It is that same joy as in a dance. That same reckless fun.
No longer concerned with overanalyzing my opponent or my own movement, my mind is free to wander and stumble upon a realization. All my life I’ve had the Helldiver’s mentality: smashing through obstacles fast enough will gain the laurel for my clan. But now, after breaking a million drills and myself, I can see the flaws in that mentality. I’m done forcing my way through rock like a hungry claw until I break. Now I know to shift around obstacles, flow through gaps, like those same deepmine winds that the path referenced, the same winds that filled the old tunnels around Lykos.
I feel transported to a memory from my past. As children in the mine we played a game called Tempt the Dark. We’d gather and shout down into the abyss of an old tunnel to wake what slumbered therein. Then we’d turn our backs to see who could stand there the longest. Who could conquer the fear growing in their own chests.
Eo won that game, every time.
Some called her daft or dumb in the head. Others snickered and said she was mad standing there with her weird little smile. I thought her brave and beautiful, darkness all about her, red hair whipping my heart into tangles. It’s taken me all this time to understand that smile.
She was not afraid because she was not thinking of the dark. She was enjoying her moment alone with the deepmine wind.
That wind becomes sacred to me with that realization. It finds its way through the smallest cracks and the biggest gaps. Darkness cannot stop it nor alter its journey. It cannot be chained nor held in the palm. It is movement unending. It is the sound of my childhood and Mars’s song to my people. It is my path to the Vale, back to Eo one day, back to Da, and Fitchner, Dancer, and Ragnar, Theodora, and Orion, Alexandar, Ulysses, and Uncle Narrol too. When I die, whenever that day comes, I will hear the wind that howls like a wolf and know I am home.
No magical force overtakes my body, but the memories, my lessons learned through Aurae’s little book, and my training with Cassius coalesce together. I can’t be a Helldiver gnawing my way forward. I must flow like the breath of Mars’s stone.
My eyes find a vulnerability in Fá’s armor. One of his pauldrons is a little bit looser than the other from the force of his charges.
Gently, like wind guiding a kite, I guide his warsaw down and to his left. Still busying the warsaw with Pyrphoros in my right hand, I reverse directions with Bad Lass in my left and deliver three neat strikes to dislodge his right pauldron. His shoulder lies exposed. I cross my arms, pinning his warsaw down with Bad Lass, and hack off a chunk of meat from the top of his shoulder with Pyrphoros.
Fá grunts in pain, and I spin around to his right and deliver a double-slash to the back of his right knee that sends him stumbling away. The mood changes. He recovers from his stumble and stares at the blood pouring from his shoulder, then the chunk of metal missing behind his right knee. The Ascomanni and Obsidians no longer chant. They must never have seen their king bleed like this in single combat.
There’s a blur to my right as the shield flickers off and a figure enters the fighting circle. I don’t let it draw all of my attention, and catch Fá nodding at someone behind me. Two people have entered the sacred fight, it seems. Two interlopers. I don’t bother with the one on the right. Instead, I flash Pyrphoros back in whip form underhanded as I turn, and throw Bad Lass like a spear.
Behind me is one of the Obsidians I suspected of being a Gorgon. He has a rifle pointed at my back and is about to fire just as Pyrphoros lashes across his eyes. He screams and Bad Lass takes him in the chest with a thunk. Without thinking, I form Pyrphoros into a blade and fling it sideways at the other Gorgon, the one I first saw entering the circle on my right. I turn to watch the blade pinwheel toward him and cut him in half just above his hips.
Seeing me without a weapon, Fá charges with a roar. I don’t rush for my blades. That gap isn’t open yet. Instead, I wait for him to swing, and bend away from the warsaw. I wanted to retrieve Pyrphoros first, but his attacks guide me away, and I find my path back to Bad Lass instead. I pull it from the downed man almost casually as I pass. With it in hand, I slowly turn Fá around and work toward Pyrphoros. Soon both blades are back in my hands, and only then do I resume my attack.
I guide Fá’s blade when I can, and get out of the way when I can’t. My breath is rhythmic, and the clarity I’ve found feels semi-divine. Fá almost seems to move in slow motion. No longer a machine I cannot oppose, he is a puzzle I’m excited to deconstruct. I do it piece by piece, guiding his blade, weakening his armor in multiple places, only to return when the opportunity arises.
Between flashes of metal, idle thoughts still come and go.
Cassius will be mad that I’m using my boots a little bit.
Why were there people in the circle? Has the dome gone down?
Should I kill Fá here? Should I draw it out?
Then I’m punched in the back and reality crashes down on me.
Clarity shatters. Sound rushes in. I fall to a knee and smell my skin burning. Many of the Volk are chanting my name. The dome is down. Two bodies wearing ruby amulets lie in the circle. The Gorgons, Fá’s inner circle, old friends of the king. Given reprieve from my attacks, Fá stumbles to one of the dead men and falls to a knee.
“Darrow!” I follow the shout. It’s Cassius. He’s staring at me like I’m on fire or something. I check my arms. My suit tells me the shot I took in the back isn’t mortal. “Stop toying with your meal. Kill him!”
I thought I was doing just that.
Fá stands up from kneeling beside one of the bodies baying like a wounded animal. He rushes at me. He must have cared deeply about that Gorgon.
I baffle his charge by continuing my circle around him. This time I whip at his eyeshields a few dozen times with both Bad Lass and Pyrphoros. He tries to tangle them in his warsaw, so I just switch Pyrphoros to its longest spear setting and poke at the weaknesses I’ve made in his armor as I whip him repeatedly in the helmet with Bad Lass. It’s almost funny how off-kilter he is now. When a wild slash overextends him and presents his flank where I’ve worked on the armor a bit, I close and thrust Thraxa’s razor into the underside of his extended left arm. The armor gives, the blade passes in and comes out the other side red with his blood. I retract it, see him try to grapple with me, so I swim right and back off while inhaling a fresh breath. The flow state is gone, but I still wade in its shallows. I bang my blades together.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
“Confess,” a dozen people yell.
It’s the first time they pick up the call.
Having Sevro and Cassius both out there has freed me to focus. I know they have my back, but it’s no longer all about the duel. There are other factors at play outside the circle. Fá is beyond exhausted now. I go at him again, circling like before, striking only at his helmet’s eyeholes with the tips of my whips until they’re so mauled he can’t possibly see out of them. As I’m doing it, I’m glancing around. The Ascomanni have fallen silent, but many of the Volk scream and cheer. Those Gorgons that have not rushed in are almost surrounded by Skarde and his friendly jarls. They look nervous. I’m beginning to see why. There is no question to any watching, I can kill Fá at will.