Chapter 134: Volume 3 - CH 6.1

The Östbergs.

Down the watchtower steps they wended. Strength seemed to strum in their very strut.

“But I would first know your will,” I shouted to them from below, bearing my voice above the distant din of battle. “You’ll not sue for your safe surrender, I take it? To lay down your arms aside your slain, who number now half your failing host?”

Such I asked of the sister, whose sliding gauntlet upon the railing roused a ringing hiss through the air.

“You take aright,” she answered. “Half a host is quite the bargain for that head of yours.”

“One to be plated and served before Central, no doubt,” I guessed with narrowed gaze, earning a faint smile from the Zaharte captain as she alighted upon firm ground.

“The prey knows his plight,” she remarked. “How—”

Viola’s words vanished.

Air whooshed; her form, too, was gone.

Blurring unto my bosom now was a hawk-speed spearhead, like a limb of levin, in an instant traversing a stretch of many strides.

Bringing my blackblade in, I guarded against the bald ambush, extinguishing its odyl withal and swinging back in answer… only, I didn’t. Such was Viola’s desire, her very her tactic: to tempt my defence and thin my thoughts from Theodor, who would surely wind about to spear me from behind. Nay, espying their deception, I dared a different answer altogether.

“Hhet!” I twisted my torso, letting Viola’s thunderswift thrust pass through where my breast had been. But the sudden spear was too precise—in its wake splashed a plume of sparks as its enwreathing odyl ran across my breastplate, gashing open the metal and grazing my flesh beneath.

But I merely winced; this was a wound well-accounted for. Straightway I shot past Viola’s side and assailed Theodor, who trailed just behind his sister.

“Mn!?” he gasped, eyes wide.

Glimpsing my low-stanced sword, Theodor jerked and leapt clear away at once. Viola followed the instant after, and soon were the siblings reunited, their spears and battle-spirits re-poised. Had the brother committed instead, fully would he’ve reaped a reprisal from my blade, but alas, both he and his sister had proven that their fame was no fluke.

“Our mark moves well, Sis. Too well…” the Östberg brother muttered. The grin on his lips was gone; many men would’ve bitten Viola’s bait, only to find Theodor’s spear sprouting out of their bosoms. That such did not come to pass here seemed to have piqued their caution.

“A hart, holding his own against hunters as honed as we. Fancy that,” Viola said to me. “Or might you be a hunter yourself? Long on the trail for our heads?”

“The predator doubts her odds,” I retorted. “How—”

Now was it my words that vanished—or were stolen, rather, as speeding unto me once more was Viola, her spear intent upon a lower mark: my thigh. A different target, a different tactic, likely to lure out my side-retreat instead and set Theodor to waylay the very landing.

And so for the instant, I stood my ground and swatted away the sister-spear before bounding back by many paces. Thwarted, Theodor ceased his charge with a stamp, his surprise most apparent even from behind his sibling.

“Sis, I daresay he’s studied our spears,” he doubted again.

But Viola shook her head. “Nay, I say he scries them. An eagle-eyed wolf we’ve welcomed to our den.”

In addressing her brother’s worries did Viola’s visage then shift unto full sharpness—the glare of a lioness. Down low she bent, as about her spear shaft clenched fingers fain for the hunt. Then, parting her lips, she drew a gentle breath and uttered:

“Rugiēns Tempestās.”

Viola’s voice: clear as crystal.

Her spear: the eye of a storm.

The air whipped as razor winds raged and whistled asudden about her weapon. Plumes of dust were lifted and sucked into the vortex, nigh-veiling the spear in a formless sheath; the work of an aeolian ensorcellment, moulding a mundane polearm into an all-pulverising maelstrom—a madness of magick, mastered by masterful hands.

“Hhyah!!” Viola cried, thrusting forth her tempest-spear whence she stood. From the motion, the maelstrom shrieked and streamed in a twisting stampede, great in size and grinding away the earth as it went. In my direction, it blasted. In my eyes, it ballooned.

“Heagh!” I full-heaved my body to bound aside, saving myself from the screaming, slashing cyclone—only to be beset by a thrust from Theodor’s spear.

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—Kkhangg!

So rang our vying arms, barely audible above the violence of Viola’s vortex.

“A wolf, for certain…!” her brother seethed, gnashing his teeth at my timely defence. Though timely only by a bare margin, for in Theodor, too, was a change: now was his speed a world apart, no doubt amplified by the miracles of his own magicks.

But our exchange lasted not long; the winds wailed again to greater volumes. Theodor then vanished right from my eyes. In his absence: another squall of blustering blades, headed right my way. I fled the fury again with as long a leap as I could muster, only to be ambushed by the Östberg brother once more.

“Ssyet!” he rasped, his spear lunging as I landed.

Frowning, I fended off the attack, “Stubborn—”, and followed with a blade brandished from below, “—much!?”

Dust and soot sprang in the svǫrtaskan’s slashing wake, only to be blown away by the ambient gusts—within which my mark was nowhere to be found. No, yonder he stood, having fled the instant his offence had failed. A textbook example of a hit-and-run, but executed to extraordinary speed.

This seemed their style, of how the heads of Zaharte hunt their hares: Viola’s hand was the hound, loosed to lead the target into Theodor’s deathtrap of a spear-charge. From the outset was this so. Only now was it revealed to its full and frightful fury, frustrated by an over-elusive prey… or impelled by what prestige my decapitated head would requite them.

“…My storm, your spear—with skill he skirts both,” Viola remarked to her brother, having joined him anew. “Rare in this realm, his mettle.”

Rarer still was their cutthroat cohesion, I’d say. Waste-laying winds, lightning-speed spears—like a true storm did brother and sister strike. And the one tasked to its stilling: this lone and yet-wounded swordsman. What was he to do?

When pounced by a pack, strike first the chief, as they say. By all accounts, Viola fit the bill. Hers was the baton conducting this combat’s rhythm. If I could wrest it from her, then much advantage would be mine. Only, there were twisters wielded betwixt us, and such a deathly distance I dared not cross, for “deathly” was no exaggeration: her maelstroms showed clear the sheer potency of her magicks. A mistake here, and I would be ripped to ribbons.

Such was the problem. What of solutions? I knew of none yet, but a hint gave me hope enough: to attend Viola’s wild winds and Theodor’s fleet offence—simultaneously. And in due course might a chance present itself.

No jester would dare such a juggle. But already was I deep in the act, and any errant ball now would spell my swift death.

“A fine specimen of an opponent you are, Rolf Buckmann,” said Viola. “And a seldom opportunity besides, to unfurl our wings in full.”

“Would that you’ve taken me yet for a timid ungraced,” I said back, “then such a sweat would I not’ve shed.”

“Oh?” Her smile slanted up like a scytheblade. “Pity about that.”

A regard both recognising the might of her mark and reckoning the gruesome end she would surely wreak upon him. Most would know despair at this point. But in this tunnel, I spied a light. Or rather, a saving shadow, one held fast in my fingers: the soot-steeped piece to solve this puzzle.

For the siblings, all begins with the wicked winds spewed by Viola’s spear. Few are they who would dare challenge such a monstrous magick, but I counted myself not amongst that forlorn lot; cut the currents with the soot-steel, and they would be broken unto breezes. Then and there could I close the distance and vie for victory.

But neither Viola nor Theodor should be so naïve. They were seasoned wagers of war. It was their very livelihood, their very claim to fame. That I could undo magicks with but a swing of this sable sword ought be known to them by now. Indeed, their tactics seemed tailored to trounce the very trick. Play against the twister, and Theodor would surely be there to land the checkmate—at a speed and timing I could scarce answer, no less. In fact, likely it was that he’d been abiding the very move.

Then should I strike Theodor down first? Read his manoeuvres right back at him? And counter in the same instant he sets himself upon me? A princely ploy, but one checked by his speed. Misjudge his rhythm even slightly and it’s this heart that would be skewered through.

Right. Cool and calm, then. Keep the course. Watch the siblings. Seize the chance.

But as though to harry the very effort, attacking my ears again were the ghastly gusts—a third twister thundering in, likely to persuade out of me another side-escape.

And so I played along.

Holding the svǫrtaskan low, I leapt clear aside—

—and in the act, brandished the blackblade.

“Hgh—!?” Surprise flashed on Theodor’s face as he appeared right in the path of the sword-swing. Sensing success in that instant, I drave the dragonseared blade ever forth to fell the Östberg brother.

But then—

—ffvvwoohh!!—

—blasting in was the fourth storm.

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