Icarus Awakens

The two combatants paused after the first strike, returning to just out of sword reach of each other. “Fated Strike.” Gadriel’s voice carried notes of surprise, but his form kept its defensive stance as he watched for another use of the powerful attack ability.

Heldren let out a somewhat humorous grunt. “I am free to use my abilities. Even so, you should not have been able to block that. Have you abandoned your development path?”

“No.”

“And you are level three?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Heldren swung his sword in the air twice while he thought. “A shame we have not had a chance to spar before this. Had I known you had some form of defensive feature that could counter me I would not have wasted the mana.”

Gadriel didn’t respond, eyes locked on Heldren’s torso as he waited for the next move. Without the use of his mana or primary ranged ability, he was forced into a reactive state. It was akin to when he fought against the ringcat pack, though his movements were less animated. This was a fight against a superior opponent, wasted or erroneous movement meant death.

Heldren’s sword hand twitched, and without further provocation, Gadriel charged in complete defiance of his need to be defensive. Leading with a raised shield, Gadriel intercepted a retaliatory sword strike and carried it forward. In the brief contest of strength that resulted, Gadriel dropped his sword and threw a punch that caught his opponent in the temple.

He was already backing up when Heldren swung out with his sword. The Tyrant blinked as he saw Gadriel holding his own once more. “You have lost. Clearly, you made use of Flying Sword.”

“If I had, this duel would be at an end.”

Heldren spat, then gritted his teeth. “How did you know to interrupt my charge ability? It has no tell!”

“You do.”

“Hraa!” With anger Heldren came forward, running with his blade held flat like a lance. It was easy enough for Gadriel to block, but the point of the sword pierced forged iron and kept going. Quickly, the Hero used his sword to cut his arm from the straps of the shield and it came away with some of his blood.

The Tyrant did not pause to remove the shield from his sword but followed up with a series of attacks Gadriel was forced to deflect with a sword now held in two hands. Every attack grew faster and faster, air blurring with the motion around the tenth slash. The building momentum would have proved deadly if Heldren was able to continue the pattern. When his feet began to slip in the mud from rapid repositioning he made one last attack and then stepped back to regain his balance.

“Damnable rain!” he cursed, kicking Gadriel’s ruined shield free.

“I should have noticed your sword. It is different from when I last saw you. A mistake that almost cost my life.” Gadriel was almost breathless from his desperate defense. That wasn’t carried in his bearing, both hands awkwardly gripped the blade meant to be held by one.

Heldren was almost as tired, a fact that didn’t escape his opponent. He pointed his sword to Gadriel though he didn’t move. “This fight should have been over already. Yield your cause and you might find redemption once the Tyrant is slain. I don’t ignore the possibility you could be under his control.” Gadriel responded by quickly kneeling and grabbing a handful of mud, now wielding that in his off hand. Heldren laughed. “Really?”

“Approach,” Gadriel replied, cocking the arm back and under his shoulder like he was about to throw a ball underhanded.

Instead of taking the bait, Heldren seemed to take offense to the threat of literal mudslinging and changed tack. “On your knees!” Gadriel’s body twitched for a moment but held its defensive position. “On your knees!”

Despite his struggle against Heldren’s ability, Gadriel’s body dropped to one knee. Twitching hands lost their grip on their respective weapons as Gadriel’s fingers arced almost backward in spasms.

“I gave you your chance,” Heldren said viciously, eyes fixed on Gadriel’s with an intensity that carried the active effect of his ability. “I am ending this.” He strode forward, bringing his sword up in an arc like an executioner's ax, then paused. Gadriel’s sword was back in his hand. Heldren couldn’t help but break eye contact. The Hero’s arm hadn’t moved, he knew it hadn’t moved. “How!?”

Free from whatever had been affecting him, Gadriel responded with an upward driving stab. Heldren deflected it and the two began trading strikes once more, though the Tyrant’s did not build up speed like before. Emotion had taken over both, leaving no room for further banter. It was most present on Heldren’s face, fury at having been denied a quick end to the fight again and again.

By the time the melee had passed one minute, neither had inflicted a wound on the other. The only injuries either had were from Gadriel, from where he had cut himself, and the forming bruise on Heldren’s face. Both were experienced in swordplay. When reduced to a test of arms alone, they were roughly even despite the level difference. Gadriel technically held an advantage with more mana remaining, only he couldn’t use it, and he was down a shield.

The duel paused again as both separated, tiring at the same rate and needing a moment to catch their breath. Those watching had also been holding theirs, several gasping as they remembered to draw in air. Heldren broke the silence again. “For the last time, yield. You have pushed me far. That is to be commended. But to best you now I will need to use powers that will leave you to either a slow or a terrible death. For a fellow mortal I hold these back, but you have pushed me too far.”

“I am prepared,” was all Gadriel said. He eyed the broken shield now far from where the two stood and then turned back to Heldren.

“Black Blade.” A nimbus of dark energy wreathed the Tyrant’s sword, extending only a few centimeters from the metal. The wide ring around them widened further as the onlookers recognized necrotic energy. Wounds inflicted by that were far harder to heal. Worse, the damage type weakened the afflicted, amplifying every other injury they had. Heldren was level 3. If the effect was the same level it would kill a normal man with a mere scratch.

Heldren didn’t stop there. “Thorn Shield.” His shield was suddenly covered in sharp nettles, red needle-like tips on green plant matter. Poison, no doubt. With one hand Heldren carried a mortal blade, in the other a source of ongoing rot. His image blurred again, wet ground thrown up as a trough was formed. The false image behind Gadriel carried only a normal blade and shield, proof it was some form of illusion.

Gadriel couldn’t block this time, but he could parry. The timing needed was measured in fractions of a second, requiring him to meet the blade in the middle of its arc, not before or after. He’d also need to know where the attack was coming from. It was impossible.

Heldren’s disbelieving roar was justified when Gadriel did it. The moment of sheer victory was marred by its cost. Heldren’s sword cut halfway into Gadriel’s and caught. Force from the end of Fated Strike wrenched it from Gadriel’s hand. Heldren caught up with his blur, looked at his sword, and screamed again. “How!?” Gadriel’s sword was back in his hand. Before, it was possible the Hero could have reached it in the span of seconds when no one was looking. Even now, no one saw the sword fly back to his hand, but it had. It was almost cut in half, but it had returned. “You swore not to use that! You have gone against your oath and yet this duel continues! How!?”

Gadriel frowned as he inspected his blade. “Surrender, and I may tell you.”

Heldren gritted his teeth as he looked to the sky for one moment. For no reason, he suddenly grew even angrier. “I will drag the answer from your corpse!”

Gadriel sheathed his sword and stood with fists raised. Heldren was beyond commenting on this, satisfied with having an easier time striking him down. Another Fated Strike could have ended the fight there, but Heldren didn’t use it for the same reason he didn’t repeat Voice of Command to make Gadriel kneel. The powers he’d chosen to use were explosive, capable of ending even other mortals of an equivalent level if they weren’t prepared. Such lethality came with commensurate mana costs. Like Rorshawd before him, Heldren had run himself down to the dregs of his mana. In exchange, he’d not wounded Gadriel once. That would soon change. Leading with a sword slash still burning black, Heldren brought himself right up to Gadriel. The Hero managed to dodge but caught the followup shield bash thorns and all.

What skin the thorns could reach turned yellow around the red marks left behind by them. Almost the color of jaundice, the skin burned as a poison began inflaming the area. Unlike necrotic energy, it did not affect the entirety of the host and could be cleansed more easily. Except Gadriel had no assistance in this duel. With that strike, Heldren had inflicted an inevitable defeat on the Hero.

Gadriel grunted and panted, trying to tamp down the instinctual panic responding to the introduction of toxin into his body. The sides of his chest close to the arms had been most affected, though injury had crept through the armor to strike at various places on his torso. Pain was not unfamiliar to the Hero, but he recognized the danger from the lingering effect of the attack.

Poison. It wasn’t a strong poison, not like something you’d see from a high level Rogue specialized in assassination or that dreaded class itself, but all poison slowly killed unless stopped by power or magical remedy. Heldren grinned when he recognized slight desperation peeking through Gadriel’s otherwise stoic facade. “You. Had. Your. Chance!” He said, each word separated by some form of slash or shield attack. Instead of making heavily committed strikes like the one he’d opened the fight with, all Heldren was trying to do now was touch Gadriel and feed the death growing inside of him.

Even those on his side whitened at the sight. Heldren had warned Gadriel, but these were powers few honorable people would use on mortals without exceptional cause. On the other hand, Gadriel was defending a Tyrant, so there it was. Poison didn’t change Gadriel’s skill. He jerked left to avoid an overhead cut while using the mud to his advantage to slide under the follow-up downward slam from Heldren’s shield. His chest was burning and itching, trying as much to break his focus as to kill him. Worse was the cut on his ankle from the tip of Heldren’s sword. The skin there was black, slowing his footwork.

Heldren began to occasionally laugh as Gadriel started defensively retreating, abandoning any attempt to stand against the Tyrant. His earlier fury had burned off as the fight became more and more one-sided. All the talent and fervor his opponent had shown in the opening moments, from deflecting two Fated Strikes to intuiting a hidden charge attack, melted away when the first solid hit had landed.

It was arrogance, Heldren decided. All arrogance. Who was this Gadriel Cross, exiled, honorless, and unnamed Hero, to not only challenge him but to give himself a handicap? An almost worthy opponent, he had to be honest. Had Gadriel used all he had in this fight it would have been far closer. There was always the random factor when it came to fighting another mortal, the chance of an exotic power catching you off guard.

Heldren’s eyes fell on Gadriel’s sword, still in its sheath. Even if the Hero used it to defend himself, even if he pulled off another ridiculous parry, it couldn’t do that more than once. The owner himself, now struck twice more by the shield and once by Heldren’s sword, was in a similar state. The question of how Gadriel had returned his sword to him itched at the back of Heldren’s mind as he forced the duel into its endgame, until he had a thought.

Heldren paused, Gadriel backing away but not running once it was clear Heldren would pursue. “It’s another feature. You have another feature that can return your sword to you. That was your trick, make me think you couldn’t do it, and then spring that on me. Clever, but your gambit has failed.”

Gadriel coughed as his struggling lungs attempted to recover. Necrotism was worsening the poison infiltrating his chest, sapping at the diaphragm and muscles used for inspiration. The words Gadriel spoke were evidence of how close to death’s door he was. “An ignoble twist, perhaps, but not a lie.”

“It is a shame the Tyrant has used you thus.” Heldren spoke more to his audience than Gadriel. He was essentially monologuing, a trope those of the Hero class knew they were prone to, but what was the harm here? He could stand there and watch Gadriel die if he wanted to, and that would benefit his image more than delivering the finishing blow. Unless Gadriel forced the issue. “Take this one last chance at salvation,” he said imploringly, cape suddenly billowing in the wind as he leaned on Mantle of Inspiration. “You can still be saved. We have with us healers and potions. Just surrender, and we can reverse what has been done to you. All of it.”

With a trembling hand, Gadriel drew his sword. Cracks in the steel had spread from where Heldren’s had bit into the spine of the blade. “Really? Is this how you wish it to end?” Heldren shook his head but did not advance. “Well, better than let this slow death continue. If you do not wish to be saved, then at the very least a merciful death can be granted for one so earnest in their beliefs.” The black aura of Heldren’s blade flickered out and the poison nettles retreated to emphasize the point. “Misguided, though they were. Come and seek your death.” Heldren frowned as he saw Gadriel’s arm begin to pull back. Was he really doing that? Defeating Gadriel was one thing, but seeing what the Hero was about to do, and the consequences of it, filled Heldren with genuine pity. “Sir Gadriel, do not throw away your honor now. This fight is-”

Gadriel hurled his sword at Heldren, who neatly side-stepped it. His eyes tracked the blade as it sailed past, wary of it returning to strike while his back was turned. Of the Hero himself, he paid no mind. This was the last desperate attempt of a near-broken man who had decided to throw away his class along with his life. The only danger was in ignoring the sword as it returned… as it returned?

Heldren had only a fraction of a second to realize what Gadriel had done before the Hero had closed the small distance between them. Features did not always need to be used, and in this case, the Hero had opted to throw his sword normally. The broken blade sloshed to a stop in the mud behind Heldren. But Gadriel?

With a wordless battle cry, Gadriel charged Heldren, made a fist with his hand, and drove it up underneath Heldren’s chin. The force of the blow was enough to lift the Tyrant off the ground. The earlier blow to the temple had carried a similar strength and did not incapacitate Heldren. But in this one moment, Gadriel had caught him completely off guard. It was all he’d needed.

Like his injuries did not exist, Gadriel followed the rapid punch with a left cross, then a right overhanded blow to avoid the shield Heldren was attempting to raise, and then- It was an effortless combination of strikes tailored to keep Heldren disoriented, preventing him from recovering a defensive posture.

The rhythm of the strikes was regular enough that they could have made music were each its own note. The percussive melody was just the same Gadriel had used on the ringcats, with fewer throws and more hammering on Heldren’s face and limbs. If the Tyrant tried to use his sword, Gadriel punched him in the face while moving out of the way. If he tried to speak an incantation, Gadriel would use it as an opportunity to attack an arm before punching Heldren in the face. If he tried to use his shield, the Hero would mix in the odd roll before punching Heldren in the face. Of all the Tyrant’s body, his head was taking the most punishment

The turn in the fight had come so suddenly that not even those among the Tyrant’s forces who might have intervened did. In one moment Gadriel had gone from nearly dead to in complete control. Inevitability had been shrugged off of his shoulders and beaten into Heldren. The Hero arrested his assault for nothing, for he had only this one chance. If Heldren regained his guard, he would have a chance to deliver a finishing blow.

That would not come to pass. With one final uppercut mirroring the blow that had begun Heldren’s downfall, Gadriel knocked the Tyrant fully back to land heavily on the ground. Heldren did not get up.

Gadriel held his shoulders up for three more seconds before he leaned forward, once more feeling the weight of his injuries. The man did not look as feeble as he had earlier appeared, though the poison and necrosis were still running through him. None of that was present in his voice. “Hear me! Sir Storm has been overcome. By your oaths sworn in agreement with the terms of this duel, I demand your surrender to Commander Murdon.”

Instead of outrage, the first response to this was awestruck as someone in the crowd cried out, “How?!”

Gadriel forcibly straightened himself. “See in this duel an example of my driving force! My Heroic philosophy! Might over magic!”