Arc 1: Chapter 23: Clash in the Elf Lord's Hall
“Care to catch me up?” Catrin asked.
Her voice was strained, but still had some strength. I knelt at the dhampir woman’s side near one pillar of Irn Bale’s hall while a goblin tutted over her wound.
“The scarred elf wants my weapon,” I said, indicating the axe I held. “It’s a relic of their people.”
“Uh huh.” Catrin nodded, then winced as the goblin physik pulled a fragment of azsilver from her shoulder with long, scalpel-sharp claws. “That doesn’t tell me why my wound’s being treated. Why doesn’t he just take it from you?”
I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Custom. The elves — all the eld really — bind themselves to old traditions. If he takes the axe from me by force, he loses face, tells his whole court that he’s a tyrant who does as he pleases... gives them implicit permission to do the same. You can’t afford that sort of recklessness in a society with memories as long as theirs.”
“So, what, he’s trying to butter you up? Get you to give it to him?” Catrin eyed the congregation of Eld and spirits. “Funny way of going about it.”
I shook my head. “Not quite. He’s going to fight me for it, but I have to agree to do it of my own will. He can’t just attack me.”
Catrin winced again. The goblin said something in its own language, its voice a bubbling hiss. It wasn’t one of the Disfavored, like the goblin noble at the Falconer keep — the od that clung to it was cleaner, less hateful. I spoke back to it in the same tongue, and it grumbled incoherently back. Catrin eyed me and I coughed.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you? First you show up as a vagabond looking to join Falconer’s little fraternity, then you’re a spy and assassin, then some sort of noble warrior... now I find out you speak goblin.”
“Sidhecant,” I corrected. “All the Eld know it.”
“Sure, sure. So why don’t you just refuse to give it to him?” Catrin asked, eyeing the axe.
I grimaced. “If I refuse, he can just keep me here long as he wants. I’ll die of old age eventually, and he isn’t going to mind waiting. I’m the only one on a time table, and he knows it. So if I want to leave, I accept his bargain.” I sighed. “We fight.”
“Any chance you just give him the axe?” Catrin asked. “I mean, it’s a fine cutter big man, but I’m not sure it’s worth our lives.”
I contemplated the weapon a moment. The faecraft bronze reflected my tired features back at me. “If I did, they’d tear me apart. They hate the axe, but it’s also precious to them. Part of their history. I treat it with disrespect, they won’t take it well.”
Catrin sighed. “Fucking elves.”
The goblin said something and let out a bubbling chuckle. Catrin glanced at me and arched an eyebrow.
“He agrees with the sentiment.”
“Thanks,” Catrin said to me. “For catching me back in the woods when I got shot, and asking them to take the Banemetal out. Thought I was done for.” She frowned. “Thought I repulsed you, though.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t trust you. Still don’t. I’m willing to believe you’re not just after my blood, though.”
Catrin nodded graciously, though the mockery was somewhat subdued by the way she stiffened with pain. “Mighty understanding of you, milord.”
I winced.
The dhampir flashed her sharp teeth. “I knew you were a noble. You had the look, even with all those scars, those dire eyes.”
I stood, adjusting my red cloak. “I’m barely a noble. I’m the only member of my House, and I’ve been living as a vagabond for most of a decade. There’s no point standing on ceremony.”
“As you say, big man.” The humor fled from Catrin’s face. “So what now?”
I turned to the elf lord’s throne. “Now I try to survive.”
I moved to stand again in front of the root throne. Irn Bale still sat, consulting with his council. The elf with the golden eye reclined at his side, toying with the strings of a lute and seeming to ignore everything. An enormous faerie spider lurked in the shadows above, an eerie whisper emerging from within its mandibles. Wraiths murmured into the elf lord’s ears. His ancestors, maybe. Parents, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandsires, all eternal advisors.
His eyes were closed, but they opened as I moved to stand before him. “Your companion has been seen to. Are you prepared?”
I just nodded.
“I’m ready.”
“So be it.”
Oradyn Irn Bale stood. As he did he drew something from within the depths of the roots. It was a short sword forged of volcanic glass, yellow-green, a dim light smoldering within. The hilt was brass and iron, the grip wrapped in white leather.
The elf brandished the sword. It emitted an audible hum, and my auratic senses quivered at the sensation that passed over me. That is a potent arm, I thought.
“You were one of the Archon’s warriors,” I said. “A Knight of the Falls.”
The elf followed my gaze to his sword. A pale smile touched his lips. “No. My sister was. I took this from her hand and used it to slay the same demon who ate her spirit.” He held up the blade, which flashed as though touched by a beam of sunlight that wasn’t there. Liquid shapes curled beneath the transparent surface of the faerie sword.
I unclasped my red cloak and let it fall to the ground. Neither I nor the elf wore armor, though his garb was much finer than my borrowed clothes. He also didn’t smell like half-day old shit, but I’d fought in discomfort before.
I put all from my mind except the next few minutes. All my weariness, my uncertainty, my worry for the future and my regrets... I pushed them all down and locked them away, at least for the moment. Energy sung through my limbs as my instincts, honed through many wars and countless fights, took hold of my more cautious mind.
It was a thrill. A familiar, welcome one at that. Fighting had always been simpler than all the complexities of the world, all its vagueness and disappointments. I didn’t have to concern myself with uncertain motives or self-doubt. There was no room for doubt and no purpose in empathy.
It was live or die. Kill or be killed. Simple. Clean.
Pure.
The elf and I had both agreed to this, both of us knew the consequences and had accepted them. We didn’t have to pity one another or worry about whether the other deserved death. There was no deceit in us, no ulterior motives or mistrust. Irn Bale had made plain what he wanted, and I had done the same.
I twirled the axe in my hands — a needless bit of theater, but that was part of these sorts of confrontations. There is a poetry in war, no matter what any cynic might tell you. It fills a dark need in the human soul. To fight. To struggle and triumph. Hate can be a balm to the spirit.
I felt hatred in the elf. It was in me too, though I felt none toward him. Mine was all a mirror.
I sucked in a breath and stood, turning. The elf stood about ten feet away, shimmering slightly with that telltale distortion of mirage. “Have I hit you even once?” I asked.
He held up his broken right wrist. I realized he was holding his sword in his left hand now. “Was that your own Art?” he asked in curiosity. “Or the axe’s?”
“One of the Table’s,” I said. “So was the one I used to dispel your illusions earlier.”
“You can still use them, even with the Table broken.” Irn Bale lifted his chin. He seemed impressed. “I wasn’t certain.”
I could, but they cost me a lot more than they once had. I managed to steady my breathing and took my axe in both hands, bringing it up so the blade was level with my head. It flickered with aureflame.
Irn Bale dipped into a fighting crouch, smooth as a reed, his blade parallel with one outstretched leg. His weapon glowed with faerie light.
Round two.
Irn Bale flickered forward. He was preternaturally fast. His speed combined with his illusory bodies made him seem to teleport with each small movement. One scarred elven warrior blurred toward me, and another went low to swipe at my legs. There was no telling which one’s blade had the cutting edge — both, perhaps.
I swung the axe without the graceful finesse the elf displayed, sweeping the mirages away in a flare of auratic flame. Less dramatic than my earlier blast wave, more concentrated, but it did the trick. The illusions vanished, and the real Irn Bale spun through the fire like a top, swiping at my eyes with a savage cut. I batted the attack away, the impact jarring my bones and making my teeth clack together.
His blade had grown. Not literally, but the light in it was brighter, encompassing the glass casing and effectively extending the weapon. When had that happened?
Heat flared across my right arm. The blade had cut me. No time to see how badly.
Some magic weapons could have Art wrought into them, to give a fighter more tricks in their arsenal. It was very rare for anyone, even an ageless elf, to develop more than one Art from the fabric of their own aura. My guess was that the trick with the mirage bodies was Irn Bale’s own magic, and the blade of light he wielded was a property of the glass sword.
Combat between two adepts was often a mix of skill and the potency of their Art — sheer power could make a difference, but the more refined magic, wielded more competently, would tend to have the advantage.
I had a whole arsenal of Soul Arts I could wield, but none of them were my own. They were all phantasms carved into the Alder Table, lent to me when I swore my oaths. Some were more difficult to access than others, and some were beyond me. I didn’t have much subtlety or skill with more than a handful of them, because I lacked the intimate understanding you’d normally gain manifesting your own inborn magic.
I’d never be able to wield anything so complex as Lisette’s trick with her golden threads, or so graceful as Irn Bale’s illusions. My powers were more about brute force. Blasts of light, bursts of golden flame, repelling auras, and smiting blows.
I had one I thought might work well against this elusive elf.
While Irn Bale was dancing away from my aura of flame — more a deterrent than a real shield — I narrowed my eyes to near slits and concentrated. I murmured more words under my breath, and once again my aura reshaped itself. Unseen forces rearranged themselves, becoming denser, blunter. To my mind it was like a tall shadow formed above me, holding aloft a warhammer.
I brought my axe down, using the dense rectangular back end of the head, and that ethereal hammer came down with it. My axe struck, and the shadow struck, and the floor cracked. Lightning bolt fractures raced across the center of the elven hall, intermingling or scattering, each filled with a fast-fading glow.
All of the Irn Bales around me continued their eerie dance, save one. One stumbled and lost his balance along with the rest of the watching fae as the entire structure trembled.
I locked eyes on that one, dashed forward, and slammed an elbow into his jaw. He went down hard, but the elf lord was tough. He twisted into an acrobatic spin, lashing out at me with a kick. I caught the blow in the shin, growled, but kept my feet. I sunk my axe into the ground by Irn Bale’s head, making him flinch, then pressed a knee to his chest.
I slammed a fist into his face. Once. twice.
Again.
On the fifth blow he let his sword drop and went still.
I paused, my bloodied knuckles still poised. “Do you yield?” My words came out as a bestial snarl. I was breathing like a beast too, nostrils flaring.
The oradyn looked more amused than anything. His nose was broken from my fist, and I’d cracked one of his immortal teeth. He held up one hand in limp surrender. “I yield, Sir Knight, I yield.”
I stood, walked several feet, then staggered drunkenly. My entire body was shaking with fatigue, as though I’d been fighting for hours without stop. Using so much Art so quickly had been a foolish idea, but I’d wanted this over.
Wanted to win.
The crowd murmured from the shadows along the hall’s sides. By their reactions, I might have just made a scandalous remark rather than won a life or death bout with their leader. There was no fanfare in the victory, no drama. It felt more like I’d completed a tiring chore.
Catrin appeared at my side as I ripped my axe from the ground. “Are you alright?” She asked.
“I’ll be fine,” I grunted.
Oradyn Irn Bale picked up his own sword and limped back to his throne. Wraiths congregated around him the whole while, their muted whisperings forming its own sort of weather around him. He sat, wiped at the mask of blood on his face, and regarded me thoughtfully.
“I did not believe you could still wield the power granted to you by the Archon,” Irn Bale said as I faced him. “The axe is in worthy hands, Knight Alder. Keep it, with my blessing.”
I nodded, too tired to speak. His sudden change in attitude didn't confuse me, or satisfy -- he was fey, and it was his nature. The wounds on my hip and arm burned with pain I was just truly starting to feel.
Irn Bale sheathed his glass sword in the roots, lifted his broken wrist and — with an audible pop — corrected it. He tested the fingers. The skin beneath the hand was purpling and swollen.
“It heartens me that the rumors surrounding the First Sword of Harodell were not exaggerated,” Irn Bale continued, rubbing at his swollen wrist. “You fight like a warrior of the Fall. You will need that ferocity, to face the evil Orson Falconer has unleashed on this land.”
“Quick to praise you now, isn’t he?” Catrin muttered sullenly. “Now you’ve whipped him in front of his court.”
I hushed her. In truth, Irn Bale looked hardly winded, and I was struggling not to sway on my feet.
“So you’ll let us leave?” I asked. My voice came out hoarse.
The elf lord nodded slowly. “Yes. First, though, I will have your wounds tended and your hunger eased.” The ghost of a smile flickered along the half of his lips not ruined by scars. “Perhaps a bath, as well.”
The whole court erupted with inhuman titters.
I’d have laughed with them, if the sound of it hadn’t been so damn unsettling.