Here I am with another update, Uni started again so hopefully I can keep updating at a reasonable pace.
I met two old comrades in the sparring arena. Oscar and Kieran were the only warriors sparring that night, and I crossed a gloomy threshold of empty battle cages to meet them. The two Knights had apparently traded blows for a considerable amount of time with the quarterstaves they used for practice weapons.
"Oscar and Kieran!" I made my presence known over the punishing din of the sparring. The two fought in an open shallow pit which could be filled with a variety of terrain to keep their alertness sharp. They fought in loose sand, trading blows with their iron studded hardwood staves. To my trained eye, I could see that Oscar was the one who would come out on top in this fight. Kieran was well rounded with a strong arm needed for the massive axe he would wield, but when it came to speed Oscar was a man with few peers. Thankfully, they were here to practice their forms and not to incur Mist's wrath by needlessly harming each other.
"Hold." Oscar's calm voice and outstretched hand ceased Kieran's strike. My two second in commands had their faces mildly beaded with sweat and were short of breath. Both of them saluted me with their weapons to their chests and a bow of the head. "Commander Geoffrey, I am glad to see you return to us."
"A thousand hussazs to your recovery! There is no way those metal beasts could have killed you whilst I stood!" The fanaticism in Kieran's voice was, like Bastian's theatrics, a welcomed relief by my own surprise. Thankfully he was not as loud as he normally was, otherwise the whole castle could hear him, even over the ringing anvils.
"Agreed. It does my soul well to see that you are once more among us." Oscar nodded, his dark jade hair bobbed with his head.
"Well, I had hoped to bless this reunion with a little honest combat." My reply was met with a wolfish grin from Kieran, who tossed me a staff and stood aside so that I could enter the arena.
"Then let us see what benedictions you might offer, great Commander." Already my two opponents had begun to measure my combat efficacy. The looked eager to see how keen my fighting edge was after my humbled bout against the Flayed Ones.
So was I.
Bastian would be annoyed if I scratched the paint on my armor so quickly, but it was always my firmest belief that every suit of armor needed some training scars before it went into battle proper.
If I used my spear or dao here in the sparring area, it would heap shame upon both them and myself. The quarterstaff was a suitable replacement and training with it could be translated over into other aspects of fighting. "We should wear our helmets, only the proud and soon to be dead go without it in battle." I said as I strapped my helmet to my head and slammed down the visor guard in the shape of an eagle's beak. Oscar and Kieran placed their helmets on as well, though because of their position did not have a face plate as mine. Soon they would, given the many accolades they have both received in the past few years.
They fell to a combat ready stance, each of their eyes poised to tear me apart limb from limb. I adopted a defensive pose and gave a beckoning gesture with my head. They did not hesitate as they came for me, it would appear that their petty rivalry would not hinder them when they fought together.
The sound of the hardwood crashing against each other rang through the empty arena. Maple against oak, brass studs struck steel rivets. Kieran came down with a brutal chop, the manner of axemanship evident in his fighting style, and I managed a hasty block in response. In doing so, however, I opened myself for a jab by Oscar, and he slammed the tip into the breastplate on my solar plexus and sent me tumbling to the ground. I coughed for air and got back on my feet. Oscar and Kieran were ready for me, so I ordered them to attack again.
We traded a flurry of blows this time, and slowly I was beginning to feel like my old self again as I moved through the traditional martial forms and disciplines. Strike, bash, counter, jab. Strike, parry, feint distract. All of it was returning to my body and I was soon holding my own, even though I was caught off guard by Kieran bashing the side of my head with his staff. My head felt a ringing sound like no other as I collapsed into the sand. Oscar was about to shame me by offering a hand up, but I stood again. Enough toying around. "Do it again."
"Alright, this will make three." Oscar said it with a hit of a smile. Now I seethed with unjust anger. I came in low, causing a dent in Kieran's shin guard and placed the fiery redhead down on the ground. Oscar threw up an awkward block at my next attack and I pressed my advantage by pushing him back further and further until the inevitable happened. Oscar tripped over his own two feet and I stabbed the quarterstaff down on his breastplate.
We went back to our starting places and attacked again. Now fully embraced in the field of battle, I fought with all of the stamina I had. My two opponents had begun to show signs of fatigue and I pressed that advantage. I pushed Oscar aside with a powerful sideswipe of my staff and I had set my sights on my own deputy commander.
As I attacked with all of my training, I felt a background pulse directly behind my eyes. It was like an immense headache, a drum inside my skull and it pounded in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat.
Shadows flooded the arena that housed the battle-cages. It had been this way since I had entered it, but now the darkness began to coalesce and I felt it close around me like a slowly clenching fist. A silent predator had laid in wait, it crouched at the edge of my vision and from somewhere distant I felt a chill enter my bones.
There was wind, a howling like a wolf mourning loss on a midnight clear. Then it began to snow. The arena far from my thoughts as an arctic tundra emerged and overwhelmed my senses. In my hand I held the Tempest Dao. At the edge of a frost encrusted ruin, the shroud of shadows continued. From that obsidian pit, a figure emerged.
"I am death incarnate."
The lord of the Flayed Ones had returned, in all of his terrible and gilded majesty. The ice beneath my feet had begun to beat like some immense heart as he unsheathed his war glaive. Within seconds, it ignited the very air around it as the crackling emerald flame coated the blade.
We clashed there on the field, the Dao held in my gauntleted fist, Elincia's blessed name unsheathed like another weapon upon my lips. The king swung his war-scythe around, the great reaping edge like a crescent moon cut from the bleakest night and fashioned into a weapon. Our blades struck together in a cascade of sparks and we then broke apart.
I took a moment's respite, but the Flayed One needed none, his anima fueled by some ancient will and driven by the metal he had surrendered his mortal flesh to become. Massive, overpowering, he loomed over me in seconds. His looked into my own eyes and I could see them clearly. They were heavy with what seemed like a thousand years of war, death, betrayal, and anger.
"Not again! I am a Lion of Crimea! I am the Warden of Melior, a Slayer of Kings!" I made the vow and with a fury borne of desperation mixed with hatred, I attacked. I swung in from the side, shattering the war glaive and rendering it a useless weapon. The monster raised his hands in surrender, but I would have none of it. "No mercy for you."
I began to rain blow after blow upon the beast until my shoulders ached and my lungs were fit to burst. Breath would not come, I was drowning in this sea of nothingness as the shroud of shadows crept once again into my vision. It consumed my tormenter and had begun to rob me of my prize.
"NO! I will not be cheated! Not again, Not-" I fell to floor thinking I was to cough up fluid but I brought up only air, I saw Kieran. The staff was shattered in half and it laid broken before him. His armor was dented in several places, his jaw was bleeding and many bruises covered his face. His face was awashed in shock and anger. "My brother-"
Despite my wounding of him, Kieran rushed up to catch me with air would not come to my lungs. Oscar was not far behind and rolled me to my back. At the doleful clang of our armor meeting, I resurfaced from the dream and the pool of dark imaginings in which I had been choked.
"Commander Geoffrey?" I waved their concern away as I rose to my feet.
"I am alright, Oscar. Kieran, what of you?" I gestured to his face and battered war plate.
"A scratch." It was a lie. He frowned and looked at me with knitted eyebrows. "What caused you to lose reign of your senses?"
I saw no reason to hide the truth from them, so I told the two everything, about my slayer reborn, about the battle I believed to be fighting against him. "I could have killed you."
"You could have, noble Commander. But you did not." Kieran tried to reassure me, but I was unconvinced. I could have, Ashera's mercy I almost did so.
Something then caught my eye, and I reached for my blade. "What is it?" Oscar asked as he handed Kieran his axe and picked up his own lance. Something was not right in the air, there was something else here.
"Are we alone?" I whispered and began to slowly walk to the exit of the arena as Oscar nodded. "Well not anymore." My eyes never left the space from which I had seen movement and the three of us moved to where I gestured the enclosing maneuver.
Besides battle-servants to practice form and stamina upon, there were rows upon rows of dummies new weapons would be tested upon. There was one in particular that had caught my attention. There was ruffles on the corner of the limbs. It looked much like the flesh flayed from an innocent civilian from Volus.
I could swear that its eyes were also aglow.
Before either could stop me, I drove my Dao forward and pulled the interloper from the rack and was about to finish it off when Oscar stopped me. "Commander." He sounded worried, though it was directed at me and not our opponent.
Kieran interjected. "It is just a dummy, not even an enchanted one." I looked down and saw that they were correct. The flesh was just a torn grain sack and there was nothing special. No assassin clothed in flesh this time.
"Strength of the laguz,"I swore under my breath, "perhaps it appears I left the care of Mist too soon." I said as my sword hung loosely by my side in my slacked fist.
To his credit, Kieran tried to comfort me. "Great Commander, you were in a life preserving coma. Some… after-effects are not uncommon." I grunted in response, the equivalent of a vocal shrug. I was to speak again when there was a ringing of bells that filled the air. My heart quivered as I heard the noise. Oh no, it could not be.
"Has it been that long?" I knew I had answered my own question, but I still needed to ask it.
"Long? For what?" Oscar asked as he slung his spear over his shoulder.
"I am to present myself before Elincia and Tibarn and be judged for my command of Volus. I thought I had longer to prepare…"
Kieran gripped my shoulder pad. "It would be my honor to accompany you to the Hall of Tellius."
"As would it be mine." Oscar said as he grasped my other shoulder plate.
"Aye, that will do." I gripped one of their own shoulders in response. They were two loyal soldiers and honorable men any general could have under their command. "Gratitude, brothers." We left for the Hall of Tellius, and a meeting with their most august rulers.