Chapter 22 - For blood and guts, begone with glory (Training arc)

　　His thoughts strayed at first, searching for something heroic or princely to say. That there is my buckler and I will have it back. Step aside if you value your life.

　　No.

　　Words would sound weak; the jeers, the derision... the stage had already been set.

　　A cautious approach. Then, when in range, he would fly out and rip at their dogged throats. Supreme brutal force was the only way left.

　　But as the prince walked toward them, the glare that they gave, these six pairs of eyes—evolved trench-worn goblins... it came close to unnerving him. He could override the impulse, though not without strain. It was the self-same phenomenon that kept the lorekeepers living, trekking with madmen day in and day out. The hatchling`s inclination to flinch or fear; or in reverse: the natural dominance of a higher-grade specimen.

　　And yes, in a truth best left unspoken, even the stalwart prince felt a touch ill at ease. But he could not bow down to greater authority; save for his king-father, there was none.

　　He would trust, then, in the thing he became when rage took over and reason died.

　　"Cedric, run!" shouted a female voice from behind the rugged bastards—a sweet, soothing voice stretched suddenly too thin. It was Linaria`s. She sat crumpled in a corner, near where the prince and the captain had shared their slop, their story... "Artisan had said you were without buckler—it had dawned on him mid-way through his mining shift."

　　"And you came to get it," said the short stout one to Linaria, the man still with that uncanny lack of muscle and non-muscle separation; he was all unbroken brawn.

　　"But we got you first, didn`t we? Heeheeeheh," chimed in the four-foot tower of flesh and bone—as adult a goblin Cedric had seen... save perhaps for the bone- warrior, who was uniquely menacing, below Gorkon only in sheer presence and terror.

　　The prince looked past the savages, and at Linaria. He needed to see it, had to gauge for himself just how low these evolved bastards could go. Blood dripped from wide long gashes on her forehead. She held back tears but only just, and why should she? He was himself about to cry. Not in frailty, nor from failure. But tears of injustice—see the world in all its wrongs, make a sliver more right.

　　"It don`t come off mwwuuuuu," said the compact one again, "we scritsch scritsch scratch but is still there, the mark eheejeeee."

　　"We don`t have one," said another bastard who looked plainer than the two main ones. "So why should she??"

　　"Cave in that pretty skull," said yet another, "then she won`t have no more what we don`t."

　　Linaria started full-on crying now, and the prince too shed a solemn tear. They had harmed one of his and now they would pay—blood would not be enough. He would batter them to ashes and eat the ashes; it was sick and twisted and it was right—to his mind made goblin it was, the deviant sense of violence it now yearned for. And that way, these wretches would forever be part of him, fuel his further vengeance against an unjust world.

　　"A sword," said the prince, his voice that ice-cold calm of the warrior-poet. The harbinger of bloodshed.

　　One of the bastards tossed the prince a sword and it did not matter who—they would all come to know... precisely what they had done.

　　"Hyekyek, try me first," said the short compact rat, the one-muscle-all-over man. He arced his blade overhead, traced a large and sluggish circle, the clean flow of steel forestalled—there was too much mass and it was getting in the way, the beef of his shoulder. A natural barrier.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author`s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

　　The prince pushed off, charged in a dead-hurtle blaze toward him, flashing his steel like his tears—for all the world to see and quiver.

　　No feeling out, no tentative nothing. The prince cracked down the sword and ah, it felt good in his hands. A tool fit for his wrath. But then the impact—the prince had slashed and the muscleman leaned into it, bucking full-force up with his intercepting shoulder... blunting the blow on the cast-iron of his spaulders.

　　Reeling back, the prince spun clear of danger—the foe`s counterstrike whipped scarcely past, the steel of his blade pounding the ground, grinding to a dead halt.

　　Whirling further away, the prince took to caution, changed into the head-on stance of defence—the two-handed grip he had once as a boy embraced, bouts against giants when he was but a squire.

　　He clenched both hands hard around the hilt, hellbent on retaining his hold, a jolting dullness spreading through his sword arm still. The clash had showed him; in mind he was back at the beach now, the blood-heavy sand below and the crashing of the waves, Vol`krin beating at him... and how frail was his form, fresh then from the egg. So great was the gap now—no, more massive still. There was no measure to withstand comparison, the strength of him and the foe`s, they dwelled in different planes.

　　The foe sliced his blade along the heart of the earth, grooves so deep they proved—I have been here; my blood and bones have roamed the halls of a hell-born life. The world remembers when the rest has gone. But no time for weary thoughts of legacy. Sparking up in a fierce assault and finding aim, heavy and ponderous the strike...

　　The prince gliding back, deft and precise and deflecting, all in a one-motion moment, streaking edge on edge, his blade and the foe`s, guiding it groundward. Another gash in ode to their remembrance—a joint thing now, the clash of wills that would live and wander. Ghosts trail in every step.

　　It was a glancing blow, but the prince was rattled. There was no hope for stalling—his body would shatter. Time was slow now; it always was. Blood coursing swift and his mind a-wander. Would he falter and find false sanctuary, beseech the brutes he had renounced? The ones up there, in the halls of heaven. Too high up or too uncaring. The fight was fought in the pit below. A fleeting glance is what he gave it.

　　He could hear them, the laughter and scorn—not a force of the divine but of green grizzled bodies. Six goblin bastards praying for his fall.

　　The prince felt a rage of blood and desperation, his symbol flitting blue but faint, the Blackrose dawning fell... though like his mind it wavered—was he weak or still mighty, a man of mettle or of virtue flawed? A mere dark animal tearing wild and with abandon. But lucid still, at least in parts.

　　Though the heavens were too far for him to see, there was something still between them. The world of matter—the high and low ceiling. The arena was a carved-out cave, a work half-done with rocks still dangling, low at the lining, the dull periphery.

　　Ever in backstep, so it seemed, the prince took the foe on a journey. Blocking the blows and bending, his own sword moving with the foe`s and not against. It was all he could do to reduce the burden, the fierce hard strength of the blade that bore down.

　　Dancing at as great a range he thought enticing—lure the fool in, a single stroke is all he would need. Beaten steadily back, the prince sometimes staggered. For true most times, but also for beauty, the drawn-out effect—focus on me and my abasement; the terrain is what will do you in.

　　When the far-side arena edge came close to claiming him, the prince gave a grunt—sold the act like a playwright would want. He stumbled back, collapsed on the cold floor, and oh, what a performance... the goblins they snickered in that crass shameless tone; Linaria broke out in a mournful sharp wail. Lamenting the loss of her liege now forthcoming, hanging dead in the air like a dark thing that loomed.

　　The foe arced in wide, sweeping the sword with his rigid packed shoulder—a hew from behind moving stark overhead.

　　"Stop..." pierced a call cutting swift through the laughter—a clear bell-like chime. But still sharp and commanding. It was one of the six, a female, the leader. The voice of some reason... though it dawned all too late.

　　KRSHHHING. Metal to rock and the clang was like death, a kiss or its promise. The sword had struck rock, carved a path through the hanging low ceiling... but the power of man had paled before the power of earth—that raw ceaseless something no one life could curtail.

　　The prince then sprang forth, his opponent still quaking...

　　It was a long deep thrust first, flowing through to a slice—the steel meeting flesh, a true ripping and tearing.

　　The foe groaned and choked on the blood he should cherish; it would be the last time in this body he had. The core of him fell out, gushing in dead hard abandon. The bowels of a beast on the bowels of earth.

　　Cedric looked at him, forced the foe into a final gaze—see this face and do well to remember; I will gut you again if our paths cross somehow.

　　The prince kept the stare till the foe`s eyes rolled back. A heap of old flesh, sagging in disgrace.

　　The blood would wash out; the cracks would remain. The earth that bore witness. The soul once more stained.