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Vol.5, Ch.6, P.6

 

“Back on your feet already? My, what a marvel you are. You—and your friend both.”

“Kind words,” humoured I the mareschal, as faraway, Sig disappeared in pursuit of his own opponent. And raising slowly the brightless blade, I stared mine down: the one and only Stefan Cronheim, hero-knight and storied commander. Still, even aface so frightening a foe, my body betrayed not a tremble.

“…”

“…”

There we were, poised in opposing study, reckoning with unblinking focus the spans betwixt us. Such a delicate stand-off, however, I loathed to let live any longer, for Cronheim had in play the Dēcollāns Ruptūra, a bladespell to render all distance a disadvantage.

Better, then, to bring the fight straight to his doorstep: stamping off the mirror-smooth floor—“Hup!”—I bolted unto the mareschal.

His eyes flared. “Fast! But—”

—khaanng!—

“—not today!”

Clashing silver and steel echoed across the many-pillared space. My rushing downswing had been defended—a most expected outcome. What followed, however, was aught but. Here I was, armed with weighty wolfsteel and superior brawn, thinking to overmaster the mareschal as we locked blades, only to be foiled by finesse; as by angling and rearing back his blade, Cronheim had softly abated the brunt of the black blow. I knew it truly then: that not merely for his magick was the mareschal so merited. And doubtless he had other subtleties in store. Waring his next move, I drew back the black blade abruptly to set up a low defence. And no sooner had our swords parted than did a flash pounce upon me from below.

—Khaiinng!

Once more, metals met and rang. My guess of a guard was gainful, for quick as lightning, Cronheim had shifted to the offence and beset me from on low, his hunter-like eyes fixed fast upon mine, that I might not espy his aim.

“Dyaht!” I growled, all at once breaking the lock of blades and sending the soot-steel shooting up. But my opponent, ever calm of calculation, yielded but half a step to escape my blade before lurching right back in for a sweeping stroke.

Quickly, I thwarted once more the mareschal’s assault and readied next a thrusting reprisal—only to find no foe to pierce. Afar Cronheim now was, having bounded aback with a strong kick. Thus separated, we swordsmen poised once more our weapons upon each other.

Cronheim loosed a long breath. “…Impressive, I must say,” he conceded. “However…”

Then I sensed it: murder smouldering within his soft-spoken words. And in the next instant, many strides away though he was, Cronheim swept his silversword in a lethal line. Immediately I moved, wheeling the soot-steel rightwards through a patch of thin air—

—and the bladespell that so haunted it was snuffed at once.

An uneasy lull followed. But before long, Cronheim parted his lips.

“Ever a feat to confound, that,” he uttered. “Enlighten me, Buckmann. How do you do it?”

“Ask this sword,” I returned curtly. “I’m ungraced, if you’ve forgotten.”

“Nay, nay, never mind your witched weapon,” the mareschal persisted. “For not without matching speed and sword both could you have escaped my magick uncloven. Yet here you are, whole and hale. Indeed… not to blow my own horn, but my blade I boast to be the very fleetest. To have it fail utterly is foolish, therefore—not least when swung so invisibly.” To that, I remained unanswering. Cronheim, however, smiled faintly. “Very well, then. If not by trickery, then by training, is it?” he mused. “Dogged diligence? Dread drills to jar a man to his knees? Your halting of the Slihthund has hardly eluded my ears, Buckmann.”

“…I am ungraced, Cronheim,” I repeated. It was the simple truth; that there were no tricks hid up this ungraced’s sleeves. Swinging the sword ad nauseam was all that’d earned me this moment.

“So you are,” relented the mareschal. And spent of words, we readied our arms once more and gazed across the ten-step gap, all the while mulling what moves to wield next.

For my part, little was to change. Charge and strike; indeed, no matter what foe I face, ever is it my lot to lunge and eke out the kill. But nary is it a ploy to be repeated so. Soon or late, I would be figured out… and thence meet a surprise beyond my power to oppose. And given my present opponent, that moment might come all too soon, as well-foreboded by our most prior exchange. Nay, I must needs seek and seize an opening at the very soonest, lest I leave this place in pieces.

Like predators, we prowled one another. A wolf and a lion, slow in the circling, deep in the planning. I stared forth; he stared back, eyes teeming with intention.

And at that moment, a zephyr fondled our faces. Brisk was its touch, as though to remind us our situation: two men deathmatching atop temple and summit. Being a vast terrace-prospect, what this place lacked in walls, it spoilt with scenery, one punctuated by pillars in support of a splendorous roof. Thus, ever as I glared away at Cronheim, so would the world span behind him in murals of mist-smothered mountains, all receding softly into the brumous beyond. A “divine” view, indeed; no wonder the Quire troubled to build this place.

Such as our stage as we duelists stared on and on at the other, knowing full-well that this vista was to be the very last for one of us.

“Haht!” Cronheim shouted, shattering the tranquillity. With nary a step taken, he tasked his sword to another empty sweep—this one rising slightly aslant. The three-quarter cut: difficult, but not impossible to oppose. No; not anymore as I was. Albeit, breaking stance to stop the sightless blade would bar me from beginning an offence. Hence, without so much as a turn of the body, I swung the soot-steel sidewise, extinguished the ghostly sweep, and charged straightway at my foe. But undeterred—“Not so fast!”—Cronheim rounded his blade up and about into an overhead hew.

That spell of his; twice could it be swung without respite. But alas for him, already had he tried the trick once before. Still, it needed answering, though to swing the soot-steel again would lessen my momentum. Nay, my foe was too close at hand now. Thus as I hasted, I hove the black blade to head level and shifted into a rushing thrust, unmaking Cronheim’s magick in the instant before its unseen edge could scathe my scalp.

“Hh!?”

Cronheim flashed with surprise—as the blur of wolfsteel kept its stabbing career.

“Zyah!!”

“Gheh!?”

But by the barest of margins, Cronheim eluded the soot-steel, taking but a graze to his temple as he jumped aside. A tinge of blood issued. But undaunted still, the hero-knight loosed a low lash of his blade right as he leapt away, checking any chase I might’ve dared. Risking it not, I renounced the pursuit, choosing instead to escape Cronheim’s cut with a jump of my own.

Vigorously through the air we twirled, tearing ourselves away from the frenetic exchange. And like a twister spent asudden, I landed aknee, as did my foe from afar. At once, we stood and turned to one another, our shoulders meanwhile lifting and lowering as our lungs both drew long, embattled breaths.

“Huooh…!”

“Haa—ah…”

Slowly yet warily, we poised our weapons and locked our eyes. Verily; not even when so separated did we allow ourselves a laxed guard. Such was the duel on our hands. Its every moment was a brush with death, its every strike a fatal stroke; that as I stood with stance and spirit steeled, I could but feel my nerves all frayed and afire. And looking at him, doubtless was Cronheim harried all the same—which perhaps explained his next words.

“…I remember well our meetings at Redelberne, Buckmann,” he said. “Back when you were but a swain.” Softly as ever did he speak—and unassailably as ever was he stanced. “Yes… when Crown and Order convened for counsel, there you stood: tending to the chair of Valenius, your mareschal—or ought I say, Mernesse?”

“True enough,” I replied. “What of it?”

“To think: that ever should I cross swords with that swain one day—and on equal ground, no less.”

“The fates ever did love a laugh.”

Waxing rather nostalgic, this word-weaver. I hitherto had my suspicions, but now was it apparent that this hero-knight seemed to harbour some interest in Rolf the rebel.

“Ah, ‘love’! Alas, had Londosius not misloved you so,” he said. “Nor mismeasured you. Nor maligned you. But, I wonder, Buckmann: what think you of all your misuses?”

“Naught,” was my blunt answer. For not out of enmity for my misuse had I turned the coat. No; it was something else altogether: a sin, shouldered by all of a nation, that I had not the heart to absolve. Thus had I but a pittance to say whensoever pressed for my opinion. Nay, this matter was far, far beyond the misuse of one man.

“Yet you have marched on them in turn, have you not? On your maligners. On Crown and Country. On your own Home,” Cronheim persisted. “And for why but the rot you’ve smelt in their seams. Is that not so?”

That tongue; to my ears, it sounded more a doubter’s than an abettor’s—of a hero-knight haunted by the horrors in his homeland. Alas that he possessed in him not the will to point the blade realmwards. The sheer resolve in his swordcraft was assurance enough. Yet, despite such devotion—or perhaps because of it—the hero-knight could ill-help to ask the heart of him who had turned away from it all.

“…Were I any more a fool,” I said, “I’d say you envy me, Cronheim.” Envious that the choice was not given him as it was me. Envious that the door was long shut to him—the door to rebellion.

“More the fool you are, then,” answered Cronheim. “…Or perhaps… not?” He then betrayed a strained smile. Still, stanced solidly as ever, he put forth half a step, as though to invite me to continue our contest. And I, taking it up, put forth a step of my own.

 

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