Revision – 2026.6.29
Not merely an evil eye from the enemy this was, nor some cheap sleight or snare to distract us. Vicious this threat was, and instinctive, like a maw gaping open, ready in a blink to snap shut about our necks. Verily, “bestial” seemed the only description—as it pounced hither, through our knightly company, only to sic its fangs at me.
At once, I pushed aside the surgien; and in a slice of a second, the yet-unmarred of my arms drew and drave forth my iron sword. There was no time to aim; all I knew was that something was shooting straight for me. And indeed, it was: for in that instant, there appeared right in the path of my sword a daggers-swinging Nafíl.
“Wha—!?” yelped this “bestial” assailant, seemingly stunned at being hunted in turn as my blade bore down on its neck. Only, being merely the blade of an ungraced, the sharp iron found no Nafílim flesh to shear, but stopped powerlessly afore its paled skin.
Yet in the next instant, Tiselius, promptly grasping the grave situation, came in a flash of slashing silver.
“Seht!”
“Tch!”
The assailant, whose assault had ceased out of fear of beheadment, broke bitterly away from our midst, eluding Tiselius’ blade by a hair’s breadth. And with a sudden windless leap, the “beast” was back again amongst the other Nafílim.
“What was that? And how…?” hissed the assailant, from whose voice I then knew—and confirmed with a better look as the knights tossed torches about the ground—to be a girl.
Dubiously glaring my way, she seemed even younger than Emilie and myself in all our seven and ten years of age. In fact, she appeared a child yet, that the twain daggers she bore seemed too large in her dainty hands. The preposterous speed she’d displayed, however, was anything but childish.
“Rolf! Are you hurt!?” exclaimed Emilie as she scurried close.
“No more than I already was, nay,” I assured her, though the exertion left me hunching. “But such speed… She’s bolstered her body with odyl, hasn’t she, that Nafíl?”
“Verily,” confirmed Tiselius. “Be not fooled. This damsel is deadly.”
With that, the mareschal poised her weapon; and ensorcelling it with some odyl of her own, she set the blade aburst with sun-bright flame. Ever as it whorled up along the silver length, the blaze wuthered like a lion couched and growling.
“Igneō Trūdendō!!” roared Tiselius; and with a thrust of her thronging firebrand, she hurled forth a havock of hellfire long and lancing.
And then the stars vanished; the cliff faces shone; and as it pierced, the bladespell burst and flared, leaving in its wake red embers, blackened earth, and—“Aaagh!?”—a breach of burnt Nafílim.
“Scatter, scatter! if you would not be as ashes!” one amongst them commanded. “Scatter, and cut her down!”
With haste and no hesitation, the order was heeded: Nafílim dashed through the dark, blades flickering, and in half a moment, had Tiselius flanked left and right. Surviving her fury for fully a month had honed their edge.
“Not on my watch!” Lindell interceded; and taking the mareschal’s men in tow, he met the enemy blade-to-blade. A mêlée then erupted, stinging ear and air with a clamour of metals. But despite Tiselius’ bladespell having evened some of the odds, the knights remained soundly outnumbered yet.
“Hngh, ghrrgh!” they groaned and grunted, swiftly finding themselves on the defence.
“Sir Erik! Get aside!” shouted Emilie, springing away; and in place of a duly dodging Lindell was the glint of her silversword. Then, swinging and incanting aloud, “Fulgur Ferum!” Emilie let levin flash and fan forth from her blade, blinding the scene and spilling sparks every which way.
“Gyaargh!?” howled all at once a group of Nafílim, as they fell limp and fuming to the ground.
Elsewhere, I saw a wiċċa speeding a spell, his staff aimed all the while at a swashbuckling Tiselius. But in a billow of her crimson cape, the Hero-Dame darted nigh and dashed him sharply.
“Sah!”
“Ngrakh!?”
Already had the mareschal sallied alone into the deep midst of the enemy, having judged straightway the strength of Emilie and Lindell sufficient to hold the main fray. Then, brave after brave, she slew with swings and stabs that flowed like wind and water.
“Surround her!” cracked a shaky, disconcerted command. “Attack! All at once!”
But nonetheless obeying, the braves then beset Tiselius in a circle of enclosing swords and spears. As I saw her, however, the mareschal only stood serenely like a still, moonlit pool, even as a seeming storm was set to crash upon her. And in a flourish absent of waste and hesitation both, she brandished a full-circle sweep of her blade. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Levis Cremātiō,” I heard her utter; and in the next instant, my sight was consumed by a tower of flame rousing and rising asudden from all about the mareschal.
“Ghhooaa—” wailed the besetting braves, before falling silent when the flames swallowed them and left not a sign of their assault, save swirls of ash and smoke.
What tremendous might. Tremendous, majestic… and terrible to behold. By her blade alone were nigh-on thirty Nafílim felled here. And at that moment, I understood why this battle for the Erbelde had lasted so long, despite the mareschal’s prowess: for had she unleashed it fully from the outset, the Des Ailes would’ve been utterly destroyed by her hand, and the battlefield thus bitterly split by the Erbelde’s waters. And so hitherto had she kept herself sheathed, in hopes of a victory less vain.
Such was Estelle of Tiselius, the very mightiest of all the knightly lions of Londosius. Beautiful was her bladecraft, and cruel withal, truly like something conceived upon another plane. If I’d ever doubted the living legend before, who with but two others had fully defended our failing cohorts of forders, well, I certainly did not now.
But even as I watched her in wonder, a sudden consternation seized her face—a consternation which I shared immediately.
Straightway I swung my sword again. And once more did it stop abruptly afore a bare neck: that again of the eagle-swift Nafíl’s.
“Hgh!?” she gasped, before stepping aback quicker than a crossbow bolt. “…How?” she then said, drawing up her daggers. “How can you see me?”
“I sensed you,” I answered, suppressing my fatigue.
“…Fine enough,” the girl glared. “But why stop your blade?”
“It bloody stops itself.”
“Then let’s teach it some manners!”
With speed to appal, the girl then pelted hither and assayed another assault. Deftness possessed her daggers, whipping them into a ceaseless, slicing flurry. But for all her agility, I could see each swing yet, and so dodged them despite my hurts. That is, till—“Anggh!?”—I groaned, grating and gnashing my teeth. If deftness was in those daggers, so, too, was odyl. And aface it, I was wholly defenceless. Dodge the blades as I might, the odyl draping them would find me soon or late, as it did now, slashing free the splint that was about my broken arm—and clawing across my bosom a line that burst with blood.
“Rolf!!” shrieked Emilie from afar.
Aback I staggered. And at the soonest, I readied my sword. But ever as my lungs hove and my muscles rallied, I felt my shorn flesh sliding against itself. Not unto my sternum-bone did the wound run, it told me, but it was quickly coldening: blood was pouring from it horribly. Frankly, this was a surprise; I hadn’t realised so much red remained yet in this spent body of mine.
But all that might not matter, as my vision soon started to throb and blur. Not good. Not good at all.
“What?” muttered the Nafílim girl. “Why didn’t you…?”
Doubt darkened her face once more. Like as not, she’d never in her life crossed so unpaled, so odylless a Man, if I had to guess. But at that moment—
—Bwaaoom!
The air brightly boomed.
—Bwaaom! Bwaaoomm!
It was a gong, struck now three times from elsewhere deeper in the garrison. To go by the frustration next filling the Nafílim girl’s face, it was a signal for retreat.
“…Curses!” she rasped.
“Well? The curtains seem to be closing,” I noted to her, breathing hard.
“’Twas a play too-brief,” she remarked.
“High time you exited stage, isn’t it?”
“Might we meet again?”
“The playwrights willing.”
With that, she fell quiet. But with her comrades behind all abandoning battle and bolting away, she gave me one last glare, and then vanished.
At once, I buckled to my knees. Blood was spilling. Everything was getting chill. No more fight remained in me. Another step, and I really might swoon then and there. But shakily sheathing my sword and seeing further inside the garrison, I beheld the Nafílim host hurrying aback to the far rear. The retreat seemed true; the day, then, was ours at last.
“Rolf, Rolf!” screamed Emilie, racing back to my side. And beholding my bloody person, her face whitened with horror. “O-oh no… you’re…! S-surgiens! Surgiens, anyone! Come quick! He’s fading!”
Fading was right. My mind, my eyes, wandered. And there I saw Tiselius not too far away, turning to look back upon me in seeming concern. But when she did so, I perceived a little red light streaking down from the sky above her.
It was a fire-arrow. Albeit just one. Another “parting gift” from our fleeing foes, perhaps? Yet it was ill-given, as it smote not the mareschal, but the tent standing just behind her. And it seemed of the ensorcelled sort, for it pierced the canopy cleanly, before disappearing somewhere inside.
The other knights, seeing this, each sighed in relief, comforted to find futility in this final grudge of the foe’s. But that comfort would betray them.
Of course the arrow could not harm Tiselius, ensorcelled or no. The Nafílim knew as much. Hence had it been intent upon another target altogether: the tent itself.
Strangely now, my senses turned keen. My eyes searched. And seizing upon a gap in the pierced canopy, they scried crates weakly glowing therein. Crates of a sort I’d come to know too well; crates now many in number—too, too many.
I screamed.
“Este───lle!!”
At once, I sprang. And forgetting all pain, I sprinted to her. How horrible, how ghastly my face must’ve seemed; for when she saw it and was amazed, Tiselius straightway turned behind and discovered the source of my dread. And with equal desperation, and all her might seemingly summoned to her legs, she then began bolting towards me.
Nay. Her silver armour could not save her. Neither could the paling it provided, even. Heat and wind and shock knew them not. Were such forces thus to swallow her all at once from so hard-by, she might not live to see the next sun rise.
And so more desperately still, she raced to me, and I, to her. And in that moment, I saw the crates behind cracking with light. Knowing the Hell that was to come, I caught Tiselius as we crossed; and with her fast in my arms, I flung us both to the ground.
All became bright. But as it did, my mind wandered again; that even as I sheltered her person under my own, I wondered Tiselius and how rather small and fleeting she felt.
But next, the air boomed. Ears burst. An unseen force charged hither from behind and, with the weight of a titan’s foot, came stamping down upon my back.
And then, I remembered nothing more.
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Notes
Cohort
(Original language: Latin; cohors) In military organisation, a division of a Roman legion, generally consisting of 480 soldiers. In Soot-Steeped Knight, this is reflected in the cohorts of the Londosian Orders.
Fulgur Ferum
(Language: Latin; original name: “Fierce Volt”) “Fierce Lightning”. A levin-elemental ensorcellment and bladespell. The sword is imbued with a shroud of electricity. When swung, a fan of lightning is thrown forth, burning and shocking targets caught within.
Igneō Trūdendō
(Language: Latin; original name: “Blaze Thrust”) “Blazing Thrust”. A fire-elemental bladespell. The sword is wreathed with intense flames. With a thrust, an abrupt blast of fire is shot forth. A veritable shaped explosion, incinerating and blowing away targets caught within.
Levis Cremātiō
(Language: Latin; original name: “Levia Cremate”) “Swift Cremation”. A fire-elemental bladespell. The sword is swung laterally in a circle. From the ring-like blade arc erupts a well of fierce flames, instantly incinerating outside targets that make contact with it.