Vol.4, Ch.4, P.2
Fear.
The fool on the battlefield it finds.
To snatch him, to send him down deep.
And there to keep him, till comes the cold one to reap.
Such the Deiva Prosperet defies. A succouring spell for inspiriting morale, it snuffs from the mind all fear for the fray, no matter how aflame, no matter how ablood. And for the exchange wherein the faintest fright can set one’s doom in stone, the Deiva Prosperet may indeed prove a godsend.
But no bed of roses it is. Although momentary, it’s yet a meddling of the mind, earning it little love—not least from recipients of its effects, who may oft find it more a bother than a boon. Yet to incant it upon cooperators of another Order… A darling of the Deiva though she may be, Sheila here was certainly gambling away her good regard.
Albeit was it a wager well-weighed on her part. With three of hers dead, this was no time to chafe over trifles—her hand had been forced.
“Be gone, rebel!” Bellowing together, the seven knights bolted in, keeping rank despite their fevered spirits. But such a rank could only be so thick with numbers so thinned: not even could they now cover one another as they had before. And so sweeping a swift glance through them, I searched out the spot weakest in their formation.
There: second from the left, the least defensible of them all.
To him I bolted in kind. Sighting my advance, the knight answered with a centred thrust of his sword.
“Szyeh!” he barked, catching me in my evasion not with a stab of silver, but the odyl instead that whirled about his weapon. Pain bit; redness spat—a graze newly gaped upon my deltoid. But all fine and well. Bending low, I lunged in closer myself, and there jowled the knight’s jaw with an up-drive of the dragon-burnt hilt. “Hhunggh!?” so he yelped through his cracking teeth.
A move rougher than my usual. All thanks to whom, I wonder? Nevertheless, it did just the trick. As with their fallen fellows on the first floor, these proud, handpicked knights were sticklers to their texts and tactics—aught rough and unwrit, then, was sure to wallop them at unawares.
I pulled back at once, creating space enough to poise the soot-steel for a sidelong swipe. The black bladepoint whistled, scything through the knight’s throat as he reeled, destroying artery and airway both.
So fell the fourth corpse. In its wake came cleaving another knightly cutlass. Like a gale it gashed, only to miss my back-rolling body. Its wielder pounced in pursuit. Finding foothold, I rose forthwith, heaved my heavy blade on high, and with all sinews surging, sent it plunging down upon the knight.
—Vvwohhh!
An engulfing gust of a sword swing—one missing the knight’s nose by but a needle’s width. This, too, was well and fine, for afore the storm-wind swing was my mark and his fellow men found utterly frozen. They themselves knew of swords and swordplay—enough to heed the wolfsteel’s warning, therefore. Indeed, though spurred on by the Deiva Prosperet, their better wits hadn’t faded in the least, that even as their courage was inflamed, their caution had yet to fail them.
For my part, flagrant shows of force were never my forte. But the odds were set against me; preference here would spell my death.
Seizing the moment, I sought and found the man most frozen amongst the knights, and there shot forth, bearing the blacksword centrewise and locking tight my eyes with his.
“Mngh…!?” he gasped, stepping back for more space. With a jerk, his sword slanted up in self-defence. A guard as fast as it was futile: exposed now was the left of his bosom, doubtless trusting to the protection of his breastplate. Only, its make was of mere silver.
“Rryaah!!” Roaring forwards with all weight and thew, I thrust straight the sword of soot as would a bull keen on the goring.
—Ghsshhrt!
So it stabbed—through silver, skin, sinew, skeleton, and heart.
Pulling it free, I left the knight to founder voicelessly to the floor.
Together, his remnant fellows exclaimed. Yet still did none of their number flinch in fright. As though in token of this, the nearest of them thundered in with a high-swung sword.
“Haaah!!” he howled. Speed and spirit were on full display. Like as not, my own daring displays had nipped some nerve in him, and now was he all too fain to flaunt some of his own.
A throbbing bother it must be, to have hubris so blinding. As proof, being so close, his stance was ill-selected, for in wielding his weapon overhead, he’d left his stomach wholly unguarded.
Blades flashed. Swift was the knight’s, but mine more so.
“Ngh… hwoagh…!”
The result: the second belly bored open in this fight. Pitching violently forth, my opponent fell to the ground, and there stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
—Kh-khaaingg!
The twice-tolling bite of tussling blades. Two attacks, left and right, had beset me in that instant, only to be swatted away altogether by a sweep of wolfsteel. Well-felt in the exchange was the sheer force of their assault. But however much emboldened they were, these knights lacked technique—a far cry from my fight against Sig. His had been a deadly dance of power and prowess, with every swing unleashed by killer instinct and aim.
A nightmare of an enemy… compared to the fleeting reverie that were these knights. Strong they were, make no mistake, but a mitigating guard thwarted their thews well enough—as mine had, as I began breaking away to a safer distance.
Or so the knights had seemingly thought; jolting asudden, I pounced right back in, through their unsuspecting number—
“Ah!?”
—and unto Sheila.
Six were lying dead. With her wall of knights in waste, now was the time to strike.
Crossing five paces in an instant, I sent lightless steel guillotining down upon the surgien.
“Milady!!” cracked a cry, “…ghwach!!”
At an evil time had a knight come betwixt us, a daring deed no doubt prompted by the Deiva Prosperet. If he’d meant to shield her, then this knight very well succeeded: sparks and blood geysered as the soot-steel sundered in twain what ought’ve been Sheila’s flesh.
Behind the violence and veil of red stood the surgien herself, stunned but unscathed. Nearer behind me: three knights in pursuit. Chancing it not, I leapt away immediately as silver blades slashed through whence I’d stood.
“…Hh…” panted Sheila. From between the dutiful knights could her countenance be seen, sallowed to a sickly pallour… and missing its erstwhile mirth. Yes—gone was the graceful smile. In its place was a visit of vexation, twisting her features to a feyness, as though never before have they been so strained. And for good reason.
As surgien, the rearguard was ever her post, that she might mend and succour her fellow knights at need. And so, long sheltered from the storm of swords, it never crossed her mind that any such wind would blow her way, that any blade should meet her body.
Alas, on this night were howling winds come to hunt.
“Sheila,” I called to her. “Your choir’s grown rather quiet, wouldn’t you say?”
“Silence…!” she snapped back. “Do not… dare mock me, swain…!!”
“Mock you? For what? Thinking yourself sacrosanct? A woman unwoundable?” I returned. “Sheila the Beshined, as shrine-worthy as her Deiva, for she mends men with remedy, mirth, and mercy—such is your long-fostered fantasy, isn’t it? Sorry to say, Sheila, but this is war. Not here is suffered the fool—or her fantasies.”
“Sile───ence!!”
An ear-piercing scream, echoing across spans of marble and glass. And there, utterly lost from Sheila was all vestige of saintliness and serenity both.
Heeding not her harrowing cry, I risked another show of force—with but a single step forwards. And another. And another. One slow and brazen step after the last, each intent upon the surgien. Afront her were her knights, making no move. No, none at all. There they stood, swords poised—and petrified.
“Wh… what matter, my knights!?” exclaimed Sheila. “The enemy nears! Have at him, will you!? At once!”
“Nkh… kkh…!”
Sheila, pressing her men with unsightly dismay. Their only answer: grunts, fraught and conflicted.
“Limits, Sheila,” I said to her. “To every man, to every magick. The Deiva Prosperet merely numbs the nerves of their fear—that you ought know better than any, that nary a berserking zealot can your magick make of a man.”
“S-so what!?” Sheila stammered. “What of it!?”
“Fearless your men may be, but not feckless. They know what doom awaits them. That even should all three chance a charge against me shall they reap but a wretched death. Thus they stand as you see—still as statues.”
“No…!!” Sheila gasped, her face puckering in despair.
This was it. Near at hand: the slaying of an old alliant. I’d failed once before, but not again. Not tonight.
Lifting aloft the brightless blade, I lunged forth.
“Your hour’s come!” I cried, “Sheila Larsen!!”
But then…
“Kh…! Khrraa───ah!!”
“Hh!?”
—Zzhhrrut!
Filling the air: the sound of a scything sword, a burst of brilliant red.
This was most unexpected.
Like a sculpture sprung to life, a knight had dared intervene. Eluding his desperate sword, I’d nonetheless managed to shear Sheila with my own.
Only, the wound proved not her undoing.
“Eeeaaa───agh!!” Sheila shrieked, foundering to her knees. Her silverstaff toppled; blood splattered unto the floor… and with it, her right arm, hewn wholly free from its shoulder.
“Milady!! Milad───y!!”
That knight—his eyes…!
I knew it then: his was the look of longing. Of love.
It ought sort squarely. Sheila was a shining beacon of beauty, after all, earning her no few fawners, whether from within the 5th… or without. So it was that passion had impelled this fear-numbed knight to save his princess.
And he’d succeeded.
On my watch, against my sword—I was careless. Would I had known…!
“Ghng… nghaa───ah!!” shrilled Sheila as she clutched her crimson shoulder. “You dare! You dare maim mine arm!? Ah… agh! The pain…! The pai───in!! Curse you! Yoná curse you! Oh, what sin…!! A-ahh! Aa───ah!!”
Blood howled in my head.
What’s all this wailing and whining about?
Mia, Eva, Dita, they and theirs and all ilk so ill-starred—what have they lost? More than an arm, to be sure. Much, much more than just an arm.
The meek: how torn they are, how taken, how raped and robbed, how oppressed and trampled underfoot. And still do they endure.
So what mean you, Sheila, with your woe? You who earns your wages from war? You who dares complicity to cruelty and plundering? “The pain,” you say? What pain? What right have you to weep? When all about you brims lamentation? Of the souls in suffering? Of the long-forlorn?
…Nay.
This would not do. I mustn’t yield to wrath. Not here in battle.
Calming my nerves, I cast from my thoughts the thundering indignance.
“Yee—eu!” Yet elsewhere did the thunder rumble on. “You’ll pay!! Hraa—ah!!” With rage-reddened eyes, the heartwrenched knight flew upon me, keen to wreak his revenge. Only, flailing was his form, miserable was his sword—“…Agh!?”—and swift was his sundering.
And there, sanguined silver spilt to the floor.
“Gh… khrr… rh…”
Yet it seemed wrath was not wholly gone from me: with too much might had I unmade the knight. The result was an evil wound now upon him, horrible to behold, that it rather prolonged his misery than ended it outright. And so there he laid, retching and writhing in pain, till his lungs gave their last gasp.
“Pity about that…” I said to the corpse, “…but you’ve met me at my worst.”
A fault of mine to have spent my fury on him than his fair lady. Though perhaps that had been his aim all along, as I turned to the erstwhile recipient of my wrath…
“Hagh… h… haah…!”
…only to hear distant panting and find thick blood trailing long towards a wall. There Sheila was, pressed against one of the stained glass windows, her one hand frantic to have it open. But before I could give chase, the hinges creaked, the glass swung open, and the black night swallowed her whole.
—Dofshh.
The far thump of a landing below.
Hurrying to the window, I peered down. But dark and nigh-moonless as it was, my eyes gleaned no certainty.
Had she survived the plunge? A long way down she’d gone. Second storey though it might’ve been, the ceilings of this estate soared high. And with arm and equilibrium lost, her sound landing was altogether a doubtful possibility at best.
Be that as it may, I had not the luxury to go look. The premises yet bristled with guards, after all, and with a viscount to vanquish—and most of all, Ina and Carola to rescue—time was running short.
To the corpse of the lovestruck knight I turned. Were Sheila truly yet alive, surely would his soul pass in peace. And though I questioned his choice in women, loath to admit, I did not question his chivalry.
Two more of his fellow knights remained. Only, I found them utterly paralysed in place, swords held lax at their sides. Face me, and abandon their lives; flee from mission and manor, and abandon their honour. Lost in the choice, it was a small wonder why they would be so frozen.
And thus did I leave them to their fate and continue on with my own mission.
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Notes
Deiva Prosperet
(Language: Latin; original name: “Goddess-speed”) Succouring magick. Extinguishes from the mind all inhibitions and hesitation born from fear, raising morale and quickening response, but imparting a degree of recklessness just the same.
Thanks for the chapter.
That was very satisfying. For someone as self-absorbed as Sheila, a disfigurement like losing an arm would be a more damaging blow to them than death. It is also deserved, given how she was one of the honorable knights who played fast and loose with the code.