(THOB) Chapter 43: A Close Fascination (Patreon)

It was early into his sixth year in the seminary in the month of Janus, first of its year, when Ezril first saw a face from the underbelly.

The snow covered the dirt and the brothers walked the compound clad in their fur cloaks of wolf skin. Father Fravis had them in the training room where the ground rose and fell at varying angles. Today he had them spar with brothers from the Konvac tower.

They took their places with their opponents counting less than them so that one of the other brothers found himself with the priest for an opponent.

“Have something new to show me today, brother?” Baltar asked from where he stood opposing Ezril.

“I believe that is a question to be asked by me, brother.”

Baltar smiled, smug. “Don’t let me down.”

Ezril returned his brother’s smile. He believes this battle his victory.

Fravis gave the signal and Baltar moved so fast Ezril felt the boy had been a moment earlier than the call. He came in from the side with an open palm thrust, but Ezril anticipating it to be a feint stepped back and deflected a blow that came from beneath him. It took all the weight he could muster behind his hand to cast the blow to the side. It seemed Baltar had grown stronger since the last time they sparred.

Baltar’ assault did not relent. He crowded Ezril with a barrage of open palm thrusts, forcing him on the defensive. Weighed down, Ezril occupied his hands with the tasking ordeal of deflecting each blow, leaving a part of his brain to account for the placement of his feet as he moved. It was all he could do to keep himself from significant damage.

Baltar stood taller than Ezril, and his reach proved wider. The path of each blow told Ezril every one of them sought to stun him, to give way for a fatal finish.

The awaited leg sweep came, and Ezril repositioned his foot. He lifted it up and away from the Baltar and it granted him a moment to catch his breath. But Baltar followed with a closed fist.

The boy was fast and Ezril’s body moved on its own. It weaved into an open space beneath Baltar’ extended arm. Grabbing it, Ezril brought the arm over his shoulder. He pulled against it, coercing the boy into a throw but Baltar didn’t budge.

Baltar’ hand on Ezril’s back had served to brace him against the throw. It was a precarious position and Ezril spun from the contact. He weaved around Baltar, pulling his hand behind and into an arm lock.

Baltar twitched. Oddly, his free elbow found a path for Ezril’s face. Ezril’s hold failed as quickly as it began. Releasing him, Ezril blocked, taking the elbow strike with both palms as they broke apart.

It was a brief exchange. Like all spars it began and ended within the span of mere breathes, and yet, it seemed both infinite and infinitesimal. It was always the way with the both of them. However, this time would be different. This time I’ll win.

Free, Baltar rose on the balls of his feet, bouncing softly on both feet. It took mere moments for him to seem at ease. When he did there was a dread in the air.

They stood apart for a while. Ezril remained rigid in his stance while his opponent bounced. The stance is the basis, he reminded himself, lose it and you lose the fight.

He moved to attack but Baltar took the initiative first. He rushed Ezril, faster than he’d been previously. Ezril stepped back, unable to predict what was to come and Baltar came up short before him. His next action was a blur, and he seemed to disappear from sight.

Where? Ezril’s mind panicked.

He hated it when it happened; when panic clouded his thought. To his side he felt the sand flutter, disturbed very minutely. He reacted the only way his body could. He brought his leg up in defense and took a kick with it.

Biting down on a grunt of pain he brought his leg down, poised for a low kick. But Baltar had left the sand.

Baltar spun, a break in the rhythm of his actions, showing Ezril his back for a split moment. It was against the basics of Father Fravis’s teaching: “For no reason should you show your opponent your back,” the priest always taught them.

So Ezril closed in. He intended to capitalize on the chance, to end the spar before it could go on longer than he could handle. It took him the briefest moment to understand what was happening.

Baltar left the floor in a backflip. Ezril lifted his hands quickly and took the impact of the kick that came. It jarred his hands loose and, in a moment, he caught sight of Baltar in a horizontal spin, midair, his legs flailing as one replaced the other.

Ezril didn’t know which leg would bring the blow. And it mattered not. He could neither defend against it nor evade. He was already destabilized from the last attack.

A leg caught him square in the jaw. The impact threatened to turn his head beyond its limit and Ezril spun with the kick, his body following. He soared in the air, like something tossed and his face met the sand as his body met the ground with a thud.

Baltar bounced on the balls of his feet in place, waiting, giving him time to rise.

Shame swelled within Ezril, vile and putrid as it always tends to be. He discarded it. There was no place for shame, not now. Instead, he tapped into the rage beneath it. After all, rage could be found beneath such feelings, one merely had to look hard enough.

The air is my domain, he snarled. Master Felvan had given it to him, and he intended to keep it.

The Monsignor had instructed he keep what he knew of the Elken forest a secret, and he had done the best he could, keeping his unarmed combat to what the seminary taught. No more.

He tasted the blood in his mouth. His teeth had cut flesh. Choosing not to spit it out, he swallowed it. Blood, sand, and spittle. Then he rose, bounced on his feet in what seemed an imitation of Baltar stance. It was not. And in time he found a new rhythm.

He watched the confusion on Baltar’ face and satisfied himself with the look of doubt that clouded the boy’s eyes. But its life was brief.

Baltar attacked. He left the ground with a flying kick. Ezril slapped it aside, stepping around Baltar as he passed. Baltar dropped to a leg swipe the moment his feet hit the ground. Ezril did not hesitate, he vaulted over Baltar with the ease of his practice and Baltar rolled away.

But the action proved futile.

Ezril spun himself into the air almost immediately in a superior display of the acrobatics Baltar had brought him down with. His legs obeyed him as much as he obeyed them and he kicked Baltar in the jaw as he rose from his roll, sending back to the sand with a force.

Unlike Ezril, Baltar did not dally in the sand, he rose as swiftly as the winter wind to face him. Rage marred Baltar’ face momentarily. He spat. His saliva was more blood than spittle.

You thought the air your battle field. Ezril grinned. If I cannot face you in it, where else would I face you?

The battle evolved into a mix of blows and parries amidst aerial displays. Both boys bore bruises all over, but none life threatening. Catching Baltar off guard with a blow executed from a spin, Ezril finished with a kick executed from a side vault.

Rather than evade as he had been doing, Baltar stepped in, taking the blow against his shoulder. It reduced the damage, and kept Ezril from returning to the ground. Ezril caught a glimpse of a bloody grin before his back hit the sand with a force. He baited me.

With the action, the air in Seth’s lungs were forced out of his body. The pain was as livid as the loss.

Baltar made a quick maneuver around Ezril’s legs and straddled him. His place secured, he placed a hand to Ezril’s neck. Ezril was no fool, despite his will to continue fighting he had lost. In a real battle he’d be dead. Thank Vayla for spars.

They stayed like that for the span of three breaths. Then Baltar rose and offered Ezril a hand. The fight was over. It was Ezril’s defeat.

He took Baltar’ hand and let him pull him up. A look of appreciation colored Baltar’s expression and Ezril couldn’t help but return it. The hall was silent, now. When they turned, they saw the others had stopped to observe them. Even Fravis seemed to have taken an interest in their fight.

The hall remained a moment longer in silence as the other children stared in awe. Ezril felt his muscles ache from the release from the rush of adrenaline. He knew the morrow would prove unfavorable to him. But he was glad he did not have to worry about it. The morrow was a day of outing.

Fravis finally broke the silence. “Beautifully done.” He was not prone to giving compliments and it left them stunned into another silence. “Now if only you could reduce your wasted movements, and close more openings, or in your case, Vi Antari, capitalize on them, you’d be a powerful force.”

Beside Ezril, Baltar made a show of inspecting the injuries in his mouth. His cheek poked out each time his tongue surveyed, prodding and licking. Ezril had delivered more head blows, and the fact that he ached all over was evidence of Baltar’ preference to body blows.

Fravis dismissed them earlier than usual today. It could have been a reward for whatever entertainment he had found in their spar or it could have been nothing of the such. But such things didn’t matter to the boys. They had an early freedom and they were glad for it.

“Why don’t you go out with us tomorrow?” Baltar asked Ezril as they trooped out of the practice hall, and back into the cold snow. “I know you don’t use most of your outing days.”

Baltar words bore truth. Ezril did, in fact, spend most of the outing days in the seminary, so did his mates, making use of only a few of them.

Rumors had it that the Venin guild held a grudge. And while they didn’t believe the guild remembered their faces, they chose not to risk it. Instead, they opted for allowing the ruckus die at the hands of time. Perhaps a year would be more than enough.

“Actually,” Ezril replied, “we intend on using tomorrow the best we can.”

Baltar’s expression displayed a hint of disappointment. “I see. Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be at The Heart.”

Ezril knew The Heart. There was nobody who didn’t know it. It held a fame within the city. And while it was more interesting than all the other taverns and bars, there was a reason Ezril and his brothers didn’t frequent it. There was a reason they frequented one tavern.

The next day found Ezril and his brothers out in the city, drinking wine and mead and water from mugs so poorly made it seemed they would break at the slightest touch. They were not regular customers, but the waitress always remembered them when they were present. In truth, Ezril believed if they ever presented themselves in the absence of Salem she would think them random brothers of the seminary. She and Salem had grown into a certain friendship, and though it did not seem one that would threaten the brother’s adherence to the vow of celibacy, they feared it may prove troublesome in some other way. One they knew naught of.

Their food arrived moments after their drinks. Ezril stared at the most assorted pieces of meat the bar had to offer and the price drew him close to shivers. He had no want for coin. The pockets of the people of Ardin always proved ripe for the picking and as secure as the legs of most tavern girls—or whores, as Olnic hated to have them called. The seminary fed them like nobles. And the food from the bar was, at best, a spice above average. But there was a feeling that came with food from beyond the seminary walls. The knowledge that it didn’t belong to the seminary provided it as a delicacy on its own.

Their entrance into the tavern had borne with it a silence today, as it did any day they came in. Like every other day, the silence gave way to a return of the life that preceded their entrance. The trick was to give it time. The men around them laughed and bothered the air with tales of things they accomplished in life. Or in the case of most, things they were on the path to accomplish.

Raylin had an interest in the stories. So did Takan. But while the others prove only mildly interested, Ezril found the feat of any form of interest too much of an expectation for him.

He heard a man tell a tale of how he had walked into his house to catch his wife with another man who proved to be a Hallowed. How he had proceeded to beating the blessing of Truth out of him. It was a tale Ezril believed could only hold true if the man himself was Hallowed, and he most likely wasn’t.

Thus were the tales told in the bar.

In the underbelly a man could earn himself a couple of blows for telling such a tale. They referred to such tales as the shit of Truth. The stories he had grown surrounded by were ones of greatness and gore… rarely ever did they have honor. Unlike the bars he knew as a child, the men here never bore weapons, and fights rarely ever took place. It was a sharp contrast to the impression his first visit had given him. Somewhere in the depths of his mind he had expected more.

Most times the tales irked him. But he saw a good test of his discipline in being able to sit through them. Today, however, he found them especially irksome.

His brothers engaged the companies of girls as they so often did against the advice of Father Talod, save Olufemi who always seemed too uncomfortable for it, and Darvi who tended towards the generosity of a gaze that left the girls feeling like things less than the whores most of them were. Ezril found he failed to see whatever it was his brothers did. Often times he wondered if it had something to do with having grown knowing a few of their kind in the Underbelly.

In time, he rose from his seat and downed the last of the contents of his cup. The liquid burned on its way down his throat. It left his mouth with nothing more than its sour taste. Alcohol still remained a testy subject for him. This one left him with barely a buzz, and he brought it down hard enough to draw the attention of his brothers.

“If I’m needed,” he said, “I’ll be at The Heart.”

Darvi took a sip from his mug. “I see you’ve decided to take Baltar on his offer,” he said, then he took another. “Will we be returning together?”

Ezril shook his head. “I believe not, brother.”

Ezril found Darvi to be a close fascination. He was a boy gifted with the way of the sword and an ability to bring a certain life to any gathering. But he was most unlike the people Ezril knew with such characteristics. Darvi always had a mug with him when they visited the bar, but his cup was ever full. Ezril doubted their brothers noticed. But he did. It took more than a faint slur here, and a satisfied hiss there to deceive him into believing the contents of the cup held much sway over him.

The first day they came to the bar Darvi had filled his cup with wine, but while they played through an uncounted number of cups, he played through the one. Ezril knew enough about bars and drunks to know that today the contents of his brother’s cup was naught more than water. From his point of view, Darvi was too precise. He was more an act than a person, rarely ever doing things out of place, as though his whole life was a mask. At first it had been admirable to Ezril, the poise, the control, the nigh perfection. We were younger then. Now? He saw it for what it was; an act. It did not disgust him, but it did much to alleviate his admiration for his brother.

Olufemi rose alongside Ezril without as much as a word and followed. As they left Ezril spared Salem a glance. He seemed genuinely engrossed in whatever discussion he was having with the waitress. Her name was Ferla or Farla. Ezril couldn’t recall. Deciding he would ask Salem when they were alone, he stepped out, and into the street.

Olufemi close behind him.