Strike!

Then, Karen did something no one would have guessed. When the men's tournament was finished she walked into the middle of the vacant field to point to the men's overall champion. When she had his attention she lifted her left hand, palm up, and gestured for him to come to her with her index finger. The movement of that finger is highly insulting to a man of the People. Whether she knew it or not at the time, she never said. He walked over to her to accept her challenge. The two both assumed the starting position; knees flexed with open hands palms up. The woman challenger must begin. A quick, closed-right fist to the man's chest and they were off.

Thrust, parry, block, move: she got in a few good hits, but he was simply too big. Then Tan-ha realized what she was doing. She was pretending to have his flip knife to fight him as she had fought so many Georgian men for her life. She needed to knock the man off-balance just once, he would go down. Eventually she knocked him back with both open hands to his shoulders so fast that he only made contact against her right arm with his parry. But his right leg locked his knee; she was down with her right shoulder to pick up the locked leg in both of her hands while pushing up with both legs so fast that her white hunting suit was a blur. He tried to grab her head, which is an illegal move for a man fighting a woman, and missed. He was down. Her pale left hand extended to grab his dark brown hand to help him up. There was an eruption of screaming applause. When the man learned that his opponent was the bodyguard of the expedition leader he walked over to Karen to shake her hand. Tan-ha was impressed, but still warned her not to make that gesture to anyone again.