Chapter Text
Erik had never believed in fate. To believe in fate, he thought, was simply one more sin to strap to his back.
Believing in fate meant that his parents were meant to die from the moment of their first breaths to their last. Though his mother remained catatonic most days and his father joined her from the bottom of a bottle, to claim that their fates lay below a scorched earth sat uneasily in his gut. The notion that his life, his suffering, his spite, was all concocted in the name of some greater plan engendered a certain sort of bitterness and defiance.
But when Erik meekly returned to Trosky that night battered by harsh rain and whipping winds, fate, it seemed, perhaps meant something after all.
He had left mere moments ago, the lingering chill of Istvan’s glove still imprinted upon his cheek. The mare between his legs cantered on nervous hooves, her head tossing against the flashes of approaching lightning and the deep rumbles of thunder. It took no time at all for the downpour to chase them down, slicking her hide and dripping past the crevices of his brigandine. Erik stretched a frigid hand over the pouch on his hip where Istvan’s missive lay carefully sealed.
I’ll not disappoint him. Not ever again.
That resolve was short-lived. Mud slid and earth shifted, the road beneath him dissolving into a swirling mass of water and grit, swelling streams and churning well-worn paths. Erik dug in his spurs and pressed into his mare’s mane but her fear proved stronger. Whatever urgent words were carved into his master’s letter, fate’s storm was determined to ruin their delivery that evening.
“Kurva,” Erik growled breathlessly, the rain battering further into his skin, his eyes, his gasping mouth. This is impossible.
But how impossible would it be to return to Trosky? Its twin towers were not yet over the horizon yet they seemed to loom dreadfully close. Perhaps they too watched for his approaching failure, for his disgraceful return, a mission failed, a wet sopping mess limping back to the safety of its den.
Erik dug in his spurs again, more reflex than thought.
His mare screamed, thunder clapped, and whiteness overtook him. He clung to what he could – the sense of movement, wind in his ears – until the sharp slap of reality hit his back and the air left his chest. He heard his mare’s forelegs slam into the muddy ground once more, her lungs heaving. At least she hadn’t bolted. She had left him, mercifully, prone on the road, slick with mud and rain and shame.
Once the shock left his body Erik heaved a new breath. Worn gauntlets pushed him upwards; stolen boots sank into the sludge. If only I had grabbed that ratty hood, Erik mused, thinking of the corpse he had left near Nebakov.
But that was leagues away, likely sunken and rotting now. Trosky, however, was near, warm and inviting, mounted on a steady path of packed earth and settled stone.
It felt like surrender. It felt like the bitter sting of letting fate push him about once more, of leaving his parents to their woes, of letting raiders past the threshold of their home. But Istvan would understand, Erik told himself doubtfully, rising to his feet and settling a firm hand on the reigns.
“Fine,” he said with a grimace. “We’ll leave in the morning instead. Are you happy?”
If the grey mare heard him she gave no sign. Erik remounted regardless as she danced uneasily, blinking the water from his eyes and tugging her nose back towards Trosky.
Erik had never believed in fate. But as he kicked his steed onward, bones shivering from the downpour, the moon illuminating his destination through a curtain of silver rain, the distant sight of the Crone and the black figure falling from her window would make him think otherwise.
Istvan Toth remembered Nicopolis well, down to his very bones.
Ever a man of foresight, Istvan knew which hands to bet on and, standing down the hill with the Danube at his heels, he had felt then that he’d won his hand once again.
He was younger then. Tempted by gleaming armour and lively steeds, serenaded by the battle songs of bold knights, he gripped his shortsword in an iron fist, eager to drive its honed edge through every Turk beyond the hill. The resolve roiled beneath his skin, bubbling to the surface as a curse-laden cry passed his lips, one more among the chorus of men. Defeat was scarcely a thought from within the vortex of bloodlust that pulled him down, down towards its centre.
He was foolish, he’d realize later that same day – and to be young and foolish was a lethal combination.
The ground trembled beneath the roar of hooves. Riderless horses bolted past, eyes white, spurred by panic and arrows, throwing themselves into the depths of the river. Intricate armour, unblemished and unmarred by proof of battle, caved beneath well-driven blows, maces leaving their imprints like comets crashed into the earth. Flames and ash stung his nose, his eyes. The bright hope of daybreak had passed, giving way to the vivid red of gloaming; the very sky seemed to bleed with them.
He had survived Nicopolis, by some miracle. The scars stayed deep, written into layers of flesh so deep no man could read them. Nightmares passed, panic swallowed, and life continued.
In the dim of night, battered by wind and rock, pierced and beaten, Istvan at last let his mind return to that bloody bank. He had felt so certain by the end of that day that he, too, would be another corpse on the hill, stomped by wild horses and pecked apart by carrion birds. It seemed the obvious price to pay, in hindsight, for such naïveté. He had gambled, lost, and somehow kept his hand. It seemed wrong. Unfair.
Just like tonight.
Sir Radzig’s bastard had crested that hill and laid waste to the Turk beyond it. The boy had done what he could not at Nicopolis; he had ripped the folly of youth from his heart, climbed the Crone of Trosky and plunged steel into the source of his hurts. He could reclaim that thrice-damned sword and flee his battlefield the victor.
So why, then, did Istvan still draw breath?
It would be temporary, surely; the hole in his side continued to weep, mingled with blood and rain. His ribs were afire, each breath another pump of the bellows, igniting pain. His fingers scraped near to the bone, his eyes could not focus, and his legs – his legs felt nothing at all.
Perhaps therein lay fairness. This was his penance for taunting the boy these few long months with his father’s sword. Radzig’s bastard had claimed his long-sought victory; Istvan’s slow demise here, broken at the feet of Trosky, was a final reward. More time to dwell on his failures, past and present, before he sank into an unmarked grave.
If a sardonic chuckle could have passed his lips it would’ve. Instead, Istvan lifted his eyes to the Crone and the broken window there, still alight with the warmth of hearth fire. The boy would be leaving with his prize. The guards – too few of them now – would not find his battered body until the morn. And Erik –
Erik.
I sent him away. Good.
Letting the air run from his lungs, Istvan closed his eyes and, for the first time in decades, felt the slight inclination to pray.
He need never see me like this.
It wouldn’t be fair.