I must admit: fighting against an ancient Orghaal of the Oasis was difficult.
His status was clearly high — something between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and fifty, by my calculations. And I knew that because, even debilitated as he was, even missing half his arms, his sword sliding across my shield generated sparks. Real sparks, the kind you see leap. And each impact made my entire body tremble down to the teeth.
That creature's rage was clear.
You can perceive that by the way someone fights: despite using a sword, Broxes wielded it more like a blunt weapon than a cutting one. There was no technique there. There wasn't even sense in his strikes — he didn't actively seek any specific part of my body, no opening, no weak point. He preferred to simply bury me in interminable blows against the shield, hoping that, at some point, my shield would yield.
It was the strategy of someone who never needed to have one.
The problem is that, against my mark, that was exactly the worst possible plan: the shield didn't tire. I did.
And, to be fair, that worked against practically anything in the Oasis. When you're born strong enough to break mountains, you never learn to aim — you only learn to strike until the other stops existing. Broxes had spent his entire life being enough. And that's exactly what makes creatures like him predictable.
"YOU FOOL! HOW DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT BROXES?! BROXES IS GOING TO CRUSH YOU! ARGHHHH!"
Unfortunately, it was a fight of two against one. So I couldn't simply focus on counterattacking.
Because, out of the corner of my eye, it was clear: the fairy sought an opening to cast some magic. And, observing her movements, that reminded me a lot of the fire magic of the Fire Fairies I knew — only I was absolutely certain her magic would be much stronger. And, most certainly, much more precise.
I couldn't forget her. Not for a second. Even with my body creaking with each block.
And that was what made that fight truly dangerous. Not Broxes's strength — but the fact that I needed to divide my attention between a hammer in front of me and a needle at my back. Missing with the hammer cost pain. Missing with the needle cost everything.
"PAY ATTENTION TO OUR BATTLE, INFERIOR HUMAN! DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME! ARGHHHHH!"
Broxes's rage was understandable.
After all, I didn't treat him as the imminent threat he believed himself to be — I always preferred to reserve half my attention for what might come from that damned fairy. For a creature that spent its entire life being the most obvious danger in any room, being treated as a secondary problem must have hurt more than the absence of a few arms.
And I used that. Each time my eyes slipped in Irepia's direction, his blows got bigger. Higher. Dumber. A humiliated enemy spends his own body trying to prove something — and each gram of breath he spent on pride was a second I gained.
✦ ✦ ✦
But I didn't enter that fight without knowing I could die.
My calculation was simple: I just needed to find the correct opening.
And it came.
Not in his strength. Nor in his speed. It came in the exhaustion — which is where all openings are born, against any enemy, in any world.
It came at the exact moment Broxes raised his sword to bring it down with more force. He was tiring — and had begun to use gravity itself to help with the blows. It was a bold choice. Especially knowing that the enemy in front of him hadn't been wounded a single time.
I took advantage of that to do the one thing no one expects from someone cornered: I took the shield out of the protective position.
And advanced toward his knees.
The shield stopped with a dull thud against the joint, and the enormous creature screamed with pain. But that wasn't the damage I wanted to cause. Before his sword could come down onto my body, I ran my sword through that creature's thigh — and unmade it in the same instant, rolling to the side while the metal dissolved into the air.
I felt the blade go in and out the other side — that short, wet resistance flesh offers before yielding — and the decision to unmake the sword was made in the same instant. Leaving the metal in there would mean being tied to it.
Broxes's sword came down on empty air. And drove into the ground.
Unbalancing him completely.
It was then that the thigh gave way, and all that weight of lineage collapsed sideways like a badly founded tower.
The Orghaal were strong. They had many arms — and, the more arms, the higher the lineage.
But they still had only two legs.
It was the one thing I was certain of during the entire battle. It doesn't matter how many arms a creature has, how many weapons it can hold at the same time, how much lineage it carries on its shoulders. All of that collapses together if it can't stay standing.
✦ ✦ ✦
The blood began to gush from his thigh without stopping.
And Broxes's scream seemed to activate some sense of urgency in the fairy — who, finally, decided to use her power for real.
Four enormous balls of fire formed in the air. Much larger than her own body.
"NOOOO!"
Broxes looked at Irepia with pure desperation on his face.
Because, just like me, he saw in that face the specific desperation of someone who has just dropped the insurance. There was no calculation in that magic. There was no care. There was only the decision to burn everything in front of her — including the ally.
I, on the other hand, didn't expect Broxes's screams to bring any kind of reason to that little fairy.
So I simply ran.
Not far away. To the side — opening the angle, forcing the balls of fire to correct trajectory, buying the half second I needed to conjure what needed to be conjured.
While she created three more balls of fire before hurling them all in our direction.
BOOOOM.
The fire advanced precisely to the place where Broxes was.
And it was clear what that meant: the fairy believed I would use his own body as a shield against the attack — and preferred to guarantee that wouldn't work. Preferred to incinerate her own ally rather than give me a wall.
And, in a very cold corner of my head, I registered that as useful information: if she burned an ally to deny me an advantage, she wasn't fighting to win. She was fighting lost in her own desperation and fear.
Unfortunately for her, she didn't know about my powers.
"DIE, YOU SON OF A BITCH! GO TO HELL AND TAKE EVERYONE IN THIS CURSED RAVINE WITH YOU!"
The little Fairywood's scream of desperation, probably, wasn't only for me.
It was also for the two Burmans on the horizon — who remained static, like a tasteless painting hung on the wrong wall.
Dust. Silence. And, for the first time in four hours, no scream in the entire field.
"I think someone is counting victory too early."
My voice came out before I decided to speak.
Because I knew exactly how much that power had cost that little fairy.
"HOW…?! IMPOSSIBLE!"
✦ ✦ ✦
She had to wait for the dust to settle to manage to see what I had done.
In front of me, Zaetar was already dissolving — but he had fulfilled his function. He had protected me whole from the fire that should have wiped me off the map.
Zaetar. The power of Livina's race, engraved on my sheet since the day I merged the DNA — and the variable I had held back. That was why I didn't use him against Broxes, even while taking a beating. Power saved is worth more than power spent: against his fury, he would have spared me a few bruises. Against four balls of fire, he spared me my life.
And, fortunately, I had preferred not to go back to Broxes.
Because, despite him being alive, it became clear that most of that magic was concentrated exactly at that point.
Him breathing, in itself, was already something worthy of recognition. He had already lost three arms before that fight began. The explosion took the other three — and one of the legs along with them. And, even so, that monster remained alive: buried in a hole of burned earth like a stump, spitting blood, without anything resembling a whole limb on his body.
He wasn't alive out of luck. He was alive out of stubbornness.
I had already seen creatures die of wounds that didn't come close to that. That Orghaal, however, kept pulling air through his teeth, with his eyes open, as though death itself were one more thing he intended to face head-on.
That had been cruel. And, honestly, I myself was surprised that that fairy hadn't had the slightest consideration.
They marched together that morning. Screamed together. Were betrayed together by the same allies. And, in the last hour of both their lives, she burned him like someone burning a piece of furniture that's in the way.
Because I still believed in a minimally fair fight — where using Broxes as protection would be a dirty play, yes, but one she would answer with another dirty play, and so on. In the end, that madwoman had no shame whatsoever. She used everything she had against the only one who was on her side.
The Oasis was kill and be killed.
There were no friends there. And much less between different races. Everything in that place was measured between who commands and who obeys — and, the instant whoever commands stops needing you, you become terrain.
I had learned that in the first year. The difference is that, even after so long, I still thought it was a sad lesson. Now it was just one more piece of data in the calculation.
Before she could cast anything else, I advanced running in her direction.
The greatest disadvantage of whoever uses magic has always been distance. Closing it fast was my victory — and I closed it. But, when I got close, what I found was different from what I expected to find.
There was no warrior there. There was no courage.
There was fear.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Please… don't kill me…"
The little fairy, finally exhausted, began to scream while falling to the ground.
And it was there that I perceived a hard truth about that race: without their own powers, with their mana exhausted, they were nothing more than paltry creatures. Much weaker than a human — incapable, even, of lifting anything that could be considered a weapon. All the terror they carried lived entirely inside a resource that ran out.
And she, confident as she was, had spent everything on a single blow. A terrifying blow. But one that wasn't enough.
The tears of desperation while she looked at me made me rethink everything I had lived through there.
I had already killed others. More than I wanted. But it was the first time someone begged for their own life in front of me — with fear in their eyes and tears that squeezed my chest in a way I no longer expected to feel.
Maybe it was her size. Maybe it was the voice. There is something profoundly wrong about seeing a small creature crying at your feet — something in our body understands that as a child before the head remembers that that same creature just incinerated her own commander.
"No… I promise to help you! Save me! You allied yourself with that human — I can be useful, I can—"
"With what? Your entire army is dead in this place. And the only one who could defend you is spitting blood in a ditch… What did you think would happen when there was no one left at your side?"
I directed my rage at everything that could have happened.
At Morgana run through by one of those spells. At Livina burned atop the wall. At my soldiers incinerated before they could even raise their own weapons. None of that happened — but she tried. She tried with everything she had, down to the last gram of mana. And the only reason it didn't work was because I was better that day.
Because those tears were from someone who lost after trying, with all her strength, to kill me. She wouldn't have demonstrated any pity for a stranger — and I knew that from the Orghaal lying in the hole. If the one she was supposed to cooperate with was there because of her, I could imagine how different it would be with me.
I didn't ask for that.
And, honestly, I didn't come there expecting to kill someone who would beg for their life. But it was the acts of the one now pleading that made me the executioner.
✦ ✦ ✦
Even so, I hesitated.
Half a second. Maybe less. But I hesitated — and, in a place like that, half a second is a fortune almost no one has to spend.
I approached her, who remained crouched, on her knees, pleading.
And it was when I got close that I felt it.
A strange magic accumulating in her body — discreet, hidden beneath the crying. Fortunately, I formed the shield with the mark before she stood up.
She fired an arrow of fire.
Small. But carrying a dreadful penetrating power: the impact pushed me nearly two meters backward, broke my arm, and caved in a rib.
Fortunately, I got up fast after the launch.
And advanced in her direction with the sword leveled. The blade came down driving into the Fairywood's head and descending to the chest.
The eyes of incomprehension and fear were still there. Frozen on her face.
A Lord of an ancient race, commander of others like her, dead on the ground of a field that wasn't hers, by a human no one considered a threat two seasons ago. If someone had told her that the previous morning, she would have laughed until she lost her breath.
Either way, it was her or me. And I wouldn't die for something as idiotic as badly calculated pity.
But I also couldn't stop thinking about one thing, while I pulled the blade back: if she had waited three more seconds, if she had let me get half a meter closer without the shield formed… it would have worked. Her desperation saved my life. She couldn't even bear to wait long enough to try to kill me properly.
✦ ✦ ✦
"My Lord! Are you all right?!"
While I observed those eyes that no longer moved — dead, and still not quite understanding — Morgana ran to me, already casting healing magic.
"Morgana… I'm fine. Try to heal that Orghaal."
Morgana seemed surprised at my decision.
But I had a very clear reason for that. The Orghaal were a simple race. Warrior. And, in the end, I saw in Broxes exactly the same thing I had seen in that other Orghaal I met in the arena.
Deep down, I thought something simple: betrayed as he was, maybe he could understand that, in that entire field, the only one on his side was me.
And, if it came to nothing, I could still kill him later.
It was an attempt at alliance with someone who was strong — but who, above all, was sincere in his own feeling and his own rage. And I was tired of creatures that smiled while calculating.
Besides, there was the practical value. An Orghaal of six arms — even without any of them now — carried lineage, knowledge, and connections I would never have access to any other way. Dead, he was one more corpse on the field. Alive, he was a door.
"Understood, my Lord… Where do I take him?"
"Throw him inside the Temple. And ask Zaridan to watch him… and kill him, if he tries to leave there."
"Understood, my Lord."
I would use Zaridan.
The name alone was enough to make Morgana uncomfortable — I saw her shoulder lock when I said it. But she didn't argue. She never argued.
That would be his first test. If he were trustworthy — within what the word could mean for something like him — he would fulfill a simple mission like that without inventing anything. Honestly, I still didn't know how far my command managed to interfere in that creature's will.
But that was a good hour to find out. With a small task, an armless prisoner, and nothing really valuable at stake.
There is a right way to test something you fear: with a question whose wrong answer costs you nothing. If Zaridan obeyed, I would gain a precious piece of data about his limits. If he disobeyed, I would lose a mutilated Orghaal who would probably die anyway — and would gain an even more precious piece of data.
✦ ✦ ✦
Morgana and Livina carried the great Orghaal.
And it was strange — he seemed smaller now. Without the arms, without one of the legs, that giant who roared on the front line in the morning, who brought down twenty heavy knights and forced me to pull back the entire cavalry, now fit on the shoulders of two women.
He didn't resist when they lifted him. He didn't scream. He just rolled his eyes in my direction while he passed — and there was in them a question he had neither arms, nor breath, nor reason to ask out loud.
Why?
I didn't answer. Some alliances begin better with doubt than with explanation.
The time to deal with that would be left for later.
I breathed deep. Puffed out my chest. And looked at the horizon while my armor dissolved along with the sword and the shield.
And, when it vanished, I felt everything at once.
The weight of my own broken bones. The arm hanging wrong. The caved-in rib biting from within with each breath. It was the armor that held all of that in place during the entire fight — and now it was leaving, handing back the complete bill.
It hurt more than any blow I had taken in the fight. Postponed pain always charges interest — and the mark's armor was, in the end, an excellent loan shark.
But there I needed to show something.
Because, far away on the horizon, two pairs of eyes were still registering every detail of that field. And the last detail they would see that day wouldn't be a human dragging himself back inside his own walls.
So I faced the enemy. And raised my chin.
"I think we can stop with this game and take this seriously once and for all. Come, cowards."