Before their opponents struck out again, the three cornered fighters responded with a fury carried by desperation and hatred. Titania was the wounded individual, but with Mia protecting her with lightning fast parries, her defenses were shorn up. The cloaked newcomer held the other side, holding both of their flanks with bolts of electrical power and strikes from his curved blade.
Mia couldn't help but think that some parts of this stranger's techniques looked familiar to her. It looked like a hybridized school of swordsmanship she had trained with when Ike gave her Alondite. However, she was still wondering how someone could wield spells in heavy armor and without the aid of a book. Runes were carved into his armor, but they looked nothing more than the warding many knights would etch upon their armor. Yet they seemed to give him the power to continue his fight.
The opposing strangers continued to throw themselves at the three of them. Cruel weapons of archaic designs that bore only faint resemblance to the beorc counterparts. They fought with a slow, calculating malice. These were no madmen or insane soldiers. No, these were something far worse.
She twirled her blade and dug through the armor of one, changing her footing in the process to retch the armor. No blood or flesh followed, but the initial shock had long since worn off, her mind would recuperate from the wrongness later. Every fiber of her being was devoted to the fight. Study and recuperation would come afterwards with a tall flagon of ale to wipe the images from her mind.
The one she struck began to repair before she slammed the hilt of her sword down on the skull cap of the armor, collapsing the entire piece. A single swing of her sword sent the armored figure fizzling out in a flurry of multicolored sparks.
Titania drove the point at the front of her axe into another one, allowing Mia to unceremoniously remove the head from its torso. It too died in a similar manner, leaving nothing but the smell of the arcane and a blinding radiance. In that blindness, one drove his sword towards Mia, who saw it too late to do anything about it. She braced herself for the pain, but it never came as she saw a scarlet haired paladin throw herself in front of the weapon. The jagged sword burst through Titania's chest, a torrent of blood escaping her mouth. However, even with the wound Titania brought the axe head crashing down on the figure, destroying the final one and the sword with it.
The two mercenaries spun around to face the remainder of their foes, but the first one who Mia had initially insulted was in no danger. Holding the final three off with a blade and bolts of lightning, Mia wanted to rush in and finish the interlopers off so she could have her duel with this white robed individual. Titania collapsing into the cold water beneath them stopped her.
She grasped the armor of her mother and rolled her over. Titania's breathing was short and ragged, armor stained as crimson as her hair. Multiple wounds covered her body, broken open armor showed that the weapons treated forged steel as if it was nothing more than simple tin. Mia reached into her pouch and pulled forth several apothecary balms. She rubbed them in on the wounds, but the rain and sleet caused them to wash off, and blood continued to flow.
The armored figure dispatched two of his opponents with deep slashes, cleaving them into even pieces. The third he channeled lightning and flame into the empty shell of his opponent, casually destroying the individual with a show of force as the armor exploded from the pressure and heat, sending fragments flying in all directions.
He turned around to see Mia cradling the dying Titania, who suddenly convulsed and became still.
"She's dead."
"Goddess damn you." Ludveck swore as he looked at the regicide board. It was true, Caliban's knight was in position for the kill on his queen. He had moved three of his remaining five pawns closer to the back of the board in a hope to diverge his attention, but apparently Caliban was willing to sacrifice his pieces on a whim to get the prize he wanted. "You know, in real life that strategy should have worked."
"Well in real life we don't move on an eight by eight square grid following a specific set of rules. That would be just silly." With a cheeky grin on his face, Caliban gestured to the pieces. "And if I am correct, I have placed you in a checkmate position without any escape. So by all accounts, the king is dead as well."
"Beaten by a blind man at regicide, I will never hear the end of this." Ludveck knocked down his red quartz game piece that was carved into the shape of a prestigious ruler to Caliban's mounted white marble knight. "I once again doubt that you cannot see from those eyes. This is all a giant joke that I am not in."
"I wish it was, but there are other ways to see. Also, play as many games as I have and you can remember the layout of the board with the positions being announced." Caliban chuckled and reached back into the fire, pulling a long twig that had a flame at the end of it to his packed pipe. He placed the flaming strip down on the compounded herbs. The blind man took in a long draw from his churchwarden pipe and passed on the stick to Ludveck, who did the same to his own briar pipe he made himself back on Shade's Atoll.
Outside the storm raged with intensity some could rightly speculate the flood of ancient myth had come back once again. Caliban pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders and tossed the stick back into the fire as Ludveck rearranged the game board. "Not fit for a man nor a beast out there. Hopefully he found whatever he was looking for."
"Agreed. Not too thrilled about traveling to the Begnion bogs by ourselves, either. Nasty critters even in early spring, with biting flies the size of an infant's fist. Whoever we are meeting down there had best be worth this errand." Ludveck said as he sucked in a lungful of the bourbon and vanilla infused tobacco. "I remember him saying that you would be familiar with who we will meet. Any chance you could enlighten me on who it will be?"
Caliban blew out the smoke through his nose as his brow narrowed in thought. "It's been quite a long time since I been to the southern empire, and even longer still since I talked to people I know from there. Most of them are probably dead now, and no one really misses them."
"Quite the cryptic message. Died in the Mad King's War I assume, or perhaps the little uprising against the Empress?" Ludveck asked as he reclined against the cave wall as thunder rumbled in the distance.
"I doubt you wouldn't know, few do. You are not the only one with a few skeletons in the closet, Lord of Felirae." Caliban addressed him in a mockery of formality. Ludveck narrowed his own eyes, but returned to his smoke rather than being baited. "Still, a much better country to visit than the norther neighboring empire. I love the Daien ice capped mountains and rolling hills, political stability is not their finer selling point. A ruler changed every seventeen years, not very stable if the monarchy's lifespan is about seventeen years after they ascend to the throne."
"Crimean's monarchs live similar lifespans depending on when they take the throne." Ludveck responded to unusual tangent the conversation took.
"True, but there is a clear line of ascension, even when there is no heir. Furthermore, it is not governed by a single individual or family as there is a committee of various duchies. Hardly ideal when the noble born are obstructing a young newcomer at every turn, and you happen to be the sole voice speaking in support…" Caliban drifted off, his dead optics seemingly focusing on something in the distance while he mulled over something in the deep recesses of his mind.
It lasted less than a moment, and then he was training the pure opal orbs on Ludveck. "If you would allow me permission, I have a question for you."
"When did you ever need permission to ask me anything?" Ludveck responded and used a small strip of iron to pack down his caramelized tobacco. "Go on."
"Looking back on it all, is there anything that you would have done differently?" Beyond the snark and deadpan/gallows humor, Caliban had a terrible way of not asking the question he wanted. Always beating around the bush to sound polite. The first two things Ludveck could stand, the third is what wore down his patience with the sightless swordsman.
"I believe you are referring to my rebellion rather than my whole life?" Caliban was taken aback for a second, but he nodded shortly after. "I'll be honest, not a day goes by when the question is presented to me in the form of 'what if'. What if Geoffrey had been a few hours late? What if I had gathered more troops to my banner? What if Elincia had been off her mount when we fought? What if? What if?"
The only sounds being made for what seemed like an eternity was the crackling of the fire and the roar of the wind. Finally, Ludveck responded. "The things I could change would make no difference and the things I would want changed were beyond my power. I couldn't determine how fast Geoffrey would travel to save his queen, I could only determine how to split my forces. I couldn't have gathered too many more troops because things would have been noticed and some mercenaries would not do something as foolish as attacking a nation with a rouge lord. I could have ordered more scorpion siege infantry to my gambit, but without them Felirae would have fallen without as much as a struggle. It is borderline delusional to dwell on what can't be changed."
"Perhaps, but still, one has to gaze into the infinite spheres of possibility and try to decipher how much could have changed on a whim. Our world could have been slightly or vastly different if a single event changed in the minutest detail. To the rational mind, it might seem asinine but consider all that we have seen. A single course of events built up to that which in turn branched off to many more." Caliban gestured through the thick tobacco smoke surrounding them all.
"Perhaps it is a way to spend time musing on the things that might have been. But if that is all what one ever thinks about then they are assured to go mad." Ludveck mentioned and took another drag from his long pipe. "Now then, shall we play another game?"
"Got little better to do, you can go first this time. Try to put up a valiant last stand this time, it seems like you want to spare your pawns from living under my rule." Caliban's dead eyes looked down to the board game and over to his opposing army.
With a crack of his fingers, Ludveck looked to the board. "We will see, now that I know your mindset I might be able to beat you." Ludveck reached to grab his center-left pawn and another game of regicide began.
Mia wailed with the wind, the still body of Titania held in her arms. Anger, rage and grief wracked her body in equal measures. She wanted to, nay needed to stand up and strike something, but she held the body of her guardian close to her. The armored figure sheathed his sword and reached into his own pouch attached near his belt.
Mia saw him extract a vial of shattered crystals that radiated with power amethyst in color. He unscrewed the vial and poured a few of the glowing rocks into his hand. That strange tongue came from his mouth and the rocks began to float on their own accord. They slowly made their way to the pair of women, and they only stopped when they were above Titania. Powder fell from those gem shards, containing the same energy on the grievous wounds.
Astonishingly, to Mia's eyes the wounds began to patch themselves together. No scars or any evidence that the wounds had even occurred besides the sundered armor. Titania shivered in her grasp, though the eyes remained close. "Wh… what did you do?"
"I am a speaker for the dead." The voice spoke with a human-like voice once again. "I have seen what lies beyond the veil and can see that gaze in all living creatures that foretell the journey to the ever-shifting steppes. Your mother-in spirit was not dead, nor was she on the world between ours and the afterlife." The crystals came back into the palm of his gauntleted hand, and he slid them back into the bottle. "She will be weak in the morning, but it is nothing light rest and hospitality cannot solve."
"It is all your fault…" Mia muttered as she still held Titania close to her body with one hand, the other wrapped firmly around the hilt of Alondite.
The figure took a step forward with a humorous laugh on his lips. "Really Mia? Who was the one who threw insults? Who was the one looking for a fight? The intervention of the Huntress was chance, though your actions weakened both you and Titania."
Mia was silent. He was right, she had rushed headlong into the fight without care for anything except for the unbridled enthusiasm that she might have been fighting her white robed rival. "Then I owe this Huntress a debt."
"That I can help you with." The figure spoke as Mia hefted Titania up over one shoulder by holding on to the right arm of Titania. "She is a threat to Tellius and must be killed. This and the caravan? It is nothing to what she is truly capable of. Cities will be reduced to ash, little ones will be dashed upon the stones, and not even the light of the goddess will be able to escape."
"Why should I trust you? You and her… are the same!" Mia shouted at the figure, who just stood there, betraying no emotion.
"In the same way you and the Mad King Ahsnard are the same. Racially we are the same but our goals could not be any more different. I am giving you the chance to stop her, if you do not heed it then three thousand more will have their blood spilt and on your hands." The figure spoke, and folded his arms. "Daughter of Altina, I trust no one else but you with this. Take Alondite, a few allies and what you need and head to the southeast. The city of Dunkirk will be the next to fall, though a few more shires will fall on the bloody trail leading to it. Stop her before and avert this disaster before it wracks the nation."
The figure turned to leave, raising his hand to the sky. "Wait!" Mia yelled over the dying storm. "Before I know, I must ask your name and how do you know who I am."
The figure lowered his arm and looked into Mia's eyes with ultramarine fire. "When I surrendered my form, I gave up my name. One day, when I am whole and we meet again perhaps I can tell you it. As for how I know you, your name travels far. Though I see Her face on yours, and in your vein runs the blood of a great heroine. Your deeds are widespread, but they will soon multiply tenfold when you know who you truly are. Your legacy runs deeper than you think, abandoned one. All you have to do is wait."
With final thunderclap of the storm, the figure vanished into thin air upon the heaven sent bolt. Mia stood there as her face was pelted with the last few drops of rain. She then numbly walked back to the retreat, her mind awashed with new information and speculation and the various new titles she was given to the plethora that she already had.