I flew at Grendel with a jet of flame at my back. I attacked with a wild two-handed slash, rage trumping tactics. The blade, I noticed, had swollen with angry fire to the size of a Doppelhander.
Still, the massive blade fell short of its mark as she jumped away with even greater speed. I stood over the mother as flames licked at her and the Dragonblooded both, purifying the later and cremating the former. Fire raged all around me as my cloak set the structure alite.
“Now, Eisa, I know you’re upset.”
I turned and looked upward to see Grendel standing on the precipice of the sun roof. She held her hammer lazily in one hand, over her shoulder.
I coiled my legs and jumped, easily clearing two stories with my Valkyrie strength and reaching the roof. In the moment I took my eyes off of her to jump, Grendel had retreated to the far end of the building, once again out of my reach.
“But it was the easiest way to kill the Dragonblood. We are still in this for the hunt after all, right?”
I wrapped the blade of my sword with my cloak and swung. The combined flames broke off and flew towards Grendel as a wall of fire that scorched the roof as it passed. This, it seems, finally caught Grendel off guard. The flames reached her, but rather than consume her they seemed to form a bubble around her. The fires stopped in midair for a moment before dropping to the ground, Grendel two rooftops away.
I howled incoherently, completely overwhelmed by rage, as fire climbed the walls of the warehouse. People would have noticed the blaze by now, which threatened to spread to the surrounding buildings, but at the time I honestly didn’t care. Afterwards, I would justify my actions with the thought that a fireline would surely form. That the people would be able to contain the fire, if not stop it, and that the building was abandoned in any case.
In truth my rage was so great that I could scarcely think of anything but Grendel. Dark clouds hung in my mind and on the horizon both. They promised an evening rain. Perhaps even a summer storm. If I was very lucky, they would douse my fires as well.
I screamed until my throat felt raw, then I chased after Grendel once more. She was faster than me, but only for short bursts and she had always been careless besides. My explosive power allowed me to quickly close the distance between us on the rooftops. When I found her this time, she seemed to be examining her armour. It was soot-stained but otherwise undamaged from its brief meeting with my firewall. This time I took a more direct approach. I wrapped my foot in fire and ignited my cloak into an explosion behind me to propel myself downwards.
Grendel once again side-stepped my attack with a burst of speed. Even as she moved out of the way I could feel myself being pushed through the air just slightly in the other direction. Whatever mantle served to protect her, it was obvious that it worked by repelling attacks, but it had its limits. Just as there were materials that my cloak could not instantly incinerate, there were forces too great for her mantle to halt or, alternatively, adequately deflect.
Unfortunately, my own force was more than sufficient to send me crashing through the roof, through the attic and into the now ruined bedroom of the house she had been standing on.
“You know what Eisa!?”
I looked up and saw Grendel, once more standing above me at the edge of a hole lined by embers. She held her warhammer in both hands this time, head over one shoulder as if preparing to strike.
“Fuck you and fuck your pathetic hero complex.”
She disappeared from view just as a violent shaking set upon the house. Not knowing whether she waited for me up top, I instead hurled myself sideways and curled into a ball, flying out of a nearby window. I put my legs in front of me and bounced off of the wall of the building opposite on the street, flinging myself back once again across the street and up to the roof of the building beside the one I had just left.
All the while my eyes were blind to the people fleeing on the street below.
Grendel beat me there. She made a quick hope to the rooftop and struck it with her hammer before leaping further away as both homes began to collapse under the influence of her strikes. I ended up landing in a dust cloud where I had been expecting a roof. The wreckage blocked my vision, but I knew Grendel was close.
My cloak ignited the dust, creating an explosion that startled even me with its sheer volume. Now-burning wreckage littered the streets and eves of the neighborhood and Grendel had been knocked prone. I leapt once more and brought my sword down with the weight of my body behind it. Fiery blade met steel shaft. Grendel didn’t run this time, but blocked my assault with her hammer. I swung again and again, favouring overhead strikes for the power they gave. Grendel seemed to favour one leg and red-white freckles covered her left cheek and temple. The burn marks of another close call.
Between my reckless swings, she turned 90 degrees and slammed the end of her warhammer into my chest. My breastplate protected me from real harm but I was momentarily stunned by the blow. Grendel nearly dropped her hammer for the heat of my cloak, but managed to hold on. She put her shoulder where her hammer had struck an instant earlier, pushing me further off-balance. When her hammer came back around for a second swing, I could see that the burns on her face had spread from the brief contact to join into larger splots which now stretched to her nose and forehead.
In order to dodge what would be a crushing blow, I detonated a fireball directly between us. The explosion sent me flying into the base a nearby chimney, further shaken but safely out of Grendel’s reach. I quickly picked myself up, growling with the pain of a headache, countless bruises, aches and sores.
Grendel had been thrown off her feet by my reckless attack and into a debris-filled alley. She now moved to the center of the street below me with a heavy limp, carrying her warhammer in just one hand. Her eyes glared up at me. Her former speed was surely a thing of the past, her body too damaged to make effective use of it.
I jumped down and landed in the alley with more grace than I had any right to display given the state of my own body. I approached with sword in both hands, held to one side near shoulder level, point towards the core of Grendel’s body.
The other Valkyrie spat at me, too tired or perhaps too spiteful for words, and charged at me with all the speed that she could muster. Despite all of her injuries, she moved with the speed of a horse a full gallop. Were I a normal person, I have no doubt at all that her warhammer would have bashed my head in before I had the chance to react.
As a Valkyrie, I instead met her with my sword.
She skewered herself upon my engorged blade that was hot enough to smelt iron. She came to a stop and, arms still above her head, dropped her hammer behind her. She couldn’t feel the sword for its heat, but no doubt felt its effects. Her arms dropped and she looked at me with cold, vengeful eyes.
“...want you to remember...no better than me.”
Grendel sagged as the flames turned her insides to ash. Only the resistance offered by her armour keeping this living pyre from being bisected from its own weight on the angry blade. I watched as she was slowly consumed by fire. In what felt like no time at all I heard the distinct sizzling crackle of rain as my cloak turned it to steam in the air around me.
The rain had come, but not a drop could strike me. Just as tears would vanish the moment they left my eyes, no rain would touch me so long as I was protected in my flames.
