55 – A Handful of Hot Iron

It shamed me to admit it but... there was something so comforting about being wreathed in that armour. It enveloped me like a warm hug, and it whispered in my ear that everything would be okay. That it would be fine to give in. To once more let my hate and my rage guide me.

But... deep down I knew that was wrong.

That I was trying to absolve myself of responsibility, blame it all on the armour. But, no. It was just me. It was only ever me.

Sha looked at me with a newfound worry. “You’re... not human, are you?”

Yomi was also staring at me, with a look of... fear? Concern? It was hard to tell. “I’ve... been trying to go back. To be human again. But people like you... you keep dragging me back.” A hissing breath filtered through the visor of my helmet, a long cloud of steam. “Yomi. Please go down to Tiode, just to make sure all is well down there.”

The reality was I didn’t want her to get in the way. Didn’t want her to accidentally get hit by something. Didn’t want... her to see my like this.

I didn’t want anyone to.

Yomi gave me a grim nod. “Stay safe, yeah?” she asked. “I’ll buy you a drink when all is said and done.” She leaped from the crater, shadows swirling under her feet.

Alone, we stared each other down. Sha had regained his composure and stood erect, his breath coming in slow and steady huffs. “I’ll admit, you caught me by surprise,” he said. “But don’t think you can-”

I lunged at him, my whole body blazing like a comet falling from the heavens. The yokai leaped away, wide-eyed and barely avoided a beheading blow from my blazing claymore. I pressed on, throwing more swings that he either narrowly dodged, or barely rebuffed with walls of ie that shattered against my strength,

Fire blazed from the joints of my armour, as if the whole suit was a furnace, blazing brighter as I drew out more power. I thought of Lydia, the grief at being parted from her again, and that emotion fuelled me.

My blazing blade struck his upraised arms and launched Sha away, back across the gulf that led to the yawning wound of Mount Gruai. Great chunks of stone were shattered apart by the impact, shaking it down to its foundations. I strong push from my legs launched me skyward and sent me hurtling after him.

Some people back home thought I could fly. Truth was, I just jumped good.

Hails of frozen daggers came racing toward me, shredding the clouds. I held my free hand forward, creating an escutcheon of black steel. The ice shattered against it, but I could feel each blow rattle me as I dropped through the air.

I landed harshly a few paces from Sha, who immediately rushed me. The ground shuddered as he hammered several blows against the escutcheon. I could feel him coming at me with renewed speed and fury, saw it in his eyes.

No more toying around, then.

A whack of my shield sent him skidding back, luminous blood gushing from his mouth, and I used that opening to sweep my claymore his way. Sha dropped low, quick as a flash, and caught me in the gut with a hard kick that sent me staggering away.

We clashed again, his blade of ice meeting mine of smouldering black steel, and no doubt he was pouring energy into it to reinforce it. The clashes came faster and faster, and the ground shook harder beneath us. He was quicker, I’d grant him that, but the scale of my blade and my own skill allowed me to keep my guard up.

I’d been a savage in my early days as a wight, reliant largely on brute strength. But over time General Kerus had insisted I learn more basic skill, and over time I had had many lessons with his finest swordsmen.

I wouldn’t consider myself the finest in the land, but... certainly, it wasn’t nothing.

“You’re some kind of demon from the west, aren’t you?” Sha hissed. “You have no ideas the rules you are breaking, the laws and treaties you-

My blade cut his frozen arm off at the elbow. Sha staggered away, hissing and snarling, and I could feel the shift of magicka in the air as he fought to regrow it. “Not a demon,” I replied. “Just a man keeping the rubbish off his lawn.”

My eyes flashed and an explosion of white hot flame slammed into his frozen half. Sha was sent skidding away, snarling, and that part of his body was left smoking and slowly regenerating. He countered quickly, pressing his palms together and releasing twin streams of ice and fire that erupted into a dense shroud of steam that swiftly overwhelmed the landscape.

Frowning, I swept my blade through it. The edge cut clean through if, but for some reason the foggy cloud was not blown away. I could sense a dense swathe of magicka in the air. Must’ve made this fog stronger, denser.

He struck me from behind and bounced away, then kicked me in the side and pirouetted into the smoke before I could react. He continued to dart back and forth through the mist, a faintly visible silhouette, and each time he appeared he struck at me.

I could sense magicka, usually pretty well, but the density of it in the fog and the magicka permeating it made it impossible to pinpoint anything.

But I could hear him.

I spun about as he came my way, his icy blade glinting like a row of diamonds. It scraped off my claymore in a fresh spray of sparks that lit up the fog. The escutcheon vanished from my other arm as it shot forward, and I caught him by the throat before he could pull away.

Sha wheezed, pounding on my arm with all his might in furious, speedy strikes. But even if he could best me in speed, raw strength was something I held over him. Even as his blade swung down, aiming to cleave my arm as I had done to him, the dense ice shattered on my plate.

He moved to start hammering my face with punches, each blow like a peal of thunder on my armour. And though the metal cracked and dented under the furious storm of punches, he could not break my grip. I held him like a vice and would not be budged.

There was the familiar sound of metal tearing flesh as my claymore rammed through his chest, cleaving him from the groin to the sternum. A sharp hooting sound rose in Sha’s throat, a gout of boiling orange blood gushing down his jaw. Sha trembled on my blade, huffing and wheezing. A blade through the chest tended to take the fight out of most things, particularly if the burning metal blocked any attempt at regenerating.

“I want you to understand,” I said, leaning in closer. “I never wanted this. I never wanted to bring my armour out. But you forced my hand. If any of your bastard kin come near me, come near Tiode... they’ll force my hand too, you rat fuck.”

The claymore trembled in my grasp. Dozens of spikes tore through Sha’s body, like a grove of thin metal trees blossoming into an existence. A fleet of them tore through his forehead, a crown of spikes sizzling with demonic grey matter.

He twitched and writhed on the blade, and I stood rigid to watch him die. Strange, really. This was one of the few times I was actually using my power to kill a bastard on my level. In some ways it was almost... heroic, of me.

Ha. As if.

Sha died on my blade, his body dissolving away until nought remained but a strange glowing sphere. Half orange, half blue. I plucked it in my free hand and held it aloft, felt the simultaneous searing heat and boreal cold from it.

“Time to go home.”