Zoran’s helmet was plumed with iridescent rainbow feathers and shone golden with a face mask like a bird of prey. He looked down on the silvery scaled skin of his lithe, agile opponent and smiled grimly.

  “Zhe Knight Tumult vas taller.” He said.

  The albino with mercurial eyes drew his swords slowly, and a subtle note resonated with the sand upon the arena floor. It was a fraction of a moment, but Zoran took two quick steps back and reached behind him to grip his bone white greatsword by the hilt and draw it. The noise of the monstrous crowd was muted in Zoran’s ears, and he blinked as his eyes swam in the shimmering mirage in front of him. Whatever anyone else saw of this seemingly puny man, Zoran saw, or thought he saw for a moment that the shadow beneath his feet was not the shadow of a man. It was the titanic shadow of a great dragon, wings wide and head raised for a roar. A hum echoed in Zoran’s skull, and he could almost hear the drums of distant wars reminding him of memories not his own. The sword in his hand felt heavier than usual, yet excited as if it desired to press forward to meet an old friend, or an old foe.

  All this struck Zoran the instant before Siegyrd’s blades came swinging in a violent swirl of moving music, dust rising around him to join the parade of sights and sounds. It was all Zoran could do to block the flurry of attacks, noticing them fractions of seconds before his own death, or turning into them with the strong pauldrons of his gilded armour with a loud percussion clang as emphasizing notes to the melody of martial prowess.

  From atop the battlements, to the trained eyes and ears of Wrothmaul there was here, for the first time, a true masterclass in the blade and song. The shorter swordsman swung his blades like woodwinds edged with steel, punctuated by perfect tempo strikes to his opponent's armour to create a foundational beat. Soon the whole crowd rose rocking and swaying with the martial music that captivated. The two combatants grew less adversary and somehow seemed partners in a grand display of deadly skill.

  Zoran could hear the song, but knew his part was barely a fraction of a step. He was a marionette attached to the strings of those songblades, unable to fight back, and barely able to stay alive – and then only by his opponent’s mercy. All his strength, his size, his pride, emptied. His sword grew lighter in his hand, and he felt alive. He drank deep the unfiltered life close to the grave, the mad moments of desperate hope for the fraction of a chance to survive and felt in every atom of his being how intoxicating it was to live. Joy and terror burst in harmonic resonance within him alongside the dread of death and longing for life.

  Suddenly Zoran’s hand was empty, the greatsword spinning out to his right. His helmet flew high and to the left, and his final step backward slipped. He was on one knee, and the twin blades were set on either side of his neck. The dance was done. He looked up, blinking unawares into those silver eyes, and everything seemed slow as the final notes of their battle replayed their way throughout the stadium. All sound faded to a low hush then lilted into deathly silence.

  Siegyrd looked down at his kneeling opponent and smiled. He leaned forward to whisper in Zoran’s ear, “Your grandsires would be proud, son of the stars. Balmung has not known such a wielder as you for some centuries. Perhaps had you had a spear?”

  Zoran’s eyes widened, and he leaned back as Siegyrd drew his blades away from Zoran’s neck and sheathed both to the rising sound of boos. Siegyrd ignored the crowd and turned toward the giant white-bladed sword that now stuck into the sand floor at a precarious angle. He lifted it with ease, gazed at it, then closed his eyes and muttered something no one could hear before dropping the sword. A small portal opened in the air and swallowed the blade, and Zoran stood and screamed, “Thief!”

  Siegyrd’s eyes flashed as he turned to Zoran who had started to stand but stopped dead. “Balmung was not made to entertain a mad pretender god.”

  Wrothmaul’s voice carried out over the arena, “Kill the conquered.”

  Siegyrd held Zoran’s gaze for a moment, then winked before he looked up at the battlements, crossed his arms, and stared into the hollow fiery eyes of the arena master.

  Jeers turned to stunned silence as the atmosphere shifted. Siegyrd stood upon the grate in the center of the arena, right above the pits of conquest. Wrothmaul stepped forward to the edge of the battlements and set his giant hands on the railing and crunched the stone to dust before he spoke, “This is my realm, and the pits demand the blood of the conquered. Wrothmaul DEMANDS the blood of the conquered!”

  “Spoken with all the cruelty of weakness masquerading as might.” Siegyrd’s voice boomed and was answered by a crowd-full of gasps, whispers, and insults.

  “OBEY!” Wrothmaul ground the stones in his grip into finer and finer dust

  Zoran stood up and walked slowly toward Siegyrd, “Renard came to me, said you vere coming. Ve need a plan for him.”

  Siegyrd looked back at Zoran and smiled, “No, I overestimated. Perhaps the lesser of evils.”

  “You don’t understand!” Zoran said.

  Wrothmaul raised his hand to the sky and pulled from the air a greataxe forged of living shadow. With a loud warcry he leaped from the battlements to the center of the arena.

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  Zoran’s shout was drowned out in the concussion of Wrothmaul’s landing which sent plumes of red dirt hundreds of feet into the sky and filled the arena with choking dust.

  The landing shook the arena floor and the whole crowd cheered, a new kind of violence and hunger animating them into a mass of singular enjoyment.

  “Five-hundred years I have watched without warring, without wrecking, without wasting, with a waiting RAGE.” Wrothmaul’s voice carried through the stands to more cheers.

  The bone white armor smeared with bloody sigils and the greataxe of shadow made Wrothmaul seem untouchable, his height four times that of Zoran. Siegyrd stood firmly on the grate and looked upward defiantly at the titanic humanoid.

  “Witness Wrothmaul’s WRATH!” the giant shouted and raised his shadow axe high above his head, gripping it with both hands, letting the anticipation of the crowd grow.

  There was a long pause, and Zoran was frozen for fear. Siegyrd stood calmly, looking up, arms still crossed. Zoran remembered that draconic shadow, blinked, and it was no longer a shadow but a firm reality, not an echo, but a visible glowing blue aura of massive size. The aura towered over the puny Wrothmaul, exuding from this small, somewhat unassuming man. If any but Zoran could see it, they showed no signs of it as the crowd jeered at the small man.

  Wrothmaul’s axe fell, and a great crash echoed through the arena as a second cloud of dust enveloped the whole floor obscuring all vision. The particles cleared to a strange picture. The shadow axe had been stopped dead by a thin blade forged of solid light held by the tiny albino man. Zoran watched the radiant sword send tendrils of light into the shadowy axe as if infecting its darkness. Lightning arcs of luminescence tore through the greataxe and shattered it in seconds into harmless wisps of smoke. Wrothmaul stood unarmed, eyes a raging blaze of green fire.

  Wrothmaul held out his hand as a kind of summons, and from beneath the grate a sound like a waterfall rose. Siegyrd soon stood in a torrent of blood as it rushed upwards passed him through the grate and entered Wrothmaul’s hand at the wrist. More and more was drawn into his being, and he grew by degrees, and the bone white armor turned crimson and glowed orange hot with power.

  The torrent broke around a half sphere of ice in which Siegyrd stood. Within his protective casing, Siegyrd yawned. This sent Wrothmaul into a greater rage, and he raised his left hand outward toward the crowd. Creatures began to burst into mists which he devoured as well. Soon the whole crowd fled, trying not to be consumed, all their mirth at the arena swallowed in their fear. Zoran stood nearby mouth agape. He had no weapon, no strength left, but could not take his eyes off that tiny figure in the midst of a grotesque maelstrom.

  Siegyrd raised his right hand high above him and began to chant in a deep tongue while the madness continued around him, and Zoran looked up but saw nothing. Still Siegyrd stood there chanting, though nothing seemed to happen. Looking on from the exit in the arena floor, Renard held the edge of the doorway with all his strength as if to hold himself together.

  Finally, Wrothmaul’s rage was at its full, and all the blood of the pools of conquest, the very power of this twisted world were sucked into the creator of it, including many denizens of the dark void between the worlds. The titan himself stood as high as the tallest battlements of the arena, and Siegyrd was a speck upon the arena floor, standing with hand raised in utmost calm. Zoran was pressed against the wall, and Renard looked on dripping with sweat.

  “NOW!” The booming voice of the titan cracked the walls of the arena, “WORSHIP AND DIE.”

  Siegyrd flicked his right wrist downward, and then let his arm fall slowly to his side and turned his back on the titan.

  Wrothmaul swung a giant fist downward, but before it reached Siegyrd it was severed by an invisible blade, and Zoran blinked again. Wrothmaul himself seemed confused, staring at the stump but he did not get the chance to speak before the sound of an immense wind rushed through the arena, and the titan fell to his knees and then split into two pieces severed straight down the center from crown of the head to groin. As he fell his giant body melted and evaporated into a red mist. Siegyrd breathed outward and upward, and a burst of impossible cold turned the mist to a crimson snow that fell gentle onto the arena floor. The sky above cracked, and a distant brightness poured in. Living creatures of the void snarled and vanished in smoke and shadow. Masked attendants fled from the light, and battlements and walls crumbled in lazy waves as if forgetting to hold themselves together.

  Zoran looked toward the exit where Renard stood in stupefied awe, and found his own expression perfectly mirrored.

  Siegyrd pulled the bone white greatsword from what seemed thin air and drove it into the rising snow. He drew his songblades and lifted his voice in song as he moved through the movements of a dance. As the music rose and the snow fell, lights of every color, wisps of power and spent life wove into a beautiful tapestry that went upward toward the sky, touching the fresh pure light and followed in trace the movements of the dancer. Every sound and swing was accompanied with life lights. Some winked out. Others exploded into fury reds and purples. More hovered like stars in a firmament, and finally what was left of the grand procession was guided toward the white blade which glowed bright from within.

  Zoran could see with his naked eye a sword forged of solid light with a blade the entire width of the arena and hilt beyond view in the gray, almost night sky far above. It was a momentary glimpse and his eyes shut in a blaze of pain, burned with the image of the sword, and then all he saw was darkness and heard a voice, “Proud indeed, your sires would be.” And the rogue world collapsed around them.

  #

  Siegyrd stepped firmly through the misty cave entrance, stood tall and took a deep breath through his nose. He closed his eyes and exhaled in a deep sigh. In his right hand he held the sword Balmung which cast a faint, warm light. He took another half step, and then sunk to a knee, unsteady, releasing the sword which floated to the floor. Gudrun was at the far end of the cavern, tossing a cloud child into the air and catching it. When she saw Siegyrd fall, she ran to him. The cloud child hung in the air and dropped two-man heights to the ground. It broke and bounced into five smaller versions of itself that waddled about in random directions.

  When she reached him, he had not even tried to stand. It was all he could do to remain steady on the one knee. She grabbed his shoulders and he leaned toward her whispering, “I overestimated, the greater of two evils.” She tried to catch him as he collapsed, but his weight was far too great. He fell to the side and rolled onto his back. He breathed shallowly, and his albino skin was a deathly pallor tinged almost gray in the false sun light. "What happened!?” Her voice quivered and she shook him gently. “Wake up.” She said, but he would not wake, and the usual lustre of his silver scales was swallowed in a spreading shadow. She heard a wickedly familiar voice in her head. It was laughing.