Karadra's Shipwreck

The Island - Chapter 9

The same guard that had retrieved him from his cell escorted him back. This time, he stayed in the room for a while, and he even started a conversation.

Amused by Arsik’s fate, the young man delivered stinging comments about his current state. Right after, however, he gazed at Arsik with child-like eyes full of wonder and admiration, unaware of the exact reason why. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Arsik, gradually relaxing, was talking about what had transpired in a calm and fatalistic way, after having drunk enough rum and mulled over the idea in his head. It was just a duel, after all, with one man. Arsik was just one man as well. He had killed a lot of people in his life; the knight would simply be one more name to that list.

The guard repeatedly asked him for details, about the Medusa, about the battles he’d fought, about how he planned to defeat the knight and what kind of combat technique he preferred. Most times, Arsik just shrugged and offered only general, vague remarks as a reply.

At some point, their eyes met, and the young man asked, “Where did you grow up? Really now, don’t give me that horseshit about an iceberg.”

Arsik sipped his rum.  With his eyes shining, the guard suddenly looked more like a harmless child and less like a murderous bandit.

“You want the real story? Are you sure?”

With a half-smile plastered on his ugly face, the young man eagerly nodded.

Arsik put down his cup and assumed his most serious look. “To be honest, I didn’t grow up on an iceberg.” The young man swallowed. “You see, I wasn’t born here, but in Exotia, the land of the Elves. Have you heard of it?”

The young man bobbed his head again, astonished by this better version of the story.

“But where I was born, there were no Elves. There was nothing ‒ only woods. Endless trees expanding to the horizon. You’ve never seen so much green in one place, I swear. Nothing like the ugliness of Sarathorn. You can’t imagine it!”

The guard’s eyes had bulged out as he tried to absorb all this.

 “There, I was discovered by a pack of wolves…” Arsik knitted his brow. “And their mother, the she-wolf, became my mother. I had to suckle her t**s, you see, and…”

Furious, the guard sprung to his feet and threw his cup at him. Arsik instinctively shielded himself, roaring with laughter. It’d been a while since he laughed, and even longer since he’d laughed so hard.

“You are such a bastard! I hope you die tomorrow!” The young man’s expression morphed into a mean grimace. “The knight will cut you to pieces anyway, you’ll see. These people aren’t fooling around, they are war machines!”

His eyes wet with tears of laughter, Arsik held his stomach as he regained his ability to breathe. “Perhaps it will be so, perhaps not. In any case, this was worth it,” he said and kept laughing while the guard had flushed from his anger and the rum. His ears turned beet red as he listened to Arsik continuing in that vein. “A she-wolf! What horseshit you believe!” he guffawed, and the guard left the cell cursing and muttering under his breath, locking the door behind him.

When the bout of laughter finally subsided and the sound of the guard’s boots faded away, Arsik was left utterly alone in the absolute quiet. For a moment, he stood still. Then he grabbed his cup and raised it high in the air, saluting himself. “Tomorrow, then!” he said and swallowed the last drop of rum.

***

In the morning, he was led outdoors, blindfolded. He was clueless as to where they were taking him, but the location didn’t matter much. Clearly the fight would go down in a secret place, a beach or a clearing no one would be able to find them or interrupt.

Before long, his suspicion was confirmed. He understood it from the sand and pebbles beneath his feet, the salty smell of the sea that invaded his nostrils.

As they walked, voices trailed after them; irritating, inarticulate cries and nonsensical jabbering by people who lacked the ability to engage in conversation like normal human beings. His entourage was quite large and, as it seemed, more and more were gathering along the way. By the time they would have reached their destination, a proper audience would have assembled ‒ a crowd of pirates that would watch the spectacle in the arena.

Was that how Golderim Veyr kept them loyal? Was this his secret? His circle was bound by fear and bloody entertainment? Not a bad combination, Arsik thought appreciatively. Obviously, there was a reason he was the most powerful leader among the pirates. He was doing something right, more so than others.

Arsik could also hear faraway voices from other groups of people, and imagined the knight was undergoing something similar: people would be trailing after him and yelling things, just as they did Arsik. Right then, Arsik realized that the knight might be the only person that he wouldn’t want to kill from all this rabble, and the only one he had to.

Essentially, that man had suffered the same misfortune as him. He’d been abducted and now had to play their game, simply with other weapons and in a different manner. He was, however, in the exact same position as Arsik, something that inexplicably bothered him. He felt no anger on his forehead, and when this happened, fear gripped him instead. Quite the ominous sign for the fight ahead.

A hand abruptly removed his blindfold. Arsik spied around nervously. A ring of people had formed their arena, a shouting, cursing mob that elbowed and shoved one another. Someone pressed Dimlight into his hand. The knife sunk in his sweaty palm and Arsik clutched it tightly, holding it behind his back.

The knight stood across from him, clad in his metal attire from head to toes. The breastplate connected with the rest of the parts through exquisitely hammered joints that allowed him freedom of movement and protection at the same time. Through the narrow opening of his helmet, one could see blue irises and part of his well-formed cheekbones. He held a single-handed sword, forged from Lothen steel, perfectly balanced and sharpened, and an almond-shaped shield bearing the coat of arms of the Orans family of Forcry: a black teardrop.

Arsik started growing angry. Not only did the knight own superior equipment, he was also endowed with excellent physical heritage: pretty eyes, cheekbones and possibly healthy, strong teeth that could chew through metal. He had it all, everything Arsik had never had, without striving for any of it.

If he killed Arsik, he would certainly return to a tower or a mansion where he’d eat and drink and laugh with his friends; he would lie next to his beautiful mistress or wife ‒who would also be a princess or a lady or something annoying like that, anyway‒ and they would stay in bed, getting drunk on mead and gorging on stuffed sea urchins.

For that alone, he deserved to die.

Tangled in his thoughts, he swung back and forth, his feet dancing on the sand as he tried to concentrate. Only fifteen to twenty feet separated him from the knight, and Arsik already felt suffocated. He had neither room to maneuver nor enough space to force the knight to run around in order to tire him, and all his hopes had rested on that tactic. He had spent all night planning that: he would make him run in circles and, due to the excessive load he would be carrying, at some point the knight would inevitably lose his balance, allowing Arsik to make his move. Moreover, in his thick armor, he would sooner or later swelter by the scorching summer sun and definitely make some mistake.

Now, though, he saw he had neither the time nor the space to implement such strategy. Within this limited circle, such tricks would be impossible; furthermore, an odd gathering of clouds foretold rain, and an unusually cool breeze blew around them.

The knight faced Arsik and fastened his helmet. His body locked into position across from him, and he lifted his sword to the height of his stomach. Arsik saw no opening for an attack. He panicked and threw his knife at him.

The knight raised his shield – the knife lodged in it and then returned to Arsik’s hand, along with the knight’s scowl. The crowd cheered in excitement at the object’s magic.

That was it, Arsik thought, that was the only ace up my sleeve and I already played it.

He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t see it, but he suspected that, inside his helmet, the knight was laughing in triumph at his unexpected good luck.

Taking two steps towards Arsik, he raised his sword. Losing his nerve, Arsik started running in circles, passing by the crowd who screamed at him to stay away. The sword whizzed next to him, and Arsik stumbled and fell.

Someone from the audience stood him up at once. A second swing arced near him and Arsik dove backwards. This time, someone threw him forward again – the sword grazed the air by his throat and Arsik collided full-force with the knight’s shield. The man pushed the slightly built Arsik and tossed him to the sand seven feet away, immediately preparing for his next attack.

Awash with despair, Arsik watched the knight moving with the agility and balance of a dancer. He changed sides each time Arsik changed sides; the position of his body steadfastly followed his; his movements were steady and full of grace and, above all, he didn’t even seem to sweat! His vigor and robustness were indicative of a young warrior who had seen the battlefield countless times… while Arsik felt every breath whooshing out of him, his own fitness indicative of someone who fell asleep cradling a bottle of rum.

The hubbub of the crowd was becoming louder ‒ swearing, cursing, instructions and a million more words in a jumble that made Arsik’s head buzz. The triangle of anger started forming on his forehead as every thought, tactical or not, began to retreat. “That’s what you are, you bastard?” he muttered so low that the knight didn’t hear him. “That’s what you are, you little shithead?” he said, louder this time, and felt the knight’s curious gaze on him. “You’re in a hurry to go back to your tower? You’re in a hurry, you prick?”

His words made no sense, and that was plainly evident by the knight’s expression. Nevertheless, Arsik had already transformed into a volcano. With the rage crystal-clear in his eyes and his body hunched into a battle stance, he brandished the knife. Howling, the crowd howling with him, he lunged. There was no plan, no strategy – only anger and impatience and bottled-up exhaustion and injustice.

The knight raised his sword and brought it down with immense force. The blade easily carved its course and cut Arsik’s face at an angle, gouging a deep line from his forehead to his jaw, effectively stopping his hasty stride. At the same time though, Arsik released his knife, throwing it forward from only three feet away.

He almost didn’t feel the pain from the nasty wound. The sword whistled by his ear and he felt the familiar darkness enveloping him, and the ground approaching dangerously fast. Before he fell, however, he saw the knife burying itself in the knight’s throat, right where the helmet ended and the breastplate began, at that little gap in the metal, on one of the exquisitely hammered joints these armors had to allow flexibility.

Arsik couldn’t see much, but he did see the color red, because the knight’s body carried lots of blood and it would soon form a large puddle in the sand.

As large as the shadow cast by a metallic mountain collapsing on the ground.