28

The Scourge of the Seas

The dark hallway soon gave way as Ludgar stepped into the open chamber ahead. He wasn’t sure what kind of room this was supposed to be. Tight, confining walls were replaced by the rage of heavy, dark waterfalls encompassing a large, circular, suspended platform, covered with more tables which bore more strange contraptions and implements.

He found the other mercs. They were laying in their own blood. The silent bull was the last of them, with just enough life left to gurgle as a spear was torn from his chest.

‘Another?’ came her voice. The same voice as before. Obviously female, while far from feminine. She was crouched over the fresh body and rose as Ludgar entered. ‘I hope you’re more fun than they were.’

She lunged, vaulting over a table and closing the distance in only a moment. It didn’t take him by surprise. A sudden attack may be effective against the unwary and uninitiated, but he had been in more than enough battles for that. He sidestepped it, and she brought her spear back and aimed the tip at his chest. A quick deflection with his blade and a hop backwards had them meeting face to face.

He got a good look at her and beheld her pale blue skin and violent smile. The first time he had ever seen one of the sharks in person.

‘You’re one of the sea-folk. Huh. Didn’t think any of you were still alive.’

‘Only one left, I believe The last of my kind. I don’t feel any sorrow over it. It’s war. It happens. I ju-’

As she talked, Ludgar went in for a stab at her. She appeared open, yet the spear came up and deflected his blade anyway. Either she’s always on guard, or quick to put it up. A real experienced warrior. He couldn’t help but feel that tingle of excitement.

‘Nice try, but you’ll have to do a little better than that.’

‘You’re not bad either. Can’t say the same for your troops back there.’ He pointed a thumb back to the room’s entrance.

‘My troops? Hardly. You can have them, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be impressed by the butchering of some priests and scholars in an old mine. They’re barely out of their orientation,’ she said with another blade-toothed smile. There’s a beauty to her; a beauty in the same way a maelstrom is captivating. Her black hair cascaded behind her like some ethereal shadow, and she wore a smile more deadly and sharper than any blade known. She was of a slender figure, but far from dainty. Muscles where muscles should be.

‘So, who do you fight for, wolf?’ she asked while she paced around her target. ‘For the League and their five lords? For Evandis and the King? Any of the other nations? Or something else entirely?’

‘I’m just a merc. I fight for whoever pays best.’

‘Ah, now there’s a cause I can respect. Why fight for more when the results are all the same? Lords change, kings die, countries rise and fall. But money? That always stays the same.’ She lightly kicked the leg of one table, knocking it off to the ground, along with the apparatus sitting upon it. It fell and shattered upon the ground. She looked up at him, with crimson, sharp eyes. ‘But you’re not telling the full truth, are you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Come on, I’ve seen it on your face. Do you really fight for coin? Or is coin simply the excuse?’

‘I told you, I’m a merc.’ He said, less sure. ‘I fight for coin.’

‘Most mercs are cowardly. They take money from the realms, put on a show, and make it look like they’ve fought. As soon as a real fight begins, they’re already running off toward the sunset. Not you. I see it on your face. In a real fight, no one fighting for coin smiles like you do.’

Smiling? Was he? Instinctively, he put his fingers to the corner of his mouth, only now realising how tight the corners were; teeth bared and all. He never noticed it until now.

‘You see? You smile like I do.’

While the realization continued dawning on him, she closed the gap. A sidestep dodged the jab from her spear. She swung the back end around in a maneuver that would put all the Evandian spearmen to shame, striking him in the side of his torso and following up with a kick to his stomach.

She could have gotten him easily. Instead of kicking, she could have just stabbed him. As quick as it was, he wouldn’t have been able to avoid it.

But she didn’t. Strange girl.

‘Then who do you fight for?’ He asked, hoping to distract her with some idle chat while he got his breath back. ‘You clearly don’t give a shit for Phaos, and you never see women on the Theocracy’s front lines. Who do you fight for?’

She chuckled and flashed him another wicked smile. ‘This is all just a game, you know. Me, you, the Theocracy, we’re just small pieces in some grand game. When you figure that part out, the only thing you can hope for is being on the side that wins. That’s all I want. And maybe to have some fun, while I’m at it.’

They briefly went at it again, swing blade and spear, dodging, blocking, parrying. Everything that comes with a simple battle. They were mostly just feeling each other out, seeing what each was capable of and seeing their reaction to certain techniques.

They came again, face to face. Blade and spear locked in a struggle against each other.

‘Well then, I guess we’ve got that in common.’ He brought his head back and threw it forward. His forehead crashed into hers, both experiencing a splitting flash of pain. The difference was, she reeled, which gave Ludgar an opening. A single downward strike with both hands; powerful enough to do some very serious damage.

He brought his blade down. She brought her spear up to block it. It was at a bad angle, and his blade struck it hard.

It broke in her hand, shattering into hundreds of pieces across the ground. He didn’t know he was strong enough to do that to a spear. She looked at the broken fragments of her weapon as they melted into the ground. She smiled. Of course she did. Things were never that easy.

She held her hand high. Ludgar waited, seeing what she would do next. She just held it up and kept smiling. With one twitch of her fingers, something shot out from the waterfall. It split the ground where he stood.

Not only was she one on the sea-folk, she was a hydromancer. Great. No wonder she survived.

Another spear, then another to his right, then two to his left. He jumped back in enough time for one to just graze the side of his head.

The entire surrounding waterfall was speckled with the luminous blue light of hydrospear heads. Far too many to count, even without them constantly firing at him.

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At least seven more shot forth, striking the ground in a tight outline around him. They sunk in well as he discovered, trying to remove one.

He saw another take form within the rushing waters, as he tried yanking a spear free with all the strength he could muster.

The spear fired forward, aimed directly between his eyes.

No way out this time.

He closed his eyes.

If he was going to die, at least it would be quick.

‘No,’ she said.

He opened them. The spear hung in the air, a hair’s breadth from his face. He could make out the refracted light in its liquid form.

‘No, that’s far too easy. I want to fight you properly.’

The seven surrounding spears collapsed into liquid, and the hanging one twisted through the air and landed in her hand.

She carried it on her shoulder and placed her free hand on her hip. She displayed him another smile and said, ‘That’s enough of a warmup. Let’s get to the real thing.’

It was hard to tell how long they had been fighting for. Could have been hours. Felt like minutes.

A vicious dance. A macabre waltz. They traded blows again and again. Neither gave an inch.

Their bodies hot against each other as they locked their weapons against each other. He had to admit, it was the most excited he had been in quite a while.

Even so, he was really starting to feel it now, with each cut and bruise gradually taking their toll. The adrenaline wore off, the sweat beaded off his head, and he found he was panting for breath.

She wasn’t. She moved as sharp and fast as when they began, yet her breathing remained calm and controlled.

‘You’re not tiring out on me, are you?’ she said. ‘Not when things are getting this fun?’

The gap in their strength became apparent. He was at his limit, and she was barely trying.

All this time, she had just been fucking around with him.

He didn’t hate it. He much rather someone fucks around and leave him alive than end him in an instant. Still, there’s only so long a predator can play with their prey.

He swung at her. She ducked faster than he could keep track. He continued with a flurry, hoping that even just one would hit her through sheer attrition. She danced around them as though he were swinging at half speed. He may as well have been fighting in tar.

One last, desperate swing, and she caught it in her hand, the flesh of her palm unfathomably close to his blade’s edge.

‘My turn.’

She began with a quick jab to his face. Not normally embarrassing, but she used the hand that was still holding the blade. It knocked him back, and she used the moment to hit the side of his knee with the shaft of her hydrospear. She followed up with a sweeping kick that knocked him on his back.

She was on top of him, spear tip jabbing at his neck. She was surprisingly light.

‘By the way, my name’s Lazuli.’

‘Ludgar,’ he responded with a grunt.

‘Well then, Ludgar, it’s been fun.’ There was something he was laying on. Oddly shaped and heavy. Something that had been there a while, but felt forgotten. ‘But I think it’s about time we ended this.’

The black blade. Would it be of any use?

She drew the spear up, ready to impale him straight through his chest. He reached behind and pulled the blade free without knowing why. It just felt natural. Like something was making him; forcing him to.

That feeling returned. Something pulled at him. Drew back something deep within him.

It scared him. He wanted to resist, to thrash out against it and free himself of its grip. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t muster the strength.

It pulled him down. Took him somewhere dark.

He woke.

How long was he out? It felt like seconds; could have been hours; possibly days. The roof of the chasm gave no indication. He tried to move. He couldn’t. His body was stiff, stiffer than it had ever been before. He couldn’t even turn his head.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. He could close his eyes right now and drift off into a slumber that even the dead would envy. Lazuli was still around. The gods only know how he went unconscious without being killed, but if he slept again, it would most likely be his last.

He turned himself over. Through gritted teeth and pained gasps, through the ache and the sting of reluctant bones.

He forced himself onto his side, spit flying through his teeth with each laboured breath.

There wasn’t much of the chamber when they started. There was far less now.

The strange devices, the oddities, the mysterious tools had now been scattered across the chamber hall. Stalactites had fallen from the ceiling and shattered upon the ground.

Tables upturned despite being bolted to the ground.

She lay at the distant end of the chamber. Her body lay amongst the shattered mess of one such table. Her flasks broken about her, water spilt and darkened the floor.

Ludgar tried pushing himself up, every muscle screaming at him as though they had been repeatedly smashed by hammers. The pain of what cuts and bruises he received before paled in comparison to the cacophony of pain he was currently under.

He rolled onto his front, tried pushing himself up to his knees, and collapsed under his own weight.

He could feel the dust of the floor amalgamating with his spit. He didn’t like it.

He never really shed any tears before. If he did now, he would find it understandable.

There was shuffling, and a groan.

He threw his head up, fighting against the twitching muscles and searing pain.

Lazuli moved, dragging herself from the wreckage and into a sitting position. Blood stained the side of her face, plastering her hair to her scalp.

She giggled. ‘What in the hells was that?’ She tried standing, but stumbled forward. She held herself up with the toppled end of a table. ‘I’ve never seen magic like that before.’

‘Magic?’ said Ludgar through a pained grunt.

‘You’re more interesting than I first thought.’ She stood. She stood better than Ludgar could, even with some shard sticking out of her leg and hand holding her injured arm.

She approached him. He was completely at her mercy. At this point, he may as well just be a noisy corpse.

‘If you’re going to kill me,’ he let out through gritted teeth, ‘you could at least let me sit up to see it.’

‘Why would I want to kill you?’ She put her hand on his neck and used her thumb to caress his cheek. ‘That’s the most fun I’ve had in a while.’

Behind Lazuli’s head, something moved in the shadow. A white glint shone; light reflected from the head of an arrow. Kathiya. The arrow shot out, aiming right at Lazuli’s head. In a movement no slower than the blink of an eye, she turned her torso and caught it, wooden shaft gripped in hand.

The others ran in, giving the shark few options.

She jumped back to the edge of the chamber, where the ground gave way to the chasm below. ‘For the record, we should be on the same side.’ She turned and gave him a final smile. ‘I’m glad we’re not.’ She jumped off and faded into the darkness below.

Ludgar collapsed back onto the ground, letting the swell of relief overcome him. Despite the pain with each convulsion, he chuckled softly till Kathiya ran up to him.

‘Ludgar!’ Kathiya ran in, checking he was still capable of breathing. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Perfectly fine, other than my skeleton trying to escape my body.’ That’s what he tried to say, but it came out more like, ‘Nguuuh.’

‘What’s happened to him?’

Sethel looked over his body in a disconcerting silence. ‘He should have no magical aptitude, but he... how did... I am unsure.’

‘“Unsure?” What do you mean you’re “unsure?” You have an answer for everything!’

‘Who the hell was that?’ Caspar asked.

‘It can’t be… The Scourge of the Seas. Here?’ Belfry looking ahead, eyes locked in awe, or perhaps it was fear?

‘Who?’

‘I’ll explain later.’ He went to check the bodies of the hired mercs. All dead. He shouldn’t have been surprised ‘Vhere’s Ghorsa?’

‘...Who?’

‘The buffalo. Is he still missing?’

‘Dead,’ Ves’sa said with all the tack and compassion of a hammer striking down a nail.

‘Shame.’ They converged on Sethel, Kathiya, and the limp body of Ludgar. ‘Ve must get him to the Church of the Sable Sisters. They’ll know vhat to do.’

‘We could, but you shouldn’t expect much,’ said Sethel. ‘I can easily make a tonic from some dregweed and blackcaps-’

‘We can’t afford more damage from one of your experiments!’ Kathiya yelled at him. ‘Ves’sa!’

Under Kathiya’s direction, Ves’sa hoisted Ludgar up and carried him out. Normally he would have been against such handling if not for the feeling of his own skeleton trying to break free from him.