~
Shrike lurched to his feet despite the agony in his side. On instinct, his free hand flew to the wound. His palm braced against his side to hold his guts in place. Blood, cooling quick in the wintry night, trickled out between his fingers.
But nothing more.
The Holly King wasted a fraction of a second staring down at Shrike in as much bewilderment as Shrike stared up at him. Then he raised his longsword over his head for another chop.
Shrike leapt out of the way. Pain tore through his side as he went, radiating up to his arm and down to his hip. Worth it, though, to escape. The longsword buried its blade in the frozen dirt where his body had lain not a half-second earlier.
In the instant it took the Holly King to rip his longsword out of the ground, Shrike dared a glance down at himself, pulling his hand away from the wound for a moment. Bleeding, yes—but not spilling out entrails in his wake. And the stabbing pains in his side with every gasp bespoke cracked ribs rather than broken ones. He could feel the difference, having suffered both several times over the centuries.
A blow like that should have felled him like an oak beneath an axe. Instead it had glanced off his flesh, leaving the most minor possible injuries under the circumstances.
Wren’s pentangle ward had worked.
Just as Shrike had known it would.
A wild grin twisted its way up Shrike’s cheek. It remained as he sprang forward to thrust his sword’s-point through the Holly King’s eye.
The Holly King evidently did not expect agility from a foe who by all rights ought to have lain dead at his feet. As such, he almost parried too late. But parry he did. The cross-guard of the longsword caught the arming sword’s point before it could reach its mark. A twist of the Holly King’s wrists drove Shrike’s blade upright and tangled the two swords together at the hilt.
Shrike held his ground, but with the Holly King’s two-handed grip against his single arm, both blades began to inch towards him. Shrike’s free hand fell from his wound to his belt.
Frost crept up the hilt of the Holly King’s sword and spread to Shrike’s own blade. His fingertips stung with cold. Then they began to numb.
With a flick of his wrist, Shrike unsheathed his misericord and plunged it into the Holly King’s left side. Its point—sharp and slender as a needle—found its mark between the links in the chain. What strength remained in his arm drove it in to the hilt.
The Holly King staggered. His blade scraped against Shrike’s sword. But he did not fall.
“Well, knave?” the Holly King spat. Flecks of blood gleamed on the frozen ground as round and full as the ruby berries adorning the wreath on his brow. “Do you suppose her hearth will warm you as it has warmed me? Are you eager to cut short your life’s thread for a chance to lay your head in her lap? I tell you, you are but the latest corpse to plough that field, and a thousand corpses shall plough on in your wake. Her embrace will last for a moment—your doom, forever!”
“I care not,” Shrike replied.
The Holly King sneered. “You care not for your fate?”
“No,” said Shrike. “I care not for her.”
The crimson eyes flew wide—and fixed upon forever as Shrike twisted his misericord in the Holly King’s heart.
~
The multitude exploded in a roar of victory. No cry could escape Wren’s throat with his heart stuck in it. Nor could any exclamation express the overwhelming wave of relief that crashed over him as Shrike withdrew his deadly blade, untangled his sword, and stepped back to let the Holly King fall to the frost-covered ground, dead.
Shrike had won. Shrike had lived. Shrike had survived.
Wren felt as if his heart would burst with joy.
Shrike staggered towards the edge of the duelling field. Strands of dark hair clung to his high cheekbones and noble brow, where frozen sweat glistened amidst flecks of the Holly King’s blood. His sword sang out as he slipped it back into his sheath, and the hand that had held it went to the wound in his side. In his other hand, he still gripped the slender blade that had spelled the Holly King’s ruin. Plumes of vapour escaped his clenched jaw like dragon’s breath. Despite his wound, he stood tall and proud as the oak itself, a king victorious. All the while, his dark eyes searched the crowd in aimless confusion.
Wren knew the futility of calling out for him amidst the cacophony. Instead, he elbowed his way past a green-bearded brute who turned as if to strike him down for his impertinence, then paled at the sight of Shrike’s cloak over Wren’s shoulders and hastened to make way before them. Their flight rippled through the crowd, parting as more of the fae realized with whom they stood in company, and soon Wren had a clear path ahead to the duelling field.
Just as Shrike’s eyes found him at last.
Wren ran to him.
~
The rush of victory left Shrike wanting. While he took hard-earned pride in slaying the Holly King, the approval of the multitude rang hollow in his ears. Only one individual mattered to him in that moment—and never before had he so longed to see him. Survival demanded celebration; wounds be damned.
