The Arkanist

Fire Everywhere

 Chapter 4

Fire Everywhere 

Aera felt the icy lips of steel at her neck. Her spine lanced with a sudden chill, prickling the ribbed bones of her back. The chill branched like a lightning clap, the contorted fingers searing across her body. What was a split second seemed to trudge on through eternity and back again, until Aera breathed. In the second that she felt the steel lick and slid away, she jabbed out with her elbow and in one sinuous motion unsheathed her iron, castle-forged daggers. They were nothing special, just simple leather-banded hilts with a straight crosshilt and a silvery blade. The pommels were studs of iron, riveted with the crest of Sheon, a broken crown resting on the crosshilt of a longsword.

         Her enemy, whoever it was, was veiled by shadow, clutching his ribs, feeling the lingering effects of Aera’s jab. The man cursed, for it was a man’s gruff and deep voice that carried through the ashy murk. Sheathing his dirk, he drew out his longsword with a hiss of steel. Aera guesses he stolen it off a knight, for the blade gleamed in the dark shadows, rimmed with a gilded sort of light. There was magic in it, that was for sure. Not strong magic, not magic that could kill, but magic enough to defy the laws of creation. Aera would have to be careful.

         The man swung the blade with a barbaric style as he stepped out of the veil of shadows, revealing himself. He was scaled in heavy, rusted iron that screeched with his movements and a brown cowl that looked to be made of the very dirt on the ground. Nothing shone beneath the cowl. Worn breeches of stained roughspun were caked with scales of mud and his moleskin boots were lined with the thickest of furs. He approached Aera with a vicious intensity, somewhat mad and deranged.

         Aera flicked around her daggers, backing away slightly, the floor munching with the cracks of branches and leaves. She heard Aeron whine over in the glade, his voice pulsing through her ears. Stay strong, she pleaded to him. Stay strong. Strong was the armored man’s first blow. His longsword hurtled down at Aera like he was wielding a hammer, but Aera was quick enough to dodge it. When the man was heaving back his sword, she lunged forward with her daggers and stabbed at her enemy, but the gilded flat of the blade ripped past her face as she neared.

         As they fought, their steel and iron singing through the dismal and grim forest, Aera continued to step back, blocking the man’s heavy strikes. They were in the red, hazy light of the glade when Aera lost her first dagger. She blocked weak, and her fingers let the hilt loose, the point driving into the soft muddy earth without a sound. The pale red mists snaked across the ground as they fought, ash tumbling through the dark sky like grey snow, and the shrieks of ashens piercing the silence. Aera twirled fiercely with the small of her dagger, catching the man’s blade, but it didn’t break free of his gauntleted hand. Instead, it ripped out of hers, and she had to leap aside to avoid being killed with the next strike.

         Aera narrowed her eyes, those dark brown pits staring through the darkness, studying her opponent’s body: broad shoulders and burly arms, with a full chest. His legs rippled with corded muscle beneath those grimy breeches and another dirk at his belted hip. As a flake of grey, somber ash kissed her forehead, she sprinted forward. The man lifted his sword up over his head, energy building for a massive, crushing blow on the little girl. His rusty mail hauberk whispered in high chattering voices as she advanced, faster and faster, misty fingers curling around her legs.

         When the man’s blow came down, Aera dropped to her bent knee and slid through the mist and the mud, the blade driving into the floor with a soft chink. Aera whisked under the man’s spread legs and in a fast and blaring turn, leaped from the ground. As she sprang through the air, she drew out an arrow from her quiver and threw it into the back of the armored man, biting through flesh between the gaps in the iron plates. She heard a bloody cough splatter from the man’s mouth and he collapsed on his chest, twitching slightly as he lay in the hissing mists.