Berke came forward with his saber in a low guard, his breathing hard from the fall, and Batu met him.
The first exchange was fast. Berke's blade came across from the left and Batu turned it and drove a cut at his shoulder and Berke pulled back and the cut found nothing.
They separated by two steps and came together again.
The second exchange produced a collision of crossguards at close range, both men pressing into it, and Batu felt the strength in Berke's grip and read what it told him.
A man who had spent a lifetime on horseback building that grip, the same grip that had held a bow at full draw ten thousand times, still present through the full day's fighting.
They broke apart.
Around them the group melee kept running.
The sounds of it on both sides came through the cold air as a steady underlayer beneath the specific sounds of the two men on foot.
Kirsa's riders were pressing Berke's remaining men against the channel bank.
