Chapter 33 - The fight and the slight of a champion (First Evolution arc)

　　The first five had fallen in shameful fashion—the prince derived no joy from seeing them wilt under his gaze and steel... no, wood. They used training swords here, in the rookie arena.

　　A single slash each, then some half-hearted kick or push—that had proven sufficient for thirty-six and co. Now thirty-one was up, his own number previously, before the prince had learned that climbing ranks was for the lesser ones only. Those soundly beneath him and his god-blade-given mark.

　　Thirty-one was small, even for a rookie, and not too fast either. The prince dodged his blow, moving under and staying close, shoving the man lightly aside, though he proved a fool who had no footing—he was sent flying to the oohs and aahs of the captive crowd... rookies that did not seem to gather they would be next.

　　Soon they came at him in twos, then in threes, with the watchman shouting slights and strategies at the befuddled men—the prince was to them an unconquerable giant, his strength that of a god in comparison. Hardly ever did the situation call for more than a single swing of the prince`s wooden sword—it broke the guard of whichever unfortunate rookie was on the receiving end.

　　And though this was sound practice for his princely ego, which had already grown to untenably large proportions... this training did little for the honed body of a second-grade Blackrose goblin—he was not receiving the stimuli for growth, for he had figured out, he thought, what experience meant, and what gaining it felt like. There was this strange sensation at the back of his head, a low pleasant hum that occurred, as though the spirits and cells cavorting around in his brain were finding out new paths to the well- mapped-out goal—the tactile pull of proper training. It brought that same sort of vibration each time, the oddly lovely sense of learning. Regardless of the specific impetus.

　　The prince had felt it reading Crucible, the refutation of his outmoded notions, how they ceded to higher truth—he had felt that happen in his brain and skull, the rumble of antiquated thought unravelling. Making way for something more enduring. The goblin truth of the matter.Then also when he had fought Uggon—he had been in real peril there, and it was his mind that told the body... here are the right feints that will lead to victory, and he acted out the plan envisioned. Reward had come rippling, the same felt strain in the back of the head, his goblin brain adapting. The accumulation of experience points. He could feel it, thinking back.And so too with his trip to the Tinkerers` Hall, applying tallow and beeswax with the shy goblin girl who had warmed to him. Both the calm approach and their tinkering efforts, every motion measured and exact... something real had been gained there. The stats could be counted, residing in the realm where magic and science collide. The greater intangibles were beyond the reach of all.

　　But this now felt fruitless by contrast, his self-assigned role as master duellist. The prince whipped twenty-two and twenty-one aside in a single swift cut, swords and bodies sent clattering together—another mismatch for the ages. He thought of Zazra, how lithe she had been and then how deformed. Made a mere instrument before the taskmaster`s despotic will—the force of a god gone uncontested. How he would show that rat who`s boss—a prince is no god, but higher still in merit and mettle than a cave-dwelling coward who takes only the title. A god without name, Faruikis the deserter. No, his time would come. Soon.

　　Though the prince tried his best not to harm, the rookies seemed keen on flying in at impossible angles, landing harshly from the tactful rebukes that held the might of a second-grade mark-bearing goblin—quite a mouthful of titles the prince had acquired. As above, so below.

　　"Gruh," the captain appealed against his men`s decision to keep funnelling more bodies into shameful defeat. He stepped up, and the stone-eyed plate-wearing watchmen walked with. They smiled at the prince, warrior`s tokens of praise, for they knew they would fall... but they also knew the prince was aware there`d be hell to pay first.

　　The prince swirled back, retreated to the rack to pick up a wooden shield—it seemed only fair to have full equipment versus two hard-lining veterans... rookies or not, these goblins could fight.

　　Barrelling forth with abandon, the captain hurled himself at the prince with a diagonal slash, sword on sword, then dipping low and vaulting, both legs upswung, pushing clear off on the shield before the prince could retaliate... for the watchman had joined with measured step to offset his ally`s feral footing; the whip he had ditched in favour of two short-bladed swords that he twirled high and low and at all angles, a mesmerizing dance of imagined steel—the finesse of his strokes, their unpredictability... it gave the prince some initial trouble, and Cedric`s body moved back so his mind could assess. The right window for a counter. There. Sweeping low with greater speed—he could crack hard through the twirling which was menacing only to those of lesser force. It was a gut check, and the prince would not fail.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

　　Bounding in from below, the prince bent to shield-height, relying on his forceful new legs to break past the barrier of blades—the watchman`s skilful all-in-one motion, attack and defence both... but all men yield to greater force, and the prince came crashing past, hurling in a momentous back-to-front sweep with the tip of his blade shearing the edge of the twirling blade-barrier... breaking apart the rhythm and then the stance of the wielder, the watchman sinking back in shame—the man stumbling only slightly at first, till the kick of the prince found his midriff, sent him tumbling wide. Bladeless in defeat and broken. The man did not get up.

　　Then the captain, leaping in again from the blindside, acting out the animal he was not—flailing crescent-shaped strikes against the vague form of the prince, the latter so elusive as to be functionally one with his shadow. Unassailably fast from the eyes of a rookie, no matter how great a warrior one might be. Nature is cruel and therein lied the commonality and difference both—we as goblins and men share with nature the basest of our inborn inclinations: cruelty is rife; it gives breath to hate and vengeance and in a sense to love, the dead part that comes after. The difference is we are boundless—there is no word that curbs the vile wants of the flesh; in love and hate we are unequalled. A tidal wave can break and an earthquake rests when the work is done. But man is unending. We are the plague and the great sundering. The rip-roar truth that will bear blood and linger; we will watch when the world ends and shall be there after. There is no stopping a mind that simply refuses. There is no give.

　　All this thought the prince as the captain pressed in again on his shield, grabbing hold and finding footing, aiming then to leap off and clear... but no, not this time. The prince gathered all his bulk and blitz behind his shield, battering forth like a one-man wall. Pushing harder out than the captain pressed in, forestalling the latter`s momentum. Floundering to a fall a foot or four away, the captain was left to the prince`s oncoming mercy—the second-grade body bending fell towards him, wooden blade scraping the earth to let the world know: here is where men make war. The captain gave a feeble flick of his blade from a lost position, and the prince beat it away, tomahawking the foe`s sword in some blind direction with the force of his own true-found aim.

　　The fight ended with the watchman broken still in the distance, and the prince standing over the captain`s writhing frame, a shameful clawing at the ground he owned or hoped he still did—the arena that knew none but the one. The victor.

　　But the fight is never ended. Not truly.

　　"Grruuhahaaaaaaa," exclaimed the raw voice from a new entrant, one clad in a cloak of bone and adorned in skulls that were the real dead deal, no token trinkets to impress. He was blood-mad, a misfit creature from the feral wastes, save that his talent eclipsed it—he was a warrior first, a champion undaunted. Worth too much to simply cut loose.

　　"You... bastard," roared he to the prince, and the latter pieced it together. The sword of the captain—the one the prince had unwittingly slung along some unintended trajectory... it had landed near the groundskeeper coming in, the hulking mass of third-grade flesh known simply, to him, as the bone-warrior.

　　Though the sword was of wood, and it lay harmless at the bone-warrior`s feet, it was the thought behind it that mattered most... or the perception of that thought, for in reality there had been none. And let this be a rare case where truth gives way to a stronger something—the notion of a felt disdain that cut like a blood curse so deep. The champion should be seen walking in; he expects it. The respect he is due. And be it wilful or accidental, his entrance had been sullied. And to sully a champion was to challenge him.

　　"I accept," said the bone-warrior, taking thunderous breaths, like a stallion who had gone too long without mare.

　　And his eyes shone of death and the brutal negation of fear; he welcomed it. There was nothing you could do that had not already been done—every sin and wrongful act he had taken in stride upon himself, laughing in the face of righteous penance, that noble concept of mind forever without form in this world. His heart was a mass of beating flesh and nothing more.

　　He advanced now on the prince, locked in motion and fight; his mind was an arena always. Here was one whose rage could match the prince`s.

　　Two hyper-charged anomalies yearning to clash.

　　The prince leaned back with the air of a regent, tossing the wood he called plaything, not weapon proper. He plucked a steel longsword from the rack, and its slice sliding out was divine. A shield too, for a prince fought with grace and not bitter fury, not alone.

　　"You will beg me," said the prince, adding fuel to the wildfire. "But I am without mercy for nameless dogs. Know that you fight the prince of Lothrian, Cedric of the Blackrose. That is my name and I call upon it. Let madness descend should I dishonour it."

　　And the prince, too, had the eyes of a beast enraged—the hateful fact that talk would not suffice... there had been no slight, but no sense in explaining it. Matters among men move beyond words before they begin. He was forced into this, a fight he did not want, though now he did. The inevitable collision made him captive, a slave to the situation in every sense and every scale. And gods... no, begone with gods... that made him mad.

　　So the doom-lit arena was transformed. It would end in the grave now, what was meant as a mere fencing match for fast experience. But so be it. Violence was a better lover than most; the prince longed for it, caressed it like one would a woman.

　　Then the prince set off strong, hurtling all-in like a hellbeast toward his hardest foe yet.

　　The air again wove electric.