“The lands surrounding Blue Fang Pass, as outlined in these documents prepared two nights hence, now belong to you and your progeny, Valeria,” the Hold Mistress declared loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall. “Do with them as you will.”
Valeria accepted the documents and said, in an equally officious tone, “I will strive to become worthy of these gifts from Men, Mistress.”
The second daughter stood, and Nikomedes knew that in spite of the highly irregular sequence of events, she was now a Hold Mistress in her own right. Kratos nodded approvingly before gesturing to the doors leading out of the Main Hall.
Valeria went before him as she strode purposefully, her head held high as she passed the assembled nobles en route to the doors. Kratos stopped on the third step for a moment as he followed, turning to the elderly Tacitus to say, “As a man, I find you to be a contemptible worm, Tacitus. No warrior should die in his bed with his body twisted from the ravages of time until he looks like nothing so much as a gnarled root.”
Tacitus stiffened, and was about to retort when Kratos held up a forestalling hand.
“But…as a father,” he said, chewing on every word as he spoke it, “you have my sympathy for the death of your daughter and Hold Mistress. She was a strong woman, much like our daughters.”
Tacitus regarded him silently for a moment but before he could respond, Kratos made to follow Valeria, who had nearly reached the doors to the Main Hall with a trio of handmaidens in tow.
When he reached Aramus, Kratos stopped and the two clasped each other’s arms in the customary farewell among the northerners. “Die well, Aramus,” he said loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall.
“May we never meet again, Kratos,” Aramus replied sincerely, causing Kratos to chuckle and nod in silent agreement before releasing from the short-lived embrace and turning his back on the now-former Black Arrow.
“Let’s go, boy,” Kratos muttered under his breath as he passed Nikomedes, and thus began their uneventful trek back to Blue Fang Pass.
Chapter VIII: One More Kill…
Nikomedes lashed out with Ektor’s bejeweled blade, taking a nearby warrior in the leg and sending him spinning to the ground with a follow-up bash from his shield.
Seeing an opening in the enemy’s shield wall, he lunged forward before the breach could be closed by the men to either side of it. He kicked the warrior to his left in the gut and bashed the one to his right in the face with the jeweled pommel of his sword.
Both men went down from the savage, precise blows, and a swarm of Ice Raiders followed Nikomedes through the hold in the enemy shield wall. They hacked the fallen warriors to pieces as their fellows poured through the break like water through a crumbling dam.
“Thirty four and thirty five,” Nikomedes growled, revising the total count of warriors he had vanquished during his two years as a bonded warrior in Kratos’ service.
He leapt completely through the shield wall as the formation collapsed, sending the nearby enemy warriors scattering like forest animals before a wall of fire as the Ice Raiders dealt death to their sundered ranks.
Taking a moment to survey the battlefield, Nikomedes’ eyes quickly fell on Kratos’ massive form as he shattered wooden shields with Glacier Splitter, sending their bearers to the ground as their defenses were reduced to splinters in their hands.
Nikomedes, as had become customary in the six battles he had participated in during his time among the northerners, commanded the centermost unit of Ice Raiders. Kratos alternated between the left and right flanks, depending on the terrain, and for this particular battle he was on the right.
His men followed the path Glacier Splitter carved in Kratos’ expert hands, and Nikomedes took a moment to observe the one-eyed veteran of nearly a hundred battles—by his own count, of course.
Nikomedes had watched Kratos fight at every possible opportunity, just as Kratos had watched Nikomedes. Nikomedes knew that, with a stroke of luck, this particular battle would be the last of his time among Kratos’ people.
Kratos knew how Nikomedes despised him and everything he stood for, but that had not stopped Kratos from promoting him through the ranks of the warriors that called Blue Fang Pass their home—much to the resentment of those warriors, who had made their displeasure known to Nikomedes at every chance. Unfortunately for them, none had proven a match for his blade, and he counted four Ice Raiders—including two Black Arrows—among those he had killed in Kratos’ service, though Kratos had understandably refused to grant him credit for them per the terms of his service agreement.
Nikomedes lunged forward, but the nearby warriors scattered before he could engage them. He heard Kratos’ harsh, grating laughter, and he turned to see the warlord’s lone eye seeming to gleam as he watched Nikomedes’ frustration with obvious amusement.
It seemed the enemy had recognized him as a commander, and wanted no part in death at his hands. In little more than a minute, he had torn their shield wall to pieces and divided the defensive line of soldiers into a pair of collapsing semicircles which the Ice Raiders at his back surrounded.
Nikomedes’ eyes scanned the field until he found what he was looking for: the enemy commander. Kratos was carving a path directly toward the towering warlord, who wore a massive headdress of antlers atop his head. He wore scale mail armor, composed of overlapping plates of metal fastened to a leather harness, but every inch of his skin seemed to be covered in tattoos.
Kratos and Nikomedes met each other’s gaze briefly, and Nikomedes surged forward as he made for the enemy commander before the one-eyed heretic could do so.
Fewer men stood between Nikomedes and the enemy commander than those which stood between Kratos and the antlered warrior, and Nikomedes did not want to waste the opportunity for another kill to add to his tally—a tally which was very nearly complete.
He gripped Ektor’s jeweled sword in his hand as he brought his shield up to deflect an incoming javelin. The missile skittered off the metal shield—which had also belonged to Ektor, but no longer bore its bright finish after a half dozen battles in Nikomedes’ hands—and Nikomedes saw that only ten paces separated him from the enemy commander.
The antler-wearing warrior had a huge, curved sword which he gripped with both hands, and his eyes met Nikomedes’ as the young warrior sprinted toward his quarry with a singular purpose and focus.
A warrior suddenly emerged in Nikomedes’ path and slammed an axe into his shield, halting his progress with a handful of paces left to go before reaching the enemy commander.
Snarling in frustration, Nikomedes squared with the warrior as his allies gave way to the combatants, clearly wanting nothing to do with getting between them.
The warrior screamed fiercely, slamming his axes down against Nikomedes’ shield and sending the younger, nimbler warrior backward. Blow after blow rained down against the battered shield, and Nikomedes was more than slightly dismayed to find that the shield appeared to have split in a few places under the relentless fury of the warrior’s attack.
But Nikomedes bided his time, blocking with the shield and giving ground as the warrior continued his savage onslaught. Several counterattack opportunities presented themselves, but Nikomedes did not take advantage of any of them. They were too small, and none of them would permit him to end the fight before Kratos reach the enemy commander, so he continued to give way as the warrior battered his shield into a ruined scrap of metal. The shield was a necessary sacrifice in order for him to set the trap which would take his foe’s life.
Then, in a blink of an eye, he saw the opening he had waited for as the warrior’s arms were splayed just enough to either side that his chest was exposed. Lunging forward, Nikomedes smashed his shield into the man’s chest before bringing his sword up to block the downward-chopping axe in his left hand.
But Nikomedes did better than block the axe itself; he blocked the wrist of the hand which held it, sending a spray of blood onto his leather armor as the warrior bellowed in pa
in. The axe dropped from his fingers as his useless hand now dangled by a scrap of flesh which connected it to his arm, but the enemy warrior was determined not to give up so easily.
He kneed Nikomedes in the side with his left leg before slamming his ruined left arm into the side of Nikomedes’ helmet. Nikomedes pushed against him, using the shield for leverage, and created just enough space that he was able to stab out with his sword, burying it in the warrior’s chest.
But the warrior brought his axe down, scoring a hit to Nikomedes’ shoulder. His left arm erupted in pain, but he could still feel his fingers and managed to maintain his grip on the battered shield.
Roaring, more in frustration than pain, Nikomedes drove his sword deeper into his foe’s chest and wrenched the weapon around as hard as he could, causing the warrior to spasm and drop his axe as he screamed in agony.
Nikomedes withdrew the blade, which had pierced the right side of the man’s chest rather than the left, and unceremoniously decapitated him before the warrior even fell to the ground.
Turning his attention back to the enemy commander, Nikomedes was dismayed to find that Kratos had nearly reached the antler-wearing warlord.
A quick look at his shield told Nikomedes that it would be a liability in the coming fight, so he discarded it and picked up one of the fallen warrior’s axes before launching himself toward the enemy commander.
The commander was ready for him, and he raised his massive, nearly six foot long blade before himself as Nikomedes approached and began to circle his quarry.
The antlered warlord swung his curved blade in a wide arc, sweeping the area before him and causing Nikomedes to dance back and out of range to avoid being caught by the massive weapon. The commander recovered his posture more quickly than Nikomedes had anticipated, likely owing to a lifetime of practice with the massive, unfamiliar weapon. But he knew that such a massive weapon, even in extraordinarily strong hands, would limit its wielder’s mobility significantly.
Like Glacier Splitter, it was a fine weapon for battle in the open field against opponents with inferior skills, but it would prove a hindrance in a duel with an equally capable opponent—a fact to which Felix would no doubt attest if he still drew breath.
Nikomedes’ jeweled blade, on the other hand, was the ideal weapon for such a contest. Its balance was superb, it was forged from the highest quality metal, and its edge would hold throughout any single battle, making it nearly as useful defensively as offensively. The axe he held in his left hand—which was his primary hand, with his right hand being his ‘off’ hand—was more for show and defense than for attack, but he would not shy away from using it if the opportunity presented itself.
He had kept the truth of his ambidexterity a secret during his time at Blue Fang Pass, and he knew that particular deception would soon prove useful—much like every other trap he had set for his opponents.
The warlord bellowed again, reaping his blade side to side with no more finesse than a grain farmer wields a scythe, but the speed and timing of his moves made lunging between them impossible, even for the fast, nimble Nikomedes.
Nikomedes toyed with the idea of hurling the axe at him, but he suspected that was precisely what the enemy warlord wanted him to do. One of the first rules of conflict that he had learned in his young life was to never do what your opponent wanted you to do if you had any viable alternative.
So he stayed his hand and circled, juking left and right to test the warlord’s balance and reactions. Predictably, the antlered warrior displayed perfect footwork as he responded to Nikomedes’ feints and shifts in direction. But Nikomedes took careful note of every movement his opponent made, and more than just the movements themselves, he noted how the commander’s balance shifted from right to left as he swung his weapon and moved his feet beneath him.
It had become almost instinctive, this appraisal of a foe’s motion, and Nikomedes was uncertain he could use words to explain what it was he watched for in an enemy’s movements. But he knew it when he saw it, and he also knew he needed to be patient and wait for his opening to appear—and when it appeared, he needed to capitalize on it.
After nearly a dozen feints and jukes, Nikomedes decided it was time to engage. If he waited any longer, Kratos would be upon them and the one-eyed warlord would doubtless claim the kill for himself.
Thrusting with his sword, Nikomedes tried to jump inside the antlered warrior’s guard, but the pommel of the commander’s two foot long hilt lashed out to meet him. Parrying with his hand axe, Nikomedes managed to deflect the counterattack and lean out of the wickedly curved blade’s path before it met his flesh in a predictable, yet lethal, sweeping arc.
But the enemy commander was not finished there, as he stepped forward and drove his knee toward Nikomedes’ midsection as the younger warrior attempted to capitalize on the relatively ponderous movements of the massive weapon.
He knew that he had no choice but to allow the knee to land, since dodging it would open him to a deadly attack from the still-sweeping blade’s arc if the commander chose to spin around with the weapon’s momentum. If he did so, he would have more than enough power to cleave Nikomedes in two.
The knee to the chest struck him in the liver, and it was all Nikomedes could do to avoid collapsing to the ground as it seemed that every muscle in his body gave out at once.
Snarling in rage, the enemy commander allowed his heavy weapon’s momentum to spin him around. As the warlord did so, he lashed out with a boot aimed at Nikomedes’ leg while drawing his heavy, curved blade back into a ready position. Nikomedes managed to defend the kick by lifting his leg at the moment before impact, but he could barely backpedal quickly enough to avoid a thrust of the heavy, curved blade in the antlered warrior’s hands.
Nikomedes parried each attack in the ensuing onslaught as he fought to regain his breath following the brutal liver shot. His leather armor allowed for maximum mobility, which had usually proven decisive in his favor, but this particular battle he would have been well served to choose a heavier breastplate.
When he had finally regained his composure, he had suffered a trio of gashes—two to his legs and one to his left flank—to the antlered warlord’s blade. Planting his feet, he leapt into the first opening he could see and his blade clashed against his foe’s weapon with loud, ringing purpose in every stroke.
The commander began to give ground as he switched from his brutal, forward assault to a controlled withdrawal that saw his movements become shorter and quicker, allowing him to block each of Nikomedes’ blows. But by increasing his weapon’s response times, he had sacrificed its formerly brutal power, and Nikomedes knew he would win a contest of quickness.
Testing his foe’s newer reaction times, he lashed out with the tip of his blade and was rewarded with a shallow cut to the commander’s thigh. A follow-up chop of his hand axe was easily parried by the warlord, but Nikomedes scored another shallow hit to his enemy’s shoulder with a light flick of his jeweled sword.
On and on it went, with Nikomedes piercing his opponent’s guard by using a series of rapid, thrusting attacks with his sword while parrying most of the antlered warrior’s counterattacks with the hand axe.
Sensing his foe’s frustration after suffering a dozen such wounds in the span of a minute, Nikomedes kept the attacks coming as quickly—and as lightly—as possible. He was trying to goad his foe into overcommitting to a counterattack, and when he finally did so Nikomedes would end the contest once and for all.
Nikomedes drew loud, heavy breaths as he fought, even reaching up during a brief pause in the action to remove the specially-crafted, form-fitting mask he had worn for over a year during all of his exercises—including combat. The mask was an integral part of his plan to regain his freedom before the five years had elapsed, and in this particular moment it was best served being removed.
Huffing loudly, Nikomedes surged forward with another series of quick attacks, and was quickly rewarded with another pair of shallow cuts—with t
he last being a grazing hit to his foe’s exposed cheek.
Bellowing furiously, the enemy commander drove forward behind his massive, sweeping blade, and Nikomedes sensed the moment of victory approaching. He gave ground and blocked the first attack, giving the impression that he had been caught off-guard by the antlered warlord’s sudden momentum shift.
Giving ground, Nikomedes’ breaths came louder and louder in the cold, crisp winter air. Snow covered the ground around the clashing armies, which had quickly devolved from anything resembling controlled warfare after Kratos and Nikomedes had collapsed the enemy formations.
Seeing a gleam of anticipation in his foe’s eyes, Nikomedes parried a savage thrust with his hand axe but the weapon was unexpectedly torn from his fingers by an interesting, unexpected twist of the enemy commander’s blade.
Gripping the jeweled hilt of his sword with both hands, Nikomedes continued to give ground, feeling Kratos’ eyes on him as he did so. He parried attack after attack successfully until a slow, but accurate swipe of his foe’s blade came near to his leg.
Nikomedes lifted his leg, but not far enough to avoid contact entirely, and the enemy commander allowed his weapon’s inertia to carry his body in a tight, powerful turn as he brought the blade around with obvious intent to ruin Nikomedes’ leg.
But it had all been part of Nikomedes’ plan, and as soon as the warlord’s eyes were off him, he leapt as high into the air as he could while raising his sword above his head while reversing his grip on it.
When the antlered warrior’s eyes once again fixed on him, Nikomedes was three feet off the ground and there was no way for the enemy commander to adjust the path of his weapon in time to present a credible defense.
For just an instant, Nikomedes’ foe froze, and in that instant he drove the tip of his jeweled sword down the antlered warrior’s neck, burying the blade nearly to the hilt as Nikomedes’ body weight came down with the blade.
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