Ready for a fight by obelisks, with honours even (2,7,5)
I believe the answer is:
at daggers drawn
'ready for a fight' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'obelisks with honours even' is the wordplay.
'obelisks' becomes 'daggers' ('dagger' can be a synonym of 'obelisk').
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'honours' becomes 'at' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'even' becomes 'drawn' (having the same number of points).
'daggers' put after 'at' is 'atdaggers'.
'atdaggers'+'drawn'='AT DAGGERS DRAWN'
'by' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for at daggers drawn that I've seen before include "prepared to fight" , "involved in hostilities" , "in hostile state" , "show of open hostility" , "Mutually hostile" .)