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Vol.4, Ch.5, P.5

“The defenders yet fare strong, Fräulein. With them, a flank attack seems well in our cards.”

So reported to me Monika, my aide. Greater than me in height and years both, hers was a staid manner, tranquil as a breeze and broad of heart as the sky—a gentleness made plenty clear from her warm eyes and soft face. Yet in battle was Monika ever the unfailing pillar: excellent in command and grasping perfect the essence of my aims, ’twas oft that she led my braves whensoever I could not.

“I know! But not too eager, now!” I cautioned her and all others in earshot. “We wait and win where we may! Once the chief host arrives, so does our victory!”

In the nick of time were we come—right before Balasthea could fall into the hands of the 3rd Order. And by that alone was the most immediate threat to our cause snuffed out. Had we arrived even an hour later, then ‘twas a siege battle that we would’ve found ourselves waging at this moment… and to dire futility, I cannot doubt.

We owed it much to a stroke of luck. Fire had been set to the keep, whipping the knights frantic as they raced to either quench the growing flames, overcome the fort-defenders, or despair at their plans turning into ash. And thanks to that, forcing our entry through the gate had proven easy enough, that now did we stand in the thick of it all: the bailey. A wide and open yard, ‘twas the veritable navel to this expansive stronghold, one now aheat with fierce combat. But for all its space, a battlefield of walls this was yet, which was working well to blunt the knights’ overwhelming advantage of numbers. And crowning all our fortunes…

“Hhgwoaahh!!”

Savage shrilling, vicious slashing—such was the sight of Sig, felling knights one after another as a storm mows a forest bare. Nay; more like a ravenous beast seemed he, unleashed and slipped right upon a herd of prey. Yet an earnest look revealed more calculation to his barbarism than was first plain to see: every swing of his, every thrust, they were all of them striking the enemy where it bedevilled them most. A beast, indeed, whose clamping fangs aimed for every neck he saw, that no matter the numbers thrown at him, ever did he scry the chink in the knights’ formations and exploit it to their unravelling.

But an oddness there was to it all, as if no conscious thought was guiding his brutality; as if… by sense and sense alone was he grasping the ebb and flow of battle, and letting his intuition decide his every move. Many would call this a talent from birth, I think, and watching him, more and more was I convinced.

The fallen free company of Zaharte—how dread they all once were, if Sig ensampled even a bit of them. There was Ulrik, too, whose baffling strength failed only after I’d mustered every drop of mine. And then there were the Östbergs, whose mightier strength I’d only heard tell of. Were it not for Rolf, I fear to imagine what other fate might we have met.

“Come on!” Sig bellowed. “More meatses for me butcher’s block! More!”

“Egh…!” the knights afore him grimaced; ’twas all they could bear to do, it seemed, as Sig strutted unto them unchallenged. And it seemed, too, that the sword was not his only weapon. His gnashing teeth, his wild eyes, his imposing gait—Sig exuded deathsomeness, an aura that was swaying the very winds of this battle. Met with this walking hazard of a Man, the weaker of our enemies at once trembled in their boots. None of them knew what to do. But even if they did, none dared it.

“Seh!”

“Ghahkh!?”

And so were we availed: like a torrent of blades, my braves and I seized every opportunity born from Sig’s dominance, crashing and riving as we went. What a boon he was, making our targets easy-sought and slain easier still.

“Gāstċēn!” incanted one such target. Aloft him there kindled many tongues of flames, wreathing and spinning into a golden sphere. Yet I abided not its completion; through the turbulent fray I wove, sending twin blades unto the sorcerer’s neck. “Krrahhhkh!?” he screamed from his wound. There he expired, along with his ball of flame—such was the present confusion gripping the knights, that neither time nor wit could they spare to defend their vulnerable sorcerers.

“Edelkrieger! To the left wing! Find and fell all remnant sorcerers! Down to the last!”

In my place: Monika issuing commands exact as I would have. My braves, in all their quickness, went to task, rushing to the fore in pursuit of the other sorcerers yet about.

“Back in order! Back, damn it! Back!” cried a knight. “Lest you fain falling to some dunling damsel!”

“Easier said!” argued another. “That madman…! He’s loose ’pon us…!”

“Well, well! A kinsman!” jeered a third, turning to Sig. “Seduced by the devils, is it!? Along with that sicarius Buckmann!?”

Yet the wild Man only jeered back. “Look ‘live, ya nithin’ knightses! The fun’s just begun!” Sig shouted, before slashing further away at the scattered knights and boring another hole through their lines. Another chance to be seized: at once, in flooded my Edelkrieger, striking dead all the sorcerers anear.

“Gwoagh!!”

So sounded their last cries, and with them, a great burden lifted from our shoulders. Ever was wrestling with sorcerers and their magicks anathema to me, a foible sore remembered, too, in the battle at Hensen. Yet alone I was not: my Edelkrieger all troubled about them much the same, and so was it always our priority to silence them at the earliest.

Amongst such disciples of magicks, there walked those who could weave them as rain pours water: rapid, one after another, all without wait. What a gladness ‘twas to find none of their fearsome lot here. Oft were they brigadiers of the Order or higher, after all… with whole ranks of sorcerers ever in tow. Oh, I shudder to imagine.

Thinking on it, Rolf himself had vanquished one such foe: his sister—and a brigadier in her own right—during the last battle in Arbel. How? I wondered. Taking even just one spell was death in itself for a paling-less warrior as he. But then the answer came swift: he had but to extinguish ’twith the svǫrtaskan. Still, cutting magicks ought be as slicing arrows shot from full draw… a feat that is the stuff of legends, as they say. Yet with Rolf at the hilt, I doubted it not. Such was his skill, and such was the soot-steel; only together did like mysts of legend come alive.

The black blade—once upon a time had I laid my own hand upon its hilt. Yet in answer, it smote my very touch, as though I had clutched an iron bar pulled fresh and glowing from a furnace. Now was it clear to me why: I was not chosen. No; Rolf was. Someone… or something had selected him for some purpose, I think. Or…? Was it different, mayhaps? That “selected” he was not, but rather “awaited”? For uncounted years; since time out of mind?

A dreklýðir I once suspected him to be, that in his veins coursed the memory of dragons. But Rolf himself had refused the idea. In fact, ever was he wont to think himself special in no way altogether. A curious one he is. Any other would think himself unique in some way, but such thinking is ever a bitter taste on Rolf’s tongue. Nay… That a singular, ordinary soul can yet find his niche in this world and fulfil it full—proving this seemed more his thinking than aught else.

If he has his own niche, then so must I. Eager to find it, to fulfil it, I clasped stronger the longdaggers in my hands.

“Oi! Wot I tells ya ‘bout faffin’ ’round, aye!? Ya nitty li’l nymphe, you!”

Dragging my mind back to the battlefield: the lambasting of a knight. Or not? No—Sig’s ’twas. Oh, what’s with that badger of a Man, anyways? And what’s a “nymphe”, for that matter?

“No need to bark twice!” was all I cared to shout back at him. I was a frau full-grown now, like Monika, never one to quibble—in especial during a time and place as this. And so from there, I strove my way back to my aide, fighting and slicing as I went. And reaching her at length, “The centre-ranks—can they move?” I asked her.

“They can,” answered Monika. “You propose they switch? With the front?”

“Nay, not quite,” I said. “Have them join the front, rather—and rightwards! Worry not about numbers here; the enemy must be stretched long and thin!”

“Understood,” said Monika, and standing tall, she turned to our combined force of Edelkrieger and fort-defenders and raised her voice. “Centre-ranks! To the front! Join from the right! Keep tight, now! Rearguard! Move up! Support the wings centre and left! Quick!”

Like a shifting tide, the braves all moved as commanded. For fear of being flanked, the knight ranks answered, spreading themselves left and right. But in that course, holes opened between them as they shuffled and clamoured—gaps to be ravaged swift by the wild beast amongst us.

“Rruuaa—ah!!” Sig roared, leaping into the enemy ranks and gashing his way through them as a gust blows over grass. For true was he a butcher, as with every swipe and stab of his blade, armour clanged and flesh squealed. On and on, the carnage went, and more and more the enemy lines were peeled away.

Amidst the violence, a sigh met my ears.

“A marvellous master, he.”

That was Monika. There she stood, hand upon cheek, watching Sig and muttering sillinesses. Yet ’twas nastinesses that had come from that Man’s mouth, was it not? Nastinesses directed at her superior? Don’t tell me she’d not heard!

Oh, that Monika! ’Twas not mine to question her likes and fancies, but at the very least, she ought choose from fellows less… “feral”, let’s say. Yes—one with calmness and clarity. A thoughtful soul, civil and deep of heart. And were he strong of body, then all the better.

“Haaa—hah hahah!! Come on!! ‘Ave at it, ya piss-panties!!”

…Well, I suppose ones as wild as Sig offer a certain thrill, or so I’ve heard. And where thrills are, thrillseekers oft be not far behind.

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