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Vol.5, Ch.5, P.3

 

“Hahh…! Haah…!”

Hoarse and hurried are Erika’s breaths. And not only hers—we Reùlingen are all of us wrung dry. For how long has this dire ordeal endured? Of desperate defences and offences; of eluding death by a hair’s width, over and again? This pitched battle boils on about us, bristling by blade and blood, yet its battlers seem all striving far beyond their limits.

Something is soon to snap, I think, with friend and foe both now haggard of gait, their shoulders shrugging with every gasp of air… excepting one soul.

“…”

There betwixt the vying vanguards he stands: the Knight Stefan, serene of respirations, serene of regard, serene of sword and stance… despite having fended off the hundreds of blades brandished his way; despite having navigated the numberless magicks aimed upon him. Altogether ought he be sore-sapped of his strength, the most out of us all, even—only, naught of the sort has befallen him, it seems. No; as fresh as spring new-sprouted he appears still.

But it is not only his stamina that astounds, for yet in his bladespell does our principle peril sit. The Dēcollāns Ruptūra; to this moment does it haunt and harry us with its edge so veiled and voracious. I dare not guess what number lies now beheaded or belimbed by that baleful blade.

Yet, we have not idled in this warring while. Beside our fallen brethren strew now knight-corpses of no small count—a boon of our braves’ dear labours in both offending the foe-van and covering my incantations. And so is the battlefield ablood by sword and scarred by spell; a carnage from which has escaped not even the protectors of the Knight Stefan. Yes, for true: keen and capable though they are, we have reduced their numbers such that their mareschal stands now in scant and scattered company.

I can sense it: the curtains are creeping to a close. The end looms nigh—

—for friend and foe both.

“Walter, hero! Your strength betrays not its songs, I see,” speaks the Knight Stefan from afar. “I must admit: never has craft of spell inspired such a chill in this spine. Indeed, were my men not so disciplined nor so loyal, surely would I dither now from Death’s dark breath.”

As would I, were it not for my own friends—in lieu of such an answer, I assay my next spell.

“Morþnæġl!”

The ground jolts; from the earth, gardens of ice-barbs blast and bloom, plunging the front ranks of the 2nd unto disarray. Not the most uncommon of incantations, this, but by my contrivance is it changed to impale the enemy from below—leg, loin, and lung. Not from this may they flee. Not after I have accustomed them to spells from staff and sky.

The knights lament. Their numbers blench. Some hang suspended—pierced through by up-thrusting spikes of ice. But the Knight Stefan, by the swiftness of his senses, has escaped the spell-assault, springing back into the shadow of his men, there to swing unseen his murder-magick.

“Hyaht!”

“Kkraahh!?”

Now are we to lament. Our braves over-near or too-slow for escape succumb to the Dēcollāns Ruptūra. Once more does blood splash the slopes. Once more are lives lost in wanton war. But then, a truth to chill the heart: for though the slicing spell has passed through the knights themselves, as well, none of them are wounded for it. No, not one knight; not one rill of red to run from their ranks of silver.

I much pride myself in control of spellcraft… but on this day have I met my match—or mayhaps my superior.

“A woe…!” I utter. “He wields his óðilr all too well!”

“Oh? Scried the secret, have you?” notes the Knight Stefan. There, from the foe-ranks he emerges, mild of mien as ever. “I daresay your ken alone earns you your title, Walter hero-wiċċa.”

The secret: that this bladespell of his is no aeolian magick. Hitherto have the masses so perceived it, yes, but I suspect the Knight Stefan has abided the misconception for his own advantage.

Nay; I say it is not the wind that he wields, but an imposition—of space.

Butchering our braves and yet leaving the knights untouched… it is all too clear to me now: from his sword-swing extends a ray-sweep of óðilr, which next nicks atwain the very space wherethrough it passes—and withal whatsoever it intersects. Stone, steel, bone, or sinew; it sunders all, suffering no resistance nor escape.

“Monstrous”, I mark it. Monstrous of might. A magick for massacre. But it is a monster in more ways than one. For true; to control not flame nor wind, nor any mundane element, but instead something so essential as space—such a spell, I surmise, must exact more óðilr than is in any mortal to contain. How, then, is it here to affright us upon this battlefield? To bedight the slopes with our slain? And yet leave its master with not a bead of sweat upon his brow?

The answer is confirmed already by the Man himself: his skillful use of óðilr.

Put plain, the Knight Stefan does not sustain long the space-severing aspect of his magick. Indeed, not even for a moment. He manifests the fissures for the merest instant instead, and only within whatsoever the assault has struck. Fleeting like a flash of lightning; gone like a crack of a fire—that is the Dēcollāns Ruptūra: a blade alive only in the time it has touched its mark. Outside of this span, the spell is but a band of óðilr stretching long and harmless from the bladestroke of its master.

“Harmless”, for that is what óðilr is in its native state. To manifest as phenomena, it must first be instilled with purpose. The genesis of ice or levin, the ensorcellment of arms and armour, the bolstering of the body—bereft of such intention, óðilr is mere incorporeal dust. Of course it is. For how else can our mortal cages suffer to house it? Or palings fail to fence it out, as ours have against the Dēcollāns Ruptūra? Nay, this subtle aspect is set against us to terrifying effects, and thus are we indefensible aface the Knight Stefan, whilst his knights are full-spared from his nefarious spell.

A spell once far beyond one soul to assay. A spell once forbidding its own use. But through assiduous study and practice, of constraining its scale to the scantest, of allowing ample pause between invocations, is it loosed at last upon the battlefield. A monster of a magick, for true, tamed by the singular skill of the Knight Stefan.

Nay… not “skill”. This is “ingenuity”, I concede, of a sort never to grace the common conjurer. But to combine it so with swordcraft most consummate—yes; I see now how this secret has stayed unsolved for so long: for any foe that might have scried it was sooner seduced—and snuffed—by the mareschal’s brazen bladework.

But that streak ends today.

“Erika,” I begin, breaking away from the fray, “we make our gamble here.”

“Very well,” answers Erika beside me. “Let’s hear it.”

How glad; to hear not quip nor complaint, but friendsome confidence. Such is why I yet stand upon the battlefield—for this soul who so believes in me.

“His strength lies in his óðilr,” I explain. “We must confound his use of it somehow. An all-out attack, mayhaps, relentless—and reckless.”

“But too reckless, and we’re butchered,” notes Erika. “Two minutes span between his swings. Can we do it?”

“I can’t trust those ‘two minutes’,” I answer, frowning at our foe. “It’s shorter. Much shorter.”

There’s the rub; that mayhaps we are made to deem two minutes as the mareschal’s limit. Nay, not “mayhaps”; we ought assume deceit to be his game—as though at any moment may he unleash that spell of his.

“Even so, there’s no winning if we keep whimpering. We must make a charge,” I say to Erika. “The dice’re in hand; after his next move, we cast them—I, alongside.”

To that, Erika makes no answer. She might have heard it, I think: the misery, the dismay mingled in my voice. Since our smallest years is it so, that she could see aught I hide in my heart.

“You said the right of it,” I continue. “Too reckless, and we’re fodder for his sword. And like as not, long before those ‘two minutes’ are up.” Still, Erika keeps her silence. Seeing her irresolute, I persist, “All the more reason to storm him, I say. Yes, I know; some… or many of us may end up dead. But better ‘many’ than ‘all’.”

“…For true,” Erika answers at last. “Then a charge it is!”

This ailing sun of a situation seems now dawning upon her. We tarry at this impasse on peril of losing limb and life; what else is left us but boldness?

This is to be a leap of faith, for true—deep into the gaping maw, even. But that is well. When dancing with Death, a bit of desperation may serve best to bring a blade to the beast’s breast.

“Forgive me,” I murmur to Erika.

“No need,” she returns. “I’ve walked far to face this moment—to protect you on this day.”

“Erika…”

Our stares intertwine.

She who has stood ever by my side.

She who has ever delivered me at my darkest hours.

How dear I wish to show such a soul—

—of what an eagle her nestling has become.

 

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