Spoiler (Click to Show)
Unbeknownst to their assailants, there were reinforcements marching at double-time to reach their position in order to relieve their besieged allies. It was only a matter of time before the attackers were pushed from their position by devastating wave of cavalry-mounted mages.
While such was unknown to the majority of the commanders, it was known by a small group that had infiltrated and been marching with the company for a period of months, now, waiting for the inevitable clash between it and their foes. Shadows even in the shadows cast by the thick, odious clouds of smoke that the cannons had released, they toiled. The humble crew of two of the great batteries that were failing to do much more than cause a ringing in the ears of the men they sought to destroy.
There were two of them, each bearing a calling card that would become their name. The Jack of Bones and the Ten of the same suit. Both were clad in the fighting uniforms of their temporary host, and at that moment, both of them were grinning.
“Jack, this thing is going to be a success. The only question, then, is how much of a success is it going to be?” the one who had declared himself as Ten to the commanding officer before loading another round into the weapon he and his partner were manning declared.
“An absolute success, Ten,” wagered the other of the pair. “Just a matter of time before we get the signal. Then we use our ace in the hole.”
Their features were obscured in deeper smoke as the cannon fired again. The feeling of the cannon reverberated through their bones. One of them, the one who bore a number for his name, winced, and then an uneasy smile came up, for the feeling of pain was the signal that he had been waiting for.
“Pain, followed by the success in all endeavors.” Jack reflected as he turned to a seemingly ordinary round. “This war is out of our hands, as of now. It’s time to let fate decide its course.”
“Still, I pity the poor bastards. Fragmentation shells. This is going to hurt.”
The round fired, arcing through the air, projecting a sound of terrible purpose. Unlike the standard issue rounds used by the other cannons, this particular ball had been prepared especially to deal with the magic that was proving so effective at nullifying the attacks. While the other attacks had exploded brilliantly against the defensive spells being weaved by the force of mages who had been tasked with such a duty, this particular attack sailed straight through, smashing into the chest of one very surprised mage. The brief weakness in the screen suddenly grew much more prominent, with the subsequent explosion. Fragments of sharpened glass and metal tore through flesh and light cloth armor. Screams filled the air, only to be drowned out by the boom of more cannon fire. The effect quickly began to snowball, and a charge was ordered. The two infiltrators who had wrought such destruction exchanged another grin, before retreating from the chaos, evading detection as they allowed destiny to run its course.
The aftermath of the battle was bloody. The reinforcements had arrived to a fierce melee, and entered it readily. This produced an even bloodier battle, but a bloody battle that ultimately ended in the routing of the cannon-toting force that had been so hopeful of a final victory, here. Instead, of the smell of cheap booze and revelry, however, now there was a sober counting of the dead. The celebration was occurring on another hill. Here, there were a few soldiers given the unsavory task, and two heroes of the day.
Gairovald walked alongside Dominic, the commander of the forces that had managed to survive the dread onslaught. The pair were discussing the nature of the shield-piercing attack that had succeeded in surprising them all. It had been a magic far beyond the abilities of the army they had been facing, that much was certain, but who could be supplying them was another matter, entirely.
“Have we considered the possibility that the supplier came from within our own ranks? Its usage did not occur at any crucial moment, and judging by their own reaction, it had been a surprise.” Gairovald proposed. “It could have been smuggled over at some time, and simply been left to do its work.”
“It is a possibility, but there aren’t many amongst our rank-and-file who could have performed such an enchantment as that. The officers are loyal to both me and their country, and not a one of them was beyond their post or the line of battle during the engagement. I feel that the greater likelihood is that one of our enemies abroad has been supporting this war from a distance.” Dominic replied. The aging man, less grand in stature than he once had been, still conveyed a willingness and capability of surviving a confrontation a dozen times the scale as the one he had just witnessed. “I would be willing to gamble that it was our friends to the north. Perhaps out of revenge for one of the previous wars. We did side against them in their latest attempt to establish a secure foothold across the seas.”
“This trick does seem to play to their own inelegant carelessness.” Gairovald intoned, amusement playing at the edges of his syllables, though his words carried a sharpness cold as iron. “However, we have fought them many a time, I doubt even their best mages could duplicate a trick such as this.”
A chilling wind cut across the desolate battlefield, causing both to shiver. The sky above was a darkening gray mass of clouds, hinting very strongly of the storm that had been threatening to deluge the area for so long would finally have its moment. The autumn rains. Really, they had been fortunate thus far to have avoided them for so long. The storm gathering above seemed like it would be ready to more than make up for it all.
“Gairovald, you’ve been a great asset to this campaign,” the compliment broke the stillness unexpectedly, disturbing Gairovald from his own musings. “You’re receiving a promotion. As it turns out, it seems the crown plans on launching another campaign eastwards, and I’m being pulled out of this region for it. I have been given the duty of naming my replacement. It’s you, lad.”
Gairovald, for all his efforts, could not stow away the glimmer of surprise and pride that flashed across his face, and Dominic couldn’t help but notice it. A warm smile of pride lit up his face. A look that was suddenly made hollow in appearance, and followed by a soft moan. Then he fell forwards, revealing the vicious spike of glass that had failed to completely impale the man.
From the next hill over, Gin watched and waited to see what his target’s companion planned to do. His body was inert, like a statue of glass, but Gin knew that nobody would be fooled by such an act. He had no plan to play the role of the harmless work of art, either. No. Gin deduced that this was a matter that would be dealt with best in a more visceral fashion. The shard he had implanted in Dominic’s back allowed him full vision of the immediate aftermath. There was the companion, a look of dull surprise having washed over his face. Further back, there was a soldier turning back to get a second look at a sight he, no doubt, couldn’t believe he was witnessing.
The companion was coming closer, now, to examine the piece of Gin, and when he saw his eyes, there, Gin felt a sudden rush of pride. Not pride his own, though. It was the pride of this man. Somewhere, deep down, a mental blade was unsheathed, slightly. The companion looked up from the shard, and Gin knew that he had been detected. The site was isolated enough that if he desired to gain a head start on the inevitable pursuit, destroying these men would be the surest way to widen such a window of opportunity as much as could be done. Besides, Gin would enjoy this.
How many men were there? How many lives needed to be extinguished in order to succeed, here? There were four. The companion to the target and three others, men who had been counting the dead. They were of no concern to the grander scheme of things. Any one of them could be slaughtered like so many sheep and the passage of time would render the action to nonexistence. At that moment, their incapacitation was all that he needed in order to proceed to the removal of himself from the former area of his operations. Gin got down on a single knee, steadying himself, before smashing one of his arms as hard as he could against the hill. It shattered, producing several pieces long enough for his goal. The companion was giving orders of some sort, Gin knew that much, but they were shouted in a language that he could not understand. The others were listening, however, which made them into easy targets.
The glint of a mirror’s shard rocketing through the air was all the warning the first of Gairovald’s soldier-underlings received before he found himself fumbling clumsily at a shard of glass extending from his throat. The cry of surprise and pain was drowned in the same blood that was quickly filling his throat. In spite of the advance warning this gave to the other two soldiers, they soon met similar fates. Gairovald was the only one with the reaction time necessary to raise his shield to intercept the incoming attack.
Gin saw him mutter words he could not understand, but the brief flash through his eyes, this he understood. The thing of mirror and magic stood, and then advanced. Gairovald. That was what the companion thought of himself as. There were other meanings to that name, meanings that Gin felt approval towards. Still, it was a name that Gin would be required to remove from the tongues of the people. Born to privilege, the man reeked of the lifestyle that Gin found so familiar, yet so repulsive. Brown hair, an Ancien military uniform, tall, but not tall enough to be larger than Gin himself. Depending on his facing, his eyes alternated from a harsh, dark brown to an intense apparent blackness. Gin wondered, briefly, how such blackness would look when the light of life was removed from them.
Gin’s advance was steady, slow and methodical. Though a construction, or perhaps because it was a construct, Gin’s body radiated a single-minded intent to kill, an intent that Gairovald was not blind to. From the motions of his mouth Gin surmised that he was calling for assistance. The revelry was too far away, however. It was the isolation of this killing field that had attracted Dominic for his announcement. In such isolation, the best Gairovald could hope for was that someone would notice that he and the commander, the two greatest heroes of this battle, were missing. The knowledge that the ignorance of the remainder of the force was the only thing allowing him to possibly have an escape without further detection lead a sense of urgency, then, to Gin’s killing aura.
Gairovald, naturally, detected the intent to kill, and so he prepared himself for the coming battle mentally. How was it going to be done? Before him was an opponent unlike any he had faced, before. He could detect no signs that there was a man beneath the armor that the advancing assailant seemed covered from head to toe in. Negotiation was, it seemed, entirely out of the question. The thing advancing on him, Gairovald deduced, was likely magical in nature. The area had been scoured for the remaining bands of the enemy that had once fought them, and so there could be no guide manipulating this construct. It had to be powered by a different intelligence entirely. Its own.
Gairovald permitted himself a smirk. In a single fluid motion, he drew his rapier and drew a line in the dirt with it. Whatever enemies had managed to accomplish this attack had been far cleverer than his previous opponents. An opponent more worthy of his intellect.
“Here I am. Here I remain.” Gairovald declared. A sudden wind caught his words and tore them from his lips, carrying them away into the rapidly darkening sky. The threat of rain was very real. In spite of the club he presumed himself to hold over the thing that seemed to be made of mirrors, Gairovald’s mind leaped to the possibility that this would not prove to be his immediate victory. Some enchantments proved too strong. The entirety of the former battlefield, then, was a viable place for his stand, that he might utilize its entirety to fight this opponent.
I did not turn back their powder to allow myself to be slain, here, by the cloaked dagger of another. Gairovald thought to himself. I’ll turn this blade back upon its wielder soon enough.
The thing of mirrors, now, stood close enough that Gairovald could clearly see himself in it. However, there was a smirk on the reflection that Gairovald himself couldn’t feel.
You are Gairovald.Throughout his mind, the simple statement rang, as if the thought originated from himself, rather than from the reflection whose mouth moved in time with the words.I am Gin.
Gairovald dodged to the side as he saw the attempted stab coming. A graceless attack without any artistry to it. In the brief moments as the blade cut through the air just a few centimeters from Gairovald’s torso, he caught a closer glimpse at the blade that he had deliberately allowed to pass so close to his person. It wasn’t gripped at all, but instead it was as if it were an extension from the thing’s hands, if indeed there was really a hand down there. Harsh, jagged outcroppings lent to an idea that function was valued over form to this thing. Still, Gairovald noticed, there was an intent to always have flat, mirror surfaces, as he saw his face, in fragmented form, reflected back at him a hundred times as his dodge continued into a momentum-building spin.
Gairovald raised his arm and braced for the shock that rippled through his shield to his arm. Somewhere behind him, the sound of shattering glass could be heard as clearly as he could see the reflections from the flying pieces as they sailed past his face. In those instants, Gairovald perceived the reflection laughing, a hundred mocking derivations of himself, and then came the unbidden laughter throughout his mind.
What do I find so funny? Gairovald wondered, even as the laughter continued. It’s the fact that I thought such an attack could be effective. But this thought wasn’t mine. Of course would be effective. You cannot incapacitate a sword, only deflect it.
Thoughts that were not his own clouded together with thoughts he could not find the source of, and all were mixed with his own confusion. Always, his own mind had been the domain of himself, but then what depths did these words float up from? Gairovald’s search distracted him from a most unusual sight: the glass had ceased its movements.
Here in this moment, I prefer the silence.
Gairovald felt his eyes widen with the sudden realization. Gin. That’s what it had identified itself as, projecting the words into his mind.
Now you may die with knowledge in your heart.
A quick glance upwards revealed Gairovald’s peril. It was only a reaction that was equally quick that saved him from it. Again the cacophony of glass shattering sounded behind him.
You cannot escape your fate. If you are to die, here, then so it shall be. Your die is cast. Turn and face its result.
Gairovald turned over his shoulder and felt a growing fire within his heart. What did this thing believe it was, talking down to one such as him as one would a peasant, or worse, an equal? Not even talk