To some, snow is the herald of a slow death—the slowest of deaths—moving, breathing life gradually coming to a halt and quietly transforming into inanimate matter; to others, possessed of civilized comforts, snow is a beautiful painting, its freezing grip a mere story laughed at in a warm home. To some, snow is a rare spectacle; to others, a mundane, everyday backdrop. To some, snow is enchanting, gorgeous, and fun; to others, blank, tiresome, and dull. To still others, snow itself is nothing but a story.
To those at war, snow is a white canvas upon which their varying shades of red may be applied to form a grisly reminder to future passersby of their sufferings and losses.
Stefan looked upon the battle taking place before him with a slight smile. To him, it was an everyday backdrop, though hardly mundane. Unsheathing his blade of choice, the Vague Katti, he dashed into the fray, and immediately had to duck out of the way of an arrow fired from a ballista atop a hill to the right. Weaving through friends and foes, he passed the Commander without so much as a glance; a soldier in black armor came charging at him with a lance, and in two swift motions he knocked the weapon out of the man's hands and dropped him to the ground, the body pressing into the snow and staining it crimson. Moving on, Stefan heard Commander Ike shouting orders right and left:
"Soren, behind you! Mist, I need you over here! Reyson, get out of there! Jill, do something about that ballista, will you?!"
His voice faded as Stefan danced through the mayhem; he did not need to hear it. He had received—or rather, requested—his orders before the battle had begun. Since joining Ike's crusade, he had not yet had the opportunity to test his skills against one of Daein's commanders, and Ike had given him permission to fulfill this desire this time around. I'm sure you can handle it, he had said. Just don't get in over your head.
Lithely sidestepping another ballista arrow, Stefan's attention was directed upward by a sharp cry; a winged figure erupted in a flash of light, and emerged as an enormous crow, which dove down to meet him. Accurately predicting the arc of its flight, Stefan feinted forward, hopped back, and struck, avoiding the deadly beak and cutting the bird straight out of the air. Jumping over it, he could see that it was still alive, and he gave it a backward glimpse as he moved on, by way of which he saw another incoming ballista arrow and rolled out of its path. Finding himself hidden behind a tree, he took a momentary break to catch his breath; the crow had flown off to another part of the battle.
Homasa, Stefan repeated in his head. According to their intelligence, that was the name of the swordmaster leading this enemy troop. Drawing breath and reentering the battlefield, he skirted another arrow from a ballista and sprinted past an airborne wyvern rider. Oscar, one of the horseback fighters on Stefan's side, was retreating back toward the main group; then, as two horse-mounted enemy soldiers shifted their positions, Stefan saw the man who must be his target. Like Stefan himself, Homasa had green hair and a clear air of simple confidence. His weapon, Stefan deduced even from a distance, was a Sonic Sword—a blade imbued with wind magic; a rare and crafty tool.
The enemy commander appeared about to use his sword's magical power to strike Oscar from afar; Stefan approached and shouted "Homasa!" at which Homasa halted his strike (quite deliberately, as opposed to faltering) and directed his attention toward Stefan, who jogged toward him, avoiding yet another ballista arrow in the process.
The two horseback soldiers flanking Homasa rushed at the oncoming threat and brandished their weapons; Stefan jumped, and in one movement he delivered a powerful slicing blow to one rider and slipped out of the way of the weapon of the other. Landing, he stood up and faced Homasa, who temporarily failed to suppress a grin at his maneuver. Then he straightened his face and held out his sword to Stefan—no words were needed.
It would be more accurate to say that they flew at each other rather than ran, and the speed at which their steel clashed was more than the untrained eye could handle. Holding back and testing each other at first, they both threw some preliminary strokes, but soon found each other to be capable of meeting more decisive blows. Stefan heard the uninjured horseman approaching from behind, but with a quick and almost irritated flick of his free hand, Homasa directed him to target a different enemy, intent on matching skills alone with his current adversary. Stefan, to show his appreciation for this, jumped back, summoned a reserve of energy, and struck with all his might; Homasa blocked the attack, but his blade trembled as it had yet to do, and he brought his other hand to the hilt to steady it. Stefan tried to hold this advantageous position, but he heard the familiar sound of the ballista firing from the hill, and pushed off from Homasa, the arrow sailing between them.
As soon as it had gone, Homasa leapt back in, trying to get the upper hand; Stefan swung mightily at him, expecting as much, and further the two swordmasters clashed, exchanging strokes as quickly as raindrops in a heavy downpour. Their tracks in the snow hardly reflected the ferocity of their duel; their arms moved much more than their legs. As Stefan dodged both another of Homasa's strikes and another ballista, he found himself unexpectedly tiring—probably more from all the arrows than the swordplay. But he refused to give Homasa any less than the top of his game. Lashing out powerfully, then flitting about with quicker strokes, then slashing hard again—he established a pattern, and dodged another arrow. Make him think he knows what to expect, then surprise him, Stefan thought.
Before he could execute this plan, Homasa took advantage of his pattern and turned the tables on him; he was forced to block instead of strike. Intensely focused, he followed his foe's blade, but Homasa feigned, and Stefan's eyes slipped; he felt the searing pain of a stroke across his chest, and started to fall backwards. Catching himself, he swung his sword hard in front of him to fend off further assault; Homasa jumped back out of the way, then spun around, cleaving his own weapon through the air, and Stefan was stricken by the resulting blast of magic-influenced wind. Between this and his wound, it was a moment before he could breathe in, and his respiration became very turbulent; however, he held his footing, and after a moment decided that his cut was not fatal.
A crow dove screaming at Stefan, but was hit with a misfired ballista arrow and crashed to the ground some distance away.
"You're finished, it seems," Homasa said to Stefan, "but you are highly skilled. Probably the most so in your army, from what I can see."
"You're not done looking at me," Stefan replied. "Let's continue this."
"There's bravery and then there's foolery. But I should be disappointed if you died at anyone's hand but mine."
Almost imperceptibly, Stefan glanced back toward the rest of his company, eyes lingering briefly on the healers, Mist and Rhys. But they were too far, and he was not going to be outdone. He ignored the pain in his chest and stood erect, gripping his blade tightly.
"My move, then, I suppose?" he said. Homasa grinned again, and then suppressed it again.
Stefan heard another ballista fire, and then what he took to be the sound of the operating archer finally being slain. Leaping forward (the ballista arrow stuck vertically in the ground where he had stood), he engaged Homasa again, moving more slowly but effectively matching the Daein swordmaster's blade. Slashing and clanging, he somehow felt more at peace, and the occasional spurts of blood from his chest seemed irrelevant. His persistence seemed to surprise Homasa slightly, but, uninjured, he had the advantage. Then an arrow from a different ballista shot toward the pair; Stefan made such a slash at Homasa that he was forced into the path of the arrow; he cut it in two with his sword and turned back to face Stefan, but he was not quick enough to block the next attack, and he sustained a deep gash in his right arm, the one in which he held his sword.
At this, he doubled over, clutching his right arm with his left hand, but managing to keep hold of his sword. Stefan stood over him, ready to strike, but felt his opponent worth a few more seconds of life, besides which his own injury had caught up with him again.
"Well played," hissed Homasa. "May the better man win."
"Well played, yourself," answered Stefan. Raising his sword to strike, his attention was diverted further upward by a stream of light descending upon Homasa. Realizing that there must have been a healer hiding somewhere behind Homasa the whole time, he looked down at Homasa's cut, which was rapidly sealing itself up; he thrust his blade down to strike, but before it reached Homasa's neck, the pain in his chest quadrupled, and his sword dropped harmlessly to the snowy ground. Homasa had run him right through.
Oddly enough, Homasa did not once again grin at his victory. Instead, he pulled his sword out of Stefan's torso, stepped back, and swung it in front of him; Stefan was hit with another powerful gust of wind, and he fell to the ground like a door knocked from its hinges.
"Checkmate," said Homasa. "What was your name, swordmaster of Crimea?"
Coughing, Stefan managed to utter his name. He had not the strength for more, and could not explain that he was actually from Begnion; in any case, it no longer mattered much. He had died fighting for Crimea, and that was how he would be remembered.
"Farewell, Stefan." Homasa looked as though he might say more, but then turned away to continue the larger battle.
As soon as he did, a lightning bolt materialized and struck him squarely; after this had abated, an orange blur sliced through him almost at the speed of lightning, and he plunged face-first into the snow. As he fell away, a fragile-looking girl with very light purple hair came into view behind where he had stood. She saw Stefan lying there and gasped, then cried his name.
"What?" came another female voice—the orange blur; her hair was a much darker purple. She turned around and said, "Oh, no!" Then she turned back toward the rest of the company and shouted, "Ike! We need a healer over here!"
Stefan hardly registered any of this. He had almost expected to feel some indescribable sensation of his soul slipping out of his wound, but instead, he seemed simply to be slowly fading into sleep. Lying on his back as he was, he was staring up into the sky, watching the snowflakes drift slowly down from the clouds to the earth. Prior to joining Ike's company, he had spent most of his time in the desert; he was one of those to whom snow had been little more than a story. While there was an unquestionable similarity between sand dunes and snow drifts, Stefan had never before fully appreciated the beauty of snow falling from the sky. Some claim that the deathbed makes one sentimental regardless of his normal persona, but Stefan had not the energy to ponder such trivialities of the living. He was not one of them anymore, at least not for very long, and at that moment he could think of no better way to spend his last seconds of life than watching the snowflakes fall gracefully from the sky. He was glad that he had died doing what he loved, and that he had been granted this last gift of beauty.