by Jeff Wilson
deeper.
Beonen seemed to realize this, but it only stoked his fury as he retreated. “That was your only chance, Aisen!” he shouted, making the acknowledgment that his brother could have killed him, but refusing to allow that this insight ought to change anything. “You will regret wasting it.”
Proving the sincerity of this threat, Beonen attacked, giving no heed to the wound across his chest. As his brother struck once more, Aisen felt something behind the frightening speed with which the fencing sword came slicing through the air. He had felt it before, but this was different. Not different in nature, but in degree. Beonen’s sword strikes were infused with the addition of some unnatural force, delivering far more power than Beonen was capable of producing with technique and strength alone.
Aisen could feel it intensify and build beforehand, each time his brother attacked. More curious to Aisen, he could read in the moment before its release, the direction in which the built up energy would travel, and he knew the precise path which Beonen’s sword would take. He read all of this, as though he were seeing a glimpse of what would happen. Guided by this awareness, this ability to see the perturbed forces Beonen was creating, Aisen was able to anticipate each attack perfectly. He could sense the energies right up until they were released at impact whenever the blades crossed, at which point it became simple power, which mercilessly transferred down the length of his sword, through the hilt, and into his frame. Aisen struggled to handle the shock as he met each blow.
Beonen did not stop; he kept hammering at his brother, never giving the slightest pause, possessed with a determination to wear his opponent down. Aisen was a strong man, and accustomed to intense combat, or he would not have been able to mount a defense against the violence his brother was raining down upon him. As it was, Aisen could do no more than retreat. The attacks came in such a rapid succession, and with such force, that even knowing where his brother would strike next, there was no time to attempt any sort of counter.
There was madness in Beonen’s expression as they fought, and after a while, something else as well. His eyes began to appear dull an unfocused, but he did not slacken his pace or the strength in his attacks. In time, he did begin tire, though not so much as he should have done. In considering the exhaustion that Beonen should be experiencing, the same exhaustion that Aisen himself felt tread over with after so much sustained fighting, Beonen should have been out of breath and out of strength.
Eventually, Beonen stopped. Aisen, who had been forced to step back unceasingly under the barrage of successive attacks, continued moving away several paces before he realized that his brother was no longer advancing. Across the distance, he could see that Beonen, who was trying to control his breathing by taking in deep measured breaths, had been worn down, and was using this time to recover. Aisen though, was worn out. He had withstood a violent beating. His hands and arms, his shoulders and his back, all seemed to recoil at the prospect of absorbing even more damage once the battle resumed.
Inspecting the borrowed sword in his hand, Aisen noted that its appearance closely resembled how his body felt. It too had taken a beating. It was a testament to the craftsmanship that had gone into this simple weapon that it looked no worse than it did, but it had been severely compromised. It no longer carried a straight edge, and had been warped by Beonen’s attacks. Though Aisen had parried as often as possible only with the flat of the sword, along its edges were numerous deep gouges, mainly concentrated nearest to the hilt where Aisen had received and deflected some of the attacks. It was practically useless now as a cutting weapon, and completely beyond repair.
Aisen looked to Beonen’s weapon, expecting to see similar damage, but saw instead only clean edges and a dull red glow, as if the weapon had been heated by the repeated impacts. He thought then at how he had laughed when Beonen had worried over causing damaged to the Sigil Sword, and began to understand where those concerns had come from. He considered for a moment, whether this pause was the opportunity that he needed to get the ancient weapon free from its scabbard. He began to move his free hand closer to the hilt of the Edorin Sigil Blade, where it was belted at his side.
Beonen noticed, and took a step forward to discourage his brother. The red heat in his fencing sword had faded, and with it had gone the vacant look in his eyes. The rage too, seemed to have dissipated. “That weapon is mine by right,” Beonen said.
“Not by right,” Aisen answered. “It can no more be yours than it was ever mine. It will answer to no claim of ownership, and cannot be gained by forcible seizure. If you should take it from me, it will be of no use to you.” He was repeating things he had once been told by his father, things he had understood then no more than he did now, but Aisen felt and firmly expressed the truth within these words. Beonen would not be capable of wielding the sword.
Visibly agitated by this declaration, Beonen made a pointed response. “You admit then, that it is not yours, and that it does not belong to you?” Beonen could not refute his brother’s words of rebuke, but he had heard most clearly Aisen’s admission that he too was unable to wield the sword. That thought comforted Beonen more greatly, than did the truth of his own unworthy state give him pause, in his desire to take the weapon.
Ominously, Beonen seemed to grow calm. “It is time we ended this,” he said, and crashing forward he moved to make good on his promise to bring the fight to its conclusion.
The first attack knocked the damaged sword free from Aisen’s hands, producing echoes through the chamber as the metal rang against the marble floor. Aisen caught the next attack on a reinforced part of the armor on his right arm, a ridged section of rounded heavy plating that served him now as a small improvised buckler. Beonen’s strike deformed the metal, pinning it inward, but the chopping attack did not penetrate all the way through. Beonen wrenched the weapon free and struck two more times, turning the plating into a misshapen mess. Fearing that his defense would fail with another attack, Aisen stumbled backwards blindly, trying desperately to get out of range.
Beonen lunged forward at his brother, aiming the point of his blade at his brother’s heart. Aisen could feel the infusion of power. He would have expected against an ordinary opponent, that upon being struck by such an attack, that the tip of the incoming sword would glance harmlessly off of his armor, but Aisen knew that if he did not step aside, that the point of Beonen’s sword would penetrate the heavy plate. If he took this strike, he would die.
Unarmed, he had no means to even attempt to knock the attack away, and if he evaded, he would still be vulnerable to a follow up attack. Even after having recognized what was coming in advance, there was hardly any time to step clear. He did not need to get completely free though. He had a desperate plan, and he was going to make it work. Aisen took the attack on the far left side of the broad chest plate of the armor. Beonen’s sword pierced cleanly through and continued on out the armor on Aisen’s back. Aisen had wanted to avoid injury, but he had not been quite as precise as he had hoped. Beonen’s weapon made a shallow scraping cut across his brother’s chest beneath his left arm.
Aisen turned his torso sharply, pulling the trapped blade free from Beonen’s grasp. Within that same motion, Aisen struck out with his right hand, catching Beonen in the throat with a gauntlet covered palm. Beonen dropped to the ground immediately, making choking sounds and bringing his hands to his neck, struggling for air. Beonen’s sword, though it had not cut deeply, was still locked in place through Aisen’s armor. Intensely hot, as had been suggested by the red glow which had been visible during the fight, it was impossible to remove, and even more impossible to ignore as the blade painfully continued its work, burning away the skin against which it was making contact.
Beonen had brought to bear overwhelming force, but in spite of this, as Aisen thought about it now, though no one else watching the fight would have agreed, he told himself that his brother had never truly stood a chance. His brother had not understood combat,
in the way that only a soldier does.
Aisen moved to support his brother, intending to prop him up, and help him regain his breath, which was coming to Beonen in startled fits that left him unable to recover from the shock of having lost. Maybe now he could convince Beonen to listen.
His plans, such as they were in that moment, were cut short. From behind him, Aisen heard one of the young nobles drawing his sword. Upon turning to face him, he could see that it was the son of Baron Gensaer. Aisen recognized the man by his short height and sharp features, and even more by his uneven temper, which was currently on display within dark close set eyes, staring out from beneath a deeply furrowed brow. The emblems showing a green tree against a white background decorating his sleeves were also definite hints to his identity, but Aisen could not quite remember the man’s name.
“Stop, Hathim!” Aisen said, guessing at the name, which he thought he might have half remembered. The guess was either accurate, or close to it, because Hathim stopped, and did not try to correct Aisen.
“I won’t see my family lose what honor it has left, by swearing oaths to the half-blooded spawn of
