Vol.5, Ch.2, P.7
“Ghih…!! Nghaaa—aah!!”
A scream, lone and muffled.
Like a beast dislimbed it sounded, slashing down the dark-marble corridor and stabbing deep into Emilie’s ears.
“Mercy…” she murmured, mournful, “…not again.”
Through that corridor she walked, wading against the wailing. The residential floor this was, a stately hall of housing for the leadership of the 5th. Yet of late, it seemed more an insane asylum.
Unaccompanied, the 5th mareschal continued her way, till at length, she stood afore a forlorn door, and taking a deep breath, gave it a lifeless knock. “I’m here,” she announced, “your dear Emilie’s here.”
She opened the door and entered, awaiting no answer. The formality was long made futile, for inside the room was but a single, unresponding soul: Sheila Larsen, laying flat upon a dishevelled bed, breathing in thin and grating wheezes. Her eyes were wide and haunted. Her left hand raked and groped. Yet those fingers, despite their effort, could find naught but empty, empty air—
—whence her right arm once existed.
“Hhah… haeh…!” she rasped, reaching for that which had been sundered from her shoulder. “Ah… hgh, khah! Aaa—ah!!”
For six moons had Sheila lived with her loss, the early days whereof had seen her of mind most unsound, to put it gently. Of late, however, a measure of peace had been returning to her at last. Albeit would there be days such as this, when Sheila would be assailed by pangs of a phantom pain—when the ghost of her arm would howl with hurt.
“Hah… ah, ghh…!!” Sheila struggled on.
How it stung. How it burnt. Yet this was no fire fueled by infection or frayed nerves, but rather, by a shame remembered. Hers a wound most woeful, to be sure. But as it is with many others similarly marred, such suffering ought subside with time. Indeed, though each road be special in its span, they all share one destination: acceptance and acclimation.
Such solace, however, never visited Sheila for long. Too oft in its stead would be enmity, seizing her and setting aflame her lungs such that out of them would come naught but hateful screaming. For in her heart and in her eyes would that night of sundering spring back to life, and there shawl her in shame at having fallen to the ungraced, to him who ought be a barrel-bottom dreg, to him whom she had scorned through all the long summers of their association.
That day, that night. So certain had Sheila been in her superiority, in the promised victory at hand, that in her pity, she fancied meting mercy upon her sad and sooted prey. Yet, as though to spite her outstretched hand, that man, that fool, had outright refused the safe surrender so offered to him. Thus, if not mercy, then discipline; deciding next that he should be shown the reality of his situation, unto him had Sheila loosed a squad of no less than ten elite knights, each made all the mightier by the miracles of her magicks. Their opponent, meanwhile, had numbered but one. Who might blame her, then, for taking her hand for a winning one? For having been so fain to lay it down and then to hear from the ruined ungraced a grovelling plea for his own life?
None, surely. And yet.
And yet…
They had stood not a chance.
Not the knights. Not Sheila’s magicks.
In fact, it was so that as her men shielded her with their very lives, Sheila, rent of arm, had scuttled away with her own. Shame, indeed.
Never should this have happened. Never is this nightmare to be believed. No fair and fertile faithful of Yoná ought deserve such a defeat. And to assure herself of this, at times would Sheila reach for her right arm… only to find there her reality, gaping cold and empty like a void. And then would her mind flood with fire, with fury for the man of her unmaking. And ever would he gaze back at her, his unblinking eyes black with rebellion.
Sheila quaked now by the vigour of her rancour. But in that fury of hers was hid a fear for that man. Oh, indeed, fear. Unwilling to accept it, however, the surgien merely suffocated the thought with more and more fire.
“Gh…! Hhmmnghh…!” she groaned, as though enduring fresh torture.
Sat beside the bed, Emilie placed a hand upon her friend’s sweat-beaded brow. “Oh, Sheila…” she uttered, her voice filled with care and concern for her waning companion.
This was a sight most sorrowful to Emilie. Yet one comfort remained in the gleaning of it: that here, Sheila was still alive—that on that night, Sheila had not been killed. And for Emilie, that was a priceless palliation, one pouring down right into her heart.
That palliation, that relief, in truth, was not solely for Sheila’s survival. For were Sheila not here in this bed, and instead long-fallen to Rolf’s blade—were she killed by a companion of five years, fraught though they may have been—then would it now be Emilie herself faced with a hard acceptance: that Rolf is, beyond all doubt, an enemy to be felled in turn.
Long since had Londosius made such a determination. Emilie, on the other hand, had looked away from that chilling truth for just as long.
Surely, someday, she would always brokenly think, someday, he… we… I…
Not yet was she ready to let go. Not ever was she willing. The dream—so close at hand it seemed to her, all the more so with Sheila yet drawing breath afore her very eyes. The life of her friend, keeping lit the candle in her heart; for it was Emilie grateful beyond words.
“Curse yeeuuu…!” Sheila aimlessly hissed, weak and voiceless. “Curses…! Cursesss…!!”
Whatsoever would this suffering surgien think, were she enlightened to Emilie’s present heart? Perhaps the answer would be long in coming. Being ever oblivious to any mind that might measure her fate fortuitous rather than foul, it was all Sheila could do to weave on and on her quilt of rancour, to drench herself in curtains of cold sweat, to clench and gnash her foaming teeth.
“Sheila…” Emilie said, after being beside her companion for as long as she could bear, “I must go now. Be good… and be well, yes?”
A remedy was beyond Emilie to give. This, she knew all too well. The storm of spite so raging in the surgien… all that could be done for it was to wait it out. And so, disheartened, Emilie rose and left the room.
“Haa…” she sighed, closing the door behind her. Once more would this corridor echo with screams. Once more would Sheila be left to languish and agonise all alone.
Why must this be so?
How did this come to be?
Meanwhile did such questions echo in the corridors of Emilie’s mind. How many times they had done so was a thing long forgotten to her. Steeped in dark thoughts, Emilie then began walking her way out, but upon emerging into the vestibule at the end of the corridor, she was presently met by a figure waiting right afore her.
“Mareschal Valenius,” it called to her.
Emilie looked up and lowly gasped. For a moment, she thought this some illusion or the sum of the day’s stresses playing tricks upon her eyes and ears. Her addresser, sure enough, was one she never expected to walk these halls—let alone the grounds of the 5th itself.
Hair like rose-tinted twilight glimmered against the afternoon glow.
Eyes like a golden dawn gazed back, grave and graceful.
A heroic beauty to behold: the Lady Estelle Tiselius, Dame Mareschal to the 1st Order. And in her company was the Knight Under-Mareschal Francis Behrmann, standing straight and stern behind his superior.
“Pray pardon the surprise. I fancied paying a visit after suffering Central yet again, you see,” Estelle explained herself.
“A… ah, yes,” said Emilie, stolen of all words. To be sure, the 5th’s home of Norden was a neighbour to the royal capital; for the 1st’s mareschal to come by on her way home, then, was scarce suspicious… if not for the fact that, as far as Emilie knew, never before had Estelle done so. There must be some reason for this occasion, therefore; that much was very clear to her.
“…”
“…”
In silence they stood, staring at each other in the eyes, till at last, Emilie could bear it no further.
“W-well,” she said, before asking bluntly, “what is it?”
Or, were she just as bold, why must you be here?
“Tidings, fair Mareschal,” answered Estelle. “To wit: we the 1st are bidden to battle.”
“Battle?”
“The very next: at Isfält.”
Almost audibly, Emilie caught her breath. Isfält: southern neighbour to Former Tallien, and as well, to where the war councils predicted next the Nafílim would march. A territory vital to both Crown and Quire, battle was soon to break upon its sacred soil; a great and decisive battle, at that, one to surely host the rebel Rolf—and now withal: the hero-dame and her high knights of the 1st.
“Is… is that so,” Emilie remarked, barely containing her dread.
“’Tis indeed,” said Estelle. “I thought to apprise you—personally.”
“O-oh, well, you shouldn’t have,” was Emilie’s empty courtesy, to which Estelle answered with both silence and a piercing, probing stare. The junior mareschal could but endure it in turn, her lips tight and her mind tumbling. What did Estelle stand to gain from giving such “tidings”? Try as she might, Emilie could not guess why. Not in the least.
“How very curious,” Estelle broke her silence, “that you say so little.”
“…Pardon?” Emilie returned.
“The times, they are a storm abrew. And yet, what does the Mareschal Valenius think to do amidst its wuthering winds?” Estelle said sternly. “Naught but wait. Wait and wait, on and on. For the outcome she so covets. For a return to times sweet and innocent—say, of the likes of her childhood.”
Emilie snapped. “How dare y…!” But there, she stopped herself. At first, for an instant, she flustered with indignance. But that indignance turned next to embarrassment, and by that, it was now impossible to hide her heart, much less mount any debate. Defeated, Emilie cast down her eyes.
Estelle sighed greyly at the sight. It was then that Francis stepped forth to her side and spoke his first words here.
“Mademoiselle,” he whispered, “perhaps we have overstayed our welcome.”
“Perhaps, indeed,” answered Estelle, and staring as yet at Emilie, announced, “pardon, fair Mareschal. ’Twas brief, but we shall take our leave here. Good day to you.”
Turning, the two visitants began their exit. Emilie, watching them now recede, then somehow mustered such courage as she could and unleashed it from her lungs.
“Y… you mean to submit!?” she cried. “To him!? To Rolf!? Is that it!?”
A question quite unexpected—and rather ridiculous, at that. But to Emilie, the possibility of it—of Estelle sooner flying to Rolf’s side than felling him in battle—seemed all too tangible.
“…Would I?” Estelle asked back, stopping and serving Emilie only a sidelong look. The latter, for her part, felt full the power in her senior’s two words—too fully, in fact, that she could scarce summon an answer of her own; the previous courage was all but spent, it seemed. “…I am a dame, my fair Mareschal,” Estelle stated at length, “a woman oathbound to King and Country.”
As if to impress upon Emilie the weight of her words, Estelle then turned wholly to her junior and reignited her golden gaze. How small, how insignificant Emilie felt against such fire. But humouring no more mercy, Estelle continued on.
“Therefore to no foe shall I submit,” she declared, “so long as hilt be yet in hand; so long as sword can yet be swung. Such was my vow when the blade was tapped upon these shoulders—a vow absolute, unsunderable.”
Turning once again, Estelle then strode away. Emilie watched her as ever she went, and there began to ponder. The next battle was to be a colossal clash, spanning no less over an entire mountain. It was, therefore, but a faint chance that ever could Rolf and Estelle meet upon the battlefield.
Still, Emilie thought, no matter how they might meet… be it in battle big or small… I know, nay, I’m certain that—
“‘He whom I love shall lose never to you’,” echoed Estelle’s voice. “Not even that you care to say?”
Emilie was left aghast. Those words. Those departing words—like the stroke of a blade they were. And receipt of them, Emilie realised it at last.
That by the hero-dame was she despised.
And left to brood upon it, she stood there in the now-empty vestibule, staring blankly down as dusk began to darken the marble floor.
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