Prologue- The Two Duels

Ilm sat in the dark below Goblin’s bridge. The moonlight reflected on the frozen river and the dull light of the city glowed in the east. He took a deep hit what was left of his cigarette. Time and memory faded and reformed before his eyes. He could practically see his murdered friends on ice before him. Two murdered in their beds. Another’s neck slit as he stumbled drunk through an alley. The last took an axe to the head in her bath. All done in within the last two nights, killed so quickly they never had the chance to scream.

If the killer rose to his bait, Ilm mainly hoped he would not go nearly as quietly.

He shook his head and sprinkled the last of the frosty white leaves of the wintershrub on a slip of paper and rolled it tightly. Though he had dutifully attended church for all his life, it had been years since he had last prayed, but as he prepared to smoke again, lyrics of an old song came out of his mouth with all the reverence of a prayer.

“Vampires, Vampires, two in the night

One of them dark other one light

 Killing there, Killing here, joined in the dance.

Few can survive them, few have the chance.”

It had been their song. The song of the Bloody Six. A bizarre ditty of the even more bizarre tale that was not of vampires. It was of seven, and not six souls who were fool enough to play a game with demons. Now those who still lived had all been lured into Sythia and were being murdered over the first days of spring. A series of murders Farro Sealfin had gleefully dubbed in his newspapers as Bloody Spring. Ilm was now the last of the Bloody Six. He was a marked man.

He lit his final cigarette. The fire from the match bathed his hand in stark gold before the black quickly overtook him. Ilm had once reviled darkness, but the older he got, the more solace he found when he could see less of the world around him. On dark nights like this, he wished sometimes that darkness would consume him.

The wintershrub seemed swim about in his head and all at once it was fourteen years ago. It was called the Battle of Barking Seals to most. For many years he told himself that day would be the last he would wield a sword. He thought it would be the end of the awful games with demons he had gotten himself into. He had been proved wrong on both counts.

An idling wave brought the canoe the final few feet to the shore. Ilm, now younger and stronger, leapt off, his metal boots digging deeply into the damp sand. A mass of unanticipated seals lay in the way of making a proper landing on shore. Ilm kicked the seal closest to him, hoping to drive it into the water and out of its way. Instead the creature looked up confused, as though it could not put together the reason for the sudden pain in its side, and the strange upright beast now standing above it. Ilm had planned to make a quick landing on the sea. The more battles he fought the more he realized they never went entirely to plan.

His soldiers made quick work of removing the seals in their way through any means necessary. The barks of the seals rose into a great cacophony of yelps and screams. Ilm was sure that if the seals could speak, they were calling out in help to an indifferent god above.

Ilm looked around to see how his fellows were doing. Markam was having a little too much fun jabbing at the seals. Nallam was wailing madly at the sky as James shook him, trying to bring his friend back under control. That just left Delan. Ilm looked back to see his closest friend disembark from his canoe, radiating with his unflappable confidence. Though Delan lacked most of the quintessential physical traits, something about his movements betrayed the noble, if illegitimate blood he had. A gilded sword, similar to Ilm’s, glittered on his belt but he did not bother drawing it, he had little use for it in battle.

“Remember Ilm,” said Delan with a teasing a grin, “Put in a good show, and you might earn freedom for the that icebound little province you call Sythia.”

Ilm laughed. No other Balrinian under his command would dare say something like that. Delan was one of the few who had realized that deep down Ilm did not care whether Sythia should be its own nation or whether it should remain a part of Balrin.

“Stay close, friend,” said Ilm with a casual salute.

Delan grinned like a fox as his face vanished under his helm, specially designed to hide his eyes from view. Delan was the secret reason behind Ilm’s success as a commander, and so long as no one else could see Delan’s eyes during the battle, no one would suspect that Delan might possess dark and unnatural powers.

Ilm slipped his shield off his back and drew his sword. He had dubbed it Beastbane, a clear insult to the dark skinned men he used it against. It was a cruel name, but so was war. As the late lord Zaviar Juox, the father of Delan had once said, “When you’re on the field of battle, you are not killing men. They are beasts. They are meant to be put down. When the battle ends, it may no longer be so, but during a battle they are beasts.” He was likely to put down many beasts in the coming battle, but to win the game he was truly playing, there was only one beast he intended put down. He had many names and titles. The Swamplord of Lakna. The Muddy Vampire. His appointed enemy in the Wispkeepers’ Game. Calhoon Mons. He was more than ready to kill him.

Then the bright tropical sun faded into a cold snowy frozen river. Ilm was back in Sythia and it had been over a decade since he had so much as gripped a sword, and he felt far from ready to face his new foe. In the morning Ilm had sent his household staff away and carved onto his bedroom wall “If you come to kill me, find me under Goblin’s Bridge.” He had come so close to telling his maid what was happening and just who he suspected to be the killer but he would not risk her life on that knowledge. Enough people had died on his account. As the years went by, the countless lives he had taken by weighed deeper and deeper on his conscience. Not just those dead by his hand, but those who had died on his orders and influence. He would not add anyone else to that tally, except perhaps himself or the man who had killed his friends.

Ever so quietly, so soft he second guessed it, he heard the wood of the bridge above him creak. The second time and there was no doubt. Someone was on top of the bridge. It was neither a stray dog, nor a child. It was the slow and deliberate step, moving like the Sythian Darcloacks of Old on a quest to assassinate the Balrinian conquerors.

Ilm exhaled. The white smoke of the wintershrub rose and vanished into the cold night air. Then Ilm heard quick footsteps above him. A hooded figure swung down from over the bridge and landed across from him, near the eastern side. For a moment Ilm thought that the man was going to crash through the ice, but the man landed just upon the shore, and then stepped onto the glassy surface.

He wore a simple black cloak with a broach bearing the image of Sythia’s Purple crescent moon. However, Ilm had a strong feeling that broach was a ruse and that the man beneath it was Balrinian to the core. The figure unclasped the broach and let his cloak fall to the ice.

Ilm took another hit of the wintershrub and examined the man who had come to kill him. He was short, not tiny, but certainly smaller than most, perhaps four thumbs shorter than Ilm. His hair and clothes were a touch unkempt, and he was young, probably not more than twenty-five. The man took a step forward, and in the reflected moonlight, Ilm could make out freckles dotting the killer’s nose and cheeks. This washed away any doubt at who Ilm was looking at.

“Veka Larrassa, I presume,” said Ilm, speaking in Arionic. “An honor to meet at last.”

Veka drew his sword. Ilm almost chuckled to see that in an ironic twist of fate, the King’s Right Hand was left handed, just like he was. The blade had no ornamentation. It was a simple sleek tool made for killing and that alone. He could have been wearing chain mail beneath his coat, but he wore no visible armor. He knew as well as Ilm, that in this fight, brute power would mean close to nothing.

Ilm placed a hand on Beastbane. Unlike Veka’s blade, this sword was work of art, with a gilded silver hilt and rubies encrusting the blade. For years, he had lived off the great military stipend he had earned by for his “heroics” with Beastbane, and his trusty sword’s only reward had been collecting dust in his attic until taken out for one final dance.

Ilm’s cigarette was about a quarter burned through. He took a final hit and muttered to himself, “Last smoke before the plunge.”

Memories fed by the wintershrub came flooding back to him again, all playing before him in the span of a blink.

Ilm had broken out of ranks, straight into the heart of the enemy force. Delan had helped him break through the line, but there was only so much he could do. Laknans were all around him, their spears poking and jabbing at him. Ilm was no longer swinging Beastbane at a single target. He spun around, swinging haphazardly, keeping his enemies at bay, but there was now an entire circle around him, closing in and tightening the noose.

“Stand back,” came a cool voice, with the unmistakable tinge of the Swamplands drawl.

A young Laknan soldier hesitated as he jabbed at Ilm and Ilm seized the moment driving Beastbane into the neck of the soldier. As the blade pierced through the spine and out of the other side Ilm was stunned to see what he had taken to be a smallish soldier had been a boy, perhaps thirteen. For a moment, the foreign dark skinned boy could very well have been Ilm’s own son. “They are beasts. They are beasts.” Ilm muttered between clenched teeth, failing to drown out the boy’s final choke.

“I said, stand BACK!” the final word was bellowed out with a fury that could bring down a mountain. Ilm snapped up to attention to see the who the voice belonged to even though somehow, he knew he had at last found his enemy.

The Calhoon Mons he saw was not the same as the one he had seen in paintings. He was gaunter, and not nearly as young. Nallam had given him the moniker of the “Muddy Vampire,” Muddy for his dark skin, and Vampire from rumors that he collected jars of the blood of past enemies, as well as the aloof but sinister aura he displayed in the paintings. Ilm beheld his enemy for the first time, there was nothing aloof in him. A storm of hate raged in his eyes. A hate that surpassed Ilm’s own fury.

“Ilm Hallankin. Your reputation precedes you.”

“As does yours Swamplord.” said Ilm. Ilm had never quite figured out the nuances of Laknan culture to determine if Swamplord was an insult or not, but he spoke the word as one none the less.

On Mons’ specific instructions, the Shadowlight Guild had put an arrow through Ilm’s wife’s neck. Hard as that was, Ilm could get new wife. He could not get a new Lord Zaviar Juox. The Shadowlights had mutilated Juox beyond recognition, forcing the poor lord to spend hours choking on his own blood and moaning in agony until death was finally kind enough to take him.

Ilm looked his enemy with a dash of confusion. Hate was burning out of the Laknan’s eyes so intense that Ilm would not have been surprised if they turned into flames. Ilm felt a strange urge to justify himself before his enemy. He had killed Calhoon’s lackeys to be sure, but he had never degraded himself to the low levels Calhoon had. He had imagined his meeting going many ways. This had not been one of them.

“So.” said Ilm.

“Your helmet is eschew, Sythian,” said Calhoon, uttering his final word with unvarnished loathing.

Ilm had been conked on the head multiple times during the battle. Indeed, now that Mons had mentioned it, he could see his nose guard was indeed leaning to his left. He adjusted his helmet and then after a pause he slipped his shield off his arm, and switched his sword from his right hand to his left. For the sake of fighting as one he used his right hand. Now he was alone. He may as well fight with his superior hand.

“I have dreamed many nights of killing you,” said Calhoon, now almost deranged.

“I dreamed of giving you the same kindness,” said Ilm, picking his shield back up. He wondered if perhaps fighting left handed would give him a slight edge. Certainly in duels before, his enemies were unaccustomed this sort of enemy. However, if the stories of Mons’ prowess were true, that advantage would be slender at best.

“Well,” said Mons. He closed his eyes and opened them. He did not fully control his hatred, but he at least brought himself into more controlled state of loathing, “No matter. I stand here as an honest man, ready for an old fashioned honest duel.”

Calhoon placed his helmet over his head, blocking his face from view and raised his golden spear. Ilm closed his eyes preparing for his possible death. He opened them and Veka was standing before him and it was cold again.

Ilm dropped his cigarette and drew his sword.

“I told no one I suspected you if you’re concerned,” said Ilm, “I do hope that sates your king’s taste for further murder.”

Veka had been the one member of the King’s Trusted who had not been present when the Nameless King had summoned Ilm. The only reason Ilm complied was because the king had sworn that regardless of whether Ilm accepted the offer, he would both respect his choice and protect him. As the king had attempted in vain to convince Ilm to join him in the new game the demons had set up, Ilm had mostly wondered if he would get a chance to see the mysterious Veka Larrassa. As Nallam had once said, “Lady Fortune loves playing her little tricks.”

“So this is how the B*****d King treats those he swore to protect?” said Ilm putting in all the vitriol he could muster, “Knock off his friends before giving him the one last kindness. Oh hail! Hail him all the way to wraithsland.” and he spat.

Veka did not even blink in response. He took a step forward, his gaze fixed squarely into Ilm’s eyes. Each step he took with great care. Hopefully that meant his feet were not sure upon the ice. Veka, it was said, was raised in the warm tropical island of Perlon. Ilm was a Sythian, born of the ice blood of jarls. If there was any place he had the best chance, it would be right here.

“I still have no interest another game with demons.” said Ilm, his heart beat rising, “I do not doubt you will kill me anyhow for refusing your master, but I shall not give you the satisfaction of a grovel. Who gave you the names of the others? Coonka I’d wager. I knew some day that man would spit it all out…Well no matter. I stand here as an honest man, ready for an old fashioned honest duel.” Ilm let out a gasp. Entirely without meaning to, he had repeated the last words of Calhoon Mons.

Veka brushed his feet against the ice in front of him, probably to test it. At least what they said about Veka being a man of few words was true. His ability to kill, Ilm was about to confirm. Looking closer he noticed a bandage under Veka’s jaw, and it looked like Veka had a black eye as well. He had been hurt before. For the first time, Ilm felt a trace of hope. It showed that no matter what was said of Veka, he still could bleed.

Ilm examined Veka’s stance. It was not one he recognized, but it looked a bit tighter than he would have expected. Veka circled around Ilm with his slow and deliberate steps, remaining just on the border of Ilm’s range.  It seemed he wanted Ilm to make the first move. A common sentiment when fighting a man who possessed the coveted ability to accelerate.

“Don’t be fast to hit first,” Ilm could practically hear Markam barking from his memories. “You’re both tittering on the edge when you fight a man who can accelerate too. Get ‘em off balance, make ‘em drop their sword. You come at them too hard and they’re on balance and BAM!  You ever seen lighting strike? A reflexive strike may as well be a damned lightning shard through your breast!”

Though mentally quite intense, a duel between two people who could accelerate erred on being slow and even a touch tedious to watch. Ilm supposed that during the great duel he had fought between Mons, that was why the demons had taken away their ability to accelerate. They had wanted a more engaging final fight.

Ilm adjusted the grip of his blade, then again, and then a third time. The blade felt a touch too heavy and unwieldly, and no matter what he did, his grip felt off.

“There’s one thing you might want to know,” said Ilm, allowing himself to lower his sword, “A flask of my vanna was stolen ten years ago.”

The slight c**k of his head was the only sign that Veka had heard what had been said. Ilm thought that Veka would retain his silence, but after a brief lull, Veka stepped backwards and at long last, he spoke.

“Tell me who took it,” he said in an accent Ilm could not place, “and I’ll let your maid live.”

Ilm practically dropped his sword. He had been so sure that no one knew he had taken his young maid as a lover and was at a loss at how Veka could have possibly known this. The words of the Jarl of Ulfgarn he had overheard about Veka rushed back into his head, “The Freckled Viper they’re calling this new Right Hand. He fights like a viper, yes, but he’s sly like a viper, can peg you like that, and knows how to snap at your soft spots.” 

“Not much time Ilm.” said Veka, speaking in passable Sythian. Then he lashed forward. At last, the experience of years of fighting that had lain dormant returned. Ilm blocked the strike. Veka pulled back at the last moment to keep Ilm from accelerating. Now moving on instinct, Ilm countered the relatively weak strike, but Veka leapt back, handily avoiding Ilm’s blade. There was a deep, haunting whoosh as Beastbane swung through the air and back to Ilm’s side. Veka’s sudden lashing movements, true to his namesake, were not unlike a viper.

“A thief, that’s all I know,” responded Ilm, now speaking in Sythian. He stole a glance to see how Veka’s feet were holding up, and Veka lashed forward again. In a conventional swordfight, Ilm would certainly have been dead, but Veka merely nicked Ilm’s shoulder, again just light enough to keep him from accelerating.

Ilm glimpsed red flecks on Veka’s sword that had not been there before. He grasped his shoulder in a desperate attempt to disprove what it could only mean. Veka had not only made contact, he had given Ilm a moderate cut as well. It was insanely difficult to so much as touch a man in a fight without making him accelerate. Veka was not as skilled as Ilm had feared. He was better.

There was not a trace of fear in Veka’s eyes, and though Ilm tried to tell himself that there was nothing to fear of death, his raging heart told him otherwise. To make matters worse. Veka seemed to be adapting quickly to the ice. He could continue to bait Ilm on and on without making him accelerate. Ilm had to try something bold and quickly, otherwise the fight would be lost.

Ilm backed up as fast as he dared. Veka pursued him, and just when Veka was within range, Ilm ducked and spun aside, expertly redirecting his momentum to increase his speed. Veka planted his foot in the ice to stop himself from sliding too hard. The thin spring ice spider webbed beneath him, and Veka’s foot went through.

This was his chance. Ilm charged forward concentrating hard. He felt the world began to slow, his perception changing. If he was looking in the mirror he would see his eyes changing from olive to bright blue. Then Veka’s face turned and Ilm saw his enemy’s eyes were shining blue, and his pupils were thin as a needle. Sly indeed. The shock of the ice water at Veka’s foot had made him reflexively accelerate. Ilm could not believe he had never thought of something like that. Veka was still stuck in the ice but in the act of accelerating, Ilm had made himself far too vulnerable. From beneath Veka’s sleeve Ilm glimpsed a switchblade. Without even a hit from the wintershrub, again memories of what had happened so many years played out before him.

Mons and Ilm were grapping. Ilm had already wounded the Swamplord but against all odds the Swamplord fought on with even more fury than before. Ilm’s right hand was around Mon’s wrist, keeping his enemy’s golden spear at bay. Ilm twisted both his body and arm and the point of his sword managed to find the vulnerable gap under Mons’ armpit.

He felt the Swamplord freeze, knowing full well where Ilm had him. Ilm did not hesitate and plunged the sword through leather and flesh, forcing the blade downward to hopefully penetrate ribs and go into his enemy’s lungs and heart.

Ilm then shoved Mons to the ground. He struggled back to full height ready to be set upon by Mons soldiers, but none came to the aid of their general. His duel was all but forgotten. The Balrinian line was pushing forward, practically having reached where he now stood. He took his sword by the hilt, and with a final primal scream he shoved Beastbane through eyehole slit of Mons’ helmet with the full weight of his body.

He did not feel flesh and bone breaking as they must have, but he saw splatters of blood squirting out of for brief second until everything below him was still. He yanked his sword out of the slit and let it go and the blade fell to the ground.

It was done. The Swamplord, the undisputed object that had fed nearly all of Ilm’s hate for years was gone. As he looked down Ilm had a strange feeling that he would not find anything inside, that what lay before him now was merely a husk of armor.

The battle had clearly turned the Balrinian way. He clearly heard the sound of Markam screaming. “AFTER THEM! CUT THOSE BEASTS DOWN! ARCHERS! ARCHERS!” Nallam half bellowing, half singing out “VAMPIRES! VAMPIRES!”  James let out an ironic scream of “FOR HOMELAND!” although those of the Bloody Six were the only ones aware of the hidden irony. Balrinian soldiers were rushing past him like a wave breaking over his shoulders. A few glanced off him, but it was largely as though Ilm did not even exist to them. In turn they barely existed to Ilm, all that really mattered was the suit of armor Ilm could swear was entirely empty. Completely and utterly empty.

Ilm fell to his knees and discarded his helm, exhaustion finally overtaking him. He had won. The possibilities were endless. He could become a powerful lord in the Balrinian court. He could retire rich and live fat off mountains of silver. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to lead the first successful Sythian revolt for independence. This and more the demons were fully capable of giving to him. Ilm had practically forgotten about the reward he had been promised. Though that indeed was the initial motivation of allowing himself to get into the game, it had been the prospect of vengeance that had driven him through it.

Now he was alone. His only company was what remained of the thing he had hated above all else.

He saw a blue pair of shoes at his feet and looked up. Twelve figures stood before him. All of whom were clad in a deep blue color and all with bright orange hair. The demons, or Wispkeepers, to use the silly word they referred to themselves as.

“Well played,” said one of the demons, a male one with a pony tail. He had not given Ilm his name and Ilm had dubbed him Skyker, after a demon of legend. “The victory goes to you and yours.”

The words “Thank you,” came into Ilm’s head, but not out of his mouth.

“You may negotiate the reward,” said Skyker. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that satisfies you.”

Remaining on his knees, Ilm looked numbly the body below him. Then at the twelve ghoulish grins above him.

“Well,” said the Skyker, “Tell us what you want.”

“I’m alive,” were the words that came out of Ilm’s mouth, “That’s all I want.”

“Done,” said Skyker, and with that the demons promptly vanished.

It had been one blink. All the pain and emptiness of that endless moment had happened in that one flash. Then Ilm was back in the cold. A knife had been thrown into his jaw. The force of the blade knocked Ilm out his acceleration and his head was flung backwards.

Then Veka was over him with his sword buried in Ilm’s chest. Ilm had not even felt it. The ice beneath Ilm broke, and the freezing water enveloped him, and through the dark liquid Ilm glimpsed that Veka was already heading briskly away with two swords and a knife in his hand.

In his final moments Ilm found himself thinking of Nallam in the aftermath of the great battle. He had lain in the corner of the boat, wounded and coiled in a ball, even more delirious than usual.

“All this has happened before, and it will happen again.” Nallam had repeated over and over almost as though he found the whole thing amusing, and then all at once he stared up at Ilm and whispered in a sad voice, “We will one day account for our sins.”