Tremors ran through
the marble with each strike of the immense bell. The garishly-dressed
man made a show of discomfort for his audience; doubled over,
clutching at his ears. A clever trick, but the Duke had been
misinformed; the clang of the bell truly had little bearing on the
Troubadour. Rather, his heart cried in harmony with the metallic
tone. It surged through him, resonant vibrations echoing through him.
His spirit filled the room with an uproarious hymn of judgment. The
others were oblivious: the Duke, and his guardsmen; eight of them
throughout the chamber, two flanking the Troubadour, four staggered
along the approach to the dais, and one more on either side of the
Duke himself. They eyed him warily, silent. The Duke shook, a
convulsion of fear, though a smirk played at his bulging lips. His
excess girth spilled over every side of the raised cushion on which
he sat.
The Duke's fear was
appropriate, for he had been found in discord with the swelling
rhapsody of souls – the music of life – and as such, the Chorus
had willed the Troubadour sing him one last song; a solemn,
inexorable dirge. It was a mark of arrogance that the Duke had
received the Troubadour at all – either he expected the favor of
the Chorus, or otherwise thought himself capable of besting death.
Vleiklass sang as
well, though the bell's monody had finally ceased. They had disarmed
him at the door to the hall, and then the fool had followed the
Troubadour into the room. There he stood, staring vacantly at the
sheathed blade that rested across his palms, as though hearkening to
its melodic, deathly intention.
The Troubadour
waited patiently for his host to speak; it was rude to slay a man in
his own hall without first being addressed. Echoing the voice of the
bell, a chime hanging at his ear whispered soothing verses. Each was
essential to the Troubadour; the bells and chimes spread across his
person and woven throughout his motley garb. That one in particular,
dangling from his ear lobe by a length of silver thread, sharpened
the Troubadour's awareness: he heard the guard shuffling behind him,
but felt it first; a disturbance in the very air surrounding him.
It seemed he would
not be welcomed after all.
With preternatural
agility, buoyed by the sonorous rhythm of resolve, he moved. Before
the enrapt guard could react, the Troubadour had pulled Vleiklass
free; the Tuning Blade trilled, her parallel, serpentine blades
humming the ecstasy of their freedom. He dashed away, singing blade
held low, bells jingling subtly; the guardsman merely continued to
stare dumbfounded at the scabbard resting in his hands, even as they
fell away from his body to stain red the white runner that split the
hall. The guard that had betrayed the ambush was a bit quicker; he
managed at least to rattle the blade in its sheath before the
Troubadour was upon him – no mercy for the discordant; no mercy for
their protectors – Vleiklass, rising, flashed through his throat.
He spun toward the
rest; toward the Duke, and saw him being gathered up by his nearest
attendants. The two of them struggled to lift his tremendous frame,
the Duke himself providing none of the energy, but insisting upon
haste all the while. Crossbows thrumming lethal notes pierced the
din; the battle ballad that pulsed through him. Behind heraldic
tapestries lining the long walls, ten instruments of death keened
critical cacophony. No time to evade: the Troubadour shifted;
bringing his bells instantly to symphonic life. Vleiklass gleamed,
smiling; a shimmer appeared around him; cascading sound and rushing
air. The bolts fell harmlessly to the ground.
As the crossbowmen
took a moment – borrowed time; a moment the Duke did not have –
to crank their weapons in preparation for a second salvo, the
Troubadour advanced. The four flanking the runner stepped forth to
meet him, taking up stance in a loose wall of plate, shields, and
spears. What they lacked in numbers for their phalanx, they made up
for in swiftness of motion; shifting easily to thwart his advances
along the flanks of the hall, they corralled him, attempting to pin
the Troubadour in to a corner. He lunged at the human barrier,
twisting nimbly mid-stride to avoid the four points that meant his
disembowelment.
Vleiklass whistled;
rebounded smoothly off the wall of shields with a dissatisfied
quiver, before finally crooning her ebullient concordance. A bark of
laughter was cut short when pain reached them; carried along the
Tuning Blade. She severed plate, shield, and flesh alike, and a
half-dozen strokes later the shield-wall crumbled in bloody heaps.
The truest danger of the blade was not in her careful honing; though
filed to a razor's edge, but in her adaptive harmony – constantly
changing; negligent of every obstacle.
Ceasing in their
attempts to move the Duke – they had gained but a few steps from
the dais – and leaving him floundering, sprawled on the marble, the
last two guardsmen rushed at the Troubadour, blades held high. They
came at him from his flanks, but discipline and a mind for battle
went only so far when considering such disparate strengths. Vleiklass
sang, once more, and their blooded forms fell amidst clouds of
scarlet mist.
Lamely, the Duke
gripped at the marble, his fingers sliding across the floor
ineffectually; his atrophied arms could not budge the sizable frame
to which they were attached. The cranking was coming to an end; the
second salvo of bolts imminent. He knelt, the Troubadour, by the
prodigious form tottering helplessly on the floor, and brought his
lips close to the Duke's ear. The noble shook and struggled no
longer, caught in the stillness of consummate terror; the
inevitability of death.
“'No mercy for
the discordant. Reward tyranny with death.' Thusly, the Chorus has
spoken,” the Troubadour whispered, his speech cracked and hollow;
disused.
Vleiklass hummed
eagerly, her own voice beautiful and well-practiced.
