Chapter 62: Chapter 53 – An Empty Vengeance

"Even victory in war comes with a cost. At times, this cost might just be the lives of nameless soldiers, unimportant to those who made the commands. At other times, they might be burying their parents, siblings, or children instead, when the cost was not their life, that was. To hope for a victory at war without paying the price, is but a child's daydream." - Marzban Hasdrubal Saleem, Military commander of the Assadun Emirate's Gupta district.

Aideen voiced out an incoherent scream as she saw Faerghus topple backward with his throat slit open. She ran straight towards her fallen brother, and while Diarmuid had wanted to do the same, he charged the elven raider instead, to allow his sister time to work her magic. Maybe they were fast enough and made it in time to save his life still, he had hoped.

 

Even as Diarmuid clashed his axe with the elven raider, Aideen knelt by her brother, hoping against hope that she was not too late, and hastily channeled as much of her magic as she could into his unmoving body. Her magic did its task, weaved every wound shut in moments, and left only unblemished skin where the injury used to be, and yet… her brother stirred not. Neither had he breathed.

 

In desparation she tried everything she could think of, manipulating his flesh with her magic to force his heart to beat, compressing and decompressing his lungs to try make him breathe again, yet it was to no avail, and her efforts bore no fruit.

 

After all, one thing she could not do, was to breathe new life… unto the dead.

 

She was distracted from her shock and grief when she heard Diarmuid grunt in pain, and turned to see her brother stumble back a few steps while grasping a deep cut on the side of his abdomen. The elven raider had charged at him with the intent to finish him off, but the sudden impact of a thrown metal staff to his solar plexus stopped him cold and made his gasp for breath instead.

 

Aideen was by her brother's side by then, one hand touching Diarmuid as she healed his injury, while another picked up her staff. She gazed with hatred at the elven raider before her, the one who still sported the same savage, manic grin all day, the man who had killed her older brother.

 

"Direct the battle. They need a commander out there," she said to her brother, as her eyes refused to let the raider out of her sight. Her hand gripped the metal staff so hard that her knuckles turned white. She then said with a determined voice to Diarmuid; "Leave this one… to me."

 

Diarmuid wanted to protest at first, but then he saw the grief and anger battling each other in his sister's eyes. Coupled with the little fact that he had never won even once in their spars the past decade or so, he made his call, and nodded as he turned and went back towards his troops.

 

The rest of the raiders had given the area a wide berth, perhaps a sign of trust to their leader, but Aideen didn't care. All she knew was that the man who killed her brother was in front of her, and that nobody was going to stop her from ending his existence.

 

With a scoff, the raider slashed at her with his sword. He was at least two heads taller than her, and so brawny his upper arms were probably thicker than her thigh. And yet, a twirl from her staff deflected his sword anyway without much difficulty, and on the next revolution of the staff she struck his jaw from below with it, cracking the jawbone and sending the raider back.

 

He still had the presence of mind to parry her next blow - aimed right for his head - with his other weapon however, and now looked at her with more interest as his shattered jaw knit on itself. When Aideen saw the elf's jaw repair itself as good as new, she knew it would not be a short fight.

 

Aideen abandoned all pretense of defense, and focused only on landing blows to her opponent, as the other did the same. He cut deep into her shoulder with an axe. She returned the favor with a blow that shattered a kneecap. When another move of his sliced her abdomen open, the wound closed in on itself even while she thrust hard against his chest and cracked his breastbone.

 

Both of them landed griveous injuries on one another, only to heal it back up, while they remained none the worse and still ready for more. Aideen noticed that the raider tried to block or avoid any blows she made towards his head however, and tried to capitalize on it.

 

The next time the elf's two weapons were locked against her staff, she dismantled it into its three-section form, and took the chance the surprise earned her to smash the one free section of the staff against the elf's head. The elf managed to turn with the blow at the last moment, and instead of caving his head in, her blow only glanced off his skull, but he was visibly dizzied by the strike, which she tried to capitalize on.

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Unfortunately, he healed himself before she managed to land another blow, and for once, showed annoyance on his face. He blocked her strikes with his weapons, and kicked her away with one of his long legs before she could land another hit, but she rolled with the fall and was up on her feet the next moment.

 

A flurry of blows greeted her before she managed to move further, and she actually took them head on as she traded blow for blow with the raider, gashes and cuts traded for bruises and broken bones, at least until the elf did something she had not expected.

 

When she swung her weapon like a flail at the raider, the elf took the blow to his right side, then caught the staff between his arm and his torso. His left hand then hacked with the axe right at the chains that connected the staves, and shattered them, which left Aideen with only two sections of her weapon in hand.

 

He then took the advantage of her surprise to tackle her to the ground, at which point he landed on top of her, and holding his sword in a reverse grip, plunged it into Aideen's chest, through her unbeating heart, and out her back where it pinned her to the firm ground. He then too a moment to transfer his axe to his right hand as he raised it high for a strike.

 

Against most other healers, the move would have been very effective, as very few healers could do a thing when they have a literal blade through their heart. Healing the wound would have been rendered impossible as long as the blade was still in there, and they would have perished soon after.

 

Aideen had not cared one whit however, and took the chance presented to her when the raider raised his axe for a blow to pass the chain on the remaining two pieces of her weapon behind the raider's head, after which she crossed the staves, and twisted as hard as she could. The force was not enough to snap the brawny raider's neck on the spot, but what it did, was to choke him.

 

Surprised and caught off guard by the move, the raider tried to free his neck from the choke with one hand, while his other hand rained down blows on Aideen with his axe. Blows she just took as if they were mere love taps, and contemptuously ignored while her arms kept twisting her staves to choke the life out of the raider.

 

A normal healer would have died long ago in her position, but Aideen was already dead, and thus she ignored the axe that kept raining down on her body, even when her face and upper torso looked more like minced flesh then not, and just healed the worst of it to keep herself aware, fighting, and more importantly, never letting go of the pressure.

 

It became a race of endurance at that point, on whose mana reserves would run out first, and that, was a field where she had the raider handily beaten.

 

Perhaps half an hour, probably more, after they were interlocked in their death struggle, the raider finally slumped, his breath long cut off and his mana reserves which forcefully kept him alive, drained by the continuous effort. Even so, Aideen did not relent, and instead increased the pressure until his neck bones snapped, and then his flesh tore apart.

 

She only stopped then, as she gingerly pulled the sword out of her chest, and shoved the raider's headless corpse away from her, before she healed off the worst of her injuries, and stood up, her broken weapon in one hand, and the raider's head in her other hand.

 

Aideen raised the head high and gave a guttural scream of frustration and grief. Having taken vengeance for her brother had not given her satisfaction. It only left an empty feeling of grief in her heart instead. It was all she could do not to kneel down and break into sobs at that moment.

 

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