Vol.7, Ch.6, P.5
In a moment, the cries, the clattering, and the clashes beyond the far walls wavered and waned, and then was washed away. Battle there had ceased. Only rain now remained, fogging, falling. Its caress was as quiet as it was cold.
“…I had a son.”
So began Björn out of the blue. He’d spoken before of this son in passing, to be sure, but…
…had.
Björn had a son.
At once, I wondered the worst.
“—A son, raised by but these two widower hands,” the captain continued. “Of fine heart he was…”
And ever as he spoke, Björn looked upon me directly. But the erstwhile gravity of his gaze was gone. Sitting hunched in its place was grief—the grief of an old and lonely man.
“He ever revered the knightly way, and so chose to trod it true,” Björn went on. I listened quietly. “But donning the silver, he marched with the 3rd to the fields of Tallien… and thereafter joined his mother above.”
“…My condolences,” I said at last.
Björn nodded back. “Much obliged.”
An opposing soldier though he was, I could sense no deceit in the death this captain so described. His sorrow was sincere.
“How fell he, if I may ask…?” I said.
“I know not,” answered Björn. “Only, that he did so upon the baileys of Balasthea, I was told.”
“I see…”
The Battle of Tallien. By then, I’d already been named a war-chief to Clan Víly. In other words, Tallien had been my battlefield, and thus my burden to bear, whatever might’ve betided there or nearby. And by some foul chance, it was at its neighbour’s fort, Balasthea, whence Björn’s son had passed—the same Balasthea whence I’d swung the soot-steel… and slain many a knight.
“‘Nils’ his name was,” revealed Björn. And pondering the pain in his aspect as he did so, my eyes strayed to his sword. I thought he’d forsaken the weapon altogether back at the parley. But now, there in his hand was another borne: a bare and scabbardless sword.
“And that,” I said, gazing gravely upon it. “That’s for Nils, then…?”
Björn seemed to guess what I was getting at. “…’Tis indeed,” he answered. And bringing up the blade, he stared into its rain-stippled surface. The look on his face defeated description. “…I have tried,” he said, “tried to strive in my duties; to never immure myself in mourning—just as I would’ve wished of Nils were our fates exchanged.”
“…”
“Howbeit, when your lips relived that line—the selfsame line that Nils himself had sung and studied in his former years—I sensed it: the ghost of my son standing there besides,” Björn recounted. His sword then lowered, and his eyes returned to mine. “The vines, lad. They have found my feet,” he said. “And in their snare, I remembered it anew: that I, Björn, am yet a father.”
“I fear I… I do not follow,” I said with an effort.
Björn huffed softly. “Of course not,” he said. “For all your wealth of wit and wisdom, you cannot fathom a father’s heart.”
In silence I stood. Silence and thought. The rain whispered on.
“This fight is my fate,” Björn slowly declared. And raising his sword, he trained its dripping tip unto me. “En garde.”
“…”
En garde, Rolf. En garde!
But I could not. My hands clenched hard. My feet were frozen. I could not bare the dragon-black. A father’s heart? That was beyond me, true enough. But a fighter’s heart—now that I may fathom, that I may assume. Or so I thought. For this was one war I wished not to wage.
“…Ever does it break, battle. In places unsought, in ways unwished for,” reasoned a stern Björn. “Lad. Lift thou thy blade.”
“…”
But answerless yet I stood. Yet waiting no longer, a sudden slish-slosh speedily approached—Björn had pounced. A slash of silver flashed. To bar it, blackness gusted to the guard.
—Kheengh!
Blades locked. Rain spattered.
“Very good,” Björn calmly remarked as our weapons wrestled and rattled. “No turning back now.”
I groaned back bitterly, even as Björn glared upon me as one determined to dare his doom… as a candle burning its last.
“I am Björn!” he boomed abruptly to my face. “A captain to the Praetorian Guard! A sword sworn to Londosius! Have at you!!”
And so broke a battle most painful and fraught to remember.
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“Srraah!!” roared a bristling Björn; and the long blade in his following flew keener than any daggercraft he’d so deftly displayed before. The low-guard, the centre, the high—no angle was spared employment as he then spun swing after swing and stab after stab. Forged from devotion and honed by discipline, his swordwork wheeled as a siege engine in ceaseless assault. “Dare you mock me, lad!?” he cried. “Look alive! A wall shows more vim than you!”
He was right to be wroth. Ever as we vied, I’d been doing little else but defending, daring at no point to reprise. To my credit, my guard at least never gave, even if the offensive was daunting to endure. For Björn’s blade was as a boulder, its every stroke a shock of a strike, that even with the sword of soot in hand, my arms trembled under his brunt.
This was nary owed to his sinews. Trained and sharpened this Praetorian was, surely, but Time hadn’t spared him its withering wind any less than it would the next wizened soldier. Yet even so, how hauntingly heavy did Björn’s sword seem, and withal how vociferous in strength.
Such is what becomes of a weapon once indued with ardour. When a man marches into battle bearing in his bosom aspiration or promise, pain or penance, it whets and weights his sword most tangibly. Rather peculiar, one might make of this—or absolute hogwash—but as one abiding now its breaking waves, I could attest to its reality.
“Egh…!” I strained. Yielding step after step, I was as a boat battered by a storm. Whether in age, in impetus, or in the ferocity of the flames we each tended in our hearts, the difference between Björn and myself was stark, and only became more so as the fight unfolded.
“Is this all you are!?” barked Björn as he bashed and bashed against my guard. “’Tis a sorry war you wage, lad!”
A sorry war? Nay, far from it. There was desperate purpose to my sword, a promise to come home hale and whole. What sort of man would I be to slight it now? Or even to appear as much?
No. I dared not let anyone down, not even Björn—especially not Björn. Stoked asudden—“…Sheh!!”—I burst forth a swing in answer. Wuthering quick and wide, the black blade bit through the captain’s spaulder and raked his arm underneath. But even as he bled, Björn blenched not, but rather rushed hither again with his sword held high.
“Scarce a tickle!” he cried.
And then, from stances orthodox though deadly, Björn brandished one sharp stroke after another. In each was glimpsed years of practice long and grim, leaving no doubt as to the old man’s mettle.
He was, however, a fallible foe yet; for at whiles would he expose openings that, though fleeting, were ripe for the riposte. But though supplied with the insight, I could not put it to use. Ever at the last instant would I stall. Ever would the chance escape.
…For I was lost. My mind, my heart, was torn in two. And to so perceptive an opponent, it was only too clear to see.
“Why quake!? Why cower!?” Björn berated me, as our blades locked wildly once more. “Your sword weeps to serve so maundering a master!”
Shame at once strangled my troubled bosom. But Björn was right. I could not fail now. My will must win through!
“Drraah!!” I roared back; and stepping boldly in, I pushed might and main against the Praetorian. Relenting to the lurch, he recoiled, to which I brandished upon him a broad and down-sailing swing, intent to tempt him into a guard. Bite this bait, and he would be rewarded with a wheeling sword from below. But Björn’s proved too sharp a wit. Backing timely away, he whisked himself to safety. And there, he finely reassumed a fighting stance.
So much like a storm turning between surge and serenity he was. Sudden and yet smooth, his was truly the trait of one who has braved many a battle.
“Touch-and-go!” observed Björn, though I doubted that he meant it. In fact, it seemed dubious if ever he’d let down his guard hitherto. But even as I brooded this, I broached a more pressing matter.
“…I’ve met him, Björn,” I said. “The ringleader—in there, just before it went aflame.”
Björn glanced whither I then pointed: to the grand college yonder as it rolled in flames from behind the hanging grey. “Oh?” said the captain with some interest. “And what was he?”
“A holy man,” I answered. “The St Rakliammelech himself.”
“…”
The Praetorian fell speechless. Rain resounded. Soft but solemn, it slowly soaked the world to the stone.
Björn looked distantly upon me, as one in the throes of many thoughts. But at length, his eyes stirred, and he spoke. “The Saint yet lives? All these centuries, just to cheat the world?” he said quietly. “Alas. O, alas! That harrows to hear.”
And was most surprising for him to say. Björn, this grim, granite-slab of a soldier, was deeming my indictment creditable. Why, he scarce even demanded I explain the preposterous claim.
“You would take me at my word?” I asked, trying to make certain. “I thought you a man of faith.”
“I’ve beheld manyfold my fill of fraud from the Faith today,” Björn lowly scoffed. “A deceitful, undying saint at the centre of it all… seems now not so strange.”
“But strange it is still,” I noted. “A cock-and-bull story, you could say.”
“That I could,” conceded Björn. “‘Cock-and-bull’, indeed!”
We were agreed. But regardless, Björn then stepped hither by half a pace. And then another. And another still. Poised yet was his sword, and staunch still were his eyes, as he steadily reduced the distance between us.
“Howbeit, I know you now enough to say thus,” he added as he neared, “—that you, lad, are not one to weave yarns so wild.”
“Then why fight me?” I pressed him. “If you would so trust to me, then why not walk with me?”
“You well-know why,” said Björn. “Once set, this mind sways not. Or have you not sensed so from my sword thus far?”
Inly I groaned. Björn’s moustache curled slightly.
“Nay,” he said. “You have done. Only, you could ill-stay that so-inquisitive tongue of yours. Hmph… ever the greenhorn!”
In my soul was I screaming. Stop, Björn, stop! the depths implored. Cease this madness, why can’t you!?
But ever as the echoes rang, I remembered asudden a pair of eyes sad and blue.
“Yes…” I relented numbly, “…a greenhorn, indeed.”
Hitherto had I hied to the field, fastly avowed to lay low any who might bar my way. And along the warpath had sibling blood been let, and comrades of old cloven cold. But this day, this dire moment, was different. For between me and this foe was something else shared; something I felt but could not find the words for. And that’s to speak nothing of the Evil today unveiled, an enemy that my present opponent concurred deserved the wrath of both our blades.
Our paths were parallel. We could walk together, therefore. We very well ought. And yet here we were, turning swords upon another. Such is War, it seemed. Whither the heart charges forth, forgetting restraint, there lie in wait battles bitter and beyond its sight to foresee.
So did I strengthlessly realise, as on and on the rain fell and fraught us in its weighty waters.
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