The Plaza was decimated.
The battle between the three party members was so destructive it wrecked almost the entirety of the Plaza's pavement. The Frozen Elm gleamed, witnessing the battle in silence. The blizzard was in full force; no more steam could be seen rising from the hot waters of the springs.
Yarda and Weaz were fast and unpredictable, as Rahzar knew well from the years they had been hunting together. What he had not counted on was the sheer coordination the two of them could exhibit.
Yarda moved towards the right with great speed, two daggers twirling in his hands. Rahzar watched him with only a quarter of his attention and lifted his greatsword above his body. Sparks flew. He knew Yarda would act as bait while Weaz tried to land a sneak attack.
He looked up. Weaz was not there. A dagger landed at Rahzar's left. Yarda dashed towards him and slashed four times in rapid succession. Rahzar was forced to jump back twice to evade his party member's relentless attacks.
"..." Rahzar stopped sliding backward and straightened, greatsword still unsheathed. "I thought Nouz told you to assist him with the Chief."
Yarda walked slowly towards him, eyes sharp, no smile to be seen. "We did. We did help him with the Chief."
Weaz's voice came suddenly from behind. "That was all. What d'you expect us to do? Stand here and do nothing while you decimate everything?"
He continued. "This is our village too, you asshole. As much as we don't like Gazmir's tight ass, we still respect his wife." Weaz threw a dagger towards him. Rahzar tilted his head a little to the side. It missed, as expected. Weaz was not aiming for his head. Yarda caught the dagger.
"His wife..." Rahzar grinned. He knew that Nouz was already on his way there to kill her. He might already have finished his task.
A chill went up Yarda's spine.
The blizzard howled around them. The wind screamed and swallowed almost all light.
Except for one gleaming tree in the middle of the village.
"YARDA!! WEAZ!!" Gazmir's voice cut through the hostile freezing wind. "DO NOT INTERFERE!!"
"Tsk, here he goes again." Yarda snickered. The sound was not loud enough for everyone to hear, but Gazmir knew this would be his response.
"You would've been dead if not for us, old man! Just accept it and say thank you!" Weaz shouted through the storm, almost ignoring Rahzar completely.
Rahzar dashed towards Yarda, greatsword raised in both hands. It was going to be a huge slash.
"...!!" Yarda twirled both of his daggers and dashed to the side. The greatsword landed on his previous position. The impact shattered a good ten-meter radius of the Plaza's pavement. Yarda stopped at the edge of the springs. He managed his breathing well, unlike his usual self when hunting with Rahzar. Usually, he could afford to underestimate everything they hunted, mostly because he knew that no matter how badly he and Weaz messed things up, Gazmir and Rahzar would pick up their slack.
But now their opponent was not a dagzan, fenosh, csezul, nor a basaltar.
It was the leader of their own party. The son of the Legendary Warrior, a Hero of the Final Conflict.
Gazmir dashed towards Rahzar, engaging him in a furious clash a good distance from Yarda.
"His strength, his speed, his ability to adapt in the middle of battle really is something else." Weaz regrouped beside him, tossing him a vial of clear red liquid. A crude healing potion, brewed by Weaz himself.
"I don't need this yet, you dumbass. Take it." Yarda shoved the vial back at his friend, along with Weaz's thrown dagger.
"No, keep it. I already got one. We never know if or when he's gonna use it." Weaz's expression was serious. He was extremely alert about something.
"It?"
"Yeah. You were away poisoning the carcasses while we were ambushed by three basaltars near the Lowlands. While Gaz were fighting against a drenitar alone." Weaz swallowed. He was definitely afraid of something. "Remember? The three basaltars? Carapace hard as rock? Got sliced clean in the middle? They were so gruesomely killed we couldn't even carve anything from them to bring back home."
Massive sparks flew. Gazmir was pushed back a little, but he managed to regain his balance in time to parry Rahzar's next three fast swings.
Yarda nodded.
"It was from a single swing." Weaz continued. "I can only remember how his sword shone that day. Nouz smiled like he was so proud of something, that fucking creep."
"...A single swing? You gotta be kidding."
"YARDA!! WEAZ!! DUCK!!" Gazmir's voice startled them both, forcing their focus back to the present. Two waves of Wind Slash were racing towards their direction, one fully horizontal, the other slightly diagonal to the right.
"Parry?"
"No choice."
They moved with the precision of a tightly knit unit. Yarda spun his body low and timed his slide so that he would pass right beneath the horizontal wave, slashing upward with both daggers as he went and knocking the wave skyward. Both daggers cracked with the impact.
Weaz dashed to the side, twisted his whole body, then jumped above the second wave and drove both daggers down, forcing the wave's trajectory into the pavement and creating a massive impact followed by an explosion. One of his daggers snapped, but it worked. The wave was dispersed. While he was still recovering from the impact, Weaz's eye caught something.
A light, from the west. From the direction of Gazmir's house.
"...!!" Weaz's eyes widened as the realization struck him. Nouz really was up to no good. "...We have to go."
"Why?" Yarda looked in that direction and fell silent. If they could see the flame through the blizzard, it could not be small. "...That fucker."
Yarda looked at Weaz and continued. "Should we inform him?"
"No. Don't. We need him focused. If we're fast, we might still get there and fix it." Weaz snapped his head towards the sparks' position and shouted with everything he had. "GAZMIR!! WE HAVE TO GO!!"
From inside the whiteout, Gazmir shouted back. His voice was cut by the sounds and sparks of his clashes with Rahzar. "BE!" CLASH! "CARE–" CLASHHH!! "–FUL!!"
Weaz moved first. Behind him, close on his heels, Yarda dashed and vanished within the needle-sharp winds of the merciless cold.
—
"...Huff..." His steps were heavy, but he pushed through. "...Huff..." He needed to reach the outskirts as soon as he could, before Gazmir saw the light of the flame.
"Yarda and Weaz should be assisting Gazmir right now, if they're still alive." Each step buried his boots deep in the snow, but he did not stop. "What a scary geezer. Glad I don't really have to be at the sharp end of his steel."
On his shoulders was a stocky woman, wrapped in multiple blankets. Alive, unconscious.
He needed her alive for his plans, and if everything went as it should, he would be the one left standing.
A true victor.
He smiled. This excited him more than the hunts, more than when he poisoned the Chief.
Unfortunately, he had not been able to finish the job. The Chief had fallen unconscious when the drenitar's poison took effect. Yarda and Weaz had been instructed to follow through, and he did not know whether they had done as they were told. The two orphans were too chaotic to be trusted.
But it did not matter. No one survived the poison from a drenitar's tail glands. Even if Yarda and Weaz had faltered, the Chief was as good as dead.
And that meant Rahzar could burn the village down all he liked, and Gazmir would be there to oppose him.
And if, at that point, Gazmir was still alive and kicking, the only person in the whole village who could oppose Rahzar, then his wife would still be under Nouz's control, and he could try to use her as leverage to assassinate Rahzar with Gazmir's help later.
Nouz's smile grew wider. "Ha... haha ha..."
He could not wait for the moment he buried his knife deep in Rahzar's heart and watched the light disappear from that arrogant prick's eyes. "Haaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
He walked into the roiling snow and disappeared into the lightless white.
Behind him, Gazmir and Naama's house still stood. The orange glare of the flame danced in the relentless snow.
—
"Don't you get tired, Uncle?" Rahzar parried a combined slash from Gazmir's dual greataxes. The impact rang and reverberated even in the middle of the blizzard. Sparks lit up the night for a moment. Rahzar's hands were numb; the intensity of Gazmir's slashes was far above what he had estimated.
"HRRRNGH!!" Gazmir jumped high and dived towards Rahzar's position. Another huge vertical slice. Rahzar knew he could not take it, so he evaded to the side as fast and as far as he could.
CRASSSSHHH. The impact sent hundreds of stone fragments in all directions. Some fragments lodged into Rahzar's left arm and left leg.
"...Annoyance." Rahzar dashed towards the old warrior's position, knowing Gazmir would not be able to move for a moment after such a massive attack, trying to capitalize on the opening. The snow obscured his vision, yet he had already memorized his opponent's position well enough to move with confidence.
Three quick swings from Rahzar. Two were met with sparks. The third bit into nothing but cold air and snow.
He disappeared again. Rahzar instinctively sheathed his greatsword on his back, still gripping the handle tightly in his right hand, ready to draw in an instant. But no attacks came. The same tactic as before. Gazmir was biding his time.
"UNCLE GAZMIR??"
No response.
Suddenly, a slash hit him across the upper part of his left arm, tearing into his triceps and drawing blood. "GUH!!"
Gazmir was no longer there. Another slash came from the right. Rahzar's right shoulder took the hit directly.
Then, from the front, gleaming blood-red eyes appeared in the storm. Rahzar caught the glow just before the next attack bit toward his jugular. He drew his greatsword just in time. Sparks flared from both weapons.
"You do know how to move in the blizzard, Uncle Gaz."
"We Nhevari were molded in the desolate coldness of Gehenna's Rim." Gazmir pushed with all his strength. Sparks exploded between them. Rahzar was knocked back a couple of meters. Gazmir continued. "Out of all Geherrim tribes, we are the ones who should know how to use the snow to our advantage." He retreated backward and disappeared from sight once more.
Rahzar grinned. This was one of the rare moments where his confidence in his own strength was truly tested. He had underestimated the people of the village for far too long, convinced that they had abandoned the ways of the Geherrim warriors after being far from large scale conflict for too long. Survivors, not soldiers. Rahzar had thought they would be pushovers.
He was not entirely wrong. His plan with Nouz to sabotage the Nil Mac'gjar had been successful, but only through many days of meticulous preparation. His uncle was not a trusting man, which made attempts to poison him difficult. Yet Nouz had pulled through.
"...Heh." His grin widened. "No choice but to use that."
Gazmir dashed towards Rahzar with speed, but was forced to break off midway by a flurry of dance-like greatsword slashes. In the middle of his evasive steps, something caught his eye.
An ember-like glow in the middle of the snowstorm.
From the direction of his house, where Naama resided.
"No..." He looked away from Rahzar for just a moment. "...Naama."
Rahzar seized the opening, stepping behind Gazmir and raising his greatsword high with both arms. "Abandon me not in this dark night."
Reddish light began to shine from Rahzar's arms, crawling upwards towards the blade of his greatsword. The light wrapped around the metal, remolding it into a new form. "Abandon me not in this blooming flame."
"Awaken, 'Ain-Zahar."
Gazmir's attention snapped back at the mention of the name of a weapon. He turned towards Rahzar, currently standing behind him, greatsword held high above his head, blazing with hellish fire. "There is no way..."
Rahzar continued. "For whom do you mourn?" The blade shone like a pillar of flame in the darkness of the blizzard.
All sound was muffled. Even the blizzard seemed to halt its constant roar. In the middle of the silence, its name reverberated along with the glow of Gehenna's fire.
"For whom do you weep?" The blaze lit up the entire village.
"No... No! No!!" Gazmir lifted both greataxes and dashed forward, knowing that this slash would claim more than just his life. The village would suffer as well. "You mustn't use that!! Rahzar!!"
"Infernal Armament."
"NO!!! RAHZAR!!!" Gazmir leaped towards the great pillar of flame. "THEY FORBADE US!!"
"Devour mine enemies in your Flames of Mourning."
He brought the sword down upon Gazmir and the Frozen Elm that stood far, far behind him.