Protector Lord (1)
It is foolish to oppose nature. Morbi Ingr learned that the same truth could be applied to his father. In the most painful way possible.
A giant. Grendel, King of the North. The most powerful ice-element mage alive. He moved like a blizzard given intent, an avalanche that could neither be defeated nor defied. When life bored him, he killed. When he coveted something, he took it. When his children disappointed him, he simply abducted a fresh breeding slave from the Lower World. No justification was required. Grendel was a king, and kings could do as they pleased.
Once, for that very reason, Morbi had nearly died. Hanged by the neck from an ice wall on royal command, beside the woman he loved. His first love’s neck had snapped half a day earlier; her frozen feet swayed in the cutting wind. On that day, what filled his chest before grief or agony was a single question: Why did the Heavens leave his father alone? Could such tyranny truly go unpunished?
Of course it could. Heavenly law did not bind kings. No thunderbolt from the Heavenly God would ever fall upon Grendel’s head—so long as the kings never erased the divine mark from their bodies.
The old king with a child’s heart soon forgot everything. He forgot that Prince Morbi had once coveted the royal consort and been left a broken-necked cripple. He forgot the most beautiful woman to ever ascend from the Lower World. For a being who had lived eons, even that took only a few months.
Morbi blinked. For a moment he felt as though centuries had reversed. The reason he had suddenly sunk into memory was not hard to guess. Those eyes staring back at him now. Eyes that gleamed like will-o’-the-wisps in the shadow of iron. Remove the helm and an eerie chill would pour forth. Six hundred years ago, he must have worn that same expression. Yes—he could almost remember what his own face had looked like reflected in the ice wall.
A sob drifted from behind him. Morbi felt the weight of his karma for a moment, like raindrops falling on parched earth. But a few drops were not enough to change a heart that had endured centuries of drought. He released the hilt. A faint chill gathered at his fingertips.
I will apologize. Do not forgive me for failing to think of a kinder method.
He had originally intended to preserve the corpse as intact as possible, killing with steel rather than ice magic. That, he had thought, would be the final courtesy owed to a Sapiens who had suffered injustice in the Heavens. But on reflection, this was better. Protector Lord Morbi made his decision. He would free Nathan Maia as quickly as possible—from an anger that could never be resolved, and from this cruel hell above the clouds.
And when enough time has passed that you no longer exist, I may even forget this day.
Another unwanted sin would be added to the Protector Lord’s life today. It would sink beneath the weight of centuries, becoming just another sleepless stain of cold melancholy. But he was wrong. Protector Lord Morbi would never forget this day. Not for the rest of his life.
“Do it.”
“What?”
Nathan Maia stared straight at Morbi. His forward-leaning body looked strangely drained of strength. Perhaps the armor had exhausted him.
“I said do it, you snow-headed bastard. Stop stalling.”
Morbi swept a hand through his white hair and tilted his head, then raised an open palm as if asking for calm—before clenching it shut.
Nathan Maia died.
Morbi was the eldest of Grendel Ingri’s children. That meant, aside from his father, he had wielded the element of ice longer than any other member of the royal family. A single simple gesture should have been enough. The cold closed like a tiger’s jaws, seizing and crushing a skull in an instant. That was how it should have gone.
Yet when he grabbed and crushed, the head was no longer there. For the first time, Morbi’s eyes widened. He had been certain he saw it—skull fragments scattering as the mana seized and burst them. But in the next moment Nathan was gripping both of Morbi’s wrists. The one caught was the Protector Lord.
Nathan had ducked the instant Morbi’s hands closed, then lunged forward and seized both wrists. Considering the weight of the armor, the movement was closer to miracle than mere skill. Certain of victory, Nathan silently thanked Beni. He had felt it with terrifying clarity the entire run: how absurd this armor truly was. Its weight matched a full knight’s plate, yet he could move as though wearing nothing at all.
The grip tightened, fingers digging in as if to shatter bone. Morbi quickly formed a seal with his trapped hands—and froze in shock. The magic would not form. The elemental power, obstructed by something, had left him. A strange light bloomed inside the Sapiens’ gauntlets. He tried to shake free, but it was useless. Nathan only offered him one more problem: the crown of his helm drove straight toward Morbi’s brow.
Morbi refused to surrender his brain to the impact of steel. The Protector Lord twisted aside, slammed his shoulder into Nathan, and lifted him off the ground. The knight’s feet left the earth; he looked genuinely surprised.
So he’s not just some bookish mage who only knows spells.
A shoulder throw. Even as he flew, Nathan’s grip did not loosen. Only after feeling the sickening give and break inside his hands did Nathan release the wrists and crash down on his back.
“You know why I’m still alive, you pint-sized elf bastard?” Nathan said as he rose. The pain had to be excruciating, yet Morbi made no sound. He merely stared at his crushed wrists, eyebrows raised in mild curiosity.
“Every bastard who thought they could pull cheap tricks on me got beaten until they were crippled.”
Hand, heart, or brain—disable any one and magic becomes impossible. The same held true for warriors who fought with their bodies. An opponent whose options had narrowed. Yet Nathan did not assume it was over. Remembering Mornid, who had risen again and again no matter how many times he was cut down, Nathan drew his two-hander and swung with all his strength. The target was the head—the same way he had killed Mornid.
The Protector Lord raised both arms to shield his face. But Morthew was not a sword that could be stopped by simply crossing arms. The pommel, carrying the full force of the swing, struck the upper body. Morbi’s body lifted like a sheet of paper and slammed into the wall. Bloodstains slid down the stone where he struck.
The moment Nathan was certain the man could no longer move, he ran to Aspen.
“Aspen. Damn it. Open your eyes, Aspen!”
Even the sobbing had stopped. Trapped inside the ice, her body temperature stolen, Aspen lay with her eyes closed, as though she had already lost the will to answer. Nathan pressed his hands to the ice and focused, just as he had once done for Nili in the ruined building. The Rune of Kelsa began to dismantle the magically constructed structure. Melted ice spread across the floor. But it was too slow. The interwoven geometric formation was far sturdier than Nili’s had been.
Impatient, Nathan tried to tear off the gauntlets. Bare hands would work faster. Yet the gauntlets were not secured by leather straps but by gears and metal plates. And in truth, he had no time to simply stand there holding his hands to the ice.
“I am the eldest of the Ingri siblings.”
The man had waited until Nathan turned. Then he drove his sword straight in. Nathan had more than enough time to prepare, yet when blade met blade he staggered badly.
“Not because I was born first, but because I was the only one left alive. Everyone who lived longer than me died. And I have held the title of Protector Lord the longest—over three hundred years.”
Morbi, somehow standing again, retrieved his sword with a perfectly steady motion. The blade he drew was as long and heavy as Nathan’s. Its edge was red, as though forged from blood.
“On the Lower World, kings inherit through death. But among the royal families of the Heavens there is no crown prince, no coronation. Parents who live forever never hand over their thrones.”
There was no reason to listen. Nathan moved to charge again, but instinct held his feet.
“So Father gave us a way to vent our grievances. The seat of Protector Lord. He made the rest of the family kill one another to monopolize that scrap of power.”
“I didn’t ask, you bastard.”
Morbi walked to Nathan’s right. Instinct pushed Nathan to step the opposite way. Morbi circled left; Nathan answered with a shuddering step in the opposite direction.
“Surviving three hundred years in the middle of that venomous struggle requires more than a single talent. I can assure you that history will not end with you today.”
Morbi extended his hand once more, clenched, then opened it. Nothing happened as he wished.
“But how did you do this? I can only draw on the cold from inside my own body now.”
Morbi dealt with his broken wrists in a grotesque manner. Blood-stained ice clung to them, forcing the hands straight. The fact that he still possessed even that much strength horrified Nathan. Contact with the hand bearing the Rune of Kelsa caused leaks in magical circuits—he had learned this while facing Mornid’s grip and Nili’s ice. Thanks to the miracle that restored his hands, the ability to dispel spells had grown far stronger. Yet this man had retained his magic.
Nathan reminded himself: the moment he closed in, his body might freeze solid, just as it had with Mornid.
Morbi smiled faintly. “I suppose I should be grateful. At least I won’t have to show you the limits of my inadequate magic.”
“What can you do without your precious spells? Beat me in a brawl?”
Nathan feinted a tilt of the head, then reversed in an instant and swung. The movement belonged more to an assassin than a knight—slipping through the gap in awareness. A fragment of the Flowing Sword technique he had learned from Aspen. But the execution was incomplete. The Protector Lord, reading the motion clearly, turned his long blade and parried. The locked swords scraped and fell apart.
“I told you. I have more than one talent.”
The moment Nathan retreated, the Protector Lord’s sword followed. Nathan hurriedly brought his own blade up to meet it. Sword against sword. In stories and plays this was sometimes described as a leisurely moment, a simple contest of strength where opponents could even converse or trade insults. It was never so. Every instant blades touched was the most dangerous moment for swordsmen. A fear unlike the clash of full-force blows. Nathan gritted his teeth and moved desperately. His spinning blade sought the wrist. But Morbi was one step ahead. He let the flat glide past, then brought his own sword down exactly where Nathan’s blade was meant to go. Nathan twisted aside at the last instant. When he tried to disengage, Morbi pressed forward relentlessly; Nathan shoved his sword away. Refusing contact revealed the bottom of his reserves, but he had no choice. He could not see the next line of attack.
For the first time since setting foot in the Heavens, Nathan shifted into a half-swording stance, gripping the blade like a spear. He ran a finger along the edge and felt the missing teeth. The damage had not come from simple heavy impacts. This was the kind of wear that occurred when metals of vastly different quality collided. Outskilled by an opponent whose magic he had sealed, and outmatched in blade quality as well. Factoring in the lingering traces of magic the Rune of Kelsa could not fully erase, his odds were even worse.
The cold wind carried flecks of snow. Nathan felt the sweat on his back begin to freeze.
“Prepare yourself, Nathan Maia. You will need far more courage and cunning than you have shown so far.”
Morbi assumed a formal stance—the mirror image of Nathan’s own.
“I will be the worst enemy you ever meet in the Heavens.”