The white-armored knight drew his own sword, a fluid, practiced motion, and advanced to meet Silas. He simultaneously barked an order at his adjutant, who was rushing forward from behind:
"Fall back! This is my fight!"
His voice, though young, possessed an undeniable, regal authority. His adjutant, her face a mask of frustration beneath her helm, reluctantly halted, then, with a gesture of impotent fury, flung her sword to the ground. Her glare, even through the visor's narrow slit, promised bloody retribution.
Silas twisted, a hair's breadth evasion as the knight's blade seared past his collarbone, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
He gritted his teeth, giving ground, but his opponent's assault was a relentless, suffocating storm of steel. Every thrust, it seemed, was aimed with preternatural accuracy at some perceived chink in Silas's defense; every arcing slash forced him into a desperate, scrambling parry. Were it not for his own slight, almost imperceptible advantage in raw speed, the outcome would have been swift and fatal.
The dull, throbbing ache in Silas's chest, a grim reminder of past injuries, began to radiate through his entire body; his movements, he knew, were becoming sluggish, a fraction slower than his peak. The white-armored knight, a predator sensing weakness, instantly capitalized on a momentary opening, his blade flickering out, tearing a series of bloody gashes across Silas's arms and thighs. Blood, warm and slick, welled from the wounds, soaking through the coarse fabric of his tunic.
*No! I can't let this continue! This path leads only to death!*
Silas fought to suppress the rising tide of rage, to force a cold, tactical calm upon his fraying nerves. He scanned the chaotic scene, his mind racing. His sudden, desperate switch of targets earlier, the attack on the knight, had thrown the surrounding ring of black-armored soldiers into momentary disarray. *Perhaps… an opportunity.*
He leaped backward, a sudden, explosive disengagement, his hand simultaneously ripping the quiver from his back. With a single, blurred flick of his wrist, nine arrows took flight, their shafts wreathed in a dazzling, cerulean nimbus of Tidal Force, a volley of miniature, incandescent meteors streaking towards the white-armored knight's exposed face. In the same instant, Silas spun, using the attack as cover, and bolted, a desperate sprint towards the breached section of the encampment's perimeter.
Several of the black-armored soldiers, finally reacting, scrambled to intercept, their swords clumsily raised. Further afield, cavalrymen were already vaulting into their saddles, their spurred boots kicking savagely at their mounts' flanks, the thunder of iron-shod hooves making the very ground tremble.
But Silas was a blur, preternaturally fast, his every fiber strained in a desperate, all-out charge. The exit, freedom, was almost within his grasp, when—
*BOOM!*
A black-feathered arrow, appearing from nowhere, slammed into the earth directly before him, detonating with concussive force. The ground erupted. Flying stones and shrapnel lashed his face, drawing fresh blood. The shockwave alone hurled him back two full steps. Dust and grit, acrid and choking, filled his lungs, sending him into a violent, wracking fit of coughing.
"Are you all fucking insane?!" Silas roared, his voice cracking, raw with fury and desperation. "I *told* you! I'm not with the Purity Army!"
The white-armored knight advanced, slow and deliberate, his longsword, still pristine, still dripping Silas's blood. He had, Silas saw with a sinking heart, effortlessly shattered all nine of the Tidal Force-infused arrows. His blade, impossibly, remained unscratched, its edge still razor-sharp.
"I care little whose banner you claim," the knight said at last, his voice, filtered through the helmet, utterly devoid of discernible emotion. "You will finish this fight with *me*."
Silas stared, then slowly, deliberately, spat a thick glob of bloody saliva onto the ground at the knight's feet.
"Godsdamned lunatic!"
The white-armored knight offered no reply. He merely turned his head, addressing the black-armored giant who was now propped against the fence. "Old Qin," he called out, his voice carrying easily, "would you grant me this one?"
The behemoth known as Old Qin, currently having the arrow in his wrist tended to by a soldier in lighter armor, merely waved a dismissive hand, saying nothing.
The white-armored knight turned back to Silas. His face remained an unreadable cipher behind the steel of his helmet. Yet, Silas could feel the weight of that intense, penetrating gaze, dissecting him, assessing him. Then, in a move that utterly confounded Silas, the knight contemptuously tossed his own sword aside, adopting a relaxed, open stance, clearly inviting hand-to-hand combat. He even beckoned, a casual, almost insulting flick of his fingers.
Silas was tired. So incredibly, bone-deeply tired. *What in the seven hells is wrong with these people?* If they were so desperate for a brawl, he could whistle for Scamp and the pack; they'd provide ample entertainment.
Speaking of Scamp… Silas tilted his head, straining his ears against the ringing in them. Silence. The wolves' distinctive howls had long since vanished from the surrounding forest. Wiped out? Or had they, wisely, fled? A cold stone settled in Silas's gut.
*Alright, then.* A grim resolve hardened his features. *If you still insist on a fight, then by all the gods, a fight you shall have. To the bitter end.*
Silas thrust his own broken sword hilt-deep into the earth, then, drawing upon his last, dwindling reserves, poured a massive infusion of Tidal Force into his limbs. His muscles bulged, swelling visibly beneath his torn tunic, veins standing out like thick, blue cords under his skin. He launched himself forward, a human projectile, an arrow loosed from a bow of pure, desperate will, straight at the white-armored knight.
"COME ON THEN!" Silas roared, his right fist, wreathed in a miniature cyclone of displaced air, aimed directly at his opponent's impassive, helmeted face.
The white-armored knight swayed, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift of his body, and the heavy blow whistled past by a hair's breadth. His movements were a symphony of fluid, effortless grace, as if he possessed some uncanny prescience, anticipating Silas's every feint, every strike. In the same motion as his evasion, his left elbow, a venomous viper's strike, lashed out, connecting with brutal, pinpoint accuracy against Silas's already savaged ribs.
"Ugh!" Silas grunted, the air forced from his lungs, yet he used the momentum of the blow, of his own charge, to press forward, to close the distance. They crashed together. Here, at least, Silas's raw, brute strength held a clear advantage. He wrapped his powerful arms around the knight's slimmer waist, and with a guttural roar, executed a classic over-the-shoulder throw, slamming his opponent down towards the unforgiving earth.
But even as he fell, the white-armored knight, with astonishing agility, twisted, propping himself up with a single, outstretched hand, his long, powerful legs scissoring, locking around Silas's neck in a vise-like grip. A standard, perfectly executed cross armbar. Silas instantly felt the crushing pressure, the constriction of his airway. His vision began to dim, to tunnel.
"You have the option to surrender, you know," the knight's voice, cool and slightly mocking, drifted from behind his helmet.
Silas grinned, a raw, bloody rictus. With a surge of pure, desperate power from his core, he arched his back, lifting the knight's entire body clear off the ground. He grabbed the embossed edge of the knight's breastplate, and with a savage, unstoppable charge, slammed him bodily against the wooden fence. The two of them, locked in their brutal embrace, crashed through the splintering timbers, landing precariously close to the cliff's sheer edge. Beyond them, a nearly ninety-degree scree slope plunged into darkness.
"LOTHLAN!!!"
An anguished cry from behind them. The adjutant, her voice sharp with terror, was again trying to rush forward, only to be restrained by her comrades.
"This… this strength!!" The white-armored knight, clearly, had not anticipated such raw power. A fresh stream of blood trickled from beneath his helmet. He reacted instantly, twisting, adjusting his posture, a vicious side kick lashing out, aimed at Silas's knee, narrowly allowing him to break the hold.
The knight abruptly changed tactics. His hands, incredibly swift, clamped onto Silas's wrists, while his legs, with a wrestler's skill, scissored around Silas's waist, locking him in a devastatingly effective joint lock that targeted both arms. Silas felt an immediate, unendurable tearing sensation, as if his arms were about to be wrenched from their sockets.
"Let's see you escape *this*," the knight's voice was glacial now, his grip tightening, applying relentless, excruciating pressure.
Silas's face contorted, a mask of pure agony. But in his eyes, a wild, desperate, almost feral glint of madness ignited. With a sudden, explosive surge of will, he deliberately, shockingly, twisted his *own* left wrist in the opposite direction of the lock.
*"CRACK!"*
The sound of the joint dislocating was a sickening, visceral punctuation to the brutal ballet. But the maneuver, however agonizing, bought him his freedom. He ripped his left hand free. Before the knight could react, before he could adjust to this sudden, insane reversal, Silas seized the fleeting, desperate opportunity. His freed left fist, a blur of motion, shot upwards from below. The uppercut connected with brutal precision at the vulnerable seam where helmet met breastplate. The piercing, ringing shriek of deforming metal sang out across the silent, watching battlefield.
The helmet, dislodged by the force of the blow, spun into the air, a silver comet arcing through the night, before landing, with a soft thud, in the distant, moon-drenched grass.
Beneath it, no monster, no demon, but the face of a young man. Twenty-five, perhaps twenty-six years of age. Sword-sharp eyebrows above startlingly intense, star-like eyes. A high-bridged, aristocratic nose. Thin, resolute lips, chiseled as if from stone. But it was his eyes that commanded attention: dark, almost black pupils, imbued with a profound, characteristic reservedness often found in those of Eastern descent. A few stray locks of sweat-darkened black hair clung to his angular, high-cheekboned face.
Were he astride a white charger, parading down the main thoroughfare of Sordin Town, Silas mused with a strange, detached irony, half the eligible maidens of the district would likely swoon at the mere sight of him.
But in the very next, brutal instant.
Silas, seizing the opening, the momentary shock of his unmasking, gathered every last, flickering ember of his strength and launched himself upwards, his forehead connecting with his opponent's now-exposed face with the sickening, solid impact of a battering ram.
*THUD!*
Blood, a shared, crimson flower, bloomed between them. The white-armored knight's nose shattered under the force of the headbutt. The recoil sent them both staggering backward, locked for a final, fatal instant in their death embrace, before they tumbled, together, down the steep earthen slope and into the waiting, indifferent chasm of the cliff below.