I've been slow again, because my musical endeavours have become very time-consuming. I'm a bit paranoid about this chapter really / Lots of carnage. My brother thinks I am a disturbed child... I rewrote chapter 1, if anyone could stand to read it again. I'll rewrite some more of my earlier chapters, because frankly, a lot of them embarass me. Also, apologies for any typos in the last bit, I'm doing this update in a bit ofa rush because I've been really lazy about thisthis time around.Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter D: It was very difficult to write...
The Dread Pirate and the Soulless Horseman
The God's Cry were returning. The bard led them, and they came in pairs, Ruriko arm-in-arm with her sister, the blacksmith tipping the boyish cap on his head and walking with a fairly non-descript barbarian, and the Arien dancer accompanying a hunter. Her complexion was quite exotic for a northerner.
Tristan smiled at the excuse to neglect his paperwork, and replaced the form carefully back on the pile next the throne he was probably spending too much time in. He and Hester had recently sorted through all the things that required signing, checking, ticking, sending… and had proceeded to place them in a pile for Tristan to sign, check, tick, send… He and Arne had nicknamed the pile The Amatsan Wall, a little tribute to the Guerre te Muladi, because neither could see the other over the top of it and they predicted that it would take twelve years to conquer.
Hester, Kenji, Arne and Sebek the sentinel followed the odd guild.
"Not a scratch on them," Hester announced happily.
"They did not require assistance," Sebek's deep voice rumbled.
"I really do think I should be paying you for this," Tristan tried again.
The bard wouldn't hear of it. "It was a favour," he insisted. It was difficult to believe he was from Yuno – the blond hair, beach tan and friendly grin suggested he was born and bred in Comodo.
"Then I should return it." Tristan was not about to lose an argument to a musician.
His opponent shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "We don't really need paying."
"Taiken, that may not be – ah!" The hunter began to contradict and the bard kicked him the shin. "Ow. Ow. Bastard. Ow…"
Taiken began a light-hearted stroll in a circle around the guild. "We don't need paying," he added.
"Could I finish my sentence anyway?" The hunter looked as if he was in considerable pain.
"If you promise to brush your hair later."
He frowned for a second, as if considering saying no. His hair was fairly atrocious; it didn't go past his shoulders, but there was a lot of it. "I need to be spending winter with the wolves."
"You normally hunt the wolves, Hawk," replied Taiken in bewilderment. "You know, stick a pointed bit of wood in its head, bring it home and eat it."
"Those are stray wolves. Anyway, something in the mountains is killing the pups, and they're not doing well. As a ranger, I have a duty to look after them."
"Hawk. You're a hunter."
Hawk coughed awkwardly. "You get two kinds of hunters," he began cleanly, "the "nature-bound", and the "duty-bound", or as I like to put it, the People Who Do Their Job and the Arrogant Bigots. Duty-bound and Nature-bound… Honestly! Nature is your duty…" During his speech, he'd shifted his weight from one leg to the other, crossed his arms over his chest, tilted his head and scowled. "The Nature-bound are more commonly referred to as rangers, but technically, they're still hunters."
"So, wait," Taiken started in mildly urgent tones, "we're not going to have any meat during the winter?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"… Oh, terrific. And I've just lost an argument to a prince."
Hawk had suddenly become distracted by something next to him; Tristan saw it was the Arien girl. She was apparently in the middle of a very trying headache. Her breathing was ragged, and quite heavy. Hawk was about to ask her what was wrong.
She collapsed without any warning at all. She went totally limp, her legs stopped working, her knees buckled and she descended in a heap. Hawk caught her by the shoulders and held her up; with a swift movement, he hoisted her up and let her lie over his arms.
The God's Cry was thrown into mild confusion. Hawk held her almost defensively; he did it in a way that said, "This is my job".
"This has not been a good day for her," Ruriko's sister sighed wearily. There was something very possessive about the way the hunter's fingers pawed gently at the girl's shoulder.
Tristan watched the crowd, noting its individuals quickly. The non-descript barbarian wasn't actually all that non-descript; a defensive shadow had moved off of him for perhaps a second, and a tense, slightly skinny young man, incredibly agitated, became visible. Taiken drew them back, telling them to leave the dancer some air. The blacksmith stepped away reluctantly, and Ruriko's sister tugged the sage back carefully. Although Hawk's reaction struck Tristan as very odd.
He turned and nodded to Hester, letting her know she was free to carry out her instinctive courtesy. She did so, beckoning for them to follow her, and she would take them to a spare room and do whatever she could. Taiken nodded gratefully and followed. The nod signalled an unspoken approval, and the guild followed. Tristan waited until the echo of their footsteps had disappeared.
"Sebek," he said. The sentinel stepped forward instantly. Tristan wanted to know exactly how well the God's Cry performed, and he was quite interested to know exactly what the barbarian had meant when she said, "This has not been a good day for her." That Arien girl was curious little prodigy.
-X-X-
Alberta was a loud, ferocious port town. The cries of competing merchants billowed through the town more steadily than the wind and the waves clapped against the harbour like cymbals. The smithy was loud and organized, a heavy contrast to the glorified tavern in Prontera, the bronze building of Luoyang, the grandeur of Yuno, and what was left of the clean-cut efficient smithy in Geffen.
Tirus was stood waiting outside of the church, a humble non-descript white building. The town was famed for its merchants, not its devout citizens. In fact, a lot of them would probably sell their own mother for a profit. However, the world of merchants wasn't without its kind dedicated members. He was scanning the crowds for someone in particular…
"Boo," said the particular person. Tirus immediately pretended to be terrified. Around his shoulders hovered the smiling face of his brother, Arren, a fledgling priest who spent as much time as possible traversing the overly noisy town and doing good. Tirus responded by stealing the black biretta perched on his head. Tirus would wear it until they reached the harbour, where they would sit and talk.
And Tirus would say, "Why black again?"
Arren sighed. He'd explained this several times already. "Rank. Black is for someone serving in a church, and they can either be a priest or an acolyte; purple is for the manager of his or her church; red is for the high priests who are in charge of all the churches."
Arren then narrated all the things he'd done that day. A swordsman, in a rather exuberant game of tag, had fallen down a gritty slope, skidding down spectacularly on his elbow, and scraping nearly all the flesh from his arm. His acolyte apprentice had run headlong into a door, somehow. A miner nailed his hard hat onto his head. All in all, being a healer was rather taxing on the imagination.
Tirus had had a fairly non-descript day. He had breakfast, trained with his affianced spar partner, Anselma, had lunch, then trained some more until he came to meet Arren.
Arren didn't reply; something didn't feel right.
"Arren?"
Paranoia was settling in. It felt like paranoia, but… It isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. He looked around. A few people in the crowd were looking quite wary. The shouts of merchandise, merchandise, merchandise raged on beyond the port, and fishermen steered their boats sleepily around the dock. Arren looked again. The people looking wary all bore the robes and skinniness of magic users.
He stood up, walked right to the end of the dock, placing his feet carefully, and shuffling to adjust the angle. He leaned over slowly and peered dubiously into the water. It looked deep and empty, as it always had. But where were the fish? There had to be something… On reflex, the chant for a sense spell sprang alive in his mind, but he didn't dare utter the words; he was afraid of what he would find.
"Arren?" Tirus tried again. Arren squinted at the restless sway of the waves and saw nothing again. He edged back from the edge and returned to his place next to his brother. Still, there had to be something…
"Do you want your hat back?" asked Tirus, trying to break the silence again. The priest turned awkwardly and took the stiff black cap back with vague apprehension.
He heard footsteps behind them, a lot closer than they should be. It was a skinny young mage; she tiptoed to the edge of the harbour and peered warily into the sea. She did so for quite some time.
"Arren, is something wrong?" Tirus's brotherly concern and annoyance flared up.
"… I don't know. Could we go home?" Arren decided he would feel safer in his familiar room with the door locked, the windows shut, the curtains drawn, and possibly the bed covers pulled up over his head.
Tirus nodded stiffly and began walking in the direction of town. They'd walked perhaps twenty yards when Arren succumbed to the urge to look behind him.
And something had happened. The fishermen were staring at the water and pointing, some frowning, puzzled, others gaping, horrified. A satiny dark red flaw was blossoming in the waves.
And where was the mage…?
The fishermen began shouting, panicking. What the Hel is that? There was a sound like someone with wet hands punching a rock.
Clap… They scrambled over their boats to get back on solid ground… Clap… Half of the mage's torso, covered in red bludgeon marks, floated into view… Clap… Tirus drew his sword… Clap… A grey and white something clasping a sharp broad bladed falchion appeared at the end of the dock… Clap… An arm, wearing a dusky blue coat, clutching a sword in a similar state of excellency clamped the stone tiles also…
The owner of the swords was hoisting himself into view. A corsair's hat emerged first. The thing crawling out the sea slithered into a sprawled heap on the white stone. There was the blue coat, darkened from the ocean, dull leather boots, and the blinding flash of the swords. A dark smear of water trailed after it.
It began standing. It lifted itself on its fists, placed itself on its knees, and rose calmly to its feet. Stood tall, the broad curved blades glinting from its sides, two things became apparent. The first was that this "man" was a pirate. The second was that he was dead. The fragments of skin still clinging to the skull visible beneath the corsair's hat was grey.
Alberta, the town of noise and merchandise, was falling to silence.
Except for the fishermen. The boats rocked precariously as they fled. The pirate raised his hand, and a hoarse, deep voice began a spell.
The sea was stirring to new orders. The waves crashed against each other in pillars. Suddenly, rain was gathering in crystalline clumps and falling from the wrong end of the world. It spurted upwards like rockets. Without a moment's hesitation, they changed direction, shooting off in a hazy criss-crossing hailstorm. They blitzed through the humble wooden boats, reducing them to splinters, causing a ceremonious explosion and a napalm splash with every hit. It was loud. Tirus grabbed Arren by the wrist and tugged him back to town. Arren saw one of the water orbs blast straight through a man's head, and blood shot out the other side in clumps.
Arren had never noticed just how much his vision moved when he was running. People streaked past him, screaming, in a blur of horror. The world sounded like lots of people pounding at drums and shrieking as loud as possible.
They stopped and the crowd swerved around them like flies. Some were making their way to the port, brandishing weapons with white knuckles.
"It's undead," Tirus shouted to his brother breathlessly. Arren nodded, giddy and numb. "Me and these other guys can distract it, and you can cast the Magnus Exor-whatsit."
"Magnus Exorcismus," Arren corrected automatically. Fear bubbled in his throat. "Tirus…"
"Nothing'll happen to you! I'll keep him off you until you complete the spell."
"Tirus… let's just run."
"We'll be fine!" The knight was cheery. It made Arren feel like he'd already been taken away. "I have a duty, Arren, and so do you. Let's do it together."
"We'll die."
"You know me better than that! I won't die. Just cast the Magnus Exor-whatsit, OK?"
"Magnus Exorcismus."
Tirus smiled reassuringly, clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder one last time, then turned away. People lay in thirds as the pirate made his way towards town in a brisk, calculated stroll.
There had to be some chance of winning… Arren took two gemstones from his pocket, closed his eyes, and focused.
"Dies iræ…" It was so loud! Everyone screaming… footsteps falling like rocks thousands of times every second… "Dies illa…" Concentrate. "Solvet sæclum in favilla…" Finish the prayer. "Teste David cum Sibyla…" The gemstones were heating up… "Quantus tremor est futurus…" Someone with a calm step and drenched heavy boots was coming closer and closer… "Quando Judex est venturus…" A clang against someone's armour… "Cuncta stricte discus surus…" A splatter of blood on the ground… "Lacrymosa, dies illa…" The frenzy of shouts and shrieks stampeded on… "Qua resurget…" No one would miss… "Ex favilla…" … one insignificant priest… "Judicandus homo reus…" The boots clicked closer… "Huic ergo parce Deus…" … and closer… "Pie Jesu Domine. Donna e-…"
-X-X-
A trip to the restlessly sleeping volcano north of Yuno was quite without its merits. Lava stewed in its many deep pits; it was covered in sand, soot, and crumbling rock. The wildlife that sprouted here wasn't exactly the friendliest in the world either.
Arche had been invited along by Erita, apparently to pick up some of the basics of teaching. She'd accepted. That was, however, long before she realized that the magma pits had no redeeming features and that she'd quite forgotten her way around the ashen pale caves and pits. They were here helping Yomi, Erita's eldest daughter. That Yomi was older than Arche was a little disconcerting.
Yomi was eccentric. She knew enough about swordsmanship to cleave something in two extravagantly, a handy asset as her weapon of choice was an Amatsan sword and she deemed it very necessary that Amatsan swords were very unique and merited their own separate name of katana. Arche snorted and said it was a sword – it's long, pointy, and has a handle, the name sword would do perfectly fine. Yomi used a katana because there were few situations requiring force that couldn't be resolved by cutting something in half. In terms of appearance, she favoured her mother with her childish face and dark hair; but her dark pearly eyes and obstinately straight hair were her father's.
Naturally, this was less of a lesson and more of a light mother-daughter grilling. Arche wondered why she couldn't just watch the normal teaching method of a normal teacher quietly lecturing a normal group of students (in a very normal manner of course) in a normal room with four nice normal walls and a door to match. The situation was eased slightly by the presence of some of the other professors, namely Fieri, Massenet, Zeta and Ninetta. Admittedly, Zeta was a rather inspirational figure.
However, something was clearly bothering Fieri; she kept oddly still, and her eyes were heavily lidded and focused on nothing, as if in deep concentration. She spoke only when spoken to. Massenet was very quiet, in the sense that he didn't speak very much. He was always playing the flute – he was forever learning old folk tunes, of which there seemed to be an endless amount, and while his performances were by no means capital, they were husky and soothing. Zeta refereed Erita and Yomi's epic and one-sided battles, what with his voice being about an octave below a normal man's. He also had the ability to speak in a low, terrifying growl, which he used as his telling off voice.
"Yomi, do really think it's a good idea to wear sandals in a volcano?"
"It wasn't my idea!"
"What do you mean, you can dress yourself in the morning, can't you?"
"I meant the volcano part!"
"Don't make me use the voice," sighed Zeta.
Silence.
They moved on, Massenet leading them. He clambered casually over a cave mouth, and began a light-hearted amble around the horribly misplaced stalagmites. Erita and Yomi went next, and a minute or so later, their conversation began to grate as it fell into another light mother-daughter grilling. With the pair newly paralysed by Zeta's latest threat, Arche decided that now was as good a time as any.
"Anything you want to tell us, Fieri?" she said delicately. She didn't look at the elder woman.
"No," snapped Fieri haughtily. Arche felt her nerves twinge with annoyance and decided to press the matter.
"I don't believe you."
"Does that matter?" Apparently, Fieri's nerves were twinging all over the place. Her words carried the crude bite that preceded her rage. "I see no need to justify myself to you."
Arche forced her hands to stay still and obedient at her side. "We are colleagues, Fieri…" she began stiffly.
"You will demand nothing of me, Little Mesmer," hissed Fieri. Arche had to fight back a wince. Needless to say, the words were low and angry, but there was an odd echo in them, as though there were two Fieris – one in her normal place and another bellowing from half a mile away. And that characteristic wind that warmed and disturbed nothing it was not asked to as it swept past… Arche knew when someone was beginning to cast, but that was not what had stung her. She turned slowly and purposefully. We'll see about this…
"Are you threatening me, dear professor?" she said without mirth. Anger was drying her voice of volume and emotion. Her insides burned. She had every intention of putting this woman in her place. Surely enough, a distinct start on the air had happened around Fieri's staff. She glared at Arche with deep shadows on her face, and Arche kept her own glare as contemptuous as possible. Fieri had a sleep-deprived, drunk look about her. Arche would have perhaps felt a niggle of concern, had her pride not been so stung.
She wondered what answer, if any, she would receive. Both yes and no carried such intriguing implications. Fieri darted over the options again.
Eventually, "Stay out of it," she snapped menacingly, though she lowered her staff.
Zeta decided to try his luck. "What's wrong, Fieri?"
"Where do you get this idea that there's something wrong with me?" she growled indignantly.
"Do you want to answer, or shall I?" interjected Arche dryly; her nerves still had not recovered.
"Hold your tongue, Arche," hissed Zeta sternly. Arche's mouth twisted grimly, and caught off her guard, she kept silent. "You are not yourself, Fieri."
Fieri considered. "I am not feeling well," she explained carefully. "Could we return to the academy?"
"It is late," conceded Zeta. He addressed the whole group, "Let's go."
The thought of a cup of tea being hers to consume just beyond the hour, Arche's irritation settled slightly. She drew her cards and began shuffling them absent-mindedly. The words Little Mesmer were still thrashing across her mind. They stung. Her mother had been dubbed with the title Elusive Mesmer, and Fieri knew this. Arche did not want to be thinking about her mother, and unfortunately, this seemed to be one of the occasions when thoughts of her parents wouldn't take no for an answer.
And so the journey out of the caves passed in a kind of mental wrestling between a very heavy weight in her mind and the task of shuffling her cards while walking. She barely noticed when the cool late evening air swept over her, lifting her hair and stirring her robes, but kept her eyes fixed on her hands and her cards. Focusing, she flicked out one card between two fingers, and set it levitating around her head, and another, then another… Thirteen cards circling her. She continued shuffling the rest of her deck.
She walked into something quite solid and her concentration was snuffed out like a candle. The cards floating around her toppled to the floor. With a fussy snarl, she summoned them back to her left hand, where they flew obediently, then cut the pack with her right hand, slotted the other cards into place and shuffled the completed deck irritably.
Zeta's robed back was very broad. He flicked his head briefly behind him, then stared back down at the reason for his sudden immobility. Arche peered around his shoulder.
"A hoof-print," she said steadily.
"Yes, but that size…"
He had a point. The print, and those marking a staccato gallop across the path around it, was larger than a dinner plate.
"Did Orius tell you about the Lord of Death, Arche?"
"He did," she replied testily. "You're not implying…?"
"I am."
Arche nodded stiffly, dread souring the pit of her stomach. She followed the tracks with her eyes; the road ahead was rocky and difficult to navigate…
"It wouldn't be wise to stay much longer," Zeta dictated, drawing his knife in his right hand and tapping the ground with a staff of white wood. "We don't have chance of challenging it without a faithful healer."
We wouldn't have a chance of challenging it even with a faithful healer, but each to his own, Zeta… Arche thought bitterly. By the sounds of things, the elusive Lord of Death was impossible to kill.
Zeta used the term faithful healer. They had a healer with them, who was Ninetta, as she had grown up as an acolyte and spent five years as a priest. She was technically sound in the performance of healing and exorcism spells and rituals, chief among them being the formidable Magnus Exorcismus. However, while saying the chants and focusing produced the spell, it would never be particularly powerful without an extra little something in it. The incantations were invocations to God, so faith and conviction needed to stand behind the words. Ninetta had neither. After killing her illegitimate child as soon as she could after he was born, she was cast out from the church. Her lover ran, and her crimes of adultery and genocide could hardly go unnoticed. The woman still made a point of making herself scarce whenever anyone from the holy orders came to Yuno. She was not a faith-driven healer, and an exorcist whose prayers were uttered without conviction just wouldn't measure up.
Zeta was also thinking of Ninetta. "Can you cast a warp portal? And how many gemstones do you have?"
"I cannot; I never learned to teleport," Ninetta replied. "I do still have half a pouch of gemstones."
"Right," he acknowledged with a nod. "Arche, how's your deck?"
Arche spread her cards across the air in front of her in a wide fan with one hand. They stayed frozen and suspended as she surveyed them. "Thirteen seals, thirteen blasts, thirteen shields, and thirteen freezing charms," she reported.
"Right, use them sparingly. Erita, Yomi, do you think you two could be sensible until we get back. Massenet, could you try and Soul Burn it if we encounter it? And Fieri? You're a big fat liar. Let us know if it's approaching."
With Zeta's orders and their weapons held at the ready, they began the haphazard trudge back to the city. Massenet had stowed away his flute and stalked along at the front of the group next to Zeta with a bulky bejewelled staff. Arche stayed at the rear of the group. Yomi held her katana in one hand and its scabbard in the other. Ninetta had drawn a long, needle-like dagger.
Arche tried to watch the people at the front of the group, but it became increasingly difficult as the road became less of a walk and more of a rock climbing expedition. She stumbled over the slopes and ditches, and was determined to not stop walking, as Yomi had. The girl began levitating after falling over three times. Levitating was a bad habit – it led to problems later on when old age started to kick in. Levitating involved energy being channelled straight through the caster, rather than a focus such as a staff, and so it was degenerative to the health. A lot of people levitated when they cast, many unintentionally, either because they didn't have a focus item or they weren't using it. The very best magic users could channel energy with just about anything they could find, normally the ones who could speak the Language of the Making fluently as people of the sort were exceptionally good with magic. This made them incredibly dangerous – they could cast any spell they wanted at any time.
There was a snarling noise up ahead, which turned out to be Erita slipping and, though she steadied herself, ending up in a rather undignified position. Arche placed her feet delicately; the angles were odd, and the grit none too friendly. Fieri struggled next to her, not saying a word. Arche eyed the ravine beyond more than warily; an ambush here could be catastrophic.
Arche jumped – there was a heavy scraping sound, followed by a thud, and stones fell, pink-pink-pink, into the ravine. She wheeled around, expecting a white horseman…
"Ouch!"
It was nothing. Fieri had just fallen over. Arche visibly sighed with relief, and she felt her shoulders sink as she relaxed. Fieri got up, looking sheepish and grumpy.
They walked on, sliding and tripping as they went. Their progress was slow, too slow. Another fall of pebbles some way in the distance… and a deep, deep rumble of something heavy striking the earth, a lot, growing louder which each successive pound against the stubborn rocks. Arche turned to Fieri, who was actually taking a breath to speak.
"Ze-…" was as far as she got. Her eyes widened, then slid shut. She toppled forward, rigid and straight as a board, and landed on some part of her face with a rough thud.
"Oh, bugger," muttered Arche involuntarily. Fieri had succumbed to some kind of fit… Lord of Death was made out to be unbeatable… and it sounded as if it were very near now…
Mind now miles behind, Arche darted forward and lifted Fieri by the shoulders, and the giant hooves were pounding feet away. Her arm flew around the other's ribs, and she had a card drawn between two fingers in her free hand. Less than a second later, she looked up…
… And Lord of Death was glaring down at her.
Her voice dropped, lest any unnecessary noise angered it. She cast a shield in a hiss, and a thought quickly struck like lightning – what good was this going to do? Arche tightened her arm and started to drag Fieri in the opposite direction.
A lance with a thick black blade smashed into the shield from the side, and bounced off with tremendous force. The shield shattered without any protest. The blast caught Arche as well, right in the side as she turned to hobble away with her unconscious companion, whose forehead oozed with blood. Why was her mind moving so slowly? Her feet left the ground and her vision refused to focus as she fell. Her stomach scraped against rock when she'd rather it didn't.
When she opened her eyes, she was staring at the rock face she had just fallen down. The others were shouting now. Zeta's voice shook her bones, and her mind swung precariously back into thinking. Fieri was stirring, and the first thing she did was scream in pain.
"Ow! What was that?"
Arche noticed out of the corner of her eye that Fieri's hand was cupped around her injured forehead, above her eyebrow – she'd just missed her eye – but she didn't touch it. Her face was red and she was crying.
There was another scream from atop the cliff the pair had fallen from, a man's this time – Massenet. Arche looked up to see him topple onto his back without a movement of recognition from the rest of his body. He'd failed the Soul Burn. He was thoroughly incapacitated.
If she didn't move, she'd be crushed. She still had one arm around Fieri, and she threw herself back from where they were knelt. Lord of Death landed there on a giant bone white stallion a second later, and the rocks split obediently beneath the force. Arche let out a yelp of concern and quickly threw her fist, clenching her cards, over her mouth. The sight of the knight with a heavy black lance, its bone white armour, with no face behind the helmet, so empty and so ready to destroy… looming over her, at least ten feet taller, about to smash the lance into her head and end her life before she could do anything… it was the most frightening thing she'd ever seen in her life.
Time was behaving strangely. Fieri screamed fully next to her, and her senses sprung to life again. She drew three of her shield cards. It should be able to hold off the attack – if she couldn't rely on them, what was she to do…? Zeta was shouting something from atop the cliff, apparently in another language for all the sense it made. The giant lance was swinging down at disconcerting speeds…! Arche grit her teeth and met the attack with her cards.
The force was tremendous! The clash of attack and defence sent Arche sprawling to the side. She used the momentum of the fall to stumble to her feet and found herself on the receiving end of another dangerous swipe. She blocked it, but it lifted her off the ground and she was stumbling again. A lightning bolt struck Lord of Death, and it had no effect. Arche quickly noticed that her shields were not holding up – there were little black char marks around the corners.
Fieri had run to the side on all fours, screaming. Arche kept blocking, but Lord of Death's attacks were too quick, and too powerful – she kept falling over, and her cards were slowly being eaten away. How long could she keep this up…?
She scrambled to her feet again, wheeled around to meet another lance swipe, was thrown sideways and landed on her hip, with the feeling that it would bruise. It didn't matter, as long as that lance didn't touch her… She was hurled to the side again; another lightning bolt struck… again, no effect. How were they supposed to beat this thing? She was going to be the first to die…
"Fieri, will you bloody well do something!" she shrieked. Her poise was long gone. She caught a glimpse of Fieri as she blocked again – she skidded as the lance struck. The woman was gripping her staff tight, staring at Lord of Death and shaking her head, as though she thought she was hallucinating. "Fieri!"
Arche was getting desperate. Where was everyone else? Massenet was… unconscious. Zeta was casting lightning bolts that did absolutely nothing. Fieri was sat there like a lemon. Ninetta and Erita were fussing over Massenet, for all the good it would do! And Yomi… Yomi was doing something, but she was being very slow about it. And Arche was down in the ravine with nothing but some slowly disintegrating bits of paper separating her from her imminent and early death.
She swiped the cards to, then fro against the assault – one card had gone, and another had mostly burned away. What the Hel was that thing? She'd never encountered any weapon that could destroy her guard so quickly. Zeta was barking orders to Erita and Ninetta… Hurry up!
With a lance thrust and an awkward parry, her second card was gone. Her remaining card perched flat on her palm… Swipe… A corner was gone… Smash… The top half was gone. She kept in on her palm still… Thrust… Another corner. She blocked the next with the card on the end of two fingers… Swipe… Last parry. The shield fragment stood on the tip of her index finger… Swipe… Gone.
She summoned a freeze charm to her hand and cast it in a panic. A few icicles littered the lance head, but the attack remained unhindered. She could easily imagine the thing smashing straight through her skull, and the image flashed across her eyes; it made her feel incredibly ill. But… there were scampering footsteps…
Yomi skidded to a halt between Arche and the Lord of Death, her katana crammed with glowing red runes and a tremendous energy radiating from her. It felt warm… She brought her arm back for a swing…
"Eno va shi stai!" she screamed. The blade glowed with an odd golden light, and she swept it furiously over the air. Flames began curling out of it, and they sprang into shape. Arche squinted – it looked like a giant winged man with horns… It was gone a second later; it flew at Lord of Death, and with a heavy, solid thud that shook the rocks, it collided and burst into formless flames again. Lord of Death flinched and staggered back…
Arche found a hand wrapped firmly around her own, and quickly saw that it was Yomi's. Yomi tugged her into a sprint behind her and started towards Fieri. She let go of Arche when they reached Fieri, and, grabbing Fieri under the shoulder, she hissed out a wind spell. The hefty hoof thuds were starting again, galloping towards them… Arche followed suit, and followed Yomi.
Yomi had led them up back up the cliff, but on the other side of the ravine from Zeta and Ninetta – Erita was nowhere to be seen.
Ninetta was casting – and judging by the white aura around her, it could only be a spell of exorcism.
Crash! It sounded like a boulder falling a great distance about ten feet to the left of them. And then there was the shriek… a high, piercing shriek from a being of relentless and incurable anger, and an insatiable bloodlust. And the heavy, laboured breathing, that reminded Arche of just how easily a sharp enough object will penetrate flesh, and a heavy enough smash will plough straight through her bones.
Yomi ran forward to meet it. She slipped past a lance thrust, and slashed at the impressive white horse. Catching it in the neck, another scream tore through the cliffs and thick black blood spurted out. The horse, with its raking cry, kicked at Yomi, and caught her squarely in the stomach. She fell flat on her back, coughing violently and completely winded.
Arche ran forward, mind in disarray and body acting on its own. She swept her attack cards in a circle against the lance, and they crumbled into ashes. She growled slightly, and drew one of the seals. With a flick of her arm, it was flung itself at the Lord of Death. She scooted out of the way of the lance again. The seal plastered itself onto its helmet, and it seemed to work. Lord of Death was immobilised.
Except the rune was fading. Naturally, this wasn't a ritual enhanced seal, and was therefore quite weak. It faded quite quickly. The rune on the card was melting away as if it had been doused in water and the ink was running. Arche stood dumb for a second, quite fascinated with dread.
She sprinted over to Yomi, who was sprawled on the ground and breathing raggedly. She gripped the girl by the arm and lifted her to her feet. Lord of Death was recovering from the seal… The furious stamp of hooves was starting again.
"Dona eis requiem aeternam!"
A shrill song had alighted the air. Arche wheeled around. Ninetta was the caster. The spell was Magnus Exorcismus. The voice of a kindly woman swept down, and she began her own beautiful song. A turbulent white light exploded on the ground, soft and bright. The high, clear ringing sound… not bells, but chains. They erupted from somewhere within the spell and sprung maliciously on the Lord of Death, around the neck, the stomach, the lance, the horse… everywhere. Little peels of light drifted around like snow… Looking closer, Arche saw they were smooth, white feathers.
Lord of Death was screaming, a full-bodied, deadening scream that reached terrible notes and rang around and shook the heart. Arche's spine tingled unpleasantly.
Yomi grabbed her arm, whispered a quick spell, and they were lifted into the air, and Yomi scooted the pair of them to where Zeta and Ninetta were.
"What are we going to do?" was the first thing Yomi said.
"I don't know," muttered Zeta with something very beyond uneasiness. He stared at the holy spell warily. "I sent Erita back to alert the others…"
"Can we run?"
"It's after Yuno…" Fieri whispered. It wasn't really a whisper, but she seemed to be incapable of normal speech. Her teeth were locked together, and her face was set into a stony, terrified grimace.
There was an uneasy silence.
"… I beg your pardon?" Arche said as calmly as she could. Her voice rose in pitch slightly.
"That's why it's here," Fieri replied in the same stiff tone. "To destroy Yuno. We're just dust on the ground…"
Arche stared, very willing to argue that they weren't dust on the ground, they were the professors, the guardians of Yuno, among the greatest magic users on the planet… apparently able to protect their beloved city and home from anything.
But it was true. They were among the greatest magic users on Midgard, they were the guardians of Yuno, they were trusted with the secrets of the elusive Heart of Ymir, and they were dust on the ground. They couldn't protect their beloved home from this creature. They had been hounded into a corner, had their arms pinned to their sides, their shouts and their screams would go unheard, because this was a foe who was more powerful than them. There was nothing they could do. For all their power, for all their prestige and status, and no matter how beloved their Yuno was, it was all no good. The things they honed proudly in their hearts weren't going to save their lives, and it wouldn't defeat this foe. They were useless inferior humans. Their determination would get them nowhere; love, the airy overrated dream, would get them nowhere; their own strength would get them nowhere.
They were going to die.
Arche listened to the stories of Geffen's fall with a grim face and a by no means insincere, "A terrible shame…" But… this was what it was like. To be presented with an impossible responsibility. Ivas, their wise leader and father, fell, and they still carried on. Their youngest led them out to safety, and that was all they could do. They couldn't stop the stream of deaths and the loss of their home. So High Wizard Arne was indeed more than just a sharp glare… Only four of them survived.
Where had he got the strength?
Arche turned to Zeta, who so far hadn't led them wrong. He wore the same painful frown as the others, one that suggested that he was thinking the same thing as she was. He met her eyes, and nodded in acknowledgement.
He sighed. "Who's up for dying in a blaze of glory?" he said weightily.
Arche made a little noise of assent. Her throat had become very tight.
"I don't see any alternative," Yomi murmured. She drew her katana, and stared at the blade sadly.
Fieri was shaking terribly. She looked guilty and horrified. Zeta had given her a death sentence.
Magnus Exorcismus ended with a last, gong-like explosion, before it slipped out of existence feather by feather. The chains binding Lord of Death melted into nothingness, and the thing screamed in pain. Arche winced.
Zeta had already fired off a spell. A wall of ice erupted in front of their foe, and smashed into glowing crystals a second later. Zeta raised another, and the lance just pummelled straight through. Another, and another… It just wasn't going to work. The red-eyed horse and its faceless rider charged through, the damp crash of the broken wall, the furious cry of the horse and the stamp-stamp-stamp of the hooves. It darted furiously over the ravine, closing the gap between them too quickly.
Yomi padded forward with her grim, bleak determination. Her katana had flames curling around the blade. She swiped at the armour… Clang… It didn't make a dent. She swung it again, this time as though it were heavier. A wave of fire spurted out with tremendous force. Clang… Lord of Death flinched.
Arche stared blankly at her cards, the runes looking more like splodges of ink than anything else. What was she supposed to do? The attacks did nothing, the shields broke, the seals faded so quickly, and the charms didn't work. Her mind had never felt so tired… She wanted so much to just go home, be left by herself… Just leave us alone, just leave us alone…
Three shields, three blasts… She fanned them out in each hand. She counted her last seconds of immobility in her head, one, two, three! She sprinted forward, sweeping up the blasts with one hand and deflecting the lance with the other
"Eno va shi stai." The blasts rocketed forward, pummelling into the chest plate, and she quickly drew three more, lurching back away from the lance. Ice spells were crashing into the fray, seemingly at random. Fieri was beginning chants, and they ended halfway through the invocation, melting away meekly. Ninetta was praying again: Dies iræ, dies illa…Yomi's katana and Arche's cards swung madly around, insane with desperation that this day wouldn't be their last. No matter how franticly they attacked, the lance still swung, the horse still roared and the knight still breathed its heavy, low breaths.
Some new voice had joined the spells and the screams… A deep, abysmal hiss, purring a recognisable chant… A swordsman's spell…
The lance struck the ground with a crackle and a deafening Crash! Arche was thrown back, and her vision tumbled wildly. She heard Yomi shout out in surprise. A sharp pain shot through her head, and suddenly her back was leaning on something cold and rough. There was the terrible sound of something sharp going straight through skin, and Yomi screamed. Zeta shouted out to her, but her scream was becoming further and further away…
Arche's senses woke groggily to the sound of alarms… So tempted by the painless, sleeping existence inside her mind… She shook herself, and stood shakily; her eyes swung into focus, and the noises blitzed on like a thunderstorm.
Lord of Death was in front of her. It was in front of Zeta. He slipped past the lance once. It went straight through his stomach and out of the other side. A strangled gasp slipped out throatily, and he was thrown, sprawling to the floor, writhing in pain, and trying to drink the air. Blood pumped out of the messy wound, pooling and splattering the rocks around him.
Fieri screamed now. She closed her eyes, clutched her staff, sank to her knees and screamed. Ninetta prayed, and Lord of Death descended on her. The lance ripped straight through her with a gargling of blood. Arche stared, dumb, incapable of thinking now. The lance was yanked out, and thrust in again, twisted, and pulled out, dragging clumps of ripped flesh and thick ribbons of blood. The horse moved towards Fieri, who had now been robbed of her voice. Zeta was left to die.
Arche darted to Fieri, whose focus was completely gone. She stared at lance, now sparkling radiantly with the crimson sheen. Yomi was nowhere to be seen. She was alone.
Ninetta coughed, and her cold, empty blue eyes focused on something quite out of her reach.
"Beloved sweetheart bastard…" she whispered fondly, "I never saw you again… I never got to see you die… I wanted to kill you so…"
The air sagged with death, and the scene darkened in the early evening summer light. Arche wanted to be someone else. Protecting her home from anything… this was her impossible responsibility.