Vol.7, Ch.5, P.6
“…Ye knows what, muscle-pate?” said a hoarse Raakel, wiping her red-running brow. “Emilie there. She’s bloomin’ right.” Even as she broached this, the Owlcrane bothered not to look away from me. Albeit her thin smile seemed somehow different from usual. “Right fer wantin’ to stop a death-duel,” she went on. “Right as right can bloomin’ be.”
“Aye to that,” I conceded.
Man is wont to war. Tangled up in plights and purposes beyond any to help, he arms himself and sallies forth unto the fray. But then, “Why fight?” he hears, “Why keep fighting?” And there to the side he sees her: a soul suing desperately for peace. How foolish, he thinks of her, how shallow of sight. Things can’t be so simple, you know. And surely is he not alone in this sentiment, nor is he ever.
But I thought otherwise. Why, the whole world ought echo with like cries for peace. Let no one pretend that much reason is needed to condemn such violent vanity. And so to seek and scream for its end—well, what could be more right, really?
“Lo, have a gander,” said Raakel, pointing back to Emilie. “See how sad she be? Thass proof—proof o’ a just an’ gentle ’eart.”
“Then why not soothe her,” I said, “and stand down?”
“’Cos mine… it ain’t naught like ’ers,” came the answer.
Only did the strong ever enter Raakel’s sight. And so had I long been to her but a bootlicker, a worm worth not a single glance. But after having set in motion what seemed to her a landslide of sins, no longer was I to be overlooked, but to be quashed. And not till she saw it done did Raakel now dare rest.
“Look at ye,” she continued, her voice darkening. “A weak, li’l whelp ye once were. But now—”
Strangely then, she hesitated, as though rueing the words she meant to say. She shook her head.
“…But still ye keeps runnin’ ’way.”
Running away. That’s what Raakel’d construed of me all this time: that my refusal to return to Emilie’s side is “running away”. Fair enough. To each his own. Indeed, from her seat in the theatre, as it were, I don’t suppose she could’ve taken it any other way.
“Then ’ere’s Emilie,” the Owlcrane continued. “All mighty like sea an’ mountain. But now? Now… she’s a weepin’, wailin’ mess…”
“…”
“Still… it’s a stinkin’ proper point she’s made, when it comes to it,” said Raakel. And then her smile strained, and her brows bent in doubt. “I don’t know ’nymore. O’ who’s weak, o’ who’s strong—I don’t know.”
Weakness unto strength. Strength unto weakness. In a world so cruel, resistance must awake and ride for war. Such was the path I’d chosen—I, and my friends and their folk withal.
Emilie, on the other hand, as if by some sick sleight of fate, had been imparted a power without peer, had foisted on her an office she’d never fancied. And what could she do when her bosom friends came to blows? Bid them abate. Cry for calm. Sob in despair when even her sword failed to save, much less stop them. But again, that is how a human soul ought be, I think: an appealer for peace rather than a repeater of war.
“And yet,” I said to Raakel, “murder stirs still in your eyes. Why?”
This bore pointing out. For indeed, even as her emotions meandered, one thing remained constant upon the Owlcrane’s face: her bristling and unbridled lust for my blood.
“’Cos I likes it simple. ’Cos things ought be simple,” was her answer. “An’ you—ye’re bein’ a brussen fly in that soup.”
Oh, to so crave for Strength. For the Fuel to her Fire; for her Beacon in the Night. Surely could Raakel not bear to see it blurred, therefore. And so, to keep things “simple”, she saw and accepted only the Strong.
…Nay. That couldn’t be it. Rather, Raakel just couldn’t excuse the Weak. Something about them absolutely sickened her. And what feeling was it that’d filled her, when the one she’d once marked a weakling came back a man more mighty than she? Why, the urge to kill him, of course.
She is Strong. Her foes are Weak. Worst them, crush them, kill them, and only then would she know vindication. Such was the roost of her reason, the “home” of her heart—the only one she’d got left, like as not. Meaning…
“…Someone’s wronged you once, is it?” I uttered aloud. “Someone weak.”
Raakel’s face flashed at once. The arrow’d struck the mark, it seemed. Albeit on the surface, she wasn’t alone. There dwell not few in this world who admire the mighty, after all, who yearn for even a sliver of strength. But it was underneath where Raakel differed. As she strode alongside the Strong, she kept an eye ever turned back: to revile the Weak therebehind; to abhor Weakness with all her being.
“Yes…” I said, “it all makes sense now.”
“Shut it…!” rasped a wroth Raakel. “Ye don’t know! Ye can’t!”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Of what so befell you. Of what made you as you are. But that you fault the weak for it is simple enough to see.”
The Owlcrane bared her teeth. “Quiet! Quiet, you!” she shiveringly shouted.
“You just pine to escape the pain,” I persisted, “to pin all the blame on folk you deem frail. That’s all it is.”
“Ye shut that mingin’ mouth o’ yers!!” cried Raakel.
And stamping a furious foot, she flew upon me in a red frenzy, her hammer wheeling like a wind. Down directly it swung; but deflecting the offence, I chanced a swift riposte. Yet it was needless, as in the next moment, Raakel abandoned the exchange and bounded away.
“Hahh…! Hakh…!” panted she from afar.
And clutching her breast, she assayed to soothe herself. A wise move; having hitherto braved many a battlefield, Raakel was not one to crumble from mere and reckless rancour. She might lose a cool head, but never her natural prudence.
“I’ve had it with ye…!” she seethed.
And then the hand at her bleeding breast balled into a taut fist; and the ring that was upon it roused to new refulgence. Whiteness welled, odyl throbbed… and the third price was paid: Raakel’s senses had been sharpened yet again. And to what degree, I dared not imagine.
“Khr… rrgh!” she gurgled in agony.
Her limit was at hand. The burden had become crushing. Her temples, how they now pulsed with leech-like veins; how the vessels at her neck swelled in squirming nets; how her eyes—her bulging, bloodshot eyes—reddened to the same hue as her scarlet hair. But then the agony gave way. Her grimace turned a gruesome and gummy smile—“I’ll ’ammer ye to Hell, I will! To Hell!”—and then, all her body and her war-bludgeon came speeding upon me asudden.
Bringing up the black blade, I bore the bruising brunt. And following the bash of metals and burst of sparks, I ventured a veering vengeance. But when the soot-steel swept, Raakel was already gone: her inhuman senses had cut for her a quick escape—and withal an opportunity for a second hammer-swing.
“Urggh…!” I strained, guarding against the dogged assault.
Horribly enough, the deathsome exchange thence repeated again and again, over and over. And as I soon found, after each was I the one to stagger aback. If Raakel hadn’t had me wholly scried before, then she surely did now, as no matter my move, she would see through and thwart it utterly. Verily, be it even my sinews whensoever they surged or slacked, or the very tempo of my lungs, no nicety was too subtle for her to see.
Now, in the heat of the moment, embers puffed asudden from the side, only to tease my eye for not an instant. However, “not an instant” was more than enough for Raakel to spy a ripe opening. Indeed, as with a table full-splayed afore her, all the battlefield was now hers to see. And pouncing for the platter, her hammer flashed and found a shoulder to shovel.
“Znghh!!” I pealed at the impact.
Things were getting grim. All the day’s duresses were dragging me now to Death’s door. But then again, Raakel neither seemed so far behind. More blood was drivelling down from her nose; and this time, starting, too, from the tails of her rutilant eyes.
Pressed, she dashed away to a distance, collected herself, and gripped her haft again. “Hhah…! Hhh…!” she wheezed wildly but assuredly, having known full-well that I could scarce give chase. Eagle-eyed, indeed. Nay; at this point, even eagles might envy those eyes of hers.
Waring myself anew, I withstood my shivering shoulder, and readied my own weapon as well. But to my ill luck, that very act presented to Raakel’s senses yet another opening. And only too keen to bite the neck, she burst hither with jealous agility, before letting fall another fell hammer-stroke.
My thews threw themselves to the defence. But alas: my feet couldn’t keep up. Worse still, Raakel had scried even the centre of my weight as it shifted. Thus with a bang! I could but let the black blade blast against my breast, and my body in all its burliness be blown away.
“Gwaakh!!” I cried, as I crashed straight through a wall, and lay collapsed within a blazing corridor. My vision swam. Stars, ash, and embers danced and dazzled. And the sound of burning, tumbling timbers beat like drums all about.
But with Death breathing down my back, I hastily hoist myself, and poised my weapon for a speedy reprisal. Only, there was nothing near to reprise: there beyond the broken wall appeared Raakel, strutting as surely as she’d done before. Despite the life-price of her ring, much less the tremendous and immediate toll it was exacting from her flesh, the Owlcrane seemed content to relish this rivalry of ours, to judge by the jeer now haunting her face.
“Ah… thass more like it,” she softly hissed. “Simple… an’ easy.”
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