RE: Monarch

A wave of adrenaline washed over me. Months ago it would have left me shaking and practically useless, but the days spent training with Kastramoth had beaten that weakness out of me ruthlessly. I allowed myself to fall backwards, Bellarex’s sword passing over me harmlessly as I rolled away. Still, it would have been over in seconds had Jorra’s serrated whip not caught the training sword, yanking her off-balance and preventing a follow-up strike. Jorra failed to loosen the sword from her grip, and she wrenched it backwards, pulling him towards her and backhanding him across the face, sending him spinning with a cry of pain.

I drew my lowhil blade, hesitating. It felt wrong to use metal against wood, but why hadn’t Erdos given us time to grab proper training equipment? It suddenly clicked. Erdos didn’t want this to be an even fight. He wanted to be able to go to Ralakos and inform him that Jorra and I had lost, using live weapons, against his red daughter.

Fine. No reason to hold back then.

I dashed in, trying to stay out of her periphery vision, swinging my blade low at her back leg. Without even looking, she simply picked it up and stepped on the flat of my sword, using the arm that she’d backhanded Jorra with to elbow me in the side of the head.

Stars exploded behind my eyes as I hit the dirt. The whip came untangled from her sword at the worst possible time, and she leapt at me. I called the flame, extending an aegis above me. It immediately cracked on her first hit, shattering on her second. Wood impacted bone with a sickening thud. The aegis absorbed most of the impact, but it hurt badly enough that I knew if I took a hit straight on it would undoubtedly break bone, putting me out of commission for the upcoming raid.

We could not afford to draw this out. From behind her, I saw Jorra weave a water bomb, flinging it at center mass. I pushed my mana outward and flared a gout of fire at her head, trying to distract her. Again, without looking, Bellarex somehow knew; she flung herself sideways in a tornado of limbs, dodging both spells cleanly.

I frowned. Either she had eyes in the back of her head or she was using some form of arcane sight. As a red, something that complex should have been beyond her capabilities. So, how was she managing it?

I closed distance with Jorra, never taking my eyes off Bellarex, until I literally bumped into him.

“Element?” I asked him, my voice clipped.

“Best guess?” Jorra panted, his whip flicking back and forth. It was mostly metal, but there were resin beads filled with water interspersed along its body, giving him an absurd amount of control. “She didn’t start flinging spells when we did, despite the opening. So, an aberrant. Void, or something similar.”

I swiped at the trail of blood trickling from my ear in annoyance. It was a bad matchup. Void users were magically deficient, by infernal terms. They could not weave traditional spells. What they lacked in complexity they made up for in savage focus and defense. They could enhance their weapons with dark energy, and more importantly, cancel almost anything that was thrown at them. It was generally a support power, but Bellarex was using it almost exclusively for offense.

“What do we do?” Jorra asked, tense. Bellarex had apparently tired of waiting and began to sprint towards us. I took in our surroundings. There was practically nothing to use or burn. Just a training field, filled with dirt. I made a split-second decision.

“Get elevation. Pepper her. Tire her out. Then we do the thing.”

“Which thing?” Jorra hissed. But Bellarex was already spinning through the air like a hurricane of death and I didn’t want to tip her off. Hopefully, he’d figure it out from context. I pushed Jorra to get him moving, and took a simple step backwards, avoiding the blow. I flipped Bellarex the raven. Her eyes narrowed hotly.

And then I turned around and ran full-tilt the other way. It was the one tactic an honorable and well-trained enemy never expected: weaponized cowardice. She was faster than me, but not by much, so it would take her a precious few seconds to catch up. A trail of curses caught up to me first in a stream of nonstop profanity that doubled in intensity and verbosity as Jorra reached the rooftop of the supply shed and began hurling massive, mana-inefficient water-bombs down in her direction.

I ducked behind Erdos, leering at her from behind him, cackling madly as she tried to swipe at me without hitting her father who watched the whole thing grim-faced and impassive. I faked left and dashed right, leaping over an outstretched kick and leading her in a frantic chase around the training yard. Jorra’s water-bombs weren’t accomplishing much—Bellarex kept reaching backwards without looking to blindly dispel them—but they maintained pressure and soaked the training yard with muddy puddles.

I trusted Jorra. Despite not having much combat experience, he had great instincts. But this was a tactic we’d only talked about in theory, never practice. I had to cling to the hope that he’d read the situation directly and time it all perfectly.

Then, it happened. Bellarex slipped in the mud, her foot sliding out from under her and driving her to a knee. I reversed direction instantly and plunged my sword in a downward strike, pushing mana out of my hand into a shockwave simultaneously, hoping to keep her down and score a hit. She reached out, hand enshrouded in black, and deflecting the shockwave into the ground, where it threw up a spray of silty water. It left her plenty of time to block my one-handed strike easily.

Behind my back, I dropped a tiny ball of paper—smaller than a fingertip—into the puddle. I spared a glance at Jorra, hoping he got the message.

Bellarex was angry, now. In theory that anger worked to our advantage; she was more likely to make mistakes and miss what was happening in the big picture. But in reality, it was terrifying. Her sword blurred faster than I could even see, leaving faint afterimages of trailing darkness. It made her strikes exponentially harder to see. Still, I dug in.

For a moment I stood toe to toe with her, my blade meeting hers, chips of wood flying from where my steel bit into her practice blade. Then she coiled with both hands on her sword and put her entire body into a single, massive blow I had no hope of blocking.

So, I didn’t even try.

Instead, the world spun as I launched myself in a backward arc, catching my weight on my hands—in the half second before I sprung away, hands deep in the puddle, I called the spark.

Bellarex was too focused on finishing what I can only guess she assumed would be a straight-forward fight to notice.

Jorra, likely close to tapped, flung one last massive water-bomb at Bellarex. She dispelled it without looking, showering us with a fine mist. But in the chaos she missed the tiny bead of water, encasing a flaming paper ball, rising from beneath her.

I formed an aegis around my fist and caught her next strike. The shield cracked. With an evil grin, I pointed downwards.

“Your pants are on fire.”

Bellarex looked downward and shrieked. The dantalion flame spread from her ankle to her knee in seconds.

Then I reeled back and cold cocked her with a punch that landed squarely on her jaw, sending her careening into the mud, and recalled the flame.

----

Bell, as we came to know her, harangued us with questions excitedly. It seemed her stoic, deadly disposition evaporated the moment the fight was over. She was almost bubbly, as she pelted us with queries. How much of the fight was a smokescreen? How did we manage it? How many times had we practiced that particular maneuver? Even with the not insignificant burn on her leg she seemed delighted to have been bested by two “dilettantes.”

Jorra found her manner insulting—I was just relieved to have not made another enemy. Lastly, she asked if we had a definitive group to enter the sanctum with. But then Erdos grabbed her by the ear and dragged her away, looking daggers at me as he shouted words like “failure,” and “disappointment,” at her, reminding me in many ways of my father.

We were victorious, but I felt a little guilty. She’d fought extremely well, considering the numbers advantage. We only won because of a bullshit tactic and the fact that the win-condition was set to landing a single blow on her. If it had been a more traditional spar called by yield, it would have ended very differently. Realistically speaking, her loss was more Erdos’s fault than anyone else’s.

The guilt didn’t do much to dampen the victory, however. Jorra and I walked home covered in mud, grinning from ear to ear.

The next evening, Nethtari and Kilvius summoned me to the living room. They had heard tales of our victory from Jorra—albeit greatly exaggerated. As I was set to depart on the expedition with Ralakos’s men imminently, there was something they wanted to talk to me about.

“We have something for you,” Nethtari said.

Kilvius pulled a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with simple twine from beneath the table and set it in front of me with a grin. “We had something custom made for you and Jorra. The plan was to wait until the sanctum, but considering how you’re heading into the behemoths mouth tomorrow, we thought it get the best use if we give it to you now.”

I wasn’t used to presents. They made me feel strange.

“You didn’t have to,” I said, numbly.

“Nonsense,” Nethtari said.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Kilvius added, “Open it already.”

The box was heavy. I untied the twine carefully and used my fingertips to unseal the paper, careful not to tear it. The box came open easily enough, lifting with a dull pop of air.

It was a chest-piece, made from a dark, matte material. It was surprisingly light. I knocked on it experimentally. Hard to the touch, but flexible. There were grooves cut into it to further reduce weight. It would not impede my movement in the same way that steel or iron would.

“What is it?” I asked, holding it up to the light.

“Cave-maw chitin.” Kilvius lifted out a matching pair of bracers and greaves. “A full-set was a bit out of our price-range, but we wanted to make sure to cover the important bits. Cave-maws have natural magic resistance, so even if you run into casters amongst the asmodials, it should offer a reasonable amount of protection.”

Nethtari had lectured me on accepting gifts when they were given. Still, it was dreadfully tempting to reject it. It was literally too much. I’d lived with them for half a year now. I knew how much they scrimped and saved. This gift, for them, was the relative equivalent of my father gifting me the entirety of the southern provinces. Not to mention their sponsorship for an emissary.

A lump rose in my throat and silently, I renewed the vow already made many times that I would repay them. They’d never let me do it directly, and I would not be so uncouth as to try. But by all the gods, old and young, Nethtari and Kilvius were going to get their investment back sevenfold. I’d back them from the shadows, whispering in the right ears, manipulating their circumstances, until the scales had finally evened.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Well, no, it’s actually kind of ugly.” Nethtari laughed in that strange, monotone mirth that was unique to her.

“But practical,” Kilvius said.

“Still. Thank you.” I wiped my face with my sleeve.

From deep in the house, Agarin started to cry. Nethtari sighed deeply.

I stood to my feet quickly. “Let me get him.”

“You don’t have to—“ Kilvius started.

“I want to,” I said, happy for a reason to excuse myself.

As I rocked Agarin to sleep, I cleared the excess emotion from my mind, and centered myself on my goals and next steps. I’d collect a boon, find an emissary, join Maya in the sanctum, and finally get some real answers from Morthus.

All I had to do was kill some demons.

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