When two stars flashed in the darkness at the same time, Hadjar figured that Olgerd was going to try and deceive him. After deflecting the brighter one, he suddenly felt a jolt of pain in his long-suffering left side.
Hadjar staggered back, opened his eyes, and saw not one, but two Olgerds in front of him! They were the same, absolutely identical, and stood before him, ready to strike.
“What the fu-”
Hadjar didn’t have time to finish cursing, as both Olgerds charged in to attack. Ice started to spread across Hadjar’s left side. It slowed him down and froze his blood. Only his Technique for Strengthening the Body saved him. If not for it, the shards of ice would’ve ripped his heart to pieces.
Hadjar parried the swing of one opponent and dived under the attack of the second.
Olgerd... The Olgerds continued their assault. They pressed Hadjar back, forcing him to give ground. More and more icy cuts appeared on his body, which made Hadjar slower and his swings weaker.
As he tried to block once more, Hadjar didn’t understand what was happening at first. Mountain Wind was heavier than the average sword, but not so much that it was difficult to hold it up. However, Hadjar suddenly realized that he might not have enough strength and power left to keep the Technique for Strengthening the Body going and also hold his blade properly in order to keep fighting.
He looked up and saw the exact same ice that was on his body spreading across the cutting edge of his sword.
The Olgerds’ blades radiated cold, and ice runes shone across their steel. Raising their shields in front of them, they began to advance on Hadjar, trying to box him in between them.
His desire to test his power was becoming a fatal one. Hadjar mentally called to his inner black blade and put it into his real one. To Olgerd’s shock, the ice enveloping his foe’s sword was then broken by wisps of black fog that it was radiating.
Hadjar, keeping only a quarter of his energy supply in reserve, used the Spring Wind stance.
Less than a year ago, Traves’ words about combining the energy of the Sword and the Wind had seemed to him like incomprehensible rambling. But now he understood the essence of the third stance more clearly. It allowed him to combine several flows of energy at once. It was easy for Hadjar to find a reflection of the Sword Spirit anywhere, even in a drop of water, so he could definitely use any other flow of energy with it as well.
Now the Spring Wind stance was as illusory and volatile as the very thing it had been named after.
“Spring Wind,” Hadjar said, simultaneously making three swift swings.
The first strike, using the snow circling around them, shot forward and assumed the form of a white dragon. The second strike, incorporating the wind, became a blue dragon. The third, using his own power, his will, and knowledge of the Way of the Sword, manifested as a black dragon.
They, intertwined around each other, fell upon the enemy with all their might and fury. The two Olgerds joined forces and created the image of a brown bear with their shields, keeping the raging dragons back. Hadjar was pushing hard. He felt the energy escaping through his fingers, but still pressed on. This was his final chance...
“You’ve fought gloriously, boy.”
...His final chance to lure the real Olgerd out!
Appearing out of the snow behind him, the real northerner slashed at Hadjar’s head with his saber. He brought the weapon down with the force of lightning arcing down from the sky. He buried his blade in Hadjar’s head, dug in and, not meeting any resistance, kept on going.
Hadjar, emerging from the shadow of the Seven Ravens, turned to the little dragon sleeping inside him. Together with the dragon and the black blade, he imagined an autumn leaf falling on the real Olgerd’s chest, who’d had no time to recover from the reversal.
Using the remainder of his energy, even allowing the ice to surge into his own body, Hadjar roared: “Falling Leaf!” He attacked with a vicious upward slash.
The three dragons disappeared and the fake Olgerds turned into snow dust.
The spectators watched as the blue and black flashes of a storm bloomed inside the snow sphere. Merging together, they tore apart the shackles of snowy captivity and shot out, assuming the form of a blade that had a sleeping dragon inside it.
Suddenly, everything disappeared. The blade dissolved in the air, the snow melted on the sand. Only two men remained.
Hadjar was leaning on his sword. He was breathing heavily. His wounds, which had recently been covered in ice, were now bleeding profusely.
“You’ve fought gloriously...” Olgerd, who was standing opposite him, whispered.
He put his hand to his bloody chest. The wound was so deep and horrific that his shattered ribcage and bisected heart could be seen through it. Already dying, the northerner turned to Sankesh and saluted him.
The King of the Desert stood nearby. Hadjar had expected him to react somehow — to nod, or close his eyes, to somehow acknowledge his subordinate’s deed. However, Sankesh only said “Worthless weakling!” and grabbed his blade.
Praise the gods, Olgerd died before he heard what the maniac had said.
“Fuck the laws of hospitality, I’ll kill you myself.”
Behind Sankesh, his monstrous aura spread out like a huge blanket. Hadjar had no doubt that he would be meeting his ancestors soon. Maybe if he’d been uninjured and well-rested, he could’ve tried to flee, but right now...
“Father!” Arliksha again knelt in front of Sankesh.
“Konung!” Eight mighty northerners stood up.
Hadjar cursed quietly. Each of them was much stronger than Olgerd had been. Their leader, a gray-haired old man who had awful scars across his face... Damn it all, he radiated an aura only slightly weaker than that of Sankesh himself.
The King of the Desert looked like an enraged beast that had suddenly found itself behind bars. With a loud roar, he drove his halberd into the ground, causing a huge pillar of sand to erupt toward the sky.
“Leave, you damned worm. Whine and howl impotently as you await your demise, for I, Sunshine Sankesh, will soon come for you.”
Chapter 374
Stumbling, Hadjar hobbled toward the camp. Despite using his sword as a crutch and watering the dunes with his blood, he kept walking forward. Suddenly, his sword bent and Hadjar fell down. But instead of finding himself sprawled out on the ground, he was leaning on his friend’s shoulder.
“They beat all the shit out of you,” Einen said as he emerged from the shadows.
“Why do you say that?” Hadjar grinned.
“You’re much lighter now.”
The islander helped Hadjar get to the camp. He’d been absent for only a few hours, but Ramukhan and the others had managed to move a great distance toward the east. If not for the camels they’d left behind for the two of them at their previous camp, Hadjar and Einen wouldn’t have caught up to them. It took Einen two and a half hours of frantic riding to move Hadjar’s unconscious body to the new camp. Einen jumped down and pulled Hadjar off the camel’s back.
“Evening Stars!” Ramukhan muttered through clenched teeth. “Quick, bring a stretcher for him! Salif, tell the boy to prepare some medicine.”
Turning to the boy, the sorcerer added: “Don’t put anything unsavory in the medicine. Otherwise, you’ll pray for death by the time I’m done with you.”