Chapter 6: Two-headed Griffin
UNEN sighed internally despite the dire situation. She had sympathized with the duo when she heard their exaggerated nickname from others, but she never imagined they would step forward and actually call themselves the Two-headed Griffin.
The swordsman half of the Griffin advanced and stood before Ori. Ori pried the sword from the man with a broken nose and tossed it to Unen before letting him go.
Unable to stand, the man scrambled on all fours to his friends, only to be kicked by the Swordsman Griffin when he passed by. He tumbled and rolled around on the ground while holding his stomach, moaning.
“Don’t get in my way,” the swordsman spat on him.
The air around Ori grew dark. “…Aren’t you on the same side?” he seethed with volatile fury.
“I’m just someone who’s been hired. So, ready to die at my hand?” Swordsman Griffin taunted, the right corner of his lips twisting up. He held his sword point up and sideways from his face with both hands gripping the pommel.
Ori took the same double-handed stance. They squared off and waited for an opening in their opponent. Time passed without either of them moving.
Wind dashed against the grass, pushing it down.
They lunged with their swords at the same time. Shrieking metallically as steel clashed against steel, the swords locked. Together they held each other in place through sheer strength, both swordsmen keeping the other in check. The two pulled and pushed and pushed and pulled, probing for any chance to break their deadlock.
Swordsman Griffin took the initiative by applying his extra height and bodyweight. He forced Ori’s sword down with the full force his muscle and weight could add. Driving Ori’s blade as close as he could get it to the ground, he swiftly lunged for Ori’s throat all in a single fluid motion.
Ori’s sword immediately followed behind the Griffin, immobilizing the attack by guiding the tip upward, the movement easily directing the muscle and weight of the Griffin away and out of position. Metal grinded as the clashing of blades echoed through the grassland. The point of Ori’s sword shot out to pierce the Swordsman Griffin’s chest—
But a second faster, the Swordsman Griffin utilized his height advantage and swung his sword up at a sharp angle. Realizing he needed to parry the incoming hit, Ori abandoned his lunge and promptly pushed his sword to the left, narrowly directing the other man’s sword away from his chest.
As the Swordsman Griffin’s sword rolled over Ori’s, Ori shifted into a thrust. Attempting to regain his lost ground Ori moved forward intending to impale his opponent. But in one fluid movement, the man took a big step forward slipping past the sword’s point, letting the thrust pass by his left side. Then he recklessly released his two-handed grip on his sword to use his now free left arm to trap Ori’s extended sword arm and blade under his left armpit. In a single move they were now at an arm’s length, except the Swordsman Griffin was now free to cut down a defenseless Ori.
Ori immediately tried to swing the sword clasped in his entrapped hand, but he couldn’t regain his stance or free the arm. His opponent took the opportunity to firmly secure Ori’s left hand, and the sword it was clasped around, in his hold by clamping down with flexed upper arm muscles.
Before the blade could cleave his head, Ori threw a right hook at the Griffin. While the attack failed to stun his captor, it did its job in getting the man to bring the pommel of his blade over to intercept the punch. With a jerk and twist of the blade the man forced Ori to pull back his fist or risk pointlessly hurting himself. Rolling the blade in his hand, the Swordsman Griffin brought the weapon around.
He swung his sword overhead, smiling in sheer delight at Ori’s desperate struggle to free himself!
Ori’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. Instead of trying to pull his arm back, he stepped in closer; shoulder to shoulder he shoved his weight into his entrapped hand until his wrist came free out the other side of his opponent’s hold. The struggle forced the Swordsman Griffin to catch his balance instead of finish his attack.
All the while he frantically clamped his armpit tighter, squeezing down with all his muscles to try to twist Ori’s wrist and make him drop his sword.
Deep creases formed in Ori’s brow. Clenching his teeth to withstand the pain, he raised his sword with the point facing away from both of them, and violently grabbed it with his bare right hand over the Griffin’s left shoulder. Then, using his right foot as the pivot, Ori spun, narrowly avoiding the point of the man’s desperate thrust for his chest as he used his right hand to bring his sword high. Ori brought his sword down, slamming its hilt into the lower-left back half of the Swordsman Griffin’s kneecap.
The man lost his balance as his knee gave out and the tension whisked from his frame.
Forcefully, Ori yanked his left hand out of its prison, pulling the Swordsman Griffin’s elbow out backwards and twisting the man’s arm with his right hand. The man’s shoulder made an unsettling crack.
“GUAAAAAHH! My shoulder! My SHOULDEERRR!”
The smile that had held sway over the Mage Griffin, who had been idly watching the battle, vanished. In utter panic, he took a step back.
“Master,” one of the ruffians pleaded, “please take him out with magic!”
The Mage Griffin shook his head firmly. “They’ll both be hit by the spell.”
“No way!”
“Think about it for a second!” Mage Griffin yelled, looking over his shoulder at the group of hired scoundrels. “There’s two of ‘em and seven of us. Doesn’t matter how skilled they are if we jump them together. Let’s beat them to death together! An eye for an eye!”
The movement knocked his hood off, revealing sleek black hair.
Huh? Unen tilted her head. Everything she knew about mages was from rumors, but the Mage Griffin’s appearance was vastly different from the stories she’d heard.
Neglecting the baffled Unen, the men broke into two groups of three and charged at Irena and Ori with their swords. Even with Irena and Ori’s incredible skills, taking on three opponents at once would be insane. To minimize their blind spots as much as possible, the two put their backs together.
Glancing askance at the stalemate between the six-on-two sword fight, Mage Griffin drew nearer to Unen with his dagger out.
“Unen, run!” Irena shouted in horror.
Ori clicked his tongue—and in that exact moment, a sudden gust of wind whirled into a tremendous tornado around the two of them. The six hired hands circling them yelped and dropped their swords as they tried to run away. Slices ripped open the back of their hands as if cut by a blade, and their blood trickled to the ground.
Instantly, Unen smelled the aroma of dense trees all around her. This time, she didn’t have to listen closely for the faint voice to tremble in her eardrums.
<<…who protects…who destroys…>>
Feeling something oppressive suffocating her, Unen doubled over. Emotions of intensely vivid regret and a strange satisfaction that things had turned out for the better materialized from nothing and surged into her, raging against each other. The two contrary emotions were going to tear her from limb to limb.
“You’re late.”
Unen raised her head at the note of amusement in Ori’s voice. Before she realized it, the forest’s presence had disappeared, and the agony that had been tormenting her thoroughly receded. But she didn’t even have a moment to mull over what in the blazes happened to her, because an awfully vainglorious voice rang from a direction separate from everyone else.
“The hero is meant to arrive to the scene late, obviously.”
Ah, this is the voice on the wind that I heard last night.
Turning toward the voice, Unen saw a young man standing nonchalantly in the middle of the grassland. In accordance with his neither short nor tall height, his physique was slightly on the delicate side for a man. His hair was flawlessly black. Jet-black in color, it didn’t reflect a single ray of light, a feature commonly referred to as the “Mage’s Black”.
The young man thrust the wooden talisman he held in his hand in front of him as his unreflective, shadow-like hair whipped up in the wind. Instantly, flames swirled into a whirlwind and shot toward one of the Griffin’s halves.