The Teacher

The quiet hum of something, something but nothing, everything, encompassing the room like nonexistent gears churning. A thousand clocks that were never made incessantly ticking away at every second. Tic-Toc!

Silence interrupted by silence interrupted by the anxiety of knowing. The knowledge of whom it was hiding in the shadows of this desolate barn. Hiding in the silence. A former teacher, once the most revered teacher of the noble, now a fugitive, an ignoble.

The pungent aroma of earth and livestock flowed through every breath Xao took as he gently fingered the pearl handle of the cold steel sheathed at his side. A ruthless beast quieted only by it's slumber. Silent. Silent, but not silent. Screaming out with a hundred voices that the beast itself, and of it's own accord, had forever quelled. A thousand echoes of a hundred screams that were never heard. Silent, but not silent.

Standing there in the center of the room, he could not help but feel somewhat apprehensive. Was this not a teacher he sought out to kill? His teacher, his mentor, his confidante, his friend? Was he not just a man, challenging a god among men? He was just a man, nothing more. By no account was he a small man. At one time maybe, but never again. A gargantuan brute forever trapped in his short body, but never small again. Wasn't this, too, because of his teacher? But he wasn't just a man, was he? He, too, was a ruthless beast. Wielder of the beast. The beast. Savage, but not merciless. Ruthless, but not unjust. Never screaming. Always silent. Always ready to awaken the beast and let it's scream become his own.

Still silent. Nervously eyeing everything at once in search for a change, a deviation, something, anything to shatter the silence. Bundles, stacks, and piles of hay and straw strewn about the edges of this spacious house for feeding and growing. No loft, just space, and hay, and straw, and wood, and silence.

With the subtlety of a sledgehammer driving a small nail unto a smaller plank, the silence was shattered. A murmur, a hush, a creak in the floor. The silence was still there, but it's facade had been revealed. The beast stirred. A quarter of an inch, half an inch, slowly it peered out from it's den of rest. He planted and spun in place, releasing the beast as he faced his attacker from behind.

The beast was unleashed, unsheathed, awake, outstretched toward it's next victim, screaming at the shadows, as a smile played about Xao's lips. Bowing in honor long lost, both men stretched their blades forward, eyes fixed on one another, revealing the lack of an honor they both knew was never there. Once again the silence was shattered, by a glint or a glimmer, a spark coming from the waist of the ignoble. A dagger! More treachery by this man with no shame. Oh, how the revered have fallen, to perform the future battles of treason with a beast of such glorious past, as such were the blades both men wielded.

A twirl of a blade, as the two opponents each eyed their attacker and would be executioner. The ever complicated dance of two colossal phenomena orbiting each other just before a collision. An attack upon the silent air, a whirl, a spin, a blur, a combination of speed and grace, and a demonstration of the weapon as an extension of the ignoble's own self. Nothing, an action, an attempt to intimidate. Only reaction matters. Adaptability. Another devious attempt at deception by this man without honor.

"You reveal yourself to me as a shadow reveals its castor." The words were an echo of an echo coming from the beast in Xao's firm grip.

"A pity it is your words cannot do your fighting for you." Nothing, a response to avert shame. Quieter than the silence. It must begin.

Both men charge the narrow gap between them. A slash, a clang, and a spark. A thud, a thrust, and a parry. Spinning, fists, knees, and feet, adding to the flurry of the beasts. A spin, a slash, a deflection followed by a spark followed by a twirl followed by a thrust and another deflection. Parry. Blood. Slash clang thud spark spin thrust parry twirl grapple repel and blood. A lake of blood now, neither even aware of whose it was. The beasts of both men revealing only that both had been punctured by their vicious teeth. Adapt. Change, and change again to meet your attackers every move one step before he makes it. The silvery silhouettes playing a dance of death. Blood and sparks. Sparks and blood. It must end.

Grapple. A small knife from the shadows, a rabid animal betraying it's former master. No sparks, only blood. Repel from the sluggish astonishment in the face of the ignoble. Silence. The former teacher surpassed by his student, a small hole in the side of his throat where his own dagger had been thrust only a few short seconds ago. He dropped to his knees and attempted to speak. Only blood and silence.

Xao turned his back on the man just before the last spark of life faded from his screaming eyes. He walked away slowly, but with tremendous dignity in every step. Slow and deliberate. Weary, but victorious. Stepping into the darkened green grass of the early evening, he looked up and noticed the waning sun just as it began to set. It burned the sky in blood, a fiery inhuman blood that dripped out over the clouds of the darkening sky. He walked across the fields of grass, still impervious to the pain inflicted on him by his former friend. Blood covering him. Blood looming over him in the sky. Blood on his hands. He blocked out his own pain, and pondered the pain of his teacher. Why had this man turned against the people he had once been of the elite, only to die in his own house of straw?

He approached the door to his cottage. The smile wiped from his face by blood. He hesitated to enter. Wouldn't he be heralded for what he had done tonight? Had he not always rejoiced in his past conquests over heresy? Why the burning pain he now felt, as if the dagger had, too, been plunged unto his own throat? Blood, always blood, always sparks, always pain, always hate, always silence.

Solemnly, he crossed the bare threshold and entered this strange home. The home of his former self, and former family, for he had been forever changed in blood.

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