Fell Champions

The Mikovian longship settled onto shore, and Rua finally managed to wipe the sneer off her face. Mikovian sailing methods were so primitive. In ten years, they’d learned nothing of proper ship construction from their Silayan allies, preferring sails and oars to actual proper methods. For a people so gifted at crafting weapons, they were helpless children while at sea.

But while that was their weakness, their strengths were in full display. Pruana Isle was heavily fortified. Walls crafted from blue ice that had no right surviving even a Silayan winter stood well over twenty feet tall around the perimeter of the small town they had built. 

Those walls were affixed with battlements and Stormcallers, ballistas that shot Adamant rods that would call down lightning wherever they landed, regardless of how clear the sky was. 

Despite its grandeur and how much the Mikovians had built in just ten years, from the wooden keep – which had initially been stone before succumbing to Silayan storms, and then rebuilt – to their market, to the barracks which had turned into a sprawling residential area for both civilians and soldiers, other parts of it were less impressive. The docks were a disaster. Rua wouldn’t swim a half-dead soo-meng to these rickety constructions. The wood wasn’t even treated properly. It looked half-rotted. 

“Relax, sister,” Kir said, following the line of her gaze. “It won’t hurt you.”

“Only because we’re disembarking on shore itself,” Rua muttered.

“One of the things I’m going to have to fix, assuming I have time. I’ve been too bogged down in Ri Oa. Everyone here could use some lessons from the people who actually live here.”

Rua bit back the ugly remark that came to mind. She wasn’t mad at Kir. Well, she was. But she also recognized that Kir was wrapped up in the need to be a good girl and follow orders and tradition and her parental figure.

Kind of like Rua herself.

Well, if her mood could sour any further, that thought alone did it. 

She needed sleep. A good night's rest, and maybe some of this anger would melt away. She'd given permission to Otter to have her way with Liaru, not quite realizing what she was in for as a result. She'd been forced to sleep in a tent with Kir all while feeling everything Otter had done that entire night. And while that kind of thing would normally excite her, it'd led to a long and sleepless time, compounded by frustration of having Kir within arm's reach and, as usual, not being able to do anything about it. 

She just had to be patient. Follow the plan. Improvise where necessary. But rush absolutely nothing.

They disembarked and made their way into Fort Shalebloom, a typically named Mikovian settlement. The guards waved them in quickly upon recognizing Kir, but otherwise their watch seemed serious. Tense. They held their weapons too tightly, and their eyes scanned the horizon too closely. The watch itself was also twice the size Rua would’ve expected. 

Whatever the Mikovians were plotting, they were anticipating a fight. 

Rua shivered, and not just from what she suspected being confirmed more and more. The whole town was cold, the air itself being brought more in line with temperatures Mikovians would be used to. Not quite as bad as their far north, or their winter climes, but more what you’d expect from their southern cities in the summer.

Rua hated it. It felt unnecessarily frigid. What was wrong with basking in the sun’s warmth and sweating a little? 

As they travelled, Kir’s guard grew. Soldiers seemed to appear out of nowhere, likely summoned by a runner sent by the gate guards. Her small force of ten quickly grew to fifty by the time they reached Old Grey’s stilt house. 

While the home was large, it was hardly grand. Simple wood, with no paint or decoration. Grim, like a proper Mikovian home should be. As a matter of fact, the only real colour anywhere in the vicinity was Kir’s silk bodysuit. How out of place she looked.

A pair of guards raced ahead and opened the doors to her home as they ascended the gangplank, and Kir hesitated for a brief moment. 

“We can always go back,” Rua said. “I have a place in Ri Oa we could hide out in.”

Kir straightened, and walked forward with no response. Rua was tempted to hang back. It wasn’t like she’d been ordered to accompany Kir into whatever was about to happen. But then, she wouldn’t be able to learn about Old Grey’s plans. Or help Kir.

The inside of Old Grey’s home was about what you’d expect. A Silayan stilt house was usually a maze of corridors with many small rooms, all separated by sliding wooden doors. Not so here. The entrance opened up to a grand hall, with a big chair upon which the old son of a sea urchin sat. 

Old Grey was large, larger than even most Mikovians, and not by a little. He was a massive slab of muscle that was slowly going to seed and giving way to fat, but he was no less strong for it. He was probably as tall as one and a half Silayan warriors, if one stood on the other’s shoulders, and probably three times as wide. His face and chest, which was bare, were a mass of scars, badges of honour that not even his legendary soul power had been able to erase, wounds given to him from either a wicked Pact, or one of the Nightriders of the North. 

True to his nickname, his white hair had turned grey, and his skin had given way to patches of a similar hue. No one knew what had caused it, but it was believed to be evidence of yet more wounds from some mysterious battle in his past. 

And atop his throne, he napped. He sat upright, as if prepared to stand and fight at any moment, but his eyes were closed, and the unmistakable rumble of a snore erupted from him.

Even so, Kir plunged her sword into the wood of the flooring and knelt before him, her head bowed. And waited.

And waited.

After a few long minutes, minutes punctuated by Old Grey’s immense snores, Rua finally lost her patience, rolled her eyes, and took off one of her shoes. And then threw it at Old Grey.

It smacked him right in the side of the face. Old Grey’s eyes snapped open, and he looked about, spotting Rua and her one bare foot. His face broke out into a smile.

“If it isn’t my unofficial daughter,” he rumbled. “I see you haven’t learned patience.”

“I see you’ve gotten fatter,” Rua retorted.

The discipline of Mikovian soldiers was the stuff spoken of in myth and legend. Even so, the room had an awkward energy as some of the guardsmen in the room looked unsure of what to do, or say. 

Grey answered for them. He stood from his simple throne and crossed the room like a great lumbering beast, inexorable and unstoppable in his fury. But when he caught Rua in his arms in a great hug, he barked a laugh.

“How a tiny thing like you can have such great big balls has always been beyond me,” he said, twirling her about the room. 

She scowled, and waited to be put down, and when he did, he gave her a pat on the head as if she were still a child, ruffling her hair affectionately.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked. “I was just expecting my actual kid.”

He poked Kir in the side of the head, hard enough to move it to the side. She still knelt, her head lowered, and gave no indication of a reaction to the prodding. 

“You should probably ask her. I’m not exactly here by choice.”

Old Grey narrowed his eyes, and then understanding dawned on him. “So, that fight finally happened. Kir, how’d she do? Oh, you can get up, I guess.”

Kir stood, but left her sword stabbed into the floor. Her face was a perfect mask of control, no emotion betrayed.

“She acquitted herself well,” she answered.

“‘Acquitted herself well,’” he said, his tone mocking. “Give over for a moment and give your dad a hug and tell me details.”

Kir complied, and a small smile was on her face when she said, “Rua pinked me.”

“She drew blood? Really?” Old Grey’s face was genuinely surprised. He peered at Rua. “I thought I’d have to pry you away from Kir, the last time you had one of your sleep overs. How many years ago was that? There’s no way you weren’t inhibited by her Gracewarden nonsense.”

“She was,” Kir said. She actually looked proud. “She still found a way to do damage. Small, insignificant, but damage nonetheless.” 

“Ah, that’s my girl,” Old Grey said, giving Rua’s head another ruffle. She punched him in the gut, which just made him laugh. She doubted she even scratched his Tenacity. “Shame about tradition, or that I never had a son. I’d’ve let you marry Kir, if I didn’t know for a fact the bloody king wouldn’t gut me and leave me to bleed out for it.”

Kir stood up a little straighter, and the faintest of blushes, a greenish-blue tint on her cheeks in the odd way Mikovians did, came across her face before vanishing as her control reasserted itself. 

“It’s a real shitstorm,” Old Grey mumbled. “Orders coming down from the king. Or his Dream-touched, if rumours are to be believed. You were supposed to be back days ago, Kir. Where’ve you been?”

“The Wayfaring stations were closed down, in the wake of Juala’s assassination. We had to sail, and avoid Silayan patrols the entire way.”

Kir said it matter-of-factly, but there was an edge to her words, if you knew what to listen for. Kir was furious, but to the average listener, she seemed as if she were describing the weather.

Old Grey nodded. “Sorry about Juala. But she was a bit of a cunt, eh? A frosthound on the scent, she’d never back down from what’s coming next. And that feud of yours was never going to end peacefully.”

“If it came to that, better we fought it out ourselves, sword to sword, and not this… this dishonourable assassination business. Using Il-Su like that, behind my back.”

“We’ve already had this talk,” Old Grey rumbled, and Rua was reminded of the bruises Kir had sported just a few days ago. “Drop the honour bullshit for a second and actually think. If two Seats publicly fought like that? One killing the other, where everyone could see? Do you know what that would mean? Better it ended this way, so Juala didn’t lead the entire Silayan navy into a war they wouldn’t win, either by living or dying.”

“And why does there have to be a war?” Rua asked.

She’d only been gone a year. A year in isolation. How had things degenerated to this state? The Silayan and Mikovian peoples were like old drinking buddies. Sure, sometimes they’d brawl and feud, but they always made up and prepared for even bigger and better fights together. They’d been united in their love to see the Criobani crushed.

Old Grey appraised her, as if finally seeing her as an adult for the first time. A warrior, one who would’ve fought against him if not for Kir’s Pact. She didn’t bother trying to puff herself up or make herself seem bigger. There was no point. She was an insect standing in front of a giant, but if it came down to it, she’d make sure she bit him a few times before getting squashed.

“I am Kir’s commanding officer,” Old Grey said. “That means by chain of command, I hold authority over everyone underneath Kir. Which includes you.”

Something in Rua’s head shifted. She felt her entire world shudder for a second. That cold and oily feeling, the one she’d felt when Kir had won their fight, returned for a second, there and gone again. It left Rua feeling filthy, tainted, once more.

No. No, this couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t just Kir that could control her actions. It was anyone that Kir would have to take orders from.

“Pick up your shoe, and go to Kir’s room. Wait for her there.” All sense of joviality was gone from Old Grey now, replaced by a soldier’s stoicism. 

Rua felt her body obey, and she struggled to fight against it. She crossed the room without intending to and retrieved her shoe. 

She spun on her heel and began to head towards a side door. She’d been here often enough. She knew the layout almost as well as her own home. She wanted to fight, to disobey, to do anything but be a good girl and follow orders.

Fury filled her. No. The trick wasn’t to disobey. It was to reinterpret the orders. He’d ordered her to pick up her shoe and go to Kir’s room. He hadn’t said a thing about what she had to do outside of that.

So she threw the shoe at him again, as hard as she could. It struck off the side of his head and bounced uselessly off. She turned and continued to walk to Kir’s room.

Behind her, she could hear Old Grey’s bark of laughter, and his approving boasts about his ‘second daughter.’ Normally, she would’ve been happy to hear them.

Now, with her fists clenched, she wanted nothing more than to murder him.

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