10thth Day of Searing, 340th Year of the Age of Sundering
Sparks flew in the low underground space. The violent cry of metal on metal rang, and again through the stone tunnels. It was a familiar sound here in this den of the loathsome. Two stood opposing each other over hard packed dirt in the center of the room. They met in a brief and violent flurry of strikes and sparks. These two fought as only their kind did, with a lulling stillness and then explosive and deliberate movement of form.
There were no heavy breaths, there was no cadence of panting, sweat did not drip from their forms. The opponents remained still when they were not striking or countering. Perfectly so, they felt neither the need for air in their lungs nor the thousand pangs of the flesh. They felt only the one hunger tearing at their resolve. When their strength waned and their energy depleted, it was with a silence the living did not possess. These were Ghouls, and they had never felt the beat of their hearts.
Masagh slid his left foot forward slightly, staring at the gaunt, malevolent face of the Weaponmaster. The flicker within the embers of her eyes told him that she had sensed the movement. He needed to move quickly. His blade swung back to the left, and then up from below. The tip swirled dust in the air as it moved towards the Weaponmaster’s throat. Her movements were fluid and minimal. With a single step and a dropping of her blade, his claymore was suddenly jolted to a precarious and exposing position. The cold iron sang as the two honed edges met and grated. The tip of her blade snaked out to bite at him and Masagh was forced back.
“Patience, brother.” The Weaponmaster’s hissing rasp chided him. “You are in what, your second decade and yet you have not learned this basic lesson?” Her taunt was part goading, part critique of a pupil. She stepped toward him. As her desiccated foot touched the ground her sword was thrashing. She wove it so expertly that when he raised his own to block high, the edges met in a way that gave her advantage.
“I have patience.” Masagh said in his low growl.
“You know I saw you telegraph your movement, and still you struck.” She pointed out as she delivered another series of blows that Masagh barely parried. The Weaponmaster pressed the advantage mercilessly, as any good teacher would. “Haste is only useful when your opponent does not know your path.” She leaned over their locked blades to stare into his sunken eyes with her own. Then with her cross guard she shoved his sword aside, sending him with it in his determination to keep the grip. She turned and paced back across the ring as he righted himself.
“You can’t afford to end in some alley fight with one of those Kinvaren parasites, brother.” The Weaponmaster said, turning and raising her blade once more. The tip of her claymore pointed to his face, as if it was eager for blood. She continued as he settled into his own stance. “You wail on an enemy like this and the blows will come crashing down on you. The pact protects you for a time, but you must engage strategically.” She chided.
“I can take a Kinvaren.” Masagh said. “And I will deal with any blows I need to.” He heard the youthful bravado in his own voice, and knew such claims should not be made in the safety of the Training Ring. The Weaponmaster was centuries old, and had faced more than a few vampyres and inquisition amongst other enemies.
“Big words, too bad you can’t have that kind of bite with your blade!” She rasped, her grey and stretched face breaking into a horrific grin. She lunged, the blade pressing in low and quick. Masagh dropped the edge of his own sword low to block. The two blades clashed again and while the pact of the Reaving Rune protected both his weapon and his arm from feeling it, the Weaponmaster pressed further. Her sword shifted and as she withdrew, the edge found the thick part of his thigh and ran across it. The wound radiated pain and Masagh ground his jaw back and forth. It was a light and shallow wound, and the gift of his blood began its grisly work.
“See, we can’t just be good, brother.” The Weaponmaster explained, lowering the point of her blade and pacing to the side. He paced in the opposite direction to maintain distance. “You are not just some ghoul, you are Creth. We carry the blood of von Maxium in our veins.” Masagh briefly caught the swirl of robes far down the tunnel that some Bonecaster was entering the library. “Good enough to give a Kinvaren a run for their money isn’t good enough for us. We are a dwindling legacy, and perfection is all that endures.” She moved forward and the dance of swords resumed.
Their blades wove about each other, Masagh making a conscious effort to deny her any gap in his defenses. “Make of yourself perfection, brother.” The grin was back on her face.
“Why is everyone always telling me this?” Masagh said before he could think better of it. “I’m aware of my responsibilities.” The Weaponmaster tilted her head, eye-embers sparking at the faint hint of resentment she detected.
“You are young, brother. Maybe not for some of these ghouls, but young for a Creth.” She responded. “I am older, and the Matriarch, well she has seen many centuries. Our line is a handful where once it was dozens strong. We are the blood of the first, brother. We must endure, and not today, not tomorrow, but until the end.” Her voice took on a strain he had not heard before.
The conversation ceased as he stepped forward with an overheard strike. The two weapons met mid air and rang with the protest of the cold iron. Again he struck and again she found counter to it. Strain for the undead was a mental exaction, and the failure of the body without the pain of exhaustion. He could feel his movements lagging and the hunger crept up, roaring in his stomach. But he pressed on.
The Weaponmaster batted his blade aside, clearly with more stamina. Her claw-like grip on her own weapon never faltered as she beat the pain into his weapon for later. The pain reprieve of the reaving rune was, looking back, a lesson best taught by experience.
“Most of our kind don’t have the comforts that still remain to us.” The rasping voice of the Weaponmaster continued. Her lectures were always while he waned in strength after she had spent the morning battering him. Masagh had received no less than four lacerations from the training bout today.
He would be punished further if he ignored her words because of exhaustion or pain. “Yes, sister, I am grateful for my-“ He began, sensing his cue to speak.
“No, gratitude is not my point.” She said, her blade coming around to jar into his lightly, setting him stumbling a bit. “Barely two decades, you are too young to understand. Even I am young to fully grasp it. Mother has survived three ages of this world. She has seen our people dwindle down to what we are now, hiding in the shadows like goblins!” She sounded angry, or perhaps just frustrated now.
“Yes, the Imperium-“ Masagh began again. Still she cut him off.
“No, listen. Mother survived all that and still she made you, she made me, she made Cyran and Parthena. We are her most important tools, Masagh. All this comfort and safety, it is not our privilege… It is our responsibility.” Sabrione lowered her blade to her side and looked at him seriously.
He stared back at her.
“You can’t die to some stray vampyre parasite or some Imperial Inquisitor not because it would be a failure on your part,” Her rasp was more gentle now, if it could ever be described as such. “The loss of one of our line would mean a weakening of what holds our very species together, a loss of our goal. You can’t let that happen, not to you.” She finished, and stopped pacing.
It was always this. The mysterious future and its glory, with the family to guide it in. He was intrinsically tethered to the Creth dream, before ever he knew what it was. “I understand, sister.” Masagh said after a heavy moment. Not for the first time in his young existence did he feel the weight of his birth on his shoulders. He raised his blade.
“No, we’re done for now.” She said in response to his stance. Stepping forward she tapped a long, clawed finger on his blade. When he looked he saw the faintest tendril of rust snaking its way up the blade. Masagh marveled that she could have even seen it from that distance and angle. “Go, pay the pain price for your pigheaded attempt at swordplay, and think on my words.”
His older sister sheathed the claymore at her side and turned away. She strode out of the ring and down the tunnel towards the laboratory doors. He sheathed his own claymore as he watched her go. Cracking his knuckles, he thought on the weight that had begun to settle on him. That sacred responsibility to keep the undead, and he found little hope in his soul.
Then the pact called its due and he growled as the arcane pain set it. He began to walk back to his cell to contend with it in silence.
