A man stepped through the court­yard gate. He wore a frumpy toque, and car­ried a leather roll under one arm, long as a man, coiled like a rug. Snow crunched under his tas­seled boots. Eyes sur­veyed him from either end of the win­try gar­den.

To the South wait­ed a par­ty clad in navy blue uni­forms trimmed with ermine. They stood abreast behind their leader: An ashen woman with an upturned nose. She stood relaxed, but wor­ried a pair of suede gloves, twist­ing.

To the North stood a swarthy group in lay­ered, rosy cloaks. They hud­dled in their flow­ery attire, sneer­ing at the gen­tly drift­ing snow. They mut­tered anx­ious­ly to the ear of a tanned man in a short, crim­son shoul­der cloak. He nod­ded idly at their words, brushed his silk lapels offi­cious­ly, star­ing hard and open­ing at the ashen woman in blue. His eyes glit­tered. She did­n’t return his gaze.

The man with the roll stopped in the court­yard’s cen­ter, sniffed the dry air, dropped his bur­den. It clanked as it hit the snow. He tugged a tight­ly coiled scroll from the sleeve of his mole­skin coat. Unrolling it, he began to read in a lev­el tone. 

“On this, the fifth day of the eleventh month of 3.449, a law­ful duel has been sanc­tioned on the grounds of Cas­tle Bern­hard. The pre­sid­ing arbiter is myself, Beoland Mon­tle of the Sere. The chal­leng­ing par­ty is Señor Príncipe Enrique Basquan­do Lovan­do de Saramori.” 

Across the yard, the tanned man in red inclined his head. The Arbiter glanced at him, con­tin­ued read­ing.

“Príncipe Basquan­do has sum­moned Lord Imo­gen Toble of Belvirine” said the Arbiter, glanc­ing to the woman in blue. She stared, intent, on the leather roll on the snow.

“He has sum­moned her to par­take in a duel to first blood. As it is her hon­or which has been chal­lenged, she has been afford­ed her choice of lethal engage­ment.”

The arbiter knelt, undid two buck­les, unrolled the leather at his feet. Steel glint­ed on the snow.

“She has cho­sen, in the fash­ion of the North, the reg­u­la­tion longsword: Length of one hun­dred and sev­en­ty cen­time­ters, weight of two point five kilo­grams, edge of high grade razor, blade sans pari­er­hak­en. In accor­dance to North­ern cus­tom, the par­ties shall duel with­out armor.”

The Arbiter looked up from his scroll, began rolling it. Silence fell on the court­yard. Snow fell, stick­ing, to the man’s pur­ple hat. He cleared his throat, ner­vous­ly. Frozen vapor fell from his lips. “If the par­ties would please step for­ward.” 

Lord Toble blinked, star­tled imper­cep­ti­bly. She start­ed towards the Arbiter, fum­bled her gloves onto her thin, cold fin­gers with­out look­ing. Her gaze fell any­where but upon Basquan­do.

The Prince pulled a crooked smile, rolled his square shoul­ders. The short red cloak dropped to the snow, bar­ing a tanned, cord­ed sword arm. Mut­ter­ing courtiers held anx­ious­ly at his ears as he strode away. He waved them off.

Shiv­er­ing, the Arbiter flicked his gaze to the eyes of each par­ty. Nei­ther looked at him. He licked his lips. “As the sum­moned par­ty, Lord Toble is grant­ed her choice.”

Toble knelt abrupt­ly, drew one of two gleam­ing cross­es of steel with both hands. She extend­ed it to the west, wrists up, peer­ing down the length of the blade. It was greater than twice the length of her arm, but held steady in her grip. Snowflakes perched, unmelt­ed, on the white steel. Toble low­ered her blade and nod­ded to the Arbiter. 

The Prince plucked his sword from the snow, flipped it flat in the air. The cru­ci­form hilt spun four times, flash­ing in the win­ter sun, before land­ing with a smack in his hand. Imme­di­ate­ly, Basquan­do drew it back, whipped it in a dou­ble moulinet, and let it stop, sway­ing, point­ed at Toble. The Arbiter frowned at him.

“Retreat to the length of blades extend­ed,” he said, near­ly scold­ing

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the oppo­nents extend­ed their swords, retreat­ed until they no longer crossed. The arbiter held his arms out, palms down. “On your guard.”

Toble pulled the cold pum­mel of her weapon into her right hand, fell into a guard with left foot extend­ed. The blade hung above her head, its point lev­el with the knot in Basquan­do’s neck. 

The Prince turned his right side to the woman, lazi­ly lift­ed his weapon above a bent knee. The razor point, crust­ed with snow, hung on a plane even with the small­er fencer’s heart.

“Ready,” stat­ed the Arbiter, turn­ing his palms to face the pair. The red Prince grinned at Toble, swayed light­ly on his bowed knees. 

“Fight,” said the arbiter, clap­ping his hands and draw­ing away, swift­ly. With a twitch, Toble leapt back, swept her guard down defen­sive­ly. Snow flew about her feet. She froze, read­opt­ed her high guard: The Prince had not moved. 

A high, short laugh cut the air. “Imo­gen,” said the Prince, grin­ning. He low­ered his blade, slight­ly. Imo­gen kept her eyes fixed on it. “You hes­i­tate. Recon­sid­er­ing?” he said, begin­ning to cir­cle. His eyes fixed on his oppo­nen­t’s face. Imo­gen matched him, side­step­ping.

“Is my pro­pos­al so unrea­son­able? The fam­i­lies of Saramoro and Belvirine have long been allies” said the man. Silence fol­lowed, save for the crunch of snow. “You know me. Enrique Basquan­do is no unrea­son­able boor. I would insist on no more than the one con­sum­ma­tion, for legal pro­pri­ety.”

Imo­gen’s face twitched. Her next step slipped into a pirou­ette. A white line flashed in the air. Enrique hur­ried­ly swiped away the blow, skid­ding in the snow on his left, back foot. His smile twitched. Imo­gen changed to a low guard.

“I’ve adapt­ed to the style of your North­ern blades. So bru­tal” said the Prince. He turned the longsword in his hand. “Eas­i­er to kill a man, than injure him. I promise, though: I know enough not to hurt you. Ter­ri­bly.”

His blade leapt for­ward. Imo­gen raised her blade to block the lunge. The thin steel qua­vered, high and sharp. The ring hung in the air, fad­ed. 

Enrique frowned, tilt­ed his head. “Look at me, Imo­gen,” he demand­ed. The Lord of Belvirine con­tin­ued to watch the Prince’s sway­ing sword. “Come now.”

“Look at me” he growled, brow knit­ted. Tak­ing one hand from the grip, he pulled the long blade through a back­hand­ed, clum­sy strike. Imo­gen stepped back, deflect­ed it with a turn of her guard.

“Look at me!” said the Prince. He loosed a low, upward chop. His blade struck the crux of Imo­gen’s descend­ing block, stuck there. For a moment, the oppo­nents stood, near­ly touch­ing. Imo­gen held the Prince’s blade at the lev­el of her belt. She stared at it’s point, waver­ing over the snow. Enrique leaned close, hissed. “Look at me, zor­ra­ta!” 

She did. Prince Basquan­do froze, grinned at the cold blue eyes. “Bien-” he man­aged, before Imo­gen kicked in his lead­ing knee. She pulled her sword up and away, against the descend­ing throat. Imo­gen blinked against a spray of hot liq­uid, and sighed. The Prince top­pled to the snow. 

A scur­ry of red courtiers rushed to him. Vapor rose from the fall­en man. Imo­gen watched red beads slide from her blade. She turned away, gripped the gory hilt. She fixed the Arbiter with a look: Half shock, half com­mand.

The Arbiter knelt to exam­ine the Prince, shov­ing shriek­ing courtiers. He took a pulse, nod­ded, adjust­ed his toque. Sweat bead­ed on his brow, despite the chill. Stand­ing, he spoke.

“On this, the fifth day of the eleventh month of 3.449, Señor Príncipe Enrique Basquan­do Lovan­do de Saramoro was slain in a legal duel. The vic­tor is Lord Imo­gen Toble of Belvirine, now Suzerain of Saramoro by the death of the afore­men­tioned, her fiancé. Long may she reign.”

Dueling

In all nations of the Coast, duel­ing is accept­ed as a right and hon­or­able mode of set­tling scores. Though rules of lethal engage­ment may dif­fer by coun­try, they remain a bloody rule of law. 

Rules

In South­ern nations, the exam­ple of the Alago­ri­an Empire is fol­lowed. Alago­ri­ans’ reli­gious script states that a duel may be held between two con­sent­ing par­ties at any time, so long as they agree on terms of engage­ment. Courts are like­ly to accept the results of a duel (even a fatal one) after the fact. Rarely, if ever, will a com­bat­ant be charged with mur­der. 

As a result of this free scrip­ture, back-alley duels and impromp­tu sabre fights abound when tem­pers flare. Usu­al­ly, they are fought to first blood. How­ev­er, a drunk­en hand (as fight­ers are rarely sober) is apt to become car­ried away, when afford­ed a sword. 

In high soci­ety, South­ern­ers may appoint proxy fight­ers to fight in their stead. These may be hon­ored friends, capa­ble body­guards, or even paid rep­re­sen­ta­tives who duel for a dan­ger­ous liv­ing. Some­times, motives for hir­ing proxy fight­ers may be less than noble. Tales abound of pro­fes­sion­al duelists hired to effec­tive­ly assas­si­nate unfor­tu­nate oppo­nents in legal duels.

In the North, an enti­ty known as the Arbiter’s Guild pre­sides over all prop­er duels. In order for lethal com­bat to be legal­ly held, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Guild must be con­tact­ed. An Arbiter may be called for a pri­vate dis­pute or appoint­ed by a court as part of a legal set­tle­ment. 

Though the Guild is based in Fir­lund, it’s mem­bers are rec­og­nized by all North­ern courts. If a duel (be it to death or to first blood) is held under the eyes of such an offi­cial, it is con­sid­ered legal­ly bind­ing. In a fatal, arbi­trat­ed duel, the sur­viv­ing par­ty may not be tried for mur­der.

Arbiters are respon­si­ble not only for call­ing duels (as would a fenc­ing ref­er­ee,) but also for inspect­ing or pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate, dupli­cate weapons for oppos­ing par­ties. They are also trained as coro­ners.

Smallsword

South­ern fash­ion dic­tates that any well-dressed indi­vid­ual car­ry a smallsword: The chief instru­ment of com­mon duels. These lines of steel are lit­tle bet­ter than glo­ri­fied, orna­ment­ed nee­dles. In a duel, they deliv­er deep, nar­row punc­tures: Seri­ous wounds, but not imme­di­ate­ly debil­i­tat­ing. A stabbed fight­er may con­tin­ue to fence, even defeat­ing his oppo­nent, before suc­cumb­ing him­self to a pierced heart or col­lapsed lung. 

Knives

In rough areas of the South, the knife-fight­ing tra­di­tion known as lic­cas­apone is a dom­i­nant and com­mon mode of street duel­ing. Com­bat­ants, dubbed “Soap Lick­ers,” duel with short, razor knives coat­ed in lard soap, so as to leave dis­tinct, white scars. 

Longsword
In Fir­lund, the tra­di­tion­al longsword is stan­dard duel­ing fare. These gigan­tic weapons dif­fer from their antique bat­tle­field coun­ter­parts: They are honed to a razor edge, designed to cut and pierce flesh with unmit­i­gat­ed ease. As duels are usu­al­ly held with­out armor, the prospect of fac­ing such a weapon is enough to dis­suade casu­al con­tests.

Mil­i­tary Swords
Influ­ence by mil­i­tary dress on Coastal fash­ion has lead many styles to include a side­sword or sabre (func­tion­al or dec­o­ra­tive.) These mid-length, sin­gle-edged blades are worn flat on the hip. As few peo­ple, when imme­di­ate­ly incensed, are will­ing to wait for a reg­u­la­tion weapon to be pro­duced, dress swords see fre­quent use in duels. Firl­ish law frowns on this prac­tice, and is like­ly to han­dle a case involv­ing nei­ther prop­er weapons nor a mem­ber of the Arbiter’s Guild as a mere brawl (or, in the case of a fatal­i­ty, mur­der.)