Vol.4, Ch.3, P.5
A circle of silver, shimmering—and shrinking in from all sides. Knights in their argent armour, gnashing teeth and sword alike, creeping ever closer like winter wolves upon a way-lost prey. But reindeer in dire straits as I was, I could not help but admire their warmanship. No Fiefguard rabble were they, indeed.
Discipline guided their every step. Their every order they followed to a nicety. Minding each his neighbour, the knights approached with precision, paying all due care to space and time. None dared a reckless move. A phalanx of unfailing calm, committed to coordination and the efficient carnage to come.
But they were not without fault. No; to my eyes, their side of the board was played a tithe too by-the-book. Handpicked they were, perhaps; the very “best and brightest” of the 3rd, given leave from the drudgery of the battlefield to defend this fiefdom’s master. And like the leashed hounds that they were, overfain were they to adhere to their master’s tutelage.
So much the better; I had just the toy for their amusement.
“Rruuaahh!!”
Unto them bolted the blade and body of Sig.
The knights had much to answer with. Martial theories, curated warcraft—myriad manoeuvres planned for every contingency. Such marked their strength, as did their speed in selecting the “tool” most mete for the mêlée.
Only, Sig was, to them, a nail eluding their every hammer, a tree snapping their every saw. Baulking creed and calculation, his sword was as the whims of a wind, slicing as it pleased.
“Uwoah!?”
The knights at once reeled and recoiled as the real beast of this battle panted and pounced upon them. But “at once” was overlate. Too swift, too strong was the beast for these hunters.
—Zzrrakh!
Blood and sparks spat through the air. Sig’s blade had struck a gap in one knight’s armour, and from it, gouged onwards a gaping gorge out of the poor sod’s bosom. The silvered corpse sank without ceremony. Easy fodder for Sig, perhaps, but verily was this first kill once captain to these knights, if his once-commanding eyes and actions served any sign. The very key to their cohesion—and yet the very first to fall. No measured move of Sig it was. If aught, it had been pure “instinct” that so drave his aim.
—Kkhang!
In the next instant: the biting of metals braying from behind Sig. Keen silver had been sent to slash his spine, but barring its course was a length of lustreless steel. Swatting away the knight-sword, I wheeled the svǫrtaskan around again to cut down the offender.
“Gwagh!” was his last gasp as the knight spilled unto the floor. To me Sig then sent a glare of a glance, grinning wildly all the while, as though to say, “A second o’ me time’s all you saved—a second!”
The knights, of course, were none too pleased. “Stay sharp!” one cried. “Circle ’round! Close ranks!” Straightway, the silvered soldiers answered, rearraying themselves around me and Sig both—and with rather impressive speed, I’ll admit.
But Sig cared not. Like a troublemaker strutting into his favourite tavern, he strode unchecked unto the knights’ midst. And with the same brazenness that had badgered me in our battle at Arbel, Sig shot towards his next mark—only to pass by asudden and send his sword slashing down upon another knight who stood anear.
“Nmfh…!?”
A feint most fickle; voice and viscera mixed as Sig split open the skull of his newest victim, who, at the last possible second, must had seemed to him a mite more tempting a target than the others. But Sig’s spite for principled combat had also landed him deep in the midst of the knights: as one fell, two jumped in for a pincer strike.
Blades swiped, blood spiralled, splashing upon the polished marble floor. With a twofold thud, a twain of bodies tumbled down. Standing triumphant over them: Sig and myself.
But no sooner could we celebrate—“Scum! You’ll pa—ay!”—than did all the other eleven knights scream and slip themselves upon us. Silver flickered and flew. Their first edge to fall did so against mine. And just as our blades bit, so did Sig’s spring asudden from the side and come crashing and cleaving down.
“Khraagh!?” shrilled the sixth fallen, in whose place pounced another knight, sword poised aloft. Answering him was the soot-steel, lunging forth in a lightless stab. Sig twisted about, meanwhile, and like lightning, flashed and felled his own foe, who apparently had a mind to hew me from behind.
“Ghogh!?”
“Ngwoah!”
So cried our two opponents as they joined their fallen fellows. A minute—nay, less than a minute since our encounter, and already was the enemy half-slain. But the odds baffled them not; with fervour, they flung themselves once more upon us interlopers, swords brandished high. As they must—so long as ours were keen upon the throat of their lordly charge.
Hence did eight blades beset us from all sides. As did Sig suppress them with his presence alone, so did I offend them with felling blows. And as did I repel their attacks, so did Sig execute them with strokes of his guillotine blade. Yet even amidst the slaughter, not once could fear be felt from any of these fine knights of the 3rd.
“Aha hahahah!” thundered Sig’s laughter, his mirth and mien the very visage of a stageplay villain. “Good! Good!! I knew it! I knew it, I did!!” he shouted above the violence. “Ain’t no better mate to me sword—than yours!!”
Albeit a bombastic delivery, I could but agree with him nonetheless.
∵
The fighting was finished. In dead silence sat the grand foyer, strewn through with the blood-dyed bodies of the sixteen knights. Not that their splashes of red spoilt the space any worse—the foyer’s opulence alone oppressed the senses enough.
“Nine,” said Sig, pointing to himself. The smirk on him was enough to curdle milk.
“Or eight, had I not helped,” I quipped.
“Piss off,” he spat before raising his voice. “Your seven ’ad plenty o’ me ’elp!”
That I’ll not doubt. In fact, Sig well-surprised me, if I’m honest. The man’s strength was a marvel, much more so than had been displayed during our battle at Arbel. Scarce seldom, to be sure, are the sort who emerge from the battlefield as a sword leaves the forge reinforced. But Sig seemed the most malleable of them all, as it were. Indeed, after every fight is he left all the fiercer. The blades, the bellows, the bloodshed—all provide enrichment to his roots. And with voracious speed do they lap it all up.
And as with him, so with me. Of late, I myself have felt each passing day imparting to me the boon of betterment, that now did I stand a summit above both Rolf at the fires of Hensen and Rolf at the streets of Arbel. Why, at Arbel itself, had I forsaken my fight against both Sig and Ulrik and challenged the Östbergs right from the outset, beyond all doubt would that battle had been my very last. Yes; ever should strike the hammer of self-growth, whether by daily practice on days of peace, or bloody battle on those of war.
There, I began pondering to myself: would I emerge from this manor a stronger man? Nay. I must. If ever I am to deal the death-stroke upon Londosius’ iron neck, so must I strengthen my every thew till that very day of reckoning.
“Oi, me pate’s got a plan,” said Sig in the midst of my thoughts; true to form, his were already turned to the next battle.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s split here.”
“I were thinkin’: we split…”—pausing, Sig pouted—“…tch. Ya weasel, you.”
Blood had been shed, the alarums sounded. Soon would the outside sentries, too, slip themselves upon the search. And like as not, the lord, too, would be shortly alerted to the presence of interlopers lurking in his palace. The hour-sand now trickled against us; haste was needed.
Thus did Sig and I swiftly ascend to the second storey. Nodding to one another, we then sped off on our separate ways, each headlong into the depths of the lion’s den.
♰
“We are… beset…?”
Even the ever-tranquil Sheila could scarce still the quivering in her voice. Verily was battle expected on the morrow, upon the plains where would clash the knights of the 3rd and the Nafílim fiends. As such, Sheila herself had much a mind to set off at dawn, to avail and advise the Order’s ranks. But to have battle brought unto the viscount’s very manor, and so soon…
Restless, the surgien turned away from the second storey window, only to find the lord’s office no less fraught, with the Lord Bartt and the Lady Sophie in the midst of receiving evil news.
“Lackwits! Lackwits, the lot of you!” the lord screamed at the reporting guardsman. “First the burglar! Now this! How much more refuse must you welcome into my manor!?”
“W-we’re very sorry, m’liege!” the guardsman whimpered, his face covered in a cold sweat, for neither he had foreseen the battle lines secretly encroaching upon his place of employ.
“The knights!” barked Bartt. “What of them!? Chaining up the intruders, I trust!?”
“N-nay, Lord,” the guardsman stammered. “Th-the squad on the first floor—they’ve found an’ fought the intruders, methinks, b-but… w-we ain’t got no word from ‘em since…”
“Ghh…!” The lordly visage twisted. “Teethless tosspots…!”
Oh, thick and throbbing were his livid veins. But even absent the interlopers, Bartt’s day had already been going very badly. And for why but a certain, swollen wound upon his lips.
“How counts the enemy?” Sheila asked in his place.
“T-two, madame,” answered the sallowed sentry. “O’ one, we’ve spotted tall an’ burly-like; ‘air an’ eyes black as pitch… an’ wieldin’ a blade blacker still.”
All within earshot stared wide with awe. The first to recover from the shock then spoke.
“Features matching Rolf Buckmann,” Sophie uttered. “But might it truly be the churl himself?”
“A growing possibility,” Sheila answered. “He is naught if no sparker of surprises, the silly swain.” The surgien’s tone was aloof with familiarity. The brazen destruction of the dam at the Erbelde, the drowning of the catoblepas in the sump of Godrika—and now, the infiltration of a fief-lord’s manor. Yes; such recklessness very much became Rolf Buckmann.
“‘Surprise’,” Sophie hissed. “In such suspense had he kept us for what cards he held in his hand. Yet what suit plays he now but a break-in. Hmph! ‘Wits for war’, indeed, when he shows himself to be but a baseborn burglar!”
Bartt nodded to his daughter’s assessment. “Great must be his grudge for his former mareschal,” he darkly mused. “Very well. Let come this foolhardy fly. I doubt he will escape the swatting hands sent against him, but… if come he does, then dance we shall.”
Knowing now that one of the intruders was but that bumbling good-for-nothing of an ungraced, the lord straightway let his shoulders relax. His daughter, too, bared the bright glint of ambition on her eyes, gleeful at the thought of making a trophy of the rebel’s head by her own hands.
“Excellency, mayhaps my succouring magicks will prove some profit against him,” Sheila proposed. “Pray lend me the remaining knights. They and I will see that heathen seized.”
“So you will,” Bartt consented, grinning at his former subordinate. “Have at it, Sheila. Show that ungraced what Yoná has denied him.”
Permission obtained, Sheila did the lord a courtesy and quit his office. And as she walked down the corridor, candle in hand, a scythe-like smile curled on her lips, fain for the reunion moons in the making.
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