New Blood
by Saber Alexander McConnell
Rated PG13

CHAPTER 27: Tundra Battle

The sun beat down, but it gave only the feeblest light, and no warmth at all. The wind was icy and damp, whipping the snow flurries through the frigid air, and shaking the branches of the leafless trees. Even the evergreens were sparse and scrawny, and signs of life were nil.

Nohano woke lying in a snow drift, shivering horribly, clad in his full armor. He had never seen real snow before, though he recognized what it was. To say he was not impressed would have been quite an understatement; he loathed it on sight.

The boy stood, wincing at the ache in his muscles, stiffened from his fight, and then this crippling cold. 'Where the hell am I?' He remembered the lightning, and then...this. He scowled, taking a moment to heat up his armor, taking a big breath as his body began to thaw. A mask covered his face, attached to his helmet, and Nohano understood it was part of the protection his armor offered against the deadly weather. He decided he would have to be very careful about using it to keep warm; if he used all its power, he'd be left to the elements.

And to attack.

For the moment, he seemed to be alone, with nothing but a few struggling trees dotting the snow-infested lands. Nohano sighed, and began to walk. He had no clue where the nearest city or village might be, but he had to go somewhere. Standing around would make an icicle out of him.

Several hours later, Nohano had taken the power of his armor down so that it kept the cold only barely at bay. It wasn't nearly hot enough for his liking, but it kept him from shivering, and it would conserve power. The snow had begun to fall more heavily, wet and cold, seeming worse than it really was because of the chill wind. Nohano resolved firmly to never, ever live where there was snowfall, and thought anyone who willingly did so was completely insane.

A sudden, muffled voice caught Nohano's ear, and he was suddenly alert, standing still and trying to figure where the voices were coming from. He ducked behind a snow drift, catching sight of something dark red, and curling his lip when he realized who it was: Kale. That bloody figured—frigid bastard was probably right at home here. He seemed to be looking for something—Nohano likely—and frustrated that he hadn't yet found him. 'Well,' thought Nohano. 'Maybe I should drop by and say "hello".' He couldn't flee, because Kale was far better in the snow than Nohano, and where could he hide? Besides, the idea of running away from this jerk did not sit well on Nohano's conscience; Kale had taunted him about Robert's death, had attacked him and his friends—for that matter, he'd been one of the ones responsible for Robert's death!

Nohano blinked. It had never really sunk in. His grief for his friend was strong, and he resented the attack back at the Renaissance Faire greatly, but somehow he had never out and out thought, 'hey, these guys killed Robert.' "You killed him," he whispered, looking back up to where Kale had stopped, listening. Nohano took a very deep breath, feeling his hands shake within their gauntlets, and stood up.

Kale was not far away, and Nohano was not trying to be quiet. The warlord spun around, his eyes widening behind his mask, freezing in place for just a moment. Without knowing he was going to do it ahead of time, Nohano let out a fierce yell and grabbed the hilts of his katana, drawing them and charging the startled warlord.

Kale's nodatchi was in his hand in less than a second, only just in time to block Nohano's furious blow. His eyes still wide with surprise, Kale swung the sword at Nohano's head. Nohano ducked, rolling in the snow and springing lightly to his feet. He noticed distractedly that he left steaming, melted holes in the snow where he'd touched it.

"Hi!" said Nohano, grinning in an unpleasant sort of way. "Figured I'd make it easy for you and show myself. That way you didn't have to bother attacking me from behind like a coward again."

His eyes widening in anger at the insult, Kale lunged at Nohano, thrusting with his longsword, Nohano twisting agilely out of the way. He felt a thrill of fear at the closeness of the attack, but laughed, all the same. Nohano could not deny the terrifying exhilaration of the battle, fighting one on one against the bastards that had turned his life upside down. He felt energy surging through his muscles, from adrenaline or his armor—he didn't care which, and pressed the attack.

Nohano had been a reluctant warrior, but something had changed in him over the weeks; slowly at first, but suddenly blazing forth in all its fury. He was born to fight evil, and these warlords were about as malevolent as you could get. Nohano was firmly convinced that if the warlords weren't evil incarnates, they at the very least worked for one!

"You've improved, whelp," Kale hissed, stopping for only a moment to catch his breath. Nohano paused as well, taking the time to recover for a moment, his eyes glued to his opponent. "You may actually give me a good fight before I present you to my master."

"Ha!" Nohano sneered at Kale's claim, his eyes narrowing. "Bring it on, dogbreath!"

But Kale did not attack just yet, though Nohano could tell he really wanted to. Instead, he only laughed, the sound that grated on Nohano's deepest nerves. He hated that smug laughter with a passion! "So confident, are you, boy? Weeks of training against decades of experience?"

Nohano felt his face grow warm as he let a growl of indignation at Kale's mockery. Kale looked Nohano right in the eyes, smiling like a wolf on a successful hunt, and the expression wasn't right. He'd not won yet, and surely he wasn't so arrogant as to assume that he would, would he? Why so smug?

Nohano was almost caught by the attack. Sound was strange there, muffled by the snow, and the shadows were tricky. But the light had shifted, and the weeks of battle training Kale so disdained had paid off. Nohano suddenly launched himself to one side, rolling awkwardly in the snow, something lurid pink flying past him arm. Kale snarled something in Japanese, and Nohano scrambled to his feet, bringing up his katana to block a furious attack from Dais, Warlord of Illusion. A morningstar, the same color as his strange armor, flew at Nohano's face once more, grazing the side of his helmet and knocking him off balance.

Kale and Dais both ran at him then, like bulls on the charge, and Nohano ran to meet them, leaping up into the air, laughing in sudden delight as he soared high above them. He dove forward, landing on the snow with his arms above his head, rolling neatly up to his feet and spinning around to fact his astonished adversaries.

Nohano was scared, and he was miserably cold. But the battle was invigorating him. When Dais cast the scythes from his back, and Kale cried out his lightning slash attack, Nohano charged forward. He missed the scythes, but caught Kale's lightning full in the chest, screaming as he was flung violently backwards.

Dais ran at him, pressing the advantage, but Nohano lurched to his feet and dove to the side.

Your flare attack, Nohano Kalama

The voice startled him, nearly costing him dearly in his fight as Kale's clawed gauntlet sliced the snow inches from where he stood. He didn't know who the voice belonged too, but now wasn't the time to think on it; his flare attack! How could he have forgotten? Nohano growled, joining his katana and crying out, "Flare up now!"

When the young Ronin first discovered the words to channel their attacks, Nohano had thought they were melodramatic and unnecessary. But once he'd felt the power that surged through him each time he shouted the words, to see the sizzling, red beams of fire that shot from the katana, he no longer thought them to be so corny. A satisfying sear of energy shot at Kale's face.

Kale's eyes widened as he dodged to the left, caught by the grazing edge of Nohano's fiery attack, but Dais caught the full brunt of the attack, yowling in pain as he was thrown to the ground. Kale stood up, but Nohano was lifting the katana once more, calling out his battle cry, following Kale's movements with his weapons.

Kale dodged the blazing energy, but Nohano spun to follow him, pulling the energy into a new course. It hit Kale, sending the Warlord of Corruption into the wet snow, which hissed from the heat. Nohano laughed in astonished delight at the two huge furrows he'd made in the ground, soil darkening the white snow and turning it to slush.

Things got scary, fast. Nohano ducked as Dais's morningstar flew at his face, yelled as the dark longsword bit into his armor, reeled from a close brush with Dais's scythe fan. It was ten times as difficult to fight two people as the fight one, and he was suddenly grateful for all the hours he'd put in practicing against more than one adversary! He was learning to anticipate the warlords' strategies, keeping his eye on one, while dodging away from the other.

A particularly powerful flare attack sent Dais sprawling in the snow, where he lay unmoving for several moments. Kale's eyes widened as he looked over at his comrade for just a moment, giving Nohano an opening; he lunged forward, jabbing both katana into Kale's armor. Kale snarled in pain as the blades sank partway through the metal, and Nohano yanked them free, backing up and parrying Kale's furious counter attack.

And then he slipped.

Ice, lurking unseen beneath the snow, had taken his boots from under him and sprawled him onto his back, one katana thunking into a snow bank several meters away. Before Nohano could even think about going after it, Kale dove at him, pinning him down into the snow, striking his hands with the nodatchi.

Nohano yelled in alarm as the second katana flew from his hands, suddenly fighting for his life, fighting to keep Kale's sword from slicing his throat. He grabbed the blade, dismayed that the sword dug gouges in his metal gauntlets, and wrenched it away from his throat.

Dais stirred then, groaning and getting up to his knees and peering at the struggling pair with one bright eye. Nohano growled and shifted his weight, trapping Kale's sword hand with his arm, fighting to get out from underneath him. He yelled in protest as Kale's clawed hand caught the edge of his helmet, flinging it off of him; snow began to seep into his hair, chilling him. He grabbed the clawed hand and held onto it.

"Give it up, boy," Dais hissed. He stood, but did not join the fight, a little unsteady on his feet. "You will join your little comrade in Master Talpa's palace!"

What had he said? Distracted for a moment, Nohano jerked his head around to stare, and Dais laughed unpleasantly. "Oh yes. The child with the sun armor. He sits in Talpa's dungeon as we speak, drained of his power by the Nether Spirits!"

Nohano only had time to hope desperately that Dais was lying, before Kale freed himself with a sudden lurch. Nohano screamed as the claw blades slashed across his face, and hot blood flowed down his cheek, lurid against the snow as it pattered down.

The pain fueled his fury, obliterating Dais's mocking laugh. Nohano brought a hand up to block a second swipe of Kale's nodatchi; he bucked his hips to throw Kale off balance. The second Kale's weight shifted, Nohano kicked upwards with one booted foot, throwing Kale aside and allowing Nohano to lunge away from him. He dove for his swords, lying within a meter of one another, but had to roll away from Kale's sword, unable to reach them. Unable to reach them, he fought unarmed.

Nohano had never fought for so long, but in the end, he claimed victory. Dais tried once to rejoin the fight, but was knocked cold by Kale's own weapon, struck when Nohano ducked the blow intended for him. He laughed at the look of shocked horror on Kale's face, a half-crazed sound that worried him a little in the back of his mind. "Nice shot, Kale! Couldn't've done better myself!"

Kale's anger did not serve him as well as Nohano's had; he lunged blindly at Nohano, losing his sword when Nohano disarmed him with a spinning kick he had just recently mastered. The boy darted forward to grab the dark longsword, bringing it up and around, twisted his body into a vicious, backhanded blow.

Kale's own blade caught him across the face, cutting through his helmet. sending him sprawling on the ground. Nohano nearly recoiled at the hatred in Kale's blue eyes, as the injured warlord staggered over to Dais's unmoving form. Kale grasped the other man's shoulders in a surprisingly concerned manner, glancing down as if to see if Dais was alive or not. As Nohano watched, the two warlords disappeared in a flash of reddish lightning, the longsword in Nohano's hand going with them.

Nohano watched the place where they had been in amazement, his victory sinking in. Two of them—he'd fought two, and come out victorious!

He laughed in amazement and turned to find his own swords, but a nauseating eave of dizziness staggered him, and he dropped weakly to his knees. A vague, confused knowledge that he needed to get out of there and get help made him stagger to his feet, but he could not make his trembling legs move. And the adrenaline rush drained, Nohano's strength left him, and he collapsed to the snow.