurse his knee, she was disappointed. Massard slipped beyond reason and the limitations of pain. Bellowring with rage, he scrambled over the ground and grabbed her leg.
Sara suddenly saw her dagger half buried in the sand, where it lay just beyond her fingertips. She tried to reach for it, only to be wrenched back by a vicious yank to her leg. Her face banged into the arena floor; sand ground into her nose and mouth and tore into her swollen skin. She spat out the sand with a mingled cry of pain and fury.
Somehow she twisted around to her back and used her free foot to kick at Massard's head. Her first kick missed, but the second connected solidly with his chin and knocked him backward just enough so his hands loosened their grip on her leg. With all the strength she had left, Sara jerked her leg loose and shoved herself back to her dagger.
The knight bellowed his anger. He threw himself forward over her, crushing her down into the sand with his greater weight. His hands grabbed for her neck.
She felt his fingers tighten around her throat like a noose. They dug into her skin, cutting off the flow of blood and air to her exhausted body. Her face turned a sickly red; her lungs burned from lack of air. The pain gripped her like a red-hot iron band around her neck and head. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't make a sound.
Terror welled up from the depths of her soul. Almost every conscious thought in her mind screamed at her to struggle, to fight back, to pry those killing hands from her throat. But a few strands in the cold, reasoning part of her brain held her terror at bay for just a few heartbeats, long enough to give her hand time to reach for the dagger. She could feel it still, under the small of her back. If she could just get her fingers on it and pull it out, she could get him off.
Massard screamed incoherent oaths at her as he squeezed the life out of her. He paid no attention to her drumming heels or the struggle of her left hand to claw at his face. Nor did he see her right hand worm its way under her back and laboriously pull out the dagger that Derrick had so carefully sharpened to a razor's edge.
Somewhere in the far distance, Sara heard the murmur of a crowd like the hum of insects, and even fainter, she caught the cry of a dragon. Cobalt, she wanted to cry. Cobalt, wait! The noises faded away into the thundering cry of her struggling heart.
Her eyes bulged as the world grew dark. The dagger felt like a bar of lead in her hand. It was so heavy she could barely lift it. She didn't waste time trying to aim for a killing stroke; all she wanted to do was get his hands off her neck so she could breathe again. With the last dregs of her failing strength, Sara drove the blade into his side just above his belt.
Massard screeched in pain and twisted around to grab at whatever jabbed his side.
Sara's chest heaved upward in a frantic effort to breathe through her constricted throat. She gasped and a coughed as he struggled to pull out her dagger. The blessed air in her lungs brought back her vision and a trickle of energy. The black roar faded from her head.
Massard was weakening. She could feel his body sway. Her nose, free to breathe again, caught the odors of mingled sweat and liquor and the metallic smell of blood. he thrashed around so much, she couldn't reach her dagger. But she could reach his. The black-handled stiletto he had dropped lay just an arm's length away.
Her fingers groped for the handle. At that moment, Massard wrenched her dagger free from his side and raised It triumphantly above her, the bloody point aiming for her bruised throat.
Sara gathered the last vestiges of her strength. She closed her fingers around the black stiletto and brought it around and up. The slender blade slid deep into the knight's stomach and sliced upward behind his breast-bone. A look of astonishment slid over his bearded face, He gazed down at the handle protruding from his abdomen as if he couldn't believe it was there. The dagger in his hand fell out of his nerveless fingers, clattered off her chain mail, and dropped harmlessly to the sand.
Slowly Massard toppled forward on top of Sara, crushing her into the sand. His weight was more than she had the strength to lift.
She sighed once and let the world go dark around her.
17
If Sara actually killed Knight Officer Massard with the stroke of the second knife, no one ever knew for sure, because the moment he slumped over her, a frantic cry reverberated through the arena. The onlookers all clapped their hands to their ears and watched in amazement as the blue dragon lurking on the rim of the high wall catapulted downward to the sands. He sank his teeth into Massard's torso and flung the body aside. Torn and bloody, Massard crashed into the stone retaining wall with a dull thud and dropped to the sand.
"If that doesn't kill the old lush," remarked an officer to General Abrena, "nothing will."
The crowd waited expectantly. All bets were on hold until it was apparent at least one of the duelists survived.
On the sands, Cobalt gently nudged his rider. She breathed, he saw with relief. She looked bruised and battered, but there were no bloody holes, nothing obviously broken. He nudged her again with his scaly nose, and this time she groaned. One eye flew open. The other was swollen shut.
"Cobalt!" she exclaimed. "Where's Massard?"
"Over there," he said gruffly.
He held his muzzle steady so she could pull herself to a sitting position.
Cheers, applause, and a few jeers from losing bettors filled the stands. The show over, the spectators settled their bets, left their litter, and crowded through the exits.
Sara watched them in a daze. She didn't dare climb to her feet for fear of embarrassing herself by fainting again or giving in to the nausea that racked her stomach. Her face throbbed where Massard had punched her and every muscle in her body ached.