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me?”
    “I appreciate that it is customary to slap you with a glove or some such, but I think you would shoot me long before I got near you.” He studied his stance and corrected the position of his feet slightly. “You must forgive me, I’m rather rusty.”
    “Don’t be a fool and think I’m a fool. Why should I waste any more time with you?” He levelled the gun. “You don’t deserve a chance.”
    Cabal flicked the tip of his sword through the four quarters. “ Sixte . Quarte . Septime . Octave . It’s got nothing to do with chances, Count. At least not from your perspective. You’re a petty little man. You could just shoot me. Indeed, the probability is that you will just shoot me. And you will spit upon my corpse and walk away. And in a week or so the situation outside these walls will probably have deteriorated to the point where controlling your unimpressed civilians will be taking up much of your time. You will curse my name and wish me dead a dozen more times. But, in truth, you will not have killed me even once. That, Count, will gall you more than you can bear.”
    “A student of human nature, are you now?” The count drew back the hammer of the revolver. “You will die and I will be the one to kill you, make no mistake.”
    “No, Count. You won’t have killed me. Several grains of lead will have killed me while you stayed snug and safe on the other side of a large hall. That gun will have killed me. You won’t have the satisfaction. You’re a soldier, Count; that I don’t dispute. But I also believed you to be a warrior. There I was wrong. You’re no more interested in the martial art of it than a conscripted peasant with a musket shoved into his hands.”
    “You cannot goad me, Cabal. I’m past that stage.”
    “A drunken grognard of the levy.”
    “It would be a shame to lose your dignity in your final seconds.”
    “An artillery officer.”
    Marechal’s skull tightened with rage. “ What did you just call me?”
    “An artillery officer. Safe behind the lines.” Cabal lowered his sword and gestured at the gun. “A mechanic .”
    Marechal knew that it was sheer foolishness to throw away a great advantage for a slightly smaller one. Madness. But there are only so many slurs a cavalryman can countenance. When Cabal died, when his face took on that delicious expression of mortal surprise, Marechal wanted it to be because there was a sabre through his heart. More than anything, Marechal wanted to feel Cabal’s ribs grating on the edges of his blade as he twisted it in the hated necromancer’s chest. That would be a thought to keep him warm in the difficult times that were surely ahead. His rage settled and became cold and hard. With economical movements, he opened his revolver and ejected the cartridges. They bounced sharply, sending echoes around the hall. Then he threw the gun to one side. The next sound was the hiss of his sabre leaving its scabbard.
    “What have you got there, Cabal? A foil? A rapier? A sword for boys. This”—his sabre whirled in a vicious figure of eight—“is a man’s weapon.” His free hand fisted on his hip, he advanced. “En garde.”
    Cabal’s blade flicked up to quarte. “I’m always on guard, Marechal, one way or the other.” He watched the count advance for a moment more before adding, “You’re sure you’re up to this? I fenced for very nearly a year in my youth. I was considered quite competent.”
    “Don’t patronise me, Cabal.”
    “It’s just that I wonder how much technique a man can learn, cutting down unarmed yokels from horseback?”
    Marechal stopped just before the blades crossed. “This isn’t one of those effeminate fencing sabres the Italians came up with. It is a real weapon and it really kills, and it shall be my very real pleasure to hack you into pieces with it, Cabal.”
    Before Cabal had a chance to reply, Marechal launched into a progressive attack. Cabal fell back immediately under the ferocity of the advance.