(THOB) Chapter 83: A Force of War (Patreon)

The fight raged on below them. With no signal, it seemed to go on forever. Ezril found himself being reminded of Father Talod’s trainings on the days of the blade during his early years in the seminary. For a moment he forgot the battle before him and flexed his left hand. All of them had been required to learn the use of both hands, and they had learned it well enough. He looked at his brothers. There had been a time when he hadn’t been ambidextrous. The things I’ve learned.

His memory of the night at the alley came to mind. He frowned. No. There had never truly been a time when he hadn’t been ambidextrous. He flexed his grip one last time, drawing a conspicuous look from Takan.

Not taught, he reminded himself, retrieving his quiver from the ground, trained.

It pierced through the chaotic atmosphere of the night. A shrill ever elevating. A whistle ringing out in the air. It was an arrow Ezril was accustomed to, one he had used a few times in battle.

It was their long awaited signal.

Darvi glanced to the left, then the right. Noem’s contingent was nowhere in sight. Perhaps they had decided to wait a while longer; let the herd thin itself out a bit more.

Ezril’s grip tightened on his bow, and he gritted his teeth. It was all he could do to stop himself from moving without Darvi’s command.

“For Truth’s sake,” Takan grumbled. “This is not the seminary’s war.”

“Perhaps,” Darvi replied. “But it is ours.” He surveyed their surrounding briefly. “Use your strength for the fight below, not the trip.” He spoke to them but looked at Ezril.

Then they moved, the true step propelling them faster than any unHallowed could to the battle raged on below.

Now that Ezril was a part of it, he saw it was as confused as it was brutal. On a few occasions he witnessed a soldier of the realm fell another. However, to his dismay he never saw a Merdendi slay another.

It’s a miracle we still have soldiers in this, he thought as he cuffed an enemy and released an arrow into another. His quiver would prove useless soon enough, yet Noem’s men were nowhere in sight. His brothers had since scattered to different quadrants of the battlefield, a move executed the moment they arrived.

Ezril grit his teeth in annoyance as he ducked under a slash from one of the realm soldiers. A split moment decision had him sending the man unconscious with a blow to the back of the head. An unconscious soldier was more useful than a counterproductive one.

Ezril stopped in his tracks, quiver empty, bow bloodied, a cut in his arm he had no knowledge of how he had gotten. He whipped a Merdendi’s head with his bow, felling the man. He strapped it in place in one swift motion then drew his Sunders. Noem’s men charged the field now. But something was wrong. The horde fought differently from what he had grown accustomed to.

In such skirmishes men all but sought out an enemy to slay, perhaps two, if they were feeling livid. Tonight, however, they seemed to stop and fight out of necessity, as if they would avoid him if they could, like a simple passing fancy. They had a goal and, for the life of him, he knew it not.

To the north of the battlefield Ezril could hear the Captain’s voice as the man reveled in the battle. A quick glance revealed Noem as he cut down three men in one slash, easily towering over his enemies, a gleeful grin on his lips. His swords, the black of Asmidian ore cut through his enemies. Although made of the same ore, they were not tempered by the same flames as the Sunders. They did more than a good job, still.

Ezril couldn’t help but smile. The man was three Halloweds in one body, and a terrible enemy to face.

Ezril side-stepped a charging Merdendi, slashing at the space he knew a follow up attack would ensue from any competent man. His blade met air, and he watched the man continue his charge, ploughing through whoever stood in his way, ignoring those who didn’t. He had almost disappeared into the maelstrom of clashing blades and clubs when a soldier cut him down, drawing a straight bloody line across his back. Then the soldier plunged his sword through the Merdendi’s neck and hurried off.

West, Ezril noted.

The man had been charging west. With the discovery Ezril began his journey westward, bringing down whoever stood in his path. On occasion he avoided careless slashes from allies, finding solace in the truth that it was only a matter of time before the arrival of first light.

The battle grew thicker with each step. The chaos threatened to swallow him, make him a part of itself. A few times he found an enemy who considered him worth the while to stand and fight. Like those before them, he brought them down with relative quickness. These are men bred for violence, he observed, but not the confusion of war.

He found no doubt that in a bar fight he would find them more than challenging. However, this was no bar fight. This was worse.

His back flared, and he turned on instinct. Sunders before him, he parried a sword strike. His attacker staggered back, an alertness in his eyes, and Ezril squared off with him. The man’s left arm was covered in a blue tattoo. What irked Ezril was how he had attacked from what should have been a blind spot, one he had thought himself practiced in never leaving unattended.

Father Jugen’s lessons snuck into his head: “Every man has a blind spot, therefore, what you cannot see, you must listen for.”

The priest had spent pain staking hours of his days with them teaching this lesson, amongst others, until it had become a subconscious habit for them.

Father Jugen will be disappointed, Ezril scolded himself.

Still, he was more than certain he hadn’t heard the man approach. He had thought Olufemi the only person capable of such a feat. He stood corrected.

The man charged him. He prepared for the attack that would come, feet planted firmly against the grass, muddied with blood. The strike came. Ezril braced for the blow. And the man vanished completely from his sight.

It was madness.

The scars on Ezril’s back flared again. He ducked forward. Falling into a roll, he came up a distance from where he had stood. There, his assailant stood, a frown on his face. It was clear he had missed his attack. So he lunged into another attack. This time Ezril resolved to strike first. His Sunders met nothing but air as the man slipped from sight again.

His scars flared again.

A searing pain erupted in his side and Ezril swung his Sunder in an arc. The sound of metal clashing rang out as he fell away from his position, giving notice to where his opponent stood.

Ezril crouched away from the man quickly. Somehow he had reacted fast enough. The man’s attack left only a shallow wound. From it, blood trickled, staining his vest in a line of red. It took Ezril only a moment to realize what had transpired. His shoulders throbbed again and he gave voice to his realization.

Tainted.

The man’s touch seemed to allow him speed beyond that of a Hallowed. No. Ezril disagreed with the assessment as soon as it was made, if it were speed, I’d be dead already. This is something else. He completely leaves my line of sight. He frowned at the new assessment, knowing that wasn’t all there was to it.

Perhaps it was his pride. A pride that wouldn’t allow him believe there was a Hallowed faster than his brothers, because even Olufemi, for all his speed, wasn’t capable of disappearing from sight as the man did.

The man lunged at him again. Ezril decided his time on the defensive was over. He moved towards him. If the man was Hallowed, then he was not someone that would prove difficult to handle. If he was Tainted, then he would need to be outsmarted.

As was expected, the man disappeared from his field of view at the last moment. Ezril turned abruptly and lashed out at his blind spot.

The clang erupted in his ears. The impact jarred his hand slightly. He had created the illusion of an opening and the man had taken it as a chance. Ezril bore against the weight of the man, keeping him in check. His Sunders left no sparks where they met the man’s sword. Closer inspection revealed it to be more of a massive cleaver than a sword. The Merdendi’s unorthodox choice of weaponry never ceased to amaze. Ezril pushed against the man. His enemy strained at his power, his feet realigned beneath him, seeking to keep him up.

Tainted, Ezril concluded. There was no speculation in it. Not anymore.

The test of the step had been the most trying of all the test the seminary had thrown at Ezril. More trying even than the winter test. Still, it had served to dissuade doubt that he was unHallowed amongst his brothers, as well as the priests. All doubt had been put to rest when he’d proved himself capable of enacting his will.

Ezril pushed the man back with each force, winning in a battle of strength. He was no doubt stronger, even if it was by the smallest margin. Eventually, the Merdendi broke the lock, staggering away.

The seminary trusted Ezril. So did his brothers. But more than any of them, he knew the truth. He had the speed of the Hallowed, the will of the Hallowed, but his strength had always been, and still remained, that of an unHallowed.

Ezril stood away from the man, seething in a rising anger. Whether it was directed at himself for not being what he wanted to be or at the man for reminding him that he was not, he couldn’t say. He didn’t care. The man tightened his grip on his weapon, a suddenly new found caution in his eyes as he observed Ezril.

Suddenly, the man coughed up blood. His eyes bore more surprise than Ezril’s did at the metal blade protruding from his chest. The realm soldier who had run him through withdrew his blade, discarding the man to the ground without ceremony. Done, he ran off in search of other foes.

It was anti-climactic and left him in discomfort but Ezril proceeded west, unfulfilled and wishing he’d had the time to figure out the man’s touch. This is war, he reminded himself, weaving his way through men drunk on blood and death.

Broaching a possibility in mind as first light brightened the morning, he stopped a random soldier. He was a man Ezril didn’t recognize, and he pulled him off a long dead foe with effort.

“Where is the priestess?” he asked. When the man’s face contorted in a mixture of fear and confusion, he repeated, “The priestess,” his voice rising above the chaos with a tinge of annoyance, “where is she?”

The man gave a panicked shrug then pointed off to the west, shaking his head.

A guess? Ezril speculated. He let go of the man to continue his carnage however less zealous.

He hoped no matter how fearful the man had been for his life the guess was an educated one. He based it on the wisp of knowledge of the question he’d seen in the man’s eyes.

With an itch to his shoulders, Ezril forced his way through scores of men to come face to face with a sight quite unbecoming of a battlefield. Twenty feet from where he stood in awe, Lenaria moved with a graceful ferocity. Between them, no soldier of the realm stood. Only scores of savages, rushing to what she had turned into apparent death, approached her. They rushed forward, determination in their steps.

Alanna had been correct when she claimed Lenaria was no longer the girl he knew as a child. But he had borne no delusions of what she was. Still, this was beyond him. It towered over all the realities he’d created in his mind from what he knew. It warped the reality of what he’d thought into what it truly was: a delusion. She was beyond what he knew. Still, the woman before him birthed a nostalgia in him, one that had him reminiscing of his time in the winter test. The time when she had killed men with nothing but ferocity.

He had seen only one other person grace a battlefield with such mastery: Olufemi.

But Lenaria’s was more beautiful. Olufemi moved like a practiced master with instincts long honed, taking the art and consuming it until it became his own. A man truly born for battle. The deadliest of beings.

But Lenaria moved with a greater precision. No doubt in her steps. The fluid grace of an animal in its natural habitat. Her skill was beautiful, yet unpracticed. This was not the sight of a woman bred or trained for the art of war. No. It was that of a woman who birthed war. She was neither created nor fashioned for it. It was created for her.

For the first time Ezril found himself believing in the existence of an opponent Olufemi would never best in battle.

However, Alanna was wrong about one thing. As he watched Lenaria’s blades cut down each man that stood in her way, her body twist and bend in forms to evade each blow designed to be fatal, there was no smile on her lips. No frown. No ferocity on her face. No joy was derived. No sorrow was taken. She did not revel in it. She was not lost in it.

Each blade stroke taking the life of an enemy was a simple act, as if undecided by the wielder but deserving of the victim. Her face was expressionless, her actions like a toddler suckling on its mother’s breasts, or a man taking his last breath. She fought, and killed, because it was what she knew. It was required of her. Perhaps it had long since become the only thing she knew. The battlefield seemed to her as the darkness was to him: an extension of themselves.

On the battlefield she was a force of war.

The sun had since taken its place in the sky when the battle finally ended. It cast a warm glow upon Vayla. Ezril had remained at the west end for the duration of the battle, never leaving the post he had given himself. In truth, he hadn’t done much in the full scope of the fight. He had done his best to restrict the flow of enemies, curtailing the bloodlust of the men that had come Lenaria’s way. Still, he felt no delusion that it had made a difference. So determined had his will to reduce her burden been that he hadn’t known when he had been the only thing standing between her and the horde kept at bay. Still, he never crossed the threshold of the twenty or so feet that had stood between them. Any Merdendi who crossed it was free of his blade and left to suffer the wrath of whoever Lenaria carried with her.

Because, for all Ezril knew, it was not the wrath of Truth.