"Kah... hah..."Blood and bile mixed at the back of his throat, coating the raw tissue and catching the dust that came with each breath. When he coughed and spat the crimson mixture back upon the barren earth, he could spot the motes within. They hung suspended, dull flecks of brown within an ugly sea of ruby. Supposed to be invisible to normal eyes, but given the
circumstance...The tamping of footfalls upon the earth, rushing his battered form. Bursting through the curtain, behind a mighty spear, a barechested mercenary, familiar tattoos as worthwhile an identifier to his chosen band as the leather mask Gerard pulled back over his visage.
How many times?
He had dreamt before, oftentimes reliving battlefields past, but never like this.
Whirling and stepping into meet the charge head on, he allowed the razor edge of the polearm to dash against the angled steel of his vambrace, sparks flying as metal rent metal. In his opposite hand, he brought down a weighty axe upon the shaft, albeit more smashing through the ash than chopping.
This was constant. A deluge of skirmishes, coming first by single warriors, then twos and threes and fives. When he made a meal of the groups sent to overwhelm, things began to take a newer, worse approach.
Undeterred by the sudden uselessness of his weapon and propelled by zealotry, the burly man opposite ripped a hunting knife free from his belt, swinging the stick towards Gerard's body to herd him into a stab at the clavicle. Gerard felt the fang bite deep into him— And kicked the merc's corpse free from the arming sword he'd buried into his gut in exchange. He collapsed in a heap. Gerard made for the blade that now resided in his shoulder, resting the axe in the crook of his armpit—
Foes that had been longer imagined than ever encountered. The type you read about in tomes containing legend, of history. Not the common drudgery he and Fionn had cut their teeth within.
A pinprick of light in his peripheral, the taste an oncoming storm on his tongue—
He threw himself to the side as his ears erupted with the sound of a cracking mountain, and the mid-afternoon sun was washed away in a ghostly, electric blue that made every hair of his stand on end. Gritting his teeth in an open snarl, he ripped the knife free in a spray of blood, and
threw. It skimmed along the line of lightning, causing the caster's eyes to widen a moment behind the brim of his oversized hat. His hands moved, words flowed from beneah his beard in arcane tongues impenetrable to the Shilagean. The knife stopped in the air, an inch from the wizard's face—
And Gerard used that moment to bury the axe, retrieved in the passing wake of the called storm, into the jaw that had proven so deadly to allow to work, surging through the distance heedless of potential reprisal... or the new burning through his deltoid.
They were
vivid dreams. Enough to make him question whether he'd not truly been transported, by the whims of fate, to this eternal crucible of death and rebirth. A dream was normally a jumble of sensation, emotion, and discontinuous to the point where it broached upon unintelligibility save for snapshots, a story flowing out from three disparate paintings— here, everything he could taste, smell, feel... all of it authentic, or at least damn close.
When a sword named
Sincerity had freed his head from his shoulders, he had felt the flame burning round his neck before darkness took him back to the start of things.
When he had been flayed alive by a Talderian archer cohort, each arrow had torn through the hides upon his chest, drawn lines of red upon his face, arms, and back, before something had finally buried itself into the base of his skull. the last he'd seen of them was the golden eagles of their war banners, an empire long dead reminding an upstart barbarian of his place.
When he had finally sent the last of the dire wolves to join their pack in eternal slumber, he felt the cold sleeping into his body even as the midday heat should have burned his skin. His head and grown light, and feathery, and he had walked with a limp towards his next challenge. The mangled leg and loss of blood took him first, before he started over once more.
His instincts flared— and he listened, leaping back.
The space he'd just stood upon was pulverized by a great sledgehammer, as a pair of armored Ingvarr strode into view. One held a lance meant for cavalry and a tower shield— the other simply lifted his maul back into stance. "Hammer" and "Anvil", came the unspoken impression.
As one, the three readied themselves...
How many times had he died now? How many times would the watcher high above witness him write his own end?
...And charged in.
...
...
...
...
The sun had grown low in the sky, painting orange and gold along its expanse, akin to his first sortie with the Roses. His physical condition had been back up to speed, the overwhelmed men of the line in his wake testament to that. Among them he was a hurricane, built to tear their ilk apart without relent. Every bit the Verloren calling.
Yet, every wind must break upon a mountain.
An overhead blow, caught in the cross between his own blade and the reinforced haft of his axe, had been sent to dismissively cleave through his cranium. A sword that was by all rights far from remarkable, save that it could withstand being wielded by
that man.
What the hell..? One shot, and I'm already falling apart?! What kind of damn pressure—His muscles were burning, tearing,
screaming. His bones, strong as they were from a lifetime of work, felt like they may have been liable to crack as the weight of all the heavens had been dropped upon them. His heart was thudding like five lines of parade drums. His vision was reddening, blurring. If he lost his tension, it'd be over immediately!
He sucked wind through a snarl that rose into an angry roar, a howl of effort as his body forced the weight
up as hard as it bore
down. Within him, the rushing waves of battle had long begun to flow, for all the good it was doing. Perhaps the familiar flames that made him so bullheaded were the only reason he hadn't succumbed.
"Hn." came the grunt from high above, all but toneless save for, maybe, a small acknowledgement of the herculean effort.
"Desperate way of fighting, this."The pressure redoubled, and for a moment it seemed the blade would rip right through Gerard's guard anyway— until with a stomp upon the stone and wrenching twist, he managed to cast himself out of its path as it slid along the length of his sword. He was at a better angle! Inside! An opening to seize—
"You let aggression and physicality define you. These are good qualities to have, but if they're everything..."And before Gerard could bring the axe, free of the titanic pressure, to bear, a boot planted itself in his stomach, and sent him sailing through the air. Pearls of red in his wake... He dully realized that he'd felt more than two ribs give with the impact. Damn it... moving was going to be a pain.
Hitting the ground in a tumble, he slammed the axe down to arrest his movement— and his golden eyes went wide again, as he barely moved his sword in time to intercept the murderous, hewing arc of his opponent's battleaxe, bearded and heavy. Scrambling to his feet, another kick came— landing onto an exposed torso, as Gerard had forced his way in to try and exchange with a swipe of his smaller, more mundane copy.
No time to move. No time to think. No time to even breathe— Ribcage shattered, Gerard found that last point moot. His lungs were getting cut up, his entire body had already blossomed into a spiderweb of agony, he was coughing up more blood than air. No occasion to breathe, let alone time.
"What happens when you run into me, who has more of both?"Arm clamped down onto shin. With hand that can still move, stab him. Dying. Need to make mutual.
"You've already realized that the Hero of Aimlenn and The Bandit King would have both slaughtered you, if it weren't for your comrades."Steel striking steel. Sword flying out of grip. Bad. Reach for your dagger. Get an eye.
"You don't lack for grit, that much is true. But you let it dull your fangs, young wolf. Use it to sharpen them."Huge pressure into jaw. Staggering back, head swimming. He couldn't see it, but the blurry picture in front of him had an arm extended. Punched drunk. Helpless. Useless.
"You are a better study than you let yourself be. Anger and strength alone would work for you in the realm of the common soldiery, yes—"A hook hoisting him aloft by the lapel. No, not that, clearly a hand. Felt like a damn noose. Get it together. For Reon's sake, you gotta—
The mask that had covered him was ripped away, and with it he was relieved of the cracked lens, stifling air, and shifted view. The air hitting his skin was a lodestone, his dangling feet willing to swim his vision back to center. Golden eyes beneath furrowed brows met those of the enemy... who had just walked out of a painting, in more fidelity than any artist, however great, could hope to capture.
Too ferocious to be a knight of nobility.
Too focused to be a common thug or mercenary.
By half again they were incensed— a rage that was held tight, and affixed to Gerard alone.
"But we aren't common anymore, are we, Sir Gerard?"A founding knight. A legend incarnate. The ideal of everything he'd dared believe he could still make of himself, even in the wake of cruel realities of his time as a mercenary—
Sir Agrahn Sahlbard.
Ripping through him, through muscle through bone, through his gut, through armor, a glistening fist of crimson erupted out the small of his back without warning. A torrent of blood escaped his mouth, feeling for all the world to be fire. The red and black were a swirl in his vision, and the unflinching gaze he'd held upon even so honored a figure, so indomitable and inevitable an enemy...
Yeah. It was lost.His brow cracked against something. He couldn't tell what any more. He was fading. He would return again. Back into the flames.
"That head of yours is hard as they come, but it isn't empty. It's time you remember that."He was flying again. Cast into the air, message sent as his last sensation in the dark, cold void that was a man utterly defeated.
He never felt the ground hit.
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