Vol.7, Ch.5, P.3
Like a lion prowling, a strange Raakel began strutting nigh. Yes, “strange”: for, brutality being more her manner, this warrior ought be dispensing with speech, and pelting to pound me into “mince and paste”, as she’d put it. But nay; step-by-step she approached, with patience to perturb.
Thus could my blade but abide. I knew not what that ring of Raakel’s was, nor what wiles it could weave. And so long as that held, distance and discretion were the better part of valour. But then—
“Hold!” exclaimed Emilie.
Close she came, racing up from behind. And to my surprise, she then thrust herself afore me, and defiantly faced her deathsome friend.
“…Ah,” uttered Raakel in wonder. “Savin’ yer ol’ flame, is it? From me?”
Emilie shook her head. “Nay, this is to save the both of you,” she answered. “You’ve been briefed before, Raakel. That ring, ’twould—”
Before she could finish, a shimmer craned up afore us both. It was Raakel’s silvermaul, rising to the ready. Urgently I stepped forth and pushed Emilie aside.
“Ah—!?”
“Rroaah!”
And at that moment, drawing aloft a dread arc, Raakel’s cudgel came rushing hither. Fraught with fury the offence was—albeit no more so than any other swing that’d come before. Verily, it seemed no different, no meaner, no mightier. But risking it not, I raised the sword of soot.
Krrongh! tolled our two metals. My arms jarred; my flank wound panged. Raakel was yet a force to be reckoned with. But there my suspicion was proved: that her native strength was unaltered by the ring all along.
Driving back the bludgeon, I assayed a swift, soaring stroke from the low-guard. “Zeht!” I cried. And it was a true stroke, indeed: flowing and unfaltering, exact and timely to the utmost; the very best to be eked out from several score attempts. And now did it race to cut Raakel through.
But in that instant, whilst betraying not the slightest change upon her face, the Owlcrane stepped back, pivoted, and let the black blade brush vainly by. And this she did with but the barest of movements.
My heart nearly stopped. For up and onwards my weighty weapon went, up to point stupidly at the ceiling, leaving all my body below ripe for the red warrior to bite. And bite she did: in a silver blur, she swept her hungry hammer.
No time now to guard; with a frantic jerk, I kicked off the floor and cast myself backwards. But alas: the maul came and skimmed across my breast.
“Grrkh!” I grated. Though the mass of the maul had missed, its odyl landed nonetheless, driving unto me as though I were the gate of a castle, and it the smiting swing of a siege engine. And so aback and away was I blown, tumbling as I broke against the floor. But even as I reeled, danger jolted me to action: managing to furl myself into a roll, I stopped and sprang to my feet as fast as I could.
But now did I stand in a daze. My lungs both felt trampled flat. Panting and wheezing, my breaths blindly groped for purchase. And my flank wound: goodness, how its sharp pain shrieked.
All too loth to let the chance pass, Raakel was already charging nigh. And then my wits flashed: this, too, was my own chance. Biting my teeth, I bore the pain; and just as Raakel came, I countered with a quick stab of steel.
Only, this, too, failed to find its mark. Bending back and stretching her chin, Raakel had eluded the attack so barely that her neck seemed to glide just below the black edge. And then her maul made its move.
“Urggh…!!” I cried when the weapon wheeled, rose, and raked my shoulder, just as I’d tried to twist away in escape. Across the flame-littered floor was I thus flung again.
“No, stop! Doff that ring, Raakel! Before ’tis too late!!” resounded Emilie’s pleas, as I crashed, collected myself, and strove to stand. Gripping my shaking shoulder, I turned at once to Raakel. There the warrior was, swaggering hither again, though with her hammer held ever at the ready.
“If Emilie’s dismay’s any sign…” I began to guess hoarsely, “then… then that ring’s—”
“A Sacrāmentum,” confirmed Raakel, cold and curt as she held up her white-bright hand. “Aye: the dwimmer-ryng Hristofor.”
Splendid. A tryst with another trinket from the Church’s troves. Small wonder why Emilie appeared so pale: Raakel must’ve obtained the bauble from under the table, as it were. Passing bold of her, I had to admit.
“Oh?” I panted. “And what might be its trick, then?”
“Dallop it a bit o’ odyl,” answered Raakel, “an’ it supplies the sinews with power pure.”
I raised my blade. “A bald lie. Your sinews’re untouched,” I debated. “Nay… rather it’s your senses, I reckon.”
“Then why bother askin’? Ye doylem, you.”
Raakel seemed now a different foe altogether. Keener had her movements become; keener and more cunning. Nay, it was neither that her nimbility had been bolstered by any degree. In a matter of speaking, she “gave” just as she’d ever done, but now “gleaned” with accuracy to amaze.
That ring. Whosoever wears it shall have all his five faculties reinforced, if I had to guess, and to an extraordinary extent, like as not. Else, naught could explain this Owlcrane’s miraculous manoeuvres.
Doubtless did the world seem very strange to her now. Every speck and spark to cross her view must appear as plain as spots upon a canvas. The smallest of sounds, the faintest of scents, the subtlest sway in the air—all of these could she not only perceive individually, but process with immediate speed.
Altogether given the gaze of an eagle, this lion of Londosius had turned an all-seeing griffin. Indeed, in her eyes, I must seem as slow as a swine fattened for a feast.
“A Sacrāmentum’s no toy, Raakel!” cried Emilie. “’Twill sap you dry! Dry of your very life…!”
“Like I said,” droned Raakel, “I knows.”
“Then stop this! Please!” Emilie implored on. “Wasn’t Rolf your fellow officer once? A friend!? Why hunt him so!? Why—”
“Pardon ’gain, Emilie-love. But be quiet, can ye?” Raakel sternly interrupted, her wide eyes, of course, locked ever upon mine as she drew nearer. “Yer teat-suckin’ swain o’er there; he weren’t ne’er a friend o’ mine,” she declared. “Ye saw it yerself, didn’t ye? How nobody, bloomin’ nobody, e’er mark’d ’im any more worthy than the waste what ’e wallow’d in.”
Emilie’s voice quivered. “No… surely you don’t mean th—”
“I does!” snapped Raakel. “Gettin’ beat black an’ blue were all this beefin’ bairn e’er good at! Now look at ’im: still black, still blue. Just bury him, I say. Burn an’ bury him fer good an’ all.”
A shudder overcame Emilie. Clutching herself, she then shed tears.
She’d said it herself at the meeting: that were I to return to Londosius, she would protect my place, my person, even with quick and bloody constraint, were it required. But now was Raakel, my offender and her fastest friend, showing Emilie just how difficult that promise might prove to keep.
All too seldom do things turn out. No, not even with the best and truest of intentions—just like Emilie’s.
“B’sides,” said Raakel, “me life’s a coin to spend as I pleases. If it can buy me this one last win, then by gum, thass a grand bargain.”
No “toy”, for certain. This dwimmer-ryng, this Hristofor: so potent was its use as to exact the most precious of prices. And put another way, it was proof of just how dearly Raakel wanted me dead. Though truth to tell, that hardly seemed so high an honour.
“Ah… f’only ye can see it, muscle-pate,” sighed Raakel. “Ev’rything’s so bloomin’ clear. Yer breathin’, yer pulsin’—the very twitch o’ yer eyes.”
“Can’t say I’m flattered,” I returned.
Raakel squinted and scoffed. “Keep spittin’.”
The Salvator Sven, too, had employed one such Sacrāmentum upon that day at Déu Tsellin. Such was now the state of this war, that even weapons to warp flesh and essence were coming astage. One might say that a step had been taken towards its grand finale.
Past my sword tip I peered, studying Raakel’s eyes, and mulling matters of distance and timing. Meanwhile was she sauntering nigh still, steadily, unconcernedly. And I had clenched my hilt, and she smirked and raised her maul, when without warning, more of the corridor’s ceiling failed and fell unto our heads again. But as dust, ember, and timber filled the air, the both of us fled aside straightway. And with a bang! we burst through the weakened walls, bringing ourselves back into the grand foyer as it gaped and flamed. And there we stood aface one another once more, weapons poised, eyes grim. My mind raced as I mapped my next move.
“Ferum Fulgur!!”
But cutting that short was a shout from Emilie. She’d followed after us, and stood betwixt us now with her silversword swelling with levin. Though unlike before, the blinding light was leashed in along her blade, barking and spitting sparks like hounds champing at the bit. Emilie—was she moulding her odyl? Damming her levin within that weapon of hers?
Raakel thinly chuckled. “Oh, she’s right radged. Won’t stop till we’re stop’d, I bets,” she noted to me. “D’ye know, me silly li’l swain? That sword o’ Emilie’s—it ain’t no toy itself.”
I doubted not that. All the levin of a storm, all the potency to overpower an armed company, detained there in that slender, silver length. Being ungraced, I knew not what goes into such a feat. But that it was, in fact, a feat through-and-through was easy enough to see. In all the time since I’d left her side, Emilie had neither been idle: even as her heart was troubled and myriad duties took her time, the young mareschal had religiously kept to honing her craft.
“Aye; already she’s kill’d with that today,” Raakel gloatingly revealed. “A swing, an’ bzzat!—three dead.”
Yet Emilie was mirthless. “’Twon’t be repeated here, I assure you,” she stated, wiping away her tears, “but you’re right: I will see this nonsense stopped!”
With eyes desperate but determined, Emilie then readied her blinding blade. And when the air next tore with a terrible noise, out from the silver tip lunged a lance of levin—one that shot now straight unto me.
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Notes
Dwimmer-ryng
(Language: Middle English) “Magick ring”.
Ferum Fulgur
(Language: Latin; original name: “Fierce Volt”) “Fierce Lightning”. A levin-elemental ensorcellment and bladespell. The sword is imbued with a shroud of electricity. When swung, a fan of lightning is thrown forth, burning and shocking targets caught within.
Sacrāmentum
(Language: Latin; plural: Sacrāmenta) A sacrament. In Soot-Steeped Knight, an object or weapon held to be blessed by Yoná with divine power.
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