Two blades against one. Giordana against Vassermark, a conflict reignited by betrayal. Both sides had put forth men barely older than children to be their avatar in the struggle. Neither Lucius nor Medorosa fought with any fear of death.

One might imagine a great deal of grunting and shouting, of swearing oaths at one another. That would have required they spare the breath for words rather than heaving in fresh air. Each of them, mere moments after the first lunges, the thrusts and swipes, the clash of steel on steel, they panted like dogs. Deep, ragged belly breathing as the muscles in their arms and legs contended with the strain of combat.

Lucius had fought dual wielding men before, a roguish archetype if ever there was one. Duelists fancied it in the central kingdoms, and more than once he had found his blade bound up and his stomach cut open. The tricks, the circling of tips and pivoting of shoulders as edges scraped, Lucius knew them almost as well as Medorosa did. He would thrust, stab, graze a slice of red across the Giordanan’s wrists before seeing the twist and tearing his blade back to a guard.

Medorosa’s attacks in turn slammed back at Lucius. They danced back and forth, pressuring one another around the dais as his one-handed strikes failed to push back Lucius’ defense.

Either could have, perhaps, ended the fight with a burst of strength. Had they the power to rain down a flurry of blows, slashing and crashing upon the other’s defenses and overwhelming them, the duel could have been brought to a close. If either had tried, in their fatigued states, the other would have cut their head off.

Lucius gladly played the game. The longer it dragged out, so long as neither ceased, the more people would speak of it. He made his thrusts and he pulled away, circling the throne in the light of the glass mosaic. Every moment, every beat of his heart, stitched his wounds back together. He drew more strength from his feet to his hips to his hands, and his blows grew heavier.

Medorosa grew weaker and knew in his heart the cause. He had no allies, no brothers to watch his back. They had one by one perished for his cause. What had made him a terror to the savages of the wastelands valued for naught against Lucius. He could not slay some impotent would-be warrior and sow chaos. He could not drop himself to the ground like a puppet with no strings, for he had no protection. He had only himself and no way to use his greatest strength, his stigmata.

The enormity of his mistake began to dawn on him. The faces of his comrades, now dead, flashing before him in the clash of steel. Every blow made him more certain that Lucius had not lied when he said Erdro Karakale had been slain at his hand. Dhib had been cut down by Lucius. Omar slain by the guards. How many would drown after the naval battle?

Those thoughts, the weary yoke of leadership, truly dragged Medorosa Canta into the muck of despair, for no matter how he attacked Lucius, he could not break through. He could not kill my pupil. Even the glancing slices that marred his arms and legs closed up and sealed if they were left to be in the dance of swords.

Then, as the strings of tension upon his heart tried to tear him apart, he locked blades. He caught Lucius’ sword with honor blade and saber both, holding it with all his strength of arm and grip both, then slammed it to the side. Their blades cleaved, ramming into and through the back of the throne. It splintered and erupted. Shards of wood flew and the break rang like a cannon shot.

For a moment, Lucius was held in shock, of questioning what it meant to break the throne of Rackvidd. What it did was break the illusion Medorosa had put upon himself. It broke his need to be there, at the center of the city, and the crux of power. It showed what a trifling thing the symbol was when put to the test of mettle.

He leapt.

Not at Lucius, but at the window. With an ancient skeleton of tin and solder, a brittle frame unable to even keep the rain from seeping through. He drove his shoulder to it and smashed through to the courtyard beyond.

Lucius roared as the thousand shards of glass tumbled inside and out. He leapt up to the crenelated sill. Medorosa had hit the bosom of grass below, rolling to his feet as fresh blood poured into his jacket. The courtyard was home to dozens of entries and exits, paths of flight and escape.

Lucius dove down, hitting with his shoulder and rolling. Before he could get his feet, Medorosa hacked down, stabbing into his arms with his saber. It robbed my pupil of his grip on his own sword as pain lanced through him, the pain of fractured bone.

The saber was pinned between his arm and his chest however, and when he twisted he tore it from Medorosa’s grasp as well. That left one good weapon; the Canta boy’s honor blade. Before Lucius could rip the saber from his arm, the dagger plunged at him. It was all he could do to grab hold of Medorosa’s arms to stop it.

“This will be the fourth time I’ve killed you,” Medorosa hissed, throwing his weight atop Lucius to drive his sliver of steel down.

Lucius spat. This time, it didn’t reach his opponent. Medorosa roared, gritting his teeth, snarling, thrashing his body down. With a heave, Lucius shoved the Giordanan aside, but too late, too weak. The knife slipped down, plunging in and ripped through his eye. The orb ruptured as the blade twisted in his socket, gouts of blood and pain blinding him as the weapon scraped against his skull.

But he had shoved Medorosa, he did force the man aside, and the Giordanan landed atop the glass thrust through his shoulder. He too howled in pain and lost his grip. The honor blade tumbled to the ground between them as Lucius at last ripped the saber from his arm. For a moment, they scrambled in the dirt, churning it with their blood. Lucius had the worse of the gore, but the pain was not enough to blind him and the gods had given him two eyes.

He snatched up the saber torn from his arm just as Medorosa leapt back up with his honor blade.

“Enough!” Lucius screamed. He chopped down, both hands on the handle.

The Giordanan rebel thrust his dagger forth, catching the edge on his guard, but too weak. The saber slammed down, shoving through the blade and chopping into Medorosa’s shoulder. It bit through bone.

The shock reverberated back, passing through Lucius’ hands, wrists, and to his arm. A shock of pain wiped his senses from him, greater than what any man could bear without crying out in pain. His own bone, fractured by the sword thrust, snapped. The muscles contracted, ripping the tips of his humerus through his flesh. He screamed.

It was then, standing at death’s door, that Medorosa at last had the upper hand. With his own sword cleaved into his torso, hands wet with blood and hardly enough breath to pant let alone to shout, he held the advantage. His honor blade dipped down, sliding off the saber. He slipped it in through the left side of Lucius’ throat, beneath his destroyed eye. With a jerk, he ripped through my pupil’s artery.

Blood near boiling hot fountained out, coating both men as they collapsed.

All this occurred in less time than it took for a single guard, a single soldier fo Rackvidd, to storm into the courtyard. The men beneath Lord Raymi charged over and found the twin corpses.

“No!” The scream, ripped from Aisha’s lips, echoed out from the inner garden and up to the heavens above. “Brother! Why, why did you do this?”

Oscar watched from above, one foot on the precipice of broken glass. “What a pity. A tragic end. A destruction on both sides. A cruel folly brought to its own end. Two men in such high pursuit of glory, of vanity and significance, that they each achieved nothing. The duel they wanted so badly brought them nothing but their own end.” He spat on the ground.

Aisha, in lieu of both combatants being dead, was allowed to break free, to charge over. She fell to her knees at her brother’s side, tears running down her face as weeks of fear came to fruition. With no hesitation of the filth and blood, she cradled his head and spared a glance for Lucius’ disfigured form limp upon the ground. She cradled Medorosa’s head with trembling hands, her body racked with her sobs. Then hope found its way into her, merely to twist the knife harder and deeper within her heart.

“He’s still breathing! Please, a doctor! He can be saved. He can be taken prisoner. Put on trial! Enslaved. Something. Bring a doctor, a priestess, anyone!”

No amount of her cries and protests could rouse Medorosa however. Oscar shook his head and departed to the throne room once more, working his way through the halls to join them. The other soldiers knew better than to hold out hope. They knew what sort of destruction had been dealt to Medorosa’s body. Mortal hands could no longer save him. Only the power of a stigmata, and no such saint lived within Rackvidd.

A shadow descended from the sky, great and monstrous as it alighted upon the palace roof and preened its abyssal wings. Golden crowed, twitching his head and salivating above the red stained garden. “Delicious! Such a delectable delight to devour this day. The transparent tragedy of trifling tyrants. The blood of bashed and battered brutes bare upon the ground. The sniffling suffering of a sister. The vexation of veterans viewing the vile victor. I have not sated my glut with such beautiful and pained morsels for decades.”

Aisha turned her head up, trembling as she gripped her brother’s body and found that she had not the strength to ask for help of the divine beast. Not because he was incapable, but because she knew, deep in her heart, that Golden would refuse. For all the aid that creature had bestowed upon Lucius and her, the payment was then due. The blood and body of sacrifice that laid in her grasp.

The soldiers cried out, “Demon! It is a demon of the sands!” They were struck by the awe of magic, the hyper-real impression of force, how his feathers cut away the waning sky behind him. The mere presence, cast down above them, drew all eyes upward. Their spears wavered and their feet retreated.

The duel laid forgotten in an instant, and in that gap, the victor rose. Drenched in blood and broken in body, Lucius von Solhart pushed himself up to his feet. His right arm dangled at his side, useless. His left eye a blight of gore. He panted and heaved across ragged throat.

Lucius laughed.

Golden nearly burst with glee as he shouted, “Now then! Finish it! Bring this act to an end!”

“I’ve done it,” Lucius said, his voice rough as a saw as he coughed out blood. “I have the undying body. Let them all come. Let all the Vassish come at me. What will they do to me now that I have an unkillable body?” Medorosa said through Lucius’ mouth.