Chapter IX
Changes
When Arthas awoke, he was again below the decks of a ship, though with much different furnishings. Simple furniture decorated the room, and he was lying on a relatively good bed, considering he was at sea. His swords lay on a small table beside the bed. While he was wondering why he had received such accommodations, even though he was prisoner, the same woman who had dragged him aboard the ship entered the room, bearing a plate laden with exotic food. Behind her came two other men; one was stocky and strongly built with ruddy skin and thick black hair, while the other was lanky, tall, possessed fair skin and a bush of flaxen hair. They were perfect opposites of each other, which was only accented by the fact that they had opposite shades of blue in their eyes. The stocky one had dark, while the lanky one had light.
"Finally, yer awake," the burly man barked impatiently. "Certainly took ye long enough. Was startn' to get worried that Karthiah here hit ye a 'bit too hard."
"To hurt the one would be the doom of all," Karthiah said mechanically.
"She has visions, and often speaks in riddles," the lanky man explained. "We never know when or where she is going to spout out another vision, and we never could understand her. We originally didn't even want her on this ship, but she always found a way to sneak back on. We finally just gave in and let her ride as a documented crew member on our ship, The Sundered Bond. Oh, by the way, I'm Alex, and this disgrace to mankind beside me is Adam. I know it's hard to believe, but we're brothers."
Arthas looked at them skeptically, but said nothing.
"We're about two days out from port, and when we get there ye can meet the one who sent for ye, though we can't say nothin' else 'til we get there," Adam told Arthas. "Now eat, we don't need ye to be starvin' to death after all the trouble we went through to get ye. And by what Karthiah said, you've had it pretty rough lately, floatin' through them frigid waters an' all."
Karthiah handed the food tray to Arthas, then left without another word
"She does that sometimes," Alex stated. "Hardly meets ye, an' then walks away wit'out a second thought or even a word of farewell. When ye feel rested enough, come up to the deck, we got somethin' to show ye."
As the brothers left the room, Arthas imbedded a silver light into the food to check it for poison, and, finding none, began to ravenously devour it. When he had finished every crumb on the plate, he set it aside, got up, strapped on his scimitars, and walked up the stairs to the deck above. He found Adam waiting for him.
"Yer up already? Sure'n yer to be okay?" he asked. After a weary nod from Arthas, he continued, "Alrighty then, suit yerself. Karthiah said ye would be an expert swordsman, and we were wantin' to give that a test. We don't exactly want to show ye something; we want ye to show us how good ye really are. It will be ye and Karthiah, no magic, no aid, just sword against sword. She's waitin' for ye on the upper decks whenever yer ready. Be careful, lad, she's never been bested before, she's put the last thirty years into studying with the blade, and ye might be in fer a beatin'."
A flash of lightning slashed a jagged scar across the swiftly darkening sky, and the first drops of rain began to stain the deck.
"Rain, and a battle on a rocking ship when you are weak and new at sea," Adam grimaced. "Lady Luck seems to have turned away from you for the time being."
"The wind's in my favor," Arthas began. "That's all the luck I need."
When he reached the deck, he found Karthiah standing in the middle of a ring of crew members, all waiting to see this display of skill and talent. Before he could utter a word, Karthiah rushed him, her sword leading, her bola spinning behind her in a rapid circle. Arthas's scimitars leaped to his hands, and he deftly knocked her sword aside and lashed out with the pommel of his other blade. It met only air as Karthiah dodged around it while her bola whipped around her other side. Arthas stabbed straight down with one of his scimitars, jamming it into one of the wide chain links and pinning the bola to the deck. As her weapon was torn from her hand, Karthiah struck out with her foot in an attempt to disarm her opponent of his other blade. Arthas spun away from the strike and pulled a dagger from the folds of his tunic. He locked his sword with Karthiah's, twisted his arm through hers, pinned it behind her back in a painful joint lock, and brought his dagger toward her throat. The back of her head connected solidly with his nose, knocking him backwards and releasing her arm.
Pulling a throwing knife from her bracer, she hurled it towards the staggering Arthas. Dropping his dagger, Arthas caught the knife and rebounded it with well-practiced precision. Only a side step saved Karthiah, and she countered with a sweep kick that sent Arthas to the ground. He whipped his scimitar above him to intercept the downward chop of her sword, and then rolled into a shove that sent her sprawling towards the edge of the ship. Leaping up from his roll to sail over her head, he landed lightly on the railing of the ship, balancing precariously while exchanging cuts and jabs with Karthiah.
Arthas summoned a surge of magic to call his other scimitar back to his awaiting hand, then began a strange style of combat that was more for show than effectiveness. It was a combination of quick pivots supplemented by the near "juggling" of more than two weapons. Two daggers came from the folds of Arthas's clothing to join in the rapidly spinning pattern of his scimitars. After the completion of a swing, Arthas would toss a weapon into the air in order to grab a falling weapon and initiate his next strike. It took nearly all of his dexterity for Arthas to retain his balance on the water-slick railing during his dervish dance, especially when he had to use a limb other than his hands to keep his weapons in the air. To the onlookers, it appeared to be a very graceful, if strange, style of combat, and it drew scattered but constant applause. Karthiah, on the other hand, tried desperately to break Arthas's precarious balance and disrupt his concentration in the slight amount it would take to end the strange combat pattern. She wouldn't have to, because Arthas was beginning to tire.
He intended to end this now, so Arthas went purely on the offensive, dropping his daggers to the ship deck and sending his scimitars in blindingly fast at constantly changing angles, and Karthiah was hard pressed to keep up with the darting blades. To the onlookers, the ring of blade on blade sounded like a single, melodious note, and the swords themselves were blurs of color and motion. Since pure speed didn't appear to be working, Arthas tried a different approach. His attacks came in as flurry of feints and cuts, each one disguised as another so that the real strikes melded in and out of the fake ones. Karthiah was forced to disengage from the melee before she became entrapped in the cage of white that was Arthas's humming blades. When the routine ended, Karthiah charged back in, sword arcing before her. Arthas leaped over her horizontal hack, and then landed by pinning her sword to the railing with his foot. He did this without realizing her strength, and Karthiah used the railing as leverage and launched Arthas into the air. He grabbed a rope that had come loose in the wind and swung back over the center of the deck. Karthiah snatched up a rope of her own and climbed like lightning up the hemp strands. As the two combatants swung about in the wind, they directed blows at the ropes as well as each other. Though the driving rain stung at their faces, the two adversaries refused to give in.
Arthas was the first to fall, and he came crashing down on the wet wooden deck. Karthiah was close to follow, but she fell with the grace of a cat and with her foot leading. When it connected with the back of his head, a flash crossed Arthas's vision, and only instinct allowed him to drop his swords and catch her other foot before it crashed into his chest. He twisted her footing from beneath her and sent her to the ground as well. The momentum of her fall jerked Arthas to his feet, and he drove his advantage home by drawing his last dagger and planting it into the deck a hair's breadth from Karthiah's neck.
Scant seconds after his victory, Arthas collapsed, his energy spent, to the deck, and his breath came in ragged gasps. After several moments of blank silence, cheers erupted from the gathered crew, and men rushed forward through the rain to aid the exhausted warriors. They brought forward water and bread to sate their hunger and thirst, and the two combatants were carried high on a sea of soggy, cheering sailors.