The outskirts of Duranton; Haema 3 Dekaicis 1255
As tradition demanded, the event took place on the first day of the week, Haema. It was a fitting choice given that the day was associated with the color red and therefore, by extension, human blood. It also didn’t hurt that it was the most universally observed day of rest for workers across Perun, which ensured the largest possible audience for what was sure to be a spectacle to remember. And although it was already the third week of Dekaicis, the weather was still unusually warm, and there were no clouds in the sky. All in all, it was a perfect day for the first Echocratic duel ever fought in the small mining town of Duranton.
Word of the duel had quickly spread, and it felt like the whole town had come out to see the show. Men in their trousers and women in their skirts lined the edge of Farmer Pullack’s field, which had been graciously volunteered as the location for the duel by its owner. Many of the townsfolk had brought chairs and stools from their homes or from Ernst’s bar, which was located nearby. Ernst was no doubt making a tidy profit by renting his furniture out at reasonable rates, and he had several barmaids running drinks out from the bar to the thirsty audience. In some cases, entire families had set up wherever they could find the best view. In others, parents had in no uncertain terms informed their children that they were forbidden to view such a violent affair. Several of those same parents had then promptly headed out to watch the duel themselves. There were exceptions, of course. The mayor had expressed his opposition to the duel on moral grounds, but he had no real power to stop what was about to take place. Nevertheless, he was not in attendance. Neither was the town’s richest resident, Tomaz Monterant, who felt that such a crass event was beneath him and his kin. He had proudly announced that no member of his family would deign to attend the duel.
“Father’s going to kill me if he finds out that I’m here,” whimpered Sarai Monterant for the fourth time in the last ten minutes.
“That’s why we’re sitting in a tree,” replied Rio for the fourth time in the last ten minutes. She was getting tired of repeating it. “No one’s going to be looking this way, and even if they did, I doubt that anyone is going to recognize us anyway.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Sarai. “No one cares if you two are here.”
“Well, unlike you, Rio and I aren’t acting like a little bitch,” said Ulraine as she gently elbowed Sarai in the ribs.
Rio giggled, although her face flushed slightly. Even after having known Ulraine for a few years now, she still wasn’t quite used to her friend’s colorful and frequent use of profanity. In truth, Rio’s general temperament was typically more in line with Sarai’s, but she agreed (in spirit at least, if not in exact wording) with Ulraine in this case. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event for a poor town like Duranton. Why would anyone want to miss the opportunity to see not one, but two members of the Echocracy in action?
Sarai did have a point, though, that she really was the only one of the three that risked any actual trouble by being at the duel. Ulraine’s family was just as poor as Sarai’s family was rich, and they were all in attendance anyway. In the distance, Rio could easily spot Ulraine’s many brothers and sisters running around making a nuisance of themselves while Ulraine’s parents ignored them as best they could. Rio’s family wasn’t much more well off than Ulraine’s, and none of them cared about the duel at all. Mother had already started drinking early that day, while Elva had been bewildered both by the fact that two men actually wanted to fight each other to the death and that anyone would even want to watch it. Still, at least her older sister had been willing to watch their younger sister while Rio snuck out. Juni was probably too young to come along anyway.
Sarai gripped the branch in front of her more tightly. “I just don't know if I want to watch someone get killed. What if it's disgusting?”
Rio's nose wrinkled. That was another good point. But she was thirteen now, no longer a young girl. She should be able to handle a small amount of violence.
“Look!” exclaimed Ulraine as she pointed towards the town center. “Here they come!” She stood up on the branch holding the three girls and swung around to the other side of Rio in order to get a better look.
The three girls (along with most of the rest of the town) watched as the two men of the hour marched toward the field, closely followed by a third. All three wore the sky blue coats of the Echocracy. The stylized flame sewn on the back of each coat was not yet visible, but everyone in attendance would recognize it by heart.
The first combatant was tall and muscular, with a dark, close-cropped beard and receding hairline. He gave the crowd a perfunctory wave, but he reserved most of his attention for his opponent. That is to say, he glared at the man next to him with undisguised contempt while clenching his gauntleted fists.
For the most part, the second combatant attempted to ignore the first. A much shorter, thinner man with soft features and a thick, wavy mop of hair, he appeared to be significantly younger than his opponent. Of course, looks could be quite deceiving when it came to Echocracy members.
“I guess the one on the left is kind of cute, at least,” said Sarai.
“Yeah, he’s got nice hair,” replied Rio.
Ulraine sniffed. “That runt? You two have shit taste. The bit one is twice the man that skinny prick could even hope to be.”
“Literally,” admitted Rio. She inwardly congratulated herself at her cleverness. “But the bigger man is also kind of old looking.”
“Exactly!” replied Ulraine. “He’s a real man, not some teenaged looking loser.”
“Ulraine, the three of us are teenagers,” said Sarai with a chuckle.
Rio smiled too. It had only been a year or two since the girls had started to take notice of boys, but Ulraine’s opinions on the matter were…atypical given their age.
As the men reached the field, the two combatants positioned themselves approximately twenty paces from each other, while the third man turned to address the crowd. He didn’t physically look any older than the bearded duelist, and yet there was something incredibly mature about the look in his eyes.
“Before we begin, we have some formalities to attend to,” the speaker announced to the impatient townsfolk. “Not that any of you ore muckers care, I’m sure, but the niceties are important when it comes to the Echocracy.”
The insult earned a few scattered retorts from the crowd, but most of the onlookers either let it slide or didn’t notice. They were only there for the spectacle.
The speaker continued. “Quinton Dren, Anointed of the First Rank, has formally challened Yannis Poe, Blessed of the Third Rank, to ritual combat until either satisfaction or death is reached.” The larger, bearded man raised his hand at the mention of the first name. “As there are no other members of the Echocracy within a hundred kilometers, it falls to me, Reinhardt Schott, Blessed of the Second Rank, to adjudicate this process.” He placed particular emphasis on his own title.
Ulraine tugged one of Rio’s braids. “What does ‘adjudicate’ mean, bookbeetle?” she asked.
“I think it means he’s judging the duel to make sure it’s fair,” replied Rio. She thought carefully about what she had just heard. If Mister Schott outranked the other two men, as expected, then their titles suggested that the younger-looking Mister Poe actually outranked the bigger, bearded Mister Dren. Her suspicion that the three men’s appearances had little to do with their ages continued to deepen.
Mister Schott continued. “Anointed Dren has accused Blessed Poe of repeated harassment and abuse toward one Miss Vesta, who Anointed Dren has claimed to have developed a relationship with during the few months since we arrived at our post in Duranton.”
Sarai gawked. “That’s what this is about? This whole duel that everyone cares so much about is because these two are fighting over Chastity Vesta? Don’t they know her reputation? This whole thing is stupider than I thought.”
“Yeah, she’s a slut,” said Ulraine.
Sarai’s cheeks reddened. “Well, yeah, pretty much. I mean, everyone in Duranton knows that.”
“Despite my best efforts to mediate some sort of agreement, both of my subordinates have refused to back down in this matter,” said Mister Schott. “And given that I’m still stuck in this town with these two for several more months, I’ve decided that I’d rather let this idiotic feud play out than have to put up with any more of this nonsense. Our mission can manage with only one of them if need be.” He turned to the two duelists. “You both know the rules of this contest. And the consequences for breaking them.”
Both Mister Poe and Mister Dren nodded.
Mister Schott held his hand up and pressed his thumb and middle finger together. The area around his hand began to blur and spin with a soft sort of unnatural green light.
“Elanwhorl,” said Rio with a gasp. She had never seen one before.
Mister Schott waited a few seconds, and then he snapped his fingers. Rio couldn’t see the snap, of course, but there was no doubt that it had happened. The sound, louder than any firearm, was probably heard clearly on the other side of the town.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Ulraine, who nearly fell out of the tree.
The air around the two combatants immediately blurred in the same way that it had around Mister Schott’s hand. Mister Poe’s hand shot forward, and several small knives materialized from the elanwhorl now surrounding him and launched toward Mister Dren. The knives disintegrated with a flash as they made contact with Dren’s elanwhorl.
Mister Dren charged at Mister Poe, faster than any man living in Duranton could have managed. In an instant, Poe formed a blade in his hand, a large, vicious looking thing that would have been impossibly heavy for any ordinary person to wield had it been forged from steel, and swung it at his opponent. But Dren was already in the air. As he leapt over his smaller opponent, he launched some sort of concussive force from his gauntlet at Poe’s back, where the elanwhorl had appeared to thin out after Poe created his blade. Simultaneously, Poe gestured with his hand, and the elanwhorl thickened in response to absorb the blow.
It became increasingly difficult for Rio to follow the fight after that. It seemed like the elanwhorls allowed the men to create weapons, but they also served as shields of some sort. But the duelists were so fast, and so powerful! No one in Duranton could even remotely do the kinds of things that these mean did with ease.
As they watch the duel from their slightly lofty perch, the three girls appeared as a study in contrasts. Sarai, with her brown hair tied up behind her head, gripped her fancy collared dress with both hands. On the other side of the branch, Ulraine kicked her legs back and forth in her tattered shift as her messy, blonde hair bounced in her eyes. And in the middle, Rio sat still as a tree in her modest, faded skirt, with her long, black braids and the ribbon tied around her neck both hanging in front of her. And yet, all three girls had the same look of amazement on their faces.
Finally, after a few minutes that felt much, much longer, Mister Dren began to falter, and his elanwhorl thinned out. As Dren stumbled over the uneven ground, Mister Poe’s arm snapped back behind him, and the back of his elanwhorl burst. Or something like that. Rio couldn’t think of a better word to describe what she was seeing. The recoil from the burst shot Poe forward faster than either combatant had moved up to that point. His foot snapped forward and kicked Dren square in the face. As Dren fell, Poe again formed a large, jagged blade and brought it down straight into Dren’s chest. A fountain of blood shot from the loser’s mouth.
The crowd roared.
The reactions of the three girls, virtually identical just a few seconds earlier, now couldn’t have been more different. Sarai retched in horror, bringing her hand to her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she muttered.
Ulraine pumped her arms in excitement. “Fuck!” she shouted. “That was incredible! Now I’m starting to see why you two liked that skinny guy so much.”
Rio stared straight ahead. She didn’t feel Ulraine’s excitement, but neither did she experience the revulsion that was currently impacting Sarai. Instead, the emotion that hit Rio all at once was so unexpected that it took several second for her to put a name to it.
It was intense jealousy.
A poor girl from an unimportant mining town, who in all likelihood would never have any more opportunity than the chance to be a miner’s wife, looked upon true power for the first time and decided that was what she wanted for herself. It wasn’t about Mister Poe himself. Given the stated reason for the duel, Rio suspected that the man likely had a somewhat unpleasant personality unbefitting of his handsome countenance. Instead, it was about what the man represented. He had the ability to decide what he wanted in life and the power to take it, by force if necessary. And yet, there were other Echocracy members who were supposedly so far even above Poe. Given what she had just witnessed, Rio’s mind churned as she tried to imagine what those near-immortal beings could be capable of. And she wondered how and why the Echocracy had chosen those that it was willing to share Perun’s unbelievable power with. An infinite number of possibilities stood in front of her, with absolutely no obvious path available to ever reach any of them.
As if in response, Yannis Poe looked up in the girls’ direction. He met Rio’s stare with the first smile that had graced the man’s lips since arriving at Pullack’s field. He would have looked even more attractive when smiling, except that no part of that smile ever met the man’s eyes. Also, perhaps more importantly, he was covered in another man’s blood.
While Mister Schott, who almost looked pleased to have the sordid affair finally finished, coordinated with a couple of the locals to take care of Mister Dren’s body, Poe walked towards the tree and waved at its occupants.
“I hope you young ladies enjoyed the show,” he said with a mocking bow. “Particularly you, Miss Monterant.”
Sarai squeaked in fright.
Poe laughed. “Fortunately for you, I’ve had the displeasure of working with your father over the last couple months, and I can’t much say that I like him. So, if he hears that you were here today against his wishes, it won’t be from me.” He looked briefly at Ulraine, and the look clearly indicated that he thought the girl wasn’t worth any further acknowledgement. His eyes, however, lingered on Rio. “Although, I think perhaps you got the most out of it, Miss…?”
“Telemarche,” said Rio without thinking.
“Miss Telemarche,” repeated Poe with a disturbing amount of satisfaction. “I’ll have to remember that.” He spun on his heels and walked off toward Mister Schott.
Ulraine responded with a particularly unladylike gesture in the direction of the man’s receding back, although her hand was shaking. “Never mind, I really don’t think I like that man after all.”
Sarai nodded her head in agreement.
“Me neither,” said Rio truthfully.
And yet, that feeling of jealousy remained deeply buried in her mind for years to come…
If you’re still reading at this point, then I should probably thank you. I won’t claim to entirely know where I’m going with this, so I’d consider any sort of positive reader reaction whatsoever to be a win.
Aspects of this story have been floating around in my head for over a decade now, and I think I’ve reached the realization that nothing will ever come of it unless I write something and put it out there just to see if anyone else finds it interesting. So, I’ve devised a likely overambitious plan. I’m going to attempt to write something related to this story and draw a related picture once a week for at least a year. My reasoning is twofold:
I don’t know who, if anyone, is going to care what I have to say, but I guess I’ll never find out unless I put something out there in public for others to see.
Trying to create something every week is good practice. In addition to assisting with skill improvement, it also forces an improvement in discipline. And that is certainly something that I’m lacking in.
My current plan is to post one of these each week early on Thursday. I think that pace may be sustainable, but I can’t say for sure without trying it.
I don’t know how this is going to go or where it’s going to end up, but perhaps we’ll find out together.