The sound of the clash between two great warriors could be heard even from the outskirts of the village. Dobsy went out of her father's workshop to see that the sky over the Frozen Elm's direction lit up with orange light every now and then, even in the grayness and dark of the snowstorm sky.
FLASH!! Another clash. She just stood there, processing. There had to be something she could do, lest Gazmir be executed by the Eldest Council of Nhevarim for committing a taboo. That was, if he was not already dead in this fight.
"What..." She looked at both of her hands, and in turn looked at the workshop doors, still open. From the opening she could see the ceremonial longsword that Gazmir had given to her, the one that was created using Hellglass. "What in the Gehenna am I s'posed ta do with this?"
"There is no way someone can create Hellglass daggers out of a ceremonial longsword that fast." She swallowed. A chill ran down her spine.
Gazmir's words rang inside her head. "The owner of those daggers will come and collect it from your hands real soon, Dobsy." She hadn't really given it much thought before. But if Gazmir had gone to the Plaza to commit a taboo by intervening in a Nil Mac'gjar, then he had already planned on not coming back. "Then who in blazes are these daggers for?"
She went inside. The sound of the clash reverberated like a growl of thunder from the sky, accompanied by a slight flash. She closed the door and locked it behind her. She had no other choice. Unknowingly, she had already been swept into this whole mess by Gazmir, but knowing him and all the old wisdom he spouted together with teacher Naama, this was for the good of the people of the village.
So there she had it. She got no say in this matter. She sighed and removed the entirety of the longsword from its sheath. The sound that it made when the edge touched the sheath rang beautifully between the crackling embers from the forge and the distant reverberation of the clash outside.
Hellglass. It was a material that could only be found in Gehenna, and not only in Gehenna; it only existed in one small part of the region called Meios, also known as Solitude in Ancient Gehennic, an island in the middle of nothingness, floating alone in its own solitude, hence the word and the name.
Nothing could live there, for no plants could grow from its crystal-like soil, and because there were no plants, no animals would go there except for those who would deliberately fly there to die. The material itself sat in the middle of the island like a massive spire, jutting from the island like a tower made of crystal, defiant beneath the gray skies.
Dobsy didn't know how this material was first found, or how it was mined, but one thing that she did know from what her ailing father told her: Hellglass was the strongest material they could ever find; it didn't matter where, on the surface, above, or below.
Through Hellglass, they had managed to create weapons strong enough to make sure that their kind would survive the constant onslaught and war with the Forsaken. The Nhevari, using their resourcefulness and their natural propensity to craft and innovate, created their first working weapon against the Forsaken, a weapon so great they dubbed it an Infernal Armament.
"There's no way I can heat an' quench Hellglass, how the heck am I goin' ta temper it?" Another flash, another thunder-like boom could be heard. Dobsy instinctively covered her ears with both hands. "...Dammit."
She almost half wondered why her father was still asleep even when exposed to this amount of racket, but her father had once fought together with Gazmir and the Chief at the Final Conflict. Even if he was not a frontline warrior, he was still a veteran. That might explain some of his quirks.
The longsword gleamed again. "So… whose hands are you meant for?" It shone in the dimness of the workshop, the Hellglass edge looking as if it could slice through the thickest and strongest material in the world.
"Guess I really don't have much of a choice." She held the hilt of the sword. It was light, far too light when compared to an actual longsword made from iron or steel. "Well..." She stood in front of the raging flame of the forge. The glowbricks inside it, made specially for forging, glowed even brighter with each passing moment, like they knew that they were going to devour a material as rare as the stars themselves. Dobsy removed the blade from the hilt, removed the pommel and the crossguard; only the blade was left.
"...Woah..." Like a piece of a very long and sharp black crystal, reflecting the wrath of the forge's flames. She was mesmerized by the beauty of the blade; she found that her vocabulary couldn't really justify the thing that graced her eyes.
"...It truly is nothing short of a masterpiece."
She looked toward the forge, roaring. This masterpiece would have to be thrown into the flames. A pang of guilt pricked her, but inside her heart she also felt something different. An excitement, wondering what kind of weapon she would forge out of something so rare.
"Here goes nuthin'."
She threw the blade inside the forge and started pumping the flames.
—
—
CLANG!!
A flash of sparks.
SLASH!!
Another flash of sparks lit up the darkness of the snowstorm.
CLASSSHHHHHHHTTTTT!!!
Rahzar's greatsword was parried again by Gazmir. At this moment, he couldn't really think of anything else except his amazement at the old man's breadth of experience. He truly was a great warrior; the stories about him were true, none of it embellishment. "...You amaze me, Uncle Gaz."
The clash broke apart. Both of them jumped backwards, quite far away. The almost horizontally moving snowstorm obscured their vision. Rahzar deliberately scraped his greatsword against the pavement of the Plaza, sparks flying, intentionally showing his position to his opponent while walking slowly to the side, trying to look for a good angle of offense. "I never thought that the stories were true."
"Stories? You were never one for stories, Rahzar." The sound came from inside the wall of snow, fluttering like tens of thousands of white, cold butterflies, accompanied by sparks of its own. Gazmir was sharpening his two greataxes together. "What you prefer is... to raze, to kill."
"To defy..." The scraping from Rahzar's greatsword stopped, together with the scraping of his opponent's greataxes. An attack was imminent. "...To destroy." The sound came from behind him. Gazmir was already there, holding only one of his two greataxes.
"...!!" Rahzar lifted his greatsword, attempting a parry, but he was a beat too late. The blade of the greataxe nicked him in the right arm. Rahzar couldn't help but smile to see that Gazmir was actually taking this fight seriously.
An upward diagonal slash from Gazmir followed. Rahzar ducked and mounted pressure using the hilt of his greatsword, aiming towards Gazmir's ribs. The old adversary proved to be fast enough to use his elbow as a tool to block Rahzar's offense and followed up with a knee straight to Rahzar's chin.
The impact blackened his vision for a split second and lifted him into the air before slamming him down with gravity. "Shit...!" Rahzar received the impact instinctively, using as little surface as he could afford, and rolled away before crouching and using his greatsword as a shield, expecting Gazmir to follow his attacks up with more lethal slashes.
"...?" Nothing followed through. Rahzar strained his eyes. Except for the gleam of the Frozen Elm, he couldn't really see anything else inside this snowstorm. His ears also couldn't really pick up any sound. He did not know where Gazmir went.
A glint of light. Rahzar swung toward that direction with an upward slash from his crouched position. A massive spark and CLANG!! rang out. It was Gazmir's greataxe, spinning into the air in a wide arc. "...Huh? Where..." He didn't even have the time to finish his thoughts, as Gazmir was already in front of him; the greataxe had been thrown as a decoy. "Fuck!!!"
A diagonal slash by Gazmir hit Rahzar straight in the sternum. A long gash followed from the upper left of his chest through his right obliques. Rahzar made sure to move backwards to minimize the damage from the critical hit that he would receive, and he was glad he had made the right decision to do so.
Gazmir didn't let up. A relentless attack from the front followed the diagonal slash. Rahzar lifted his greatsword and tried to react with all that he had, but whatever he did was always countered with feints and weird angles of attack from the old adversary.
"You." A spark. "Truly." Another spark, this one too close to Rahzar's face. "Are." A kick and an elbow hit him in the chest and neck. "A great." A glint of light, and now it came from above, an overhead slash like before. Rahzar no longer wanted to parry this, knowing what his opponent could do, and opted to take two steps back and stow his greatsword on his back, preparing for a massive wind slash like before. "Teacher."
Gazmir's slash missed him by a good margin, but the shockwave and the flying shrapnel from the impacted pavement flew towards him like bullets. Rahzar opted to stay, even if the shrapnel nearly took the vision of his right eye permanently. "Uncle Gaz." He slashed at Gazmir right from the front.
"...!!!" Gazmir managed to parry the wave and forced the direction to change slightly upward, towards the canopy of the Frozen Elm. The wave landed with a massive crack and created a slash-shaped hole in the crystalline tree's canopy. Light started to pulse from the main trunk of the tree. "No..." Gazmir could only look at the tree while parts of its cut branches lost their light and fell into the springs.
Gazmir moved his gaze back towards Rahzar again, where Rahzar had already prepared himself for a second wind slash. "No!!! You must not hurt the tree!!!"
Rahzar grinned. "Oh, come on. Uncle." He slashed towards Gazmir; this slash was bigger and faster than before. "It's just a tree."
The wave sliced through the air with amazing speed. Gazmir almost didn't realize that there was a wave flying in his direction. His hand was still numb from the first wave, but he forced it to rise anyway and tried to take the wave so that it would not be deflected like before. "GHHHHKK!!!"
The wave hit his greataxe with the force of three adult Dagzarans. He could feel the old bones in his right arm crack with the impact. The force was so great that Gazmir was forced to let all strength go from both his hands at once, releasing his greataxe and letting it clang to the pavement.
His eyes went wide. Another wave was already halfway towards his direction. He could no longer lift either arm; it was going to be a direct hit.
"...Naama." He closed his eyes.
One second passed, two seconds passed, three seconds. The wave never came.
He opened his eyes.
The two troublemakers of Rahzar's party were there, standing in front of him, shielding him from the certainty of defeat.
—
—
"Knock, knock, knock." The snowstorm was still in full rage. Naama could feel the heat from inside her house being sapped away by the cold. Yet, in this great blizzard, a knocking sound could be heard from the house's front door.
Naama had already been sitting near the front door for reasons like this. What her husband was attempting to do was a taboo in the Nhevari culture, and usually, a taboo would be answered with death.
She was ready. She was ready for the realization that her husband might be dying tonight. She was ready for the existence of someone who would knock on her door to say that her husband had died in the act of intervening in a Nil Mac'gjar. She was ready.
But inside her heart, she still hoped that something else would happen. Another outcome, another answer where her husband would survive the act of taboo and come back to the house to ask for her hand once again, to share their warmth, to hug and kiss her forehead like he used to.
"..." Naama didn't answer the knock. She knew that it was not her husband. It might be Dazun, or members of the Guards. It might be Dobzin and her daughter, or it might be one of her faraway neighbors, but there was no reason for somebody to knock on her house now, in the middle of a severe blizzard, while the booming of the clash was still happening near the Frozen Elm where she knew her husband would be.
One thing that she knew was that her husband would never knock on the front door, for he knew that it would never be locked as long as Naama was still waiting for his return.
Whoever this person was, Naama knew he could not be the bearer of good news.
"Teacher Naama." The voice startled her. It was the voice of Nouz, one of her students, and also a member of Gazmir and Rahzar's party. "It's me. Can you please open the door for me? I know you're there."
Naama had half a mind to stand up and open the door for one of her best students, but she also knew that Nouz was a cunning fellow. Rahzar might have sent him here to kill her, or perhaps do something to weaken her husband's position.
Her heart was torn in two.
"Teacher Naama." Nouz spoke again from her door. "I have to tell you something."
Naama stood up. Her heart was pounding; she was afraid that Nouz would just open her door and hurt her. But somehow, from inside her heart, she knew that Nouz would never do that kind of thing. No matter how despicable or cunning he was, he would never hurt her.
Her right hand was already at the handle of her door when Nouz opened his mouth again to speak.
"It's about your son, Saylan." The voice paused for a bit before continuing. "He's still alive and well."
Her heart skipped a beat. Her eyes widened.
Without realizing it, the door was already open.
Nouz stood before her with his hood and mask covering half his face, his left hand still in the air, in a knocking position.
In his right hand, gripped, was a dagger.
His eyes squinted a bit, a smile.
"There you are."