Vol.6, Ch.3, P.15
A damp chill charged down my spine. Light flashed; the air jarred—as limbs of levin lunged hither to harrow me. A danger more ghastly again than some simple dagger, I braced myself for the assault, and reeled as it whipped the wall but an arm’s length away.
Heat and sound exploded. Timbers and infill convulsed as they were smote black. Though the spell had missed, the vicious, odyllic waves in its wake were damaging enough as they thrummed clear through my body, as though to thrash its every organ and sear the whole of its skin.
“Ghr…! Ngaah!!” I screamed against the panging pain. And for an instant, my senses staggered. Up, down, left, right; all direction was wildly twisting and tumbling. Yet still I withstood, as my left hand remembered not to let go, and my right stabbed at the wall over and again with the glass shard, desperate to find another hold. It took at last, availing me precious seconds to recover, at the end whereof my ringing ears caught more voices yelling from the yawning hole above.
“Don’t dare it! Not even cloth’s any good!”
“Fico…! Where’s the board gone!? Oy, quick! Fetch something thick to handle with! Anything at all!!”
Time was running short. Steal my sword again, and surely would these scoundrels whisk it away to some other place safer and more secret—and withal more manned than this wounded ungraced could hope to outwit again. This was my only chance, then. I must needs find a way through this—now.
“Hahh…! Hagh!”
But my body obeyed not; shaken, my lungs gasped and languished. Yet even then, no grace was given them to catch their breath.
“Dangling louse, you!” echoed the sorcerer below, as he next assayed his second cast, “Sċeaþatán!”
Stark shadows danced as the air flickered bright again. And with a piercing shriek, the shot of levin landed, missing again, albeit this time right below my swaying soles.
“Geaa—ahh!!” amidst the odyllic cascades I cried, being nearly pried out of place as I was lifted and tossed by the turbulence. Pain piled upon pain, panging a body already in anguish, gushing against my every sense, that even my vision began to blink blindingly. Nonetheless, even as my limbs felt themselves being shorn to shreds, my fingers held on fast.
“Drat! Thrice-damn’d heathen!” distantly snarled the now-incensed sorcerer. His blunders were getting to him, but that’s precisely the rub with the Sċeaþatán: its levin rather fans than finds, thus vainly avails where accuracy is sought. And thanks to that, even my stationary self had managed to miss two direct shots.
But there was no resting easy yet. Being a rudiment, repeating the Sċeaþatán is scarce the preserve of spell-adepts. Doubtless would this sorcerer keep at it, levin after levin, till one of them found its mark. And as if to prove that suspicion, the sorcerer screeched out a second encore: “Sċeaþatán!!”
With the last hitting too close for comfort, I raced to raise myself and miss the spell—only, I could not. My body: it was yet frozen! Never mind lacking air; it was paralysed from all the pain!
I could let go. I ought let go. Do so, and I might fall and flee this third spell. But I did not. I dared not.
And so, desperate to at least curl up and endure the damage to come, I drew upon every drop of strength in my body. Alas, less answered than was sought. But there was nothing for it; working with what I had, I weakly hauled myself halfway.
And at that moment, the spell careered close and crashed, and its fingers flared white and bright, piercing my ears with a spear of noise as loud as it was hot. Amidst the chaos, I hung on, feeling for any numbness that comes from receiving such a spell, but found none. The sorcerer had missed again! Only this time, he’d done so a mere hand’s width away to my right, spilling such a splash of sparks as to blind me even through my shuttered lids, and also battering my body with the furious forces that followed. Indeed, that very nearly blew me free, but I clung steady, even as pain stampeded from pate to fingertip like a hysterical herd.
“Ghh! Grraagh!!” I wailed beneath the whipping peals. What a sorry sight I must’ve seemed! A little lizard clinging to a wall, ducking and enduring some great storm come to steal him into the clouds!
Nay—to Hell with it! Dirt and disgrace I could suffer, but never a broken promise! For I had made a promise! And declared it clear at the meeting, had I not! A promise to free my friends! Their families! Their folk! Their future! Hence must needs these hands hold strong! And strive against storm and light!
Grasping glass and dagger yet, I bent a look below. And beyond the terrible blinking and all the swimming stars, I perceived them: the foes so clustered upon the concourse. If not with blade in hand nor fists free might I fight them, then there’s naught left to wield but the fire of my eyes.
Quickly, I locked looks with the sorcerer, sneering at him for his misses, and screaming with my eyes, Haven’t scratched me yet, spell-spitter! To which his face fumed red, and his staff angrily rose—and his voice vociferated:
“Gāstċēn!!”
There, forgetting his friends’ warnings, he dared it: his forte fireball, large, and yet liable to blast down these very walls. And even as the others rioted to stop him—bwoffh!—the spell dispatched in a fiery plume, and pelted hither as straight as an arrow with a grudge.
And as its distant heat began to burn my back, and its light brightened all the walls about me, I groaned through grinding teeth, “Hnrggh!!”—and summoned into my arms all the might that remained in me, and more so still. Elbows next bent, and then body was lifted; and with a defiant effort, and by the power of them alone, my arms flung my whole self up and leftwards into the air. And as I bade goodbye to the glass and dagger that’d kept me long aloft, so were they smote and consumed by the sphere of fire. With a flash of flame, the wall where I’d just been bloomed into a thousand smithers; and I, airborne just above it, was blown away by the breath of the blast.
“Nghaahh!!” I howled, as my body bore the odyllic beating. Yet this was for the best; for by this petard of a spell was I hoisted further and further up—up towards the sword of soot. Yes, there I saw it; through the desperation, the chaos, the convulsing vision and fracted thoughts, I saw the svǫrtaskan…
…as it lay yet too far out of reach.
Alas, this mad momentum, this reckless ploy, would, as I reckoned in that instant, bring me but below the blade of black. And so, as hope was dying in my heart, I inly screamed after it:
Come, you!!
How foolish and futile it sounded, even in my mind. But I couldn’t help myself. Indeed, I but thundered on: We’re equals, are we not!? Why lounge and look on as your wielder dances with Death!?
In the next merest of moments, I hardened my gaze upon the dragon-blackened blade. And ever as I did, I espied upon it a strangeness. The weapon; it was shaking—nay, jerking and jolting in place! There upon the lip of the gaping hole!
Was it responding to me? Or perhaps the force of the four spells had finally disturbed it from its perch? Likely the latter, I should think. Nevertheless, so violently did the sword convulse that—shhrrng!—it slid free from the chamber above and out into the air. And I at once, wringing forth a last effort, reached out to catch it. And then—
—fwooffh!—
—its hilt hurtled itself straight into my hands!
But wondering it not, I grasped it fast; and buoyed yet by the brunt of the blast, I flew further towards the void in the wall above. And in the instant my ascent slowed and stilled, so did the men in the chamber perceive and stare down upon me in amazement. And then in the next, my body somersaulted asudden, for—vwoosh!—down, down, down I was dragged! Whisked wildly by the wolfsteel in my hands, I shot straight downwards to the concourse below!
How came this…!? A weighty weapon this was, sure, but nary as much as a mountain as it now seemed! Not least when in freefall! But holding its hilt for dear life, I knew it then: that somehow, somewhy, the sword of soot was now utterly restless.
And then, “Ah!?”—the realisation struck home.
Was it… was it enraged instead, this sword? Trembling and rumbling with wrath?
Yes; you really are, aren’t you? I inly said to it. I know not who you are nor what. But of your faint yet smouldering wrath—now that, indeed, have I felt before, and for the longest while, at that. Yet, to see it now so grown and angry!
Grown and angry. Some reason, some covert cause had clearly stoked the temper of this sword. There seemed more to the svǫrtaskan than I’d first guessed—much like the course of this day. What had fallen out today, really? Especially to pique this weapon so? In the end, my present mind could scarce guess, despite all its conjectures. Something most sinister was at work; that much I could see. But naught else.
Regardless, if so angry and grating you are, that from tip to grip do you quake… then I will quake along with you!
“Gāstċēn!!” shrieked again the sorcerer. And as his voice vaulted up from below, so, too, did his second fireball follow in all its blazing fury. Airborne as I was, I could elude the spell no longer. But I would not need to.
Like a bodkin arrow, both blade and body dived unto the soaring flames—“Syaaht!!”—and smote it into nothingness.
And then, from the black hilt in my hands, there awoke new heat. Ire it was; an ire made palpable at last.
But what of it? I asked the soot-steel. How shall we wield this ire of yours?
“…”
Ah. But of course. Not a bad idea, that. Good; I was thinking much the same. Truth be told, I, too, rather relish in this sort of thing. No, I don’t look it, do I? Half-prudent sop of a silver-spoon that I am? Nay; never mind you that. Let us go. There’s only one way down now. Down? Like a hammer, you say? A strike, straight and true? Very well, then…
A hammer it is!
“Hrr, rrggh…!”
There, from deep within my throat: a voice seeping forth; a scream clambering out—a thundercry from the very soul. And sensing it, I braced my belly and unleashed it from my lungs:
“Ghrraaa—aahh!!”
Down unto the ground we bolted, rebel and blade. Then up asudden the soot-steel swung. Blood-boiling wrath next raced from palm to pate, finger to foot. And in that instant, with other-vision, I saw myself aswirl with flame—black beyond all sight: a raven-night flame fully wroth, and yet icily reticent.
“Heaaa—aahht!!”
And with a final strength, I stroked the black blade down; and striking—zrraaang!—there erupted and tolled such a noise as to sunder down all the sky.
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