Chương 13: Armour of Avarron

New class skill achieved. Asgar grinned. Finally. This was what he had been waiting for. Hoping for. An armour skill. Something to keep him safe in the melee. Blood rage gave him strength, hallowed strike gave him power, and now his new skill would give him durability. Or so, at least, he assumed. Hard to misinterpret ' Armour of Avarron' though, really. He looked up at the sky, pleasantly surprised by the rain.

It had just started, the odd drop pattering onto his face, and he gloried in the contrast of cool water against his hot skin. He stuck out his tongue to catch a few drops as the red washed from his face in the growing downpour. He could even hear it. The faint pitter patter. The hiss and slap. No orcs cheering now, no goblins giggling, no brash roars of triumph. Just a silent crowd, watching Asgar spin in a circle and catch raindrops on his tongue among a field of corpses. What was it… twenty orcs? Thirty?

They formed piles on the arena floor, stacked up like pebbles to mark the way. Quaint little corpse-cairns, courtesy of Asgar and his companions. The chieftain—or war-leader, or whatever fucking title she claimed—stared down at him from on high. She wasn't angry though. Where the orcs to either side seemed sullen, she was… excited? Eager? Asgar couldn't tell for sure. The only emotions he was used to seeing on orcs were anger, fear, savage joy and maybe a hint of surprise.

But the chieftain showed none of that, and suddenly, as she reached behind her back, he understood why. Grasping her weapon—a long spear with a barbed point—she gave a roar to the heavens, a full-fledged, body-shaking war-cry, and then leapt out into the air. She hung for a moment, suspended in his mind's eye; beautiful in her grace and deadly in her power like an emerald blade pressed to the throat. She fell with the rain, cascading down from the heavens to crash into the ground below. Asgar was awed by the sight.

When she landed, the ground buckled. A wave of rolling rock spread out from her, like a pebble sending ripples in a lake but in the all too real, all too physical bedrock of the arena basin. He gritted his teeth and held his ground, pushing back against the voice inside that bade him leap up and over the roiling rock. Better to wait. Better to understand what manner of magik he faced before committing. He tensed, mentally preparing for his legs to become encased in stone.

Despite the terror of such a thought, he needed to know. Thankfully, no such carnage followed. Instead, the wave buoyed him up then let him down gently as it flowed away. A nightmare for him to fight if each of her steps would cause such disruption, but at least it would be mundane iron that would end his life should he fall, and not magiked stone. The chieftain eyed him with that same satisfied smile. This had all been theatre for her, he realised abruptly.

He'd demonstrated himself a worthy warrior to her clan, a terrifying challenge that only she could vanquish. He'd also been exhausted; his divine energy spent and mortal power weakened in time for the chieftain to descend and claim his life as a trophy. Such an assumption would be her fatal mistake.

He wouldn't underestimate her though; she'd risen high in a society that lusted for violence, and while her stature certainly gave her an advantage over her fellows, she seemed happy enough to face him after watching him demolish a score of lesser warriors. There was something refreshing in that. Imagine a leader that fought their own battles. Her belt of skulls clacked together as she stretched to her full, imposing height. Human, orc, goblin, even some beast folk adorned her waist.

Whatever admiration Asgar was willing to extend for her on account of her courage died as he noticed the last skull on her right hip. Human, but smaller. Far, far too small. She tracked his gaze and her smile grew. Asgar growled as memories surged. He'd seen skulls that small; shorn of hair, skin crisped off until nothing but scorched bone remained. The funeral pyre was said to wipe clean all crimes, but Asgar had found no release in its flames. His heart beat a frenetic rhythm in his chest, the blood rage surging.

It pounded like a physical force behind his eyes until Asgar felt like a puppet. He was just the skin, the bone; the blood rage wore him like a cloak, and he was happy to be its instrument. Let her come. Each step could move stone? Fine. His blows would shatter mountains. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. She spread her arms wide in a challenge, rough voice rising to the cliffs above in exhortation, but Asgar had no patience for theatrics any longer.

His blow sheared one of her braids clean off as he struck, interrupting her guttural words. From there it was all the battle dance. He rolled with the earth, a blood drunk pirate on storm-lashed decking as he wheeled around her spear and attempted to keep his footing in the presence of her strange magik. His axe whistled as it cut the air, but she was never in its path. Despite her savage appearance, this was a skilled opponent.

Her elbow split his lip open, and his neck would have soon followed had he not spat his own blood right in her eyes. She recoiled and he followed, stomping on her foot and slamming one gauntlet clad fist into her cheek as his axe blocked her sweeping spear. Her headbutt took him by surprise, denting the front of his helm. She ripped it off, wrenching forwards to give him another savage kiss with her tusks, gauging a furrow through his hair and missing his eye by an inch.

She roared in triumph as he stepped back to swing, and her leg snapped out at his wrist, stopping his strike even as crackling blue power limned the weapon once more. Asgar felt the snap, but the pulsing song wearing his body didn't acknowledge it, still trying to bring the weapon around again for another chop. Limp fingers dropped the axe, and suddenly he was weaponless. A heavy impact rocked him as the spear butt punched into his stomach, his breath stolen.

The chieftain reversed her strike, blade slicing him from thigh to shoulder in a shower of broken chain links. His chainmail tinkled and hissed, clattering to the ground—each link accompanied by drops of blood and rain. She grinned, victorious. His weapon gone, his armour spent, she strutted arrogantly before him. One final war-cry, spear pointing at his heart. She thrust. Raindrops split apart beneath the sharpened edge of the spear. The barbed hook gleamed behind that lethal point as it closed the distance.

Between heartbeats, Asgar saw his doom, and he smiled. There was no time for the expression to cross his face, but in his soul, the vicious joy bloomed wide. A thought, a single whisper of intent, was all it took for his form to grow. Armour sheathed him from tip to toe. Not shining gold like the man he planned to kill, not sterling silver like the rich nobles from the capital. Not even dull iron like the travelling mercenaries that tramped through towns on their way to plug the gates of hell for coin and fame.

No, Asgar's armour— Avarron's armour —was black. Burnt, tarnished, charcoal-choked and fire-kissed he stood there. Plate black as the night, chain dull and grey, no single inch of him left free to feel the rain or the cold. His greaves drank in the light, his cuisses scattered water, his pauldrons wide and blunt, and his helm… His helm was worst of all. There was no artistry in its form, no glory in the bucket shape of it. It was a blunt thing, a brutal thing. His visor a split V, the dome square and blocky.

Just like the rest of it. Armour made not for pageantry or fair-weather tourneys, but for war. For tramping through mud, for digging through bodies. He didn't know what metal it was shaped from, didn't understand how the rivets were placed to create such flexible hinges. All he knew was that it fit him like a glove, and it was strong. Frighteningly so. His chest plate clanged a peel as the spear hit it and gave not an inch.

The blade was deflected to one side, scratching a shrieking trail in the metal as it slid harmlessly past his vitals. Asgar trapped the spear with his injured arm, grin forming fully. But the orc saw nothing behind his helm save his eyes… and the dagger he drove down into her forearm. She screamed as he twisted the rondel, severing tendons. Shock bade her release the spear, and he grabbed for it, but the injuries she'd dealt him made themselves known.

The weapon slipped through his fingers, and he fell back from a brutal kick. She screamed again as she withdrew the dagger from her arm, the sound more rage than pain. Both of them were injured now, both rain-soaked and weary. But Asgar was armoured in God-forged metal while the chieftain wore mortal iron. He rushed back in and they brawled there in the rain, watched by hundreds of savage orcs, the only sound their laboured breaths and the clang of metal on metal.

She ducked beneath his wild swings and stabbed at his joints, trying to worm the dagger between the solid plates of his armour. By all rights she should have won a dozen times over—she was stronger, more skilled, and her magik set him to stumbling with every other step—but there was something unquantifiable she was lacking. With every second that she failed to pierce his armour, she looked weaker.

With every blow that should have set blood spurting but instead just skittered off armour plating, Asgar grew more dominant. His own clumsy strikes began to land, blood rage giving him the endurance to stay in the fight long past the point of physical exhaustion. She tried to grapple him, but he smashed an armoured knee into her face that cracked a tusk. He followed it up with a punch, further loosening it and bloodying her nose.

As her army looked on, beneath the heavy gaze of the pouring heavens, Asgar grabbed her by the hair, ripped her own tusk from her mouth, and then slammed it home into her throat. A single savage rip and dark ichor was gushing from the wound. Her knees buckled and Asgar let her fall. He panted, bloody drool dangling from his lips as he swayed back and forth in exhaustion.

"He's fucking done it," Tarkin croaked in astonishment, though Asgar barely heard him. He could feel the blood rage beginning to retreat, its impossible energy slipping away now that its job was done. But if he fell here, so too would his companions. The orcs were already shifting above them. Their chieftain was slain, but it would be easy to take vengeance if he fell now. A single sign of weakness was all it would take to have the green tide descend over those cliffs to kill him and those by his side.

All he wanted to do was collapse, to lie down and give up and let his companions carry him off to the healers—wherever the hells they were. Instead, he forced his gaze to the chieftain below him, still choking on her own lifeblood as it drained from her ruined throat. He tracked upwards, to the cliffs and the gaggle of enemies standing there uneasily.

"Is there no one else!?" he roared, spinning in a circle. Silence.

"Is this not your queen?" He pointed down with the tusk he still clutched in his uninjured arm.

"Is this the fate you all crave?" The only answer was the hiss of the rain.