10th of Frost, 120
And so, Jacques sided with the enemy. Arkash was without the aid of his friends; neither Asmodei nor Fayeth were there to back him. Ahead of him, in the narrow alleyway, stood the embodiment of Lorien's law; a Chevalier. He'd never beaten one on his own, the only times he'd been able to kill them was from a distance with his rifle. Alas, he was without his trusty firearm and without ammunition to fire with. All he had was his shortsword and dagger, the longer of which had been enkindled by Asmodei before the Velsign left his side.
He spied the coward where he loomed while the knight advanced toward him. The rath had been on the fence about killing Jacques, but the betrayal was enough to seal the human's fate as far as he was concerned. If he made it out in one piece, well. "...'Ew betta' star' runnin', Jac," he warned with a visible curl to his nose. He wasn't much for threats, but he wanted the human to know just how badly he'd messed up.
The human didn't reply; the only sounds that echoed in that alley were the thuds of the Chevalier's sabatons and the whistling wind. The knight was tall, at least seven feet in stature. Their build was stocky, brutish, built for strength. They were a destroyer, an extension of the monarchy's teeth. Lorien took no prisoners, and mages, like Arkash was perceived to be, were put to death on the spot.
There wasn't much room for dodging and weaving, as his fighting style entailed. The knight's shield only added to that disadvantage. When the Chevalier drew their sword, Arkash bared his teeth.
Then, in a burst, the knight lept off the ground and bombed toward him with their sword and shield raised. The rath barely had time to think. At once, he dove forward and slid beneath the Argents legs across the icy floor. With a push of his body, he turned over and rolled to the side as the argent stomped the ground with enough force to shake it. Before he could roll to his feet, the knight swung their blade just an inch above the rathor's form, as though they'd anticipated that he might try to stand in that moment. At once, he pulled his body weight to kick over his head and back-flipped off the ground to land on all fours with his glowing sword held tight. He breathed for a moment when the knight paused.
"Slippery thing," spoke a low voice, neutral in its expression. "You can't evade me forever." They threw a thrust of their blade at the rathor from where the rathor rested in an attempt to skewer him, but again, Arkash evaded the strike by pushing straight to his feet from the floor. Before he could stomp the sword to the floor, it was hurtling toward him from the left in a broad swing. He leaped back and pushed his hips backward to avoid the cleave with a burst of energy.
The knight had yet to land a hit, but Arkash knew their words to be true; he couldn't keep up such explosive movements like that forever, not in the cold. He briefly met the glint of the Argent's eyes beneath their helm while he strafed back continuously to evade the deadly swipes of their sword. The visor was too narrow to jam the shortsword through, but there were other spaces, other kinks in the armor he could take full advantage of. The blade rang high as it cleaved through the air by the Argent's advance, which drew the majority of the rath's attention to the task of evading the strikes.
Everything he had was put on the defensive, and he had no room to press a counter. The walls were too narrow, the monster knight was too broad. Their nigh-supernatural speed made things tough to navigate, as Arkash couldn't keep up, even with his own superior speed and reflexes. To double the score against him? The Chevalier was clad in bulky god-armor that he doubted he could penetrate even with his enkindled shortsword. He had to search for a weak point while on the defensive but spaces, where he could afford to divide his attention, were few and far between.
The Argent was pushing him out onto the road, where he'd easily be seen by another patrolling Chevalier if there were any. The moment a second one joined the fight, it would be over... That was if the one before him didn't finish him in their next few swings, as the knight ripped through the leathers that veiled his stomach.
Arkash hissed and grunted, though his adrenaline burned so intensely that he couldn't tell if he'd been nicked or not. He threw himself to the wall, then kicked and leaped off the surface to evade the swing of the knight's blade, which embedded itself in the wall with a deafening crack. Arkash threw his whole meager bodyweight overhead in a daring flip, and extended his sword arm to ping the blade off the argent's arm with no more damage to the plate steel than a deep red gash and a flash of sparks. As he'd expected, the sword was nigh useless in his hands.
"Impressive," the knight declared as they ripped the blade from the wall, then twirled it as Arkash landed crouched. "No other has ever landed a strike on me, let alone scratched my armor," he spoke while the rathor took all the time he could to catch his breath. "A shame you were born wrong, you'd have made a good knight," they offered their back-handed praise as they twirled their blade again. There. That was his opening.
The knight was obviously taking the time to limber their wrist. Arkash wouldn't let them. About mid-way through the twirl of the sword, Arkash sprang at the man from the ground and drove the point of his glowing shortsword for the knight's plated gut. The knight widened the glint of their eyes and tried to catch their twirling blade, then thrust it at the rathor in an attempt to spear him through. The blade cut into the back of his head and ripped through the spine of his leather vest around the middle, but Arkash barely felt it.
His blade was thrust straight into the Knight's stomach with limited depth, but enough to pierce the plate fully. The sound of searing flesh and the smell of burning meat stemmed from the gaps in their armor as the knight dropped the blade. The sword was stuck though, melted into the Argent's armor. The rathor glanced up just in time to see the swing of their fist, and released the handle all too late. A solid strike to the head knocked him off his feet and sent him tumbling across the floor. Crushing pain filled his head as a concussion quickly set in, but he looked up in time to see the Argent snap the blade in two with a hammer of their gauntlet-clad fist.
"NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH!" They roared beneath the visor of their helm, then dipped to collect the blade of their sword with a grunt. They were breathing heavy, he'd at least given the knight a run for their money, even drew their blood.
Arkash let his head fall and shut his eyes. Blood ran over the right side of his face while he laid in the snow. That was it, the end. All it took was one hit and the rathor was down for the count. Given how strong the Argent was, he thought it miraculous that the strike hadn't broken his neck on impact. He was quite the lucky lizard beneath the poor hand he'd been dealt, being born wrong and all.
The world span as the knight closed in, then paused. A series of booms rang out muffledly over him, from somewhere out on the street. A shoot out? He'd heard a few in Lower Nivenhain but in Outer? Unheard of. The knight jolted as bullets pinged off their armor and dented it in several parts. It was all too late when they finally lifted their shield arm, as they fell to one knee and held their punctured chest plate as deep red ran from the bullet hole. The knight coughed and sputtered while they held it together, then looked up in time to see the barrel of a gun pointed at their forehead by some shadow that Arkash couldn't quite make out. A final boom put the argent on the floor like a ragdoll, twitching and shaking.
Arkash's consciousness wavered as the silhouette turned, dropped their weapon, then rushed to his front. "Az..." he called through the haze of his concussion. It had to be him, who else?
The rest was a distant, blurred memory. He could hear a distinct "hang in there, Ark," as he was lifted off the floor, then carted somewhere else. He heard the rustle of clothing and the clatter of weapons as he was moved, though his gaze remained affixed to the night sky and all its stars. The moon's light shone on them all as the distant horizon burned with amber. One by one, the stars yielded to the day, but the nameless were gone before the sun could illuminate them with its warming light. The mission was a success, but what had it cost? Jacques was gone, but they hadn't seen the last of him.
