Vol.7, Ch.2, P.11
Shaken loose from their laughter, the soldiers all about us burst into action. The air rang with unsheathing swords, and flashing bright, their blades barred my vision from end to end, even as I rushed to retrieve my own weapon. But then a flicker flew, and two soldiers ahead of me twisted, pitched, and fell on their faces asudden. Their necks sprayed red, being gouged by daggers freshly flung from Björn’s hands behind.
Indeed, the Praetorian had possessed more than one. Mark it some unforeseen lack in their supplies, but during our intrusion, we’d crossed a conspicuous smattering of foes sporting neither sword nor mace, but begrudging daggers. And it’d been from their defeated bodies that Björn’d despoiled two such blades and hid in his gambeson.
Now, presented with his precise and perilous dagger-darting, and withal the swift slaughter of two of their own, the soldiers here could but briefly blench, in spite of their encircling supremacy. Seizing the moment, I continued racing towards the soot-steel, driving my legs to a furious gallop.
Yet the fact remained that Vilmar stood over the sword; that so distant still was I that no matter my haste, he would have his way with it well before I could snatch it back. And so, unlike his livid, dithering underlings, the rector leisurely and laughingly reached down for the sword. And then—
“Gyaargh!?”
—shrieking the very instant hand met hilt, the rector released and recoiled from the soot-steel. Beholding his hand as it hissed, he pressed it to his bosom, as though it would do any good. And alarmed by their leader’s screaming and squirming, his soldiers quickly fell into confusion, buying me again some precious time —time enough, in fact, to gain the soot-steel.
And plucking it from the floor, I inly scolded myself for an instant, whether for having left it forlorn in the lectitōrium, or for consigning it to confiscation, or for altogether treating it as ought not a right-minded swordsman. But with its familiar hilt back in my hands, I wheeled the black blade about, and hove it in a soaring sweep.
—Vvrrap!
And then there shrilled the sound of shorn silks and sundered bone. A hysterical Vilmar’s right arm flew from his flesh, even as its fingers clutched fast his silverstaff yet. Speedily now, I stamped aside and brought the black blade down, this time unto the soldier who’d picked up Björn’s dagger mere moments prior. And when the sword of soot slew him in his amazement, the soldier loosed a blood-curdling cry, dropping the dagger as he died.
Catching it before it could find the floor, I flung the weapon over my shoulder, whence was already drumming the stampede of Björn’s approach. And then, as I swivelled and found him—fhoop!—he seized it out of the air. But ceasing little, he stooped and slid to my side, whence he twisted about and bored his blade into the belly of another nearby soldier. A deft display of daggerwork, as ever!
“Krofhh!?” croaked his mark, who, disembowelled, fumbled and fell flat and fey.
That made four; four slain, and a neutralised Vilmar, to boot. Our plan to lay low the leader at the soonest was going smoothly enough. And that was precisely why we’d surrendered in the first place: no matter how numerous, an enemy force would be as fish out of water without their leader, giving the two of us thus a fighting chance. And so it did, indeed: with their chain of command unmade, now was the time to strike back and win through.
Such I’d thought, when one amongst the enemy cried above the clamour— and not in antipathy, but in panick.
“S-stop! Stop, stop!” he pleaded. “Why cheat each other? This is madness!”
It was that green lad again, the one who’d opposed the princess’s disposal. But amidst so convulsing and virulent a fray, his words were as a string out of tune. Indeed, with his fellows having tried to cheat us, and we to survive having played along, his seemed the only feet here astood outside the swirl of deceits. But now to sue for peace? That’s passing convenient of him, especially after having cast in his lot with so conspiratorial a company, not least one that’d sought to incinerate that precious princess of his.
Nay. Perhaps that hadn’t been the way of it. He seemed wholesome at heart, this lad; maybe, then, he’d been compelled to comply? Or maybe, once believing this venture virtuous, he was now lost? Realising late that “justness” is more than a one-sided coin? Likely so. Such is the cruelty of a battlefield, that so easily beckons into its bowels those too blind to see its woesome wake.
Nevertheless, the rest of his lot heeded him little. They instead charged hither, howling and holding aloft their many weapons. And in challenge, both Björn and I charged right back.
Metals then clashed like clapping thunder. Vying blades and vivid armour bedazzled all vision. Soldier after soldier, we fended off the tide. One of their number further away gave an angry cry: “Ach! They’re only two, you tosspots! Surround ’em! From the left!”
“Wait, stop!” protested the greenhorn. “We can talk this throu— uaagh!?”
…Only for his words to stop short, as a soldier beside him plunged a dagger straight into his stomach. Staring wide with disbelief, the young man was then pushed and left to fall to the floor.
“Damn’d dullard!” his offender chode him. “Death’s more than they deserve! Princess and all!”
“Nrggh!”
That groan was Björn’s, but it might as well’ve been mine. Sure, with a leader dislimbed and the ranks in disarray, it was, for lack of a better term, “practical” to stab some compliance into a complaining soldier. Things had gone awry enough for this lot; one more anomaly might well spell their doom. And so must any more be dealt with, friend or foe—with whatever haste or harshness as was needed.
But even so, my heart could brook this not. No, not even the tiniest idea of it. And so was I stoked to new wrath as I fought, both for the cruelty on display and the Deiva who so applauded it.
“Ah… hrgh…”
Faintly, ever so faintly, could I hear the misused lad moaning as the men threw both body and blade upon me. And at whiles through the chaos, I could spot him from the corner of my eye crouching and quivering. He bled miserably —but not fatally; for the stabbing had missed his vitals, it would seem. In the eyes of his “friends”, he was but a wretched and disorderly dog, one hardly to be disciplined with so deft a hand. And so thankfully had he been dealt instead a grim but half-hearted mercy.
Yes; he may yet be saved, just as he’d tried to do for us, if not for his princess. Spurred by the thought, I fought ever more furiously against the thronging throe, sundering sword after sword, slaying soldier after soldier. And there with me was Björn and his whistling dagger, striving no less strenuously, but with a blaze in his eyes at once somehow sad, and at another more desperate than it’d seemed ever before.
“Khaagh!?”
Silvered soldiers thrashed and thrawt. Metals bright and black splashed crimson into air and unto wall and floor.
In time, more than half of the enemy lay slain. Very clearly had the loss of leadership blunted their brunt, even more so than I’d measured at first. It could only be guessed that Vilmar led rather with clout and charisma than anything else, that now without his will, these men were bereft of both direction and morale.
Fwish, fwash! flew Björn’s daggerwork, and down fell yet another neck-shorn knave. Rueing their losses, the men ceased swinging, receded, and stalled like growling hounds. What’d once been odds scaled evilly in their favour had all but tipped entirely the other way. Diminished and unmanned, they could but grimace and yield as Björn and I, two aface ten, slowly stepped towards them.
“S… stop…!” wheezed the wounded lad. “We can… we can…!”
There, a ways behind the rest of the conspirators, was he tottering up to his feet, gripping his bloody belly all the while.
Why insist? Why persist? So might one wonder of him, and quite rightly. If he’d managed to survive by the skin of his teeth, then better he stayed put and stayed out, no? Besides, how might his words ever move so merciless and unfriendly a lot? And not least them that had wrought him his injury; them who would do so again if their plight required it? Yet there he was, hoping against hope, reasoning against reason.
Perhaps he couldn’t help himself. Perhaps—when the scales had been pried from his eyes, and he saw at last the quagmire of mendacities all about him, and withal the throne of righteousness he’d so adored even in his dreams, sitting dark and empty—he could but beg for sanity and reconsideration. To do so is only human.
Thus did anxiety howl ever more horribly in my heart. Londosian or no, he must be saved. He must!
“Syahh!” I roared, as risking it all, I rushed headlong into the enemy ranks. And like hammer and anvil, the wuthering wolfsteel clove and cudgelled, causing armour and mail to moan, and men to be unmade. Meanwhile, Björn’s blade flickered keen, cutting as it coursed, stopping only ever to parry a strike or to pierce an opening This was it; with enemy numbers dwindling steadily, the end at last seemed in sight, and the lad soon delivered withal.
But at that moment, furthest away from the fray, one foe was to be found picking up something from the floor. It was a staff—Vilmar’s staff, to which cold, ringed fingers yet clutched. Troubling not to remove his leader’s limb, the soldier then raised the sorcerous weapon. And trained now our way, the staffhead then shone with an odyllic light.
Though dire, this seemed none too strange. The opportune spellcaster, clad in frock and mail, and withal having wielded a mace amongst the vanguard, was a Salvator—and thus studied in the magicks. Albeit it seemed not his forte, as his odyl gleamed rather dimly. But being desperate—
“Sċeaþatán!”
—he assayed a spell anyway.
“No, don’t!!” I exclaimed, whilst damming a determined attack. Unable thus to move, I must’ve sounded most distressed, for also was I screaming not at the staff-holder himself, but rather at the beseeching lad—as he threw his bleeding body in the way of the spellweaving.
“T-talk…!” I heard him wailing. “We should ta—”
“Aach! To Hell with you!!” shouted the Salvator whom he wrestled. And with sudden action, the zealot pulled the staff back… and pointed the weapon at the young intervener.
A flash filled then all the forum. A furious noise stung all our ears. The lad—he’d taken a blast of levin straight to the bosom. Struck limp and dumb as a doll, he then collapsed with not a word. But there to scream in his place was Björn beside me; and his voice was wroth.
“Aaa—aaeghh!!”
Dizzyingly then, his dagger gusted and gashed in a fit of rage. And I, driving away the few soldiers that hindered me, made a mad dash through the ranks, before thrusting forth a frantic soot-steel. And straightway, its black tip found flesh to bore.
“Kaahhk…!” rasped the staff-holding Salvator. And with his heart thrust gruesomely through, he died upon my blade.
I pulled my weapon free; the fresh corpse crumpled and released the staff, rector’s arm and all. And at that moment, I found that the fray far behind me was hushed. Björn had nimbly slain the rest there, making this Salvator the last to fall. Our foes were now all felled; the fight was finally won.
“…”
Breathless, I bent down beside the lad as he lay. Up to the high rafters his face stared, but with eyes unfocused and afraid. Badly burnt he was besides, and very ablood yet; and he shivered as one quailing in the cold. His life, I realised, was leaving him.
“…I am Rolf,” I said to him. “And you?”
“Aa… aakh…” he weakly wheezed.
“Pray, your name. I beg of you.”
With an effort, the lad then turned his gaze hither. But trembling yet it was, and bleary; like as not, he could see nothing at all. Nevertheless, his lips moved as he broke his last breath.
“…L… Leon…” he whispered. “I… I… Le… on…”
And then, the light of his eyes was lost.
My hands clenched. But laxing them, I set one upon the lad’s face and drew his lids to a close. Breathing hard and hoarse, Björn came up. Slowly I stood.
“…‘Leon’,” I reported to him. “That was his name. And may his princess remember it.”
“Upon my word, she will,” said Björn.
All settled unto silence as we looked upon the lad. But little time was given us to grieve, as sundering that silence then was a screeching laugh.
“Kh… hha…! Ahah hahaha!”
That vileness was Vilmar’s. Off to the side, he alone rose from the blood-filmed floor. And giggling and guffawing over his dead underlings all the while, he strove to his knees, and turned to us a wide, unblinking stare. And only when he’d wrested a dagger out of the neck of a nearby soldier, and with his remaining hand had brought it plunging into his own, did the rector’s laughter die at last.
The air afore him bloomed red as blood sputtered out of his pierced throat. And then, he perished. The end of a holy man—wrought by self-slaughter.
A shame. I had wanted him alive, if even for some moments longer, that I might wring from him more as to these wretched schemes at large. Hence why I’d stopped at severing that arm of his like I’d done.
Well, fine enough, I suppose. Of course, to dismiss a man’s demise as “fine” is passing uncivil. But there’s no helping that. Sorry, Vilmar, but it’s Leon’s whose end now earned my grief—even if the wise do warn that all life ought be weighed in equal measure.
Sighing, I offered a look over to his corpse. Silks of silver and gold, stained and caked in scarlet; and withal a smile lasting past death—how terrible he was to behold. At any rate, learning naught from him should prove but a small hindrance to us. He was not the mastermind, I measured, and so would’ve sang as meagrely as any of his underlings he now lay amongst. Coming to me then was the conversation I’d eavesdropped back at the studitōrium:
‘…Never met him ’fore…
…from the Salvators…?’
‘…Nay, not from what I…
…That reminds me… …seen him once…
…the 4th Order, or some…
…if memory serves…’
That’s it: like as not, it was the mastermind himself of whom they’d spoken all along. The 4th Order, they’d said? Well, Vilmar here hardly matched the description. Between his raiments and method of battle, he’d plainly been a career clergyman and Salvator through and through, not some knight who’d traded the sword for the crook. The real mastermind, then, yet lived and lurked somewhere else.
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Chapter 2 ─ End
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Notes
Sċeaþatán
(Language: Old English; original name: “Lightning”) “Harm-twig”; “scather-twig”. Levin-elemental battle magick. A spell in the form of lightning strikes, summoned out of thin air. Shocks, cauterises, and potentially electrocutes on impact. The sċ consonant is pronounced with a sh sound, as in the words “shield” and “shine”. The þ consonant is pronounced with an unvoiced th sound, as in “think” or “thumb”.
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