Fiend's Fourth Hurdle

The sand always shifts.

Hask knew this before he knew any other truth in the pit, as the arena ground betrayed balance with every step. You had to stay light, never overcommit, never plant too hard. One foot wrong, and you were slower, stuck, vulnerable.

And against him, being slower meant being dead.

The signal sounded, and Hask moved first.

A gust of wind in cloth and muscle, he dashed wide, blades flashing low in the sun, curved and razor-thin. His right dagger angled for the wrist while the left reversed and climbed for the armpit, instinctive slashes aimed at bypassing armor, though the man wore none. Hask had done it a thousand times before. Muscle memory didn't ask questions, it simply struck where armor should have failed.

But the sword was already there.

It was not speed that countered him. It was instinct, timing. Caelvir's sword caught the left dagger in a smooth parry, twisted at the hilt, and forced Hask to roll out before the backswing could split him in two.

Back to distance.

Control it, Hask reminded himself. This fight isn't mine if I trade blows.

He circled fast in quick bursts, darting in and out. The left dagger flicked upward, cutting just beneath the elbow—a line of red.

Another slash followed, shallow across the shoulder.

Another landed, a sting on the thigh.

Blood. Yes. Bleed, brute. Bleed and slow down.

Yet Caelvir did not slow. He advanced with calm, steady steps, a fortress on two legs. He didn't chase, he pressured. There was a difference, and it was terrifying.

Hask danced just out of reach, blades always carving angles. He cut high, rolled low, slashed behind the knee—just grazes, no killing blows, but enough to mark him.

The sword swung only when necessary, with no wasted motion. One stroke cleaved through the air with such weight it forced Hask to backpedal hard.

When Caelvir lunged, the sand screamed beneath him. Hask leapt to the side, rolled, and came up spinning with both daggers set for the ribs.

One cut landed, another shallow red smile across the stomach.

But the backhand counter came like a falling star.

Too close.

Hask twisted, ducked, and took the flat of the blade against his shoulder. Pain thundered down his arm as he staggered, hissed, and retreated to range again.

That sword was not just metal. It felt like a goddamn door slamming shut.

He shook the numbness from his left hand. His wrist throbbed. He still held the blade, but his grip was weaker now. Sloppy.

Caelvir stepped forward again with the same pace. He never rushed or looked angry, just kept advancing with inevitability.

How does he keep moving like that? Doesn't he feel the wounds? I've cut him ten times already.

Red streaked Caelvir's torso and limbs, the marks of every encounter, wrist, ribs, shoulders, hip. Yet none of them were vital, and not one deep enough to stop a limb or a breath.

Hask cursed inside. I'm scoring hits, but he's not slowing down or reacting.

There was no hesitation, no wince or stagger.

Hask turned his next feint into a spin, slashing backward as he passed behind. The edge clipped the back of Caelvir's arm—another sting.

Then the sword came horizontally, with force.

Hask barely ducked, feeling his hair sliced clean off in a thin line. He rolled again, this time too wide, his feet catching on loose sand. Sloppy.

Caelvir charged. For the first time, it was real aggression.

The sword came down like a crashing tower.

Hask twisted and crossed his daggers to block, not to stop it, but to deflect, redirect and survive.

Metal clanged and shrieked. His legs buckled, arms flared in pain, and he tumbled aside, coughing sand.

He couldn't block like that again. The strength was no longer something human.

Still, he got up.

Caelvir's silhouette, blood-drenched, rose again through the haze. Cuts adorned him now, yet he stood as if they were ornaments rather than wounds.

Hask's heart pounded like a drum in a coffin.

He adjusted his grip. The left wrist burned, so he leaned into the right and moved again, using short slashes to test the breath, to test the timing.

He darted in, slicing the outer thigh—another shallow line.

But the counter nearly took his head.

Again. Roll, rise, slash.

Wrist, palm, bicep. Blood. Blood. Blood.

Yet none of it stopped him.

And Hask could feel the growing ache in his ribs, the bruises from glancing strikes, the bone-deep exhaustion.

He's not fighting like a beast anymore, Hask thought. He's fighting like a mountain. You don't topple it. You wear it down, if you last long enough.

But how much longer could he last?

He darted away again, panting. Sand in his throat. He licked his lips. His daggers hung like weary wings now.

Hask saw a breathless flicker in the man's stance, a moment barely born. The sword was too far, hanging low and wide, ribs and belly unguarded like a gate swung open in the storm.

He lunged.

Both feet dug into sand. His body became a needle, his dagger the thread meant to sew blood into skin. He aimed deep, a puncture wound below the ribs, a fatal threading of steel through soft meat.

But then, it stopped.

Steel met flesh, but not as intended.

Caelvir's left palm had risen like a quiet wall, catching the blade before it sank where it should. The dagger was buried inside a hand that refused to let go. Blood streamed down Caelvir's wrist like crimson threads unraveling from a torn banner, but the dagger did not fall.

It was no longer a weapon.

It had become a prisoner.

Then came the pull.

The bleeding arm surged forward, grit grinding beneath heavy steps, and fingers like iron clamps locked around Hask's right wrist. Hask's eyes widened.

No.

Not like this.

The moment... I lost it.

Speed, his edge, his blessing, was gone.

The Seren Sword began to rise.

Deliberate. Silent. Unforgiving.

Desperate, Hask twisted. His left hand jerked, dagger in fist, slashing toward the man's chest, one final bid to finish it first.

But too slow.

Far too slow.

Steel pierced his chest.

The sound he made was not a scream, but a strangled gasp like air being stolen from a cracked jar. A wet, gurgling noise, something between a cough and a whisper. His feet twitched beneath him, muscles spasming as if trying to outrun the truth.

And then…

Stillness.

There they stood, statues beneath the screaming sun.

Two men,

one dead,

one alive,

one with a dagger in his palm,

one with a sword in his heart.