Mort vs Death 1

Mort jumped back, bringing the sword round in a too-slow arc that Death easily deflected, turning the parry into a wicked low sweep that Mort avoided only by a clumsy standing jump. Although the scythe isn’t preeminent among weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants’ revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome. Once its owner gets it weaving and spinning no one—including the wielder—is quite certain where the blade is now and where it will be next.

Death advanced, grinning. Mort ducked a cut at head height and dived sideways, hearing a tinkle behind him as the tip of the scythe caught a glass on the nearest shelf….

…in a dark alley in Morpork a night soil entrepreneur clutched at his chest and pitched forward over his cart….

Mort rolled and came up swinging the sword double-handed over his head, feeling a twang of dark exhilaration as Death darted backwards across the checkered tiles. The wild swing cut through a shelf; one after another its burden of glasses started to slide towards the floor. Mort was dimly aware of Ysabell scurrying past him to catch them one by one….

…across the Disc four people miraculously escaped death by falling….

…and then he ran forward, pressing home his advantage. Death’s hands moved in a blur as he blocked every chop and thrust, and then changed grip on the scythe and brought the blade swinging up in an arc that Mort sidestepped awkwardly, nicking the frame of an hourglass with the hilt of his sword and sending it flying across the room….

…in the Ramtop mountains a tharga-herder, searching by lamplight in the high meadows for a lost cow, missed his footing and plunged over a thousand foot drop….

…Cutwell dived forward and caught the tumbling glass in one desperately outstretched hand, hit the floor and slid along on his stomach….

…a gnarled sycamore mysteriously loomed under the screaming herder and broke his fall, removing his major problems—death, the judgement of the gods, the uncertainty of Paradise and so on —and replacing them with the comparatively simple one of climbing back up about one hundred feet of sheer, icy cliff in pitch darkness.

There was a pause as the combatants backed away from each other and circled again, looking for an opening.

***

Mort p197-198