Glory Road2006

Glory Road:
I knew in three seconds that I was up against a better swordsman than myself, with a wrist like steel yet supple as a striking snake. He was the only swordsman I have ever met who used prime and octave - used them, I mean, as readily as sixte and carte. Everyone learns them and my own master made me practice them as much as the other six - but most fencers don't use them; they simply may be forced into them, awkwardly and just before losing a point. I would lose, not a point, but my life - and I knew, long before the end of that first long phrase, that my life was what I was about to lose, by all odds.