Vol.5, Ch.4, P.6
Battle had broken, too, elsewhere to the east. Within mists limned by the lifting sun, they assayed: the Cutcrowns, locked in bitter combat. Dennis himself fought at their helm, hoting and hewing as he went.
Grey and hard all the mountain was, from which not the barest charity of warmth might have been beseeched. But so swiftly had the battle burgeoned, and so ferociously did the contenders vie, and so lividly did they bark and bellow above each other, that all the drab and drear seemed to hiss with a sweltering heat.
“Oy, blige,” Dennis moaned amidst the butchery. “A bloody shame ’e’s a-came to this.”
A “bloody shame” that fellow Men should shed fellow blood. Albeit was it nary so new a quandary to Dennis. Long had he resisted the realm, and thus long had he drawn steel against the more sullied of his species and watched his weapons run red with their woe. But to bring the struggle now to the battlefield—that was the barb now pricking him, for never before had he endeavoured violence so openly and on such a scale.
Masses of Men all around him; once meek at birth, now to cut and kill at their last—war, indeed, this was, and withal a sight to sallow the heart.
“Chaps against chums—tragic,” Dennis muttered on under his breath. Beside and behind him were his Cutcrown accomplices; fiercely afore him were the Champions Salvator. Brothers bearing different banners, but brothers all the same. How—why had it come to this?
Londosius itself had arisen from resistance, had it not? In confronting the Nafílim, its forebears had gathered, gained strength, and broken ground on the selfsame country. Such was the story of Londosius—a land founded upon defiance of the Nafílim.
And now on this distant day were its sons made to slay one another. On and on, the battle boiled, never any nearer to an answer, but only ever asking the same question in syllables of swords and slaughter.
“A wicked an’ wily place ’e be, this world!” Dennis sighed with a sundering swing.
Easy and sneering he sounded, yet his words had spoken precisely his heart. He wished not for war. Were peace a path unbarred, treading it first and foremost would have been his own two feet. Yet, bubbling ever in the back of his mind would be the tragedies of days past. Tragedies wrought upon himself, upon his family—upon every corner of Londosius even to this moment. These he would not forgive. These he would fight to end. And thus fight he did, even whilst knowing in his heart the corner of hypocrisy into which he was driven.
That to wage war as he did was to wield tragedy itself.
“Whup!”
“Khah…!”
There—with a winding of his body, Dennis: eluding a Salvator sword and answering with a swing of his own. Odyl gusted; blade bit; down fell his foe.
A scene rather astounding to the unacquainted eye, perhaps. Having retired from mercenary work to lead mercenaries and renegades in turn, these days found Dennis more behind the desk than daring danger in the face. Yet he had been, in his time, a soldier of fortune famed and feared, a household name known in every cot and corner of Artean. Indeed, many a year there were yet before his blade would rust. Why, by Frieda’s own admission, Dennis in his prime would have proved no match for Dennis of the present.
Of course, no longer did he display the vim and vehemence of his bygone days. But there is something to be said about the reward of many winters weathered A strength too subtle for the outsider’s eye, sprouting only after so illustrious a career and so perilous a life lived as his. Sharp and shrewd Dennis had become; crafty as a fox and discerning as a snake. Above all, however, he had become earthfast of emotion, that he could sustain a serene aspect even as the battlefield about him danced mad with death.
All told, he was yet a man mild and measured. “Death seems not to move you, Dennis,” one might compliment him, to which he would—nay, must reply with a look of plain displeasure. Certainly had he seen the perishings of men uncountable and himself meted many a mortal wound upon his enemies. But that meant little that the passings of souls did not stir him. No; it simply meant that he had resigned to their solemn acceptance.
“Dennis!” came a cry. “These Salvators—there’s a smell ’bout ’em I don’t love! Foul! Fishy-like!”
There beside him she fought: Frieda the freelance. And to him, her remark was no riddle. The Champions Salvator were whom they fought, zealots renowned for their bristling rosters of sorcerers. Yet sure enough, what was it but weapons and weaponcraft that the Salvators here now wielded, and to a majority, at that.
“Aye, they be a-split, methinks!” answered Dennis. “Swords an’ spears ’ere! Staves an’ spells elsewhere!”
Frieda cocked her head. “I’ll be damn’d…”
A development passing strange, and to this ragtag force of freedom fighters and fortune hunters, perhaps a disparaging one. Even so, neither Dennis nor Frieda clutched their hilts in indignance. Never had they the hubris for it, to begin with. In fact, Dennis himself could not help but betray a smile.
“Well, they judged aright, I’ll give ’em that,” he conceded. “Riffraff, they reckon us. An’ riffraff we be, certain enough!”
And unto that riffraff leader now lunged a pair of spears, intent upon heart and belly. Dennis’s eyes glinted. His steel blade whistled. A clash! And astray went one spear, its neck-hewn wielder pitching to the ground.
“Ghakh!”
“Hwarh!?”
A twice-come cry; falling with the first foe now was the second, freshly stabbed by Frieda’s swift riposte. That she would handle the threat was a thing well-trusted to by Dennis. Being a belaboured leader, ever was it his motto to “take it easy” when- and wheresoever he could. Yet, going by the sour glance she then shot upon him, the freelance herself seemed ill-impressed. Had she not acted to expectation, surely would Dennis be coldening now with all the other corpses at their feet. But with an “all’s well that ends well” look upon his face, the master of mercenaries smirked.
“Gurt kind o’ thee, givin’ these ol’ bones a break!” he teased, despite the mere twoscore summers of his life. Like many others of his ripe age, the retired warrior was ever wont to make jest of his “old bones”, and oft to the chagrin of his fellows, no less. Frieda was hardly an exception as her patience found itself piqued by that habit of his. After all, young or old, hale or ill—the grim scythe discriminated not. No; not upon so fey a place as the battlefield.
Yet to Dennis, it was a thing hard-helped. Why, that Frieda was proving so dependable a partner was itself leaving him rather conscious of his accumulated years. A winter seems all the greyer to the greenery of spring to follow, it is said, which Dennis was not one to deny. Not when presented with so fleet and flowing a blade as Frieda’s. Most certainly, it felt to him only like yesterday when her uncallused hands could scarce lift a hilt—or when she herself was a firebrand fumbling and foolhardy.
In those years, he had glimpsed in the fledgeling Frieda something of a spiteful spark for her male compeers, and withal a hard-dented belief that recklessness was more virtue than vice; that without risking life and limb, never could she make a name for herself. Such was the way with many a woman in the mercenary world: talented and undeterrable, they rush headlong, that one day may they hold them high. In Frieda’s case, however, hers might have sooner fallen off the shoulders had she maintained her momentum.
But nay. Wiser counsels prevailing, Frieda had flowered instead into the very visage of valour, standing here and now at the precipice of historic change to help bring this world over the brink. Yes; Frieda had turned out just fine, and to Dennis, there was no better solace.
“Oy, less simp’rin’, more smitin’!” his junior chided him. “This battle won’t win itself!”
And yet Dennis did not stop simpering. No; in fact, he even dared to beam ever more brightly. For fraught with her own scars though Frieda was, still did she hold her head high and hew her fears and foes strong. What was it that kept her so anchored? And her flame so fuelled? One cause came to Dennis in a whisper: “Rolf”. And there, the elder and guardian to the flowering freelance felt upon his shoulders a new debt to be paid. And only too glad to open the purse, he let loose another lash of his blade.
“Hhut!”
But not before eluding an enemy assault. Over his nose a sword swing sailed as he bent nimbly back. For her part, Frieda proved no less lithe and lethal, and altogether were they a combination to behold, and a threat throbbing in the enemy’s mind besides. Enough, it is certain, that an answer was needed, and soon.
“There! Those two yonder! The weasel and his woman!”
A figure flowed through the Salvators, guided by their embattled barks. Before long, it appeared square afore the infallible duo: a single man, medium of height and build, and a seeming equal to Dennis in his years. And dangling freely from his hand was a sword—a length of silver steeped in mercenary blood.
“Oi, where’s your Sacrāmentum gone, eh?” a nearby Salvator pressed from him.
“Back on the leash where it belongs. Where else?” the man answered passingly. “Not in the wrangling mood today, I’m not.”
An easy conversation. But to Dennis’s ears, it was a frigid foreboding. For this he knew: that in the Quire’s armouries, there slept a selection of weapons without peer. The “Sacrāmenta” they were called, some whereof were surely to be found upon this mountain. What the man presently wielded did not seem of one such weapon, to be sure, but that the man himself was suffered to wield it was enough to give Dennis much pause.
“Sven’s the name,” the man greeted him. “Pleasure.”
Dennis’s smirk revived. “Well, well. What’ve we got ’ere? A gentle?” he remarked, before bowing with an unbroken stare. “Call me Dennis. An’ me daughter ’ere: Frieda.”
“Whose daughter, now?” the freelance objected.
Doubtless was this an exchange more mete for a fête or function, yet in his heart, Dennis sighed. He had rejoiced at being unmatched with the enemy’s main force of sorcerers, but it seemed the time for taking it easy would have to wait. “Sven” was scarce a name unknown to him and his circles, and were it in the cards, he would like to have never met the man. But nevertheless, the hand was dealt, and he knew that not without wound could he baulk a battle with the Salvator’s mightiest swordsman.
───────── ∵ ─────────
Comment (0)