Vol.7, Ch.5, P.5
Raakel beheld her bloodstained hand. “Deiva damn ye…!” risingly she rasped. Then, as though to echo her rancour, the fissure in the floor broke and fell away behind her, gaping ever more; and the flames therebelow belched up another billow. Now was it grown altogether to a gorge, rendering impassible the better part of the grand foyer. Doubtless did the rent dive a long way down—down to the cavernous undercroft, I reckoned, whence I’d crossed that snake-like saint.
“Ach…!” came a low yelp.
That was Emilie, nearer to Raakel. Fortune favoured her not, as in escaping the collapse, she’d been forced aback to the other side of the chasm. Forget trying to stop us: now could she no longer even reach us.
Nevertheless, that silenced her little. “Stop this at once, you two! Just… stop!” she yelled from yonder. Ember and blaze shone bright against her face, and dyed blood-red the tears now starting down her cheeks.
I turned to my opponent. “Well, Raakel?” I said. “Any way other than down? Out of this hole of ours?”
None, like as not. And I knew it. I knew, but with Emilie so pleading for peace, I couldn’t help but to ask before it was too late.
Raakel, of course, merely shook her head. “Down to Hell’s all ye deserves, ye mardy dog,” she hissed back. And so was it made plain: this Owlcrane was beyond placating. And to drive that in, she glared daggers unto me, truly like a fowl of prey. But then rather asudden, her face faintly softened. “…It were drear down there in Godrika,” she uttered quietly, “weren’t it, muscle-pate?”
I paused. This was unexpected. “Drear and dreadful,” I answered at length. “But so what?”
Godrika… that once-forsaken minery for silver, that bloody lair of the catoblepas. Therein had I plumbed the hopeless depths and dared battle against that demonic bull—alongside Emilie, Felicia, and the Owlcranes. If I reckoned aright, that would’ve been three-and-a-half summers ago.
“Drear, dreadful… an’ a jolly good time,” Raakel sighed, her eyes never once moving from mine.
“…”
“…”
But after the curt recollection, she spoke no more. The topic, it seemed, was spent. I wondered what her mind was to broach it. Or might she have meant nothing by it at all? In a world that finds us rather as friends, I might’ve been able to guess, maybe. But even as I pondered the impossibility, step-by-step I slinked closer to Raakel, gripping tighter the hilt in hand. Then, I spied a sweat beading upon my foe’s bloody brow.
Quite forgivable. It was, rather literally, flaming hot in this foyer, and she’d been brandishing swing after swing of that hefty hammer all this while. But nay: that sweat, I saw, was different. More closely now, I studied Raakel’s condition.
“…Hakh… hah…”
Her breaths were laboured. And there flushed no longer the former vim upon her visage. A pallour had replaced it. Indeed, hers was a fatigue not of the flesh, but of the mind. The ring’d been whipping her senses wild, flooding her faculties with far more information than could a mortal manage. And now, I could but wager, was she paying the so-dear price. And if so…
“Dyaah!” I thundered, driving the soot-steel violently into the floor. And with a hardy heave, I next sent the sword bursting out of the boards, throwing forth a flurry of specks and splinters.
“…Hhgh!?”
Raakel’s eyes flashed. The vision in them filled with the infinite flotsam, forcing her faculties to count every piece—and in so doing, bewildered her own already-embattled brain.
“Nggh…!”she groaned, her face grimacing aghast; to which with all speed, I pelted unto her.
“Sseht!”
“Ghyyaah!”
By now must every nerve of hers, every vein, be vigorously aboil. But despite the pain and confusion, Raakel roused her weapon to mighty motion. Through the cloud of clutter it then careered: a mad silvermaul in full-force flight.
She was a warrior whetted through-and-through, this Raakel. Never for long could I forecast her coming moves. And sure enough, the one she assayed now, in all its utter abandon, would betray my expectations.
“Hn!?” I gasped. My sword—it’d sliced through empty air! But not so for Raakel: barely escaping my assault, her senses then scried a wide opening, one which her weapon partook with a ravenous veer in its arc.
Fwwohm! it passed. At the soonest, I’d twisted away. Yet it was vain. The maul’d managed a graze, and whereon but my accursed wound. That’s right: the very same screaming from my flank. Even worse, the weapon’s wicked odyl had raked the spot like a lion’s searching claws.
“…kh!!” I retched, scarce able to even cry in agony.
This was a monstrous blow. To my knees I began to buckle. But in the nick of time, I somehow withstood, finding my feet before I could founder. Raakel, however, saw to that soon enough, as her hammer wheeled and came swinging hither again. I hied my sword to a hasty defence, only to find my sinews sapped by the squeezing pain. Failing to fully fend the blow, I was thus struck and flung far aback.
“Guhakh!?”
“No! Rolf!!”
Over blazing floorboards I barrelled, till upon their licking flames I lay. But no rest for the wicked: Raakel, clinging to the chase, charged now in hammer-mad haste.
I had to get up. Flagging lungs and flaring flank be damned, I had to get up. Biting my teeth till nearly breaking, I clambered to my feet. And weathering my old wound as it clutched and cried, I thrust my hilt for one more dire defence.
Kraang! clashed our weapons at once, the force of it jarring my every joint. But shrink and shore myself now, and any chance of victory would vanish. Trusting to that instinct, I stalked the soonest chance when Raakel might rear back her hammer. And right as it came, I sprang a punishing stroke.
And another. And another still. Even as my body trembled in pain, I strove to strike as subtly as I could, that no opening might be betrayed, that my opponent might be suppressed for as long as possible.
The waiting game had begun. The hour-sand was coursing. Raakel hadn’t got long till she succumbed to her Sacrāmentum’s toll. Indeed, this duel of ours had descended into exactly that: a battle of attrition. This I detested as much as the next man, especially with the college threatening to collapse overhead at any moment. But alas, I saw no better card to play.
“Urgh…!” so strained the both of us, brandishing blade after blade, heaving hammer after hammer. Flying sparks spilt in our faces, crashing metals clapped in our ears. And in time, the terrible look upon Raakel winced—and from her nostrils, there dripped a dark, glistening red.
“Bloody ’ell!!” she shrieked; and with a shove, she bitterly shot away from my midst, rallied herself, and wiped her nose against her gauntlet.
“Hoouh…”
“Haa…”
And there we stood, catching our breaths. Albeit neither of us were to be heard: the surrounding fires popped and plumed, and the college altogether began to groan in ubiquitous echoes, like the inner throes of some immense and dying beast. But despite the danger, our eyes remained locked. And Emilie—yes, Emilie was yet here, watching helplessly, hopelessly from across the smoking chasm. And the expression filling her face was hard to behold; harder again, in fact, than even the old stabbed, burnt, and abused wound at my waist.
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