The curtains rasped at the entrance and Detch was in the cave. Besan dropped the girl's hand and his eyes darted around the firelit circle of the nearby walls. There were pegs driven into rocky crevices and from them hung short sword knives and hatchets. Other pegs supported a lethal assortment of heavy hunting spears and small bows for birds and rodents.
Besan jerked two of the sword knives from their pegs, his fingers familiar with their ridged leather grips from the required classes in fencing at Rhilg University.
"Is there meat cooked?" roared Detch.
He shook his ugly head, his pig's eyes blinking.
"Where are you?" he demanded. "Come out before I beat you again."
"Here," cried Besan, and flung himself at the giant.
In that instant a hot fire seemed to consume the chill in his bones and he felt no more fear. Detch's startled oath and his own sword knife came out together. Their blades clicked.
It was Besan's first encounter with unshielded blades. One of his weapons went spinning in that first swift onslaught and then the practiced skills of his fencing class came to his defense.
He turned the hacking sword and his own blade ripped across Detch's hairy chest. The pain drew a cry from the big savage's throat and his sword knife slashed more furiously. And already the cave was filled with the choking foul haze that was the defense of all Saaaran humanoids.