Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The Vulture Lord came at him like a swelling river of steel, longsword raised high to meet Vilon’s guard.

Steel crashed against steel.

No sooner was the first slash turned aside than Ratio unleashed a barrage that gave him no room to breathe. Vilon ducked beneath an overhead arc and felt the air whistle above his helm, then caught the second squarely on his shield. A shower of splintered oak burst into the air as the blade shrieked its way down the kite’s face.

The impact went ringing up through Vilon’s arm and rattled the bruised bones of his left hand until the fingers went numb and useless inside the strap. He staggered back a pace, and all his earlier bravado melted away into a cold and sickening terror as he understood, properly and completely, exactly how broken a thing he was bringing to this fight.

He parried another wild slash and tried a swift counter thrust, but his steel skipped uselessly off Ratio’s heavy iron pauldron and left behind nothing but a scratch and a dent that the man would not notice until he undressed that evening.

He made space and stole a glance around the clearing, and it confirmed the worst of his fears. No help was coming. Every Hound in that wood was locked in a brutal struggle of his own with nothing to spare.

He was entirely alone.

He dived right and made his mistake there, his boot catching on an exposed root, nearly sending him sprawling before he clawed his footing back out of the mud.

Fast and furious the cuts came on. High, low, left, right, and Vilon barely managed to meet each one, block and dodge and block again, always a fraction later than the last. ℴ

But no man ever won a fight by blocking. With a ragged roar Vilon threw himself back onto the offensive, swinging left and right, quick as lightning and light as feathers now that his strength was draining out of him by the heartbeat. Ratio turned the first strike aside with contemptuous ease, stepped inside the second, and closed the distance between them.

Then he swept forward and smashed his iron clad shoulder into Vilon’s chest.

Vilon tried to bring his sword up and drive the hilt into that visor, hoping to knock the wits loose from the man’s skull. Two heavy iron encased arms wrapped around him before he could finish the arc.

He writhed and squirmed against the grapple, shoving at the breastplate with his sword hand, and he might as well have set his palm against a mountain and told it to move. The Vulture Lord was built like a bear that had been fed well its whole life. Vilon’s body was far too broken to argue with it.

His opponent hauled him off his balance, dragged him in close, and slammed the iron kettle helm straight down into his bare face as if he were nothing but a sack of grain in his arms.

Unlike his opponent, Vilon wore no visor. His face took the full sickening weight of it.

Iron met flesh, and flesh gave way at once.

His whole world plunged underwater, like a ship going over in a sudden tempest. His senses dissolved into a swirling blinding haze, and something hot and wet came trailing down over his lips, and he tasted the thick copper sweetness of his own blood running into his mouth.

When he could no longer tell up from down, nor left from right, the crushing embrace finally let him go. He skittered backward like a drunkard hunting for a wall, boots slipping in the churned mud.

Ratio granted him no respite whatsoever. He came on hard at the tall knight’s heels, his arm working like an unyielding machine built for nothing but this.

The first swing caught Vilon flush across the side of the helm, too dizzy to even hope of parrying it. The deafening screech of metal filled his skull before the concussive force of it ever reached him, and he dropped heavily onto his knees.

He very nearly went face first into the mud then and there. But by the mercy of the Weaver, and by the fierce grip of the Warrior, he dragged the shield up in time to catch the follow up that would have gone through his throat like a shark through a shoal.

More wood chips went skittering into the dirt.

The Vulture Lord pressed on once, twice, thrice. Vilon could no longer stand; he scrambled backward on his hands and seat, kicking violently at the ground in small, frantic bounds.

Roots and sharp stones bit into his thighs as he parried and dodged. Ratio seemed content with the chase, driving him farther and farther back like a hunted animal.

Vilon crawled like a beaten dog, until even crawling became impossible. Something firm and unyielding slammed against his back. A frantic glance behind him revealed his doom, the thick, rough bark of a pine.

That momentary distraction nearly cost him his life. Ratio lunged forward, thrusting deep. Vilon threw himself to the left as the blade bit viciously into the wood’s bark.

Pain flared in his side, but the wooden trunk gave him something to push off of. He forced a breath through his bloody mouth, winced against his burning ribs, and threw himself back into the fight.

Three steps forward in agony, two back. A moan as a blow hit his ribs.

A slash to the left that Ratio blocked with ease.

Two steps forward, one back. Clang! Clang! The wooden shield took blow after devastating blow, until it could take no more.

A strike to his stomach with the hilt forced Vilon down onto one knee. Ratio stepped in close and slammed his heavy, iron-greaved knee straight into Vilon’s left forearm.

Vilon screamed in agony as his bruised arm gave out completely, the splintered shield slipping from his numb fingers and tumbling into the roots.

He raised his longsword with his right , parrying a executioner’s slash that would have taken his head at the last second. The sheer momentum behind the swing nearly tipped him over onto his broken ribs like a pig on a spit.

He tried to scramble up, but a heavy, iron-shod boot slammed down onto his chest, pinning him to the earth.

Up! his mind screamed, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs. Up! Up! Fight or you die! Fight or die! Die! Die!

For the first time in his life, his battered body refused to obey his command.

He stared up through glassy, blood-soaked eyes, absolute terror clawing at his gut. He was looking at the exact same sight Mariol had seen in his final moments: the Vulture Lord standing over him, his longsword raised high in two hands, poised to plunge straight down through his exposed throat.

Above was nothing but dark grey sky. His head throbbed with a sickening, heavy pulse, his nose completely stuffed with clotted blood as if thick fingers were wringing inside his nostrils.

He broke my head, and I’m dying.

Vilon surrendered. He ceased all movement, his muscles going completely slack.

What was the use?

The heavy boot remained planted firmly on his breastplate, pinning him into the wet earth even as he stopped resisting.

He accepted it , through the fear and the pain, he accepted it.Just as Mariol had

’’That was always how it was going to end’’, something in him whispering, ’’that is what it will finally put it right.’’

But the gods were not done with him yet.

Through the red haze blurring his vision, a dark shadow burst from the brush, a sudden, blur of motion that Vilon could not have pointed out, if not for the scream.

”SERRRRRRRR!”

It was Owen. The squire launched himself through the air like a madman or a pig given wings, his arms wrapping tightly around the Vulture Lord’s chest plate. The sheer momentum of the collision tore Ratio off his balance, sending both of them crashing heavily down right atop Vilon’s broken form.

A violent wave of agony shot through Vilon’s ribs, a scream catching in his bloody throat. The longsword that had been poised to end his life slipped from Ratio’s gauntlets, skittering uselessly into the thick rotting leaves.

”Up! Up, Ser!” Owen shrieked, pinning his weight over the armored commander and wailing punch after frantic punch straight into the iron visor. But he wore no glove, and Vilon swore he heard something crack.

”No!” Vilon moaned, his breath coming in ragged, bloody gasps as he tried desperately to shove the heavy, iron-clad bulk of the Vulture off his chest. ”A knife! Use a knife, Owen!”

But the lad had no dagger.

Ratio roared in furious, muffled rage beneath his kettle-helm. ”Get off me, you little dog! You filthy shit!”

The armored lord drove his gauntleted fist upward, catching Owen square across the jaw. CRACK. He struck the boy a second time, snapping Owen’s head back with a sickening , then threw a wild, heavy elbow backward that caught Vilon flush over his right eye.

Explosions of white light shattered Vilon’s vision. Owen yelped in pain, his grip slipping as he was hurled sideways into the mud.

Biting through the blinding haze, Vilon ignored the screaming agony in his ribs and threw his whole weight to the side. He swept his arm under Ratio’s exposed armpit, heaving with every ounce of strength left in his body, rolling the commander , cursing, onto his back.

A high, ragged shriek tore from Vilon’s throat, louder and wilder than the cries of his own broken bones.

His body still did not give, it still went on.

He scrambled atop the thrashing, armor-clad lord.

Try to swing that blood sword now!

His right hand fumbling frantically at his belt for his own hunting dagger. His numb, slick fingers snagged the hilt, only for the steel to slip from his grasp, sliding away through the leaves out of reach.

”No!’’ Vilon rasped.

Ratio’s iron-clad hands reached up at the opportunity , grasping at Vilon’s face and squishing toward his eyes, searching to pop them like grapes.

Pain bloomed in the back of his eyes, he pushed the hands off, and punched down.

He went searching with his free hand, clawing blindly at the earth beside him. His fingers closed around something cold, and heavy.

Vilon hauled the stone up with one hands and brought it down with all the fury left in his soul.It hit his left pink as it smashed against iron.

BANG!

He cared not.

He was to die.

The lord’s eyes went wide behind the visor, glancing up. Fears clawing , the irisis expanding.

The rock slammed flush onto the iron visor cutting away at the sight. Ratio’s grip on Vilon’s throat twitched, the metal grill denting inward. A moan rolled out from both their lips.

BANG!

Another blow struck the bridge of the helm. The iron buckled with a sharp, sickening screech, and a spray of blood erupted out from the slitted eye-holes like water gushing out of a mouth.

BANG!

The rock came out in three pieces, caving the visor completely into the face beneath. Ratio’s legs kicked once, twice, violently against the earth, and then went hollowly still,except for one small little jerk

Vilon kept striking.