Enter Yours Truly, Desuwa!
The silence that settled over the square hung as heavy as the breath of some colossal beast. The crowd that had packed in to watch the duel at the heart of the city held its collective breath.
The splintered fragments of the shield hit the ground and clattered across the stone. For an instant, a flicker of dismay crossed Cormac's eyes.
Volgar, riding the same momentum that had shattered the shield, swung his axe at Cormac again — but Cormac twisted his body aside and slipped out of its path.
"So you can swing an axe that size, yet you couldn't even break a shield outright! Sergen brutes really are all brawn and nothing else!"
The crowd of Eisenfels citizens roared at Cormac's taunt as he wrestled his stance back under control. His movements grew faster still — if anything, the blow he'd absorbed at the start seemed to have set his blood racing.
Cormac, the sergeant, was it...? Useful. There's real potential in this one.
True to his place among the elite, Cormac turned crisis into opportunity. He watched for the instant Volgar's ponderous axe buried itself in the ground, closed the distance in a heartbeat, and carved his blade across the Sergen warrior's arm.
"Ggh!"
Blood streamed down Volgar's arm, but Cormac gave him no pause and pressed the attack. His sword split the air like a streak of silver lightning, and a second cut kissed Volgar's thigh. The roar of the citizens filling the square swelled louder still.
"He did it!"
"Eisenmark steel is faster than Sergen axes!"
"Cormac! Cormac!!"
Woldin, captain of the Royal Guard, looked visibly brighter, and I found myself clenching my fist without thinking.
But even bleeding, Volgar never stopped laughing. That grinning, teeth-bared face spattered with blood was the very image of a Berserker, and it sent a chill crawling down every spine in the crowd.
"Good. Now I understand how you dealt with Droga."
Volgar's voice was cold as a winter gale. A heartbeat later, the way he gripped his axe changed. He sank lower into his stance, and the moment I saw him shift his weight, something deep in my instincts began shrieking alarms.
"Danger——"
Before I could shout the warning, Volgar came hurtling at Cormac with explosive force. The axe whistled through the air, cleaving it in two.
Cormac reacted, hauling up his shield — but the blade that crashed against it cracked the wood down its face. The impact staggered him backward, step by helpless step.
Volgar's axe fell a second time. This time the shield couldn't take it; it split clean in two, and shards scattered in every direction. Dismay flashed across Cormac's eyes.
"Now I'll carve your head in two pieces as well!"
With that roar came the third stroke. Cormac threw up his sword in desperate parry, but he simply could not weather the weight and speed of the axe Volgar swung.
"Ugh—!"
His blade failed to catch the axe properly and was knocked spinning away. In the same breath, the sharpened butt of the two-handed haft slammed into Cormac's face. With a sickening crack, a deep wound opened across it.
Cormac reeled back, blood pouring from his face, but Volgar was already on him — one brutal kick, and the sergeant went down where he stood.
Crimson blood spread across the stone floor of the square. The citizens' cheering turned to silence in a heartbeat.
Volgar loosed a victory roar and drove his boot down onto Cormac's chest. The silence in the square deepened, and his laughter tore through the still air and rolled across it.
"By the laws of Sergen, I declare my rightful vengeance for my brother Droga's blood! I shall take this one's head as the interest!"
Joy of victory and the satisfaction of revenge warred across his face. He raised his axe high for all to see and bellowed toward his own delegation, and the Sergen warriors answered with a thunderclap of shouting and clashing weapons.
Woldin's face twisted with fury. So did the faces of every other guard.
Yet not one of them drew a blade. Behind the anger in their eyes lurked something else — a deep, creeping dread.
But why isn't a single city guard moving? They could just bury the guy under sheer numbers, couldn't they?
The answer lay in Katerina's memories, and in the histories I had read since waking up in this body. The culture of the North — a martial tradition nearly a thousand years in the making.
Ah. So here in the North, refusing to honor the outcome of a duel... brands you with an unforgivable dishonor that can never be washed away.
Centuries ago, Count Karnken had lost a duel, then used his personal guard to murder his opponent on the spot. His house was branded traitors of the duel and endured three generations of contempt, until the last surviving scion took his own life and the bloodline died out entirely.
In this land, a duel was far more than a pact to settle superiority by force of arms. It was a sacred rite in which two parties wagered life and honor together to prove the truth of a matter — or to settle a grudge once and for all.
"Is there no one left who will face me!"
Volgar ground his boot harder into Cormac's chest and swept his gaze around the square.
"Before I take this man's head — is there no warrior with the courage to shield him? To think the heroes of Eisenmark could be such cowards!"
Just as Volgar goaded the crowd once more, a young soldier pushed his way forward from among the guards. It happened in the blink of an eye.
"I am Mikhail! I will defend Sergeant Cormac's honor!"
The brown-haired youth — Mikhail. His face had barely grown its first whiskers, yet it was set with iron resolve.
"M-Mikhail! Stand down!"
Woldin shouted in a panic, but it was already too late. Mikhail was striding toward Volgar with his sword raised high.
The kid doesn't look a day over twenty...?
Volgar spared the whelp of a challenger nothing but a scornful glance.
"A child butting into the affairs of grown men. Very well — I'll send you to keep him company."
The giant Sergen warrior lifted his foot from Cormac and turned to face Mikhail. The butt of his axe-haft was still dark with Cormac's blood.
"HYAAAAAH!!"
Mikhail let out a battle cry and charged bravely, striking first.
First exchange. Volgar stood utterly unmoved and batted the young man's sword aside with a flick.
"So you've had at least some training, it seems."
Second exchange. Mikhail went for Volgar's flank, but the Sergen warrior blocked the blade with his haft as though he'd seen it coming in a dream.
"But you are small, weak, slow — and green as spring grass."
Third exchange. Volgar parried Mikhail's blade and drove a headbutt straight into the young soldier's nose.
"Aaagh!"
Mikhail shrieked once and crumpled to the flagstones. Mercifully, Volgar didn't finish him with the axe, so his life was spared — but whether the bone of his nose had broken or his teeth had shattered, blood was streaming down his face.
Volgar loosed a cry of triumph, and the Sergen warriors roared with him. Their howl crashed over the square like an avalanche rolling down from the snow peaks.
"Do you see, you feeble farmers of the south! This is the strength of a Sergen warrior!"
"Volgar! Volgar! Volgar!"
The citizens of Eisenfels, by contrast, had gone utterly silent. Color drained from the faces of the very crowd that had cheered so boldly moments ago, and every shoulder sagged. A few turned away, unable to bear the sight of the square any longer.
The guards bowed their heads like reeds before a storm. Their fists were white-knuckled around their weapon grips, but not one of them looked capable of taking Volgar alone and winning. The shields bearing the crest of Eisenmark drooped at their sides.
People avoided one another's eyes and stared only at their own feet. Some took a child's hand and slipped away in silence.
"No one steps forward. Good!"
Volgar's voice rolled across the silent square. He hoisted his axe high, and the pale sunlight flashed cold along its edge.
"Now I shall offer this head as the interest owed to my brother Droga's spirit!"
The axe fell toward Cormac's neck.
And then——
The axe stopped in midair.
The axe Volgar had brought down refused to move, as though sealed in place by some unseen power. A wave of disbelief rippled and burst across the square, and Volgar's eyes went wide as saucers.
What had caught the axe was a hand in a gauntlet.
And the owner of that hand was none other than I — Katerina Eisenmark.
"I'm afraid I cannot permit you to take my retainer's head here, desuwa."
Volgar, his face a churn of rage and confusion, bore down on the axe with everything he had. Enormous muscles surged and knotted across his frame, veins standing out along the back of his neck. But the axe did not budge a hair's breadth.
"Ghh... how... in the world...?"
I closed my gauntleted hand tighter. Under the pressure of my fingers, the axe-blade began to creak and bend. Like a sheet of thin paper being crumpled, a blade forged of steel lost its shape between my fingers.
"Damn you!"
I wrenched the axe out of his cursing hands. His weapon was mine now — the blade bent completely double in my grip, twisted beyond any recognition of its original form.
Wonder spread across the faces of the crowd that filled the square. The guards, who only a moment ago had looked like their souls had left their bodies, now wore expressions of pure, shining joy — as if they had witnessed a miracle.
The Sergen delegation, on the other hand, took a single step back. Reverence and horror warred in their eyes.