<html> <body> --------- Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars II: Denuncio (j) Tuesday, June 22, 724 CR Charlie drew his blades and Charles, bearing only one, drew his as well. Each raised one blade before their rodentine muzzles, eyes meeting past the gleam of polished steel, and bowed slowly. Charles came out of his bow in a loose defensive stance, turning to put the round shield of slatted wood bound with steel before him. The younger rat merely took a couple of steps back, flipping his blades easily in both hands when the Matthias crest upon that shield was thrust toward him. His tail lashed back and forth behind him in sweeping, jerky strokes where Charles' moved more slowly. “Well, Charlie my son, let's show them what we Matthias' can do,” Charles quipped jocularly with a short forward step to make a short, probing thrust of his short blade. My son? Charlie barely held back the angry growl, his brows angling down and jowls hardening with a sudden tension in his jaw. His tail twitched and stilled as he stepped back, easily moving out of range of his sire's experimental stab without making any motion to parry or riposte. My son? We Matthias'? “I am not a Matthias at all,” Charlie hissed, though quietly, as he took two swift steps to close and struck at the mocking Rat of the Matthias crest upon that shield. Charles raised and turned to put more of himself behind the wood as Charlie's sword hammered against it once, twice, and a third time. Each powerful blow sent Charles stepping back as he sought a moment to riposte. “I am not your son.” Charles could not hear him under the crack of wood and skirl of steel off the banded edge of his shield. Finding a moment in the pattern of Charlie's blows he twisted, ducked and thrust outward only to find not one but two swift flying angry blades hammering his stab wide. Charlie did not engage, parry, riposte, and break off as was customary in a test of arms, however. He waded forward, hammering swift blow after swift blow aimed not at Charles behind his shield but at the weapon in his hand. Each time the elder rat sought to force an advance against the younger he was halted and rebuffed, his sword sent swinging wide under a fusillade of blows. Until, suddenly, he had no sword at all. With a brief, light skirl of Charlie's off hand sword Charles' attempted parry was halted and batted down and, with a mighty bell-like ring Charlie's strong arm swept down in a powerful chopping motion that hammered the hilt bodily from Charles' paw. With a complex twist of both blades Charlie sent the masterless blade whickering through the air with a metallic whistle to land heavily several body lengths away. Pulling back his stinging hand Charles looked up from behind his shield, expecting a momentary respite to recover his weapon, the point going to his son. His congratulatory smile was replaced by a startled moue when sunlight flashed from a swinging blade and forced him to jerk up his shield quickly. Steel shrieked as it hammered the rim of the Matthias' crested roundel sending a brief shower of sparks into the afternoon sunlight. Another blow followed, hammering the wood with a thunderous crack and sending splinters of painted would flying to join those sparks. “Charlie?” Charles asked from behind the shield, holding it aloft with one arm and bracing it with his now empty hand. He backstepped quickly and low to the ground, tail lashing behind him with calculation, trying to escape the unrelenting fury of blows and made a wide circle toward his lost sword. “Son?” One of the slats of his shield crack and, with the next blow, sundered entirely. Part of it fell from the steel band. “I -”, Charlie snarled, slamming his weak blade against the affronting, insulting Matthias emblem before him; “am -”, his strong arm cracked another of the slats, the confused, fearful visage of his sire peering through the gap left by the broken slat. “not -” Charlie could only see that emblem, of the house that cast him out, left him upon the doorstep of another, in the vain wish to recover another of that House's sons from beyond death. Again his sword crashed down upon the shield, bending the unsupported iron band and ripping loose another broken slat of wood. “your -” With a short forward stride Charlie raised his leading leg and caught the bottom rim of the shield with the stout claws of his unshod foot. Charles gasped as he was yanked forward, momentarily out of balance, by the weight of his son lurching up using his shield as a ladder rung. “Son!” One sword stabbed into the broken wood of the shield, which was not protected by the spells placed upon them, and the other crashed down with the full weight and strength of the angry young rat behind it. Charlie's sword crumpled the band rimming the remnants of Charles' shield, shattering the Matthias crest entirely. The tortured band snapped and Charles staggered back as the sundered bank snapped across his chest shearing through leather and fabric with the facile ease of a well-honed sword. One shattered slat, all that remained of his shield, dangled by its strap from one arm but he paid it no heed as he gaze dropped to his chest. One half of his vest had fallen away to expose the sliced shirt beneath and the spreading red stain of blood welling from a painful gash slanting from shoulder to flank. When he raised his gaze up toward his son it was only to see those swords raised high once more. Charlie's devastating blow was stopped jarringly when Charles reached up faster than even Vidika could move and caught his wrists in an unyielding grasp of stone. His weight strove forward, unbalanced, when his attack was utterly halted in place with such surety that he almost dropped his swords as he fell back, his knees buckling and dropping him down before the statue of stone that regarded him where his father had stood only a moment before. That statue was adorned with silk and torn leather and a stain of blood glistened upon its breast. The stone rat's head dipped as Charlie fell to his knees, his wrists imprisoned by stone hands, a hurt expressed chiseled upon it. “Son?” Charles asked in a rough hiss as, somewhere, a voice called out that the bout was ended. “What's wrong?” Glowering up at his sire's stony visage Charlie spat a hiss. “I am not!” He snarled, twisting his arms trying to escape the unbreakable grasp or bring his swords down to strike that stone. “You have no right to call me that! None!” Pulling his arms in and leaning back he twisted his wrists, despite the pain, against his stony sire's thumbs. For a moment in his fury he feared that would not work either, but then Charles relaxed his grip and leverage at last prevailed where brute strength had failed. He twisted his wrists free though the effort sent zings of numbing pain shooting up his arms and he dropped his swords. “You gave me away! You sold me, I am not your son! I'm nothing more to you than... a goat to trade! And... and for what? A ghost? A dead son?” He pushed himself back to his feet. “You gave up that right when you bartered me away for a ghost!” Ignoring the dropped blades or the pained expression working its way across the visage of the statue on the tourney field Charlie stalked away. Such was his fury that all who witnessed his approach, peasant and noble and guard alike, stepped out of his way when he left the field. Maysin took only one tentative step toward him before even she, still saddled and eager to carry him wheresoever he willed, lowered her head and kept clear of his path. Feeling the accusatory eyes of dozens – nay hundreds – upon him Charlie turned rather than continue on toward his pavilion and made his way into the service areas beneath the High Box where none dared brace him. Save one. Malger found him within minutes. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>