Master of the Sword
Master of the Sword
Elves are a race blessed by nature.
Not in a vague, poetic sense. The world's favor rests on their shoulders in ways both tangible and absolute.
So long as their feet touch the earth, they will never starve. They draw sustenance directly from the soil beneath them.
The beasts and monsters that prowl the wilds do not molest them.
But of all nature's gifts, the most remarkable was their power of concealment.
Thick summer green and ancient boughs erase their presence, swallow their silhouettes. Finding an Elf who does not wish to be found in the deep forest is a near impossibility.
Even Aslan would struggle to locate one who had truly set her mind to hiding.
And that was for an ordinary Elf. Fay was anything but ordinary.
His first disciple. The only Elf in the world who could truly fight. The only Elf who did not flinch from blood and death.
Aslan had taught his first companion everything he had to give. An Elf already gifted beyond measure at concealment, refined under his hand, had become something of legend—a presence that simply could not be perceived.
Which was precisely why he was approaching the slave-takers with an offer of alliance.
If Aslan committed every resource he possessed to the search, he still could not find Fay once she had gone to ground.
And they had been apart a long time now. Seven years. Even for a race that did not age, seven years was no trivial span.
She might not recognize him. Even if she did, there was no guarantee she would reveal herself right away.
Aslan intended to act on certainty, not overconfidence. Caution was a survivor's virtue, and he was the finest survivor the world had ever produced.
And so the plan flowed naturally in a single direction.
A plan built on predicting what Fay would be doing right now led inexorably to one course: join the slavers first.
He did not expect it to go smoothly. Then again, when had it ever? He shook off the thought and stepped into the ruined village.
"Aslan, the guide's running for it."
"Uh, uhh... you see that bastard?"
The brigands who had been so obliging up to that moment turned on their heels and bolted into the village. Ereta and Angie tensed, but Aslan shook his head with a small, weary expression.
He could have put a dagger into the man's back then and there. He chose not to. He simply stood askew, hands on his hips.
And he was not the only one at ease. The nameless Elf girl watched the man flee while glancing at Aslan for cues. Angie snorted through her nose, looking purely irritated.
Ereta had already drawn two weapons and was spinning them idly in her hands. Then, from the direction the bandit had fled, people began swarming out.
Not a one of them looked whole.
Some had heads wrapped in stained bandages. Others were missing arms. And quite apart from their injuries, every scrap of clothing they wore was stiff with filth.
The most presentable among them—a man whose face was merely dirty rather than encrusted—strode toward Aslan with a heavy hammer slung over his shoulder. Aslan watched him come without expression.
This would be the slave-takers' leader. The chief spat a thick gob of phlegm onto the ground and spoke.
"So. You're looking for investment?"
"I am."
"You got money to invest?"
The chief's eyes rolled as he said it. Those filthy pupils crawled slowly over Aslan.
One arm missing. The padded armor and clothes he wore were little better than rags. Dark, caked bloodstains told the story of a hard-fought battle and left Aslan's exhaustion plain to see.
"Don't look to me like you've got money. Or anything."
The chief grinned. Aslan received that unpleasant gaze and drew the purse of gold he had taken as an advance from his belt.
The man's eyes tracked it immediately.
The heavy clink of coin shifted inside the pouch, and the man's expression tightened an instant before it smoothed over into an oily smile.
He would have realized it by then. Even if the purse held silver or copper rather than gold, it represented a fine piece of income.
"A mix of gold and silver, but if you don't care for the coin..."
"Coin's coin. If you're offering, I'll take it. But..."
His gaze slithered sideways. Aslan watched it slide past Ereta and settle on Angie. Carnal hunger glistened in the man's eyes. Angie's face twisted with disgust as he licked his lips.
"Do I really need to take it?"
As if that were the signal, the slavers behind the chief began to move. They fanned out into a loose encirclement and drew their weapons. Aslan lowered his gaze, let out a slow breath, and tucked the purse back into his belt.
"Simpler to just kill you and take it. Lucky for us, we're hungry. All kinds of hungry. String your corpse up outside for monster bait, keep the woman and the coin—how does that sound? Pretty boy."
Aslan's voice came low, almost gently chiding, as his hand drifted toward his belt.
"Is there no resolving this without a fight?"
"Could be. If you'd like to drop dead on your own."
"Even if I told you I was the Master of Combat?"
The Master of Combat. There was not a soul in all Geladrion who did not know that name. But despite the title, the wounds marking Aslan made him look like easy prey.
The bandit chief pretended to consider it, then laughed.
"So if I kill you, does that make me the Master of Combat? I like the sound of that."
Aslan's expression grew complicated as he lowered his eyes. He took his hand away from his belt and reached back instead. Ereta, who had been a heartbeat from hurling the axe in her grip, stopped cold.
Without looking behind him, Aslan spoke.
"Kill me, and I suppose it would. Fine. I understand. You'll have what you want."
He spoke the words quietly and then walked forward as though strolling. His hand moved toward his belt at a deliberate pace.
The motion was slow, and yet something seized the eye. Something that sent a chill down the marrow and made a man swallow against his will.
The moment the chief understood that the thing he was feeling was the killing intent of the Master of Combat, Aslan dropped his stance.
Survival instinct screamed. The chief's weapon came up on pure reflex to block.
Aslan moved from his lowered stance. Three meters of distance. Plenty of space by any sane measure, and yet Aslan's body blurred faster than the eye could follow.
The acceleration was impossible for a man missing an arm.
He had collapsed his knees to sink his center, and before the eyes tracking him could comprehend what they were seeing, he closed. Power surged from the dropped stance, knees driving, feet tearing up the earth as he launched forward. Through the spray of kicked dust, Aslan brought the flail up on a diagonal slash.
The bandit chief felt death coming for him. Four iron weights stained deep green, moving at a speed the eye could not register, felt as irrevocable as the grave. He was going to die split from jaw to crown without ever knowing he was dead.
If no one had intervened, that is.
A sharp clang rang out as chain tangled with chain, iron with iron. Aslan registered with a flicker of surprise that his flail had been checked, then he saw who had blocked it.
A man of vaguely sinister aspect: deep-set eyes beneath a heavy brow, a high-bridged nose, a thicket of unkempt beard, hair cropped short at the jaw.
A man in his early forties at most.
Aslan recognized him.
And the man recognized Aslan in turn.
With a rattling hiss, Aslan drew the slackening flail back and returned it to his belt.
"...Dmitri."
"Aslan."
The man smiled—a chilling expression that suited his sinister features perfectly. He looked at a glance like a serial murderer. In truth, he was someone Aslan knew all too well.
The former Master of the Sword.
A man he had fought alongside, and against, on more than a few occasions.
A mercenary of considerable renown.
Dmitri.
Aslan looked at the beaten bandits mixed in among the crowd and recalled what they had said earlier.
"A skilled bodyguard." That had meant Dmitri.
"Dmitri! What took you so long! I nearly—"
"Ah, and here I am, right on time to save your life. So put the nagging away."
The bandit-cum-slaver chief barked at him, and Dmitri shoved the man aside with an irritated look, thoroughly fed up. The chief staggered backward.
"Besides, I was busy beating monsters to death until just a moment ago. Man can't survive a day in Randy Gorge without me, and all he does is run his mouth."
Dmitri chuckled, the mockery pointed and deliberate. The chief's face flushed crimson, and he trembled with mute fury, but he did not dare speak.
"And anyway, if you're stupid enough to pick a fight with the Master of Combat without recognizing him, you've got no grounds to complain if you die. Isn't that right, Aslan?"
"Don't act like we're friends."
"Acting like friends. You know full well this is just how I am."
"...True enough."
Aslan knew Dmitri well.
Just as the man carried a crimson longsword in his hand, he carried the name Red Blade.
Though not simply because of the color of the kal he wielded.
"So. Did you come to kill me?"
Dmitri was a battle maniac.
"I wish."
A severe case.
Aslan had fought Dmitri eight times over the years, and on all eight occasions he had beaten the man unconscious to end it.
Eight defeats, and because Aslan had let him live every time, Dmitri had come back for another bout after each loss.
And his blind craving for duels was not reserved for Aslan alone.
If any existence caught Dmitri's interest even slightly, he would challenge it to a fight. That was his style.
The death toll from that habit was not small, and so he was called the Red Blade.
Aslan glanced at that blade, still wet with monster blood, and spoke.
"No. I came to invest."
"Invest?"
"Yes. I heard you're transporting an Elf slave. It seems there have been complications."
Dmitri's expression went flat and bored. Aslan ignored it.
"I resolve that problem. I provide funds and force. In return, I take my share. Is that not a fair proposal?"
The older man's face remained unimpressed. He scratched roughly at his beard, then glanced over his shoulder.
"Oi. Mister Employer. Make yourself scarce. The grown-ups need to have a word."
"...Wh-what?"
"Don't make me say it twice. Want to lose an arm like this fellow here?"
"...You miserable son of a..."
Groaning, the chief took the measure of Dmitri's eyes and retreated. Dmitri leveled a similar threat at the lingering bandits and cleared them out as well.
He watched them vanish into the ruined village, then spoke with an air of supreme boredom.
"Good. They're gone. Now tell me the truth."
"You just heard it."
"Aslan, Aslan. My dear fellow... I like everything about you—the way you fight, the fire—but your tongue runs far too long. Everyone who's anyone knows you're not the type."
A dry chuckle. Aslan regarded the man through half-lidded eyes.
"Fine. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I've made it clear I know something's going on, and that ought to be enough to tell you there's something I want from you. Right? Which you'd prefer I didn't say out loud."
Dmitri wiped the smile from his face, and his expression kindled with killing intent and fighting spirit.
"Here's what I want. One thing. This time, you fight me until one of us is dead."
Aslan exhaled.
If he only had the man's words to go by, he might think Dmitri had a death wish. But that was not it.
The question must have puzzled someone behind him, because Angie, who had been watching in silence, spoke up.
"Old man, do you want to die? If you fight Aslan, you're definitely going to lose..."
"Who knows! No one knows! Maybe I get lucky and this fellow's wobbling, and I beat him down! And once I beat him down, I'll be stronger for it."
A war-loving grin. Aslan's expression soured.
"Or if it's not you, then that insolent Elf who took my title will do just as well. She's nearby, isn't she?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You think I'm stupid? Where in the wide world do you find a monster that fights like that? This isn't even the Southern Continent."
Dmitri spread a chilling smile across his face and flicked his sword. Gobbets of blood splattered onto the dirt. Monster's blood, unmistakably.
"Either she learned from Budongong down in Liam on the Southern Continent, or she learned from someone who did. There's no other way she fights like that. Right?"
Aslan set his jaw and said nothing.
Silent agreement. That Aslan was a disciple of Budongong was known to those who knew.
Dmitri studied him for a moment, then continued.
"You don't look to be in the best shape right now, and you've clearly got your own designs, so I'll say this plain. Whatever it is you're after, if you want to pull it off, you're going to need me to keep my mouth shut. Easiest way to do that is to kill me in a duel, don't you think? Although, granted, maybe you'll be the one who ends up dead inst—"
"This time, you really will die."
Aslan cut through Dmitri's blood-drunk rambling with a look of profound reluctance. The face of a man who took no pleasure in killing.
Dmitri had always marveled at the fact that a killer who hated killing could be so strong, and he regarded that fact as a mystery to be dissected. He was an explorer of violence.
"If I die? That's all it is. Means you were stronger. But isn't it just as possible that you lose and die? Means I was stronger."
When Aslan did not answer, Dmitri met his eyes with a glint in his murky brown gaze.
"Win or lose doesn't matter, my friend. What I want is to see your kal. I just want to understand how you became so strong."
Aslan felt the weight of that dense bloodlust and answered.
"I'll consider it."
"Considering won't be enough. You saw those men. They're too worn down and frayed to pull off anything clever. Their patience is gone. I don't know what you're planning, but... if you want to minimize 'variables,' you'd do well to accept before things go sideways."
Aslan thought the words were true. He could not go to Fay. The only way was to make Fay come to him.
And Aslan believed there was only one way to make that happen.
For that one way, he could not tell whether he had to accept this demand.
A duel to the death—a life-and-death contest. The kind of mindless, savage killing Aslan had never learned to stomach.
Twelve years of wandering, and he had never grown fond of fighting.
He swung to survive. And he could not see this as an extension of survival.
Yet it was equally true that he had no choice. Aslan was still deliberating when it happened.
Someone came running from deeper inside the ruined village.
The slaver-bandit chief.
"Dmitri! Dmitri!"
"Ah, what now. Something crawl out?"
"Damn right something crawled out, you fuck! What else would I need you for! Get over there and hold off that goddamn monster!"
Dmitri clicked his tongue at that, then put on another smile, close kin to a sneer.
"Must obey Mister Employer. Work first, then... Aslan, you coming? Weren't you here to invest? Gotta get in good with that sorry sack of guts, yeah?"
Aslan looked at Dmitri and his slimy grin, and he pulled the flail from his belt.
"Let's go."