Cased in Steel

What the hell has he just agreed to, thinks Renard upon returning to his lodgings.

Before the stipulation of ‘to the death’ was specified, Renard can confess that he planned to throw the tourney. Hardly would it be surprising for an everyday guardsman to falter when forced to fight twelve experienced knights in turn. Such thinking, of course, was underestimating the Iron King’s ambitiousness.

How dare that vile creature try to kill me alongside him! Or so Renard could shout, kicking and punching his furniture to splinters, but the actuality of the situation is not so.

If the power of loyalty and devotion can outperform twelve trained and pious knights, that venerates the Iron King’s ethos. It also stands to scour the dishonour of irresolution from Renard. Had he thrown, and so disrespected the King’s esteem, that shame would have stuck with him for a lifetime, as would the lingering question of what heights he could have reached if he tried. And maybe Renard is humble enough to imagine the King existing in society as anything other than a King — but plainly, the King is not, and if Renard is to support him, adhering to his ambitions is paramount.

So the options to flee or to conspire a loss do not exist, despite what Renard’s cowering gut says. Chained by a need to impress the King, and to prove himself capable of meeting these incredible expectations placed upon him, he must face these twelve challengers with full zeal, determination, and sincerity. It’s not a question of whether he wants to or not. It’s simply that he has to do this.

If it is within Renard’s capacity to win this tourney — then for him to do so is an awesome, admirable thing. Run away now, and he might as well die anyway. Despite his nerves, and despite the dark churning in his gut, the heaviness of the demand inspires an odd kind of pride.

But can Renard actually win?

Though Renard trains as strenuously as he can over the following weeks, sparing barely a moment for rest, he can’t shake the worry that he’s simply not prepared. And it’s not that he’s unconfident in his ability to handle a sword or move on a battlefield — he has rehearsed these motions well enough that they come to him as naturally as a musician strikes a chord.

It’s that he’s never killed a human being before.

In a battle to the death, the ability to confirm kills is paramount. Renard can only imagine himself, even if he does best the first knight in the tourney, faltering, and hesitating, and in the end being undone. Either the knight collects himself and strikes a fatal blow on Renard, or Renard tires himself by protracting the fight and goes into the second round off-balance, and more likely than not, loses.

The option to not the cement the kill, and beg from the gladiatorial pit for the tourney to stop, is of course forbidden. Again, such mewling is the same as taking a blade across the neck anyway.

Renard resolves. If he’s to go into this tourney with a proper desire for win, then before it even begins, he must shed his discomfort with murder.

Renard travels to the border of Lacren and situates himself near a crossroads. Travellers often come through this area, they being the demographic Renard sees fit to target.

Were there anything poetic or difficult about the process, Renard would note it, but murder is truly straightforward. The only hard thing about it is finding the mentality to actually do it. As much as Renard could not prevent himself from going into the valley, or from accepting to kill in this tourney, or from throwing that sheep in that tree, it’s simply a matter of knowing there are no alternatives that solidifies that mentality for Renard.

An unwary couple comes to the crossroads. Renard greets them jauntily, puts a sword through their chests, dumps their bodies in the bushes, and leaves in a span of barely ten minutes.

Their screams and faces stick in his mind on the way home, as they should. A fog of guilt, regret, discomfort, anxiety, and awareness of sin rolls inside him, but cannot break into action before a cold, iron core of certainty casts them aside. Some cheerful part of Renard feels to have died.

Renard clenches his fist and purses his lips, knowing that, by that death, and by tempering himself in this coldness, he has already succeeded.

The tourney unfolds in the days after that.

The first knight does not expect him. He comes to the battle anticipating a misguided boy, moved by deception and fear, forced into a gaudy suicide by a ghoul’s sadistic whimsy. What he gets is a tempered soldier, not merely thirsting for, but devoted to victory. A single, brutal stab through the neck smoothly fells this first knight.

And so that tone holds for the eleven matches that follow. Some knights attempt to pacify Renard with assurances of protection and appeals to morality — it is too late for these to work. Even if they desire to do the right thing, none of their souls burn with the same hunger as Renard.

Silence dominates the field as the twelfth knight falls. Renard lets out a breath, sheaths his sword, and nods not with a sense of great accomplishment, but merely of having done what he must. A void tightens in his throat as he straightens his back and glances soberly to the King for approval.

The King stands dumbstruck, eyes wide like marbles, as if having witnessed a miracle.

He dashes to Renard and hugs him, elated.