"The gods will win out," grunted Ewyo.
"Their day is done. We are aided by the Ancient Kingdom."
"Superstition! Things have always been as they are."
Slash, hack, parry and retreat. "Not as they are now, Squire Ewyo."
Ewyo dropped his guard, Revel came in to gut him. Too late he saw the trick, and Ewyo's pick sliced across his shin, a shallow cut that nicked the bone. He jabbed with the flat of the blade, struck Ewyo in the chest, and jerking his pick sidewise and back, tore velvet coat and satin weskit and drew blood. Ewyo cried out.
Revel summoned his strength and began a series of flashing swings, which Ewyo parried frantically, backing across the grass. Blood spurted from cheek and hand as the rebel's deadly weapon glinted dully in blurred movement before the squire's eyes.
Then the squire rallied, and his power being greater than Revel's now, if his skill were less, he drove the Mink back in turn.
There came a blow that turned the pick in Revel's hands, sending its point down to the side; Revel recovered, but the squire threw up his arm and brought down his blade with such force that the off-balance Mink could not turn it wholly. It sliced over his ribs, drove through the flesh of his hip.
Pain so hideous as to make him dizzy and ill knifed the Mink. In that moment he knew if he did not make one superb effort he was done. Conquering agony, he swung up the pick before Ewyo could recover from the vicious downswing. With a noise like a rock hurled into a rotten melon, the pick tore through cloth and flesh to lodge in Ewyo's belly, half its head buried in the screaming squire.
Ewyo tore it from the Mink's hands as he fell, and writhed about it, curled like a stricken serpent.