The sand always shifts.
Hask knew this before he knew any other truth in the pit — the arena ground betrayed balance with every step. You had to stay light, never overcommit, never plant too hard. One foot wrong, and you were slower, stuck, vulnerable.
And against him, being slower meant being dead.
The signal sounded. Hask moved first.
He always did.
A gust of wind in cloth and muscle — he dashed wide, blades flashing low in the sun, curved and razor-thin. His right dagger angled for the wrist. The left reversed and climbed for the armpit — instinctive slashes aimed at bypassing armor, though the man wore none. Hask had done it a thousand times before. Muscle memory didn't ask questions — it simply struck where armor should have failed.
But the sword was already there.
It wasn't speed. It was instinct. Timing. Caelvir's sword caught the left dagger in a smooth parry, twisted at the hilt, and forced Hask to roll out before the backswing could split him in two.
Back to distance.
Control it, Hask reminded himself. This fight isn't mine if I trade blows. He's bigger. He's newer. But he's still human.
He circled. Fast. Quick bursts — in and out. Left dagger flicked upward, cutting just beneath the elbow. A line of red.
Another slash — shallow, across the shoulder.
Another — a sting on the thigh.
Blood. Yes. Bleed, brute. Bleed and slow down.
But Caelvir did not slow. He advanced. Calm, steady. A fortress on two legs. He didn't chase. He pressured. There was a difference — and it was terrifying.
Hask danced just out of reach, blades always carving angles. He cut high, rolled low, slashed behind the knee — just grazes, no killing blows, but enough to mark him.
The sword swung only when it had to. No wasted motion. One stroke cleaved through the air with such weight it forced Hask to backpedal hard.
And when Caelvir lunged, the sand screamed beneath him. Hask leapt to the side, rolled, came up spinning with both daggers set for ribs.
One cut landed — another shallow red smile across the stomach.
But the backhand counter came like a falling star.
Too close!
Hask twisted, ducked, took the flat of the blade against his shoulder. Pain thundered down his arm. He staggered, hissed, and retreated to range again.
That sword's not just metal. It's a goddamn door slamming shut.
He shook the numbness from his left hand. His wrist throbbed. Still holding the blade, but his grip was weaker now. Sloppy.
Caelvir stepped forward again. Always the same pace. Never rushed. Not even angry. Just advancing — inevitable.
How does he keep moving like that? Doesn't he feel the wounds? I've cut him ten times already.
Red streaked Caelvir's torso and limbs — the marks of every encounter. Wrist, ribs, shoulders, hip. But not one of them vital. Not one of them deep enough to stop a limb or a breath.
Hask cursed inside. I'm scoring hits, but he's not slowing down. He's not reacting.
No hesitation. No wince. No stagger. Just eyes watching. Always watching.
Hask turned his next feint into a spin, slashing backward as he passed behind. The edge clipped the back of Caelvir's arm — another sting.
But then the sword came horizontally, with force.
Hask barely ducked, felt his hair sliced clean off in a thin line. He rolled again, this time too wide, his feet catching on loose sand. Sloppy.
Caelvir charged. For the first time — real aggression.
The sword came down like a crashing tower.
Hask twisted, crossed his daggers to block — not to stop it, but to deflect, redirect, survive.
Metal clanged, shrieked. His legs buckled, arms flared in pain, and he tumbled aside, coughing sand.
He couldn't block again. Not like that. The strength wasn't human anymore.
Still, he got up.
Caelvir's silhouette was blood-drenched and rising again through the haze. Cuts adorned him now — but he stood as if they were ornaments, not wounds.
Hask's heart pounded like a drum in a coffin.
He adjusted grip. The left wrist burned, so he leaned into the right. Moved again. Short slashes now. Test the breath. Test the timing.
He darted in, sliced the outer thigh. Another shallow line.
But the counter nearly took his head.
Again — roll, rise, slash.
Wrist. Palm. Bicep. Blood. Blood. Blood.
But none of it stopped him.
And Hask could feel it now. The growing ache in his ribs. The bruises from glancing strikes. The bone-deep exhaustion.
He's not fighting like a beast anymore, Hask thought. He's fighting like a mountain. You don't topple it — you wear it down. If you last long enough.
But how much longer could he last?
He darted away again, panting. Sand in his throat. He licked his lips. His daggers hung like weary wings now.
Hask saw it—a breathless flicker in the man's stance, a moment barely born. The sword was too far, hanging low and wide, ribs and belly unguarded like a gate swung open in the storm.
He lunged.
Both feet dug into sand. His body became a needle, his dagger the thread meant to sew blood into skin. He aimed deep, a puncture wound below the ribs, a fatal threading of steel through soft meat—
But then—
It stopped.
Steel met flesh. But not as intended.
Caelvir's left palm had risen like a quiet wall, catching the blade before it sank where it should. The dagger was buried—not in flesh, but inside a hand that refused to let go. Blood streamed down Caelvir's wrist like crimson threads unraveling from a torn banner, but the dagger didn't fall.
It was no longer a weapon.
It was a prisoner.
And then came the pull.
The bleeding arm surged forward—grit grinding beneath heavy steps—and fingers like iron clamps locked around Hask's right wrist. Hask's eyes widened.
No.
Not like this.
The moment... I lost it!
Speed—his edge, his blessing—was gone.
The Seren Sword began to rise.
Deliberate. Silent. Unforgiving.
It came up like judgment.
Desperate, Hask twisted. His left hand jerked, dagger in fist, slashing toward the man's chest—one final bid to finish it first—
But too slow.
Far too slow.
Steel pierced his chest.
The sound he made was not a scream, but a strangled gasp—like air being stolen from a cracked jar. A wet, gurgling noise, something between a cough and a whisper. His feet twitched beneath him, muscles spasming as if trying to outrun the truth.
And then…
Stillness.
There they stood, statues beneath the screaming sun.
Two men,
one dead,
one alive,
one with a dagger in his palm,
one with a sword in his heart.