Down seven flights she wound her way,

Feet flying down the stony stair –

Felt first the sun of summer's day,

Breathed first a taste of free-blown air.

These marvels yet escaped her sight

For one sight she could not forsake:

Upon the grass, her wounded Knight –

The Maiden thought her heart would break.

- "The Knight of the Tower," lines 341-348

Deep in the shade of the great trees, Llanys continued to stalk her prey, keeping just close enough to hear the detector Axel carried. The clicks had been growing more frequent, building to a slow but steady rhythm. The light, too, was increasing, as the morning sun neared the horizon. A quarter-mile ahead, Llanys' scouting breeze indicated a clearing in Axel's path, which would make detection far more likely. If she was going to strike, it needed to be now.

Llanys took a deep breath and with a fleeting thought summoned her weapon to her right hand. The steel glaive materialized silently in her grip, and she lifted it over her shoulder in a striking position. With a single, swift movement, she stepped out from behind the tree and adjusted her aim, knowing that with a little luck she could finish this with one shot. Llanys drew back her arm and cast the glaive with all her might.

For whatever reason, it was at this very moment that something caught Axel's attention, and he started to turn. What should have been a clean killing blow instead pierced low on his left shoulder, the javelin point of the weapon passing clean through his body before before the shaft lodged in his flesh.

Llanys cursed under her breath before flying into action. She drew the mist tight about her, pulling the fog into a dense shield to hide her from view. A split-second later, she called her weapon back, taking it in both hands as she readied for battle. The grip beneath her left hand was already slick with her opponent's blood; she had wounded him badly. Though Llanys was well aware that Nobodies were far stronger than their human selves had been, she knew that she had already claimed the advantage in this fight.

Axel fell to his knees with the impact's force, all the breath knocked out of him. Pain flooded his senses as his mind tried to process what had just happened - and then he saw the bloody point of the weapon sticking out of his chest. An instant later, the javelin point vanished, and he realized the weapon had been called back to the hand that threw it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his survival instincts were screaming, get up.

Faster than he would have thought possible, Axel was on his feet. He turned to face his attacker, summoning his chakrams with a flaming flourish, and his eyes widened at what he saw. Not twenty feet away was a whirlwind of white mist, swirling and pulsing in the weak rays of the rising sun. He could see a dim shape shrouded in the gathered fog, and for an instant he caught a glimpse of eyes within - eyes blue as the zenith of the summer sky, and electric with the rush of battle. Unseen hands gripped the strange weapon that had wounded him only seconds earlier, the light glinting off the polearm's steel blade.

Axel realized he'd been holding his breath, and the sharp pain in his chest as he inhaled snapped him forcefully back to the conflict ahead. A quick glance at the long shaft of the glaive, and the redhead knew he would never get close enough to strike at the shrouded figure with his chakrams in hand; he'd have to cast them instead, something he wasn't particularly skilled at yet.

The white whirlwind advanced on him with surprising speed, closing the distance between them in the span of a heartbeat. The long weapon flashed out in a glittering arc, which Axel met with the spiked edges of both chakrams. The force of impact knocked him back half a step as sparks flew from the crossed blades, and Axel realized that his opponent must be quite strong to wield the heavy weapon with such power. As his attacker pulled back, readying for another strike, Axel retaliated with three short bursts of flame. The last found its mark in the center of the swirling mist. Axel smiled grimly to hear the muffled yelp of pain from within, but his joy was short-lived as his mysterious adversary attacked again with the shining glaive. He narrowly managed to dodge the blade, hearing it cut the air just inches from his face as he jumped back.

The two combatants were a little over ten feet apart now, and Axel judged that he might have a chance at using his chakrams. He cast another round of fireballs at the whirlwind, then as the figure moved swiftly out of the way, threw the circular blade in his right hand at its retreating form. The spinning blade passed through the edge of the vortex, where it was caught and whirled around by the intense wind. Axel thought he saw the figure within the storm shudder as though the blade had found its mark, but his opponent gave no other sign of injury. The black-clad Nobody called the chakram back to his hand just in time to deflect another strike from the glaive.

As the fight wore on, Axel could feel himself growing weaker. The wound in his chest was bleeding heavily, and he was starting to feel dizzy. His opponent must have decided that simply waiting him out would be an effective strategy, for the wind-shrouded figure attacked less frequently, keeping just out of range of his chakrams. Axel knew that his only chance to win this fight was to overwhelm his adversary in one final, all-out attack.

Luca picked her way over the tangled roots of the great trees, heading toward a certain clearing where the flowering herbs she sought should be at the peak of their spring bloom. Years spent wandering these woods meant that Luca needed no trail, navigating by landmarks that would pass unnoticed to outsiders – the angle of a fallen tree, a slight depression filled with rocks, a patch of a rare plant. Blaze trotted along beside her, his coal-black nose sniffing at the morning air.

Suddenly, the dog darted off between the trees. As he dashed past, the memory of a scent passed between them. The metallic tang was immediately familiar.

Blood.

Luca rushed to follow Blaze as the dog ran deeper into the forest.

Llanys cursed under her breath at the spiky redhead watching her from a dozen feet away. Waiting out an opponent wasn't the honorable way to win a fight, but she felt she had no choice. His desperate chakram cast had indeed struck home, opening a shallow gash that spanned both shoulders. The cut wasn't nearly so dangerous as the wound she had inflicted on her foe, but it made lifting the heavy glaive difficult. Under the circumstances, Llanys saw no alternative but to wait until Axel was too weakened to oppose her before moving in for the final strike.

Yet there was something about his demeanor that suggested that Axel wasn't quite defeated yet. Call it a sixth sense gained from many battles, but the white-haired girl could tell that he still held out hope of victory. Llanys knew that she was in no position to parry an attack with her weapon, while without it her agility should be enough to evade her opponent. Reluctantly, she released the glaive's shaft, allowing it to float close beside her to provide the illusion that it was still in her hands.

A moment later, Axel lashed out simultaneously with a burst of flame and both chakrams, using most of his remaining strength in a final effort to take her down. Llanys barely dodged the spinning blades, but the edge of the fire blast caught one leg, sending searing pain along her calf. Reflexively, Llanys lashed out with her own elemental power, weakening the shield of mist to launch a lightning bolt at her foe.

The electric strike caught Axel square in the chest, sending him flying backward with his coat fluttering like the wrecked plumage of a wounded bird. He tried to scream as pain shot through every nerve in his body, but found that his mouth refused to open. At last he struck one of the giant trees and black oblivion fell over his world.

Llanys looked up from her defeated opponent to see a wide-eyed girl about her own age watching her from a short distance away. With Llanys' whirlwind shield in tatters, the mere snatches of mist that floated around her were nowhere near enough to hide her from view. A momentary surge of panic overcame even the rush of victory; she had succeeded in her mission, but she had been seen. Without thinking, Llanys opened a portal and retreated to the safety of the Between.

Luca ran to the black-clad figure slumped against one of the giant trees, trying to push from her mind the fantastical being she had just seen. It had to have been one of the leanan sidhe, the ominous faery-women of the forest that the old tales warned against. Though none had been seen for nearly a thousand years, since the time of the Great War, Luca did not doubt her own eyes – and this redheaded stranger must be a great warrior to have stood against that mythical being.

Kneeling on the mossy earth beside the wounded man, Luca tried to examine the extent of the damage. The glaive's passage had pierced his lung, and his black coat was soaked in blood. His breathing was rapid, but shallow, a sure sign of massive blood loss. If the bleeding was not stopped, he would die in a matter of minutes.

The shock of her touch returned Axel to consciousness as Luca placed her hands on his chest as gently as she could. He felt cold and somehow disconnected from himself; the pain came through as only a dull ache, something happening to someone else. He opened his eyes to find a girl's face bent over his, the tips of her chestnut waves brushing against his cheeks. Her deep brown eyes held his gaze for a moment, and Axel became aware of a strange warmth flowing from her hands where they rested on his chest.

"Please don't die," she whispered, and then suddenly she was falling backward, a spreading red stain blossoming across the bodice of her gray dress.


I feed on your reviews O_o ...but seriously, knowing that someone else wants to see where my story goes encourages me to keep writing! If anyone is wondering, the "Knight of the Tower" excerpts at the beginning of each chapter are also written by me; this poem will become important to the story later on. I didn't really write hundreds of lines, I'm just imagining where each excerpt would fit if it were part of a larger saga.