When I was a girl, ten I think, I once had the opportunity to attend court at Lord Tiammian’s manor. Yule time court is a fairly regular thing. Once all the harvesting is done, the backbreaking labor of bringing in the grains, autumn vegetables, and seasonal fruits complete, life grows a bit more dreary and tedious for the peasants scraping by when they no longer toil in the fields. There is toil of course; walls need to be repaired, roads shored up for the frost, goods transported this way and that, and silage secured for the winter, but all of that is almost nothing compared to bringing in the harvest. Between the festival to celebrate the successful reaping of the year and the one to honor Glis’Merinda there is a lull as fall turns to winter, a lull in which lords tend to hold their court, to decide matters that have come up in the last months.
On most occasions, a magistrate will oversee the dispensation of justice or quarrels if a petition ever makes it past the sheriff and the bailiff. No one ever much cared to make the hike all the way out to the lord’s manor to watch old Magister Biess decide matters, as the man was too old to be intelligible, and too aloof to ever do anything but pass off responsibility to the sheriff. However, as the first rains were turning to sleet, as my hands were still rubbed red and raw from my first year of properly working during the harvest, a case came before the lord’s court that required Lord Timmian’s direct edict.
Everyone knew about the matter a few weeks ahead. Even as a child, the gossip had long reached me about what had happened a few months back, and everyone knew even then that Lord Timmian would probably settle the issue direct. Matters of murder aren’t often put off to the magistrate. Which is why no one was surprised when almost a hundred peasants crowded into the square in front of the lord’s manor, shoving elbows against one another, cramming and craning to get a good view of the trial.
What I remember most about the trial wasn’t the fabulous velvet chair Lord Timmian sat upon, the chair itself set on a tall stage in front of the stairs leading up into the manor, though the chair was fabulous. It wasn’t the small stand that Elder Kaissen stood inside of, a thin platform of wood with a railing all that kept him from the mud, though the stand was small. It wasn’t even the babbling of Mrs. Calladay’s rage as she spat her words out to Lord Timmian, though she did babble so unintelligibly that the bailiff needed to ask her to repeat her accusations several times. No, what I remember most was how quick the whole affair had been, twenty minutes on the outside.
Elder Kaissen stood in from of his lord, accused of murdering Emben Calladay, an unfortunate affair that everyone in the domain was long familiar with. Elder Kaissen, a bent old man with eyebrows so thick that you could hardly see his eyes, was long known as being an old coot, an old coot jealous of the strawberries he grew on his small plot. Decades of growing the delicious berries and having them stolen by local youths had led to the man digging a ditch around his fruits and filling it with spikes. Everyone knew about Elder Kaissen and his spikes, those spikes and berries had been there my entire life, not that they ever dissuaded Halford or I from sneaking onto the elder’s plot in the middle of the night and snatching some berries for ourselves. Well, that summer, someone finally fell in, Emben Calladay.
As it turned out, the spikes weren’t all that sharp, put there for show, but Emben had fallen badly on them, and a sturdy stick through someone’s mouth and into the back of their throat doesn’t need to be all that sharp to be lethal. It probably didn’t help that Emben had been stumbling drunk at the time. I remember the look of dismay on Elder Kaissen’s face as Emben’s mother raged at him, called him every name under the sun, and begged Lord Timmian to give him the noose.
Lord Timmian sat on his fancy chair, his face impassive, listening to the story. When all the words had been said, the lord sighed and leaned forward in his chair. He decided that Elder Kaissen was not at fault, not at fault for murder at least. Everyone knew about the spikes, knew that they had been there for years, but still Emben had gone to try and rob the man of his berries anyway. It was decided that Elder Kaissen bore no fault if the drunk idiot had speared himself on blunt spikes in the dead of night. Still, the lord ordered the ditch filled in before some other fool could trip themselves into their grave.
I figure that it is the same principle keeping me alive at this very moment. If the reeling woman staring up at my back from the ground stopped the rain again, I would likely be cut into a bloody mess, gasping on the ground. Not even I would survive something like that, probably. But, with me and everyone else running now, stopping the rain in front of all of us would almost certainly be murder. I was counting on that to see me through to the other side.
Almost as soon as I have the glowing Scoreball clenched between my fingers, I feel my legs begin to buckle. Strength leaks from a dozen small holes in my legs in streaking red, a dull and cold numbness snaking up from below. The rain falling now in sheets makes my blood try to run all the faster, and sharp pain echoes through the general dullness with each step my sprinting feet carry me, the very bones in my legs announcing how they have been cut up by mere droplets of water.
A man appears out of nothing in front of me, Jason Kal’Liefer, his arms already stretching wide, ready to take me off my feet. He needn’t try so hard; my feet are coming out from beneath me with or without his help.
“Right,” Galea says in my ear.
I glance to the side, seeing Jor’Mari thundering toward me just as determined as the enemies in front of us seem to be. His skin is covered in strange, almost chitinous patches of dark black, looking almost like obsidian peeking up from his pale skin. A mask of the hard black stuff covers his face, leaving two long slits open for his eyes to peer out from. He is focused on the man lunging at me, and he has just enough time to intercept him.
Jor’Mari(Level 50)
Demon Conflux
“Here,” I weakly yell at Jor’Mari, throwing the ball at him.
Surprise sparks in the eyes looking out from those narrow slits, his heels digging and sliding in the wet grass, his hands springing up to snatch the ball from the air. He juggles the heavy, yellow orb in his hands as he skids in the grass, finally getting his fingers around it.
An arm swings through the air over me, followed a moment later by two furious legs running headlong into my falling shoulder. My knees hit the grass as I fall forward, no strength left in my legs. It is the best I can do to trip Jason as he runs at me while I do my best to flop to the ground in the most dignified manner possible. All in all, I managed to make it nine strides from where I left Lady Forendous.
As the field continues to flow into motion around me, I look back toward my own starting line, seeing the blue woman still on the ground, propping herself up on her hands while she sits and stares. Her eyes are trained on my legs, on the holes peppering them, leaking red blood.
“You would do that to yourself over a game?” she asks. I’m not certain she knows that she speaks the words aloud.
“I need to win,” I say, shifting on the ground. The skirmish has already moved past me, no one sparing me more than a glance as they race forward. Down field, Jor’Mari struggles forward, Lord Brimman hugging his waist, trying to bring him down, while Allann shoulders into him, the young man’s boots skidding across the ground as Jor’Mari pushes forward with one ponderous step after another. “I’m heading somewhere where there will be much more pain than this.”
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I stare down at the gore of my legs also, feeling muscles and fibers wriggle inside the hollow chambers of my wounds, feeling fractured bone move and knit like melting ice. There is a horror about it, some distant voice in the back of my mind screams to see it, to feel the speed of the healing, but that part has become so small over the past weeks that it is easy to ignore. My toes flex inside my boot, curling, responding to my aching commands with drunken slowness. The pain is such a negligible thing, easy to put aside in the recesses, next to the horror of the wounds. I wonder briefly what kind of injury will be too much for me to bear the sight of anymore, wonder if there is any such wound.
My boot moves, all my effort put into placing my heel against the wet ground, but that is still too much. I fall back with a groan, moving my attention away from myself.
The two men continue to struggle to bring Jor’Mari to the ground, but they have been joined by Jason Kal’Leifer. Brazenly casting aside the pretense of a game, the man stands in front of Jor’Mari, smashing his clenched fist into the faceplate that protects Jor’Mari’s features. The elven man’s knuckles split with the pounding blows he delivers, cuts across his fist splattering Jor’Mari’s clothes with blood as he continues to hammer away. With the three of them combined, they just manage to restrain the armored man.
Samielle appears to the side, running full-tilt into Jason and tackling the man to the ground. Jor’Mari shakes his head, leaning forward, muscling his way through the two men trying to drag him down. Jess slides into the crush, her hands stretching out, snatching the ball out of Jor’Mari’s hands with infinite deftness. With his burden relieved, Jor’Mari finally relents, and the three men go splashing into the grass in a heap.
Jess runs forward, the ball glittering in her hand as the majority of our opponents sprawl on the ground. Lightning flashes through the rain, a blinding white that stuns everyone still moving even before the clap of thunder shakes me to my bones. That odd man, Graessa, stands in front of Jess.
She dodges to the side, her motion as fluid and graceful as ever, but the man steps along with her, keeping a span of three feet between them. Jess fakes a step to the left before jumping back to the right, flowing and trying to spin around the man like a dancer. Graessa is not distracted, backing three steps back, stopping when Jess does to reassess.
A wall of green energy springs to life on Jess’ right, cutting off that line, the woman standing behind the wall grinning as she begins to expand the energy. Jor’Mari struggles on the ground, Lord Brimman doing his best to hold him in place, Allann trying to stand, tugging at Jor’Mari’s fingers that hold tight to his clothes to keep him back.
“Just take it, Graessa!” Lady Forendous calls from behind me.
The man’s eyes flick away from Jess for the barest moment, his attention drawn for a fraction of a second. Jess darts forward, leg skidding, trying to slide beneath the man’s outstretched hands. Her timing is immaculate, as always.
“NO!” I hear another voice yell, and I realize that it is Jasper. The warning is too late, however.
This time I am able to watch as a bolt of lightning crashes down from the sky, splitting just above Jess’ outstretched leg and sundering the ground on either side of her. The explosion of noise and light is incredible, bright enough to leave my vision black. The rain falling around us halts for the briefest instant, the sound of thunder resounding through the chamber, bouncing off the false walls of mist that ring us, fading into an echo that transforms into the cascading breath of rain. I blink, the darkness in my eyes fading, and hear a scream from up the field where the lightning struck.
Jess lays there on the field, twin scorches burned into the ground on either side of her, holding her balled fists to her eyes as she writhes on the ground. Graessa stands over her, his face a passive mask of indifference, his fine clothing dripping in the rain. He holds the ball in his hands, its great weight barely managing to register on the man.
“Lord Kal’Leifer, if you would be so kind as to take this,” Graessa says, holding out the ball in his hands, his fingers seeming almost too long and narrow as to be normal.
Ten feet away, Jason Kal’Leifer knocks a fist into Samielle’s jaw, Samielle too distracted by Jess’ distress to react properly. The big man falls away, splashing down, as Jason scrambles forward, hands reaching out to take the glowing ball from his teammate.
Clarice reaches the man before Jason can, but only just barely. Her hands swipes through the air, Graessa watching as she kicks up water, already turning to leap forward and tackle the man to the ground after her attempt at stealing it failed. Graessa holds the ball out, almost to her, and she falters for a moment. He takes a step back, baiting Clarice in. In an instant, it is as if three of Clarice stand together, each an identical twin, each overlapping impossibly with one another in a confusing jumble of limbs.
She slides forward, each instance of Clarice seeming to move in a different direction, each angling to make a different attack on Graessa. The man sways, the hand of one of the Clarices moving through his arm as if it wasn’t there. With a fluid step backward, he raises the ball, and brings his foot up, planting the heel of his black dress shoes into the hip of the left-most Clarice. His foot finds purchase, shoving the woman unceremoniously to the ground.
Graessa lowers his hand, dumping the glowing ball into the outstretched fingers of Jason Kal’Leifer as he finally arrives, Graessa’s eyes never straying from his opponent on the ground. “Be done with it,” Graessa remarks, putting a foot on the back of Clarice’s thigh as she tries to rise, pinning her to the ground.
“As you say,” Jason says, hurrying back. The man smiles as he looks downfield, finding Jor’Mari standing, Lord Brimman clinging tightly to one of Jor’Mari’s legs. Then, like he was never standing there, Jason disappears into the rain. Even the glow from the ball he was holding vanishes alongside him.
I turn my head, looking this way and that, trying to spot the man, thinking that he may have moved down field in an instant. If he can do that, this match will be terribly difficult.
“Where is he?” I demand of Galea. The spirit flutters in front of me, her mouth open to say something, but it is Jasper who answers me.
“He is on your left,” Jasper calls over the rain, pointing. “He is sneaking around you!” I look to Jasper. The man hasn’t moved off of the starting line this entire time, but his eyes are focused, a finger pointing to the vacant air next to Jor’Mari.
Jor’Mari swipes to his right, fingers raking only air.
“He is running!” Jasper calls.
I growl, pulling my feet up and tucking them beneath me. Pain like dull fire lances up my body the instant that I try to put my weight on my legs. So, it hasn’t vanished from me completely then.
A cry is torn from my throat as I splash into the water, struggling, hissing air through my teeth. I grit my teeth, gnash them, feel the metallic taste of iron rush over my tongue as I struggle to my feet. The muscle running through my legs quake, barely strong enough to support me on quaking feet. I stand, turning slowly, trying to see through the haze in my vision.
Lights explode behind me, casting the wet and muddy figures all around me in harsh contrast for a bare moment. Lightning erupts in a cascade of celebration from our goal. Forlorn faces stare past me, each with eyes focused on the goal line, pushing me to turn and look at the inevitable. I do, knowing already what I will find.
Jason Kal’Leifer, his clothes muddy and sagging, stands in our goal, holding a glowing ball high over his head, bellowing into the rain as a shower of festival lights shine through the torrent around him. His cries of exaltation are matched by others around the field, his teammates cheering him on, roaring with approval.
In front of me, Lady Forendous pulls herself from the ground, a tinkling laughter floating away from purple lips. She brushes at her clothes, hardly managing to do anything other than appear carefree, and she turns to look at me.
“It does not matter what you need,” she tells me. “I want to win, and so that is what is going to happen. Cry, scream, and struggle all you want, but you will fail, because you must in order for me to succeed.” That said, she walks past me, heading toward her starting line. They have tied the score, but there is so much time remaining. I’ll be damned if I let that little witch get the better of me.