14

CONTINUATION OF VIOLENCE

I stood over Karak’s corpse, heart slowing to a steady rhythm, my mouth dry. I closed my eyes and just breathed. Snow caressed my face, gentle touches of cold to remind me where I was and what I’d just done. I opened my eyes and saw the steam rising from Karak’s open body, his innards hot and red.

Another death. Nothing new. Add Karak to the list of hundreds of other names, the vast majority I could not recall no matter how hard I tried. Another life I hadn’t wanted to take. Assemble all those lost souls in one space and you have yourself a small army. Then, assemble everyone who had loved each of those men and most likely you have an entire city.

I sighed and turned. My eyes met Lukan’s and I swallowed. I’d upset the young king, and wasn’t that funny? Supposedly I’d been defending his honor, yet he didn’t look particularly pleased about the results of the duel. No doubt about it, he wanted me dead.

Lukan stepped forward, hands balled into fists. “Hermon!”

Hermon, one of Lukan’s guards, an absolute giant with a blond beard down to his belt, said, “Yes, my lord?”

“You laughed,” Lukan hissed. “I heard you laugh. Is something funny?”

Hermon frowned. “My king, I didn't—”

“So I imagined it, did I? Do you think I'm soft in the head? Do you think I have vision problems?” Lukan kicked at the snow like a petulant child. His eyes returned to me. “Sigmund, defend my honor!”

I blinked. “I just did. Karak is gone.”

“But Hermon is still here. And he just said I was soft in the head!”

“I did not say that,” Hermon said bluntly. He looked around, as though searching for support, but everyone around him was silent. He paled. Probably he'd just realized his mistake in trying to talk back at all. Too late.

Lukan stabbed a finger toward Hermon. “How dare you speak to me like that! Me, the king! Who the fuck do you think you are? I don't even know you. I've never seen you before. And now you speak to me like I'm a common brute such as yourself! Sigmund, raise that sword and defend my honor once more!”

I was frozen in place. Hermon and I stared at each other, both unsure. Damn it, I could see where this was going. It'd been obvious Lukan wanted me dead, and now it was more than obvious. And what were my options? Refusal wasn't one. It came down to either turning and running, or fighting Hermon.

“Sigmund,” the king's voice was dangerously low. “Are you refusing to fight in defense of your lord's honor?”

I took a step forward, wiping at my nose, blood smeared across my hand. I was reduced to mouth breathing, and all I could taste was my own blood. My head was hurting again, but that was nothing new. I doubted Hermon was going to do much to help me with it.

“Come on, you bastard,” I said. I gave him a bloody smile. “The king wants us to fight so let's fucking fight.” Committed, I suppose, to the inevitability of violence. Once you know it's coming, best to totally embrace it.

Hermon was still looking around, a confused idiot. I knew him by his reputation, and he was no coward. Aside from being fucking massive, he was also a formidable warrior. His lack of intellect was just proof that no man could have it all.

Lady Ida, a noblewoman of the Howling Hall, stepped forward. “Perhaps, my king, we should allow Sigmund a few moments to recover. It’s only fair, after all.”

“Fair,” Lukan repeated, as though hearing the word for the first time in his young life. He turned his uncomfortably familiar eyes in my direction. “Is that what you need, Sigmund? Some time to recover?”

I spat blood. I just wanted to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. “No,” said I. “I could kill this fucking fool in my sleep.”

Then Hermon drew his sword and charged me.

Good for him, taking the initiative. I was mildly surprised, I'll admit, and I leaped forward to parry his first blow, which was easy enough, only, he was so damn strong that both my hands immediately went numb. Instead of going back, which most people would've, I dived forward, having already let go of the sword, my hands locking around Hermon's legs, right behind his knees. I took him down, landed on top of him, always risky when blades were involved but my timing had been good and his sword wasn't anywhere close, not yet, and now that I was mounting him, it wouldn't be all that useful. He was smart enough to see that, had already abandoned it in the snow, and was swinging a meaty fist at my head. He hit me, and it hurt, but on his back there was no real sting behind it and really, it just made me mad. I slammed an elbow down into one of his eyes. My elbow was clad in iron. It smashed his eye in. Bone broke, blood welled up, and he howled. His hands grasped at my own face, his dirty nails tearing gouges in my skin. A second elbow shattered most of his teeth, and the third, straight to his temple, put him out. Probably not dead but certainly done.

I rose from Hermon's limp body. In our brief struggle, we'd ended up right in front of Lukan, close enough to touch. I took a shaky step forward and Lukan flinched back, gently bumping his shoulder into the chest of the warrior standing slightly behind him.

Lukan’s eyes narrowed. He spun and gestured madly at the man he'd just touched, a young, muscular guard with a thick, red mustache.

“You touched me!” Lukan cried. “You ought to watch yourself! Clumsy oaf. Fucking idiot. How is it that I'm surrounded by so much incompetence? It's…well, it's intolerable! Sigmund, fight this man!”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I searched for the faces of others and saw the same confusion and shock written across their own features. Lukan was going too far and everyone knew it, yet of course no one would say anything, otherwise it might be them stepping up to fight me next.

Avokis seemed torn between anger and excitement. Angry that I was still alive, excited that he was about to get another chance at seeing me killed.

Loudly, I said, “Must I really kill everyone?” and a few people did make sounds then, not quite laughter, but close.

Lukan either chose to ignore that comment or just didn’t hear it. He shoved the mustached warrior toward me. “And what even is your name?” the king hissed.

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The young warrior had already composed himself. His mouth was a grim line. “Fricz.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Fricz?”

“I meant no insult, my king. I apologize for—”

“Bleh.” Lukan spat. “I couldn’t care less about your apologies. Go apologize with your sword instead.”

Lady Ida cleared her throat. “I think this has gone on long enough.” She leaned in close to Lukan and whispered something into his ear. I was close enough to hear the word stop, and that was all. Even that was stunningly courageous of the woman. She didn’t seem afraid, just frustrated.

Lukan held up a hand, silencing the woman. He said, “Sigmund, fight this man, and then I will retire to my quarters, content that my honor has been defended.”

I eyed Fricz. “I suppose we ought to just get on with this.”

Fricz nodded once. “Suppose so.”

I lifted up my sword, arm aching, everything, in fact, aching. My mouth was so full of blood that I felt sick. I wanted to say something else to the warrior standing opposite me, something to make light of our situation, to point out just how ridiculous it was, but no words came to mind— a common problem for me.

“Doesn’t make no fuckin’ sense,” Fricz muttered. He finally drew his sword, and with his free hand straightened his mustache. “No sense at all.”

That summed up my own feelings, thank you, Fricz. I actually liked him already, and it was a damn shame that one of us was about to die. I laughed again. A shame, but everything seemed suddenly hilarious to me, as though I were drunk.

“Fight!” Lukan cried.

That single word pushed us both into sudden motion. We came for each other without hesitation, swinging at nearly the same time, our blades crashing together. We stared at each other from either side of the steel and I spat blood into his eyes and made to kick him. He caught the kick, the bastard, and tried to sweep out my other leg. I jumped over the sweep, threw myself backward, and we separated, began to circle each other.

I took a deep breath, my limbs leaden, my head pounding. Exhausted now. The previous two fights had been brief but regardless, killing a man is always an exhausting feat, and I was hardly in the best condition anyway. I jabbed at Fricz, once, twice, and on the second jab he swept away the point of my blade, came in nice and close, and stabbed me in the belly.

Didn’t get through my armor, but it still fucking hurt. I wheezed and wheeled away, my body wanting to fold in half, my sheer strength of will keeping me upright. No, I did not have a good feeling about this at all. I went on the attack again, swinging for his head—

And Fricz was fast. Fast on his own, but in my exhaustion, his movements were blinding.

Something struck me in the face, just below my left eye. A fist, a pommel, or the point of a blade? Was I now dead? The pain was incredible, and I yelled and recoiled, one hand immediately and desperately leaping to my cheek, feeling out the damage, but oh, no time for that, because Fricz was relentless, that’s youth for you, coming at me was bad intentions written all across his face.

I ducked under a decapitating swing, and even as I did so, the thought occurred to me that I could hardly see out of my eye. Not good at all, but I had to stay focussed, had to create some distance between us—

I ate an iron-clad knee to the face.

Gone. Total darkness. I was drowning.

Then I was on my back, staring up at the sky. Conscious again. Shit, shit—

I rolled frantically to one side, Fricz’s blade embedding itself in the snow where I’d just been. I tried to grab one of his ankles and he kicked me in the head. Not much power behind it, and his boot glanced off of my temple, but even still I sunk back down to the ground, which earned me another stab to the gut. My breath left me. I thought I heard Ida say something, a request to stop the action, followed by Lukan’s gleeful voice, but every sound came to me as though from a great distance.

I rolled again and Fricz kicked me in the ribs. His sword then came for my face and I gritted my teeth, managed to half-rise on one knee, bringing up both forearms to catch the edge of his sword against them. My vambraces saved me from being cut but the impact still numbed my arms. Fricz’s blade whipped out again, annoyingly fast, and cut a burning hot line across my brow. Blood flooded down into my eyes. Who needs to see, anyway?

I took a chance and dived forward, directly at Fricz. I hit his chest, he grunted, and I delivered a tight left hook to where I guessed his face was. My knuckles made contact with his chin and I felt him stagger back. My hand didn’t feel right, I’d probably broken it, but that didn’t matter now. I grabbed his upper body, reaped his legs with one of my own, and threw him. We fell together, a peculiar sensation when blinded by one’s own blood, and I landed on top of him.

We squirmed and thrashed in the bloody snow, in the slush and the mud, grasping at each other, sweating and heaving, hands fumbling. I couldn’t see well enough to know where his sword was, whether or not he had a knife in reach. I was sure people were talking, maybe even yelling, but none of it reached me.

We struggled, Fricz and I, for quite a while. He hit me, I hit him, we swore at each other and bared our teeth, we spat and roared and flailed. He couldn’t do much to get me off of him; I always had been an excellent grappler.

Eventually, we rolled, me still clinging on to him, and I spun around to his back, wrapped my arms around his throat, and sunk in the choke.

I didn’t let go for a long time. Blind, arms exhausted, my body utterly drained, I squeezed with everything I had left until Fricz was utterly still, while the onlookers silently observed. And, even when Fricz was cold, when there was nothing left in him, I stayed there for a while on the ground, hugging on to his back, simply because I could not muster up the energy to rise. No one came to help me. When I did make it back to my feet, I wiped at my eyes and cleared enough of the blood to eventually see that nearly everyone was gone. Lukan and his guards were nowhere in sight. Two men remained, clearing the bodies, and Lady Ida, who stood dispassionately in the snow, her cheeks red, her eyes fixed on me.

“Alive, then,” she said. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t get back up.”

I didn’t want to talk, wasn’t even sure I could. My tongue roamed around inside my mouth and wedged itself in an empty gap where a tooth had been. Now it was either buried in the snow or I’d swallowed it. Also, my mouth hurt so much, and was so full of blood, that I had no idea how badly I was hurt. Everything was swollen.

I still couldn’t see with my left eye. As soon as my attention locked on to that simple fact, my heart started beating faster. But no, no, I couldn’t worry about it now, not until I was somewhere safe, until I could hide and lick my wounds and properly assess the damage.

“I didn’t want to,” I finally said. “Didn’t seem worth it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “that that happened.”

I just nodded, glancing over the three dead men.

Ida came close. She said something, but what with the wind and, more, the ringing in my ears, I didn’t hear it. I told her so. She repeated herself, said, “Lukan wants you dead.”

“You don’t say?”

“Do you know why?” she watched me closely as she asked this. I’d never seen eyes so green before, like lush woodland.

I shook my head and started to turn away from her. I wanted to talk to the lady but now wasn’t the time. My tongue felt inflated, taking up far too much room inside my ruined mouth. Fresh blood was still pumping down into my eyes, and I wiped at it fruitlessly with a hand I couldn't even feel.

I staggered my way back through the gardens, toward Keterlyn’s cabin. Staying conscious, as it turned out, was a surprisingly difficult thing to do. My head lolled, my one working eye focussed only on the ground directly in front of me. My feet moved without me thinking. The world spun, revolving, my guts threatening to empty themselves. If I’d thought that the aching in my head had been bad before, well, I just hadn’t had the imagination to really conceive of how much worse it could get. It was like an ax was constantly working to split my head open but couldn’t quite finish the job. It was like it’d gotten stuck in my brain and someone was trying to pull it out but all they were doing instead was making me suffer instead.

Somehow, I made it to her cabin. The gods smiled down upon me and the door was unlocked. It swung open before me and I immediately fell, my body evidently deciding that it had had enough.

I hit the wooden floorboards and kicked the door closed, cutting off the howling wind, a few stray pieces of snow drifting in. I closed my eyes.

Something wet and warm lapped at my face. I flinched, then reached out with a hand and felt Husir’s soft fur. She licked at me once more, as though hating to see me so covered in blood, and then curled up on the ground next to me.

I held Husir close as the world faded away.