Year 215. Gortinda - Khirn

“There was only a singular time I saw the bearfolk share in my fear, and it was when they were accosted by a creature beyond me still. Even as they fell, I was still the weakest of them all. Such a sight made me miss my home all the more.” - Acominatus, On the Nujant Chhank Pg. 9, Par. 3

GÍLA SENGHU

Gíla turned at the sound of more feet, her ears twitching to the pattern of its encroaching stomps on the cobblestone and sunbaked blood. She yelled as yet another one of the King's Men swung at her with a gleaming blade, backstepping at the last second as its edge carved through tension-thick air. The warrior, outfitted with a coat of the greens and blacks of the Vasileús, followed up with another quick, vicious stab for the Bear Maiden’s face. Its tip nearly scored her snout, the bear folk bending backward as it neared her flesh. At the same time, she batted their blade away and drove it into the stone in a downward arc. Gíla stepped forward, swinging up with a returning attack and cracking the warrior’s jaw into their skull.

She pivoted after that short breath, ducking as a giant blade whirled through where her head had been. However, such was her height and the angle of her motion that the tip of her left ear was sliced off clean. Red liquid immediately ran down the side of her head, and she groaned at the stinging pain—her first instance of pain from the sword. The Bear Maiden quickly entered a defensive stance—or whatever equivalent one could do with a war hammer—and eyed the broad-shouldered goliath wielding the shining claymore. They were middle-aged with powerfully built arms and legs, their hair little more than a shaggy mop. Their hands were clenched around a two-handed sword, shining brightly under the momentary sunlight that peaked through the moist clouds. A shield breaker, she surmised.

Their voice broke into a clamor as they leaped for her.

Gíla evaded the attempted blow. The goliath rocked forward from the missed hit but kept pace with a spinning motion, swinging once more for their would-be prize with a horizontal laceration aimed at Gíla’s shoulder.

She met them with a hard block, stopping their attack dead in the air with the fullness of her strength. She had believed that the goliath would, like their predecessors, be knocked off balance and forced into a stumble. To her surprise, they had held their ground—albeit barely. The edge of their weapon scraped against the haft of the war hammer and created flashes of sparks. The Bear Maiden slid with momentum and clacked against the sloping quillions of the claymore. Gíla glared at her opponent, and they glared back. Both waiting to see who would crack first.

“You’re as strong as they said,” they rasped with quick and harsh breaths. In their Khirnian voice was the trace of a pure Aqellan ancestry, perhaps a family that survived as one the last holdovers before they made the exodus. One that did not so quickly demonize riyu. She wondered if the goliath knew that. “Stronger even. You’d’ve made a fine warrior for the Vasileús.”

“I am no warrior,” she replied curtly before breaking their lock to avoid a vicious slash from behind. This new assailing foe was no older than twenty, and followed up with another strike. Gíla smacked the blade down, grabbed the front of their surcoat, and threw them away like a rotten crop. They smacked back-first into a building. The breaker launched for her again, cursing as their blade missed only by inches, but then succeeded in cutting down a warrior of the Dioúksis who backed away from their own foe a touch too far. Torso fell from legs in a glut of blood and entrails. Gíla lamented the death and struck out, cracking her hammer against the breaker’s mail, dropping them to their knees. Still, they lived. Gíla swung around, engaging two more King's Men in their attempt to save their comrade. They fell like the rest, gurgling dying insults. Bones cracked, and organs burst.

The goliath stood still to catch their breath and scowled. “Not a warrior, eh? You fight like one. You kill like one.”

Gíla sighed with disdain. “I am just a historian. Not a warrior.”

Their scowl deepened. “Historian. What a joke. You rip and tear like a monster from the legends. Don't lie to the world.”

Her auric eyes somehow shone through the sunrays beaming down on her. “I am here to help bring about great things. I am not-”

“You are on the side of a dog who will die for his betrayal of the Vasileús!” the breaker proclaimed.

She parried a sideways cut and another. The goliath, in turn, did the same to her, heaving their weapon as if it were her hammer. Unnatural strength for a human. Unnatural stamina. Gíla felt enamored by the experience as much as she was fearful that this human could harm her. Around and around, they fought, neither connecting with anything other than the ground or the air.

Gíla groaned as the sound of another approaching crackled in her ears. Responding, she dodged an attempted strike from behind, no longer trusting her hide to protect her from the blade. The warrior grunted as the blade missed and sidestepped to stand beside the goliath. They shared a look and nodded to each other, a savage grin shared between them. A trickle of blood dripped from Gíla’s brow onto her cheek. It ran freely from her wounded ear, a stark red on the blackness of her fur. Proof that a Nujant Chhank could be hurt. Around them, Gortinda burned. Alden was elsewhere. Goscelin was elsewhere. Loukas Tamasos, Eos the Colossus, Misandros Tateas, and others were dispersed and frantic.

Gortinda burned in the war.

They moved upon her, unleashing a barrage in tandem she worked tirelessly to defend against. Metal and metal and metal, clashing and stabbing through the air. She was no warrior, but she was endowed with the endurance of the Nujant Chhank. After a strike from the second warrior connected with her arm and only served to bend the blade, she knew she only had to worry about the goliath. A vast and wild hack sent the Bear Maiden flying back in a formless way. Gíla snarled as she collided with the street. She rolled until she could shift to a stand, her hand shuddering as it clenched the hilt of her hammer. Relief washed over her as she saw the breaker finally breathing heavily and sluggishly lifting their weapon from the ground. Conversely, the shielded warrior kept moving, rushing for the bear folk with a battle cry.

“For the Vasileús! For the true monarch!” they howled, their face red with exertion and passion.

“Phaeop, wait!”

It was too late. Gíla reacted quickly, instinctively, batting away the young combatant’s attempted diagonal hit. Time slowed for a tenth of a second, granting the Bear Maiden a chance to see their face. Young, square-shaped, unwrinkled, and brown-eyed. They could not have been older than twenty-five—no younger than twenty. They could not have had a chance to experience true advancement in the world. No opportunity to leave a legacy behind. She felt herself screaming to stop her arm as it reared back. She could hear pleading and begging and sobbing. None stopped her, and for a moment—for the briefest of instants—she felt the crack of a sadist’s grin cross her face. She cracked down with a hammer swing to the side of their unhelmeted temple. There was a crunch of bone, denting of muscle, and the upward shunting of chips from the young warrior’s head. Fluids erupted like geysers from the front of their face, and they crumbled to the street immediately and remained there, motionless aside from residual twitches of the arms.

“Phaeop! No!” the goliath shouted, their voice laden with grief and rage.

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Gíla’s eyes widened as reality hit her like a javelin to the chest, and all the noise from the battle became muffled. Her heart thumped, froze, thumped, froze, and her arms tensed with stupefaction. Auric eyes welled with tears, and her fanged mouth opened slightly to form words that could not form. She looked down at the body and saw that half of the skull was now caved inward like marble that a chisel had hit. Clear and red fluids and gray matter poured from the shredded pieces of flesh and gushed out from their nose and eyes like a reservoir of death. Images that were now locked in her mind forever. She inhaled sweat-thick air and felt a trace of nausea in her belly alongside that all too familiar stomach-knotted emotion.

The goliath attempted an advance and slumped to their knees. They were exhausted. Regardless of their ancestry, they were too far diluted from the powers of riyu to keep their endurance up for as long as the Bear Maiden could.

The goliath recovered enough strength to finish their movement, their face pale with grief. The Bear Maiden bounded forward and ducked a frantic horizontal chop for her head. The earth bent under the weight of her momentum and vibrated against the impact of her shoulder tackle into the warrior’s armored stomach. They dropped their weapon and shrieked breathlessly as the bear folk lifted them and slammed them down onto their back in the same motion. The goliath gasped as all remaining oxygen was forced from their lungs. They struggled to regain their breath. Trickles of blood formed at the corners of their lips as they choked and coughed.

The Nujant Chhank stood above them and puffed, a stream of tears rushing from her eyes. “Please stay-” was all she articulated before being suddenly tackled from sight.

A brute almost as large as a small tree had rammed into the unsuspecting Bear Maiden, knocking her away into a tumble. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as possible, barely bringing her hammer up in time to deflect a looping stroke that would have cleaved her in half. She knew it would have. She deflected another and then another, all the while taking what details she could of her new assailant. They were tall. No. No they were a giant. A freak of nature that could only be seen in the legends of the Golden Lords or those who came before. They were widely built, muscle and fat like a gladiator. Like a hero. Far more armored than the others she had encountered, though not in the tradition of the land. They were outfitted in vibrant plate armor made from odion bronze, a material ten-times the durability and strength of steel. A metal that could only be found in the deepest mines of Aqella. A metal that has not been see in the world for five hundred years. And they bore a uniquely embossed close-helm, the comb extending into a sharp fin, the lion-drake sigil of their Vasileús plastered on the cheek guards. In their hands, they wielded an excellent battle axe that was as close to shattering the haft of Gíla’s hammer as it was to maim her.

She would know him as Harkides, and she would learn of him as the King's Titan. The one who brought myth to life whenever they appeared on the battlefield, a rarity of such magnitude that their appearances themselves were like odion bronze. In parts of Khirn, it was believed that they—more of a thing—was propaganda. A story to frighten the enemy. But they were real. And they were endowed with the fury of a wrathful, vengeful King.

“You fucking rebels,” they seethed through gritted teeth. “You worms.”

They sprinted at her far faster than she could have anticipated for a human of their size in that armor. The edge of the axe caught her shoulder with a grievous gash, blood squirting from the wound and streaming down her thick bicep. She reacted with another parry attempt.

The hammer snapped in two from the sharp deflection of Harkides’ axe.

Gíla gasped and backpedaled from a vicious riposte aimed at her throat. She voided another downward slash, sending a fist into Harkides’ armored stomach. Something cracked against her knuckles. They bent with the punch. One hand let go of the axe, but that hand quickly grabbed her by the back of her head. A subsequent headbutt sent her reeling away from Harkides until she was fifteen paces away.

With blurred vision and ringing ears, she flung what remained of her weapon at Harkides on instinct, immediately cursing herself for such a foolish, inane move. They evaded it by pivoting their upper body to the left and resuming their sprint. Five steps away from the killing range, they reared their axe back and howled with malignancy. The Bear Maiden reached up and caught Harkides’ arms as the head of the axe dug into her shoulder again, a slowly building scream rushing from her lips.

“Inhuman shit!” they roared, unable to pull their arms free from the Bear Maiden’s grasp.

“Vi kimi!” Gíla cursed, kicking her leg forward into Harkides’ own to drop them to a knee. They let go of the axe, shouting as the power dynamics were switched. A slice across her back kept her from finishing the tumathios off, turning her around to pull the axe free from her shoulder and gaze at the winded but somewhat recovered goliath.

“You killed Phaeop,” they grumbled.

Rage and agony overtook her previous sorrow for Phaeop’s death and the desire to leave the breaker alive. Gíla roared as loud as her voice could carry and charged the human, blood streaming by the pint from her wounds. The axe cut the goliath in half from clavicle to navel.

Gíla turned just as a fresh sword came toward her neck. It never connected.

Gíla opened her eyes at the sound of screeching noise and released all the breath trapped in her throat. A member of the aedo appeared from nowhere. In their blood-caked hauberk and surcoat, they swung their brilliantly gore-covered longsword down into the edge of a King's Man's weapon and knocked it off course. Brief sunlight beamed like an explosion of holy rays upon them, blessing them for the next few seconds. Gíla stood motionless initially, dumbfounded by the picturesque sight, and hyperventilated to replace the released air.

“Hey!” they shouted at her without looking, voice blaring with ferocity. “Don’t just stand there, fight!”

Gíla recognized them immediately and nodded in gratitude, watching them vanish in their duel against the one who would have struck her. She rushed toward Harkides, her feet clawing into the dirt and leaving craters of torn stone and grout. Harkides boomed with rage and hoisted their weapon horizontally with both hands. They shoved it forward, attempting to catch the Bear Maiden and push her back and down. They missed by centimeters. Weaving under it, Gíla tackled them with another lifting slam.

“Please do not get up,” she tried to say.

Harkides punched up, connecting a gauntleted fist with her face that chipped a tooth and then another that broke one off completely. A moment of silence passed between them, the Bear Maiden feeling the rise of frustration in her chest. Harkides punched up again, and it was enough to send her away. She grabbed at her face, blood swelling beneath the skin in the form of a bruise and a welt, and when she turned to face Harkides, the man had gone. Swallowed up in a wave of King's Men and rebels clashing. One came for her, and Gíla responded with and attack that, had they not been wearing a helmet, would have resulted in the same as Phaeop.

The King's Man yelled in pain and attempted a hook to Gíla’s jaw with their free hand, only to find another fist connecting with their face. Their nose was crushed instantly under the helmet’s nasal plate bending. They fell to their back, screaming.

The Bear Maiden mounted them.

Another fist crushed their nose even further until it was nearly flattened. Another crack of a sadist’s grin formed on her face, bringing a burning, nauseous disgust in her body. Do not kill him, she told herself. Yet, she did not stop. Something told her that she could not stop now, deep within her brain and surging in her fists. The King's Man's yells had melted into gurgles accompanied by bubbles of spit. Still, they fought to free themselves with shimmies and weakly thrown jabs. A fourth punch broke their skin by way of the plate stabbing into it, and a fifth resulted in the worst of it, though they were no longer alive to react. Flesh and bone and metal caved in under the impact, the skull reducing to mulch as her knuckles traveled until they hit the back of the skull with a resounding crunch.

The King's Man twitched from the severing of nerves and synapses, shuddered as their heart struggled to pump blood, and writhed in vile death throes before stilling completely and forever.

Hard and quick breaths did little to alleviate the mounting pressure in her chest and the stings of wounds across the Bear Maiden’s body. She removed her fist from the fleshy cave-in and looked up at the sun-beaming sky to wail out another release of stomach-knotted emotion. Any soldiers of the Vasileús that would even think about rushing her in this moment of inaction stopped at the horrible noise and backed away, a delay that allowed them to be attacked and distracted.

“You should have kept your hammer,” said the one who had saved her, halting near the Bear Maiden and seemingly oblivious to her mood. Their breathing was as quick and hard as her own. “You would have kept your hands clean, done the same thing.”

The Bear Maiden kept the explicit sorrow of it buried. “Glad to see you’ve survived, Iphino.”

The rat-faced human smiled sadly and swung some clumps of gore from their blade, “Yeah. Have you seen the boy? Alden?”

Her brows furrowed as the name rang in her mind. Alden. The young one had been drowned in the frenzy in that horde of meat. She had looked for them during her first moments of combat, calling out their name in the hopes that they would hear it and respond. But they never did, and her heart grew colder to the idea that they could be alive. A sixteen-year-old child with no experience, thrown into the fire. Gíla shook her head and peered at the nearby surrounding masses. She felt the pieces of skull and brain matter drip from her clenched fist, and she sighed inwardly as the vestiges of optimism for the young one’s survival hung on by a thread.

“You good to fight still?” Iphino asked.

Angry shouts from close by drew her attention before she answered. The Bear Maiden looked to Goscelin and discovered them in combat with three figures wielding axes, swords, and shields. One was exceptionally well built and dominant in visage—the leader of this trio. Something was wrong. Far too many combatants in this battle bearing traits that should have been impossible for them. Too large, too quick, too strong. Bloodlines of Aqella, converging here. Goscelin appeared to be having a much more difficult time with them than the others, who danced and feinted around them in attempts to steal their attention for the larger one to land a killing blow.

“Why not just kill him together? Why make it so difficult? Why be so cruel?” she asked the air with soft, forward steps.

“We humans’re a bunch of aberrations given free will,” Iphino commented, joining her in the march.

Gíla barked and lunged forward as she finally neared the four, striking out with a double-handed swing of Harkides’ axe at one of the figures, young and green-eyed and sharp-boned. They screeched in surprise, then fell silent as the driving elbow cut of the axe collided with their stomach. The impact was incredible. Mail rang out in terror as pure biting power buried into the interlinked metal, snapping several pieces apart. The human snorted a single breath of air before they were lifted from the momentum and thrown yards away, clattering to the ground with an unceremonious thud. The Bear Maiden’s heart throbbed again at the brutal sight.

In the moment it took for the others to realize what had happened, Gíla moved and swung for the smallest of the trio. Whatever she had intended to strike them down with ended up as a clean decapitation. Red spurt in river-length streams from the neck, and the human’s body fell backward with as much an unceremonious thud as their companion.

Having used the opportunity of distraction, her weathered companion had reignited their offensive approach, aided now by Iphino, though the leader of the now-dead duo was still impressive in defense. Even more distressing was that they were far more fully armored than their companions, possessing a mail coif under their helm for added protection. Their kite shield was also an issue, being iron-reinforced oak they carried with relative ease. Goscelin, for all their fury and tandem offense with Iphino, would never be able to break through that defense alone.

With this acceptance in mind, the Bear Maiden let loose a brittle, sobbing bellow and advanced.