—CLANG—!
A sharp metallic screech rang in Iris's ears. Inardil had been blocked. On this battlefield, no weapon had ever stopped Inardil's blade before. Iris's eyes snapped forward.
Two knights in black armor stood blocking her path.
Their armor looked black at first glance, but along its every curve a dark blue sheen caught the light. The metalwork across the surface was sharp and intricate, and along the edges a gilded trim had been worked into thin, deliberate lines. At every joint, interlocking plates fit together with the same precision as scales on some living creature, and along the center of each breastplate a raised ridge rose like a massive wedge. Every seam, every terminus of the armor had been ground down into hard, angular points.
Their helms rose in a long crest above the crown of the head. Along the central ridge running from the brow, over the top of the skull, to the back of the head, a sharp ornament jutted straight up. Long, flat blades of thin metal ran the length of each side of the helm, their edges honed to a fine point. A low, solid faceguard covered everything from beneath the eyes and nose down to the chin. And behind that faceguard, two eyes were fixed on Iris.
The weapons in their hands were glaives — a broad, thick blade fixed to the end of a long wooden haft, the shaft as long as an ordinary spear. The surface of each blade bore the same fine engraving as the armor. Two glaives, crossed diagonally, had caught Inardil's strike.
Iris put more strength into her grip. Under the pressure, the two glaive shafts bent, letting out a sharp grinding screech. Both knights, bracing against the heavy pressure on their crossed hafts, skidded backward at the same instant.
Iris raised Inardil and let the pressure fall away. In that same instant, three more black-armored knights closed in — left, right, and from the front. Three knights, all in the same black armor, each raised a glaive overhead. Three blades came down at once, from the front and both sides, aimed at Iris's neck and shoulders.
Iris lifted Inardil and knocked the glaive blades aside. Steel met steel in a violent clash, throwing off small sparks. All three glaives were sent flying, each in a different direction.
The three knights were driven back several steps. One of them opened his grip on the glaive, then closed it again, and looked at Iris.
Iris lowered Inardil's tip and spoke.
"I'll give you this much credit — you managed to block my sword."
'Not orcs. This coordinated strike, this equipment... Demons?'
Iris reset her grip on Inardil.
'This isn't the time to be puzzling over what they are.'
In the distance, she could see the throwing arm of the massive trebuchet being winched back down again, entering its loading phase. There was no time to waste — the wall couldn't be allowed to fall. All around her, beyond the fallen bodies of minotaurs, an endless tide of orcs kept pressing in. A wall of dark hides and iron plating, closing in layer upon layer.
The five black knights reformed their line. The one standing at the center took a step toward Iris and spoke in an unfamiliar tongue.
"Uun Deui Dareld Hrunsa!"
The other four split at once, left and right, breaking into a run that curved to encircle her. Four glaives, each closing in at a different angle, drew in tighter around Iris.
Iris's stance shifted. She set Inardil vertical before her. One step forward with her right foot. Her hands stayed fixed around the hilt, unmoving. As though she felt no threat at all from the glaive blades already bearing down on her, Iris sank into an unnervingly still calm.
'I am my lord's sword!'
The unfathomable weight of Gravel, the man she had once faced, flickered through her mind. That pride only sharpened the fire that already burned undimmed in her. As her lord's sword, she could not afford to hesitate for even a single step.
'Thirty Steps of the Sword Sing!!! (Dertig passen zwaardklink.)'
First step. The instant Iris's foot came down, a sharp sound rang out from Inardil's blade. Low, clear, metallic. It wasn't the whistle of steel cutting air, nor the scrape of blade against something else. It was resonance — the dense mana wrapped around the blade vibrating as the sword surged along a precise, determined arc. The sound was short and distinct, timed exactly to the instant her foot touched down.
Second step. The same sound rang out. Same pitch, same weight. Just before the first note's echo faded, the second resonance began. The end of one sound met the beginning of the next in the open air.
Third step. A third resonance layered over the ones before it. Inardil's rapid, cutting tone thickened, rippling through the surrounding air. The orcs charging at Iris felt something wrong, on pure instinct. Their eyes snapped toward her all at once at that unfamiliar metallic ringing. Their charge faltered, their momentum dulled for an instant by a fear they couldn't name.
The steps continued. In that infinitesimal gap where the orcs' movements had dulled, the one standing at the very front collapsed, blood spraying from its body. No one saw how it had been cut. Iris had simply been walking — she had only passed by its side.
With every step Iris took, invisible strikes at unimaginable speed flew out in every direction, an unseen dance of blades. The sound piled up in layers, resonating. And with each layer added, the ringing traveled through the ground itself, sending ripples across the pooled blood.
Iris was only walking, step by measured step. But on either side, the flesh of orcs charging with axes and spears, shouting, was hurled into the air. In the moment Iris walked through their ranks, dozens of unseen strikes, faster than sight, traced their arcs and cut the orcs apart.
By the tenth Sword Sing, ten sounds had already gathered into a single, massive wave of resonance spreading outward around her.
One of the black knights raised a glaive horizontally to block her path, lowering his stance, planting both feet firmly to the ground, trying to halt her advance. But the moment Iris's step reached him, the knight simply vanished from view. His glaive fell to the ground, split cleanly in two, and across the surface of his armor, a single thin line marked where Inardil had passed. Before his body had even hit the ground, Iris was already taking her next step.
The steps didn't stop. orcs pressed in densely all around her. Dozens, hundreds of them, closing in like a wall, iron clattering against iron.
Iris walked. One step forward, the next at an angle, the one after that to the side. And with every step, at precise intervals, unseen blades cut through everything around her.
Iris moved past an orc charging in to bring its axe straight down. That movement alone was the fourteenth Sword Sing. The orc's axe cut only empty air, and its massive body split apart, upper half from lower, right where it stood.
The second black knight came in from the side, glaive raised, its blade aimed straight for Iris's throat. An instant before the glaive's edge reached her neck, Inardil's ring burst out.
—CRASH—!
The black-armored knight was hurled backward by the force of the ring and slammed into the ground, and on the flat of the glaive that fell from his hand, Inardil's afterimage had been branded into the steel like a scar.
The seventeenth step. The eighteenth. The nineteenth. Nineteen Sword Sings rang out. Three steps in unbroken succession sent a massive blow surging out toward the orcs. Hard iron plate and thick bone alike were cut through.
Around Iris, a sludgy pool of blood stretching dozens of cubits in every direction trembled at even, measured intervals.
The twentieth step. Iris was now surrounded on all sides by masses of orcs and minotaurs. Dozens of weapons swung down by orcs cut only air and buried themselves in the ground. With every step Iris took, the mana-laced blade that surged outward around her split apart the bodies of orcs and minotaurs alike.
The third black-armored knight shoved the orcs around him aside and put on speed, charging in. He meant to drive the full weight of his body and the force of his charge straight through the tip of his glaive, into Iris.
Iris walked straight toward the charging knight. With that step, three blade-strikes lashed out and cut into the black-armored knight.
The black knight's foot came down for one more step forward. The tip of his glaive kept driving straight toward Iris. But the next step never came. His knee hit the ground first, and then his body, losing all balance, tipped forward.
Across the black armor, pale white lines where Inardil had grazed him stood out, sharp and clear.
Two steps taken. Without breaking stride, Iris swept Inardil in a wide arc. Wherever the blade passed, orcs fell, split open at the waist and chest.
A black-armored knight moved to block her, swinging his glaive with enough force to cleave her in two at the waist.
One step toward the enemy. The glaive's blade shattered into pieces. A long gash opened across the black armor's chest. For a moment the knight simply stood there. Then Iris swung once more, and his upper body came away from the rest of him.
The last remaining black-armored knight stood in Iris's path. In despair, he gripped a glaive in each hand and thrust at her without pause.
Iris took a single step. The glaive in his left hand was cut clean in two.
Another step.
The blade of the other glaive was severed as well, breaking apart. Across the black armor's chest, a thin, deep gash had already opened.
The black-armored knight heard the twenty-ninth Sword Sing. In the instant Iris reset her grip, the thin gash across his chest tore wide open.
The black-armored knight took a step back.
His heel slipped, his balance gave way, and his body tilted to one side. The short clatter of metal striking stone rang out.
Beneath him, a dark stain had already spread across the ground. He knew it wasn't water. Red blood, seeping out through the joints of his armor, had gathered where it pooled, and with every breath he drew in, a sharp pain spread through his entire body.
He reached out and braced a hand against the ground. The inside of his gauntlet had gone damp, and he understood, from the feel left on his palm, that it was his own.
He collapsed onto it, and lay there watching the pool slowly rise.
And then Iris took her thirtieth and final step.
Turning back, Iris's eyes found orcs in rough hide armor and crude iron plating. Axes and heavy spears raised high, they came on with a single roar, their feet splashing through the pooled blood as they charged.
Iris took Inardil in both hands and swung it in one great arc. In that instant, the twenty-nine sounds still lingering in the air converged along the trajectory of the thirtieth strike, merging into one.
A single, massive Sword Sing rang out — long, clear, and low.
From Inardil's tip, pure, keen edge-force poured out, becoming a raging current — a wave of blades surging toward the orcs.
At the crest of every violently churning swell, Inardil's afterimage rose up as thousands upon thousands of silver flecks of foam.
The instant the wave of blades reached the enemy, countless strikes crossed one another, tearing through orcs and minotaurs without mercy. Blood and flesh threw up a red spray as the huge axe hafts the orcs had raised were sheared into pieces and sent flying into the air, and the thick shields and iron breastplates they carried were cut apart just the same.
It was a single strike that drowned even the enemy's screams within its vast resonance — a blow that could only inspire awe.
Where the wave had swept through once, only the vast wreckage of ruin remained — every trace of the orcs erased.
In the wake of that massive Sword Sing, the hacked and shattered torsos of orcs and the smoothly severed heads of minotaurs lay scattered in disarray. Along that long, unbroken red line, blood gathered and flowed together into a river of death cutting across the battlefield.
Silence settled over the battlefield once more.
Iris let out a quiet breath.
"Haaaaah——"
Long, and slow. The hand gripping her sword felt just a little lighter.
Directly ahead loomed two scorpions, and beside them, a massive trebuchet built to match their scale. The orcs standing beside the creatures, hands on the ropes, readying the gear, stared at Iris with faces gone blank. Weapons slipped one by one from their hands, and some orcs froze in place without even managing to scream. Only their fear-stricken eyes trembled, fine and small.
Iris sheathed Inardil. Pure white mana began to rise from the surface of her armor. At first it was only a thin current, but it soon filled in, one by one, the fine engravings of her silver-white armor, blazing with intense light. Breastplate, vambrace, and gauntlet alike were covered in particles of pure white light.
Amid the fog, the gray battlefield, and the sea of red blood — Gravel's perfect sword stood there.
Iris slowly opened her closed eyes. A pale blue glow behind them fixed on the trebuchet ahead.
'Dancer of the Other Realm.'