Sos the Rope

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The two itinerant warriors approached the hostel tram opposite directions. Both were garbed conventionally: dark pantaloons cinched at waist and knee, loose white jacket reaching to hips and elbows and hanging open at the front, elastic sneakers. Both wore their hair medium: cropped above the eyebrows in front, above the ears on the sides, and above the jacket collar behind, uncombed. Both beards were short and scant.

The man from the east wore a standard straight sword, the plastic scabbard strapped across his broad back. He was young and large, if unhandsome, and his black brows and hair gave him a forbidding air that did not match his nature. He was well-muscled and carried his weight with the assurance of a practicing athlete.

The one from the west was shorter and more slender, but also in fine physical trim. His blue eyes and fair hair set off a countenance so finely molded that it would have been almost womanish without the beard, but there was nothing effeminate about his manner. He pushed before him a little one-wheeled cart, a barrow-bag, from which several feet of shining metal pole projected.

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