Chapter 199: Book 3-22.2: Duel

“What’s happening?” Gwendith murmured. She could barely feel her wrists, bound with leather cords pulled tight by those filthy barbarians.

“They’re distracted,” Ella-Mai whispered. “I think Miss Davar is fighting them.”

“She should have run,” Gwendith grunted. “She should have headed straight back to Fort Aegermonth and brought back the entire Legion.”

“Perhaps,” Ella-Mai whispered. “Here...I’ve almost got it.”

Gwendith glanced at the other girl. She couldn’t see it, of course, but a small extrusion of heated Animus was slowly burning through her cords. She’d had to work slowly lest the scent of burning leather give them away.

Gwendith half-wished that she could manipulate her Animus like that. Her own Facet had proven completely useless.

She could still see it, how they were captured. She couldn’t forget or even push it aside. No, the memories repeated in her head, flaying her mind raw with anger and regret. They should have just run as fast as they could have instead of turning back to confront their pursuers.

“We’d be harried until we get caught,” Yuriko said.

Gwendith had hesitated but she didn’t like the feeling of being prey either way, so she agreed.

As was she was wont to do, the beautiful golden-haired girl had gone off on her own. Gwendith shook her head. It was that tendency that prevented her from getting into Agaza. Still, she couldn’t deny the other girl’s prowess. All she could do was hope that Yuriko wouldn’t be captured.

She and Ella-Mai followed along the arboreal road, heading the opposite way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the barbarians eventually found the two of them. Gwendith would have been happy to remain on the treetop but with the Plasma Lancets mostly ineffective and the fact they were outnumbered ten to one, they had been forced to the ground. And then, Gwendith found out how useless her Facet was against them.

She’d been building up her Animus and she discharged the Freezing Grasp as soon as one of the barbarians came close. The man just shrugged off the cold as if it were nothing. Fine, a bit of his skin had turned bluish, but after pumping a tenth of her Animus into the attack, a bit of blue wasn’t what she expected at all. She had been so shocked that she was tackled, disarmed, and bound before she recovered her composure.

What followed was a full day of being carried--a humiliation made worse by the fact that Yuriko had beaten her opponent and remained free. Ella-Mai hadn’t fared any better than Gwendith and she had been captured soon after.

Why they ignored Yuriko and headed back north was a mystery to Gwendith. It was almost as if they were afraid of her.

The few times Ella-Mai and her had been given time together, her friend had hatched a desperate plan to escape. Gwendith understood a little bit of Ikash, not more than a handful of words every now and then, but what she got was that they were to be brought to their gathering place. What their ultimate fate was, Gwendith could well imagine.

When they could, they would cut the bonds and run. During the night, while the girls shivered in the cold, the barbarians slept soundly. They could try to escape then. Perhaps they knew that the girls weren’t that good against the cold, so they were given heavy fur-lined blankets at night. It kept them warm and also hid what Ella-Mai was doing.

As for their weapons, those could be recovered or abandoned, depending on the circumstances.

The second night was different. Strange. Gwendith thought that they would sleep and only keep a sentry or two, but though the barbarians lay down, they didn’t close their eyes. After a couple of hours, they all suddenly jumped to their feet and ran. Only a few were left to guard them and they promptly rolled them out of their blankets and slung them over their shoulders. Gwendith drummed her heels against the barbarian’s chest indignantly in protest.

After an hour, they suddenly stopped heading north. Then, Gwendith saw something she couldn’t believe. A Chaos Lord bearing Yuriko Davar’s likeness. She knew immediately that it wasn’t Yuriko. Aside from the different coloured eyes, she carried herself with an arrogant mien that was quite unlike the Davar girl.

She and Ella-Mai were plopped next to a tree trunk and the barbarians went off, leaving only the same two guards.

After a while, even those two were preoccupied by what was happening. They barely paid attention to the two girls.

“Are you almost done?” Gwendith hissed.

“Almost…there!”

Ella-Mai’s bonds fell from her hands. She rubbed her wrists, hissing in pain as the blood rushed back to her extremities. She held out a finger with an inch of Animus stretching out from it. She pressed it against the leather between Gwendith’s hands and it started to smoke.

Gwendith kept her eyes on the guards, her heart jumping up to her throat every time they shifted their weight. But they didn’t even glance back at them. The leather cords fell off Gwendith’s hands.

“Let’s go,” Ella-Mai said.

“Weapons,” Gwendith muttered as she rubbed her wrist.

Ella-Mai shook her head. “It’s too close to them. Let’s just go!”

Gwendith nodded reluctantly. She got up and followed the other girl. It was a Full Moon tonight, but the clouds covered the skies and cloaked the land in shadow. There was enough moonlight that it wasn’t pitch black, but the shadows cast by the trees, cliffs, and large boulders provided enough places to seek cover in.

A couple of hours later, they were free and clear. Gwendith heaved a sigh of relief.

“What about Miss Davar?” Ella-Mai asked with some concern.

Gwendith shook her head. “She should know to retreat when she doesn't see us in camp.”

“But…”

Gwendith glared at Ella-Mai.

“Fine. I’ll try to get to her. You, on the other hand, must go. Return to the Fort and let them know what happened. Go!”

She pushed the other girl to send her off. Then Gwendith slowly made her way back. She tucked her hair under the hood of her jacket and climbed up the trees. She lay on the branch and activated Enhanced Senses. It wasn’t hard to spot where the other blonde was. She saw golden light and green light clash nearly a longstride away. To the south.

“Must have been turned around,” Gwendith muttered.

Still, she needed to help Yuriko escape or at least let the other girl know that she and Ella-Mai had escaped.

What was that green light? The Chaos Lord? Why is she fighting a Chaos Lord? She’s only an Apprentice! Why?

“Tsk.”

She had to help.

Gwendith dropped back to the snow-covered ground and ran. Though she kept an eye out for more barbarians. It wouldn’t do to get recaptured.

A few minutes later, she was less than two hundred paces away. The fight had moved deeper into the forest. The barbarians kept their distance and it looked like they still didn’t notice that they'd escaped.

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She crept closer, finally catching sight of the combatants. The fight was about to end, and one of them was about to get split in twain.

“Yuri!” Gwendith screamed.

_______

In the midst of Yuriko's mind, at the centre of her sun-shaped Facet, the sword pattern that she'd started to inlay all the way back at the start of term flared.

The pattern was far from the simple sword shape it was at the beginning. Now, it was in the exact image of Fri'Avgi.

But it wasn't just a surface image or a simple illustration. Complex lines wove inside the central pattern, creating runescript lines, nodes, spirals, and vortices. It looked remarkably like what she had seen when she delved her mind into the artefact.

From the simple input runescript lines in the hilt to the complex spiralling vortex that represented Fri'Avgi's control sphere. The pattern in her mind was identical.

The lines that spread out to the rest of the blade were fuzzy though, save for a triple line that ran along the fuller, terminating at odd points along the blade. The crossguard's lines were equally fuzzy.

All in all, it was a rather shabby copy but it couldn't be helped. Those were the only lines that Yuriko understood and those lines were those that she had properly bound.

Barely a tenth of Fri'Avgi's potential. But better than nothing.

Damien had chuckled proudly when Yuriko had managed that much.

That's as much as you can manage now. The rest, well, it's more a matter of time. Congratulations, little girl. Though Fri'Avgi had acknowledged you before, now you've proven worthy of that trust.

Golden light filled the image and a moment later, it faded like a firefly's glow.

Seeker's sword had begun its downward descent, aimed squarely between Yuriko's eyes.

Yuriko's hands rose, fist curling around an imagined hilt. The broken remnants of her side-blade dropped to the snow, bleeding Animus from the shattered edge.

Seeker's eyes widened. Just as her weapon came within inches of Yuriko's face, a great sword materialized in the girl's hands, positioned to block the attack.

"What?"

Boom!

Sheet lightning sparked between the weapons, one a ridiculously oversized weapon that should have been impossible for a thin girl to wield, and the other a grey metalled weapon with a stylized flame-shaped blade wreathed in Chaos' green light.

Seeker leapt back, but the force of the impact made her tumble head over heels. She barely managed to retain an upright position by the time she bled away the momentum.

“Yuri!”

Gwendith’s voice.

Yuriko couldn’t help but glance to the side. She could see the other girl on top of a tree.

“Run!” she yelled.

“No, you don’t!” Seeker screamed and lunged.

Yuriko spun Fri’Avgi and barely managed to fend off the Seeker’s renewed assault. She channelled the second dance into the artefact which caused it to shoot out golden rays from the central gem. Even so, the furious attacks drove her back against a tree trunk.

“You’re still…using that thing…as a sword! Why don’t you don your Shroud?” Seeker taunted.

“What?”

“Oh, did you think I hunted for you just to beat you as you are now?” she scoffed. “Use your Shroud so I may defeat you at your best.”

Green fire surrounded the Seeker. The snow at her feet turned to steam even as she kept striking. Yuriko held Fri’Avgi steady, letting the defensive rays catch the attacks. A tiny bit of her circulating Animus burned off with every parry.

Finally, right after Seeker struck crosswise, Yuriko shifted to the third dance and smashed Fri’Avgi at the other. Seeker’s eyes narrowed and she parried the blow, sending Yuriko’s blade up. But Fri’Avgi practically weighed nothing to Yuriko, and she was able to quickly reverse and slashed downwards, which shifted into a stab when Seeker retreated out of reach.

Seeker dodged to Yuriko’s left, but transitioning from thrust to sideways slash was just as easy. Fri’Avgi was met with the other’s blade and the screech of clashing metal boomed like thunder.

Oh, it was thunder. Lightning flashed in the skies, and a powerful wind blew, whipping Yuriko’s and the Seeker’s hair. Seeker’s tresses half-covered her eyes, but Yuriko’s flowed seamlessly to the side, a banner to announce her presence.

Yuriko stabbed, taking a lunging leap to do so. Seeker, half distracted by her hair, barely managed to dodge. The jagged light that covered Fri’Avgi’s length grazed against the Seeker’s robe, cutting a huge gash and burning the cloth fragments to ash.

“Faithless scum!” Seeker yelled as she danced out of the way. Her greatsword tumbled from her hands as she scrambled away. The snow melted under the fallen weapon and in the blink of an eye, it disappeared into a cloud of steam.

Not one to let go of an opening, Yuriko harried the Seeker. In terms of speed, the Chaos Lord was still faster by a hair, and she managed to keep out of reach even as she danced backwards. She sent green darts aimed at Yuriko’s face, but a quick twist of the wrist turned the artefact broadways, making for a rather effective shield.

Seeker dodged around a tree, and it was Yuriko’s turn to cut through one with her weapon. She barely felt any resistance to the strike, and she continued to pursue the other.

Seeker grinned even as Yuriko tried to chase her down. She showed off her white teeth, though her canines looked sharper than Yuriko’s. After the first few moments of her assault, Yuriko could see that the Seeker was still toying with her. But what could she do? The Chaos Lord was faster than her, and even if she fled, she would be run down. Her Animus reserves were low, too.

Fri’Avgi sucked into itself the green flames that the Seeker gave off. Yuriko could see those turn into motes of distilled Chaos, and while she fought, she could see the motes make their way into the gem. Any moment now, they would shoot into Yuriko’s Anima, and probably disrupt her rhythm.

“Still too green,” Seeker smirked.

She held out a hand and flicked her fingers as though beckoning. The next thing Yuriko knew, she felt a line of pain slash against her left arm as she reflexively jerked to the right.

Seeker’s greatsword spun in the air, floating point down in front of the Seeker. With another gesture, the Chaos Lord sent the weapon flying at Yuriko, even as she dashed the opposite way, hands curled into claws with green flames dancing between her fingers.

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