Soot-Steeped Knight (LN)
“Gwugh! Gaegh! Gaugh!”
Coughing. Gagging.
“…Haa…! Haah…!”
Washed upon the rivershore further downstream, I hungrily gasped for air.
How long had I been drifting through the tributary?
Beyond the shore stretched fields parched and plain, while overhead hung the searing sun. Life seemed all but lost in the land; one could mistake it for purgatory and be rightly forgiven.
But purgatory this was not, for I yet drew breath—the pain eating away at every corner of my body was proof aplenty of it. Where it was most ravenous was my left shoulder, run through with an arrow as it was. A parting present from the Nafilim engineers back at the tributary.
Little remained of its shaft. Well-broken, both it and I, fellow farers through that merciless “swim” down the river. But this was where we would part. I clenched the broken arrow in my right hand, and with sudden force…
“Geaagh!!”
Tossing it aside, I laid there on my back, spent, lungs heaving up and down from the turmoil. My mind turned to my beaten body.
Arms. Legs. Still sound. Or rather, still “attached” is more the word. My left arm was broken. Hands—the little finger of each shared the same fate. Beyond the puncture wound in my shoulder, many more riddled my body in the form of cuts and bruises.
My legs… their bones were yet whole. A sprain was in my right ankle, and a great pain blared from it, but I could still walk.
And a rib bone was broken somewhere. Perhaps more than one.
“Haa… heagh…”
Even still, I was alive. A miracle, or close to one. Generous enough for a man so scorned by the Deiva. If it was not by Her will that I survived, then by what?
No answer.
I lay there, face-to-face with the full sky. Not a single part of my body did I think to move, not even the tip of a finger. I was tired. Drowsy. Dreadfully so.
Without a sound, I closed my eyes.
My mind… I should just let it take flight. Be free. Yes. Perhaps I will.
My thoughts thinned like a mist before the rising sun.
My body melted into the soft dark…
…
..
.
.
..
…
“…Not yet… Not like this.”
Hands on the ground, I pushed myself up. Not once in my life did waking up require so mountainous an amount of willpower. Back on my feet, I read the arc of the sun.
“The Erbelde… there yonder, is it…?”
♰
Through the wasteland I walked. Not a single soul haunted the place.
The hour of eventide loomed, but the sun cared not in its scorching glare. My gear, once woefully waterlogged, was now as dry as any pebble I stepped upon.
My armour. Half of its leathered portions were in shambles, which I tore off to fashion a crude splint for my broken arm. The ragged rest, I tossed. Shedding such a burden greatly lightened my body, yet it still laboured forth as if its flesh were of lead.
Sweat seeped from every pore, worming over my wounds and searing my senses with sharp pain. Though my “trip” down the river had me swallowing more water than I would have liked, my throat was now coarse and sticky with thirst. My breaths gasped and grated against the heat, but with every try, my broken collarbone cried out in agony.
My right ankle, sprained as it was, complained no less. The arrow-hole in my shoulder sighed excruciatingly. A wound upon my head unwound, letting blood trickle down my face.
Horribly harrowed and hurt as I was, I yet walked on, for walking was my only choice.
“This day… I’ll mark… on every calendar I cross…”
As I should.
Few are they who could boast of having survived an explosion from behind.
Twice.
On the same day.
“This tale thrilling enough for you, Emilie…?”
But I could scarcely imagine a third. Surely the fates should know to let jests run their course. Though I suppose I owe them thanks for letting me live this long, what with all these wounds, and all the battering and tumbling through the barbed throat of the tributary, tiny as it was compared to the Erbelde.
Felicia. The forders. Were they saved? I wondered. Not much time elapsed between the destruction of both the bridge and the dam. Less than three mīllia passūs separated the two, a distance I had crossed at full gallop. Freeing the tributary should not have taken long, either. All in all, not more than a few minutes.
Yes.
I should have made it in time.
Or at least, I’d like to think as much.
If they had managed to weather the enemy’s attacks, then surely they must be well.
They must be.
♰
For how long have I walked?
The skies darkened with dusk. Only the vapid vestiges of twilight spared any illumination…
…as well as the braziers bespeckling an encampment.
Off ahead in the yonder, tents and pavilions peeked out of the evening gloom.
Of course.
It was only a matter of time before I would meet the enemy’s heart: the tributary wormed through Nafilim lands, and having emerged from it and trundled my way towards the Erbelde, it was natural that I would cross the foe’s garrison at some point. What’s more, my approach had brought me right to the backdoor, as it were.
I slinked my way closer, ducking behind bushes along the way.
I climbed over, my falling feet placing me squarely within the enemy’s dominion.
But where were the enemies themselves?
Passing strange. Only a scant smattering of their number was I able to glean.
A high hill cast a shadow over the encampment from the latter’s rear face. Sidling up to the summit, I gave a peek, spotting the Erbelde Broadrun in the distance, coursing through the landscape in a great brushstroke. Peering down, I found the entirety of the Nafilim garrison splayed before me—and a sight that stole my breath.
A raging battle.
Already, the knightly host had broken into the enemy base. It would seem the forders had found their footing and crossed the Erbelde. Met with this flood of knights, the Nafilim were pouring each and every one of their number into resisting the teeming tide. No wonder there were so few loitering about their garrison’s rear.
The bridge explosion had certainly toppled the gameboard and the knights along with it. But destroying the dam had reset the pieces, and the two sides now found themselves locked squarely in battle.
Yet this was the Nafilim’s heart of operations, and they spared neither their pawns nor their princes in mustering a fierce resistance. Indeed, the knights had their hands full and more: their entire offence threatened to buckle under the foe’s defiance should a single step be yielded.
What was left for me to do, then, was to thin out the Nafilim aggression by drawing their number away from the fore of the fighting. In other words: a bit of deception and disorder.
I scanned about, discovering four horses reined together.
Perfect.
Now I required fire.
I searched for braziers, an easy task given that dusk had already dimmed the area. The Nafilim fashioned their night-fires in the form of torches thrust into an iron basket of sorts. Kicking over one such contraption, I helped myself to four of the lit torches, bringing them over to the horses and tying them to the saddles.
The animals jerked and jostled at the idea, but their worries found no warrant: after such an eventful day, I knew a thing or two of pain, and was loath to impart it upon another so wantonly.
Freeing the horses, I goaded them into running wild, to which they obliged, frightened by the fires on their backs. Across the encampment they galloped, spreading flames throughout the tents they barged through.
After seeing them off, I stole into an unmanned tent, therein finding quivers packed with arrows, the same sort I used back at the tributary. Taking one of them along with a bow, I returned to the overlooking hill, and from there let loose a one-man show of flaming shots.
With my broken arm did I bear the bow, hence the imprecision of my arrows. But my marks were mere tents—they would certainly not sprout legs of their own to flee the shots, imprecise or no. Just setting them aflame well-sufficed my purpose. The aim was to sow chaos, after all. And indeed, the harvest was bountiful, with fires cropping up through the corners of the garrison posterior.
The sight inspired disorder within the Nafilim fighters at the frontline. It would seem they guessed a flank attack had befallen their domain. Well, they weren’t exactly wrong. Only, it was but a broken-armed bloke who solely manned the entire “charge”.
The knights, for their part, capitalised on the confusion and moved to smite the enemy full sore. Even from high upon the hill, I could make out the figure of a certain cherry-blonde dame as she braved the raging fray.
Mareschal Tiselius—even to this hour and to this point so deep in enemy lands was she fighting upon the frontlines. Veritable infernos fumed and flew from her spellblade, mowing through the enemy formations to their despair.
But there was one more within that royal host that caught my eye.
A dame of flaxen hair.
From her silversword pealed and cracked webs of lightning, and with just a swing of the blade, laid low the foe’s number.
“…Emilie?” I wondered aloud.
The Owlcranes are ever at the mareschal’s side. By Tallien’s own words, they need not seek battle so eagerly. So what was Emilie doing all the way out here?
As doubt danced about in my mind, a shower of sharp ice slammed into the Nafilim horde—the Glārea Pruīnae spell. From where it sprung, there stood Felicia with her silverstaff held high.
“Felicia… Thank the fates. You were saved,” I sighed loudly, relieved beyond measure. My broken collarbone throbbed painfully at the gesture, but I cared little. My sister was still alive, good tidings to which my heart brimmed with gladness.
The battle was becoming more precarious—a checkmate was close at hand. The knightly host shattered through the Nafilim line, now thinned by my earlier diversions.
“Right… time to make a move.”
I heaved my body into motion, throbbing as it was with pain from every possible part, and made my way down the hill. Fires fluttered all about the encampment in myriad folds and fingers. Painted red in their heated glow was my wound-riddled face, scanning about the complex with utmost caution.
Nafilim detachments now coursed about the garrison rear, fooled by my fiery feints. I eluded their eyes, quietly shifting from shadow to shadow. I then laid low, searching for my next mark: a mounted Nafil, preferably armed lightly and well-separated from any other Nafilim soldiers.
“No, not him… or him.”
I continued searching, uncompromising in my criteria, until at last, one fit the bill: a cavalier from a detachment of four, lagging a ways behind the formation.
“…Today’s your lucky day, my man.”
Through the shadows, I sidled my way up close.
The day has already seen me stealing a horse only hours before. I shouldered a burden of the explosive sort then, but this time found me with hands empty and free. Things should go swimmingly.
Or so I should hope.
For however less burdened I now was, my body complained with pain and broken bones. But it mattered little. I had only to do what I set out to do, for “doing” was the only thing left to me at this point.
Corroborating myself with such thoughts, I rushed up to the cavalier’s side. Our eyes locked. His face wrung in shock as he instinctively swung his spear down upon me. But it was overlate—already, I was within arm’s reach of him. His swing struck me upon the right shoulder, but with the shaft rather than the spearhead. With the attack unsuccessful, I seized the Nafil and pried him from his steed.
“Aaugh!” came his wild whimper, of which his comrades took heed. I hastily mounted the horse, turned it about, and whipped it into a full gallop.
“You! Stop there!” one of the Nafilim barked as I quickly quit the place.
“That went well enough,” I muttered in the heat of the moment. “Practice makes perfect, does it now?”
Merely repeating my first attempt earned me another steed. I admit I had the element of surprise on my side, but if that cavalier had been armed with a sword instead, this tale might have ended differently—and abruptly. A bit of caution was in order for my next attempt, whenever that may be.
I continued driving forth my newfound horse, with Nafilim cavaliers giving chase from behind and the main battle bellowing in the distance ahead.
At last. The frontlines. The blazing tip of the sword that was Londosius’ foray into the Erbelde basin. Just a little further now.
With a good kick, I urged the horse onward still, straight into the enemy ranks. No doubt my previous diversions had placed the Nafilim on high alert for further attacks from the flank, but it seemed they failed to anticipate a mounted rush at the rear.
I ducked low, goading my horse to its fullest speed. We cut a path through the deceived Nafilim forces, effectively splitting them in half. None from the knightly host trained their arrows or spells my way. And with the enemy horde already dispersed between two points within the garrison, I successfully broke through the Nafilim formations and rode back into the midst of friendly forces.
There I found both Emilie and Mareschal Tiselius, to whom I approached. In my attempt to dismount the stolen steed, I found my legs too spent to endure the simple task, and so landed roughly upon my knees.
“What’s this…? Man’s come from the other side, he did!”
“The lad’s beaten and bloodied all over. What hell harried him on the way here…?”
Out of the din of battle came utterances from fellow Order fighters, surprised at the sudden sight of my return. Emilie was amongst them, but in lieu of words, there was only utter amazement writ upon her face.
“‘Twould seem you’ve earned our debts…” said Tiselius, “…Rolf Buckmann.”
The hero-dame knew of my name? Perhaps Emilie apprised her of it.
No. None of that mattered. My thoughts were tangled, but one thing was clear: I had made my way back to the Order.
──── Notes ────
Mille-Passus
(plural: mīllia passūs) A unit of measure used by the ancient Romans; known as the “Roman mile”, it spanned 1,000 passūs in length. 1 kilometre is equal to 0.6757 of a mille-passus. A mille-passus, therefore, can be roughly equated to 1 and a half kilometres.
Chapter 21: Volume 1 - CH 3.8
Coughing. Gagging.
“…Haa…! Haah…!”
Washed upon the rivershore further downstream, I hungrily gasped for air.
How long had I been drifting through the tributary?
Beyond the shore stretched fields parched and plain, while overhead hung the searing sun. Life seemed all but lost in the land; one could mistake it for purgatory and be rightly forgiven.
But purgatory this was not, for I yet drew breath—the pain eating away at every corner of my body was proof aplenty of it. Where it was most ravenous was my left shoulder, run through with an arrow as it was. A parting present from the Nafilim engineers back at the tributary.
Little remained of its shaft. Well-broken, both it and I, fellow farers through that merciless “swim” down the river. But this was where we would part. I clenched the broken arrow in my right hand, and with sudden force…
“Geaagh!!”
Tossing it aside, I laid there on my back, spent, lungs heaving up and down from the turmoil. My mind turned to my beaten body.
Arms. Legs. Still sound. Or rather, still “attached” is more the word. My left arm was broken. Hands—the little finger of each shared the same fate. Beyond the puncture wound in my shoulder, many more riddled my body in the form of cuts and bruises.
My legs… their bones were yet whole. A sprain was in my right ankle, and a great pain blared from it, but I could still walk.
And a rib bone was broken somewhere. Perhaps more than one.
“Haa… heagh…”
Even still, I was alive. A miracle, or close to one. Generous enough for a man so scorned by the Deiva. If it was not by Her will that I survived, then by what?
No answer.
I lay there, face-to-face with the full sky. Not a single part of my body did I think to move, not even the tip of a finger. I was tired. Drowsy. Dreadfully so.
Without a sound, I closed my eyes.
My mind… I should just let it take flight. Be free. Yes. Perhaps I will.
My thoughts thinned like a mist before the rising sun.
…
..
.
.
..
…
“…Not yet… Not like this.”
Hands on the ground, I pushed myself up. Not once in my life did waking up require so mountainous an amount of willpower. Back on my feet, I read the arc of the sun.
“The Erbelde… there yonder, is it…?”
♰
Through the wasteland I walked. Not a single soul haunted the place.
The hour of eventide loomed, but the sun cared not in its scorching glare. My gear, once woefully waterlogged, was now as dry as any pebble I stepped upon.
My armour. Half of its leathered portions were in shambles, which I tore off to fashion a crude splint for my broken arm. The ragged rest, I tossed. Shedding such a burden greatly lightened my body, yet it still laboured forth as if its flesh were of lead.
Sweat seeped from every pore, worming over my wounds and searing my senses with sharp pain. Though my “trip” down the river had me swallowing more water than I would have liked, my throat was now coarse and sticky with thirst. My breaths gasped and grated against the heat, but with every try, my broken collarbone cried out in agony.
My right ankle, sprained as it was, complained no less. The arrow-hole in my shoulder sighed excruciatingly. A wound upon my head unwound, letting blood trickle down my face.
Horribly harrowed and hurt as I was, I yet walked on, for walking was my only choice.
“This day… I’ll mark… on every calendar I cross…”
As I should.
Twice.
On the same day.
“This tale thrilling enough for you, Emilie…?”
But I could scarcely imagine a third. Surely the fates should know to let jests run their course. Though I suppose I owe them thanks for letting me live this long, what with all these wounds, and all the battering and tumbling through the barbed throat of the tributary, tiny as it was compared to the Erbelde.
Felicia. The forders. Were they saved? I wondered. Not much time elapsed between the destruction of both the bridge and the dam. Less than three mīllia passūs separated the two, a distance I had crossed at full gallop. Freeing the tributary should not have taken long, either. All in all, not more than a few minutes.
Yes.
I should have made it in time.
Or at least, I’d like to think as much.
If they had managed to weather the enemy’s attacks, then surely they must be well.
They must be.
♰
For how long have I walked?
The skies darkened with dusk. Only the vapid vestiges of twilight spared any illumination…
…as well as the braziers bespeckling an encampment.
Off ahead in the yonder, tents and pavilions peeked out of the evening gloom.
Of course.
It was only a matter of time before I would meet the enemy’s heart: the tributary wormed through Nafilim lands, and having emerged from it and trundled my way towards the Erbelde, it was natural that I would cross the foe’s garrison at some point. What’s more, my approach had brought me right to the backdoor, as it were.
I slinked my way closer, ducking behind bushes along the way.
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A fence.But where were the enemies themselves?
Passing strange. Only a scant smattering of their number was I able to glean.
A high hill cast a shadow over the encampment from the latter’s rear face. Sidling up to the summit, I gave a peek, spotting the Erbelde Broadrun in the distance, coursing through the landscape in a great brushstroke. Peering down, I found the entirety of the Nafilim garrison splayed before me—and a sight that stole my breath.
A raging battle.
Already, the knightly host had broken into the enemy base. It would seem the forders had found their footing and crossed the Erbelde. Met with this flood of knights, the Nafilim were pouring each and every one of their number into resisting the teeming tide. No wonder there were so few loitering about their garrison’s rear.
The bridge explosion had certainly toppled the gameboard and the knights along with it. But destroying the dam had reset the pieces, and the two sides now found themselves locked squarely in battle.
Yet this was the Nafilim’s heart of operations, and they spared neither their pawns nor their princes in mustering a fierce resistance. Indeed, the knights had their hands full and more: their entire offence threatened to buckle under the foe’s defiance should a single step be yielded.
What was left for me to do, then, was to thin out the Nafilim aggression by drawing their number away from the fore of the fighting. In other words: a bit of deception and disorder.
I scanned about, discovering four horses reined together.
Perfect.
Now I required fire.
I searched for braziers, an easy task given that dusk had already dimmed the area. The Nafilim fashioned their night-fires in the form of torches thrust into an iron basket of sorts. Kicking over one such contraption, I helped myself to four of the lit torches, bringing them over to the horses and tying them to the saddles.
The animals jerked and jostled at the idea, but their worries found no warrant: after such an eventful day, I knew a thing or two of pain, and was loath to impart it upon another so wantonly.
Freeing the horses, I goaded them into running wild, to which they obliged, frightened by the fires on their backs. Across the encampment they galloped, spreading flames throughout the tents they barged through.
After seeing them off, I stole into an unmanned tent, therein finding quivers packed with arrows, the same sort I used back at the tributary. Taking one of them along with a bow, I returned to the overlooking hill, and from there let loose a one-man show of flaming shots.
With my broken arm did I bear the bow, hence the imprecision of my arrows. But my marks were mere tents—they would certainly not sprout legs of their own to flee the shots, imprecise or no. Just setting them aflame well-sufficed my purpose. The aim was to sow chaos, after all. And indeed, the harvest was bountiful, with fires cropping up through the corners of the garrison posterior.
The sight inspired disorder within the Nafilim fighters at the frontline. It would seem they guessed a flank attack had befallen their domain. Well, they weren’t exactly wrong. Only, it was but a broken-armed bloke who solely manned the entire “charge”.
The knights, for their part, capitalised on the confusion and moved to smite the enemy full sore. Even from high upon the hill, I could make out the figure of a certain cherry-blonde dame as she braved the raging fray.
Mareschal Tiselius—even to this hour and to this point so deep in enemy lands was she fighting upon the frontlines. Veritable infernos fumed and flew from her spellblade, mowing through the enemy formations to their despair.
A dame of flaxen hair.
From her silversword pealed and cracked webs of lightning, and with just a swing of the blade, laid low the foe’s number.
“…Emilie?” I wondered aloud.
The Owlcranes are ever at the mareschal’s side. By Tallien’s own words, they need not seek battle so eagerly. So what was Emilie doing all the way out here?
As doubt danced about in my mind, a shower of sharp ice slammed into the Nafilim horde—the Glārea Pruīnae spell. From where it sprung, there stood Felicia with her silverstaff held high.
“Felicia… Thank the fates. You were saved,” I sighed loudly, relieved beyond measure. My broken collarbone throbbed painfully at the gesture, but I cared little. My sister was still alive, good tidings to which my heart brimmed with gladness.
The battle was becoming more precarious—a checkmate was close at hand. The knightly host shattered through the Nafilim line, now thinned by my earlier diversions.
“Right… time to make a move.”
I heaved my body into motion, throbbing as it was with pain from every possible part, and made my way down the hill. Fires fluttered all about the encampment in myriad folds and fingers. Painted red in their heated glow was my wound-riddled face, scanning about the complex with utmost caution.
Nafilim detachments now coursed about the garrison rear, fooled by my fiery feints. I eluded their eyes, quietly shifting from shadow to shadow. I then laid low, searching for my next mark: a mounted Nafil, preferably armed lightly and well-separated from any other Nafilim soldiers.
“No, not him… or him.”
I continued searching, uncompromising in my criteria, until at last, one fit the bill: a cavalier from a detachment of four, lagging a ways behind the formation.
“…Today’s your lucky day, my man.”
Through the shadows, I sidled my way up close.
The day has already seen me stealing a horse only hours before. I shouldered a burden of the explosive sort then, but this time found me with hands empty and free. Things should go swimmingly.
Or so I should hope.
For however less burdened I now was, my body complained with pain and broken bones. But it mattered little. I had only to do what I set out to do, for “doing” was the only thing left to me at this point.
Corroborating myself with such thoughts, I rushed up to the cavalier’s side. Our eyes locked. His face wrung in shock as he instinctively swung his spear down upon me. But it was overlate—already, I was within arm’s reach of him. His swing struck me upon the right shoulder, but with the shaft rather than the spearhead. With the attack unsuccessful, I seized the Nafil and pried him from his steed.
“Aaugh!” came his wild whimper, of which his comrades took heed. I hastily mounted the horse, turned it about, and whipped it into a full gallop.
“That went well enough,” I muttered in the heat of the moment. “Practice makes perfect, does it now?”
Merely repeating my first attempt earned me another steed. I admit I had the element of surprise on my side, but if that cavalier had been armed with a sword instead, this tale might have ended differently—and abruptly. A bit of caution was in order for my next attempt, whenever that may be.
I continued driving forth my newfound horse, with Nafilim cavaliers giving chase from behind and the main battle bellowing in the distance ahead.
At last. The frontlines. The blazing tip of the sword that was Londosius’ foray into the Erbelde basin. Just a little further now.
With a good kick, I urged the horse onward still, straight into the enemy ranks. No doubt my previous diversions had placed the Nafilim on high alert for further attacks from the flank, but it seemed they failed to anticipate a mounted rush at the rear.
I ducked low, goading my horse to its fullest speed. We cut a path through the deceived Nafilim forces, effectively splitting them in half. None from the knightly host trained their arrows or spells my way. And with the enemy horde already dispersed between two points within the garrison, I successfully broke through the Nafilim formations and rode back into the midst of friendly forces.
There I found both Emilie and Mareschal Tiselius, to whom I approached. In my attempt to dismount the stolen steed, I found my legs too spent to endure the simple task, and so landed roughly upon my knees.
“What’s this…? Man’s come from the other side, he did!”
“The lad’s beaten and bloodied all over. What hell harried him on the way here…?”
Out of the din of battle came utterances from fellow Order fighters, surprised at the sudden sight of my return. Emilie was amongst them, but in lieu of words, there was only utter amazement writ upon her face.
“‘Twould seem you’ve earned our debts…” said Tiselius, “…Rolf Buckmann.”
The hero-dame knew of my name? Perhaps Emilie apprised her of it.
No. None of that mattered. My thoughts were tangled, but one thing was clear: I had made my way back to the Order.
──── Notes ────
Mille-Passus
(plural: mīllia passūs) A unit of measure used by the ancient Romans; known as the “Roman mile”, it spanned 1,000 passūs in length. 1 kilometre is equal to 0.6757 of a mille-passus. A mille-passus, therefore, can be roughly equated to 1 and a half kilometres.
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