She stood in front of her mirror, still feeling somewhat detached from herself but much more coherent. Despite the medic's ill disposition, she'd done a neat job of stitching her head back together. Initially, the gash had hurt as though it'd split her head top to bottom, but looking at it in the mirror, she could see it was only a couple inches long, starting just below her hairline and ending beside her left eye.
She could feel a cutting pain in her head again, but as she redid her frazzled braids, she was grateful that the pulsating had subsided, allowing her mind to function optimally again. She wasn't really experiencing her emotions, although she sensed that somewhere deep inside herself was anger and perhaps even fear.
Most of all, she was aware of a lingering cloud of regret seeping into the edges of her consciousness, once again protesting the thing she was participating in. However, it was as though she were submerged in water, where the cries of such sentiments could scarcely reach her. She tied off her braid, meeting determined eyes and a set jaw in her reflection.
She had come this far. She had defeated six of her peers already; she couldn't allow any shadows of feelings to call her back to her morals now, not when she was this close to her only chance of integration.
*
The first sun stood at the edge of the sky, threatening to slip beyond the horizon at any moment. The few Marred that still had breath in their lungs loitered in the courtyard, awaiting some sort of instruction from Zileca, who hadn't yet arrived. Avaria thought it very indelicate for a person to moderate such a slaughter as the one that had taken place today and then wait for the last minute to show at the final round.
The instant the first sun disappeared, Zileca and her staff burst through the doors dramatically, bringing immediate silence to those gathered. It stretched out for a few moments. Zileca's expression was indifferent yet welcoming all at once as she surveyed the faces of her audience. Worg stood at her right side, his face displaying unambiguous malice.
“We have all come together to discover which of the remaining two competitors will find themselves the victor of this difficult trial.” Her words seemed to fuel the tension in the already anxious atmosphere. Avaria flinched visibly before she could think to restrain herself.
“To more thoroughly demonstrate the well-rounded capabilities of our combatants, we have brought with us a selection,” she paused, moving aside as Enforcers carted in two racks equipped with matching sets of swords and battle-axes, “these are the Chorlak's finest weaponry.”
Gasps sounded across the small crowd, one of them belonging to Avaria. These weren't the centuries-old, rusted relics that they trained with. These swords were sharpened to perfection, gleaming even in the low light.
Her shocked gasp wasn't of awe. It was of realization.
Only one of them was meant to survive. Wrestling with their bare hands was life-threatening enough, but armed with these dangerous weapons, it would be almost impossible to reach surrender without a fatality.
“Come and select a weapon, then we will begin.”
Avaria approached the cart, seeing Korbak do the same from the corner of her eye. Tingling at the edges of her consciousness were thoughts of betrayal, angry that the Oversight had orchestrated their demise, but the feelings were muddled, her mind still trapped in a distant haze.
She didn't want to come fully to reality, too many emotions boiled under the surface for her to acknowledge. Instead, she threw her efforts entirely into arranging a favorable outcome to the situation she was faced with.
The rack before her held a vast array of weaponry, even some collapsible varieties. She lifted up a silver baton for closer inspection. Its surface was covered with an array of intricate interlocking pieces with a shiny black substance gleaming through the cracks. The weapon looked almost like a puzzle.
She pressed two sections on either side firmly before snatching it downwards. The pieces immediately began to rearrange themselves, shifting about and building on top of one another until a pitch-black, dagger-length blade protruded from the handle. It was a remarkable weapon; the fragments that formed the blade were so well-tailored to one another that the pieces' outlines were barely distinguishable. Its covertness was unnecessary in the current context, and she expected a larger weapon would likely serve her much better.
She pressed again while jerking it upwards, sending the pieces disassembling and reassembling into their original form. Her hand lingered a moment as she considered returning it to the rack, but on a whim, she tucked it inside her torso wrap instead.
After all, no one said she could only take one weapon.
She didn't waste much more time comparing one tool of destruction to another. Her eyes swept the rack critically before selecting the nearest sword. The weapon was fairly simple compared to some of the others. Its long blade of black chrome was surrounded by four shorter blades that extended from the hilt like a narrow claw. She swung it about experimentally, getting a feel for its weight. She wasn't used to the heaviness of high-quality metal, but then again, neither was Korbak.
She turned slowly to face him. Only a few days ago, the man had poisoned her food to avoid facing her in battle. She had called that man a coward. There was no sign of him in the hardened warrior before her now.
He had opted for a more ax-like weapon, although calling the double-ended, three-foot-long object he held at his side an ax might be an injustice. He twirled it about on its center axis, the sharpened ax heads on either end gleaming dangerously. His face indicated deeper concentration than would typically be necessary to perform the threatening trick; as expected, he was also struggling to manage the unfamiliar material.
He suddenly gripped the handle solidly to halt the motion, his arm twisting slightly from the momentum. He locked his eyes onto hers, determination cinching his brows and animalistic aggression lending a slight crook to his upper lip. Avaria felt her own features firm in response, subconsciously mirroring his hostility.
Zileca's sharp voice snapped the building tension to full maturity like a whip with a single word: “Begin!”
Korbak didn't hesitate, sailing across the space between them with an unnecessary war cry and the ax raised over his shoulder to strike. He stopped just short of colliding with her, allowing the motion to continue in his ax with a sweep towards her neck.
She ducked in plenty of time to miss it, yet he was undiscouraged, twirling his weapon the other way the moment it reached the end of its arc and swinging the second ax head towards her torso. This time, she scarcely snatched her body backward fast enough, a swoosh of air trailing across her exposed arms in the blade's wake. She quickly swung her sword in retaliation, and a powerful crack split the air as it was stopped short of its mark by the ax's metal handle.
A cliché billow of thunder erupted somewhere overhead, but even if the planet had split apart, it couldn't distract the dueling pair now. To Avaria's eyes, every moment was simultaneously slow and nearly too fast for a reaction.
She could feel her core tightening more with every near-miss, a touch of unfamiliar panic seeping into her mind as she remained trapped on defense, dodging and blocking but scarcely able to offer any counterattacks. A grunt tumbled out of her throat from effort as she pivoted on her heel, slashing her weapon at his torso only to encounter air and a well-timed kick to her side.
She stumbled back a bit with a cough as air shot out of her lungs. Korbak didn't close in on her, instead leaving the space that formed so he could catch his breath. Even in the dimming light, she could see his chest heaving with exertion, but the violence in his expression hadn't faltered.
“This is insane.” Her voice was barely above a breathy whisper as her lungs worked double-time to refill.
A feeling of what could most nearly be described as horrified awe came over her as she looked into the eyes of a man, barely more than a boy, who she'd lived alongside for almost ten years. He was fully prepared to kill her, and she could see it written all over his face. It was astounding that they could stoop so far, so fast.
He seemed unaffected by her words as he came at her again; she barely slipped aside in time to foil his attack.
“Alright,” she mumbled, bracing herself to fully commit to a counterattack.
In her renewed vigor, their fight morphed into an elaborate routine, as though it were set into place at the beginning of time. Each of their movements deflected one another flawlessly in a way that was sophisticated, yet so primal that Avaria barely had to think anymore.
They remained in almost constant motion for minutes or perhaps eternity. It was hard to tell; fatigue was warping her sense of time. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she idly wondered if there was enough breathable air left in the world to support her heavy breathing for much longer.
Without warning, an electric crack erupted throughout the darkened sky, flooding the clearing with a pure white light that vanished as quickly as it came. Her eyelids parted wide as she attempted to readjust to the darkness.
A chink sounded as Korbak, also blinded, swung one end of his ax at her, missing her body but connecting with the blade of her sword hard enough to send it sailing somewhere out of view. The noise was quiet, it seemed innocent at first, but realization sent dismay pooling into her gut like molten steel.
Their evenly matched fight just got a whole lot less even.
MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR <3
A little bit of mid-evening homicide, anyone? =P
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