Vol.5, Ch.6, P.3
To my side Sig strutted, eyeing Sven and Cronheim all the while with a crass sneer.
“Another inbreaker?” snarled Sven. “And not on account of stealth, I reckon…”
The Salvator’s regard, once so locked upon this rebel of black, bent now upon Sig with brows hard and wary. Indeed; precisely as he implied, Sig was no sore thumb amongst us: strong he was, and savagely so.
“Oh? All right, then—you,” Sig curtly declared, pointing sword and stare at Sven. “You’ll do.”
And like a spring released, he pelted forth and fired unto Sven a champing maw of a swing. The Salvator endured the sudden brunt, but after locking blades for but a second—“Hup!”—he withdrew sidewise with a jolt.
By the look of his twisting brows, it seemed Sven had not expected so eager a pounce—nor an opponent of sinews superior to his. And so, as though to buy more time to measure his new enemy, the Salvator sprang ever further away. But not one to let escape his prey, Sig swiftly gave chase, and before I knew it, the two were receding thither into the terrace premises.
The battle lines were thus drawn, it so appeared. Sig against Sven; I against Cronheim. As to why Sig would select the Salvator to vie with, I had not the foggiest, but so much the better: Sven’s was a cutthroat swordcraft, the sort to frustrate bladesmen of method such as myself. Luckily, Sig’s savagery ought prove just the trick.
Only, there was yet the Sacrāmentum to worry about.
“Sig! Ware yourself!” I shouted down the terrace spans. “His sword—its power mends him full!”
“…Ah…!? ‘Full’…!? Get out o’ it…!” echoed Sig’s distant disbelief. But somehow I knew: that coupled with those words was a wild, fang-filled smile. Leaving him to his devices, I next turned to my own opponent, one whose prowess was no less preposterous. Yet I fretted little. Indeed, I would not lose to him. Not here. Not today.
“Back on your feet already?” said Cronheim. “My, what a marvel you are. You—and your friend both.”
Verily, it was thanks to this feral friend of mine that I was finally above water. Walter’s death was a dire blow to the bosom, to be sure, but as I poised straight the black blade and fixed my eyes upon the foe to be felled, I felt all doubt in me die at once.
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“Sigmund”—or “Sig” as he was now called—had never been the birthname of the man himself. Oh, for certain; with another had his begetters baptised their babe. But that was a sound and a scene now long lost to time. As for “Sigmund” itself, it was but an ekename, a brand burnt into the man sometime, somewhere along the mists of his street urchin years. He had the humble sign of an unplaced tavern to thank for it, if memory serves. The Sop & Bitter – By Sigmund it might have been, or perhaps Sigmund’s Sotting Sty. Something like that. It was all a haze to him.
Sigmund the stuck-name. Sigmund the morsel-snitch.
Sigmund the motherless.
No more contrary could those yellowed years have been to Rolf’s gilt and golden own. For where the rebel once boasted of a brick and marble abode, little Sigmund had for himself but a makeshift shack, a haphazard pile of splintered planks, all tucked away between the windless tenements of Tallien. And during those dank and dire times, he recalled, there had passed him by not one glance of pity nor a crumb of concern. Indeed, as with a tossaway rag or a bit of wayside rubbish, it had well-seemed the boy’s fate to curl up and colden upon that tiny corner of the world.
But now was he a man full-grown. A man to topple a mountain and put to rights the world that had wronged him so—and by whose side but the castaway Rolf’s. Never would he admit it, but in truth, ever since he had joined the rebel’s cause, Sigmund sensed sprouting in himself an emotion not once felt before in all his life: that being what one might call “thrill”.
Bright and brave, like a new adventure it was: a journey, a march to battle, all to bring decency and esteem to a world in waste. And thankfully, his contributions thereof had not been in vain. There afore him did it bloom and was blooming still: the buds of betterment—of change.
Yes; all the world was now a field in flower, it well-seemed to Sigmund. A new world to which he was ushered by Rolf. Oh, how fraught and yet how fruitful had the following been. Battle after battle it was, all brought upon their common motherland; fiefdoms were felled, one after another; the seas of establishment long-stagnant, stirred now to a fiery foam. And in hurrying at the head of the charge, Sigmund now found himself where but atop Déu Tsellin. Indeed, upon the holy mountain itself, so very precious to every Yonaistic heart. And deeper still had he transgressed the sacred ground—into the Dēlūbrum, diadem to crag and Quire both, where at this moment was he swinging his sword wild and free.
Incredible. Inconceivable. To so stand upon the spearhead of history. It seemed to Sigmund only like yesterday when he was yet a mercenary, battling day-by-day to fill his belly. Albeit, much more still was sure to lie ahead: more battles and more blood. And so did he oft wonder: whither was he going? What awaits him down this warlike way?
Whither exactly was that black rebel whisking him?
Sigmund could scarce contain his excitement. Whether for the answer soon to come, or for the vistas soon to be seen. The world—it may be changed. It may. The thought alone was enough to turn his own world on its head. And oh, what sheer delight it brought him; that ever as he brandished his beastly sword, he would utter under his panting breath, “Show me! Show me more! It’s nigh—I smells it!”
Clang! brang! grack! echoed the bladed violence through the void that was the expansive terrace-prospect. Contrary to Sigmund, however, Sven was not so joyous, for whereas Rolf’s had been a sword of discipline, his new opponent’s was more frenetic than the ficklest of winds—a sure difficulty for the Salvator.
Still, not for naught was Sven a sword-devout: weaving in between the gaps of Sigmund’s rampage, he loosed a thrust swifter than the eye could see. But being quick of instinct, Sigmund swerved from the stab, answering all the while with a whip of his sword. For an instant, their blades passed each other by, as boats upon a still sea; and in the next, the air blew as each swordsman broke and bounded aback from the other. And upon their landing, blood dripped from them both: Sigmund with his lacerated shoulder; Sven with his shorn breast. Each wound was a straight line, and grim to behold.
Only…
…soon was Sigmund bleeding alone.
For in a blink, Sven’s wound had woven itself shut, the skin beneath the gashed gambeson betraying nary a trace of injury.
Sigmund’s lids lifted wide. “Bloody ’ell,” he rasped in remark. “Now this shite-world’s shown me ev’rything.” But despite his words, the savage swordsman felt it again: the thrill, for not even in his most fevered dreams had he faced before so fantastical a foe. Far, indeed, had this rebellion brought him. Far, indeed.
“Well, then; what’s the bewildered dog now to do?” Sven sneered at him.
“Hamph! Wot else?” Sig returned, “Rip off that ’ead o’ yours an’ be done with it!”
A simple answer. A simple solution. Parting this Quireman from his skull might very well spell the end of him, Sacrāmentum be damned. But not against so equally matched an opponent, much less in the heat of battle, could such a blow be freely dealt. Hanging on that thought, Sven then peered into the depths of Sigmund’s eyes, thinking to espy some bluff or insecurity belying his words. Only, none was to be found.
“Ah… Cocksure, are we?” Sven then concluded. “But this neck’s not so easily touched, I’ll have you know.”
“Let’s try it, then,” was Sigmund’s swift suggestion. “Come—it’ll be loads o’ fun. I promise.”
More swiftly still, the former mercenary then sprang upon the Salvator, and there did metals shrill madly away once more. Crude were Sigmund’s swings. But ever as they gnashed and snapped away like a rabid dog, so was seen in each of them a keenness for the kill, instinctive, and almost obsessive.
“A beam up the bum… much!” Sven groaned, grimacing amidst the murderous thrashing.
This was not at all to his liking. Artifice being his preference and speciality both, Sven found Sigmund’s ceaseless savagery a beast most burdensome to wrestle. But wrestle on he must. Thus with patience did he ply the mathom-brand Arturovna, fending off Sigmund’s fury whilst searching out the next opening.
“…ungh!”
But as the battering continued, so did the Salvator’s breaths increasingly grate and gasp. His arms—they were now both of them throbbing in pain. Such was the brutality of Sigmund’s brunt that each foiled strike felt to Sven the flail of a bull’s head, shocking his bones with every defence.
Ten strikes this lasted. Nay, twenty. Nay—on and on, Sven counted, convinced that soon must the bladed beating abate. But on and on, the ravenous sword champed away. Nonetheless, even as he cursed the inexhaustibility of Sigmund and his beastly lungs, Sven maintained an undented demeanour and watched warily his wuthering foe.
And then—there!
The barest of openings, down at Sigmund’s legs! With his sword yet set in a guard, Sven slithered close and twisted all his body low—and from the whirlwind of motion, there lashed outwards a wily limb.
“Twah!?”
A leg-sweep that was. And realising it too late, Sigmund’s ankle was struck square, breaking his balance all at once. Soon was he to fall. Soon! But sooner still would Sven catch him in the descent with a decisive strike!
“Daah!” the Salvator exclaimed, driving down the Arturovna straight unto a tumbling Sigmund.
Only—
“Fico!”
—there was no tumbling to be seen.
Sigmund, nigh-flat on the floor but stopping himself with a bent knee, unleashed now a slash of his own. And so unnatural was the angle of the arc that Sven, taken aback, found his own blade beaten away…
…and his neck newly hewn in half.
“Ghrrhh!?” the sword-devout retched as he recoiled away. Collecting himself quick, Sigmund scrambled to finish the job. But there, he found the Salvator stopped asudden. The neck—so ablood it had been, but no longer.
Nay; the next neck to be assailed was Sigmund’s own, as in seeming vengeance, Sven then slung forth a flash of a slash, and watched as redness spat from his opponent.
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