Chapter 12 #2
“Agreed,” said Harald. “I don’t take it for granted. So. How do we go about visiting Viridian?”
“Simple,” said Anna. “I’ll dress appropriately. If one of you could see about acquiring a carriage, I’d be most appreciative.”
“Didn’t see many hansom cabs looking for business,” said Sam.
Nessa grinned. “Then we’ll just steal one. We can always return it later. Shall we, Sam?”
Sam blew out her cheeks. “Fine. Let’s go engage in larceny for the good of the city.”
Nessa and Sam also bowed to Anna as they departed, though there was a decidedly mocking cast to Nessa’s, and then quit the library.
“Well.” Anna considered Lady Hammerfell and Harald.
“I’m going to consider this further as I prepare to play the role of city savior.
I’ve had very few dealings with Lady Verdant, and all of those previously through Sir Gavriel Draken.
Our approach needs to be perfect. I’ll…” She frowned and gazed back momentarily into the flames. “I’ll think on it.”
They both bowed to Anna in turn as she quit the library, and then Lady Hammerfell glanced sidelong at Harald. “It would seem we have an hour in which to entertain ourselves.”
Harald’s mouth was suddenly dry. The statuesque Lady Hammerfell seemed to fill the room, her gaze knowing, her burgundy hair capturing the firelight as if it were smoldering with its own inner heat. “I… right. What do you suggest?”
“You’ve grown substantially more powerful since I saw you last. It’s most impressive. How about we find a stretch of lawn outside and see just what you can do?”
“Oh.” Harald banished his ridiculous thoughts—not that he’d even agree, because his heart belonged to Sam, but— “That would be—wait. You’re Level 14. What can I even do against you, my lady?”
“Honestly?” She smiled. “Not much. But I’m still curious. Follow.” She paused just as she went to duck her head under the door. “And call me Brianna.”
Then she was gone, out onto the landing, the floorboards creaking under her every step.
“Brianna. Right.” Harald took a deep breath, held it, then rubbed vigorously at his face. “Let’s, ah, spar.” The very thought was exhilarating and terrifying, both. Him? Spar against Lady Brianna Hammerfall?
An image came to him as he hurried after the titanic woman: how she’d stepped onto the Dungeon Plaza during a Shuddering and single-handedly massacred a horde of Terror Birds, sweeping her massive zweihander and pulping hundreds of them in a deluge of force.
She’d cleansed an entire third of the plaza with her swings, killing hundreds of birds effortlessly.
How did you fight a cataclysm?
Guess he was about to find out.
They quit the mansion, went out back. Night had fallen. Yellow pools of light played across the grass from a handful of windows. The rest of the manor was kept dark. But the light of the moon was bright, silvering the lawn, and Harald felt invigorated by the darkness.
He was no enemy of the night.
Brianna had crossed her seven-foot zweihander across her shoulders, draped her clawed gauntlets over its wicked edge as if she were in the stocks, and wandered out over the grass to stop and gaze up at the moon.
Her crimson tabard pooled about her feet—surely a tripping hazard, no?
—and her iron-dark armor gleamed as if wet.
Her hair fell about her shoulders in thick locks, and she looked larger than life, an impossible foe, a force of nature and no mere mortal.
Harald extended his arm and summoned the Chyron’s Scourge. It filled his palm with reassuring weight, its geode blade rippling with subtle green currents in its stony depths, but Brianna’s blade made it feel like a toy.
Still. It was Epic-ranked. It cut through dimensions.
Even she would have to be wary of its rough edge.
For a moment, it was all Harald could do but wonder: how powerful did you have to be to duel against someone as dangerous as himself and feel like that was a safe undertaking?
Well, he’d trust that she knew what she was doing.
As if recalling their bout, Brianna looked his way, her face pale in the moonlight, her eyes glimmering pools, her expression somewhere between wistful and curious. “What level are you now, Harald?”
“Nine.” He tried not to sound overly proud.
“Formidable. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone rising so swiftly in the ranks. Well. Perhaps Thracos from House Thornvale.” The corner of her lips crooked. “But nobody’s heard from him in weeks.”
“You flatter me.” Harald brought the Scourge to bear before him, gripping its hilt with both hands. “How do we do this?”
“You attack me with everything you have. Don’t hold back. I’m genuinely curious.”
Harald went to protest but killed the instinct. Brianna was listed as the seventh highest ranked raider in Flutic. She had five Thrones active. She had slain a Vortex Hydra on Level 63.
She wanted to see what he could do?
Harald allowed himself the slightest of smiles as a frisson of excitement washed over him. Well, he’d show her.
Tapping his four Thrones, he activated Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant. The abyss stirred about him as ambient dread filled the air, stealing forth like cold, drowning waters, suffusing the night, dimming the moon above. Sounds grew muffled, and his own breath began to puff before him.
But his normal evocation wouldn’t suffice: he had to make this count, had to crush whatever impossible safeguards Brianna had in place.
So Harald hunched his shoulders and willed his consolidated power to crush her, exerted the full strength of his massive Ego in a bid to control her with his dread authority.
Her morale would begin to degrade, her will to falter, if she didn’t hesitate or flee outright.
The air swirled with his shadows, currents of living darkness, and time for her would grow strange—her instincts would be just subtly off, her reaction time dulled.
Her own auras would be muffled or suppressed.
Harald inhaled deeply, frame expanding, and willed her to feel the pressure of his power. To experience what it was like to be buried alive, to hear the shadows whisper regrets in her ears, for time to slow to a crawl, for her very hope of besting him to wither and die.
The abyss was his.
He was its tyrant.
And Brianna would learn what it meant to go up against an Abyssal Master.
For a long, tremulous moment the Dragonslayer Knight simply stood there, the center of his dark vortex, the focus of his aggression—and then she began to stroll toward him.
Not struggling.
Not staggering.
Not as if she were walking into strong headwinds.
But just casually strolling, her blade still athwart her shoulders, chin held high, the corner of her lips yet quirked.
Harald could feel it. Her armor was drinking in his might.
More than that, some form of protection insulated her completely from his will.
He might as well have been pouring a torrent of ink-black abyssal waters into a bottomless chasm.
She strode toward him, unbent, uncowed, unnoticing of his assault.
“That’s impressive,” she said, voice muffled by his aura. “Genuinely. The air feels thick, as if I’m underwater. I’m sure this would genuinely terrify most people. You should be proud, Harald.”
And then she unshouldered her blade, a supple shrug that saw her bring the huge black sword down and around and then upright in one fist alone.
The blade flared bright white, and the very air changed.
His instincts bid him run. His predatory nature was cowed. Merely causing her famous sword to incandesce was enough to summon fear within him.
Before she could do anything else, Harald activated Abyssal Imperium.
She couldn’t just shrug this off. In a widening radius around him the abyss extended his will, causing space, shadow, and hostile energies to reconfigure themselves to favor his presence.
The battlefield itself became hostile terrain as a thousand gleaming blades of black glass began to flow through the air and pour into Brianna, each coated in the very substance of the void, draining all that they cut.
Brianna laughed, pleasantly surprised, and widened her stance.
Something about her posture imparted the strength of mountains, and his thousand blades were akin to a rainstorm trying to wash it away.
Her iron armor gleamed, its pauldrons lifting up like wings to shift and shimmer and blur as they provided her unhelmed head with what looked like perfect protection.
Harald gritted his teeth and leaned into his power. His Thrones were burning hot like furnaces, and he felt his aura, his assault focus exclusively on her, but to no avail.
Then she was upon him.
No warning. Faster than he could track, she closed the distance, and her burning white sword swung toward him, a lazy stroke like the end of the world.
Harald summoned Form of the Black Throne even as he raised the Scourge and parried.
The blow fell upon his geode blade like a collapsing mountainside, causing his shoulder to flare with pain, his arm to shiver, and causing a great ringing clash to sound out.
But his whole body sagged beneath the strike as concussive force poured off her sword to flood down upon his shadow-armored body, the plates of black force cracking and shattering, his boots sinking into Anna’s lawn, his head resonating like a tuning fork from the blow.
A one-handed, lazy strike.
Yet before he could react, before he could do much more than stagger back, the shadows calling to him, bidding him flee, she swung again.
The huge sword swung out and around, flickerflash, and hit him even harder.
It was all he could do to not lose his grip on the Scourge. There was a flash of green and white where the swords connected, and this time Harald felt the blow in his chest, as if a huge boot had stomped down on him from above.