Bandits, Bitches, and Banishment

[Mordelain]

Sand. Everywhere you looked. Sand. Fragmented ruins of ages long since passed. Mordelain had spent far too many years walking across the deserts of the world, yet each time she wandered across Fallien’s heart she felt wonder. She felt at home here. Given all she had done to ensure the mistakes it’s people made, and those of her own kind, it had been a sense of belonging she had fought hard for.

“This is perfect,” she said. Her voice, soft and patience, carried out across the roil.

The arena was a replica of the low flat sands east of the Nirrakal glass fields. The strip was nearly a hundred miles long and three miles wide, devoid of features save that it was flanked on one horizon by the Zaileya River, and the jagged, broken peaks on the other.

“Is it?” Suresh replied.

The il’Jhain rolled her eyes and turned, very slowly, to glare at her father. He stood twenty feet behind her, arms folded across his chest, face hidden behind the jade glint of his targeting goggles. Swaddled in layers of red and brown robes, the merchant was armed to the teeth. A six barrelled rotating gun in one hand, a khanda in the other that could cut through a camel.

“We agreed, Suresh.” She frowned. “My training would take part in representations of places I feel at home in.” She gestured with her hands to river and rock.

“That we did, but may I remind you that the monks took your request to represent this dangerous, very bandit filled part of the island literally.” He pulled the khanda blade from the compacted sand and waved its point at the distant dunes to emphasise his point.

Mordelain smirked. She knew this land like the back of her hand.

“I wanted to be prepared for what lies ahead,” she replied. She drew her own blade from her belt and ran her free hand’s fingers over the studs on her belt. “I’m still not sold on the prospect of walking to the Outlander Post.”

It was Suresh’s turn to sigh. He took a few steps forward and produced a set of goggles, similar to his own but less bulky, for his daughter. The sun, not too bright for once, slipped behind a wisp of cloud.

“What are these for?” she enquired, taking them and putting them on all the same. Her father used them to veil his eyes in the harsh desert climate so that he could always take a shot when he needed to. They also served to reduce sun glare, and protect against the effervescent of the desert’s fiery elementals.

“The Bedouin are very good at camouflage, this will help you to see them before they run you through.” There was no humour in Suresh’s voice, which told Mordelain all she needed to know about his sincerity. They were in real danger.

“Duly noted,” she pouted just a little behind a flailing red fringe. “Let us get this over with.”

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

Hailwing's arrival was all but subtle, as was often customary of Citadel battles. He appeared in the flash of a bright blue light, his body locked tight in a standoffish pose, arms crossed and eyes steeled forward. He started to become live, the outer shell of his statue form breaking away in large shards, digging into the sand before his feet.

Before long, he was stretching his limbs and experiencing life once more. Bound no longer by the iron bonds of his frozen form near the entrance of the Citadel, the statue-come-to-life embraced the desert of Fallien with a deep, thirsty breath. It wasn't truly Fallien, he knew, but a manifestation of the Ai'Brone monks. This was the closest to reality he'd known, and it was good enough.

He did not see an opponent, and so began to take slow, shallow steps forward, his yellowed eyes darting about. He was surrounded by shallow dunes and whitened ruins, their stones' hue burned away over time by the light of the sun - that was the illusion, he knew, the storyline created by the monks. They were a creative sort, their lives devoted to convincing any who stepped into the arenas of their legitimacy. Who else could craft a world within a world, such as this?

Hailwing had no opinion on the matter. While others might lambaste the Citadel and its monks, thinking them holier-than-thou and appraising them as wannabe gods, he existed solely to serve them. It was not in his mind to question it.

Before long, he spotted figures in the distance. More than one, which was unexpected. He walked down the side of a low hill, feet digging inches into the sand with each heavy step. He did not produce a weapon or pause until he was around twenty feet away, where he stepped and spread his feet.

He took a measure of them. Hailwing avoided any aggressive movement or stance, though he wouldn't have been surprised at a sudden attack. With a permanent scowl, small demonic-looking wings and an impressive stature, he did not look the honorable opponent. The one closest to him appeared young, though he sensed she was not, with red hair which shone even in the dimmed sunlight. Behind, an older man - though again, Hailwing suspected that he might not be able to tell through sight alone - stood. He had a most interesting device, something Hailwing knew to be a firearm, though he had never personally seen one.

"Welcome," he called, his voice deep and carrying far across the land. "A challenge has been issued. A desire for training and experience."

His eyes moved from one to the other. "Who has issued this challenge, and will face me?"

[Mordelain]

“That would be me,” Mordelain said with enthusiasm. She turned to face her opponent full on and stood to attention.

“I’m here as the muscle,” Suresh added, to clarify.

“This place,” Mordelain took back the reigns with grit teeth, “is a mirror of the bandit flats on the island of Fallien. She pointed to the tallest of the flanking dunes. “It is likely that we will be,” she smiled sadistically, “interrupted during our engagement.”

Unfortunately for the il’Jhain, there was no guarantee that this interruption would be in her best interest. Whilst Suresh was a capable shot, one of Irrakam’s finest, all it took was a whorl of sand or a banshee’s cry to distract them in mortal error. If she got very lucky the bandits would be from the few Bedouin tribes that did not wish her dead. Not everyone appreciated the efforts of the Irrakal University scholars.

“I will make no move against you, good s…” Suresh closed his mouth sharply. He had meant to say sir, but when he finally took a close look at the opponent set before his daughter, he realised he couldn’t for definite attribute a gender to it. “With you?”

His mid-sentence pause announced his confusion to the world, leaving Mordelain as ever frustrated with her father’s inability to cut the strings of fatherhood. Perhaps this time she would prove him wrong. She could dream.

“Maqit hamar – let us dance!” She bolted forwards and conjured her partisan. Her challenge a guttural Fallieni curse.

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

Hailwing's eyes traced the horizon as his counterparts spoke. He could make out but the faintest of figures in the distance, blurred by heat, but whether they were people, ruins or something else entirely was impossible to know.

"I am familiar with Fallien," he declared, and despite his never leaving the grasp of the Citadel, it was true. "A land of humans, harpies, sand worms, and more. Bandits are no small concern."

That deep, guttural voice boomed out of his chest, a trial of icy mist following the words and melting away into the desert.

It was not rare for him to be called to help train a fledgling apprentice, thus Suresh's presence did not overly concern Hailwing. He did, however, consider that the two could be related, and men could do dangerous things when family was in danger. Hailwing had to consider that Suresh could end up aiming the weapon in his direction.

The battle was then declared, and Mordelain burst ahead. Hailwing produced his glaive from its holster on his back, and his feet pounded the sand, throwing waves of it behind each heavy stride.

Hailwing believed he had the reach advantage. Once they were within strides of each other, he brought the devastating polearm to bear, jutting out in a centralized thrust aimed for the middle of Mordelain's chest. He was careful not to overreach, and gripped the shaft tightly with both hands, ready to pull back and maintain his distance.

[Mordelain]

Indignation was as much a weapon to a prideful woman as a steel tipped spear or a mithril blade. The thought of losing her spar there and then was all Mordelain needed to clench every muscle in her body and vanish. The pull of the Void smelt like almonds, and the fall through the fiery clouds of Ixias afterwards smelt of iron and desperation.

She used the time, seemingly hours of downward momentum to compose herself. She had under estimated her opponent and she was, as ever, far too over confident. It could easily become her undoing. As the Void stared at her, deemed her unworthy of this realm, and kicked her back to Althanas’ wilds she took a deep breath.

The il’Jhain that re-appeared in the Citadel was renewed, invigorated, and slightly more unkempt than she had entered. Her clothing was dusted, inflections of a ruined world and stinking of wood smoke and coal flame. Her face was smudged with soot, her hair dank with the grime of industry that refused to die. She was a foot to the left of where she had been, a mere eye’s blink between going and coming.

“I won’t question your aim again, junta,” she said in a defiant, abrupt manner.

She span partisan full-circle and brought it down against pole-arm’s shaft. Using the element of surprise her cowardice expedition had brought her, Mordelain lunged and dragged her blade along the pole-arm’s length. A daring lunging slash at the creature’s bulwark right shoulder.

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

The blade of the polearm slid through the air menacingly, its point lined up with Mordelain's core, but suddenly she was gone, Hailwing fully extended, finishing the strike, but the metal of the blade merely flapped in the wind. He could sense something in the air, but saw nothing out of the ordinary; Suresh still stood in the background, seemingly unfazed by his daughter's sudden disappearance.

She was back almost instantly, a foot to the right of Hailwing's strike. He heard her words and grunted in response, and she was moving again.

Despite her speed and the intensity of her intended attack, they were still playing Hailwing's game; she had not come any closer, only sidestepped, and so he was still prepared to keep her at a distance as originally intended. She only made it halfway to her target before the warrior took a double-overhand grip of his weapon, pulling the blade to the right and pivoting with the movement, so that he sidestepped to his left. He tried to use his strength to push her along and carry her farther than she wanted, as well, hopefully to stumble down into the sand - it was as if he were rowing a boat on one side, except he intended to row her out of the way.

With practiced ease, he returned to an over-and-underhanded dual grip and pulled the glaive back under control.

"You pick a poor time for banter," he roared, making sure that Suresh would hear as well. "Had you attacked immediately instead of making your proclamation, I'd have had less time to adjust."

The glaive's blade slammed into the grains by his feet, so that only a few inches of the deadly point were submerged.

"Now I am aware of your abilities, and you have squandered any surprise. Learn from this. And always keep your guard!"

His foot kicked out to slam into the flat side of the very top of his blade, and his arms pulled back simultaneously, launching two handfuls worth of sand toward the nearby Mordelain. Hailwing couldn't press on immediately, as the maneuver put his stretching weapon in an awkward position, and so he had to reign it back in to return to the correct posture. He knew, with more practical experience, that it would have been possible to bring the weapon back down in a vicious slash, but it was outside of his capabilities.

It was part of his character to aid those looking to improve their combat skills. Sometimes, Hailwing would remain silent and simply fight to his utmost. Other times, such as this, he attempted to lend aid. Mordelain, particularly with her Father present, gave the fighter the impression that such tips would be beneficial and valued - if not now, then when it mattered most.

[Mordelain]

Hindsight was always a fickle thing to accept. More so when you were blinded, by it, and the opportunities a lack of it gave rise to.

“She never learns,” Suresh grumbled, watching his daughter scrabble to wipe the sand from her eyes whilst feebly trying to maintain a guard with her pole-arm.

As much as Mordelain was arrogant, Suresh was ignorant. This time, she had indeed learnt. The statuesque bulk of her opponent could claim piety over her desire to talk all it wanted, but it was part of her strategy. It brought her time. It brought her insight. It brought her precious seconds to try and work out how the buggery she was going to bring him down.

“Good shot,” she said. Her eyes strained and reddened but seeing set on his stony expression. “I’ve been trying to pull that trick off since the first time I set foot on Fallieni dunes.” All she ever managed was a wet fart of a diversion.

Her partisan disappeared, sent away to elsewhere. In its stead, she conjured a kukri that meant the world to her. She realised now that reach was the exact opposite of what she needed. His diversion showed her just enough of his weakness to give her an idea. She had to get in close. She had to get dirty.

She ran forwards and entered an awkward forward roll. The silver blade corkscrewed out and up as she stomped her foot down to stop herself crashing into him.

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

The beastlike warrior stood with planted feet as the young fighter wiped her face, plucked the grains of sand from her eyes, and held her weapon ahead to try and anticipate his possible approach. Hailwing merely felt the heat from the desert sun and waited - a cooling mist, nearly invisible in the bright light, broke out around him in response.

The girl's weapon vanished and was replaced in an instant with a short blade, one he knew would be hard to follow in the bright sunlight. He anticipated a throw, not expecting that she had the confidence to try and get within reach for melee combat. He was wrong to doubt her courage.

Mordelain charged forward on legs that were more accustomed to the desert than his, slapping the surface and pushing onto the next step without allowing the sands to swallow her feet. Still, her choice of attack seemed foolish to Hailwing - he had the superior range.

Not allowing himself to grieve for the youth, the warrior drove his glaive forward in a vicious stab which would impale the girl on the blade of the wicked weapon. But her roll began just as he struck, and she passed easily under the curved iron.

It caught Hailwing by surprise, and so he pulled back and tried to shift. The kukri leaped up ferociously and he had to react on instinct, pulling his arm up and over and dragging the glaive, as he stepped aside to try and create distance. The blade of the weapon slashed across his right side, drawing a neat line in his flesh not far below his armpit.

He couldn't react to the pain, he knew, as she was far too close to allow any breathing room. She was also too quick for him to hope to spin out and regain the reach advantage. So he embraced the need for close battle.

He dropped the polearm into the sands by his feet and drove at her, both fists flying in a right-to-left combination of jabs. He was not the most experienced hand to hand fighter, but could throw a strong punch and aim it correctly. These two, he hoped, would connect and drive her back far enough for him to reset his posture with the glaive. Meanwhile, blood slid down the right side of his body and dripped into the grains next to him to stain them red.

[Mordelain]

Like thunderbolts, her opponent’s physical force struck her left shoulder and then her right. Just as her gambit paid dividends against the bulwark of the statuesque Hailwing, so too did his stance switch against her fragile form. If evolution were the foray of war, then where else but here could the finest example be found?

Suresh, ever vigilant, cocked the repeater pistol and aimed it hesitantly at the titan before his daughter. As the battle unfolded he found himself wavering. He made a promise. As much as he was a business man, he was a man of his word. The pistol dropped to his side, its hunger unsated, it’s chambered echoing for lost regret.

“You’re on your own,” he mumbled.

The desert turned from ambient backdrop to fore boarding forefather. Its very presence proved antithesis to the lessons learned by the combatants at its heart. As much as Mordelain wished to grow stronger, she only dawdled on the fringes of greatness. Her own weakness, the weight of regret, undid every lesson life threw at her.

A cough and a splutter marked Mordelain’s recovery. She rose, bruised, but better for the experience.

“Okay,” she said, a relinquishment of affairs. “So you’re quite the warrior.”

Heeding his earlier words, she gave her verbosity no further heed and tossed the kukri upwards. It spiralled, and then came down into her eager grip. She danced, a spiral and a flourish. Lancing with the blade her father gave her, she made to undo her opponent’s resolve, limbs bruised, heart racing, and her eyes ablaze with the fury of nine worlds. Stab, thrust, pirouette. Stab, thrust, pirouette. Continuance.

[Hailwing Of The Citadel]

His fists landed, hard blows connecting with the smaller fighter's shoulders and driving her back. Not the least bit interested in pressing forward unarmed, Hailwing slipped back and snatched his polearm from the hungry grains, pulling it in, sliding his closed hands down the shaft to wipe away the sand in one swift movement.

Hailwing winced as he got back to the proper stance, the wound reacting excitedly to his crouch.

Mordelain broke into a dance, stabbing forth with rapid but poised strikes, then spinning away from Hailwing's weapon. He kept up initially, simply backing away from her attacks - she could only safely strike at his limbs without putting herself in danger of his polearm. She was fast and elegant, not slowed in the least by the unfavorable terrain, and the Citadel warrior could not find an opportunity to counterattack. He could only react, staying away and using the shaft of the glaive to separate them.

Her attacks accomplished their goal, putting the larger fighter off balance and sapping his confidence. He was capable of keeping up with her speed for he was moving much less, simply rotating to force her to the side, but the wicked knife was getting closer with each revolution of the maiden's body.

Hailwing knew he had to break them out of the current routine. He couldn't backstep while performing his sidelong movements, not comfortably and without risk of tripping.

He drove forward suddenly, accepting a slash across his left forearm in order to close the distance. He tried to steer the butt of his glaive into Mordelain's face, to drive her back - he didn't have enough room to put much power behind the blow.

If it succeeded, he'd step back and slash sidelong at her, around hip-level. If she avoided the blow he would follow throw to try and drive his elbow into her. The goal was to re-establish distance in either situation.

[Mordelain]

The butt of the glaive struck true, and Mordelain stumbled back. Admonished of her advantage, the il’Jhain barely had time to whelp before the statuesque opponent followed up his rebuke with a more forceful slash across her hip. Her knee buckled and before she had time to register the pain, she was on her knees, hands palm down to the grass.

“Speed as well as strength,” she said, eyes blurred, thigh tense to stem the flow of blood down her waistline. There was a hint of surprise in her words, as well as anguish.

She probed with two fingers and on closer inspection, the wound was not as deep as it appeared. All the same, she did not feel confident in the least. Her momentum was quashed, her heart racing, and her mind-set scrambled. Only her father’s chastising tone brought her to her feet.

“I grossly underestimated you.”

Dripping in truth, her tongue ran over her lips to moisten them. Though her endurance was notable, the il’Jhain was uneasy on her feet and her head throbbed. A red circle marked where staff struck skull. She tied the sash around her waist tighter, adjusting it so it brought her precious minutes before she bled out.

“I won’t do so again.”

Conjuring her partisan into her right hand, her fingers, bloodied and uncertain of themselves gripped the spider silk wrappings. She focussed on the man before her, and launched into a slow, but steady counter attack. Spear thrusts with abrupt forward steps.