The Journal of Renault, Bishop of Valor

Chapter 4

Well, the coronavirus is still going around screwing things up at work, leaving me little time to work on writing outside work. I'm not 100% sure if there will be a delay on the next few chapters (I'm praying there isn't), but if there is I hope you will understand. Until then, enjoy chapter four and don't forget to rate and review for more!

"Line up lads! And make it quick!" Cobalt barked.

We lined up as fast as we could, shoulder width apart, ears and eyes wide open, mouths shut. In front of us was the same training field that we practiced both our sword and bow skills on, but this time everything was pushed to the side, leaving us with enough space for a house to be built on. The Captain stepped forward with two large, heavy sacks and heaved them to the ground. Inside both were rough-cut swords made of oak wood and leather chest plates. Training gear, I thought and looked at Briar, who was grinning. He knew what was about to come.

"Now then," the Captain continued, "the plan for today, gentlemen, is sparring practice. Reflex is an important tool in every fighters' arsenal. It's what keeps your head from getting chopped off like a chicken getting prepared to be eaten. You won't last long on the field if you don't know when to dodge and when to strike, and that's what today is all about. You'll be paired into groups of two and pitted against each other in a sparring match."

"The winner will be decided when one person not only disarms but also pins his opponent to the ground. That's disarm and pin, not one or the other. Normal sparring rules apply. Nothing below the belt, nothing above the chest, no chucking your weapons, you get the idea. If someone gets seriously injured, which I doubt will happen, then I will call 'stop' and the fighting will cease there. Now that I've made myself clear, let us begin." Without hesitation, Cobalt dug both his hands into both sacks and produced two of each item. He threw one pair at me, and the other towards Briar. "You two are up first. Hurry and get ready."

Both Briar and I wasted no time in getting ourselves prepared for the mock battle. Both of us were filled with a lot of energy, but unlike Briar I was more nervous than excited. I never sparred with anyone in my life before, so it was obvious that I would be shaking and sweating. Every time that I tried to stop shaking, I started sweating more, and every time I tried to stop sweating I ended up shaking more. It was almost like I wasn't in control of my body.

"Hey Renault! You sick or something?" chuckled Briar. "Come on! The fight's begun!"

Screw you, I thought. I'm nervous and you know that very well. The other men in our group started surrounding us and roaring in applause as Briar drew slowly closer, primed and ready to strike at any given moment. I drew a deep breath and focused on him, drawing my sword with a shaky arm. I tried to take my focus off this uneasy feeling in my gut, but it felt like it was looming over me, taunting me, leering at me, as if to make me lose my focus. I shook my head and advanced forward, determined to get the better of him. I lunged first, aiming for his gut. A miss. Damn it, I thought. I left myself wide open to an attack. However, for some reason, Briar just watched me as I stumbled past him. No counterattack, no parry, nothing. It was as if I was striking at thin air. All he could do was grin.

"Now come on Renault. You can do better than that. I know you can. Remember what I taught you," Briar said calmly. Easy for him to say; he hasn't even made a move since this whole fight started. Perhaps this was all part of his plan? Nevertheless, I took his advice and prepared another attack. Left hand under the crossguard, right hand underneath, target in focus, and swing.

CLUNK!

The tip of the blade collided with the ground. Another miss…

"Close," Briar said, "but not close enough."

Eventually I lost patience. Just shut up, I yelled in my mind. I took another swing, and missed. And another. And another. And another...all misses. I was right, I thought. I am swinging at thin air. Is it because he's just too quick, or is it that I'm too careless? Come on Renault, I said in my head, you got this. He's not expecting my next move. He couldn't be. He's too busy gloating as I'm wearing myself down. I concentrated every bit of energy that I had into this next strike. I rushed towards him with every ounce of strength and thrusted the weapon towards him. I could feel the weight of my blade grow heavy, and at first I thought I got him. As I looked up however, my joy turned quickly to shock.

I missed, again. Briar had deflected my shot to the ground. And worse still, he was on my blind side.

"Good effort," he chuckled, whipping my back with his blade, "but all in a losing battle." I felt my blade fall out of my hands as my body careened towards the earth and smacked against it with a generous THUD. My breathing became heavy and I couldn't move my body, no matter how much I tried. Come on damn it...get up, I thought angrily to myself. I can't...lose like this. But no matter how much effort I gave, my body refused to listen. I felt paralyzed, defeated, and embarrassed. To make things even more embarrassing for me, the last thing I saw before losing consciousness was Briar standing over me, blade pointed at my chest, and the words "Nice try" escaping his lips…

When I came to, I was lying on a bunk, sweat-soaked clothes still on, and who else but him sitting next to me. My vision was still a little hazy, but it eventually became clear. I tried to sit up, but the shooting pain in my spine forced me back down like a bear pinning his meal to the ground.

"Don't force yourself," Briar said. "You took quite a beating out there."

"You gave me quite a beating," I grumbled. He just laughed it off.

"Yeah sorry about that. Luckily the clerics say it's just a bruise on your back, so you'll live." Silence fell for a moment. "The Captain should be in any second to check up on you."

"And you?"

"I'll be around the mess hall. After all that commotion, I'm starving. Want me to bring you back anything?"

"I'll be fine."

Briar frowned. "Listen Renault, I can understand you're upset with me but-"
"Who said I was upset at you? I'm more pissed off that I can't sit up. It feels like someone jammed needles into my spine…"

"Like I said, you'll live. Here comes the Captain now. Look sharp." Briar and the Captain exchanged a few words before going their separate ways. I wasn't able to translate what they said to each other, but I could tell by Cobalt's face that things were not looking up for me. This is it, I thought. I'm screwed. My days in this guild are through. We're going to have to let you go, he'll say. Not good enough for the line of battle, he'll say. Should have become a farmer, he'll say.

But surprisingly, he said none of that. "How do you feel?" he said in an uncharacteristic soft tone.

I took a deep breath and replied, "How do you think I feel?" Wrong answer, Renault. Wrong goddamn answer. Surprisingly again, the Captain just laughed it off.

"You may be an inexperienced fighter," he laughed, "but you sure have jokes, Renault." He went from laughing to dead serious faster than I've seen anyone go before. "But there's another thing you have more than anyone, more than Briar, more than I do: guts. I could see it on your face that whole fight; you were dead set on winning at any cost, no matter what kind of abuse your body would take."

"And yet I still lost…"

"You lost because you allowed yourself to get exhausted, and Briar took that as an opportunity to strike. His approach was carefully planned and well executed, whereas yours was just a mere demonstration of carelessness. And it's because of that carelessness that you're on this bunk right now. If you really want to be remembered as a great fighter, to have your name spread throughout the continent of Elibe, to be heralded by Marquess Ostia as I and many before me were, you need to learn that swinging carelessly at everything and everyone you do battle against is only going to get you killed. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Captain. I understand quite well…"

"Good. Just rest for now. You've done quite enough today." As the Captain turned and walked out of the medical ward, he turned his head back and said, "And Renault…" A pause. "I understand Briar has told me that he has a good deal of faith in you. Don't spoil that faith. For both his sake, and mine."

He began to walk away, but stopped short and turned back around, adding "One more thing. Briar wanted me to give you this." He reached into his pocket and tossed a small, shiny object onto my chest: a silver ring with a band of gold running down the middle.

I watched him walk away, his head hanging in shame as if he had just come from a funeral for someone close to him. As he left, I remembered what he had said: "Swinging carelessly at everything and everyone you do battle against will only get you killed" and "Don't spoil that faith". All this time that I've been in Captain Cobalt's guild, I wanted to prove that I was strong, and that I was fearless, but instead I only proved that I was foolish and absentminded in my fighting methods. I realized that if I wasn't careful, I could be kicked out of the guild for good, and then I would have to return to living out on the streets looking for money off the ground. And I wasn't prepared to return to that life. So in that moment I decided to make myself a promise. I promised that I wasn't going to let the Captain or Briar down. I wasn't going to let the others in the guild down. I was going to prove that I am strong, that I am fearless, that I can prove to be a great fighter, one whose name would be shouted all across Ostia, across Elibe.

Even if it kills me…

I removed the rain-soaked cloak and threw it to the side as we entered. Nergal kept his on, for whatever reason I wasn't sure. As Nergal left the room, I could tell he was getting more and more excited from the trembling of his hands and the silent huffing chuckle of his. My mind still ran blank from the magic he used on me, so I didn't say anything. I couldn't. How could I? I was no longer really human. I felt like a shell of my former self, a living husk. The only sense of feeling I had was in the deepest parts of my conscious, all of which was being suffocated by this empty feeling. I was nothing but a puppet hung from a string...Nergal's puppet. This is wrong, I kept thinking to myself. I shouldn't be here, helping this...maniac. Nergal eventually returned with what else but the corpse of my friend Briar, as if I need yet another reason to regret my choices. The sight was horrific, but the smell was even worse. The body, now in its rigor mortis state, smelled absolutely rancid, like milk that had been left outside for weeks to spoil or the fecal matter of a horse that had aged badly. I wanted to vomit, to turn away in disgust, but these feelings didn't come to me as they naturally should. I felt a lurch in my stomach as Briar was placed on the floor, his arms at his sides and his legs together. He almost looked like a soldier in the position he was in, but lying flat instead of standing tall and proud. Without time to think about his actions, Nergal produced a bottle with some strange looking matter inside, a bottle that contained the quintessence of the man we- no, I- killed, and removed the cork. With a wave of his hand, the matter began to levitate and swirl in the air. And then, like a thunderbolt crashing into the earth, the matter shot itself into Briar's corpse.

And then, it happened.

Briar's corpse began shaking violently as it came back to life, the gray color in his eyes that were rolled back far into his head slowly returning, the motionless expression on his face. All I could do was stand there and watch in great horror. I couldn't yell, turn away nor run. For some reason at that moment, my body was frozen still. I didn't feel angry, nor happy, nor bewildered...just frightened.

Nergal cackled as the corpse, once lifeless and dull, began to rise into the air and onto its feet. The dark aura around it slowly began to fade, and the body made its descent back down to the earth. Then, it began to breathe. It moved its fingers crookedly.

And then, it opened its eyes.

"Yes...yes!" Nergal cried out. "Marvelous! Years of study...hours of pain-staking equations and experiments...blood, sweat, and tears, and now I have finally created...life! I have defied death...witnessed rebirth...I am a genius- no...I am a GOD!" With these words, he began circling his "creation", eyeing its properties, gracing its armor of skin cold to the touch, and gazing into its lifeless, emotionless eyes. All the while, the human in me finally returned.

"Master Nergal...this thing…" I stuttered.

"Eh? What's wrong with you, boy? Frightened by the sight of your friend now? After all it was you who wanted to bring him back to life, was it not?"

"Yes…" I walked up to the reanimated Briar and looked at him. He didn't blink, nor did he look anywhere but straight ahead. "Briar? Can you hear me?"

No answer.

"Briar, it's me! Renault! Your best friend! Your companion! You must remember me!"

Still no answer.

"Briar come on! This isn't funny! Look…" I dug through my pockets to retrieve the silver ring from him. "You gave me this as a sign of our companionship. You taught me everything I know about combat, about strength. Come on damn you, say something!"

All that and still no answer.

"Master Nergal...this thing...this is not Briar!"

Nergal could only chuckle in his usual evil ways. "You asked for your friend back, so brought him back I did."

"But this thing...it isn't even human!"

"I'm well aware of that, boy. It's a morph."

"A morph? What are you-"

"Using the power of the quintessence from the man you killed, I was able to revive your friend here. However, while quintessence is the source of all life, an energy that makes and surrounds us, in the form we gathered it in, it is nothing more than pure energy. It does not retain useless characteristics such as emotion; instead its only purpose in existence is to breathe life into humankind."
"How can you call emotion a useless characteristic? You're mad...honestly mad!"

"Mad? Ha! Spoken from the lips of a murderer like you, I am surprised!"
"I am no murderer...you forced me to kill that man with your black magic! You're cruel

mad, and sadistic! Absolutely sadistic!"

"Enough! Begone with you boy, before I change my mind about keeping you alive."

That was all I needed to hear. I turned and ran as fast as my body would physically let me outside into the night and away from Nergal's grasp, all while I could hear his dastardly cackle in the distance. The rain poured to the rhythm of my footsteps, which picked up the pace as I raced downhill. I wanted to get as far as humanly possible from Nergal. All the while my mind raced with dark and deceptive thoughts. The face of that man when I stabbed him in the chest. The sight of Briar as he slumped to the ground and to his death. The horror of watching his corpse rise from the dead, all of which repeated in my head as I continued to run away. I could hear my conscious screaming "I am human! I am not a morph! I am human! I am not a morph!" as thunderbolts crashed in the skies above me.

I can't remember how far I ran, or how fast I was going. All I knew was that I was soaked from head to toe, shivering cold, exhausted from running, and hungry. My sight became blurry as I approached a large, black shadow in the form of a building. I lumbered ever so closer to it without a second thought, without worrying what I was walking into. I could have been walking into a bandit camp and to my death, or into the house of the man I was forced to murder. Thankfully, it was neither. Instead it was a large church with sturdy brown doors: the church of Saint Elimine. I used the last amount of energy I had to run up to the doors and attempt to open them. Locked. I began slamming on the doors with bare hands, shouting "Open up! Open up! Dear gods, open up!" I heard the sound of footsteps approaching and unlocking the doors.

The only thing I could remember after that was collapsing with a bright silhouette standing over me, and my vision fading to black while Nergal's laugh echoed through my head…

I think this might be the longest chapter I've done. I could be wrong, but I hope you enjoyed it! Chapter 5 coming soon, so stay tuned!