. . . and took another swing which Mort dodged by sheer luck. But only just. He could feel the hot ache in his muscles and the numbing greyness of fatigue poisons in his brain, two disadvantages that Death did not have to consider.
Death noticed.
YIELD, he said. I MAY BE MERCIFUL.
To illustrate the point he made a roundarm slash that Mort caught, clumsily, on the edge of his sword. The scythe blade bounced up, splintered a glass into a thousand shards. . . .
. . . the Duke of Sto Helit clutched at his heart, felt the icy stab of pain, screamed soundlessly and tumbled from his horse. . . .
Mort backed away until he felt the roughness of a stone pillar on his neck. Death's glass with its dauntingly empty bulbs was a few inches from his head.
Death himself wasn't paying much attention. He was looking down thoughtfully at the jagged remains of the Duke's life.
Mort yelled and swung his sword up, to the faint cheers of the crowd that had been waiting for him to do this for some time. Even Albert clapped his wrinkled hands.
But instead of. the tinkle of glass that Mort had expected there was – nothing.
He turned and tried again. The blade passed right through the glass without breaking it.
The change in the texture of the air made him bring the sword around and back in time to deflect a vicious downward sweep. Death sprang away in time to dodge Mort's counter thrust, which was slow and weak.
THUS IT ENDS, BOY.
'Mort,' said Mort. He looked up.
'Mort,' he repeated, and brought the sword up in a stroke that cut the scythe's handle in two. Anger bubbled up inside him. If he was going to die, then at least he'd die with the right name.
'Mort, you bastard!' he screamed, and propelled himself straight towards the grinning skull with the sword whirring in a complicated dance of blue light. Death staggered backwards, laughing, crouching under the rain of furious strokes that sliced the scythe handle into more pieces.
Mort circled him, chopping and thrusting and dully aware, even through the red mists of fury, that Death was following his every move, holding the orphaned scytheblade like a sword. There was no opening, and the motor of his anger wouldn't last. You'll never beat him, he told himself. The best we can do is hold him off for a while. And losing is probably better than winning. Who needs eternity, anyway?
Through the curtain of his fatigue he saw Death unfold the length of his bones and bring his blade aund in a slow, leisurely arc as though it was moving through treacle.
'Father!' screamed Ysabell.
Death turned his head.
Perhaps Mort's mind welcomed the prospect of the life to come but his body, which maybe felt it had most to lose in the deal, objected. It brought his sword arm up in one unstoppable stroke that flicked Death's blade from his hand, and then pinned him against the nearest pillar.
In the sudden hush Mort realised he could no longer hear an intrusive little noise that had been just at his threshold of hearing for the last ten minutes. His eyes darted sideways.
The last of his sand was running out.
STRIKE.
Mort raised the sword, and looked into the twin blue fires.
He lowered the sword.
'No.'
Death's foot lashed out at groin height with a speed that even made Cutwell wince.
Mort silently curled into a ball and rolled across the floor. Through his tears he saw Death advancing, scytheblade in one hand and Mort's own hourglass in the other. He saw Keli and Ysabell swept disdainfully aside as they made a grab for the robe. He saw Cutwell elbowed in the ribs, his candlestick clattering across the tiles.
Death stood over him. The tip of the blade hovered in front of Mort's eyes for a moment, and then swept upwards.
'You're right. There's no justice. There's just you.'