Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Sin in Stone

You would have filed then, just like you have failed now.

The words burned in her ears, roared in harmony with the sudden symphony of thunder from overhead. A sharp bolt of lightning ignited the interior of the crater, however briefly, with a sunburst of terrible white light painting the scene in brilliant rays of sharp contrast, shadow, and light.

Kazna's first step became a leap that took her over the length of the pond, landing sure footed at it's other edge, while rain pummeled the once glassy surface.

Water spilled from the tip of her sper, heralding the blood that was to come, and when their spears met for the first moment, it was more than a clashing of metal, but a clashing of souls.

They stood there, locked together in a battle rictus, binding the moment to test one another's strength. Kazna was taller than Naktan by a few inches, but Naktan held fast with an incredible steadiness, his feet holding firm like the very roots of the mountain beneath them. At that moment, their heads were almost touching, one set of golden eyes drawn level with the other.

One burned with eternal volcanic fire, and the other simmered like the slow pour of molten gold from a fiery crucible.

Kazna snarled, shattering the moment with her voice, shoving naktan backwards with all the power in her upper body. She expected some pushback, but instead of stumbling, he loaned his body to gravity, allowing it to sweep him backward into a two step dance that carried him easily out of the range of her next swing.

She stepped forward with another snarl, and another vicious swing, cything through the air with its end destination set at his throat, but the blade ate only air as Naktan ruled under her swing.

He was incredibly fast, and before she knew it, he had maneuvered himself to the side, where her strike would be weakest. His first blow fell with the authority of fate, as if designed and predetermined before the beginning of time, to exist simply, and perfectly in that moment. The blade of his spear cut an elegant line through a pocket of rain, passing between raindrops, and existing in only a single moment.

And so the tip of his blade landed, slicing through the gap between her armored plating, and cutting deep into her flesh.

Kazna howled as Naktan anointed the night with first blood.

"Careless! Sloppy!" Naktan shouted backed by a quartet of thunder, rain, the humm of metal, and the echo of her own anguished cry.

She cast her pain aside like so many of her discarded children, and cast her spear towards the hollow of Naktan's throat. He batted it aside with contemptuous derision, but by then she forced control upon her anger, and followed up the stab with a reverse strike, one that Naktan did not block with such ease.

She charged again, but he spun his spear in a sharp circle, briefly conjuring a wall of steel between them, against which her blade deflected uselessly shedding sparks to be immediately doused by the rain.

They exchanged a series of complex blows, each bite of steel set to test the other's strength. Rain whipped from the end of Naktan's spear dancing in patterns of fanning light, precise and elegant. The water that fell from Kazna's spear curved and churned like a whip, the occasional blow accented by the staccato of lightning and the rolling drums of thunder.

Kazna sought to channel the lightning, her movements sharp and jagged, snapping into existence in the time it took to blink, and behind it came her power capable of rattling bones just like the thunder.

And while she snapped, naktan rolled.

She couldn't have described what style of fighting he used, for he seemed to slip between them with the ease that time slips into seasons. One moment he was firm as a pillar, the next he flowed like water, and the next he raged like a wildfire, cutting a fury of blows against her that could have battered stone into shards.