Chapter 46 – The Tournament of Ghosts

Johanna

“We’re too early,” Dante growled, glaring down at the arena below. There wasn’t much to see—one of the current mages had covered the field in mist, to the disappointment of the crowd—but he glared regardless. “The Rodina were supposed to be out by this point!”

Ósma shrugged, the old orc seeming unbothered in comparison. “We knew this might happen. There’s only so much we can do to rig the system from the outside.”

“We planned for being late, not early!” their young guildmaster grumbled, hands clenched hard enough you could hear the creaking of his crystal bones. “We’re still two guilds away from the Rodina! That’s, what, ten or more battles we need to win before we can even start fighting them? At this point to beat them we’ll have to fight the whole guild!”

“Can’t we just wait until they’re here?” the newbie—sorry, Three Dukes, such nicknames were important in their line of work—asked from where she was sitting beside the old orc. “Why do we have to go next?”

“Because that’s the timeslot we chose,” the old orc shook his head. “When we signed up for this tournament we had to pick a timeslot which would determine when our guild fights. In order to try and stop—or at least slow down—guilds from rigging the matches these slots are then divided into two halves, known informally as the ‘red’ and ‘white’ slots. We—along with all of our allies—took white timeslots to offset the Rodina who always take a red timeslot, all of which is information available to the guilds so that they can better plan around their probable opponents. We took the ‘white-25’ to ideally counter the Rodina’s ‘red-30’ slot. The issue we’re having is that we were already behind, and now the Rorozzi Guild down there have been doing way better than anyone expected.”

“This means we’re going to be fighting way earlier than we wanted, as ideally at least a quarter of the Rodina would have been beaten before we started,” Dante grumped. “We didn’t plan to fight the Rorozzi, so I have no idea what their adventurers are capable of. And this,” he guestured to the mist-covered battlefield below, “is not helping.”

Ósma raised an eyebrow. “You think they’re going to completely wipe against the Rorozzi?”

“Of course they are,” the guildmaster scoffed in annoyance. “The Antilliari Guild have lost half their damn adventurers against this one Rorozzi mage. I’m not betting on the competence of fools to buy us the time we need.”

“So we need a plan to fight the girl down there, then?”

Johanna lounged off to the side, half paying attention. Mostly she was nursing her lingering hangover, frozen hands rubbing her forehead as she tried to block out the roar of the crowds.

It was mid-afternoon by now, over half the guilds having fought by this point. It was moving fast, as most battles lasted between seconds and minutes, with the occasional exception. One guy had gotten disqualified for refusing to fight his opponent by flying away for over twenty minutes, but it had been offset by one of the guilds not showing up so they were still on pace from what she could tell. The battles would likely last into the night, whereupon the ghosts would start getting much more active, though that was half the fun of this tournament. Getting your entire guild clotheslined by some ancient hero who happened to be the ancestor of the person you were fighting was just the risk you took for going last in a tournament like this.

“JOHANNA!”

She practically launched herself out of her chair at Ósma’s shout, slamming her hands over her ears and hissing in pain.

“What!?” she snapped back, wincing as she saw the rest of the guild staring at her. Damnit, she’d missed something important. “You didn’t have to yell!”

“Apparently I did,” the orc scoffed, rolling his eyes. “We decided you’re going first. You’re the best option for fighting the mage down there, much less getting us to the Rodina.”

“Sheesh,” she grumbled, plopping back down in her seat. “You could have just said that.”

“I did. Were you not paying attention?”

“Of course,” she lied shamelessly. “I’m always paying attention.”

“Really? Then you know that they’ve already called on us to send out our first fighter.”

Shit.

Grabbing her weapons and—more importantly—her fancy hat, she instantly switched into battle ready mode, her hangover compartmentalized along with all her other small aches and pains. The very air around her crackled from the cold as she pulled on her magic.

Giving the stands one last glance over—mostly to make sure she did in fact need to get out there now—she nodded to her guildmembers, giving the old orc a cheeky salute. “Good luck to all of you, you’ll need it if you want to keep up with me!”

She laughed at the resulting jeers, before sharing a resigned nod with Ósma and turning to the waiting arena below.

Then she took a step over the railing and leapt straight into the battlefield. Why did she do this, you might ask?

Because everyone knew this was so much cooler than taking the stairs.

Then she hit the warped space of the arena barrier and faceplanted midair.

“Oi!” she shouted in the vague direction of where she assumed the Rodina were. “Raum you little punk! Let me in!”

She couldn’t believe that brat just ruined her dramatic entrance!

As the crowd laughed at her she felt more than heard Dante’s groan of embarrassment. But hey, he was the one who wanted their guild to make an entrance, and people were definitely going to remember this one!

After far too long spent hanging midair the space she was sitting on began to twist, and with a muted ‘pop’ she fell, landing casually on the ground below with a wet ‘squelch.’

Johanna took a moment to plant her feet firmly, taking stock to make sure she didn’t forget anything. Loosely resting her halberd against her shoulder, she gave herself a quick glance over. Her crossbow sat waiting on her hip, and her three-quarter armor shined to perfection. She made sure to project an air of unconcerned confidence—which was easy since it was her natural state.

But today she put a bit of extra effort into it. She always needed to look her best, sure, but more importantly she’d be the one setting the tone for the coming fights. The effects of whether she won or lost would cascade onto the rest of her guild with potentially disastrous results.

Johanna wasn’t all that great with this bureaucratic bull, but she knew soldiers and she knew how important morale was before a big battle.

Besides, the past few days had been hell! Ósma was a slave driver when he was just her boss, but now he had ‘expectations’ that she ‘act responsible’ and ‘set a good example.’ Psh, like she signed up for any of that shit!

So she let him know that, and then she got a good reminder of why she followed him in the first place. The Moonlight Spider hadn’t gotten any weaker with age, even if his hands were more stained with ink than blood these days.

But she needed to blow off some stress, and the cute little lady in front of her looked like an excellent punching bag.

“Hey,” she called out to the woman across from her. The pasty half-elf frowned back, twisting her face into something unfortunate. Well, that may have been a bit mean, even in her own head. The girl wasn’t ugly, but she had a bad scar over her chin which gave her a second frown. “No offense, but I’ve been having a really bad day. I’ve got a hangover, I spent the night in a cell, and I didn’t even get a proper bar fight for my trouble! It sucked!”

“The next battle begins!” The referee announced over her prattling, “On the red side, Laila of the Olbia Famiglia's Rorozzi Guild! And on the white side, Johanna of the... um, the Firozzi Famiglia's Rosa Dominae Guild! The battle will continue either until one of them is unconscious, surrenders, or I personally call the match! Now, on my mark!”

Confused exclamations erupted from the crowd at hearing their Familgia's new name, but Johanna ignored them with practiced ease.

“What in the world are you talking about?” her opponent scoffed at her. “You think just because you’ve had a bad day that’ll make me go easy on you?”

“Ready!”

“Oh, no,” her smile was sharp. “I’m just letting you know this isn’t personal.”

“BEGIN!”

Her opponent instantly dropped, barely dodging a crossbow bolt to the shoulder. Hitting the ground her fingers dug into damp earth, steam already wafting from her hands. The mud boiled, and in seconds the few threads of steam had been woven into a full-blown fog which blanketed the entire arena.

Johanna clicked her tongue. How was she supposed to show off like this?

Casually shrugging the halberd off her shoulders she prepared herself for an annoying battle. The people who developed these kinds of spells were always the worst to fight.

With the calm of a seasoned veteran she analyzed the situation. This mist seemed to block most senses, proving that her opponent was enhancing it with magic rather than utilizing a physical reaction. That meant this Laila was either an air mage or a water mage. Judging from her previous matches she should be a water mage, but something about that line of reasoning just didn’t feel right…

Johanna took a deep breath, grimacing at the scent of wet mud that filled her nostrils. Ugh, the sudden humidity was awful. Why’d she agree to this again?

Then she took a step forward, absently dodging a blast of something that would have taken out her knees.

Ah, right, that’s why. Because Johanna was one of the few people in their guild who didn’t need her eyes to see. In this dense fog which should have blinded her, the world was instead a gradient of red to yellow to blue, the temperature of the world painted before her frozen eyes.

And standing a fair distance to her left was her opponent, a bright red blob contrasted against the yellow-green of the mist.

The girl was obviously shocked that she’d dodged, but rallied herself admirably. Shifting what was probably her arms—it was still difficult to tell in the monochrome yellow-green of the fog, even if she wasn’t totally blind—blasts of somethings came at her, tunneling through the air like orange snakes.

Johanna dodged the first and jumped over the second, but as a test she let the last one graze her hip.

Hm, that was wet, but it certainly wasn’t water… a combination of the two, perhaps? No, the girl wasn’t corrupted enough to have learned two different types of magic to that extent. An obscure specialization was more likely. Probably.

Damn, now she needed to figure this out or else it’ll be bugging her for days!

Johanna launched herself forward in a feint, idly watching the girl panic and flail right into it. Hm, she had to be young then, or at least inexperienced. Or maybe just too used to people instantly falling over in the face of near total sensory deprivation.

That was a bad habit mages like this were prone to falling into, and because she was feeling generous Johanna would be certain to teach her the error of her ways!

Pulling back from her feint she twirled her halberd around, slamming the spiked butt into her opponent’s foot. Or she would have, if the girl hadn’t managed to stumble back at the last second, blasting her back with a wall of heat.

Ah, so she could see through her own mist then? Or maybe…

Planting her halberd in the mud, she cast her first spell of the battle. The ground before her was frozen over by a thin layer of frost, fractal patterns crisscrossing each other across the entire arena with her at the center.

A massive six-sided snowflake bloomed to life on the battlefield. Its arms rose, folding in on themselves like the petals of a frozen flower and creating six sprawling towers. Then from their ridges dozens of icy spears launched inward, all of them directed at her increasingly frantic opponent.

And yet, she dodged every single one of them.

Considering there was no way to keep track of all of them at once—at least not with the level of skill she’d seen so far—that meant the other mage likely had total situational awareness within her own fog.

Fun.

Unfortunately, by doing that she’d revealed herself an ice mage, something she probably should have kept concealed if her opponent’s follow up was any indication.

The mist suddenly grew hot. The air itself began to boil, and the towering construct she’d created began to collapse in on itself as it melted to slurry, almost instantly evaporating straight into steam. Even the permafrost which was her own skin had begun to grow slick at the sheer heat that had consumed the arena. The simple act of breathing was now closer to drowning, and the once yellow-green of the world had now darkened to a deep orange, blinding her as much as anyone else.

Ah, this wasn’t good. Her and her stupid curiosity, she should have just rushed the girl with her halberd and been done with it. Had she been any less competent this level of heat could have been a death sentence.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Luckily, she was a badass. Or more importantly, a dirty, dirty thief.

See, the new girl at the guild was a fire mage. Pretty standard as things go, barring the creepy staff and multiple regicides. However, she had some fascinating ideas on how heat worked, and as her senior Johanna had the right to shamelessly steal those ideas to make herself more powerful.

Focusing on the swirling mist around her, she grabbed the boiling air and forced it to slow. She, unfortunately, wasn’t as good at this as someone like Palmira whose whole understanding of magic revolved around movement. But she could pull off a pretty good imitation, and more often than not ‘pretty good’ was all you needed.

The air around her cooled down to more manageable levels. Not quite the almost-green it had been, but now a slightly more comfortable yellow. At least it meant she could finally see again.

And just in time too. Stepping to the left she narrowly dodged another blast of what she was now pretty sure was pressurized air. Marching toward where it had come from she slowly expanded her pocket of cool air, brute forcing her way over to her much less skilled opponent.

Still, at least she’d finally figured out what kind of mage her opponent was.

A blotch of red appeared at the corner of her growing bubble, and Johanna smiled. She lunged forward, bringing her halberd low, and…

CRACK

The shaft of her halberd slammed into the girl’s knee, causing her to let out a scream. Johanna came in for another go to finish it off, only to be forced to back off from another blast of hot air.

Laila the steam mage stumbled back, mist pouring from her body in thin waves. She glared at her with shaky eyes, heaving with ragged breaths.

“You’ve done well so far, but you’re pretty outmatched here,” Johanna shrugged casually, circling the other girl. This close the heat and chill of their respective magics clashed, and it was only the existing heat in the air that stopped the steam mage from being completely overpowered. “But with a ruined knee you’re on borrowed time. Why don’t you save us all the effort and surrender? No one will judge you, not with the wins you’ve already got under your belt.”

“Go… to… hell…” she snarled back, panting with wide eyes. “I’m not… done… yet…!”

Johanna sighed. Why did she always get the stubborn ones?

However, as she stepped forward to end it herself, the steam pouring off her opponent seemed to… grow colder?

An unnatural chill ran down her spine, and Johanna groaned in exasperation. She really should have just ended this early.

“WELL SAID, GRANDAUGHTER!”

The near purple mist coalesced into a humanoid shape, stepping between the both of them and forcing her back.

The half-elf blinked, shocked. “…Grandfather?”

“INDEED,” the mist settled, revealing a giant of a man. Eight feet tall and bulging with muscles, he loomed over the both of them. With a battle axe in each hand and a braided beard which reached the floor the ghost glared down at her, eyes boiling over with murderous intent. “A WOMAN’S BATTLE MAY BE HER OWN, BUT I REFUSE TO LET MY GRANDAUGHTER BE TAKEN OUT BY A DAMN LONG-EARS! AVAST, YE ELF! FOR I SHALL AVENGE MY SON’S HORRIBLE TASTE IN WOMEN UPON YE!”

Laila looked more embarrassed than angry now, though it seemed she’d managed to regather herself with the arrival of an ally. Unfortunate, that would make this much harder than it needed to be.

Johanna stepped back, quickly taking stock of the situation. While she could easily take the girl alone, she couldn’t keep the air cool and fight two people at once. She was skilled, but not that skilled.

Well, she’d wanted to save this for later, but two on one was hardly sporting, now was it?

Getting some distance Johanna slammed her hands together, forming a snowball. Then she threw it at them, before she made a second, and then a third. Her opponents dodged, of course, but that wasn’t what she was aiming for anyway.

The big ghost charged her as the snowballs hit the ground, but rather than splatter they rolled. Tumbling across to the edge of the arena they slowly grew in size, doubling and tripling in a way she normally wouldn’t bother with. It wasn’t the way she normally cast spells, but times like this she just had to make do.

Palmira wasn’t the only one of her guildmembers she’d stolen from. Anima was quite the talented mage, even if she had atrocious taste in women.

Then the snowballs finally met, and then proceeded to fuse. Three perfect spheres of snow stacked themselves upright, picking up pebbles and stones as they went. Three large rocks formed a vertical line across the center sphere, while on the topmost sphere a dozen smaller stones formed a basic facsimile of a face.

Her new snow golem took in the battlefield with dark, coal-like eyes, its stone smile frozen in an expression of perpetual joy. Then, despite its lack of feet, it charged.

Johanna grinned as she ducked under another swing of the ghost’s axe and rolled past another blast of pressurized air, even as some of her skin evaporated from the returning heat. Lunging forward she tapped the golem in the back, causing it to instantly grow thick, burly arms of snow and ice. As a final touch she took off her big poofy hat and dropped it on her golem’s head, nodding in satisfaction at her work.

Fashion was important, after all.

Her snowman charged forth with silent cheer, clashing with the slightly smaller ghost. They grappled, disposable frigid flesh sloughing off with each swing of his axe. The snow golem wouldn’t last forever, but he’d last long enough, and in her line of work that was all that mattered.

With the big guy distracted she turned back to the steam mage, who looked equal parts resigned and determined.

“I won’t make this easy for you.”

“I know,” Johanna cheered, thrusting her halberd forward. “That’s half the fun!”

Orange blasts of pressurized air launched at her like a firing line, so many they nearly created a wall of heat coming straight at her.

But Johanna had let this go on long enough. She had a reputation to uphold, and while the girl was half-decent the Fraud would never let her live it down if she actually lost her first match.

Slamming her halberd into the mud she pole-vaulted over the attack, pulled off a badass pose midair—which she only realized midway through was pointless with the arena still covered in fog—and landed directly on the wide-eyed half-elf, slamming her straight to the ground and jamming the blade of her polearm directly beneath her chin. The girl stared up at her, wide-eyed and frozen.

Johanna grinned as the match was called.

Ah, the taste of victory was sweet as always~

--

“She’s getting her ass handed to her.”

Palmira winced she watched Johanna take another boulder to the face. Chiara’s comment, while crass, was correct. The ice elf had done exceptionally well so far, but it seemed she’d finally met her match.

Currently, she was galloping around the arena on a reindeer of ice and snow, keeping pressure off her injured leg and taking advantage of the theoretically infinite nature of the arena to keep her distance from the other mage.

Unfortunately for her, the earth mage she was fighting seemed to specialize in golems, and was fresh enough he could summon a dozen of them at a time compared to Johanna’s sole frantic creation.

“She’s losing this one,” Chiara grunted, scowling. As she said that a stone wolf the size of a house took a massive chunk out of the snowy reindeer’s flank, giving the mage enough time to launch another boulder at her from his own stone horse. “Badly, too.”

“You said that last time,” Lorenzo pointed out, as calm as ever.

“She should have lost last time. That fire mage would have wrecked her if he didn’t keep stopping to gloat.”

“Which is a lesson for all of you,” Teresa nodded at them from her seat next to Anima. “Just because it looks like you have an advantage doesn’t mean you should revel in it. Stopping to gloat like that dumbass did is basically begging the Goddess to knock you down a peg.”

“Besides, a win’s a win,” Anima shrugged with a grin. “Take what you can get and leave nothing to chance, I say.”

“I wish she could have lasted longer, though,” the guildmaster scowled, his expression matching his little sister’s. “We need to get the Rodina out there, but we’re still, what, three more rounds away from that?”

“Two, I think, if that,” Ósma shook his head. “The Latenic Guild lost a couple adventurers recently, and Johanna’s embarrassed them by knocking out most of their best even after having to fight the two remaining Rorozzi adventurers. At this point Pietro down there is their last hope. If we beat him decisively enough they may just pull out entirely.”

“Who do you think we should send down to counter him then? I’m currently considering Teresa. She’s not a mage but her holy weapons could disrupt the constructs enough to win.”

“She’d work, but can she win decisively? And if she loses that’s a waste of our very limited pool of adventurers.”

“Oi!” Teresa shouted at them from where she was sitting five feet away. “I can so beat this bastard!”

“Are you saying that because you really think that or because you want to show up Johanna by beating the guy who knocked her out?”

Teresa spluttered, before turning and grumbling into Anima’s shoulder.

“You guys know Johanna hasn’t actually lost yet?” Lorenzo pointed out, gesturing to the arena where the woman had abandoned her own mount for one of the stone golems, a massive rocky bull which she was holding onto for dear life. “You guys spent so long arguing about whether to send Anima out against the fire mage only for him to get knocked out right as you made your decision.”

“It’s always important to plan ahead,” Ósma shook his head. “Better we overthink than underthink.”

“Well, what about Matthias?” the guildmaster brought up. “His ability to fly would render most of the earth mage’s attacks useless.”

“Like hell I’m going down there!” said dwarf shouted from the other end of their stands. “I’ve got a score to settle with the Rodina’s time mage and I’m not wasting that chance on some stupid pebble bastard! Send someone else!”

The guildmaster groaned, but accepted the reasoning, even as Palmira mouthed ‘time mage’ to herself. That had to be cheating, wasn’t it?

Ósma shrugged his shoulders. “In that case, we need someone strong enough to not only be able to fight off a dozen massive earth golems at once, but also be able to continue fighting after.”

“…Damnit, you’re saying we need to send Charles down there, aren’t you?”

The man in question groaned from where he was lounging in the back, his squire Jeanne the only one sitting near him.

“He’ll win,” Ósma pointed out. “You know he’s the best we have for someone like this.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it. I was planning to save him for the end. That way no matter what we’d start strong and end strong.”

“Plans change. That’s just the way of things. We have other strong generalists. We can save Leo and Teresa for a powerful finish if we need to.”

“Ugh, fine. Charles!” he turned to the old knight. The man was already on his feet, grumpily taking his sword from his squire’s waiting hands. “You’re up next, and I expect you to make a big dent in the Rodina’s forces.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, cracking his back. He already had his armor on, a sterling white plate over pale pink leathers. It was mostly unadorned, barring the carved head of a lion on his left pauldron. His kite shield on the other hand was freshly painted with the new symbol of the Firozzi Famiglia, a red dragon’s head biting a wreath. Finally he put on his sallet, the helmet the same pure white as the rest of his armor—barring the visor, which was pink as his leathers.

He made an imposing sight like this, so much so that Palmira could almost forget that he spent most of his days wasted out of his mind at the bar.

Down in the arena Johanna finally lost, having taken out nine others before her defeat, putting her at the most personal knockouts so far. It was impressive, certainly, though not near enough if they wanted to beat the Rodina.

The guildmaster nodded at his Knight, who after one final check with his squire marched forth, ready to win glory for the Firozzi Famiglia.

Then, because apparently nobody in this guild knew how to use the stairs, he also jumped over the railing to the arena below.

--

Charles

Charles was a knight.

That didn’t mean much in this day and age. To most knights were the servants of others—elves and demons, specifically.

Forty years ago, when he’d been in his prime, that hadn’t been the case. Knights were the soldiers of humanity, the greatest warriors of the Empire who fought for justice, chivalry, and glory. They saved princesses from dragons, fought off orcish incursions, and killed demons wherever they appeared.

Then the Arch-Traitor happened, and all those centuries of glory were wiped away in an instant.

Now of the many knightly orders which had once roamed the lands, only two remained. The Silver Knights, who protected the royal family of the Holy Volan Empire, and the Black Knights, traitorous bastards one and all.

Charles tried not to think about such things too much these days. He was old and tired, and alcohol was more than enough to drown his sorrows. There was no bringing back the Age of Chivalry, no bringing back the glories of old. He’d tried—Lady knew he tried—but you couldn’t bring back what nobody wanted. The world had moved on, and the Knights of Man were now to only be remembered as traitors and elves.

But he couldn’t give it up. Even as his other fellows who survived abandoned their codes and oaths for less noble paths, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon his knighthood. He’d trained since he was a child, he’d even fought beside the late Emperor Lothaire himself when the Demons took the capital. Being a Knight was all he could be, even if the world itself no longer cared for it.

Charles sighed. This is why he hated being sober—all it did was make him think of things best left forgotten.

He was a White Knight of a dead empire. He’d never stop being that. And that was all that mattered.

He planted his feet on rough earth, sword drawn and shield at the ready. Around him prowled beasts of stone the size of houses. Four wolves, two lions, a bull, a tiger, and a bear. The man who’d created them sat far away on an earthen horse, keeping himself as far from danger as he could.

Charles eyed them all calmly. Their stone hides would dull his sword if he hit wrong, and a single swipe from their claws would damage his armor. They were twice his size even on all fours, and likely twice as strong as well.

But they were not animals, not really. Within their bodies were not muscles and tendons but solid earth, unable to bring the true strength of such to bear. They were not eight individual minds, but one controlling many. They worked together in a way nature never could, of course, but they were not a pack. He’d paid attention during Johanna’s fight, and while they harried and harassed her rarely more than two attacked at once.

To the average layman these golems might have been dangerous, but Charles was a Knight with fifty years of battle experience under his belt. These golems were nothing compared to the monsters of his youth.

And to speak plainly, he was old hat at slaying monsters.

“On the red side, we have Pietro of the Claudio Famiglia's Latenic Guild!” the referee announced, much more animated now that he could actually see what was going on. “And on the white side, Charles of the Firozzi Famiglia's Rosa Dominae Guild! The battle will continue either until one of them is unconscious, surrenders, or I personally call the match! Now, on my mark!”

Charles nodded calmly, not taking his eyes off the surroundings. He’d need to get this perfect if he wanted to win.

“BEGIN!”

The two wolves came first, lunging at him from both left and right. No howls came from their throats, a byproduct of being solid stone. That didn’t make them any less dangerous, though. As a mere man, he had limited options when dealing with them. But he had options.

Mages had a tendency to think themselves invincible against non-mages. After all, if you can set someone of fire with your mind while your opponent can’t, you tend to think you have a pretty big advantage.

In theory, you’d be correct.

Charles calmly sidestepped the two wolves, watching dispassionately as they slammed into each other, their shapes crumbling under their own weight of their attempted flank.

In practice, mages were as likely to make mistakes as any other human. And if you exploited that, you could eke out victory even against what should have been impossible odds.

Charles did not wait for the mage to recover from his blunder, instead rushing the nearest of the golems. It was a lion, its mane a proud red mud to contrast its dusty ‘fur.’ The stone beast tried to stop him, but with its master distracted trying to reform his wolves it could only try to stomp on him in a poor attempt at an attack.

The knight dodged easily, running far faster than most would thought plate was capable of allowing. But rather than capitalize on the golem’s distraction, he simply ran right between its legs, ignoring it entirely.

It was a constructed golem, after all. Destroying it would be a waste of time and effort. Best to cut things out at the source.

The mage’s eyes widened at the sight of Charles barreling towards him, abandoning his attempts to control his other golems and instead spun around, urging the stone horse he was riding to take him far away from the knight.

Charles scowled at the sight. No matter how fast he was, he wasn’t outrunning a horse which never tired. And with an advantage like that the mage could simply keep his distance and wear him down from afar.

How vexing.

However, before he could think up a new plan, an unnatural chill ran up his spine. Glancing to the side, his eyes widened as a ghostly form coalesced from the ether.

It was a horse. Faint grey, with a diamond on its forehead and white armor on its back. Grey spots faded into a white belly, and an ethereal arrow was lodged in its right eye, deep enough to show how it had died.

Charles’ eyes widened, and he had to blink back a sudden wave of tears. “Repérée?” he asked, gently laying a hand on its spectral flank. “Is that you?”

The horse of his youth whinnied, the noise a faint echo on the wind. She gently tapped his hand with her snout, flickering her one good eye shut in contentment.

In that moment, Charles felt forty years younger.

With a wild grin he launched himself into the saddle, laughing at the familiar feeling. The mage seemed to have realized his distraction and commanded his tiger to attack, but by now it was far too late.

Charles grabbed the ghostly reins and Repérée galloped forth, the two of them charging down an enemy mage like they had a thousand times in his youth. His opponent only had a single moment to panic before they were on him, his spectral steed far faster than some petty golem could outpace.

Charles laughed as he claimed victory, taking back some of his earlier thoughts. A hand came down to gently stroke the mane of his long-lost companion.

True, the past was dead. But that did not mean it was gone. Not forever.

He still remembered, and that was enough for the both of them.