Chapter Eighteen: Edward

Just past midnight, 2nd September

We reached the first open section of wall fairly quickly. He wasn't even trying to hide. Overlooking the city from a small hill on the outskirts of The Dene, his glowing blue shield was illuminating the trees around him and showing his position to the world.

It was hard to ignore the ever-present battles further into Sarthe, but we pushed towards him. He clearly noticed us but made no effort to stop us. He didn't retreat, ready any weapons, or even call for help from his monstrous allies. He just watched us approach. His gaze was chilling, as if this was exactly what he had prepared for.

Once we were about twenty feet from him, we stopped and I yelled, "This stops now, Edward! Don't let the people in the city suffer any more. Let's finish this between us now."

He stared at me for a moment and took a menacing step forward, his shield still emitting its obscuring blue light. "What do you think this is all about? Really, this has nothing to do with you. Why don't you leave here, live your life away from all of this, and leave this between myself and this wretched city?"

David stepped forward in a surprising act of bravery. "Your messenger-stroke-assassin cited Mark as one of the reasons for attacking this place, so you're bullshitting us one way or the other."

"All I am saying is that you do not belong here. But, since you are here and are an ever-present pain to me, I will have to deal with you." The blue on his shield briefly brightened further as he glanced into the forest behind. An indeterminate number of footsteps started to echo through the darkness. "I will let them deal with your friends, 'Mark'. Let us go somewhere a little more private."

He pointed the blue of the shield towards me and completely blinded me with it. I covered my eyes and stumbled back, completely disorientated. Should have seen it coming, really.

I opened my eyes and no longer found myself outside the city. I had somehow been transported to the disgusting, lava filled landscape that I presumed was the Nether. Gore and bloody flesh covered the small hill that I was standing and was completely surrounded by lava that was oozing from the ceiling and creating a lake. The ground didn't feel much different to step on, but I didn't think much of that as I wasn't well versed on the feel of bare flesh underfoot.

The only thing that remained constant was Edward. He was still standing before me and looking very pleased with himself. He marched towards me while saying, "Let us see how much you have learned since we last met."

His pace showed no signs of slowing. This was it. I had no support from the friends that I had relied on so much, it was just me and him in this terrifying world.

I readied my stance and prayed that my magic assets would still work in this place. Edward drew his sword once he was a few paces in front of me and went for a quick stab, hoping for an easy win. I hit it out of the way with my own sword and tried to immediately follow up by hitting him in the face with the hilt of my blade. He raised his shield to block and equally strong tools stopped dead, making the force of the blow resonate down my arm.

He pushed his shield forwards and threw me back a few paces. Trying to capitalise, he darted forward as fast as he could and swung his sword across to me. I just managed to get mine in front and smack his away.

Edward seemed to get angry at this. He leapt forward, shield raised high, and charged into me. I didn't react fast enough to jump out of the way and the shield collided with my front, sending me flying down to the floor. He rushed forward and pushed his sword down towards me. I tried to roll out of the way but lacked the time. The blade found its way through my ribs and penetrated deep into my body. I had initially thought that the dim blue glow along his sword was still from his shield but, when I felt no pain, I thanked my lucky stars that it was the amulet.

I found myself mid-fall again and landed hard on the ground. Knowing how fast everything would happen, I pushed myself out of the way of his attack and brought my sword around to pin his to the floor. The grass brushed against my face and I got a mouthful of loose soil, but the move allowed me to begin to clumsily stand up. Our swords remained locked against each other as I raised to my feet and we stared each other in the eyes. To break this, I clenched my offhand into a fist and brought it around with as much strength as I could muster. I caught him a little higher than planned. The impact against his cheekbone shook through my knuckle and made me immediately retract in pain. Edward recoiled and yelled, more out of anger than anything.

In the brief moment of respite, I spat out the soil and recalled the annoying grass on the floor. Quickly checking and confirming that our surroundings were still the hellish landscape Edward had taken us to, I decided that I must have been somehow mistaken.

There wasn't time to ponder this. Edward was already recovering. I tried to think about a plan of attack but couldn't think of any way past that shield. I didn't feel skilled enough to get him to be vulnerable enough with that massive piece blocking every move. Somehow, I didn't even feel angry enough to use the diamonds. I couldn't feel their power as I had before, even looking at them didn't do much as I feebly shook my sword in his general direction. I realised that I was more scared than angry, presumably the desired effect of our surroundings.

Edward spat a little blood out onto the floor as his heavy footfalls stormed towards me. As he had in our last encounter, he tried to catch me off-guard by launching his shield out towards me. I was ready this time and sidestepped the attack, moving to his now open side. I brought my sword down towards him as he tried to manoeuvre his shield back around to block. My sword glanced off the edge of the ancient metal as he brought his own around. I moved back as fast as possible, but he just caught my leg. The cut wasn't deep, so the pain wasn't horrific, but clouded my judgement and vision briefly as I tried to recover.

Edward quickly stepped forward to capitalise. Blocking his next swing of the sword threw me off balance and I tripped down to the floor again. He went for me before I'd even hit the floor. I landed hard and my sword flew out of my grip. His sword was suddenly inches from me, but he stopped. I glanced at his face to see a sharp surprise come across it as he looked past me, stepped back and brought his shield up to defend. An arrow hit the metal with a loud clang and bounced off harmlessly. In the same instant, we were transported back to The Dene.

Confused, I grabbed my sword, scrambled backwards, and rose to my feet to look around. We were exactly where we had been before, except the ground was littered with dead monsters of all kinds. Kate was aiming her bow at Edward while David and Sam were catching their breath, but still ready for a fight.

Edward looked around the area as confused as myself. "I hadn't realised that you had killed them all," he said, irritated but impressed nonetheless. "I thought that they would keep you busy for a little longer."

"What the fuck is going on?" I interrupted. "Was all of that just an illusion?"

"Something of the sort," he replied disinterestedly while looking over to Kate. "Now, I'm afraid that I will have to make this a little more fair." He raised his shield in Kate's direction and the blue core glowed ever brighter. Kate dropped her bow on the ground and stared blankly at Edward. I took a few steps towards her and tentatively said her name to try and get her attention.

"He wouldn't…" she said to no one. "Really?" Her head sharply turned to me in an angry glare. "You killed him?!"

I stopped where I was, taken aback by her sudden temper. "Who?"

She lurched towards me as she drew her sword and pointed at me with her other hand. "How could you kill Stuart?!" Tears started to form in her enraged eyes.

"I've never even met Stuart." I said weakly, realising what was going on.

She ignored me and raised her sword up into the air. She reached me and went to bring it down. I brought my sword around to block and just managed to hit it out of the way. Unfazed, she swung across at me, forcing me to desperately block again. Our swords clashed again and both were sent backwards by the force. Her eyes stayed locked on me as she brought her sword to the other side and immediately swung across to me. I had to take a step back and narrowly avoided the attack while readying my sword for her next. I wasn't expecting her empty fist to come flying towards me, but I managed to duck out of the way, practically falling to the ground as I tried to move backwards. Unrelenting, she got her sword in a position to stab towards me. I closed my eyes involuntarily, knowing that there was nothing I could do. When I didn't feel anything, I opened my eyes to find David and Sam grabbing her arm and stopping her attack.

"We'll keep her back!" Sam shouted. "You deal with him!"

They pulled her arm backwards and wrestled her a few steps away from me. She struggled and fought against them, but they seemed to be overpowering her for now.

I scrambled to my feet, turned my attention to Edward and furiously yelled, "Let her go now! What you're doing to her is fucking sick!"

"It wouldn't have to happen at all if you did not meddle!" He stood resolute and awaited an attack from me.

This act from Edward was awful. I was outraged. I didn't notice it at first, but the diamonds' power seemed to come back. I could feel myself shaking with rage as my vision went to blue and the energy was looking for an escape.

Edward raised his shield as I pointed my sword at him. I knew that I couldn't get through the shield, but I didn't care. I gritted my teeth and focused my shaking hand at him. The lightning flowed through the sword and out of the tip of the blade, arcing through the air and towards him. It struck one side of his shield and forced him back a step. In his stumble, his shield swung out of the way and left him exposed as he tried to regain his balance. The strength of the attack had split the leather arm strap on the inside of the shield and Edward was now just gripping onto it with the metal handle in his hand. I mustered as much strength as I could from within and kept my sword pointed at him.

Glancing over at Kate provided me with all of the anger I needed. She was on the floor with David and Sam trying to pin her down, but she had just kicked Sam in the stomach to throw him off.

I refocused on Edward. The lightning flowed through me once more and was sent towards my target, who was desperately trying to bring his shield back in front of him. I was slightly off target and hit the still-exposed inside of the shield. There was a sickening cracking sound as the ancient artefact flew away from its owner and towards the forest, clattering loudly on the floor when it hit a small rock outcropping. Edward let his sword go, cried out in pain and dropped to his knees as he clutched the mangled fingers of his shield hand. I wasn't wasting time with sympathy though. The red mist had descended and I was already charging towards him.

When I was a few paces back from him, he looked up at me with tears in his red eyes. "Please, no!" He shouted.

I ignored his pleas and forced my sword straight into his stomach. It went through with little resistance and I pulled it out just as easily. We locked eyes as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened. I simply stood over him and caught my breath as I stared him down.

"I am so sorry," he meekly said.

Confused, I hesitated and stuttered for a moment before I quietly replied, "What?"

He glanced at everything around him and struggled to form words as the pain enveloped him. "I don't know what happened. None of this was meant to happen." He painfully coughed up a little blood as a tear fell from his eye. "I was angry but… that shield." He groaned again and clenched his fist, partially in anger and partially to try and deal with the pain. "It just controlled me. It made me act out any extreme thought I had."

"Oh my god," I replied in disbelief as my emotions levelled off again. Exhausted, I dropped to my knees next to him but fought to pay close attention.

He weakly shushed me so that he could continue talking. "I took the shield to help me get something else. I thought that I could handle it." He took a deep breath and groaned in pain. "Let me help you." He weakly held onto my shirt. "I was looking for a way off this awful island. There is one. If you want to leave, find my home, my cave, and follow my notes."

"What is the way off?" I asked, aware that he didn't have long left. "How does it work?"

"I do not know. I only got so far before…" he let go of me and gestured around us, "this." He let out a deep sigh and fell heavily to his side.

I took this information in as best I could as I thought about what I could do for Edward. He was fading too fast though. It seemed hopeless. Eventually, amongst his pained groans, I decided on asking more questions. "When we last met, back in the summer, you said that you were the reason that we were here. How is that possible?"

A battle seemed to be going on in his head. He wanted to help, and make amends of some kind, but talking was painful for him. "I think that may have been more of a boast than anything," he quietly said with a large sigh. "The shield can control the weather to an extent, but I do not understand how anyone gets to this place. Some higher power? God? I don't know." His speech was getting slower and quieter. "I am truly sorry, to you, Mary, and Sarthe, for everything." He shut his eyes and took a deep breath as he struggled to say what he wanted to say. "Good luck, Harding."

. . .

Once the shield had been forcefully removed from Edward's grip, the world was made more normal. Kate regained control of herself and the monsters became the chaotic mess that they should have been rather than the organised force that they had been. This made them much easier for the guards and soldiers to deal with and the city was swiftly monster free once more.

Kate, David, Sam and I sat on the hill overlooking the city for a while after the fight. I realised that this was a remarkably similar scene to that of once of my previous visions. What that meant for the future, however, I had no idea. It was starting to feel like I couldn't do anything about these visions. My fate was decided and I seemed to just have to live with it.

We spoke a little about what Edward had said in his final moments. We were elated to have a lead on a potential way off Henersey but decided that it could wait. We weren't going to go chasing another early grave just yet.

"You know you're going to have to pick up the shield at some point, right?" Kate said to me after a moment of quiet thinking between us all.

"I really don't want to," I replied. "You saw what it did to Edward." I indicated to the body of the bastard prince lying morbidly not too far away. "What if the same happens to me?"

"You've been fine with the other things," she said quickly, anticipating my response. "Let's just get it back to the castle and stow it in its chamber. We can't leave it out here."

I let out a heavy sigh. She was right. We couldn't let an Edward-like figure find the shield again. I reluctantly rose to my feet and trudged over to the artefact. It was still lying face-down against the rocks that it had hit after the fight. I secretly hoped that the impact would have broken it, but knew that it wouldn't have, given that it could even survive the lightning from my sword. The buckle on the leather arm strap had completely split. The leather looked old and the buckle rusted anyway. It seemed to be the only thing on it that was perishable.

After warning the others about the vision that I was expecting to take over when I touched the shield, I briefly prepared myself with a deep breath and grasped the still-pristine metal handle. When I stood up with the lightweight shield, I was – as expected – no longer in The Dene. I was in the Nether once more. Not in the previous gross, fleshy landscape, however. I found myself in a chamber of some kind of fortress or castle made out of blood-red stone. Out of the glassless windows I could see the horrible scenery that I was familiar with.

The chamber was intersected by four corridors at right angles to each other and contained a small pool of lava in the centre as a light source. Motionless versions of myself, Kate, David and Sam were gathered in one corner in the middle of what looked like an argument. Equipped with the sword, shield and amulet, I was gesturing down one corridor while Kate was pointing down the opposite one. David and Sam weren't pointing in any direction but, from their posture and relative positions in the group, it seemed as though they were agreeing on a different corridor to use.

I couldn't work out why I had been brought here. The other two visions caused by first picking up the magical items took me to places where another was being used – the shield in my first and the sword in my second – but nothing seemed to be happening excepting the argument. It wasn't until I looked closer at my frozen form that I noticed that the amulet was glowing blue.

I wanted to have a better look around to find out what was causing this, but I was soon taken back to the real world. Kate, David and Sam were staring at me with some concern. They were expecting what had happened, but it was a strange sight regardless.

We discussed the vision for some time. The other two that the magic items had created had both come true, so presumably this one would as well. It was worrying, it seemed as though we were actually going to go to the Nether at some point. I couldn't fathom why we would, but I desperately wanted for this to be the one thing that didn't happen.