The Ninth Life

[Sebbysc 744]

 

The Sundown (2004 Remaster)

 

Spoiler

 [Thank you to @LithiumSedaiand @myochiifor the post and roleplay! We chose to not use New Marian to make it easier to read. You're welcome]

 

---

 

The fading sun lingered low over the stony peaks. Its last rays flickered in the sky, casting shades of red and gold across the rugged expanse. The winds carried the thick scent of dust and the sound of hooves beating upon a rocky path. A band of eight guided their steeds up a narrow pass, where it twisted through a land only the craven or desperate would call their home.

 

Vadim knew the Orenids were both. Whispers of their blood-steeped deeds had long propagated throughout the Heartlands, even if the Mother Church had haphazardly decreed their existence a myth. Recent disappearances and assaults confirmed beyond any doubt – with all clues pointing towards the road he and his companions now traversed – the Orenid threat too corporeal to be considered fiction. A battle trophy – a face mask now clipped to his belt – was all the additional proof he needed.

 

He glanced across his shoulder through the encroaching darkness, and at the retinue riding behind him. Not too many in number were they that their hunt would be deftly evaded, nor too few that they might just vanish without a trace, but just enough to arouse interest. He was proven right when a masked figure, garbed in a blood-red cowl, emerged at the end of the path.

 

“You are far from home, Sons of Horen,” drawled the Orenid, voice ringing across the pass. From behind the rocks were heard the faint clicks of crossbow cranks. One by one, a dozen more cowled forms emerged, flanking the entourage’s sides. “Did you come to gift us your skins, o’ slaves to the Aenguls?”

 

“I have come to duel you, Son of Saul,” Vadim bellowed in his Naumariav tongue. “I have felled one of your kind already.” He tore the mask off his belt and raised it towards the man. “Godan willing, you are next.” He maintained his cold glare, but inwardly hoped, with all his might, that the knowledge he was given was true - that certain conventions and superstitions dictated the sensibilities of these wayward heretics; among them the propensity for ritualistic single-combat.

 

“Before the sun fully sets, I will fight you, Son of Horen,” the masked Orenid declared after a moment’s hesitation. “I am Silas. When I prevail, I shall leave only one of you alive to relay my name to your fellow slaves.” No more than a moment was wasted as the Orenid stepped forth and drew his black blade, the namesake of many of these wretched Saulites. Vadim constituted grimly that this Silas had no intention of abandoning the higher ground. He dismounted, and with a brisk motion of the hand, urged his companions to remain in their saddles. If I fall, some might make it out alive, he thought.

 

His hand gripped the hilt of his sword for a second before he unsheathed it in a wide arc. There would be no flourishes, no wasted movement – just the resolute will to kill. The Orenid champion beckoned him forth, and their deadly dance commenced. Vadim resolved not to leave Silas any room to breathe. With a flurry of strikes, his sword crashed against the Orenid’s, and Silas responded in kind with fierceness well-expected of his sort.

 

Steel rang against steel just as a hammer would strike an anvil. Vadim countered the Saulite’s advantage with a relentless push, a gamble that Silas could not compare to Ruskan wit and strength. He beckoned the Orenid with his gaze, trained upon the formless void of his darkened eye slits, daring him to make a single misstep…

 

And when the sun finally faded from sight, Vadim knelt in the final flash of light and slashed across the Orenid’s black garb. Silas lost the grasp on his blade, and began sliding down the slope; Vadim pressed the Saulite with his boot, and pointed the tip of his sword upon his throat. Now was the real moment of truth – would the Orenid’s compatriots cow to tradition, or crown the dusk with a massacre?

 

Silas’ mask showed no emotion, but Vadim understood that the Orenid had already resigned himself to death. “Cease, Son of Horen!” The call came suddenly from the nearest stone. “What would you have us trade for his life?” He had no time to think twice; death was still on the table if he worded his offer poorly…

 

Vadim came with seven companions. He was the eighth. “Nine lives you shall give me for his,” he decreed. Silence reigned over the pass for many moments, and a hand drenched in sweat still held a firm grasp on the blade pointed at Silas’ neck. A commotion could be heard from the peak, and soon enough, an Orenid emerged with a ninth – a dame, long forgotten by most, carried in its arms as her crimson-hued tresses weighed down…

 

---

[LithiumSedai 5750]

Through the journey away from the heart of the orenid dominion, Knight Katharina remained slumped and numb, supported with great care by one of the Ivanovich men-at-arms. Two decades of captivity, ended so abruptly - the circumstances weighed on her mind so feverishly, and to her saviors she said nothing.

There were now debts to pay, and so many more to collect.