WP — The Whims of Gods

Another Writing prompt — I did this one in just under an hour as a warm up for some stuff. As always I’ll share here the prompt and then a few thoughts at the end.

Prompt: A bored goddess decides to mess with two humans. As they duel to death in the name of honor, she unknowingly makes them both immortal.

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The greying lord stood in the middle of the courtyard, between two young man looking at them both with disappointment before speaking “Today we are gathered for an honour duel between Lord Kelaxy Brinspout of Armici and Lord Mazen Hammerloft of Natsum. As the challenger, Lord Kelaxy, state your grievance.”

The tall, red-haired man glares across the courtyard at Mazen, his counterpart in the dual, eyes flashing a brilliant blue as he does, “The house of Hammerloft has dishonoured us by its theft of no less than ten books over the past year, and created chaos with the theft of them. They refuse to return the valued books of genealogy, alchemy, and knowledge as they are scum of the …”

The grey haired lord raises his hand, and Kelaxy’s voice cuts off. “You have stated your grievances. This is not the place for the duelists to insult each other, no matter how stupid they may be to be here.” He says the last bit with some scorn before continuing, “Now Lord Mazen, how do you respond to these allegations?”

“We did not steal the books you fool. I have told you that a number of times you imbecilic, hot-headed…”

“Enough. You deny them. Then since you have been unable to make peace, our only solution here is for two young idiots to fight so that no one else does over this.” He steps back a little before raising his hands and intoning, “We call upon the Goddess Thena, to bless our battlefield on this day so that our duelists may find justice. Thena, protect those outside the duel, and bring us knowledge to solve this problem, and bless the worthy with your divine might.”

“With her blessing called upon, Lord Kelaxy, and Lord Mazen, step back and prepare to fight when this cloth touches the ground.” He pulls out a bright red handkerchief, holding it about head height, before looking at the two determined youngsters one last time, and drops it.

Seconds later, it hits the ground and the duel is begun, though the duelists hear not the cries from the crowds watching outside the courtyard.

Kelaxy moves first, his red hair swaying in the wind as he steps up drawing his family’s famed long, and magically light silverblade, and moving to cross the distance towards Mazen with alacrity. Mazen meanwhile takes a step back, and pulls out a shorter blade and quickly draws a small rune in the ground with it, reciting a small incantation. Nodding, he assumes a classical duelist posture, with his left foot forward, as he narrowed his profile to the incoming Kelaxy.

Moving across the field in a diagonal pattern, Kelaxy quickly nears Mazen and lets out a guttural scream at the man, as he suddenly charges at him straight ahead. Mazen steps back, his sword coming up to parry the blade if necessary, but it proves unnecessary right away, as stepping on the rune Kelaxy finds the grass grasping at his feet and he nearly falls as he is halted on it for a moment and struggles to keep his feet.

Stepping forward Mazen strikes quickly with his short sword, not too much longer than a dagger. With Kelaxy off balance, Mazen hits the red-haired lord in the nose with a pommel strike, knocking him back, and staggering him as blood runs down his face. With uncommon speed, he takes a light step and slams the silversword, trying to disarm Kelaxy, but the young hot-head refused to relent his grip on the blade as he regained his footing, staggering backwards.

“Your tricks won’t save you this time Mazen!” He shouts and he lunges forward with the sword viciously, attempting to stab the other, who takes a side step and pushes the blade to the side, and shakes his head.

“I didn’t touch those books. I told you that. You’re just angry I kissed Jessi.”

“You will leave my family alone with your tainted bloodline and return the books you stole!” Kelaxy roars, this time bring his blade across in a long cut as he stepped nearer to Mazen.

Lifting his blade Mazen tried to block the blow as he moved out of the way, but he found his sword caught on it this time, and in a position he didn’t want to be — a match of strength against the brawny Kelaxy. Trying to step away, Kelaxy followed, weight descending on the blade before Mazen was able to barely hop back… but he caught an edge of the blade on his arm. Searing pain went through him, as while a flesh wound, it was the first time he had been wounded in earnest.

“If you will not listen, then die.” Suddenly the black eyed Lord’s look took on another dimension, as he committed himself fully to the battle, and he moved up, feinting with a strike left, before stabbing at Kelaxy’s right leg. Surprised by the viciousness of the attack, Kelaxy went to block the feint, and was out of position for the true strike which penetrated his thigh, and left his footing uncertain as his leg threatened to give out under him, as the pain wrecked through him.

Struggling to stand, Kelaxy brought his blade back across in a fast cutting motion, surprising Mazen, who thought he’d lose his footing. Distracted still with his blow, the silversword struck at its enemy, cutting deep into the right arm, and destroying the sleeve on the shirt its wearer had. Blood mingled as they stood there, stuck almost in a tableau for a moment.

“Why won’t you stop?” Mazen snarled, as he cut with his blade, ignoring the jolting pain in his right arm, this time at the throat of Kelaxy, who’s leg gave out under the impact of his attack. The cut was aimed at the torso, but with him losing his footing it crossed the throat and the redhaired lord’s throat was slit.

Mazen stood there for a moment in shock, as did everyone outside, as few expected the brutality of the fight or that Mazen would win. Just as he began to turn to the older lord who was officiating the match, he saw suddenly Kelaxy stand, the wounds on him healing suddenly, and he ran Mazen through with his long blade.

If shock had been there a moment ago, now there was deafening silence. The questions of what had just happened were almost palpable in the air, as they wondered how Kelaxy was suddenly healthy, and what was going on. Kelaxy would give a good bit to know that himself, though he was happy to have at least taken care of that terrible Mazen. As he stood, and took a step away he suddenly heard a sound behind him.

There was Mazen rising from the ground, the sword wound of him being runthrough a moment ago somehow gone. “What trick is this?!” Kelaxy demanded

“If I knew a trick like being run through by a sword and living, or of how someone with a cut throat was living I definitely wouldn’t be here.” Mazen said, trying to gain his balance

Kalaxy turned and charged him again, striking down another lethal blow on his foe. This time, he kept stabbing for three minutes until he was thoroughly satisfied that Mazen was dead.

Or so he thought, as just as he turned again, Mazen returned to life, his breathe ragged. “Can we stop this? Dying hurts you know.”

“HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?” Kalaxy roared, and charged at Mazen again, but this time Mazen was ready and used a leg swipe to trip the red-haired lord.

“I wish I knew how both of us were alive. Maybe we can figure it out if you stop trying to kill me for two minutes.”

Kelaxy coughed up grass and glared at the other lord, “Two minutes, and then I kill you again.”

“Wonderful.” Mazen said dryly, before standing up, and thinking for a moment. “You know, this has to be the gods right?”

“The gods? Why would they care about you?” Kelaxy snarled

“Look you got killed too. So I don’t know why they care about either of us. But one of them is interfering again, at least if we trust the old lore of what that would look like. Random acts, the ability to stave off death… that is the type of capricious action and power they had when they used to interfere more according to the legends.”

“Legends?” Kelaxy spits, “This is an age of reason, an age of man, not of some old disappeared deities.”

“Well, then someone spontaneously created the ability to resurrect the dead, and decided to randomly use it on us two in the middle of a duel with no preparation. Maybe the goodwife over by the farmer over there?” Mazen asks sarcastically

Kelaxy glares at him in response, not raising a reply before Mazen continues, “If everything probable is excluded, then we must look to the improbable, or extremely improbable in this case.”

“Some god or goddess has decided that for whatever reason we can’t die right now. So, how about we call the duel a draw, and try to leave here and figure it out?”

Kelaxy looks at him for a moment and then says “Your two minutes are up.” He then stabs at Mazen again, hitting the other Lord in the abdomen and begins cutting at him some more before stopping a couple minutes later, looking exhausted as he does so, his glower fading.

A moment later Mazen speaks, picking himself off the ground, “Is that enough of that? Please. Getting killed for no reason is really annoying. I swear to you on any god or goddess you want I didn’t steal your books. Your sister let me read them but they never left your house man. Someone else did it.”

Kalaxy looks at him, the rage having faded from his eyes, “Maybe that’s it.”
“Hm?” Mazen asks with a look of surprise and confusion

“Wasn’t the Goddess Thena invoked for finding the truth out here? Maybe she decided to make the point that we haven’t found it.” As he speaks, a sense of rightness pervades him suddenly.

Mazen looks at him “You feel it too don’t you? Damn gods, we’ve been drafted as a playtoy of them.”

“Or to solve something important.” Kelaxy says hopefully, as he offers a hand to Mazen “Guess we better figure it out.”

So re-reading the prompt I realize I kinda went differently with it then was probably meant. I took it as them being unknowingly blessed, rather than her unknowingly blessing them. I think it still works, and this was a fun story to write.

Here I was working on action, something I haven’t always gotten right, and was trying to portray a deadly fight, that primarily was fought with swords, while hinting at the supernatural even earlier on. A key part to it though is the idea of a visceral fight, and trying to create an almost cinematic battle between the two, if albeit a more brutal one then you would see most films use as only a few key blows. Part of that is due to the decision that Kelaxy was a real hot head which meant reckless attacks speeding up a fight both ways.

I don’t really have much to say on this one, as its pretty straight forward. If you’re wondering what type of swords, they are using I see Mazen as using something more like a Roman Gladius around 20 inches in length blade wise. Kelaxy’s blade on the other hand is more like a Scottish Claymore in length, but due to alchemical properties is light enough for him to wield in one hand and with far less clumsiness than its size implies.

Also Thena was based name wise on Athena. I’m not really sure if this would fit into the world building anywhere ,but the name of the Goddess of War and Wisdom seemed appropriate here to nod at for the Goddess’ name.