“There's a saying in Haran, my homeland.” E said, posturing as people were wont to do when so secure, all the others at their back. Tyr knew men like him, regardless of any sudden onset supernatural powers, still employed a few. Not quite so bad, the blackguard, just killers. His wicked smile and dead eyes stared straight into Tyr's own. “They say: Steel in a man, steel in the hand, steel of the land. I wonder, how much steel do you have?”

“Just shy of twelve inches.” Tyr replied, face as flat as his voice.

“What?” The bizarre response caught Erden off balance. Then again, that was the point. 'Steel in the hand'. Tyr stepped forward, plucking his grandfathers mithril knife from its concealed position on the back of his belt and tossing it at the mage in a glittering arc.

Unfortunately, the man had quick reflexes – and Tyr was out of practice. Erden flicked his head to the side just in time. It hit the man behind him, piercing straight through his forehead and burying itself all the way to the hilt. Killing him instantly and dropping him like a puppet with the strings cut. Tyr didn't delay to watch the death, but he gave the rare honest smile. Steel in hand. Steel in a man, literally. Perhaps it was less proverb and more prophecy.

“Kill them!” Erden shouted, cautiously dropping back behind the others as they swaggered forward. Not one of them concerned for their dead colleague. More of a cut for them when this was all sorted and over with, that's usually how the merc types worked. A gang of thugs who were sure to be thinking 'he can't get us all!'

Edging back, Tyr drew out a parcel of ground before the bridge, just like Varinn had taught him – allowing the others to remain behind him and out of harms way. All of them were frozen in shock at how suddenly the situation had deteriorated. He didn't know if this was out of some protective instinct, but when situations devolved to this point he always felt the post clarity. People were complicated but pushing steel through their guts was more than often not.

Dropping into the panther stance, Tyr bent at the knees, loosening his hips, leaning forward with his sword held in two hands. It wasn't complex and that's why it worked for him. Built for swift movement and coiled muscles in preparation for an adjustment of footwork, he didn't have much in the way of space for that.

The first man came high with a long handled billhook designed for dragging mounted men off their steeds, confidence burning in his eyes. He was a big man, well muscled and a decent height, dead as soon as he entered Tyr's field of control though. Almost a comedy to the fact that they always seemed to come in hot with some wordless battle cry as if that would serve the same purpose as a gorget, what with their unprotected neck. The tip of the sword carved clean through his windpipe, eliciting a wet wheeze. One stroke, one clean line, like a painter dragging a line of crimson over the canvas.

The sword song, one of many things that he continued to hone every day since he'd learned it. His control of it was rough, but he'd improved. Little by little, day after day. First was his dominant arm, sliced clean in a wash of crimson by the peerless edge of the auronite blade. Next was his head, sailing into the air and landing in the water below with a splash. Thing about a jugular wound is that it didn't stop them from coming if they wanted to drag him down with them, better to end it with a flourish.

He could feel the fish come to investigate, nibbling at the wetter end of the detached head. Everything within his area of influence was visible whether his eyes were closed or his back turned. First came those fish, then a large frog to chase them off. The food chain painted in living motion both above and below the waters edge.

Two more came in a similar fashion. The bridge wasn't wide – it was a small thing barely large enough for two horses to ride abreast. Well within the reach of a bastard sword. Tyr pivoted on his heel, pulling into a half circle and allowing the point of a spear to skewer him through his free hand, clenching it around the boars guard. It pulled the man off balance, in more ways than one, confused at why the prince would purposely injure himself.

Tyr was undisturbed. He'd felt pain much worse than that. Stepping forward, he extended his arm, a pierce to take the grimy woman beside him clean in the face. As easy as driving a fruit knife through the surface of an apple, there was a dull crunch and the thumb of another sent to the black.

They were clumsy and slow. Swinging their weapons without sense, wide loping chops of an axe or unbalanced stabs. With the blade song, he was ten steps ahead of them at all times. He danced to the tune of his beating heart, connecting with the world around it all to see in colors foreign to the human eye. The color of fear and blood and greed. A red where a man lived, and a white where he was to strike even before he moved. Some kind of prescience. A panoply of calculations offered him by his perception of the world energy. A calculation of intent. Not reading the future, but with people so crude and emotional as these – it wasn't much different. They had no control, just like him once upon a time.

Water colors is what he would've called it, everything had an outline. Even given the grim situation and the breaking of his promise – he doubted anyone could see this and not call it beautiful. Living, moving art. Every stroke carried eddies of world energy so alike drops of blood billowing in water. Little bursts of color here all around. Not just the men, but even the animals and trees, breathing in the world energy and releasing it, every action found significance in that place he'd go.

Ah... Tyr wasn't blank in the head, it wasn't a calming of the mind exactly, more like drawing everything out in multi-hued pastel and choosing what he saw. He breathed, and everything breathed with him, something elastic. Something so incredibly beautiful. I want more...

Varinn had been right. It had its perks to mark it unique from the blade dance. Reactive in an improvisational sort of way, rather than subtle adjustments to a scripted motion. It was much more pleasing than 'riposte' this and 'parry' that, almost alien to the human brain, forgetting himself in that joyous dance. He was heady with the revelation that he was capable of achieving this realm. Crude, but enough to deal with the rabble who'd willingly deprived themselves of their greatest tool. Progression was his pride now.

Using his momentum to push forward past the teetering woman, Tyr jerked the spear forward, bringing his knee up to break it in two. He had no need to turn, feeling the man stumble behind him right into his back and the reverse grip waiting to take him in the diaphragm. This one would die slow. One promise kept even if he needed to break another. It wasn't a want... On the rare occasion where he struck this point of clarity it was like all his selfish desires became irrelevant. All that mattered was the kill, that struggle and the complete refusal to do anything less than to follow the thread.

The way in which he was able to perceive time was different than he remembered. Sharper. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion, like five minutes had passed in the span of but a few seconds. The progression, feeling himself grow in ability, but most of all... The killing.

I was wrong. Alex was right about that. He enjoyed it, and he knew why. There were no good men or bad men, only men. Varinn had been right, too. Men were products of their experience and environment. If there were good men, then they were responsible for the creation of bad men. Either by their weakness, generosity, mercy, or something else. Therefore, there could be no good man – for no good man would allow for the existence of a bad one. Weak and merciful couldn't be good. Good was not nearly so subjective as to allow an excuse for that. Men were animals, and like all living things it was black and white. A need to thrive and survive, to condense all selfish and petty notions down into one simple truth. He wished to live, for the others to do the same, to be unburdened – to retain that light within them.

These men... They were stained with blood and the stench of all their sins hung over them like mist. He wanted to burn it all away, to cleanse it, to make them dance.

Tyr turned, after his showing on the bridge, the bandits had formed into a more organized line with Erden at the rear. A command to reveal that there were more in the trees on the other side of the bridge to block their retreat, holding their horses in hand and barking like dogs. Tyr was struck by a few arrows, pulling them out and dropping them onto the bridge. If only he had been this able before, that this power of his had come sooner. Roger would've been alive, and all the others. For the first time since the fight had begun he felt the nails, burning into the space behind his eyes and making his teeth itch. He wanted more... But...

“One thousand credits.” Tyr repeated, feeling bile rising in his throat. Her eyes, Alex's eyes, were full of fear and something else. Disgust. Loathing. Pity? He couldn't tell. Violet orbs, and he could see her in the world energy, outlined in snow-white washes tinged with streaks of all shades of purple. She had such beautiful eyes, even if the rest of her had been homely she'd still be a work of art. Something he could watch forever, all of the colors flashing about her that made that of these lesser men look so ugly in comparison... “One thousand credits. You can take me. Kill me if you want to, but you'll let my friends go. Don't make me do this.”

A delay had brought him back to his 'self', feeling the conflict raging in his gut. As much as he needed them to refuse, he wanted them to accept. To take the money and run, it was a fair deal, a fair ransom for a middling noble or two.

There were too many. Even if he'd the strength to kill every man here, which was fair and likely, the archers in the wood were another story. Their bows were drawn and those arrows would be loosed before he'd have a chance to call on Okami. He could see it, the candle flickering inside the girls, something he felt that even he in all of his mediocrity could simply pinch. Snuffing it out, they were not strong enough. Not yet, and he needed them to be alive to show them. To make them see that he could be better.

“I don't want your gold, kid. I told you this once, but you're real talented, and I respect your grit.” Erden shook his head solemnly. “Hand over the women and I'll let you and your lordling pass. You've impressed me. I thought you Oresundian by your hair, but a blade dancer?” He whistled. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Be smart, otherwise you're going to end up dead, for them. No job is worth your life, no oath either.”

Tyr clenched his jaw so hard it felt like his teeth might shatter. His anxieties were replaced by raw anger. Like a madman, wheezing in laughter through his teeth. Bubbling mirth cut with his resistance of the itch that picked at his skin, giving him goosebumps. At any moment he felt ready to pop, flying off the handle and picking them clean.

There was a thing about men like this 'E', who always fancied themselves a silver tongue. Tyr would look for it in their mouths when they were stilled only to find them cast of tin and copper.

He wanted the women, which means he wouldn't hurt them. A slaver, he could see the stain that kind of sin left. Slavers would minimize the suffering of their 'merchandise' until they were sufficiently secured. All for profit, they'd commit worse on a man or woman than an honorable death. Why they wanted the women was obvious, Tyr was no genius but he knew that. If not from the common sense of the situation, then the gazes coming from those at the sides.

“I would die a thousand deaths and twice that.” Tyr said, the laughter cut off immediately. His face was a warped mask. Eyes glowing with baleful radiance, twisting. All of the knots growing tighter inside of him, screaming for him to do what he was created to do. His purpose, objective, very reason for living was to butcher these people. “Before I ever let your filthy hands touch what is mine.”

“...Yours?” Erden choked on the word. Considering that he might've made an error when judging the party.

“You barked. Your men, at the bridge, they barked. Why is that?”

“Ah...” The man cleared his throat, he had a hand held behind his back. Shuffling the others around, but Tyr was confident now that he'd see the arrows. At least a few before they fell. “Our group has the affectionate nickname of the 'war hounds'.”

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Tyr smiled gently, all of the violence melting from his face. “You like hounds?”

“I suppose any man should.” The man squinted in skeptical confusion at the conversation. “...Why?”

Tyr didn't have any hounds, but he had something even better. Just in time.

“Okami.” He whispered. A white wolf, as tall as a horse and twice as wide burst from the undergrowth, tearing the first man caught in his maw clean in half. The next was turned to a spray of crimson mist by a paw, another chomped again, smashed between those slavering jaws. Okami spit the rest out, he'd no taste for the flesh of man, finding it pungent and overly sweet. Like rotting pork, covered in sugar.

“Magical beast!”

“Kill it! Ki-- FUCK! HELP ME, HELP ME PLE--” A dull crunch was the only answer the man crying out for assistance would receive.

“Fuck that, and fuck this!”

They were trapped. Wolf on one side, the lake to another. Stuck here on the island that had once been their haven, looking for a way... Any way to survive, so many rats caught in a trap.

“Dance for me.” Tyr growled, stepping forward under the awkward hail of steel that did nothing to stop his motion. Even when they gouged his skin and flayed flesh from his bones with what weapons managed to hit in the scrum, he felt nothing. Tyr grabbed Erden by the collar and slammed his mind against the barrier blocking his mana. It was world energy. Thick enough to dull the minute adjustments of a human spell into impotence, but it couldn't stop him. Nothing could at this point, the eyes watching him wouldn't allow for it.

A thin film of it suffused the space. Compared to Jartor's this was nothing. Tyr forced his will upon until it popped and shattered. So frail and fragile, and for the first time in his life after being forced to confront his impotence, he felt strong. Filling him with giddy energy until all he could do was release it before it took him instead.

Erden turned into a raging ball of scarlet. A raving madman wreathed in fire that did just as Tyr had asked, dance. All the way to the water, hopping and skipping, the man had no sense of rhythm to him. Not dead, not yet, but there'd be time for that.

They broke. A halfling come from behind the shattered collection of bricks serving as his hiding space tried to cast a spell. Iscari broke from the panic that had set his mind into a fugue state, resisting the urge to vomit after seeing all those men cut apart. He stomped the halfling flat before pulverizing another mages with a lazy flip of masonry, taking his head clean off and a tree across the lake along with it. The bandits tried to flee now, but Tyr wouldn't let them. Okami dealt with those who managed to avoid him in the mess.

Sigi augmented her limbs with the transfiguration spell she had been preparing and swung wide with her two handed axe. A jorunn, near as tall as she was, with a half-circle crescent blade at the end of it. It caught a man in the ribcage, crushing it and throwing him through the air and into the water. Another was caught in the chin by a graceful reverse strike that tore his jaw from the hinge, staring at him with shaky eyes and hammering his head flat.

Another three were caught by Alex, overcome with panic as they tried to run past her, lashing out with her lightning – striking Tyr as well. He was hit with the force of a runaway bull, the kinetic component of the casting slamming into his back and sending him flying, hair standing on end and smelling of burnt skin and ozone.

He wheezed, coughing up mouthful of blood. Ultimately, it wasn't so inconvenient, coming closer to the next obvious goal. Alex had done him quite the favor, throwing him here half cooked like a rotisserie chicken rather than requiring him to take the few steps needed. How thankful he felt, more time with his new friends. One of which he had landed on, Tyr serving at the shield. Half a groan escaping his lips until the prince recovered enough to fill his mouth with fire.

These men had seen all three of their mages pulped by Iscari, their leader ignited by Tyr, and their remaining support torn apart by a magical beast. All they felt now was fear, no more arrogance. Frigid and cloying to every inch of their minds. Such a ridiculous plan, to come all the way out here so near the city most like to have the greatest concentration of mages in the world. No, it wasn't a 'maybe', it did. They said risk and opportunity ran hand in hand, maybe that was it.

“There's a saying in my homeland of Haran.” Tyr repeated the words after dragging Erden's burnt body from the shallows and onto the island. Healing him just enough to ensure that he wouldn't die. Not yet. He could do nothing for the melted flesh, but injecting life attuned energy into him was a simple enough task. Working its way through scalded lungs to dull some of the pain. “They say: Steel in a man, steel in hand, steel of the land. Tell me, E. And all of you who yet live. How much steel do you have?”

Their mouths split as easy in confession as they had in their requests for mercy. Some cried, hard men with scars about them, whimpering like children. They disgusted him. Old habits died hard, Tyr learned, equally disgusted at himself for falling back into his old ways. He wanted to hear them beg, if only to refuse them. It was... Bittersweet.

Steel in a man. Haran was famous for its manasteel. Fused with energy in its ingot state, regarded as the best steel among human kingdoms. Ironwood, black yew, and other famous products could be elsewhere – but Harani steel was a unique export of the empire. The steel they spoke of in the proverb was often misunderstood. People thought steel meant a hardness or coldness in a man, but that wasn't it. Steel lay in loyalty and purpose. Stability, hard work, and an unyielding spirit. There was steel in everything, traditional values and tenacity. They were all ingots, and the primus' of the past had forged them into something greater through force of unity, nationalism, and cultural bonds.

Steel to raise a child alone. Steel to support the empire at any cost. Steel to do as one had to, no matter the circumstances. Steel to go hungry so that you're children might not. To bear the pain of others, to live to your purpose. Those with steel did not bow to interrogation before they'd even been tortured. It gave Tyr a new perspective.

Regis had some steel to him. Nolan, Unferth, Kild. Those soft nobles he'd thought were so weak, once upon a time. As it turns out, the iron ran in their blood. More so than these men, at least those that had come before had tried to seal their lips to some extent. These were loyal to nothing and nobody but themselves. A 'self' they did not deserve, based on the color of their souls. Tyr's own was a baleful gray, compared to Iscari's purity, but it wasn't black and red and brown all over. Not like these men. He was different, and this was a balm to him. Still sick at the fact that he'd been forced to do this in front of his...

Friends? Family? It'd have to do. There was yet more work to be done. Tyr spit the phlegm from his mouth, the drooling that preceded vomiting. Sick at them, sick at himself. To be cowed so easily by something so petty as a young girl who had no idea what she was talking about.

“Talk.”

And they did. Erden tried, at least, but his voice was naught but a hoarse whisper. Tyr lacked the ability to keep him alive, so he offered him steel. The kind that was sharp and merciful. He wanted to let him bleed slow like the pig he was, roast and carve him before the eyes of the survivors, but not in front of his women. Least of all in front of Iscari, who was busy emptying his stomach and hyperventilating in the corner of the ruined tower. He'd broken that promise too, seeing that burden bend his back nearly sent Tyr into a rage again.

“You'll let us live?”

“Of course.” Tyr lied through his teeth. “I'm a man of honor.” He was, in his own way, and he knew it rather than simply thought it. His oath to Samson, he'd keep it. Let no slaver live, except in the rarest of circumstances. There was honor in that, or at least he hoped there was. Samson had value to him, but these men did not.

“We work for a man named Hastur!”

Hastur. Arch-mage of Baccia. Wanted to subvert the authority in Amistad so that he could overthrow the rule of the council and take possession of the state for himself. To rule it as a client of his home country, and this was not the only team on their payroll. That was practically all he'd get out of them. These men were Brotherhood mercenaries and held no position of authority in the mans employ. Altogether, they were given the moniker of the 'black hand'. It was odd, really. Why did everything have to be edgy and overly dramatic? The black hand?

Tyr killed them all after he was satisfied with their confessions. Quickly, though. Offering them some mercy. Sending them to the black for Thanatos to make what he would of them.

Despite that, there were tears in his eyes. Tyr looked first at Iscari, seeing the bloodshot eyes and trembling hands. Next, he looked at Alex. He didn't heave and shake as they did, but he couldn't help but weep. Not because he felt even a shred of regret for the dogs that he'd put down, but because he'd failed again.

Alex did not deserve to be lied to, or hurt. She'd had such a lovely vibrancy, and it was dimmer for all that she'd seen. All of them were.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's...” She was shaking, perhaps the worst of the lot of them. Astrid just stood there, staring motionlessly down at the bodies with a pale face. Sigi remained stoic, but he could see through her facade – it had all happened so fast. Now, all but one of them were killers, forced to understand the reality of what it means to end something. To watch it all go still. She had done a fair job, reacting faster than the others and holding it together throughout, but it left its mark nonetheless.

Forced to learn exactly how much blood the human body was capable of holding. Enough to wash the stones red. Painting the lake below with scarlet eddies.

The scent of a fresh corpse. A malodorous mixture of shit, piss, blood, and all manner of exposed organs. It stuck to the tongue and the back of the throat, there wasn't a worse scent in the world. If there was, it was only after they'd been given time to rot. The fetid mush of their insides weeping their fluids into the dirt.

“Leave here. Take Iscari. Return to the academy and report this to the professors.” Sigi remained silent, nodding. She did as she was asked, draping Iscari's arm over her shoulders and walking him across the bridge with a hard face. Astrid and Alex followed them sheepishly. “Only Lernin.” Tyr corrected himself. This was a plot. They had no idea who could be trusted, professor Kael had presumably been here not so long ago and done nothing about it. “Tell no one but the headmaster.”

Mounting their horses, they left. Alex looked back at his bloody form, full of complex emotions, letting the gaze linger before she followed the others westward. Tyr burnt the bodies in the Harani custom, bathing them in flame while Okami sat calmly by the water. They were alike, he and that wolf. Both predators, creatures of instinct and violence. The only difference was that his partner didn't seem to have worries or regrets, and if he did they always came from the prince. He, the burden. Stylizing himself as the protector or hero in this situation, even for the briefest moment, disgusted him more than anything else.

“Go and protect them. Please.” Tyr asked, and Okami obeyed, loping off into the forest. A wild howl carried on the wind.

He tended to the corpsefire, stoking it when necessary, shoving all of that remained into a mass grave he'd had the wolf dig up for him. Tyr would offer no prayer, turning the earth over with the shovel held in his ring until all that was left was loose dirt and bits of ash.

No. He'd offer a prayer. Asking Thanatos to ensure that they suffered. For what they'd taken from him, the now ruined opportunity to be better. To make them dance and scream for it, their foul deeds done before they'd met seemed so illusory and meaningless now.

Twenty one men and the lives of each of them, reduced to nothing but charred bone and ash.

Next was the artifact. It was a stake, perhaps a meter long, with a pyramidal shape at the end of it. Tyr attempted to use it. If he could absorb the world energy it manipulated, his progress would skyrocket. Unfortunately, things could never be that easy. He wasn't absorbing it permanently, only breathing it in like one did air – before expelling it again. It'd have to be released eventually and he couldn't make use of any more beyond that. The density of world energy had no influence on his progress.

Like training the lungs to hold more air – that was a good analogy. Slowly increasing ones capacity, and after a certain point it would reach a threshold, becoming more dense.

He'd come this far, and sacrificed much. Not of his own body, but Tyr was sure something had changed between himself and the others. He couldn't return now, not after what he'd done and what they'd seen. It was one thing entirely to kill in full view of his band of criminals and killers, hard men could stomach it. Tyr was not a hard man. He was not strong, the only difference between he and the others was that something inside of his was irreparably fractured on the day his mother was killed in front of him. If he felt anything at all, it was ecstasy. The energy, the triumph, the faces of her killers reflected back at him every time he killed a man whether they were related or not. They all tasted the same to him now, all mixing together into a mass of thought.

But they were children. Once bright eyed and bushy tailed. Not anymore. Alex, at least, would most assuredly hate him now and forever. He'd lied to her, and shown no real remorse for his betrayal. He couldn't. Tyr was many foul things, but he was not a liar. Breaking a promise like that was not something he'd ever done before.

Things to think about later. He sighed, centering himself to push his anxieties away and lessen the burden on his psyche. Grabbing the trapdoor into the bowels of the tower, he descended into the dungeon and took his first steps into one of the most mysterious places on the continent. No matter what he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about how all of their colors were so much brighter than his own.