Chapter 8 - Blood on the arena sands (Rookie Games arc)

　　Cedric continued strafing, leading the battle farther away from camp, for the artisan and huntress, for their safety.

　　Bounding in like a berserker, the foe lunged into striking range, snarling a promise of doom and death. This was moving well beyond the point of a trial ground duel—it was life or death. It was in the eyes, the warrior truth in those dark eyes, wide with bloodlust. The raw hate in them.

　　Slabs of muscle tensed around the foe—this colossus of a rookie, endowed with preternatural strength from birth. Planting his feet and retracting his spear with a broad sweep, the meat of his frame seized and convulsed under the strain of backloading. A fiery barrage was to follow—Cedric could read the man`s intent, and it was maximal violence. No prevaricating, no feeler blows to gauge the opponent`s mettle. The match and the life of these two strident men would be decided in the coming round—the all-out offense of a stronger foe versus the all-in defence of a smarter man.

　　The foe unloaded, hauling his momentum-gathering spear from wide behind to wide in front of him, slashing in a diagonal path down on the buckler-wielding prince.

　　Cedric danced back and blocked, ensuring through footwork that the impact was minimal; the spear hitting at the tail-end of its range produced a weak and oblique strike... with the buckler sending it effortlessly glancing off. Coupled with the gem-enhanced buckler`s superior capacity to absorb damage, this would ensure easy blocks and no posture breaks. Then there was the skill of the prince to boot: Cedric had deftly gauged the distance between them, as well as the top reach of his reckless foe. The plan would be to hold fast behind the unbreakable bastion of his buckler, whilst constantly manoeuvring to maintain optimal range. He would strafe and dance and have the savage wear himself out. Then like a dagger he would strike, carving the yellow of his team in the foe`s burly midsection, in the corded muscle of his thigh, in the nape of his neck. It would hurt. It would hurt good. Cedric would make sure of that.

　　And so it went on—the tireless brute lashing with his spear, carving minute slices of wood out of the durable magestone buckler... and Cedric adjusting his posture and position. Meticulous in his execution, impregnable in his defence.

　　After countless barrages, the ferocity of the strikes began to wane. Then the frequency wavered, and soon the sweat-stained foe stood panting in abject sorrow—his failure to pierce the prince`s protective barrier reflecting on his stance, shoulders drooping in shame.

　　Cedric slid a wary foot forward in the sand, advancing on the man with buckler raised. If his warrior spirit had dulled, now was the time to strike.

　　In a flash, the foe`s eyes locked on to the prince. Dark sullen eyes streaking hate.

　　The prince veered back—just in time, as a spear soared high onto the face of his angled buckler, an upward sweep edging the projectile hurtling further skyward. Barely missing. It was a throw aimed to pierce his chest, bearing the weight of lethal intent.

　　"Grahu... Gruahaa." A battering of roars, each laden with agony and fury, echoed across the arena sands. The foe`s muscles, already taut from battle, swelled even further. His eyes blazed with the frenzied might of one driven past reason and reckoning. Past despair itself.

　　The foe began brutalizing himself, inflicting heavy blows to his own skull. Resonating thuds beating the symphony to his unhinged dance of pain and penance.

　　Blood showered onto the arena sands in thick gobs, streaming from his gaping jaw down; it mottled the brown of the shoreline a deep red.

　　When the foe seemed satisfied with the measure of his self-chastisement, he glared at Cedric with eyes that wanted death. The battle would not end until one man stood, and the other did not. Finality was inevitable.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it`s taken without the author`s consent. Report it.

　　Charging in a blood-hazed rush, the foe streaked a trail of blood in his wake. A straight-on attack. The prince held a defensive stance, dipping low and moving off-line to dissipate the impending force of the madman`s assault.

　　The first strike cracked down hard on the buckler, driving Cedric back, his feet lodging deeper down in the sand. Whirling in follow-up, the foe battered a second, third, fourth blow against the gem-enforced wood of the buckler—each punch thrown with such ferocity that it might shatter his own hand. But the man was too far gone to care. Perhaps the mad devil never had any reason to begin with.

　　By the fifth strike, the foe had lost his strong footing, his back leg slipping just a hair. Enough of an opening for the prince of Lothrian.

　　Baiting out a sixth strike, Cedric leaped upward, his shield hoisted high to meet the foe`s power, driving the bastard back in recoil. Darting in, the prince stabbed a dagger in mindful retaliation, grazing the meat of the man`s shin, drawing blood. A mere trickle compared with the self-imposed trauma the man had endured.

　　The prince rebounded, seeking the sanctity of his defensive bastion as he arced around the berserking foe, inviting further reckless strikes.

　　Another flurry followed—full-force blows battering the buckler pressed against the prince`s shoulder. And again there came a relenting, the foe sliding out in the slip of the salty sand. Cedric flashed in, delivering a diagonal slash that opened the man up from chest to hip. A shallow cut bubbling up a faint trail of red.

　　The pattern repeated a handful of times—a wild hammering of fists against the wall of wood, held steadfast against the shoulder-braced weight of the prince. Then a failure of the foe`s form, with the prince capitalizing in swift fury, striking at the feral heart of the man—stabbing and slashing, finding the etched grooves of previous lacerations and deepening them with scratches of yellow paint and sand and salt. The prince had taken the habit of scrubbing the blood-smeared dagger in the shoreline sand, drawing lines of war in the beachfront, to be sloshed away by the surging of the waves come tide. Rinsed from the earth like a stolen revery.

　　Thrown hopelessly off-kilter, the foe wavered under the heat, and the dance of battle was drawing to a close. Mournful wails spouted like blood and spittle from his mouth, seeking vainly for absolution or some sense of it—a wayward glance from the gods of war perched on high. But like all men broken in prayer, nothing came to meet the offering of hope one-for-one, no exchange and no parting grace.

　　Cedric flourished into range, past the boundary of a glancing melee he had been made to honour. Thrusting forth with a hardened stab, the prince rallied to thoughts of death and despair—the very same that had surged to his own undoing in the realm and flesh of man... the far that had been so near, the noble and ignoble, land of Lothrian, home and hearth. He would be king one day and now he will never. The vanity of a fallen prince... he had learned from it. But had he really? Death had come and here he was, misshapen and foul but alive. Dismiss the reality of your own undoing—that is all he heard from his heart and wounded pride... and by god did he want to harken unto it, the beating-heart-rhythm of a lie so pure it soothed him the way truth never could. His skin was a virulent green, but his blood flowed blue—the royal blue of Lothrian. Not the gods themselves could change that.

　　Lost to ruminescence... that was Gael`s word for his pensive brooding, a wilful confounding of rumination and luminescence. Ruminescence. It was the word that bound him to the meaning of darkness and its opposite— the deep and harrowed thought that brought the light.

　　As a trance, the word worked its way into his core. Thoughts of Gael and the death he had given to the woman he would not admit he loved. Life and lightning flashed through the symbol stamped like a searing will of the dead into his forehead. The noble Blackrose crest. It lit up a royal blue, penetrating the scant barrier of rustic metal Gorkon had called a helm. The pain of his life and of his death sparked through him, his every fibre rattling with fear and with fury. With princely indignation.

　　This—all of this—had in a fickle moment transpired, all beholden to the realm of mind. But through the blue-blazing symbol, the pride of the prince forced its way to the surface. Wafting like a ghost in the breeze, Cedric saw his aura flow out, flitting and flickering around him; the hallowed spirit of his kin driven to the fore.

　　Mid-thrust, the dagger shimmered a royal blue, the feeble wood imbued with the force of Cedric`s family crest. And for half a breath, it was a weapon worthy of the name. It pierced the foe straight through the abdomen. The salt of the earth entered the wound—the dagger laced at the end with kernels of beach-washed sand. It was a fatal blow by all accounts...

　　All accounts save for one.

　　Death comes for all. And sometimes the reaper comes bearing gifts.

　　Death surge.

　　The feral beast gripped at the dagger lodged in his gut, still flaring a faint blue. He clenched a broken fist around the crest-infused wood.

　　"I am... Vol`krin. Beast... of sands."

　　The air swelled with the thick heat of a dead man`s vow. He would not die alone.