“I am the future king of the divine land of Lustro and the gods held a meeting with…” Duxton gestured to Alton. “The fish.”
“A siren,” corrected Beat.
Beat ignored Duxton’s scoff as he melted into the table in front of him. Iath had had full control of his body for several weeks. The sudden takeover during the god’s meeting had left him feeling like he was going to puke. A long, slow breath was taken to clear his head.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Duxton glared at him.
Beat silently glared back.
Shaw set down a bowl of spiced pork, beans, and wheat berries in front of Beat before pouring him a glass of water. “What matters most is that we have a date for the duel. There is no need to debate the god’s wishes or choices. They have made them clear.”
The current meeting was taking place within one of the library’s classrooms. Duxton stood near the front while the others idled at the tables. Alton had an arm around Sybil’s shoulders. She had been quiet since he returned. Zaniyah was sitting next to them, but Veximarl was absent. He had made plans with Tish for a date and it wouldn’t be fair to cancel them suddenly.
“What does it matter?” Zaniyah adjusted her axe, which was lying across her shoulders. She had gone without her baby for so long that she simply wanted some time to cradle her for a bit. “No one is going to get hurt as long as we use one of the training fields. Beat can get us pendants without anyone making a fuss. Why are we making a big deal out of this?”
Alton spoke up. “Because we are literally deciding the future of our religion. There’s repercussions that we need to consider, and it’s going to be an unpredictable mess if we aren’t careful.”
Much like how making a random suggestion to two idiot gods had suddenly caused a would-be uprising and tainted beast war. That still wasn’t Alton’s fault somehow, right? No one among them had pointed it out, so he was still safe?
“We aren’t deciding anything,” argued Zaniyah. “They decided it on their own. Chi and I are just gonna beat each other to death. It’ll all sort itself out.”
“That is not how it should work,” Shaw retorted. “You have the option of-”
Zaniyah abruptly stood up. “That’s exactly how it works!” She flailed her empty hand about. “They decided that they didn’t want to talk it over. They decided that we’re going to have to fight for them. They’re going to decide that they don’t like whatever outcome happens and keep on fighting! It doesn’t matter what we plan or plot behind their backs because their a bunch of morons!”
Alton firmly nodded. “The only god that deserves worshiping around here is my penis,” he replied. “Right, Sybil?” He frowned when she blankly nodded her head. “... You alright there?”
“Yeah!” Zaniyah cheered loudly. “Dick worship!” She gestured for Alton to raise his hand and gave him a high five.
Shaw stood up as well. “I will not allow for any form of phallic worship within these barracks!”
Duxton was struggling to absorb everything. He had been resting a set of fingers upon his temple and had kept his eyes closed. “... Let her do as she wishes.”
“It is preposterous to aim for a desired outcome,” argued Shaw.
“The gods are obviously idiots who are undeserving of our praise,” spat back Duxton. “Let them do as they please. If they go against what is best for humanity, we will hunt them down. Brayton did it before. We can do it again.”
Shaw had lost his patience. “There are other matters that require my attention,” he muttered. Without another word, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Sybil stood up. “Felix should be done talking to Lady Blu by now. I’m going to check on him.”
“Good,” muttered Duxton. “We have someone new to interrogate.”
“Or we could treat him like a regular kid and try not throw suspicion his way,” argued Sybil. “Zani and Chi should handle this on their own. They’re my friends. I trust them. Chickadee likely has an idea of what he wants to do, so it’s pointless to come up with a plan without him. All we can do is wait.”
Alton stood up as well. He wasn’t comfortable with how tense Sybil had become. Being stuck in a room with Duxton wasn’t doing her any favors. “We’ll go talk with Felix and then see what squads are available to escort him to Carapace. There’s time to plan a trip. I still need to write a letter to Starsons to see if they’ll take him.”
Sybil folded her arms and closed her eyes. She then nodded a few times to herself. “Maybe he can stay with my father and get an apprenticeship at Woven Silk.”
Alton smiled at her. “Let’s talk to Felix first and see what he thinks.” He then pointed to Zaniyah. “Go check in with Stonetoe and tell him you’re back.”
“Awww,” replied Zaniyah. She wanted to spend the rest of her afternoon doing absolutely nothing.
“Go check in with Sir Stonetoe before he’s convinced you’re avoiding him and makes life that much worse for you,” spat back Alton. “Then tell us everything that happened over dinner, alright?”
“Fine,” she replied with a pout. Zaniyah then watched them leave the room before standing up.
“Where are you going?” Duxton muttered as he leaned against the wall.
Zaniyah gestured to the door with her thumb. “I’m going to go talk with my knight?” She replied in a confused tone.
“But I am in need of a bodyguard,” retorted Duxton.
Zaniyah glanced over to Beat. He had passed out next to his bowl of food. “Uhh…” She then looked over to Duxton and realized that he was being serious. “What does that have to do with me?”
“By promoting yourself as an Arbutus and taking on the role of a paladin, you have agreed to carry on your family duty of protecting the crown. At all times, the prince, the heir to the throne,” Duxton cleared his throat, “me,” he said in a preening manner, “must be guarded.”
“Pfft,” snorted Zaniyah. “I ain’t doing that.”
Duxton narrowed his eyes. “...” He folded his arms and shook his head. “Sir Stonetoe was scheduled to be at the western field today.”
“Awesome.” Zaniyah did half a salute. “Thanks.” She didn’t wake up Beat, thinking that it was best for him to rest, and left the library behind. Two steps outside was all it took for her to realize that Duxton was following her. “... Uh, what?”
Duxton shrugged. “It can’t be helped,” he replied. “This is an institute where my bodyguards have several duties that do not involve me. It is my role, as future king, to be benevolent and accompany them on their tasks.”
Zaniyah stared at him judgmentally before she started to walk away again. “Whatever, crazy guy,” she muttered.
Duxton hastened his steps until he was walking next to her, and they headed to the western field. Sir Stonetoe was one of several knights standing along its edge. Lady Flay, Oceans, and Dalkirk were all present. Udell and Amalfrieda were in the field. They were engaging in group combat practice against Irving, Basil, and Emery. Peter and Mila were watching nearby as well.
Flay was the first one to notice the approaching pair. She was about to say something when Irving poofed out of the field. He stamped his foot in frustration and began to wave his sword about while mouthing a choice series of words. Dalkirk gestured to the field and waited for Irving to run back in before he nudged Stonetoe with his elbow.
“Thistleweed! Don’t let Rodanthe control the field! Take command of your unit!” Stonetoe looked over Dalkirk. “What?” Dalkirk gestured to Zaniyah. Stonetoe then glanced her way and an expression of absolute annoyance and disgust crossed his features.
Zaniyah twirled her axe about. “I thought Emery was the captain.”
Oceans spoke on behalf of the others. “Basil has requested training in military leadership. Lady Flay has been tutoring him. They are doing combat formations today.”
“Oh, awesome.” Though Zaniyah didn’t really get what formations were, fighting was always fun. She then waved at Stonetoe. “Hi, mama!”
“Five weeks,” replied Stonetoe.
Zaniyah shrugged it off by lightly punching his shoulder. “Training sure is tough, huh?”
Flay nodded sympathetically. “You must have taken your training quite seriously.” Zaniyah bobbled her head up and down. “Though it must have been difficult with Alder there.” She side stepped toward the squire. “He has an excellent physique.”
“Oh, by the core, yes he does,” replied Zaniyah as she bobbled her head all the faster.
“Tell me the truth, Zaniyah, just between us women,” cooed Flay. “... What do you think of his butt?”
Zaniyah leaned in as well. “Well, truthfully?” She grinned to herself. “You’d think every guy is flat back there but his is surprising well rounded.”
Flay put her hand to her mouth and smiled coyly. “My, you must have had so much time to admire it.”
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Zaniyah was grinning ear to ear. “It’s not like he tried to hide it, you know? I ended up seeing a lot of him.” She somehow grinned all the wider. “There’s a lot you end up doing together if you’re just training with one other person!”
“... I see.” Flay straightened up and folded her arms.
Realization hit Zaniyah like a charging stallion. “Oh, I meant like…” She scrunched up her nose. “That was a trick to see if I was goofing off...” Flay nodded. “... I really did a lot of training though. I only saw his butt a couple of times! I couldn’t help it! That’s just the kind of situation it was!”
Stonetoe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Krogastein, get in the field.”
“It’s not my fault! I mean, I’m not going to complain about what he was wearing or not wearing, but I really did work hard!” Zaniyah frowned as Stonetoe pointed at the field. “Do I at least get a pendant?” Not that she was worried about dying or anything, but Amalfrieda did love to go for people’s eyes.
“Thistleweed! Give Krogastein your pendant! Regroup with Penvil and Byers and get more arrows!” Stonetoe then pointed at Whisper. “Axes stay out here.”
Zaniyah held on Whisper defensively. “... But I need her.”
“You didn’t train with it,” argued Stonetoe, “so you don’t need it. Get in the field.” He grimaced as Dalkirk loudly cleared his throat. “... You didn’t train with her and I need to see what you’ve learned.”
Zaniyah looked over her shoulder and at Duxton. He had that wild, amused grin streaked across his face. She realized that he had only followed her here because he knew he was in for a show. Whisper and Fling were gently put on the ground and she caught the pendant as Basil tossed it to her.
“Thanks, Basil,” she muttered.
“Nice to have you back,” he replied.
Irving gave her shoulder a pat as he passed. He then walked over to where Peter was sitting and gave a hard yank to his ear. Peter let out a yelp and began to paw at Irving until he let go. Mila then let out a sigh of relief, as Peter had been making her uncomfortable.
Zaniyah only spared the others a glance as she went into the field. She took a moment to stretch out her arms and legs. Amalfrieda also had a wild grin on her face and she was on the brink of laughing from sheer excitement. Meanwhile, Udell was as stoic as ever. He adjusted the hooks on his hip and waited patiently for Zaniyah to finish her stretches.
“It’s hardly fair, isn’t it?” Amalfrieda called out to Zaniyah. “Aren’t you tied for ninth in your year’s rank?”
“I haven’t had the time to beat my way up the ranks yet!” Zaniyah called back. “I’m more than enough to put up a fair fight for the two of you!”
“I meant that isn’t it a shame that the knights have no faith in you!” Amalfrieda said with a wider grin. “After all, the only ones that rank lower than us on our year are Naiov and miserable Gildenboot! They couldn’t even be bothered to test you against a stronger opponent!”
Zaniyah didn’t say anything. Her face flared with rage. She knew that Amalfrieda was only trying to rile her up so that she would make a mistake. Either that or to draw attention away from the faint vibrations happening below her. Her foot shifted off to the side, just fast enough to avoid the hook coming up from out of the ground.
Udell was hardly surprised that she dodged it. She had already proved that she had the ability to predict ground attacks caused by magic. No doubt that his hooks gave her more warning than spells did. A tug on his chain and the hook slipped back to him.
Rather than try another hook, Udell sought to close the distance between them. Amalfrieda ran in after him and quickened her pace until they were running side by side. Her hands were kept low, claws unfurled and thirsty for the chance to taste flesh.
Udell stopped first so that Amalfrieda could go in for the kill. She reached forward, claws extended, for Zaniyah’s throat. Zaniyah met her halfway and snatched up her wrist. She easily tossed Amalfrieda over her shoulder, then stomped on her head so hard that she poofed out of the field.
Though Amalfrieda fell quickly, Udell didn’t hesitate. He tossed out two hooks at once. Zaniyah held her left elbow in front of her to summon her shield. Once the hooks had been deflected, she slashed her arm through the air. Her shield split apart into heated drills that bore their way through Udell’s torso. She then turned towards Stonetoe and outstretched her arms, as though she were challenging him.
“Is that it?” Zaniyah shrugged. “Can I challenge Irving for his second place rank now?”
Amalfrieda let out a low growl. “I’ll give you a challenge,” she said with a snarl.
Flay replied in a cold tone. “Stay there and consider your flaws. It’s your fault for underestimating your opponent.”
Showing neither surprise or pride, Stonetoe held his wooden cone to his mouth. “You ain’t allowed to fight people for their rank!” This made Zaniyah fold her arms and let out a loud huff. “...” Stonetoe scrunched up his nose. “She’s not allowed to, right? Dalkirk?”
Dalkirk held out a hand. “Byers.”
“Alright!” Zaniyah pumped her hand in the air.
Irving didn’t join her in the field. Rather, much to Zaniyah’s horror, he took off his pendant and handed it to Dalkirk. Her eyes flicked to Stonetoe. With her stare, she pleaded for reassurance. The big scary man wasn’t gonna do something horrible, was he? Stonetoe replied with a grin and a thumbs up.
Zaniyah took a cautious step back as Dalkirk stepped into the field. “You know,” she began, “I’m not really a member of your squad. It would be rather rude of me to, you know, take precious time away from their training.”
That and she didn’t want to fight the scariest and mysterious knight. Specifically the one who was rumored to murder naughty squires. Not to mention that Alton and Veximarl had witnessed Dalkirk nearly murder a man in Mareth. Though that was a bad guy who had kidnapped Sybil and it, uhh… Alton and Veximarl’s description of the scene was hardly… Clean. It wasn’t very clean.
“I am a mortal man,” whispered Dalkirk.
“... Okay?” Zaniyah took another cautious step back.
But then she remembered… He was mortal. Zaniyah had just spent weeks training with a literal god. That had to give her some sort of edge. Dalkirk had to be way easier than Iath. Just look at how quickly she took care of Amalfrieda and Udell! She totally had this!
With a blink, Dalkirk had closed the distance between them by half. Zaniyah held her arms in front of her as he lunged his heel at her. She succeeded in blocking, as his heel made contact with her forearms, but the impact sent her skidding back. Her arms were left numb to the bone from the force of his strike.
A sharp sound struck the air, faster than any arrow. Zaniyah tilted her head to the side, only to have her cheek torn open by a projectile. Another sharp sound and she summoned her shield. This time a pang rang out as something it hit, followed quickly by a crack as her shield began to split.
Zaniyah looked down at the ground. A throwing knife? How was he throwing it so fast?! Dalkirk spun another knife about his finger. A quick flick of the hand and the knife landed directly in the crack of her shield, this time getting it stuck in the groove. Zaniyah was forced to unsummon her shield and attempt to close the distance between them.
She dipped down low and went for an uppercut, but he brushed her attack to the side with a simple push against her elbow. Zaniyah then went for a kick to his knee, but she only managed a gracing blow. No matter how she went after him, she’d always fail to land a hit. Every blow she swung resulted in her getting cut with his knife.
He flowed like water, yet his motions were unpredictable. Zaniyah’s eyes would attempt to follow him one way, only to realize he had gone the other. Every sense of hers was being muddled and confused by his movements. Even her ears were being deceived.
Her wounds healed quickly but it mattered not. Two more cuts would be put on her for every one she could heal. Zaniyah let out a cry and doubled her efforts, only to end up face down in the dirt.
Dalkirk had spun her around by the arm as she swung a punch and he quickly had her down on the ground. His knee dug into her arms, neatly folded behind her back. One hand had dug itself in her hair, holding her in place. The other held a dagger to the base of her skull.
“Relent,” he whispered.
Zaniyah flexed her fingers. A drill appeared between her and Dalkirk’s chest, aimed to strike at his heart. What she expected to happen was a shower of gold to land on her as she claimed victory. Instead, a horrific screeching sound stung her ears as her drill attempted to bore through a white shield. Dalkirk had summoned it in order to defend himself.
“One… Two… Three…”
He was counting seconds, whispering them to himself. Zaniyah couldn’t care why he was counting, she concentrated all the harder to force her drill through his shield. If she could somehow get it to cut through, maybe she would somehow win.
The shield began to chip by the time he reached twelve. Without wasting another second, Dalkirk plunged the knife in and moved off to the side. He unsummoned his shield, and the drill whizzed off before dissipating. Looking over to Stonetoe, he gave a brief nod of approval.
Zaniyah poofed outside the field. She took a moment to shake off the heebie jeebies before she started to let out a spree of curses. “I almost had it!”
“You really didn’t,” replied Basil. Zaniyah turned to him, eyes already watering with tears. “I… I-I was only telling you the truth!”
Stonetoe let out a sigh and rested his fingers against his temple. “Give your pendant to Thistleweed and fetch your axe,” he begrudgingly muttered. “We’re going to do some weapons training.”
“Really?!” Zaniyah immediately perked up at the news.
“Yeah, come on,” he groaned.
Zaniyah took off the pendant and hurled it at Basil. Without wasting a second, she snatched up her axe and began to obediently follow Stonetoe with a bounce in her step. She looked like a dog on its way out to an adventure.
“I told you that I’d been training,” she chirped.
“Aye, I believe you,” muttered Stonetoe.
“So now what?” She asked. “Do I get to challenge my way up the ladder? Whose blood does Whisper get to taste? Is it Alton? Please say it’s Alton.”
“You shouldn’t take that list so seriously,” he replied. “I said before that none of it matters and I meant it.”
Zaniyah paused. Her nose scrunched up as she tried to process it. “... But how do I get the others to acknowledge that I’m not, you know, weak? I gotta get strong enough so that they all trust me enough to help them out when they’re in trouble.”
Stonetoe gave her a weary stare. He scoffed at shook his head. “Look,” he began. “That list doesn’t mean anything. Every single one of you is training in different ways for different purposes. We can’t ever accurately compare you to each other, so we pick out one person to put in the middle and split the class above at below them.
If it wasn’t for Toval being a self-centered idiot, it would’ve been Hewitt and her plant magic. If we didn’t pick her, it would’ve been Twist. I should’ve pushed for Twist, but then you would have ended up with an unfair advantage and would’ve gloated to much about how high you placed.
Cully might be number one, but he’s not planning on blowing people up. At least, I hope not. He shouldn’t be on the top in the first place. Tuton would’ve outranked all of you by a longshot if he was allowed to go full blown necromancer everywhere. Not that it matters since there’s always some undead monster he’s yanking out from his sleeve. Doesn’t seem to care that he’s gonna end up with his head cut off.”
“Full blown what now?” Zaniyah asked with a set of wide eyes.
“Eh?” Stonetoe turned to look at her.
Zaniyah tilted her head. “... Eh?” She mimicked him, just as confused as he was. “Undead? Sleeve?”
“You didn’t…” Stonetoe blinked a few times. “What?”
“... What?”
“Just how dense are you?!”
Zaniyah let out a long, drawn out sigh. “... Probably very.” She then held her axe forward. “But if there's some monster hiding in sleeves somewhere, I’m gonna slay it.”
Stonetoe pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache. “Repeat after me. Rankings don’t matter.”
“Rankings don’t matter.”
He nodded. “Good… Now, it’s good to see you didn’t waste all of those five weeks staring at Alder’s ass, but we still got a lot of work to do. Ain’t much time left before the new year’s entrance exams. I want to send you out on a good mission after that. A lot of these squads are lacking muscle. They’ll need you to back them up when they go out. Got that?”
“Aye sir!”
A good mission? Probably something with Moontear. They were always hunting down something awesome. And in two days, she was going to be in a battle of the gods. How awesome was that?! She burst into a wide grin. After she got all of this work done, she knew that her friends were going to trust her again.
But seriously, though. Seriously… Veximarl was a necromancer?!