Von

Von considered his options as Romulo leaped at them.

He can’t just be a monster, Von reasoned. Were that the case, then every fencing champion would be a wolf…and elves have won it before, even if it was a long time ago. They aren’t too different from humans aside from having a much longer timespan to become proficient at the blade.Before the Deathless Curse, at least. He can’t be as imposing as he looks right now. It simply cannot be as certain of a death as we think it will be.

If only his nerves would’ve listened to him.

Romulo appeared before them, sword down and head exposed. It was a reckless approach and exposed him to much danger, yet such was his ferocity that they held ground over rushing him—save for one guard, who rushed forward at him, steel aimed right at the monster’s neck. Strong nerves, that man. He was confident that his blade would slice off the lobisomem’s head before the enemy had a chance to do much. A lord cannot hesitate here. Von took a step forward, a moment later, following his man. The Lobisomem’s blade was low on the ground and the guard’s longsword connected with his neck.

Blood...

...spurted out of the wolf’s neck, but his smile never faded amidst the pain. Eerily, rather than protect himself he brought his own sword upward in a cutting motion. It did not slice off the limb in a clean motion, but it reached bone and wounded the man gravely. Shamefully, both the injured man and Von himself thought it a fair trade—nearly losing a limb was a fair price for gravely wounding such a swordsman.

Von followed up the attack with a thrust of his own blade, and felt a chill go down his spine when he saw that Romulo made no effort to move away. Instead, he only whispered, “Beat backwards, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

Stillness fell, and momentum died. That which moved forward stopped mid-air, and that which fell stopped as if a bout of laziness left it unmotivated to crash against the ground. Von’s own swinging sword stopped, his arm and legs frozen mid-motion, yet his body not falling as he lost his balance. What is this drunk feeling? His arms moved, eventually, but the wrong way. They started to move backwards.

What is happening, Von thought, watching the blood fill back into Romulo’s throat. That is not how—that is not how things—

Even that very thought flew away from his mind, as Romulo’s flesh went back into his own body, a broken puzzle being pieced together. His mind shattering, Von struggled to understand what unfolded before him.

While the world stood still, Romulo still moved as normal. He stepped forward, covering a distance he could not have done before, stepping inside the guardsman’s range and casually pushing his sword aside before stabbing him through the heart.

“Beat again, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The last of his memories died here.

Von could not understand anything that had unfolded, so fast it felt. One moment he swore he had found the courage within himself to leap after his guardsman, but the other he was standing with the rest of the group, hesitant sword in hand and one foot firmly planted backward. With a frightening speed, the guardsman fell to the ground, blood spilling from his chest. When had he died?

Neither strategy nor grief was given the time it sorely needed here. A feeling of shameful regret swelling up inside him, Von launched himself at the monster, his heart stirring at the sight of his men’s blood. A drop of his men’s blood is a stain on a lord’s honor, his father had once said. “Craven beast—!”

It was not only he who moved forward, this time. Talla too had advanced, but opted for a sideways approach. Going for the trees, most likely, considering her Heartbeat. Other guardsmen rushed just slightly ahead of him, their initial positioning giving them better odds at reaching the Lobisomem. Four men swung their swords nearly at the same time, and superhuman reflexes or no, Romulo could not avoid them.

Every...

attack landed at once, two to his shoulders, one through his chest, and one to his neck. None was immediately lethal, for his fur pushed back the blades just enough, though these wounds would still soon kill him. Yet, this much was enough for that grin to remain on his face. With a raspy voice from his open throat, he thundered, “Beat backwards, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The river of time reversed its flow once more. Steel moved out of Romulo’s blood, and blood moved back in, flesh piecing back itself. All of them moved back to their initial positions, fully aware of what happened, if only for the moment, watching helplessly as Romulo dispatched all of them. “Not enough time,” the Lobisomem lamented, swinging his blade at the first man within reach, “pity, to have to hurry.”

For the first two guards he delivered two guards, he delivered near equal cuts to their arms, nearly reaching their bone. For the third, the Lobisomem had acquired a better feeling for the motion, slicing off his arm cleanly.

Captain Diego was the last target, and even in that chaotic state, Von was pleased to note the mild frustration on Romulo’s stance. The captain had approached him with a thrust despite the longsword, and thus kept himself safely at a distance. There was only enough time for Romulo to push the man’s sword aside before he had to declare,

“Beat again, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The last of his memories died here.

Yet Romulo did more than merely avoid the blades. Every guard but the captain fell to the ground in excruciating pain, two of them dropping their blade in agony as blood flowed from their destroyed arms, and one of them missing his arm entirely. Captain Diego stumbled backward, nearly disarmed, and the lobisomem’s monstrous longsword connected with his armored side. Steel did not cut through steel, but Diego let out a cry of pain and fell to the side, his back connecting with the carriage and falling still. “My lord,” he pleaded, “please…” And he faded, to either the land of dreams or the world above the storm.

Neither Von nor Talla had moved at all.

What’s…what’s going on? Have I made fear my master to this degree? Beneath the silent full moon, faced with that monstrosity, he could almost understand—though not forgive—his own fear. Von was certain he had moved forward, yet his feet still stood where they had this entire fight. This was not right. Briefly, he allowed for the possibility that his craven self had resurfaced and he only deluded himself that he was capable of such bravery. Were he alone, he knew he would have come to that conclusion. Yet another thought overcame him.

Talla too was back where she had started, and he knew he had seen her move. She looked at herself, uncertain, doubtlessly wondering much the same Von himself was. Anyone in a situation like this, faced with such an unrelenting monster, faster than their eyes could perceive, would think so. Yet this seemingly faster than light monster had not yet killed them. These two facts did not match, and Von made a snap decision—to trust his friend, if he could not trust himself. TALLA IS NOT CRAVEN!

Von rushed toward the beastly man—then stopped. He held his sword high and pointed downward, a move taught to him as the hanging guard. It was similar to a stop-hit posture, but here he stood with his hand high before his opponent even moved forward, the tip of his blade pointed down over at a single target. It was a defensive maneuver and mostly meant against thrusting systems, hardly a staple of rapier fencing. Here his goal was simple: to keep distance at all costs.

“I expected you to attack me, Von of Redgrave.” Romulo’s voice had the strange mix of mockery and pleased surprise. “You watch your men die, yet you do not move. I knew you a winterman, yet did not think you to have such cold blood. Where is your passion?”

When Von spoke, it was not to Romulo, despite his eyes never leaving the man. It was to Talla. “This isn’t just speed. His Heartbeat must be doing something here…whatever it is.”

The wolfish grin on the wolf told him he was correct. “I will hold him off—ready your skill, Talla.”

“Admirable,” Romulo told him, his voice sparkling, “to witness me defeat your subordinates so quickly yet think you can hold your own in single against me…I have always liked that quality of yours, Von of Redgrave.”

It was neither confidence in his own abilities nor ego that made Von’s decision firm. It was the observation that his master had survived this far without a Heartbeat of his own, and thus his knowledge was to be trusted.

“There will be Heartbeats you do not know,” his master told him, “and Heartbeats that you are aware of, but cannot fully understand. In the tournament, you will most likely discover your opponent’s ability before you fight them—but sometimes they will be quite fashionable at hiding them. Sometimes, you will be aware of what the results look like, but not exactly of what it does as a concept. It can be quite tricky, let me tell you that—when I first came around, that really confused me.”

His phrasing was odd and certain points invited further questions, but Dragon Tower took priority. “What is one to do when they do not know what powers the other’s Heartbeat possesses? It seems to me that you may inadvertently lose before you figure out what their ability even is.”

“What are you talking about, kid?” Master Cycle appeared sincerely confused at the question. “That’s the wrong way to approach the problem. Instead of thinking about what their Heartbeat can do to you…remember that you can keep it from activating entirely. They need a living target, after all.”

“You mean—”

“Just don’t get hit,” his master told him, shrugging his shoulders as if that was the most simple thing in the world.

“Just don’t get hit,” Von muttered to himself.

The lobisomem rushed at him, mighty longsword coming down in a cutting motion to knock Von’s blade aside. He did not allow this, spinning the tip of his blade counterclockwise in a move called disengagementto avoid contact. Neither of the two was hit in the exchange and Von’s breath caught at his throat.

There was no instant murder as it had happened with the other guards.

That confirmed it.

Whatever he had done before was a result of his Heartbeat—that was how he had killed the guards. But if Von could keep him at bay, he was no different from a regular opponent, despite his monstrous appearance. Heightened power, speed, yes, those were all there. But the lobisomem form was not so overwhelming that a person could not keep up with. It just felt that way because of the way he used his Heartbeat. Fear is his ally, let courage be mine.

Another exchange, this time with two cutting attempts and both times Von danced the tip of his blade to avoid a clash, taking a step backward to safety. A low growl from the wolf showed this was beginning to get on his nerves. “Fight me, Redgrave!”

“Why?” Von whistled softly. Despite himself, despite the blood and suffering around him, he smiled. There was a Stormener within him after all. His father would be proud. “This is going rather well.”

The initial wave of panic had subsided, and Von found his fencing pose to be quite relaxing, one foot pointed forward, one back pointing to the side, knees slightly bent. The hanging guard was abandoned in favor of a more traditional stance, and his confidence swelled inside of him. Beat still, my heart. Nervousness was what it was. His style would not change, revenge or no.

Von of Redgrave’s fencing was like a slow, oncoming snowstorm. He would not devise from this path, even against a monster like this. No…that was not quite right. Especially against a monster like this, staying true to his style was essential. Abandoning his specialty was simply statistically unlikely to win him a fight he would have lost using his regular style. If I believe in my style, it must hold true when my back is against the wall.

“Dance with me,” Von invited the wolf bravely.

He stepped forward, sword hand defiant, shaken nerves steadying. His vision widened, and he saw that there was more to the world than the lobisomem around him. Snow fell around him still, and Talla moved about. The narrow sights fear had given him left the young lord, and his sword struck more confidently. Another dodged cut, but this time the swords met briefly, and Von’s hand shook.

It weighed mightily heavily, that blade. Yet it was not the heaviest blade he had felt. Romulo’s longsword was likely heavier, yet the blade did not bear the weight of a princedom behind it. His speed was ferocious, yet there was no certainty behind its intent. At that moment Von no longer felt fear. He felt disgust. That this craven man before him dared to scarecrow himself with strength he did not have. That this monstrous wolf had felled his men. That he himself had been afraid of him at once.

One blow from the wolf would have been death, surely.

But Von would not allow this to come to pass.

Steel met steel, and for a heartbeat, it seemed as though the wolf’s strength would win out. Lobo would not have attacked me like an idiot. Von’s blade danced around it, avoiding the momentum of the clash and letting the heavy steel tip of the lobisomem’s blade fall against the snow. He saw the opening for the man’s throat and did not take it. My men attacked his throat and died for it. He would stay true to his style, and produced a light thrust against the man’s arm. It was light. It hardly drew blood. It was barely noticeable at all.

It was enough.

“Talla!” Von shouted. “Now!”

Across from the two, Talla ran across a number of trees, baptizing them with her steel and rolling at the end of her dash to gesture at the man. “Devour him, my heartbeat!” she thundered. Talla was like a lord at that moment, and the trees her loyal vassals. Branches and roots shot out simultaneously like well-trained soldiers, spiraling together mid-air and seizing the wolf’s arms and legs, lifting him upside down and enveloping him as if to crush his spine. “It’s over, cretin!” Talla cried out.

“Ah, this could be quite difficult,” Romulo observed. “You will crush my spine now, yes?”

Immobilized

by the vines, the wolf realized with some mild concern his ribs were being crushed. He snapped his jaw open and bit the vines holding his arm, a glitter of moonlight betraying the presence of steel in his mouth. This was a casual urgency, the speed of a man who knows time is of the essence yet acts with untouched nerves even as his actions quicken. The wolf bit all that his neck could reach from that precarious position, then uttered, “Beat backwards, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The vines and roots holding his left arm reversed in flow, slowly retracting back toward the trees, and he reached toward the vines and roots trapping his sword arm. He could not free himself, but he could bring the vines nearer to his mouth, whereupon he bit them once more, and they too reversed back to the trees they originated from. Unwilling to waste further time, Romulo used his freed sword arm to cut at the remaining branches, vines and roots, reversing their flow to their origin.

“That is quite the Heartbeat you have, woman,” Romulo said, walking up to the elf frozen in time. “Ah, the ability to control the shape and will of living things…I wonder what your limitations are? Can you use it against people as well? No matter. You did not think about it, did you? That by bringing those things into the duel, you would make them targets for my own moves? Ah…how unfortunate. You allowed me to increase my reserves of reversed time by quite a lot, don’t you know?”

Romulo’s hand brushed against Talla’s face. Even frozen in time, her panic was obvious. “You are a good woman. In a different life, I would have considered making you mine. Your Heartbeat is too powerful for me to let go, however…and I was looking for another one. So”—he stabbed her through the chest—“I hope to find another woman like you.”

Von wanted to cry out in despair, even as his very memories of that thrust were erased, even as Romulo started making his way back toward him.

“Beat again, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The last of his memories died here.

Von nearly died.

One moment, he had allowed himself a victorious grin when Talla captured the enemy and started crushing his ribs. The next, the vines were gone as if they had never been there in the first place, Romulo stood where he had been mere seconds ago, right before Von, swinging his sword at him as if their exchanges had never stopped. And the young lord could not even bring himself to focus on that, because Talla was on the ground, unmoving, a hole on her chest.

“TA—” Von’s cry was stopped by a visceral instinct deep within himself that raised the sword at the last moment. It was not even a parry, more an obstacle, and the wolf’s blow punched right through it. The mighty steel had an unrefined motion behind it, and it came down with the flat of the blade over the sharp—it did not cut Von, but the heavy steel smacked over his left shoulder and produced a mighty crack sound. Something had broken, he did not know what.

He banished his pain and engaged in a series of desperate parries. Rapiers can parry longswords.The thought came again and again to his mind, a desperate foothold that kept him from the endless abyss beneath him. Mighty cuts were pushed to the side with difficulty and pain, thrusts were redirected, but he could not find the space or angle for a riposte. The wolf brought his arm downward, beating Von’s blade aside and opening an angle for a thrust to the heart.

There was no choice.

“Freeze,” Von commanded, triggering his Heartbeat.

The one hit he had landed earlier was enough, and the sudden shiver caused the wolf to hesitate. Von wanted nothing more than to run, but something else willed him forward, a voice inside his heart screamed that a single step back would mean certain death. MORE. HITS. He ran his sword through the lobisomem, once, twice, five times, triggering Winter with every move at first, then every two. Again and again his steel pierced the wolf’s flesh, and at the end it appeared to slow down. Five freezes left. He nearly lost count, but his Heartbeat told him instinctively how many moves he had left. This was not information he could be mistaken about. “Freeze,” Von thundered, “for the last time!”

“Beat again, my Heartbeat!” Talla thundered from across the field. She’s alive! Von thought, midair. Vines started shooting up once more, launching themselves in the wolf’s direction and seizing his feet.

It was the perfect chance. He was frozen with Von’s Heartbeat, and he wrapped up in the vines. No matter what his ability was, this was their chance. “Die, cretin!” Von cried out, lunging at the man’s throat.

Von’s blade...

...pierced the man’s throat at the same time as a set of vines crushed his spine. There was no hesitation, no confidence, just a mere instinctual response from the wolf, who cried out through the blood in his lungs, “Beat backwards, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

The young lord’s blade left his insides, and the wolf massaged his throat for a moment before shooting a suspicious glance at the elf. “My blade ran you through the heart,” he muttered in surprise. “How do you yet draw breath? Why do you not seem injured? Elves heal fast, true, yet—”

Time was a pressing matter and the wolf took a number of steps backward to distance himself. “You made me use most of it…my steel needs to draw more blood now,” he whispered.

“Beat again, my Tempo Heartbeat.”

Von did not move forward. He moved backward, his legs were bent again in en garde position, and he found himself at a safe distance from the man, who had somehow retreated far away from him. I am alive, was his first thought. Talla is alive, was his second. What in the Storm Gods’s name is that Heartbeat, was his third, and least important. “Talla!” he cried out. “You’re fine!”

“I am alive,” she cried back, massaging her stomach. Whatever injury she had received had been debilitating. She could move, but she could no longer fight. That much was clear. “Focus on the fight!”

He was the only one left, and Romulo knew it too. The wolf was breathing heavily now, but grinned from a distance. It frightened him. This monster that had defeated six of them walked toward him now. If he bested six of them at once, what chance did Von possess on his own? No.

That was not how the Champion of Stormkeep ought to think. It was oddly helpful to title himself such, instead of lord. Duty seemed like a faraway thought then. This was more than his responsibility, it was his pride. True, the wolf had bested six of them, but he had significantly slowed down his onslaught after felling the first four. What had changed then?

I started fencing defensively.

It was something to do with the Heartbeat, of course. Master Cycle had told him to simply avoid getting hit, to make sure the Heartbeat could not trigger. That was probably what his master would have done, had he been here. Von was not his master, and Master Cycle himself had said as much. Your style should be yours, he told him. What did that mean in this situation?

If I cannot defend properly, I need to know what his Heartbeat is. Think…what resources do I have?

Talla was unable to move. Alayne was hopefully hiding away somewhere, and she had shown no talent for fighting. Captain Diego was unconscious or dead, while the other guards were in even worse conditions. Von found himself rather energetic still, so his stamina would not be an issue. And he still had five triggers of Winter to rely on. That was something at least.

Or at least he thought.

His Heartbeat told him differently now—he only had two hits to use, not five. How could that be? He had not used them, and he surely wasn’t mistaken. Not about this. Not about the heart’s very voice. What could it be then? He must have used it, surely. But he hadn’t. So what could—

A mad thought came to him then.

A mad, overwhelming, horrifying thought.

“Your Heartbeat,” Von thundered, “I understand it now!”

This was why the man had been so strong when he appeared, why he seemed more like a monster of legend than a single man, why he had bested so many people in the blink of an eye. It was also why he was such a strong swordsman despite his lackluster technique that paled in comparison to Lobo’s or even Von’s. This was a man who followed his own heart, and whose Heartbeat paved a path for him.

“With the aid of your Heartbeat, your sword…” Von trailed off for a moment and saw the grin on the wolf’s face. It was then he knew he was right.”…CAN CUT THROUGH TIME!”

Even from a distance, he could hear it. Laughter as sharp as ice, the mad wolf clapping his hands together in amusement. “That cleverness…that is exactly why it has to be you, Von of Redgrave!”

His boisterous, enormous hands produced a mighty sound that echoed in the night. “It is only you that can give me the duelo bonito I crave for. The dance, the back and forth, the beautiful strategy—compose a masterpiece with me, my friend. Show me the beauty only you can achieve.”

It should have been despair.

The emotion that filled Von at that moment should have been despair, a sort of paralyzing fear at the notion of facing such an opponent. Even if he managed to run his sword through the monster, he would undo the damage right after before cutting him open. The knowledge that he was faced against such an opponent should have made him give up on the very notion of living. Yet, it did not. The battlefield philosopher was filled with thoughts, not emotions.

Thoughts of how the wolf was looking at him with those amused eyes. Talla looked at him with desperate eyes that urged him to run away. His fallen men, the few that were conscious, looked at him expectantly, hoping but not truly thinking he could manage to best the monster. People’s eyes had always terrified him. He remembered his father’s disappointed eyes when he showed his cowardice. He remembered his mothers eyes, filled with pity for her pathetic son. His late brother’s eyes, filled with kindness and resolve.

Then he remembers Lobo’s eyes.

A rival looks at you differently. Neither a look of encouragement nor hope. There is no pleading for you to miraculously do the impossible. At no point do they so much as consider if you are able to pull off that impossible feat or not, instead merely acting under the assumption that you will, as certainly as the sun will rise in the morning.

They do not believe in you like family or lovers would. They simply know that you are going to rise up to the occasion. Because you are the man they acknowledged as their equal.

Kings die, Empires change, Houses are broken—and what of it?

The end will be the two of you standing across from each other, forcing each other to get better.

“I will be waiting for you in the finals, Von of Redgrave.”

He had wanted to fence like this from the start. One on one. But he didn’t have the guts to do it at first. Now that everything was lost he had nothing to lose except for his life.

And that much he could part with.

Von took a step forward. “In the name of my noble House of Redgrave, I swear to you, wolf—you shall lose.”

End of Chapter 22,

“I swear to you, Wolf”