Scholar's Knowledge

“What happened here?” Belka asked, as the man started along the table toward Belka and Kellja.

“What is happening,” he said, “is not over.” He started to trot, facing Belka as he came around the side of the table, lifting up his mace.

Disappointed, Belka swung to parry with her halberd, and as her halberd’s axehead struck the mace, a white flare overwhelmed Belka’s eyes. She cried out in alarm as her ears began to ring, and a moment later stumbled backward into a chair, tumbling onto her side. She heard another swing and a crack, and then turned herself over.

Kellja, having donned her helmet, had leapt to Belka’s aid. Belka grasped for her halberd, but as she gripped the shaft and lifted the axehead’s end, she saw that the steel was chipped, jagged where it had struck the mace.

“Out!” The man cried, now swinging again. His mace slipped past Kellja, but rather than parrying it, Kellja stepped backward. He swung again, this time missing Kellja by a single span.

“Put down your weapon!” Belka called, getting to her feet, hefting the halberd closer to the axehead. “And tell me where Regulus is!”

“The Lord?” The man cried, swinging again at Kellja. His swing came far too short, and he wheezed with exhaustion.

Kellja stepped back, choosing not press the attack. Keeping him alive long enough to get a few answers from him would satisfy Belka’s curiosity.

“What were all of you researching?” Belka asked, stepping up onto the table to get elevation against him.

“Why should I tell you?” The man asked, almost giggling, “when you are standing on the answer?”

Belka looked down, and glimpsed the open books at her feet. She looked back up in time to see the man swing at her shins.

With a gasp, Kellja’s blade stuck through the his lungs from behind. He coughed, a spray of blood spotting the books in front of him. He fell against a chair, and sprawled onto the floor, a pool spreading from under him. Kellja looked up to Belka. “It is finished.” She pulled her sword free after twisting it in the wound. “He told us where to find your answers.”

Belka took a final look at the body, and then stepped down from the table onto a chair, and onto the floor, and turned to look at the open books. She stared, for a moment, and balled up her fists. “I cannot read,” she said, straining to keep her frustration quiet, worried that she might even blush to admit it.

Kellja laughed, and Belka thought of swiftly severing Kellja’s head from the neck to spare some of the shame. “I will read for you,” Kellja said, stepping up to the table. Her eyes, now alight with curiosity, began to pore over the open tomes and scrolls.

Belka stepped back, and leaned against the bookshelf behind her, testing the chipped axehead. After a moment, she took the man’s mace and slipped it under her belt. It hummed with some deeper power, and she wondered if it might prove useful in a future engagement.