[ WP ] Write an epic battle

There's a music, to blades of steel. A song whose opening notes always ring the same as two swords slide from their scabbards, and always end with just one returning to its home, the scratch of metal on metal newly dulled by blood. 
 
 In between, the two of us danced a savage, elegant dance of slashes, stabs and parries, as to, mirrored lengths of steel ground upon each other, threw sparks with every clash and sliding parry, moved and sang the sound of shaking, vibrating metal, punctuated by staccato strikes on metal and armor alike. 
 
 It was a song without words or speech, a song of anticipation, or focus, of fury. A song of blood and death as much as a song of battle and skill, a song of defeat as much as a song of triumph. A song where the same ending can have many meanings. 
 
 Our instruments did not simply strike each other like hammers upon an anvil, but slid, parried, deflected, shifted trajectories and altered angles, as much devices of protection as of death. Shallow slashes and near-hits scarred us both, badges of battles recent and distant, memories of songs sung by different blades on different battlefields, yet so much the same. 
 
 My blade was not the tool that killed him. Not truly. He was dead watching before he hit the ground, before my sword struck home with all my weight behind it through his heart, the only difference was time. No, it was my boot, shifting weight and striking without warning the side of his knee, throwing him to the ground un stopped, unheeded. My blade may have tasted the blood, but my boot was the death of him. 
 
 That night, I thought of him. He was not the only dead I left on the battlefield that day, but he was the most skilled. The challenge. A shame, to see him die. He had dedicated countless hours to the craft of swordsmanship, I could see. And his eyes held no fear, even as my sword descended. 
 
 But to mourn the dead is to neglect the living, and he would not have asked sympathy from me, had he still the words. And so I drew a whetstone, and began to tune my blade again, to sing its song another day.
