Vol.4, Ch.5, P.7
Fire.
Licking and curling all about where I’d fallen: fume upon fume, fire after fire.
Holding hard the soot-steel, I swung it flatwise, blasting away ember and umbre brume both. And there I saw more fires still, each raking away at this second storey room. Once a sanctuary it was to me, books and records all, when the fort was yet my charge. But now was no time for remembrance, for turning about, I sighted knights loitering anear. Shimmering in the shining heat, the men stood there, dumbstruck, each clutching in his hand some paper or scroll.
Excepting one.
In his was a sword.
A gleaming blade pointed down…
…at a small child tearfully cowering against a wall.
A child whom I knew all too well.
“…”
What an evil vista to behold. But in so doing, the purest rage arose in me.
Yes. I know. “Never give in to rage,” it is said. “Reason saves the soldier; wrath tempts the reaper”—words of wisdom recalled time and again, in tale after cautionary tale. And long had I lived by them.
…Till today.
On this day must I don the blindfold.
And let wrath take the reins.
Slowly, steadily, I filled my lungs. “Mia…” I said. “Close your eyes.”
And ever as she stared at me, the poor girl did as I asked, shutting without word or hesitation her eyes of amber. All the while, the knight afore her, whose sword point was yet pressed against her bosom, twisted his face in fury.
“Rebel…!” he hissed. “Come, have you!? Ro—”
I had not the slightest concern for what this hound had to say. But as for his sword, his fangs…
Three passūs. The perfect distance.
One crossed instantly as I heaved the black blade up from down low, lopping off the knight’s wicked limb without mercy. Away it flew, an arm yet clutching its sword, bidding goodbye to its body that now fell flat on its back.
“—ghah…!? Aakh…!!” the knight yelped, aghast at his gushing wound, as two of his fellows charged in with blades of their own.
Devils, them. What deed had they in mind, to besiege with weapons of war an innocent child?
Glare-eyed, I turned to the two attackers, and with all thews thundering, loosed upon them a lengthwise sweep of my own weapon. Through one knight it shot, shearing him in twain, armour and all. But the blade of black stopped not there: exiting the bloodspill, it charged into the other knight, striking him straight and blunt. Through my hands rang the crack and crunch of bones as his body vanished from sight, being flung headlong into and through the far wall.
Timbers broke; flames billowed. “Hwooaah!? Ooaaa—ahh!!” And in them howled the knight as the heat devoured him whole.
Yet this ire, the wrath: neither rest nor relent was it allowing me. No, this breath, this one burning, bellowing breath—in my lungs it yet remained; with it could I still swing mad the sable sword. And so, breaking not this flow of violence, I bolted forth.
—Zrrgh! Brakkh!
So splintered the floorboards, fain to fail beneath my stampeding feet.
But I cared not.
Up rose the unshining sword and down it plunged. The knight afore me could not muster an answer—bladed blackness had sundered him whole, from bosom to belly. Thick red erupted from him, blood and life both, and down he foundered. In his place sprang three more knights, their silver arms and armour shimmering crimson from the fires all around, their eyes twitching hot and bright, their voices barking brave. This inferno, this hell—it was invigorating them. But to me, it seemed more a funeral pyre they would soon share.
With a twist of my body, I eluded their first sword; swinging up the soot-steel, I sent the second flying; and with a sweep, the third was turned wholly away. Staying their combined assault in less than a second, I gave them their answer just as swiftly.
A head: cloven clean.
A torso: scythed through.
Heart and hands: hewn asunder.
The floorboards tremoured. Over them, flesh and silver spilt. Turning away from the three corpses, I expelled from my lungs the last of their air and ire.
“Hooaa—ah…”
Seven slain in a single breath. Only three remained. With flames bright behind them, they stared back, surveying the space leading up to me. From the 3rd they hailed, the same pedigree as the men back at the Tallien manor—no weaklings they were, indeed. Yet I heeded it not. I was full-wroth, and in my eyes, they were soon to be dead.
But… how very strange this was. “Enmity leads the sword astray,” it is also said. And yet did the path afore me seem more straight than ever, the world clearer than crystal. It was then that I remembered it: to most souls does rage blind and burn like wildfire, but to a seldom few, it icens their hearts and hones keen their eyes to a frigidness.
Still, though I felt it curious that I should sort with the latter, I did not let it wither away the winter within me. No; I clenched my hands and brandished again the black sword.
“Aagmfh!?” so haltingly screamed a knight, who, in assailing me, had met instead a blade to his head. Through helm and skull it clove, halving them clean. But at once, I kicked the corpse away and darted backwards, avoiding the thrusts of two silverswords, before pouncing back in straightway with a thrust of my own. The retaliation found its mark: armour failed, flesh ripped, spine snapped—now did but one knight remain.
Though I could not see him, I sensed the greed in his eyes as they espied an opportunity: my sword was stuck, and he was right behind me.
Thus did this final foe aim his executioner’s stroke upon my nape. The air hissed, heralding the blade’s approach. But with mine yet lodged in a knightly corpse, I stooped low, letting the silver assault pass over my pate.
Anger verily emitted from this knight’s sword; a searing eulogy for his lost fellows, each and all butchered as common beasts at slaughter. Indeed, dearly did he desire my death, that the very hatred in him felt hotter than the flames about us now as it seethed down my back.
Yet it cowed not the coldness in me. Full-steeping these arms of mine in my own wrath, I unleashed a sundering sweep—“Dyaah!!”—wrenching the soot-steel free from dead flesh in the same motion.
Airborne embers fled in fright from the benighted blade. Soot filled that void: a silk-black crescent now passing clear through the knight’s bosom. Blood belched, body broke—the man fell to his knees, then to his face, and was for ever silent.
“…Hoouh…”
I exhaled again, relieving my lungs of its air and my heart of its wrath. The snows melted, the winter passed—warmth was coming back to me. Looking to the side, I found huddled there the holder of my guiding promise, hands clasped tight at her breast, eyes yet shut.
To her I went, and kneeling down, I called her name, “Mia…”
“…ah…” she gasped, and opening her eyes at last, gazed waveringly up at me. And in her amber regard, I saw not myself… but another man, silver and red, rising to his feet. I turned.
There he was, livid and missing a limb: the knight first to fall to my fury.
“Hgh… hegh…!” he wheezed, hoarse and hateful. “M… maggot…! Filth and all…!”
“…a-aah…” whimpered Mia, trembling.
Drawing myself up, I faced the knight. “Worry not,” I whispered back to Mia, whom I shielded behind me. Indeed, I dared not ask her if she was well; solace was what she needed instead, and so solace I gave her. “Answer me this, you,” I said sternly to the knight, “who’s your mastermind? Behind abandoning Juholt? Behind assaulting Balasthea?”
He who devised this scorched-earth campaign; he who assayed to sever us from Hensen, to bleed us dry and leave us to our fate—that we should scratch a living off of rocks, and sneak, and steal, and steep ourselves in the very sins we sought to vanquish… and at the last, see us divested of all right to wage this war.
Who he was, I needed to know. We would lock horns soon enough, I foresaw, but better to spot first the serpent in the bushes than let it spring upon us at unawares.
“You sick and slithering sicarius, you…!” the knight seethed. “M… mark my words…! A thousand defeats shall be yours…! A thousand…!”
“And who’s to hand me them?” I said back. “The mind that’s ordered the pillaging of the papers here, is it?”
Burning all about us now was Balasthea’s repository. And the knights laying dead here—they were hardly come for reprieve from the fighting outside. No; they were come to take, I’ll not doubt. Or nay… perhaps they had already taken them: my records, my writings, aught and all that might give insight into my warcraft.
And he that had given the very command… he had his priorities straight, I’ll give him that. Yes. The mastermind, the backstabber, the confiscator—they were all of them one singular soul, like as not—and leader to these very knights.
—Grrakkh… khwogh…
The air blasted. Fires billowed, timbers toppled—the floorboards behind the knight had all given way, sinking and disappearing into the lower floor, like a hole to hell opening up with a flaming belch. But the knight himself flinched not in the least. He seemed free from all fear, like a soldier standing fey upon the battlefield, knowing that the earth at his feet was to be his grave.
With broken breaths the knight laughed. “…Oh, I… I’m… very sorry, Sir Erik…” muttered he. “…It seems… this candle… is soon snuffed…”
My brows furrowed. “‘Erik’?”
“Pray… Sir Erik…” the knight rambled on, delirious, “…pray, unto this land…” There, in the midst of his ramblings, I recalled the man I met at the Erbelde three years past: Sir Erik Lindell, Owlcrane Lieutenant to the 1st. Was it him all along? Was this all his doing? “…Unto Sacred Londosius… return the Rightwise Light…” the knight wheezed. “Sir Erik…! Oh, Yoná be with you…!”
I’ll be damned… This knight: all this time, he’d fought for a gem of a belief. Belief in his Deiva, of course, but also belief in another man—a mundane, flesh-bound, mortal man. And out of what but unbending loyalty.
Yet such chivalry seemed to me naught more than a product of piety gone rogue, a strain of zealotry offering him and his a purpose perfect beyond reckoning… and a will to die even for its slightest furtherance.
Fanatics.
If such be our foes, then we had best watch our backs.
“I’ll tell you… my dear bedder-with-devils…” said the knight, smiling. “My master… he sees all… Vast be his board, many be his pieces… of which I am but one… A pawn, left to make its last move…”
The knight stooped down, and with the red and slippery fingers of his remaining hand, took from the floor his silversword. And slowly, he raised it aloft and resolute. Keeping Mia well behind me, I poised mine in answer.
“But that…” he said, “…that is well and good… Yes… all well and good!” At that, the knight lunged unto me. Looking at him square in the eyes, I lunged right back and swung the sword of soot. Silver flashed, but blackness swallowed it swift; when all was bright again, blood sprang from the side of the knight’s neck. “…Ghahh…” he gasped, and there he pitched, twisted, and tumbled down onto his back. The floorboards rocked; the fires roared.
“…”
Silently, I stared at his wide-eyed corpse, and withal his stilled companions lying all about. The battle here was ended. Shutting my own eyes for a moment, I yielded a deep sigh, sheathed my blade, and turned. There to greet me was a regard, awed and amber.
“Mia…” I said, and beheld the girl slowly standing to her feet, but giving no answer as yet. The fires around us, once dancing mad to the beat of battle, now seemed tame and content, as though in restraint for some unknowable reason.
Coming upon Mia, I saw then in her clear eyes many flickering reflections of fire… and in them was myself: a man, steeped in soot.
Thinking on it, she, too, was branded a soot-steeped alga when we had first met in the dark alleyways of Arbel. A whole life ago it seemed—a long, wearied life.
But warmed by old memories, I knelt afore Mia, stretched out a hand, and there placed a palm upon her cheek. It was all I knew to do, sensing somehow that this would best soothe her.
“…ah…”
Leaving her lips: a tiny voice, pricking the play of flame and war. Ah, that’s right, I thought. Already we’ve shared this same moment moons ago, haven’t we? How uninspired of me.
Then, as though having mustered her courage, Mia spoke. “…Master…”
“‘Rolf’.”
“…what…?”
At last.
At long last could she know my name.
“It’s ‘Rolf’, Mia,” I said. “I am ‘Rolf’.”
“…Rolf…” she whispered, and passing by my hand, Mia drew close, wrapped her tiny arms about me, and gave as tight an embrace as she could. “…Rolf… Herr Rolf…!” she cried into my bosom.
And taking her into my own arms, I uttered back the name of the little girl who’d given me light when all seemed lost: Mia. And like a bird chirping back under the last light of evening, she uttered mine in turn.
“…uu… auu… Herr Rolf…”
“The terror—I am sorry,” I said, feeling her tears starting. “But I am here now. All is well.”
And there, I felt more strongly the strength of her embrace. “…Herr Rolf…! …oh, Herr Rolf…!” she wept, on and on, above the flames and deep into my heart.
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