Soot-Steeped Knight (LN)
I was stunned.
Stunned, and standing in wonder at what had unfolded before my eyes: Rolf, as if beckoned by the spirit of daring, took a leap down from the very top of the watchtower—a height of no less than seventy Füße.
That giant of a Man, once in my company, now gone like the wind—a vanishing taking with it all words from my lips.
His standing and watching of the battlefield was calm and still till not a moment ago. Even as our enemy marched nearer and nearer unto our midst, Rolf had remained both the undisturbed boulder and the eagle keen on the perfect swoop.
His decisiveness astounded, his immovability moved. How deep in awe I was.
I recalled then the telling of his story on the night of our meeting in Hensen. Of how, on fault of ill-communing with Yoná, godhead of Man, he was made to live through winters cold of gentleness and pale of society.
But ‘twas nonetheless an unembellished telling: though he wore much pain, Rolf recounted his woes as more their watcher and less their liver, never painting the truth with deeper grief nor coaxing undue pity. His past was laid out as bare as could be. Yet Men hold their Deiva to be absolute; this was the further truth, and no doubt was in me that their zealotry exacted from Rolf tolls and toils beyond common suffering.
In spite of it all, this wayward Man lost not his way. On and on, he strove. On and on, he fought, never once casting away his sword or his honour.
A marvel of a Man, Rolf. A marvel seldom beheld, a Man seldom bred. That was my reckoning of him. And as if his valiance could wear not a brighter lustre, his was also the acumen of a sharp commander, as shown on this day. I realised then the realness of the power that so delivered Balasthea from the brink over these past few moons… and with it, a peculiar solace in being by his side, as though I were sat in the soft shade of a great tree, amidst the vividness of a midsummer noon.
But that idyll was only a daydream. This was a battlefield, and our foes, though diminishing with each passing moment, had managed to gain our walls.
‘…Rolf…! At the gates…!’ I had said.
‘…I’ll handle this…’ he swiftly answered. ‘…The watch is yours, Lise… If any queerness comes… give the signal…!’
His words revealed to me the sort of soldier he was: a commander and frontline fighter both. The same as I.
Words most warming. Eyes most encouraging. Once more had Rolf given to me comfort of a kind ill-belonging on a battlefield. But another moment, and those words, those eyes, then vanished right from my midst.
‘…W-wait…!’
A yelp from my lips, teased out by pure surprise.
‘Twas a watchtower whereupon I stood, no less; its very top, whence could be gleaned the lay of the land for a Meile and more beyond the fort walls. Only a craver of death would so freely leap from this great height, but Rolf had done just that.
Astonished, to the opposite parapet I went, only to find him asail down the ladder, blunting his fatal descent with hands strained against the rails. Then he landed, thumping the air like a full-swung drumbeat and rousing in his wake a plume of dust.
Wonderment struck me once more, to see so large a figure as Rolf’s alight with such grace from so high a place—a figure that next broke forth at once, drawn blade in hand, striding legs whisking him beyond the opening gates. There, with vivid ferocity, did Rolf then bring new battles upon the Fiefguard.
And so was I left stunned and quieted.
Such happenings, at too great a speed. A hare outrunning my ken.
Just now was he here. Not more than a minute ago. Standing, and gleaning all sight and sound from the battlefield. But a blink, and Rolf was next in the thick of it, far down and far ahead. His sword danced, his mettle shone. Bidding the gates be closed, he pressed deeper into the fray, drawing the enemy vanguard away from the fort. And amidst such action, one by one he threw down his foes with mighty swings of black steel.
“That’s ‘im! The treacher!” came a cry from the enemy masses. A field commander’s, by the sound of it; already were they keen on Rolf. “Close ranks! Kill ‘im quick!”
Spears glinted. A maw of many fangs gnashing at Rolf.
“No…!”
At once I tensed, clenching my teeth.
I had no doubt: Rolf’s strength was true. He well-proved it in Hensen. This, my mind knew. But my heart… how it wailed for the scene, for the ally waylaid by rows of spears, each thirsting for his death.
These foes were able enough. Slowly encircling Rolf, they maintained formation amidst the din of other frays about them. Were I their mark, I would break away and reset the situation. Indeed; back off and be on the prowl for a gap in their ranks. And once an opening shows, lunge in from the flank—
“Wha…!”
—but Rolf’s was a different thought. With sword poised, he charged—straight at the bristling phalanx.
The spears answered, closing in on him like a whirlpool.
I gasped. My breaths stopped.
But then: a mystery.
The spearpoints sprang upon him—all of them—yet bit no more than the very air about his body.
“How…” I exhaled in amazement. ‘Twas as though the steel tips were sent against the repelling side of a lodestone—nay, as though the spears themselves feared Rolf.
The surprise on my face was clearly echoed on those of Rolf’s very foes.
What proved beyond mundane was Rolf himself: not in the common soul could be found valour enough to endeavour the feat on peril of instant death. How many winters of rigour and hard-mastered study did Rolf endure, I wonder, to reach so sublime a state?
“Ryaahh!”
A thunderous roar from Rolf. A heaving swing of the soot-steel. Blackness tore through flesh, redness spewed through the air. To the ground hurled many foes.
“Eeaaghh!?”
“Men down, men down! We need more hands!”
And in the wake: a screaming swell from the Fiefguard. More of the vanguard near the gates answered the desperate call and scrambled in Rolf’s direction. But defying their great number, he slashed away at the tide of Men.
Elsewhere, far in the distance, fought Volker and his brave-host. Their striving was as an iron grip, never letting fly the advantage hard-earned by our roadside ambush. By this point, they were whipping the Fiefguard into fleeing, laying low Men where they could and leaving the rest to scatter in misery.
All facets of this great fight, then, shone with our impending victory.
“Rraaahh!”
And breaking the clouds was Rolf’s voice, boisterous and cutting, but clarion and baritone. A rich voice full-bent on the fight, resounding strongly through the air, that even atop the watchtower whence I stood, it carried and echoed well into my bosom and belly both.
In concert to his vociferation was the sword of soot—and what trailed its many arcs.
Fine wisps of black, brushed in crescent moonstrokes, only to thin away into naught like a mist. Left behind were bodies rent by the wolfsteel’s bite and Rolf’s towering form—gallant, and beautiful, even.
“Fall back! Fall back!!”
Cries from the Fiefguard, bellowed now to much repetition. With their numbers grievously culled, the Men began retreating en masse, like a tide receding from the shores whence they came.
Victory was ours, then.
Victory for the prelude to our attack on Arbel.
♰
Felicia trembled.
Trust was not in her—not for the ghastly sight reflected in her ruby eyes.
“Our line fails! We need troops!”
“Retreat’s bar’d!! Make way, ye lack-wits!!”
The Fiefguard—full-pressed into a flailing panick! They came as bawcocks, bold and brazenly set upon retaking Balasthea, only to be taken by sore surprise! For ambush was their welcome, played out in the clear open, before a single foot of theirs ever broke the bailey’s soil. Pinched in by Nafílim fighters, the Men were split and scattered, soon finding themselves easy prey for the hard hunt.
To Felicia, perched upon a hill near the rearmost ranks, such was the vivid vista presented. A vista of failed wits and perilous error. What impossibility is this? Who is it that leads the Nafílim host? The questions urged the brigadier to break her gaze away from the grimness and look to the fort far ahead.
Soon enough, she spotted a peculiarity: a figure, flying down from the watchtower whence the whistling arrow was fired moments ago. Nay, not from so high a height could a man fly without dire need of mending thereafter. Perhaps the figure fell?
Pondering, Felicia next found the fort’s gates gaping open, from the crack of which rushed out that very same figure.
Her lips gave a gasp.
There was in that figure, that distant, sword-swinging silhouette, features that stoked a fear in her. Features, faint from so far away, yet gravely familiar to her eyes: a stature most outstanding in its height and stoutness.
The reality she had so repudiated returned to her thoughts with thorns bristling anew.
“No… ‘twas true…?” she whispered, “…Brother…?”
Anear, the rearguard swelled with sallowed soldiers, freshly fleeing the butchery yonder.
“Back! Fall Back! Now!!”
Theirs was no longer an onward march, but a stampede back to the safety of the fief-burgh. Doubtless a cowardly, if not calculated choice—and as well, the sole path to survival, for they had not the mettle to muster against so sudden a disadvantage. The vanguards who might have sniffed a chance at bearing down upon Balasthea were now themselves hounds whimpering back with tails tucked betwixt their shivering haunches… or bodies ready for the unmarked burial.
“Fall back! Fall back!!”
Scores of like screams scratched endlessly at the air. On that day, the Fiefguard failed and flew back to Arbel, their numbers dwindled by no small fraction.
Chapter 111: Volume 3 - CH 2.3
Stunned, and standing in wonder at what had unfolded before my eyes: Rolf, as if beckoned by the spirit of daring, took a leap down from the very top of the watchtower—a height of no less than seventy Füße.
That giant of a Man, once in my company, now gone like the wind—a vanishing taking with it all words from my lips.
His standing and watching of the battlefield was calm and still till not a moment ago. Even as our enemy marched nearer and nearer unto our midst, Rolf had remained both the undisturbed boulder and the eagle keen on the perfect swoop.
His decisiveness astounded, his immovability moved. How deep in awe I was.
I recalled then the telling of his story on the night of our meeting in Hensen. Of how, on fault of ill-communing with Yoná, godhead of Man, he was made to live through winters cold of gentleness and pale of society.
But ‘twas nonetheless an unembellished telling: though he wore much pain, Rolf recounted his woes as more their watcher and less their liver, never painting the truth with deeper grief nor coaxing undue pity. His past was laid out as bare as could be. Yet Men hold their Deiva to be absolute; this was the further truth, and no doubt was in me that their zealotry exacted from Rolf tolls and toils beyond common suffering.
In spite of it all, this wayward Man lost not his way. On and on, he strove. On and on, he fought, never once casting away his sword or his honour.
A marvel of a Man, Rolf. A marvel seldom beheld, a Man seldom bred. That was my reckoning of him. And as if his valiance could wear not a brighter lustre, his was also the acumen of a sharp commander, as shown on this day. I realised then the realness of the power that so delivered Balasthea from the brink over these past few moons… and with it, a peculiar solace in being by his side, as though I were sat in the soft shade of a great tree, amidst the vividness of a midsummer noon.
But that idyll was only a daydream. This was a battlefield, and our foes, though diminishing with each passing moment, had managed to gain our walls.
‘…Rolf…! At the gates…!’ I had said.
‘…I’ll handle this…’ he swiftly answered. ‘…The watch is yours, Lise… If any queerness comes… give the signal…!’
His words revealed to me the sort of soldier he was: a commander and frontline fighter both. The same as I.
Words most warming. Eyes most encouraging. Once more had Rolf given to me comfort of a kind ill-belonging on a battlefield. But another moment, and those words, those eyes, then vanished right from my midst.
‘…W-wait…!’
A yelp from my lips, teased out by pure surprise.
‘Twas a watchtower whereupon I stood, no less; its very top, whence could be gleaned the lay of the land for a Meile and more beyond the fort walls. Only a craver of death would so freely leap from this great height, but Rolf had done just that.
Astonished, to the opposite parapet I went, only to find him asail down the ladder, blunting his fatal descent with hands strained against the rails. Then he landed, thumping the air like a full-swung drumbeat and rousing in his wake a plume of dust.
Wonderment struck me once more, to see so large a figure as Rolf’s alight with such grace from so high a place—a figure that next broke forth at once, drawn blade in hand, striding legs whisking him beyond the opening gates. There, with vivid ferocity, did Rolf then bring new battles upon the Fiefguard.
And so was I left stunned and quieted.
Just now was he here. Not more than a minute ago. Standing, and gleaning all sight and sound from the battlefield. But a blink, and Rolf was next in the thick of it, far down and far ahead. His sword danced, his mettle shone. Bidding the gates be closed, he pressed deeper into the fray, drawing the enemy vanguard away from the fort. And amidst such action, one by one he threw down his foes with mighty swings of black steel.
“That’s ‘im! The treacher!” came a cry from the enemy masses. A field commander’s, by the sound of it; already were they keen on Rolf. “Close ranks! Kill ‘im quick!”
Spears glinted. A maw of many fangs gnashing at Rolf.
“No…!”
At once I tensed, clenching my teeth.
I had no doubt: Rolf’s strength was true. He well-proved it in Hensen. This, my mind knew. But my heart… how it wailed for the scene, for the ally waylaid by rows of spears, each thirsting for his death.
These foes were able enough. Slowly encircling Rolf, they maintained formation amidst the din of other frays about them. Were I their mark, I would break away and reset the situation. Indeed; back off and be on the prowl for a gap in their ranks. And once an opening shows, lunge in from the flank—
“Wha…!”
—but Rolf’s was a different thought. With sword poised, he charged—straight at the bristling phalanx.
The spears answered, closing in on him like a whirlpool.
I gasped. My breaths stopped.
But then: a mystery.
The spearpoints sprang upon him—all of them—yet bit no more than the very air about his body.
“How…” I exhaled in amazement. ‘Twas as though the steel tips were sent against the repelling side of a lodestone—nay, as though the spears themselves feared Rolf.
The surprise on my face was clearly echoed on those of Rolf’s very foes.
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But of course, the truth behind their failed offence was more mundane: Rolf had simply espied—with all immediacy—the dead zone of their spears and seized the moment. Mundane, for true. Even a curtain of readied spears is not without its gaps; such weapons in such a formation could do little else but strike straight, hence ‘tis beyond no imagining that there might arise inside it some indefensible void.What proved beyond mundane was Rolf himself: not in the common soul could be found valour enough to endeavour the feat on peril of instant death. How many winters of rigour and hard-mastered study did Rolf endure, I wonder, to reach so sublime a state?
“Ryaahh!”
A thunderous roar from Rolf. A heaving swing of the soot-steel. Blackness tore through flesh, redness spewed through the air. To the ground hurled many foes.
“Men down, men down! We need more hands!”
And in the wake: a screaming swell from the Fiefguard. More of the vanguard near the gates answered the desperate call and scrambled in Rolf’s direction. But defying their great number, he slashed away at the tide of Men.
Elsewhere, far in the distance, fought Volker and his brave-host. Their striving was as an iron grip, never letting fly the advantage hard-earned by our roadside ambush. By this point, they were whipping the Fiefguard into fleeing, laying low Men where they could and leaving the rest to scatter in misery.
All facets of this great fight, then, shone with our impending victory.
“Rraaahh!”
And breaking the clouds was Rolf’s voice, boisterous and cutting, but clarion and baritone. A rich voice full-bent on the fight, resounding strongly through the air, that even atop the watchtower whence I stood, it carried and echoed well into my bosom and belly both.
In concert to his vociferation was the sword of soot—and what trailed its many arcs.
Fine wisps of black, brushed in crescent moonstrokes, only to thin away into naught like a mist. Left behind were bodies rent by the wolfsteel’s bite and Rolf’s towering form—gallant, and beautiful, even.
“Fall back! Fall back!!”
Cries from the Fiefguard, bellowed now to much repetition. With their numbers grievously culled, the Men began retreating en masse, like a tide receding from the shores whence they came.
Victory was ours, then.
Victory for the prelude to our attack on Arbel.
♰
Felicia trembled.
Trust was not in her—not for the ghastly sight reflected in her ruby eyes.
“Our line fails! We need troops!”
“Retreat’s bar’d!! Make way, ye lack-wits!!”
The Fiefguard—full-pressed into a flailing panick! They came as bawcocks, bold and brazenly set upon retaking Balasthea, only to be taken by sore surprise! For ambush was their welcome, played out in the clear open, before a single foot of theirs ever broke the bailey’s soil. Pinched in by Nafílim fighters, the Men were split and scattered, soon finding themselves easy prey for the hard hunt.
To Felicia, perched upon a hill near the rearmost ranks, such was the vivid vista presented. A vista of failed wits and perilous error. What impossibility is this? Who is it that leads the Nafílim host? The questions urged the brigadier to break her gaze away from the grimness and look to the fort far ahead.
Pondering, Felicia next found the fort’s gates gaping open, from the crack of which rushed out that very same figure.
Her lips gave a gasp.
There was in that figure, that distant, sword-swinging silhouette, features that stoked a fear in her. Features, faint from so far away, yet gravely familiar to her eyes: a stature most outstanding in its height and stoutness.
The reality she had so repudiated returned to her thoughts with thorns bristling anew.
“No… ‘twas true…?” she whispered, “…Brother…?”
Anear, the rearguard swelled with sallowed soldiers, freshly fleeing the butchery yonder.
“Back! Fall Back! Now!!”
Theirs was no longer an onward march, but a stampede back to the safety of the fief-burgh. Doubtless a cowardly, if not calculated choice—and as well, the sole path to survival, for they had not the mettle to muster against so sudden a disadvantage. The vanguards who might have sniffed a chance at bearing down upon Balasthea were now themselves hounds whimpering back with tails tucked betwixt their shivering haunches… or bodies ready for the unmarked burial.
“Fall back! Fall back!!”
Scores of like screams scratched endlessly at the air. On that day, the Fiefguard failed and flew back to Arbel, their numbers dwindled by no small fraction.
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