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Erador knows how he comes across; loud, boisterous, enthusiastic. It wouldn’t be a far stretch for one to assume he’d be competitive.
The thing is, he really isn’t.
He has the general, baseline aspirations for glory that every foolish green soldier has, but he’s never been out to stand above the crowd or make a name for himself. He’s not one to rise to bait, or jump at opportunity to be ambitious. In fact, he’s rather proud of his own level-headed-ness. He bears his shield with more importance than his sword, and all that that implies.
But it all goes out the window whenever Benedict Pascal throws that infuriating smirk at him. Every time.
It doesn’t matter how often it’s put him in a reckless position, Erador never learns not to jump like a dog at a steak. When Benedict, clever, conceited, arrogant Benedict turns something into a game with a twitch of his thin lips, Erador wants nothing more than to wipe that smile off of his face. Maybe it wouldn’t strike a nerve with him so much if it weren’t for the fact he can’t ever seem to get one up on the dark haired man. The closest he ever got was Benedict catching cold when deciding to pit his horse in the rain against the simple hawk message that Erador had sent from the nice, warm, dry aviary. And yes, Benedict had looked the fool when he returned, all congested and pale… Except that the aura of smugness he’d exuded at having spent the remainder of the storm in the company of Lady Destra had outlasted the illness twofold.
That one had rather stung.
Much like Erador’s damn leg right now.
Oh it had all started simple enough: Symon needed eyes on the northernmost fragment of Aesfrosti soldiers attempting to circumvent the Worlfort territory and Benedict was the obvious choice. And, well, this discussion came after a bit of a tiff between the two soldiers, and Erador was feeling rather peeved. So of course, Erador had sprung at the chance to volunteer instead. Symon had lifted an eyebrow in confusion, but all it took was that damn mocking smirk from Benedict, that damn challenge, and Erador couldn’t back down. Couldn’t admit defeat. And definitely, definitely couldn’t accept Benedict’s offer of assistance, later in the quiet hallway.
The smirk had fallen from his face then.
“Don’t be a fool, Erador.” Benedict had said. “There’s no telling what waits for you up there, and we know that Aesfrost has been bringing in their Hawkriders. You’re not exactly the most inconspicuous type; you’ll be spotted.”
“You think I can’t do it.” Erador had snapped.
And Benedict had had no retort. Because he knew that there was no answer he could give now that would convince Erador to reconsider, the scope of his game had gone too far. He’d scowled, and with a swish of his cloak, stalked away down the long hall of Wolfort Castle.
It didn’t leave Erador feeling any better.
And so off he went. But there hadn’t been one northern Aesfrosti battalion.
There’d been two.
Erador only noticed once it was too late, that the second had unknowingly circled his location, high on the cliffside. His only paths down were directly in the path of each camp.
Well crap.
He was only supposed to be gone four days. It had taken him one day to make it here, had been observing the first camp for two nights, and become trapped for another. He had needed to leave a long time ago.
Erador is strong, fast, can even be nimble on occasion, but he’s never been great with heights, and climbing treacherous rock faces are well beyond his set of skills. But he has no choice here. He ran out of water 10 hours ago, and he can feel dehydration setting in. Afternoon light is blinding and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. The dry mountain air and summer sun are only going to worsen his condition.
His stomach lurches at the first step down the cliff.
“Well…” He grumbles. “No better time to learn than the present…”
It’s slow going. But he should have gone slower. The moment his foot slips and the outcrop he grabs crumbles, he thinks to himself that the present is really a rather terrible time to learn anything.
His tumble isn’t subtle in the least. All Erador can hope for is that he’s far away enough from either camp that they’d think the small avalanche was their ears playing tricks on them. But Erador’s never been that lucky.
When he comes to a stop, flat on his back, he groans and stares at the sky. He tries not to imagine Benedict laughing, but that’s a fool’s errand. His ankle is already swelling inside his boot, and he can’t afford to leave his heavy shield behind, so Erador grits his teeth and crawls back up the slope as fast as he dares. At least there’s a defensible position at the top, and if there’s any Goddess out there, then maybe he’ll find a place to hide in time. Rocks tumble and slip under his hands and feet as he goes, every patter of falling stones is as loud as his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
The only thing louder is the approaching Aesfrosti footsteps.
By the time the scouts see him, he’s still meters from the top. He curses as he hears their shouts.
He catches one arrow to the shoulder before pulling himself up and over the crumbling crest of soil and thin grasses that hold the edge of all that’s left together. He cuts to the right, behind an outcropping and readies his shield.
He’d counted three. The first he dispatches easily, as they round the corner. Shield slamming the soldier into a boulder, before Erador grabs him by the lapel of his gambeson and swings him back down the rockfall. The second is smarter about it, and Erador misses his first strike. The soldier’s sword strikes Erador’s arm, but his mail holds and adrenaline pushes Erador through the pain. He punches the soldier in the head and the man drops to the ground. The edge of Erador’s shield follows and the soldier’s ribcage is crushed. It’s gruesome, and Erador’s stomach would have churned if there had been time because-
He knows it’s an exceptionally skilled rider before the force of the blow slams his face into the ground. The birds from the north are not the quiet, compact ambush predators that one sees occasionally above the forests of Glenbrook. Southern hawks that need to surprise their prey, as the woods provide ample cover, and their shorter, more agile wings can only do them so much good dodging through the trees. Not like this beast from the mountains: Her eyes are a piercing silver, wings massive sails catching the wind, her black talons each the size of Erador’s hand. He sees it for a split second, before the Hawk and rider shoot up into the sun, blinding Erador as he tries to track the motion. No, this beast does not care for stealth, was not built for it, and yet her rider caught Erador completely blindsided.
He scrambles back to his feet, forgetting his ankle, and stumbles again. There’s blood running down his face, and the ghost of the sun is still burned into his sight. This is not good. There’s still an archer somewhere. He tries to keep the outcropping to the left, but the Hawk is coming back-
He lifts his shield and catches the talons at the very last second. They rake through it like a knife through bread, but the solid oak spares most of Erador’s arm, and the cut is only deep, instead of separating the muscle from his bones.
The bird banks again, and Erador finally catches a good look at her rider. His heart sinks; the man is not some skinny little bird jockey with a dinky sword like Erador had expected. No, this man is nearly as big as he is. Erador’s broken shield could still be of use against sword or bow; he’s skilled enough with it. One of the few people in this war who is.
But he can tell at a glance that this man is another.
When Erador grits his teeth and leaps out of the way on the bird’s next two passes, the rider switches strategies. On the third swoop, He drops from the hawk and lands swinging at Erador’s head. Erador uses the last drops of durability of his shield to soften the blow, but it shatters into splinters under the man’s greave. The momentum forces Erador to step back badly on his sprained ankle and for a second it gives. Just enough time for the soldier see the opening. To swing his own shield down onto it with a resounding CRACK.
Erador screams so forcefully that he chokes off his own voice. It’s pain beyond anything he’s ever felt, and it consumes every inch of his mind. He’s on the ground but barely registers it. Only the slow, predatory approach of the rider. He can’t focus on surviving this. There is no surviving this.
He’s dead. He’s dead, and he knows it.
He knows the look on the rider’s face, as it’s the same one he wields on the battlefield. It brings Erador outside of himself, for a moment. Or maybe this is what one’s mind does when facing death. The rider’s face is horror, tamped down. A shield is meant to defend. To save. It’s a desecration to wield it like this and yet he must. They must. The best they can do is mercy. They know that death by the sword, by the arrow is clean, beautiful. But it is not quick. And those seconds of steeping in the feeling of dying, of the blood running out the veins, into the lungs, are the cruelest things man can inflict on one another.
The blow. The blow is fastest. The blow is mercy.
Erador is outside himself, outside the pain now. Shock is settling in. He would close his eyes, to miss the moment. To only know an end. but how many has he killed? They’d all looked at him in their final moment. He must do the same. So he meets the Aesfrosti’s icy blue eyes.
Except they look away suddenly, and that hadn’t been ringing in Erador’s ears, it was the Hawk’s screech rapidly approaching.
She slams into her rider, a grey blur, and they both vanish from Erador’s sight.
“Erador!”
He now knows he must be dead, because a moment later, Benedict Pascal is crouching before him, dust kicked into a cloud around them from his rapid approach.
“Erador! Hey- Hey, stay with me!”
It’s the dehydration, probably. The injuries don’t help. But Erador suddenly can’t keep his head up. He blinks long and slow, then slumps. Barely aware that Benedict was already holding him up.
“Damnit!”
He hears some fumbling sounds, and then a healing pellet is pressed to his lips. The sensation of the magically infused medicine feels hot and electric on his teeth, but Benedict pushes it past, into his mouth and then all Erador can focus on is the saltiness of Benedict’s thumb against his tongue. Before he can register the strangeness of it, it’s gone and replaced with a water skein.
No ale, no juice, no nectar has ever tasted as good as this. Erador drinks like a man in a desert and after a minute, the healing pellet kicks in. the pain fades slightly, but not enough, and now tinged with the edge of tenderness. The shock had helped, in a way, but now Erador flinches as he tries to shift his weight. He chances a glance down and wishes he hadn’t; there’s so much blood. There’s still so much blood. It bleeds. It bleeds and bleeds and won’t stop. Erador can only look at the blood, because if he looks higher, looks at the knee, the shin, it is likely he’ll pass out. There is a shape his leg is making that he refuses to register in his peripheral vision because it is wrong.
And so instead, he looks up. Benedict.
The man is not smirking. His glasses are askew but he’s not bothering to fix them. No, all of Benedict’s focus is on Erador. He’s watching him closely, and only now does Erador notice the tightness of Benedict’s grip on his arm and shoulder.
Erador’s face flushes, but curiously, not from the expected flood of shame. No he doesn’t feel shame. Gratitude. So then why are his cheeks hot? He stutters out his first thought.
“Archer?” Erador asks. “There were three- well, four.”
At this, Benedict seems satisfied that Erador is out of shock. He loosens his grip, but doesn’t let go.
“Dead.” He replies. “I took his bow. I’m not the best shot, but I got the bird.”
It doesn’t sound like a boast. Not this time. Benedict lets out a slow breath, looks down at his hands, and Erador realizes he’s never seen the man so thoroughly shaken.
“I- We were lucky it careened into it’s master, instead of you.”
Erador huffs a laugh. “That wasn’t your plan from the beginning?”
“No.” If possible, Benedict somehow frowns even harder. “I- there was no plan. I acted rashly. I heard the avalanche… I didn’t think, I just knew you were in trouble. I came up from behind them when their infantry was pursuing you and killed the man who fell, killed the archer but- I didn’t see him. I only heard you fall- and- and then I saw the Hawk hit you over and over and-“
“Benedict.” Erador cuts him off. “Thank you.”
Benedict looks back up at that, his expression stricken, his eyes wide. Erador knew they were blue, but he feels like he’s only realizing it now. There’s flecks of silver in them. Erador knows what he’s thinking: that he’s to blame, that he’d goaded Erador for too long.
Ever the narcissist. There are two fools here.
“I’m sorry I put you in this position, Erador, I shouldn’t ha-“
“Benedict, credit my intelligence enough to tell me that I should have known better, alright?” Erador gives him a hard look. “Thank you for coming for me, even though I was being so pig-headed.”
Benedict doesn’t smile like Erador had been hoping, but he nods, and that’s the end of that for now. “Come on then, we need to go.” He says. “I don’t know where the Hawkrider or his bird ended up. It’s not safe here any longer.”
Benedict moves to Erador’s side, and swings the larger man’s arm around his shoulders. Together, somehow, they lift Erador to a stand, but it’s clear very quickly that the Healing Pellet was insufficient, and Erador stumbles back down.
“Ugh….Thrice-damned…” He hisses. “I can’t move…”
He feels braver with Benedict’s side pressed up against his own, and he’s not too fond of the grave expression still plastered on the man’s face. He angles for a joke, smirk coloring his face. “Always thought I’d meet my end with a beautiful lass by my side…”
Benedict does not seem to catch his tone. Or he does, and doesn’t have the patience for gallows humor. “You have many days ahead of you yet, Erador.” He says. “We will see you returned home.”
Erador is not so optimistic. He’d already accepted death earlier. Death on the battlefield was always intimate; It will be a long, long time before he forgets the face of the rider who’d nearly ended him. A stranger. He indulges in a selfish thought for a moment. It comes unbidden. That, no, not a beautiful lass, but maybe dying with Benedict by his side wouldn’t be so bad.
Erador immediately feels guilt.
Footsteps.
Feels sick at the thought.
Clanging of Blackirons.
No, he wants Benedict to live.
“Don’t try to run, you curs!” shout the Aesfrosti soldiers coming up the hill. Erador pales.
“Leave me be! I’ll just slow you down…” Erador says urgently, but Benedict lowers him gently to the ground and as he draws his sword, Erador’s heart sinks.
“It was my cursed pride that got us into this…” He continues franticly. “Only I should suffer for it!”
Benedict steps in front of Erador, and doesn’t turn his gaze away from the enemy for a second. Erador feels desperation like he should have felt when he looked down his own death. He’d made his peace with it. But he’d not made peace with the idea of Benedict’s, and here, he realizes, he never could.
“We don’t all need to die today!” Erador screams franticly. “Run!”
Benedict stands tall but coiled. Dangerous. Ready. Any who know him would assume his brilliant mind is storming, formulating a plan. Erador knows better. Benedict does not sway or fidget or glance around. The mind is not scheming. There is no plan. His plan is to die here with Erador.
“Even in the face of death, you refuse to set aside your foolish pride.” Benedict finally says. “I followed you into this hell of my own will.”
Then a declaration. For the enemy, for himself, for Erador, for the Goddess and any deity to hear.
“-And I will see you delivered from it!”
He believes what he’s saying, Erador realizes. He cuts a striking figure, with the afternoon sun casting a halo around his hair, shoulders broad, wind rustling his cape, sword gleaming. Conviction made mortal.
He’s beautiful, Erador realizes suddenly.
“You fool…” He whispers in grief. In awe.
“Come!” Benedict shouts, thunder in his voice. “Come and die!”