The primary attribute Lance would describe Avalon with was misty.
Thick layers of fog obscured sight in all directions, and Lance had to rely on his ears more so than his eyes if he wanted to stick around the clacking of hooves from Errin's horse and Ivy's Giant steps. But even sound was muffled by the cotton-like wafts. A ghostly ocean of silence.
The change in their surroundings had come awfully sudden too. One moment they had been traversing the grassy plains to the north-west of Camelot's capital under the bright morning sun, and the next they had found themselves amidst a sea of mist pressing down on their skin and senses. And it didn't seem to be getting less foggy any time soon.
Avalon consistent of a chain of lakes and smaller bodies of water strung on the river Avon and its sidearms like pearls on a thread. These lakes were often fed by a multitude of springs, some of them boiling with the heat hidden within the deep layers of the earth. And while the springs explained the fogginess plaguing this place, the knowledge failed to make Lance enjoy his stay more.
The only upside to these horrendous weather conditions was that Mordred wouldn't know them approaching until they would be stepping on his toes. Not that the opposite wasn't as likely to happen.
But not only the battlefield conditions had Lance on edge, the numbers had too. As Errin had informed him and Ivy, Mordred had sent three of his men to Belialuin – where they would hopefully not run into Katrina and Gaius. Further subtracting Mark and that grumpy female knight from yesterday evening left five Knights of the Round Table as well as Nashtar and Mordred themselves on the board. And so, the odds stood three against seven. Lovely.
At this point, Lance had lost his sense of direction in its entirety, and he could neither tell how long they had been wandering through the mist nor whether they had stayed on a straight path. His horse buckled as one of its legs found the muddy bank of another pool of water, and Lance lost his balance. He only saved himself an unwanted bath by clawing his hands into the leather of the saddle.
"Damn it," he cursed under his breath. Cold sweat ran down his forehead.
Because the frightened animal seemed incapable of freeing itself, Lance wobbly dismounted his horse and pulled the stuck leg out of its murky prison. With a defeated scowl, he let go of the reigns to take on the rest of the way on foot. Considering the rate at which they had crept forward, it didn't make much of a difference.
Ivy muffled a shriek as she lost her footing in another one of the traitorous springs. No other sound broke the silence.
Little by little, the mist lifted, and Lance's field of vision expanded one foot every minute they went on as the most volatile of mist trails dispersed under the warmth of the climbing sun. He allowed his shoulders to slack when his feet reappeared. Winding his way through uneven banks overgrown with reed and the puddles that surrounded them proved less of a challenge, but the better visibility also allowed him to notice a detail that turned over his stomach.
Hoof prints. Hoof prints all around, carved deep enough into the mud to suggest that their owners had been armored. The clear outlines couldn't be old. Ivy had picked up on the detail as well and sent him an uneasy glance that he could only repay with an equally distressed look. But they both followed Errin without a word as she pressed onward with cold perseverance.
At long last, the lake banks gave way to sturdier ground. Lance's sigh of relief died in his throat as the wafts of mist recoiled to reveal what their ghostly hands had hidden away. A massive tree towered in front of him, and its leafless branches reached up high to pierce the heavens themselves. The bark with its patchwork of white and washed-out grey seemed made out of stone rather than wood, a fossilized monument of a bygone era. The tree might have stood here since the inception of Britannia itself. A long time ago, it had to have been an unparalleled sight to behold, similar to the sense of insignificance the Sacred Tree evoked in the hearts of those who stood at its feet. But nothing sacred had remained, only a sickening pressure at the back of Lance's skull when he studied the countless holes and chasms leading inside and below the tree.
"It's been dead for centuries," Ivy whispered.
Errin, who had meanwhile climbed from her horse to allow the animal to flee to more pleasant sights, approached the tree. "Mordred should have passed this place already."
Lance failed to shake the weight from his chest, unease born from the instinctual suspicion that they were not alone in this forgotten sanctuary. While the mist might have cleared to an extent, his visual sense was no less limited in what he could make out beyond the small patch of land that had once fed the stone tree.
"The ground here is warm," Ivy said and startled Lance, who had paid more attention to the shadows out of view than his immediate surroundings. But he could feel the heat seep through his boots. The hairs on his arms stood up in alarm, and his throat dried out.
"Maybe it's an underground spring below the roots of the tree," he suggested. His voice sounded raspy in his ears. "Something down there is giving me the creeps."
Ivy nodded. "This must be what Mordred is after."
Errin gestured for Lance to follow her towards one of the holes in the tree and for Ivy to stand guard. As his apprehension reached new heights, Lance pulled one of his swords from his back. The leather-wrapped hilt gave him a semblance of comfort. Tiny droplets of water condensed on the cold surface of the blade.
Ivy shifted. Errin unsheathed her own weapon.
Three heads snapped to the left when the sound of splashing water signaled a new arrival. Metal clung, horses snorted, and out of the mist, three knights on horseback emerged. They didn't bother with strategy and dashed forward to catch the trio before they had a chance to parry the ambush.
Lance duck away from Eugenius' wide swing and used the momentum to fall into a roll that brought him into the direct path of Bryanor's horse. With a quick slash lacking both windup and strength, Lance gazed the front legs of the mount above its shin armor. The animal crashed to the ground with a pained squeal.
With grim resolve on his face, Bryanor rose from behind the remains of his horse and ended the animal's suffering with a slash of his dagger.
Lance shifted his stance sideways to pose a smaller target. He had fought his opponent before, way back when Nashtar had first pursued them at the beginning of their journey, and he had only come out on top by taking irresponsible risks. But he, unlike Bryanor, could draw from the experience of that fight.
In a predictable opening move, Bryanor threw his dagger at Lance and dashed right after. Lance evaded the projectile and met Bryanor's follow-up strike with one of his own weapons. As metal clashed, Lance brought his left-hand sword forward to his opponent's exposed side. Bryanor sidestepped and tried retaliating with a kick to Lance's knee that he avoided impact with by retreating a handful of feet.
With his heightened perception due to «Focus», Lance predicted Bryanor's overhead swing and jumped out of reach before minimizing the space between them while Bryanor was still caught in the momentum of his last strike. He narrowly deflected Lance's two-hit combo with the cross-guard of his sword, and pushed Lance back using his higher body strength. The renewed opening allowed both of them a moment to breathe.
Bryanor was a good swordsman, capable of shattering the defenses of his opponents, especially when fighting on horseback, but he lacked both the precision and the finesse necessary to counter unpredictable attack patterns. And as an added bonus, Bryanor only possessed fighting experience against foes with one weapon, most of them righthanded.
Lance charged before Bryanor could capitalize on the wider range of his weapon, and acted out a lengthy chain of fast thrusts he had adapted when training with Percival. Under the rapid-fire bombardment, Bryanor fell back into instinctual defense patterns to hinder Lance from striking at the openings in his armor. But these patterns had been designed with the intent of blocking one weapon.
Bryanor raised his sword an inch too high to stop Lance's stab at his neck, and Lance punished the mistake by burying his additional sword into the unarmored flesh of his opponent's hip. Surprise flashed in Bryanor's eyes. The wound wasn't severe enough to claim his life, but it was enough to bring about his defeat.
But as Lance drew back his sword, the blade became entangled in the salient lower end of Bryanor's torso plate, and Lance failed to recover from the delayed response in time. The desperate jab lacked most of the intended force but cut into the muscles of Lance's forearm regardless, and a pained outcry escaped his lips. The sword further tore at the damaged tissue as Bryanor's grip around his weapon became loose, and the sword dropped to the ground.
The fingers of his left hand went numb. Lance stumbled backwards, and his second sword disappeared under Bryanor as the man tumbled over. He would survive. But the cost of Lance's victory was significant. Hot blood ran down his arm, the sleeve of his tunic long soaked beyond repair.
He had been so entangled in his duel with Bryanor that he had lost sight of the others; they had to have fallen back far enough to hide within the mist. Or maybe the Holy Knights had planned to separate them with their brash charge all along.
To his right, the constant clangs of swords clashing signaled that Errin had to be engaged in a fight of her own. And from his other side, the sound of earth manipulation disrupted the silence. Lance bit his lips, and his eyes shot back and forth between the two places of combat. Help Ivy or help Errin. His left arm throbbed, and he continued to waste precious seconds, seconds that could decide who would see the end of the battle. Lance shot a regretful look in Errin's direction and hurried the other way.
Ivy was on her knees when he reached her, forced into a pool of shallow water by the Holy Knights Eugenius and Ragnell. The latter hadn't been part of the initial ambush but had to have joined the fight later on to feed her sick passion for bloodshed. All the more likely that Mordred was only waiting to play his cards out of sight.
As he noticed Lance's presence, Eugenius left the struggling Ivy to his partner and closed in on the new threat. This was bad. Eugenius would be a much tougher nut to crack than Bryanor, not least thanks to Lance's injury. He braced himself.
Eugenius came rushing at him with a speed that offered Lance no chance to process the attack, even though «Focus» should have enabled him to react in time. The spiked iron ball of his opponent's flail struck Lance's sword with enough force to bend the light-weighted blade, and he had to side-step to avoid injury through his own weapon.
"You should have stood down when you had the chance to," Eugenius growled. Determination vibrated from every fiber of his being.
With a minimal movement of his wrist, he flicked the morning star at the end of his flail forward and struck the ground where Lance had been standing a second before. The chain connecting the two sections of Eugenius' weapon rattled as he performed a string of attacks that was impossible to predict. Lance fell into a desperate rather than strategic retreat. He had to think and fast if he wanted to overcome the number of obstacles piling up against him.
One of Lance's biggest advantages – next to his advanced healing – was his ability to strike at his opponents from two angles and in patterns unknown to most of them. Combined with his speed bonus, he could hold his own in a duel well enough. But the ridiculous range of Eugenius' flail robbed him of all these benefits. And because additional players swarmed the field, all partied against him, Lance couldn't risk further injuries either. Ivy and Errin counted on him.
The morning star crashed to the ground inches away from his toes, and Lance was again forced to shuffle backwards; on uneven terrain such as this, he was in constant danger of losing his balance.
His feet tasted the cool of a puddle through the leather of his boots, but the expected splashing sound was drowned out by the earth bending and twisting as Ivy sent a slew of rocks against her attacker.
Lance didn't back away on purpose as Eugenius aimed another strike against him and instead ate up the force with the blunt side of his sword. The metal protested with a shriek, and waves of pain rippled through Lance's muscles as he forced them to withstand the pressure.
Convinced that his opponent had made a life-ending mistake, Eugenius struck again, this time overhead, in an attempt to crush Lance's skull. But this time, Lance had foreseen the trajectory of the metal ball, and he leapt out of the way by a hair's width. The morning star crashed into the puddle around Lance's feet; water fountains sprayed into the air and confused Eugenius' sight for a moment. Enough time for Lance to thrust forward and land a hit against his opponent's wrist. The cursed flail dropped into the water.
Lance raised the tip of his sword to Eugenius chin. They stared at one another, both out of breath and slow to comprehend the outcome of their duel. Scarlet meet icy blue. Eugenius was only a handful of years older than Lance, his face still possessed the roundness of youth.
"I guess it's now my turn to tell you to stand down," Lance said and kicked Eugenius' weapon deeper into the mud of the puddle.
Then he turned on his heels to rejoin Ivy.
Her breath was uneven when he reached her side, and muddy water stained her skirt and leggings. A cut above her eyebrows disfigured her face, and her attempts at keeping the blood from her eyes had further strained the wound. But she was still standing. That was all that mattered.
"Are you okay?" she asked with a look at his limp arm.
Lance dismissed her worry with a handwave. "Nothing that won't be healed in a day. Were Eugenius and Ragnell the only ones ganging up on you?"
"Ragnell showed up after about a minute or so. She was with that old geezer, but he went ahead, probably to get to Errin. No sign of Mordred or Nashtar."
Meaning that Errin was facing at least two opponents at once.
Lance felt sick. And not due to blood loss. "Let's go back to Errin. Not to doubt her fighting skills, but she might need our help."
Ivy nodded and fell into pace with Lance. Each of her steps accounted for at least ten of his.
Bryanor had disappeared when they returned to the patch of dry land at the tree's foot; Lance hadn't nearly incapacitated him for as long as he had hoped. In his place, Errin stood in the tree's shadow, cut off from support by Orland and Coel. She looked bad. Blood ran down the side of her head, and she relied too heavily on her left leg for balance. The sickness returned. All over again, he failed to help, all he did was watch and wait for someone else to end the cruelty. Until it was too late.
Lance tried to pick up his second sword, that Bryanor had left behind in his retreat, but the fingers of his left hand refused to answer his will. The prickling told him that his advanced healing was working to repair the damage, but it would take another minute before he would be able to hold anything. He forced his lungs to pull in another set of air.
The remaining knights emerged from the mist barriers all at once, aligned to corner the smaller group between them and the front of Orland and Coel with Errin locked outside the circle. Lance grit his teeth as he saw Eugenius among the newcomers, his weapon once more raised against him.
And from the depths of the tree itself emerged Mordred and Nashtar. The presence that radiated from them was sickening, perverted, too much power chained to one being. Mordred raised his hands, and like a single man, the Knights of the Round Table stopped their advancements.
"I understand you know why I have come here," Mordred addressed Lance and Ivy. "I don't want to harm you, but I've made my peace with what I must do. What only I am willing to do."
"Quit the high talk," Lance said. "We know you're a power-hungry maniac, and that you want to use the magic that lies here to kill the Sins."
He needed to hold onto that thought. What Mordred planned to do was unjust, it was the image of evil Lance had sworn to stop when he had started his training as a Holy Knight. If he admitted for even a second that the end justified the means, he would lose the fight on the spot. Everything would have been for nothing.
Mordred took the insult without a shift in expression. "Every time a living being dies, the magic that used to flow through its veins is set free. And for millennia, this simple rule of nature has motivated those with power to claim the magic of their contemporaries. Wars have been fought because these people sought for more than they already had, and the weak have suffered the consequences. The Sins hold the world at their fingertips. Even if all their power won't corrupt them, their mere existence prevents change. You must understand why they are a necessary sacrifice for peace."
"All I understand is that you plan to commit murder," Ivy said with a stone-cold face. "I won't let you get away with it. Not this time."
Lance dropped to the ground in prediction of Ivy's next move. The earth erupted, spikes and pillars reached for the sky, and the sounds of combat broke out anew. Still on his knees, he fetched his second sword with trembling fingers and prepared himself for the battle.
He still believed to be in the right. He still believed that his motives were noble and that his ambition justified any crime, no matter how horrific. Necessary sacrifice.
Ivy had yet to decide whether this made her hate him more or just a little less. But she refused to stand aside and watch him continue down the path he thought so highly of.
One thought and the earth exploded in accordance to her will; Mordred's expression turned grim before he disappeared behind a cloud of rubble. His Holy Knights scattered in all directions to save themselves from the earth manipulation, some of them bold enough to counter Ivy's attack with one of their own. Fireballs flew past her head, blindly thrown by Orland and followed by Coel's «Iron Rain». Ivy deflected the barrage of metal shards with Gideon, but her movements were too slow, and a handful of them found their way past her defensive pattern; in her human form, the damage would have been severe enough to cut the fight short, but the stings only fueled her anger.
A battery of rocks rose from the earth and rushed forward to meet Coel and Ragnell, directed by Ivy's gesture; that should buy her a couple seconds to breathe.
Lance was engaged in a cross duel with Bryanor and Eugenius, in which the latter only dealt out blows in a halfhearted manner. His reserve earned him a hit from Gideon that knocked him out cold. Errin meanwhile was trading blows with Nashtar, and the struggle to counter her opponent's chain of attacks carved deep lines into her face.
But Ivy couldn't pass attention to aid her, as another fireball, ten times larger than the previous one, headed her way, the magic spell without a doubt enhanced by Mordred's «Full Potential». She dropped to one knee, and the water within the mist wafts condensed as the heat exploded above her head. Her ears were ringing, and blood from her forehead threatened to obscure her view. Before she had the chance to recover, Ragnell jumped at her, a grin of sick satisfaction on her face – only for her form to dissolve as Ivy struck her with Gideon's hilt.
In the same instance, Ivy felt a sharp sting of pain in her lower leg as Ragnell – the real one – buried her sword into Ivy's flesh. She stumbled but managed to reclaim her balance and drive Ragnell away with a distortion of the earth's surface beneath her feet.
"Ivy!" She looked down to see that Lance had freed himself from Bryanor. But the break wouldn't last long, as he and Ragnell prepared to corner him. "I need an opening to get to Errin! Spiked labyrinth, NOW!"
Ivy needed an extra second to connect Lance's words to the game they had used to play ten years ago, but then the pieces clicked together. As she pressed her hands to the ground, spikes broke out of the earth in outward waves from her palm. The attack caught the two Holy Knights unprepared. Ragnell screamed as one of the spikes tore parts of her armor to shreds. Lance on the other hand danced through the emerging maze of pillars and spikes and predicted every change in the earth's surface before it came to pass. With ease he struck down Bryanor who had evaded the onslaught in utter panic.
But they had no time to celebrate their victory.
A cloudburst of metal shrapnel dropped from the skies, each the size of an arrow but twice as sharp. The sunlight disappeared as the spikes closed in on them from above; one of them held the power to end Lance's life, a critical hit could cost Ivy the same. She wouldn't make it out of proximity in time and had no hopes to deflect all of them. Never before had she wished so deeply for the ability to use «Heavy Metal» on herself like her mother could.
Blood dripped past her eyebrows. She closed her hand around Lance and begged that her fingers would shield him. But before the shards struck their target, there was a flash of light. The bright light of teleportation magic.
"Marmeno tubu bantarumashi!"
While struggling to come to terms with the fact that she was still alive, Ivy looked overhead. The metal shards had escaped the pull of gravity as well as the grasp of their previous conjurer and swirled in the air like a tornado. For a moment, they blocked out everything Ivy could see, until a new command in the same ancient language ordered the storm to disperse.
Gaius and Katrina levitated above the battlefield, Gaius' hand still outstretched after redirecting the metal shards. Katrina's Goddess wings glowed with magic as she raised one arm over her head.
"«Divine Hellfire»," she said, and white flames hissed out of the ground to halter the remaining Holy Knights.
"That was pretty darn spectacular," Lance said after Ivy had placed him back on his feet. "How'd you figure out where we were?"
"We found the text Mordred was after, and it told of a type of Fairy that used to live here in Avalon before it was annihilated during the Holy War," Gaius explained. "Their magic energy has been resting here ever since, confined by the remnants of their Sacred Tree."
"After finding out about this, we got here as soon as Gaius' magic energy was restored," Katrina added and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. "Are any of you hurt?"
"Nothing major," Lance said, "but I lost track of Errin. Last I've seen her she was fighting Nashtar."
"I can feel her magic presence in that direction." Gaius pointed past the stone tree. "But she is bringing more space between herself and us as we speak. Whether or not this retreat is done with her intention, I cannot say."
"Fine. I'm gonna go after her before she runs into Mordred. She's already injured, she won't have a fighting chance against him." Lance's expression allowed no discussion. And yet, in his willingness to make up for past mistakes, he disregarded all sense of strategy.
Ivy knew what to do. Despite her hatred towards Mordred, towards Errin, towards every single Holy Knight who created a diversion from her goal, she knew what to do. "I will go after her. Just keep Mordred's foot soldiers occupied for a while."
"No, I –"
"Lance, do what you're good at and use your brain. I can reach Errin much faster than you can. It's your job to lead Katrina and Gaius so that we all make it out of here alive." As if to underscore her point, a fireball shot towards them, which Gaius parried with an orb of water at the last moment. Ivy flinched under the heat. "Sounds good to everyone?"
Gaius and Katrina nodded and rose higher in order to control the battlefield from above. At least three Holy Knights in fighting condition lay in wait in close proximity, and they would collect themselves soon enough to use any soft spot in their opponents' defenses to charge. Lance stayed put and gave Ivy a look miserable enough to think he was about to lose his right arm and leg.
"You shouldn't go alone," he said, but his tone lacked the usual strength as he failed to bend logic in a way that supported his point.
"You'd only slow me down," Ivy said with a small smile that she imagined to look awfully shaky.
His lips twitched, and he averted his gaze before meeting her eyes, this time with re-found optimism. "I know. Just… be careful. You still owe me for getting Eugenius away from your fight with Ragnell. So you better get back to make sure to repay me. And don't go out of your way to provoke confrontation with Mordred. We can figure things out once you and Errin return here."
Ivy nodded, but her smile disappeared. "I won't."
Without wasting any more time, Ivy stormed out of the circle of scorched ground where Katrina's magic hellfire had served as a short-lived barrier. The flames had died down so that a single step brought her past their destructive heat. Behind her, the sounds of battle soared, and she had to fight the urge to turn around.
The further away her steps carried her from the battlefield, the clearer she sensed the current of the earth beneath her feet, brimming with life forces from plants and small creatures alike. They formed a balanced ecosystem with uncountable small gears that kept everything running in perfect harmony as long as no one from the outside would interfere with its workings. She searched for these displays of dissonance, signs that someone had intruded this world who had no business being there.
The mist obscured her view without remorse, but she didn't need her eyes to tell where she needed to go. A beacon of magic stood out from its surroundings a short distance ahead, its signature similar to Fairy Clan magic but corrupted as it had been taken by force from its resting spot below the tree of travertine. A second figure distorted the sea of reed as they drew closer to the first one.
But Ivy arrived there long before.
He stood on a bank rising above the surrounding lakes and puddles, and his white cape danced around his silhouette like a creature of its own whenever a gust of wind caught a hold of it. Mordred had his eyes closed in concentration and muttered a string of two words to himself. The excessive usage of his magical ability across this far a distance dug furrows between his brows, and his skin was paler than usual, white amidst the washed-out colors of the mist.
His eyes darted open as Ivy made another step towards him.
"I hoped you wouldn't force my hand and bring harm to you," Mordred said with what he had to presume was sincerity. "I hoped that you would give me the chance to spare you and that you might one day understand why I can't turn a blind eye to the crimes committed over the scarce remains of magic power. But I must have underestimated your willingness to take action."
His voice resonated with the soothing patterns she had always fallen for. But too much had changed for his charms to captivate her.
"This isn't about responsibility anymore, Mordred," Ivy said and fastened her grip around Gideon's hilt. "You want to murder people who have never wronged you, and you're willing to take any twisted action that serves your purpose. You're the one who's stolen magic that doesn't belong to you, and you were willing to enslave other beings into fighting for you."
"But it's always been about responsibility. I was born with a duty, towards the people of Camelot and those beyond its borders – and unlike you, I couldn't allow myself to step away from my responsibilities because I didn't like the pressure." The gaze of his eyes was cold but not devoid of sadness, and Ivy hated herself for noticing. "The Sins need to die if we want to hope for a madness like the Holy War to never resurface. Can you call it justice when villages are raided for their magic resources, when homes are burned down, when people are slaughtered in the name of a king they've never met?"
"How can you still talk of justice? This, everything you've been doing since Arthur died is evil!"
"True evil hardly exists. Everyone does what they think is right."
The heat of rage boiled through Ivy's veins and burned all other thoughts. "Stop twisting my father's words to your liking!"
Ivy had a million more insults she wanted to throw at him. But she swallowed them all.
In a single motion she scooped up rocks from deep within the earth, threw them at Mordred and lunged forward with a swing from Gideon. He evaded both attacks by jumping back and out of the way. Ivy pursued him with a barrage of high-force, long-windup strikes.
Mordred had no opportunity to capitalize on his magical ability; other than Ivy's Shrinking Bracelet, nothing remained for him to call out to. And if Ivy kept his thoughts occupied with dodging and deflecting her onslaught, he hopefully wouldn't think to apply «Full Potential» to the magical item. Nevertheless, Mordred's magic potential was magnified by the stolen Fairy magic he used to enhance his speed and agility. Ivy would need more than her earth attacks to pin him down. Her stone prison only lasted a second before Mordred broke through. He leaped out of the reach of her earth-made spikes and pillars without missing a beat. Every swing from Gideon only struck air, and Mordred had long moved out of harm's way.
But he refrained from attacking himself. Something stopped him from fighting back, from attempting to regain control over the fight – whether his hesitance stemmed from a sense of superiority or actual reluctance, Ivy didn't dare to wonder.
The fight dragged on, and Mordred never seemed to run low on stamina. Ivy felt her arms grow heavy. The stupid wound above her eyebrows started bleeding.
Taking the precious seconds following another one of her fruitless charges, she brushed the red liquid away and flinched as her fingers touched open flesh.
"If you stand down now, we may be able to work things out together," Mordred said. "You have to understand why I can't extend this offer to all your friends, but you can live. All I need is your word that you won't interfere when I will face the Sins."
Despite Ivy's shortness of breath, «Life Force» had never seemed stronger. Every living being was visible before her inner eye, the energy of earth and plant life alike hovered at the cusp of her fingertips. She could feel it all. Mordred's force of will, the tectonic movement of the earth beneath their feet, the small fish darting through the puddles, the roots below ground, from a time when the area had been home to towering trees amidst the several lakes.
"I don't need your mercy."
As Ivy reached out to the energy around her, she was rewarded with an instant reaction. The earth tore open, forged chasms in some places and rose high in others. And out of these chasms, roots snapped free to follow Ivy's command with the same willingness as the earth.
Mordred's controlled expression spiraled into horror. With hits speaking of dread rather than prowess, he cut away the roots threatening to bound him, but their sheer mass proved too much for him to overcome; one of them wrapped itself around his ankle, another caught his sword arm before he had a chance to cut himself free.
And still, Ivy send more of them forward to engulf him. The plants coiled around his legs, around his torso, around his neck, until he had to gasp for air under the relentless pressure. Killing him would be an easy feat – Ivy wouldn't need to do more than close her outstretched hand –, and Mordred was aware of the frailty of his life as much as Ivy was.
"When did you found out what I planned to do?" he asked, his words suppressed and hard to understand. "Did Lance turn you against me? Or Errin?"
"I saw you succeed," Ivy said and stopped the advancements of the plant life under her control. "You managed to kill the Sins, and all we have been doing since was in hopes of preventing that future from happening."
A solemn smile crept up Mordred's lips that failed to reach his eyes. "Time magic, I see. I should have remembered that. That explains why you want to kill me so badly."
"I don't want to kill you," Ivy said. "I thought I did, and for a while that might have been true. But I promised to spare you."
Ivy felt the cause of disarray she had noticed before cross the remaining distance and turned halfway to see Errin step out of the mist. Her sword was unsheathed and her expression told of unflinching resolution.
Ivy loosened the grasp of roots and tendrils around Mordred and took a step backwards.
Mordred's features softened as he caught sight of Errin.
"Dear sister, I should have known that your stubbornness would lead you to defy me once again."