Chapter 136: Volume 3 - CH 6.3

Blood leapt out of Viola’s bosom.

To the ground she buckled, her knees striking the red-dappled dirt. And in that moment, a bare, quiet moment, she turned to her brother. There, a look was shared between them.

“…Th… dor… I… I’m…”

Quivering, quieting words, last upon the lips of Viola Östberg. Strength failing, she fell full upon the earth, limp fingers freeing her windless weapon.

…Ssheeeng!

Shooting in was another spearhead, set to stab me through. Twisting out of its way, I bounded clear back and took post far from its vengeful wielder. No follow-up came in pursuit. I soon understood why: his spear was less to pierce me dead, and more to remove me from his sister.

When next I saw him, Theodor was hunched over her unbreathing body. On and on he stared at her, blank and speechless. Yet no matter how long he looked, what was once shared a moment ago was now forever a memory.

“Hgh…” he grimaced, face graven with grief. A grief that then grew into a wild, wailing anger. “…Nghaaa────ah!!”

—Khsangh!

Sword and spear clashed.

Theodor appeared right afore my eyes, bearing down might and main upon the blade that had so savoured his sister’s blood. His face flashed wroth; pure spite was what had sped him unto me in the single blink. But driving away the joust, I dared an offence in turn.

—Khakhr! Khshanh!

Metals struck, shrill and shrieking. Sparks spat, bright and braying. Over and again, weapons pouncing and parrying. Along its course was Theodor’s skill on full and frenetic display, so much so that a lesser eye might’ve measured him not a master, but a man driven mad with misery. To mine, however, such could not be farther from the truth.

Ten trades, twenty—a crescendo of checks and challenges, the end whereof found us both famished for air. Breaking away in tandem, we then stared each other down, stealing glances here and there to survey again the span between us, all the while catching our breaths with due caution. I had much confidence in what my lungs could endure, reckoning them a summit above Theodor’s. Yet with magicks was the spearman’s body bolstered, and so did the fight find us, heretic and hireling, equal in at least that respect.

“Hhah… haahh…” Theodor breathed as laboriously as I, brimming at the eyes with vengeance. And yet… “…A gamble,” he soon said. “That’s all battle is. A gamble wagering the greatest stakes. A gamble you’ve won… against my sister.”

“…”

“Foeship poisons. Fury imprisons,” he went on, cuttingly quiet. “Not on the battlefield do vices as these avail. This, my beloved Viola has oft said.”

In uttering the name of his dearly departed, the bereaved brother bit his teeth with such force that all his face began to shudder. His hands, as well; gloved and gauntleted though they were, a glance could well-glean just how bitterly they wrung at his readied spear.

“…And yet!!” he cried, sudden as a lash of lightning. “How my veins swell with venom!! How my heart howls behind its bars!! Never to know solace till yours is run full-through, Rolf Buckmann!!”

Against such ire, my brows fell. “I know…” I said. “…I know.”

Emotions erupting from within; a bosom thundering and throbbing so, that unbearable becomes the urge to scratch and rake away at it, flesh and feelings all, just for some semblance of solace—this, I’ve never lived for myself. But in living upon the battlefield did I come to know the existence of such a scouring experience—and the terrible toll it exacts.

“…You?” Theodor hissed, shaking his head. “You know nothing!”

A seething accusation followed by a fierce lunge. Afire was the fray once more.

‘You know nothing.’

The words cried deep into my core.

Indeed, never had I lost a loved one who so shared my blood. Why, I’d even made the very decision to lose them. Someday, somewhere—by my own hands, no less. Should needs demand it. Should the fates see it fit. Who am I, then, to know aught?

But I do know.

Of those that have suffered such loss as his. Of those that struggle on, day after day, despite the pain.

I do know.

I have to know.

For another choice was made: to walk alongside them and give mind to all their grief.

And so, Theodor.

You are reading story Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) at novel35.com

I know.

“Dyahh!!” spiritedly sprang my cry as I brandished the black sword in kind. There did blade and point bite and peal, each dread-driven, each seeking to prove the worthier pain. The crack and crackle of combat, conducted once more to the horror of the very air as it shuddered at our every strike.

“Some witchery you wield, is it!?” Theodor screamed amidst his masterful spearmanship. “That so damns the odyl of my spear!? That so stilled my sister’s storm!?”

In want of some warrant for his guess, the Östberg brother’s eyes stabbed and studied my ensuing expression. A vain effort, for surely he knew how near he was to the mark; he had wits enough for it, as attested by the feats he’d shown me thus far. Or perhaps it was merely that he wished to hear the confession from the criminal’s lips.

“A gift, then! For the ungraced!” he shouted on. “Your Inquisition!”

A fey absence followed—the odyl girding his spear was now gone altogether. In its stead was a twice-cruel increase elsewhere: the further quickening of his offence and the infuriation of his strength. No doubt there was, then…

“Hwoo──oaahh!!”

…that every dew of odyl was now devoted wholly to bolstering his flesh.

Howling, Theodor battled anew with bedevilled desperation, his spear hacking and hasting more ravenously than ever before.

I fought back, barely keeping afloat above my surprise for my foe’s choice, a clear challenge to all conventions of combat as it was. Indeed, the weapon was what deserved odyl, not solely the sinews, lest the blade fail against a paling and punishment be meted in turn; a misery my own flesh recalled much too well.

All told, neither was I the conventional foe, nor this sword of soot a mundane threat. Theodor perhaps chose aright, then. If his spear-odyl should die against every touch of the svǫrtaskan, then better to bolster his body with the magicked might, and seek the killing strike all the more surely.

Still, to be so inspired to play so wayward a hand in the heat of battle… Certainly no easy feat, that. But such was the deed plainly on display.

“Heaaa───ahh!!” Louder still clapped his cries. More rapidly again lashed and lunged his snake-like spear. Overvied and overwhelmed, it was only a matter of time before my own blood should stain the scene.

“Ghegh!” I groaned as a graze gushed and shot across my shoulder. Between my own sword and my own sinews, I lost not in a contest of might. Indeed, a single blow of mine ought overpower any that Theodor himself could produce, body-emboldened or no. The rub rested in his rapidity: his spear was now striking sooner than I could answer.

But not only that. Hardly was he led about by such helter-skelter haste, as a master is overwhelmed by his unwieldy beast. No, Theodor was no meek master. With skill seldom seen was he reigning in his unruly speed to perfection, yielding a performance that matched most mete with his style of spearmanship.

Dwelling in defence here would earn me my doom. And so, readied against risk—”Hhyet!!”—I lurched and wrought forth a sweep of my blade.

—Ghsseengh!

A line of sparks spouted. The tip of the dragon-tempered sword sang—having but shallowly sheared across Theodor’s cuirass.

No good. Too long was the length between us. A gap of half a pace protected him more surely than any armour could.

“Hateful hound! You hunger for more…!?” Theodor rasped as he recoiled. “Then you have it!”

From view he faded.

Right afore my eyes, a vanishing like a jester’s trick. Though not for long: far off he appeared again. But another instant found his spearpoint speeding to my throat.

“Egh!?” I gasped, guarding straightway against Theodor’s thunderflash offence before returning in kind a centrewise cut. But the blackblade bit naught, its too-nimble mark already in retreat to an unchallengeable distance. “What speed…!” I huffed, taken aback.

Theodor Östberg. Above all whom I’d made battle against, in all the years of my life, did he stand as the speediest—above even Lise herself. This was grim. Were he to commit to this tactic, of hitting and running with the agility of living levin, then his victory seemed all but certain.

“Hyaaagh!”

“Ghegh!”

And commit he did. Over and again, Theodor thundered in with a blurring thrust, only to then escape clear from the crime. The cruel continuation carved wound after wound out of me, each of which I’d only managed to avert from my vitals with a dogged defence. But, thoroughly thrashed as I was, not for much longer could I overlook my mounting loss of blood.

Yet the situation persisted, one so dire and deathly that even a simple blink of the eyes engendered much danger. Here and there darted my vision. Here and there dashed in his spear. A repetition of barely gleaning and barely guarding, my very life put on the line with every move.

“This wolf yet keeps his wits whetted…” Theodor hissed amidst a new lull in his lunges. “Rolf Buckmann! You’ve hid your fangs all too well!” From yonder he glowered, his face shadowed with a new shame. “Never have I feigned blindness for them. Never have I weighed your war-worth any lesser than its due. But now I see the veil masking my eyes! The deception skewing my scale…!”

Frayed with frustration, my foe clenched teeth and spear alike. His anger for his ungraced foe remained aglow as ever, but hounding him now, too, was anger for himself. Perhaps for making too light of this prey… only to pay the too-heavy price of his sister’s life.

“Likewise, Theodor,” I answered, haggard and hoarse. “Over-bright was your sister’s shine… to have so enshadowed the superior strength in her own brother—I ought’ve felled you first when I had the chance.”

Viola was whom I’d thought the deadlier threat. A thought earning now none of my thanks. No, it wasn’t Viola, but her own brother, Theodor Östberg, who rightfully held claim as the most affrighting beast upon this battlefield.

You can find story with these keywords: Soot-Steeped Knight (LN), Read Soot-Steeped Knight (LN), Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) novel, Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) book, Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) story, Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) full, Soot-Steeped Knight (LN) Latest Chapter