Roger Zelazny. The Great Book of Amber. The First Amber Pentology – Corwin’s Story: Book 1. Chapter 5, 6

Now don’t get the wrong idea. I’m damn good. It’s just that he seemed better.

Then there were some alarms and excursions in the hall outside. Eric’s retainers were coming, and if he didn’t kill me before they arrived, then I was confident that they’d do the job-probably with a bolt from a crossbow.

There was blood dripping from his right wrist. His hand was still steady but I had the feeling then that under other circumstances, by fighting a defensive fight, I just might be able to wear him down with that wrist injury going against him, and perhaps I could get through his guard at the proper moment when he began to slow.

I cursed softly and he laughed.

“You’re a fool to have come here,” he said.

He didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late. (I’d been retreating until the door was at my back. It was risky, leaving myself with no room for retreat, but it was better than sure death.)

With my left hand, I managed to drop the bar. It was a big, heavy door and they’d have to knock it down now to get in. That gave me a few more minutes. It also gave me a shoulder wound, from an attack I could only partly parry as I dropped the bar. But it was my left shoulder. My sword arm remained intact.

I smiled, to put up a good front.

“Perhaps you were a fool, to enter here,” I said. “You’re slowing. you know,” and I tried a hard, fast, vicious attack,

He parried it, but he fell back two paces in doing so.

“That wound’s getting to you,” I added. “Your arm’s weakening. You can feel the strength leaving it—”

“Shut up!” he said, and I realized I’d gotten through to him. This increased my chances by several percent, I decided, and I pressed him as hard as I could, realizing I couldn’t keep that pace up very long.

But Eric didn’t realize it.

I’d planted the seeds of fear, and he fell back before my sudden onslaught.

There was a banging on the door but I didn’t have to worry about that for a while anyway.

“I’m going to take you, Eric,” I said. “I’m tougher than I used to be, and you’ve had it, brother.”

I saw the fear begin in his eyes, and it spread over his face, and his style shifted to follow suit. He began fighting a completely defensive battle, backing away from my attack. I’m sure he wasn’t faking either. I felt I had bluffed him, for he had always been better than I. But what if it had been partly psychological on my part too? What if I had almost beaten myself with this attitude, which Eric had helped to foster? What if I had bluffed myself all along? Maybe I was as good. With a strange sense of confidence, I tried the same attack I had used before and I scored, leaving another trail of red on his forearm.

“That was rather stupid. Eric.” I said, “to fall for the same trick twice,” and he backed around a wide chair. We fought across it for a time.

The banging on the door stopped, and the voices which had been shouting inquiries through it fell silent.

“They’ve gone for axes,” Eric panted. “They’ll be in here in no time.”

I wouldn’t drop my smile. I held it and said: “It’ll take a few minutes—which is more time than I’ll need to finish this. You can hardly keep your guard now, and the blood keeps running—look at it!”

“Shut up!”

“By the time they get through, there will he only one prince in Amber, and it won’t be you!”

Then, with his left arm, he swept a row of books from a shelf and they struck me and fell about me.

He didn’t seize the opportunity to attack,. however. He dashed across the room, picking up a small chair, which he held in his left hand.

He wedged himself into a corner and held the chair and his blade before him.

There were rapid footsteps in the hall outside, and then axes began to ring upon the door.

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