He was loosening his shoulders and also reminding his muscles of what the slim cudgel weighed. He'd chosen wood to make a point to the watching Coerli, but this staff was cornel-dense and as dead to rebound as iron. A blow from a cornelwood staff crushed and broke instead of stinging. Garric's wand was little more than thumb thick, but only a strong man could break it over his knee-and he'd bruise his knee doing that. "He's getting ready, lad…," Carus murmured. "His cord'll spin around toward your right but he'll come in from the left." The two champions were within thirty feet of one another, but Garric could see nothing in Klagan's movements that seemed in the least different from what they'd been for the whole length of his approach. He didn't doubt the warning, though; Carus didn't make mistakes in battle.

Garric crossed his left arm before him, shifting the dance of silk to his right. For an instant it shone like a slick of oil in the air.

Klagan leaped, not at Garric but toward the spot of ground at his side; the weighted tip of the Corl's line was already curving out.

Garric jerked his net toward him while his right hand brought the wand around in an overarm cut. Klagan was reacting before he hit the ground. He'd started a swing that would've crushed Garric's skull if the cornelwood staff hadn't been in the way; since the staff was, the big Corl recovered his mace and curved his body to avoid Garric's blow, moving with a speed no man could've equaled. His blunt-clawed feet snatched a purchase from the clay soil and launched him away at an angle more quickly than the staff swung. Garric's net belled around the catman's cord, tangling the thorns and wrapping the line itself.

The weight of the net pulled the cord harmlessly away from Garric.

Klagan landed ten feet away, his mace rising for another attack if his opponent had stumbled or were even off-balance. Garric dropped the net and jerked on the Corl's own line.