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Vol.5, Ch.6, P.10

 

“Ooaa—aah!!”

“Haa—ahh!!”

Heeding neither haemorrhage nor raging pain, I bolted forth and brandished on the shineless sword. Cronheim matched it with temerity, wielding dightly his argent arm. Blades in contest clanged and thundercracked, echoing clear through this corner of the terrace-prospect. But fleetly, Cronheim bounded leftwards, as did I to the right. Parted for but a second, I expelled what little was left in my lungs, intook anew, and threw myself right back into the thick of it—meeting the mareschal as he assayed the very same.

“Buckmann!!”

“Cronheim!!”

Silver and steel locked, released, and lashed; and then locked, released, and lashed again. The end was nigh. With his next bladespell, or the next after that, should Cronheim run dry of all odyl. And come that moment, I would—

“Hgh…!”

I grimaced hard. Amidst the meetings of blades black and bright, I sensed my swordcraft cracking, crumbling away ever increasingly. Slow was I now to answer; heavy was the hilt in my hands. Indeed, what Cronheim lacked now in odyl did I in dear blood, being the first of us to bleed deep. Vein and vessel now throbbing thin, my vision began to twinkle terribly; and in it next was Cronheim, heaving ahigh his white blade and driving it down upon me with full-mustered might.

“Zeeaahht!!”

Bringing up the black, I barred the blow—“Ghe… ghah!”—but the defence nigh-failed as my knees bent and my bones shook. Alarmed, I shirked the exchange and wheeled away; and quickly climbing to my feet, I faced both body and blade back at my opponent.

“Hagh… hahh…”

“Khehh, haah…”

There, we panted and stared in poised contention. Sweat glistened grim upon the both of us, though doubtless mine was the more redly muddled. And as if to add to that misery, my lacerated leg next languished and its knee buckled full, causing me to sway and lean against a pillar to my side. But rather than assail me in my weakness, Cronheim merely gazed on whence he stood.

“Your hour-sand’s sooner spent, I see,” remarked Cronheim, first to catch his breath. And I, yet gasping for mine, could merely reply with a bitter bend of the brows. “But you’ve only yourself to blame,” continued the hero-knight. “Baulking your own body; accepting wounds too soon and too severe—altogether, I’d say you’re almost bled dry, Buckmann.”

“I’ll not deny that, no…” I finally answered, rasping. And the mareschal had it: bruised and ablood though both we were, it was heavily to him that the scales were now tipped. Alas that I had taken to the upper arm a gash from that ghostly bladespell of his; veins of vital size had been severed and left far too long to leak.

“A pity you’re so impoverished of experience, truly,” Cronheim went on. “Whilst I’ve braved battlefields beyond number, you… you weren’t spared much of a chance to begin with, were you?”

“…”

“Hence here you stand: a master of swinging the sword, but a dolt at enduring one.”

A piercing truth, his words. For long and without halt had I trained myself up, sure… but that’d all been assayed in solitude. Thus, absent a practice partner, I’d learnt too little how to limit the harm upon my person. It was without question: compared to Cronheim, I was yet too much of a greenhorn for my own good.

“…Buckmann,” the mareschal began again, though gravely this time. “Hark: I am a blade of Londosius.”

“So I see,” said I. “And?”

“And so am I ill-suffered to strike astray—much less mis-slay the so-called ‘sicarius’. No; for that…”

“…Would steer this war too deep down another way.”

“Precisely.”

Cronheim… at this moment was he airing to me his parting words—to the candle whose flame would very soon fade; and, as well, allow himself one last chance to sear into his memory its final light.

“Forgive me, therefore,” he then said, “and withal this mercy stroke of mine.”

A foot of his stepped sternly forth. Once more was he to deal me the Dēcollāns Ruptūra; once more with all the main and mettle that remained in him. To this darkening hour had I fought it, fended it, and felled it, time and again. But with my body now so wasting and my blood so weeping, such a fatal sword, I feared, was no longer in me to defy.

Nevertheless, I held fast to the length of dragon-black. “Cronheim,” I said, panting, yet purposeful. “I am but a babe’s cheek, true, compared to your battle-hardness. But I’ll have you know: this waif has had his own way to walk… and his own trials to triumph!”

With those words, I roused myself to steadiness, wheeled aback the blade of black—

—and prepared to drive it into the pillar beside me.

“Hn!?” gasped Cronheim, ill-grasping the mind behind the motion. Felling a pillar with but force of arms? Poppycock, he surely reckoned it. But not I. In fact, it very well seemed to me the sole solution.

Mt Godrika; there in its silver-lined stomach had I done battle with the catoblepas. And upon that bedevilled bull had I tripped a trap—the very same I now sought to slip on a bull of a different breed. As foresaid, Cronheim and I stood at present upon a terrace-prospect, wide, pillared, and wholly without wall where we were. And overhead loomed what but the sky-cloaking roof of stone—two supporting pillars whereof had Cronheim already rent unto ruin. But seemingly unbeknownst to the mareschal, it was in leaning against one like pillar during our parley that I’d felt an omen:

That the stones were trembling; that the roof was fain to fail.

 

That were I to topple the pillar beside me, again might I bring about a rain of boulders.

Standing under the clouds whereof was the hero-knight himself.

 

But the true challenge laid ahead. Unlike my foe, I had no such main nor method with which to unmake the sternest of materials. And this pillar that I now so assayed to destroy: it, indeed, was of stone massive and very stern—doubtful a thing to be thrown down by a mere man and his blade.

“Hhwooo—!!”

Yet that stopped me little. For in my hand was no such “mere blade”. No; it was the sword of soot: the ever-trusty slab of wolfsteel, bathed in dragonbreath, unweathered by the passing of uncounted winters.

And what’s more: I, Rolf, am—

 

‘…strong…
…Stronger than anyone else…
…Stronger than you believe…

…So please…
…don’t be afraid…’

 

That’s right! One hopeful child there is! Somewhere over these skies! One who’s trusted full to my strength!

What’s one pillar, then! One paltry pillar! But another thing for this sooted steel and soul to sunder!!

 

“—oooaaahhh!!”

—Baakkhrr!!

 

Blackness bit deep into white marble. Cracks ran and cackled. But the blade was barred. There for an instant, I saw it: stopped acentric within the stone.

And in the next—

 

 

—the black blade blasted through, as though renewed of its rebellious brunt, cleaving cruel the column in two.

Down the hewn height hurled itself. And as its capital was removed from its moorings, so, too, did the entablature and all the terrace at once wuther and wail, echoing with cracks and groans of giving stone. It is so oft the case that when a structure is caused to collapse, it does so with an eagerness to awe the mind. And so did it hold true here: for in not a moment, the section of roof canopying this corner of the terrace voiced a violent cry; and there, off it broke and plunged to the marble below.

“What in…!?” gasped Cronheim amidst the tumult. And in that briefest of moments, I scried both whence and whither he would escape the collapse; and with all speed left in my flagging legs, I flew to dam his destination. And arriving in the nick of time, I spurred my every sinew and assayed a final swing of the soot-steel. And coming hither was Cronheim, quick as wind; but caring too much for the catastrophe falling from above, it was not till late that he looked ahead.

Ahead—to find the black blade bearing now down upon him.

Ahead—to try and flee it; or at the very least, defend it.

But, nay.

 

Blackly the soot-steel flashed. And from its blade and through my arms ran then a rumour: a rumour of rent flesh and bone; a rumour most unmistakable.

 

A rumour of Cronheim’s unmaking.

 

“Ghaugh…!?”

In that small moment, our eyes met.

“…”

“…”

My conscience quickened. Time seemed to stop. And then the world was very silent and very still, that even the rubble raining from above were all of them suspended like stars. And in that stillness stood Cronheim and I. And though our eyes were locked, they each looked not upon this world, but far and away to another: to a world that never came to be.

A world where we were both bosom-friends.

I: a stumbling upstart. He: a hero and a brother.

Indeed, Sir Stefan Cronheim the Unsullied. So fair and courteous of character; so swift and wise of sword, that even to fill each of my days with his tutelage would have ill-sufficed me to absorb it all.

Yes; in such a world did there stand naught to stop the flowering of our fellowship.

In such a world did we stride and strive shoulder-to-shoulder, mirthful all along our ways so intertwined.

This I saw afore my eyes.

Or, at the very least, so it felt to me.

“…”

“…”

But ever is the world too cruel. For as time returned, and all sound screamed again in the ears, and all the air shook and was shrouded, so did that unborn vista vanish behind the mounting mounds of rubble.

With a last leap, I flung myself far aback and watched as white and mighty stones tossed and tumbled, piling themselves into a great heap over Cronheim whence he limply laid. And when all was calm and quiet again, what remained in my view was the grave of a knight once gracious and most gallant.

 
 

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Chapter 6 ─ End

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