AN: This chapter takes place in parallel to Chapter 14. Now that Raven has found the pendant I figured that it was finally time to stick this in here. Enjoy!
Chapter 18: One-Armed Wolf
The roar of water was deafening as millions of gallons of water spilled out of the sealed city into the deep canyon below. The One-Armed Wolf watched from the hillside as the numerous drakes sitting on the bridge settled back into place as the rush of water slowed to a mere trickle. He stroked the head of his companion, an actual wolf, before picking up his legendary greatsword from where it leaned against the natural wall. He checked that the package for Ornstein was securely strapped to his back, and watched as the silhouette of a man dropped down from a tower just inside the gates of New Londo and began methodically attacking a group of darkwraiths.
Damn. No way to go in there - not without revealing his presence too soon. That was to be expected, though. Kirk, Tarkus, Raven - although she wouldn't be here - Ornstein especially, were all incredibly competent tacticians, and it followed that starting on both sides of the city would be the most logical approach to this scenario. So the One-Armed Wolf whispered his farewell to his canine companion, setting off down the narrow path that traced the wall of the Valley of Drakes, balancing carefully because of his large size. One advantage to going this way would be the relative lack of, well, drakes - those tended to live towards the southern end of the valley. Not that they were any issue to him; he had fought in the dragon war, and killed his fair share of true dragons, so drakes had become a downright joke to his abilities, even now that he was down an arm.
As he neared the end of this path, the Wolf cursed his foolishness - this city had been built for humans, and it would follow that most of the entrances would be sized accordingly. There was no way he could fit through that tiny little gate. And so, the knight did the only thing he could. Hefting his greatsword, he slammed it against the wall, wincing at the amount of noise that it generated - although there was no way it would carry across the entire city - and stepped through the hole he had created. He was forced to perform the action a second time to escape the tower, leaving a spire that barely had the structural ability to support its own weight standing behind him.
The Wolf Knight - Artorias - beheld the destruction with a mix of awe and horror. Here stood a monument to success where he himself had failed; the abyss here had been contained, albeit at great cost. But there was a difference between contained and destroyed. The last time he had faced the Abyss, he had failed, only being spared by an unlikely twist of fate. But this task was his, and his alone. He could not continue, could not even live with himself, knowing that he had let others complete the task assigned to him while he hid like a coward. With a deep breath, he stepped across the rickety bridge into the city proper.
The ghosts were the first thing he saw, as they rose up from the ground all around him, whispers of failure, of betrayal, surrounding him on all sides. A single swing of his greatsword, cursed by his failure, put them to rest. Artorias was respectively silent as he shouldered his greatsword before marching onwards. Stairs which were far too narrow for a man his size to ascend barred his path, but their switchbacking nature made it simple to climb them in an unintended manner - simply stepping on one switchback, and then the other, and finally on the top platform - once a room, the Wolf Knight suspected, now reduced to an open area with a few chunks of shattered wall remaining - where more ghosts waited. Once more, the remnants were banished by a single wide sweep of his greatsword, dissolving into mist.
And now Artorias faced the first true obstacle. While New Londo had been built with some degree of traversability allowed to the rooftops, the paths across and through them were built for men. The opening to the bridge ahead, the bridge itself, and the doorway of room it led to were all far too small for Artorias to fit through with any measure of comfortability, as was, he suspected, the room that lay beyond. And so, the Wolf Knight was forced to improvise, sprinting towards the too-small path at a dead run. He managed to fit one foot through the opening, and that was all he needed to push himself up into a leap which deposited him safely on the rooftop of that building.
From a high vantage point, the city of New Londo appeared even more of a mess than it had even from the ground moments ago. Artorias could clearly see all of the holes in walls, all the partially destroyed or completely missing roofs, and most of all the endless cracks that laced through every piece of stone in the city. The dank gloom, as well as mold and mildew covering walls below what the water level had been, covered the city in its entirety. Artorias watched patiently as Tarkus and Ornstein methodically hacked and stabbed their way through several waves of Darkwraiths, following them across the rooftops until, just as he had been warned, Ornstein's wood-hafted spear was cleaved in two by a darkwraith's attack. Ornstein managed to dispatch his current opponent with half a spear, and Artorias took his chance, wordlessly catching Ornstein's attention with a wave, before tossing him the bundle and taking up his greatsword once again. Ornstein looked up in curiosity, but Artorias didn't allow the lion knight a chance to discover his identity, instead leaping away with incredible haste, landing in a crouch on another rooftop, out of sight of the dragonslayer. Now that his first task was addressed, Artorias had only a single mission in the city - the four kings. He knew the exact location of the cellar into which the abyss had creeped - once the prison of New Londo, now replaced with an endless black void. The wolf knight made a beeline for the tower in question, only to find- with some frustration - that this entrance, too, was far too small for him. Artorias sighed in resignation, breaking the entrance wider with his greatsword. The one-armed wolf checked that the ring of his covenant was placed firmly on his finger, alongside his wolf-seal ring, and stepped off the edge, dropping down through the tower into the black void below.
The void was cold, almost freezing, and shockingly empty. Artorias knew, in his mind, that he was still falling, but it felt to him as if his feet were firmly planted on some invisible surface - he could step, and he would move a step in this strange null space - not that it mattered, without a point of reference. Still, this area was nothing like the chasm that he had expected.
The wolf knight was snapped out of his line of thought by a flash of grey light in the distance - the materialization of one of the four kings. It was a twisted form, Artorias noted, but retained a sense of grace and regality to it... that seemed wrong, somehow. He had seen what the abyss did, to himself, to Manus and the inhabitants of Oolacile. None of them had retained any measure of this grace as they had become corrupted. Indeed, the king seemed almost surreal as Artorias watched it glide towards him menacingly - only to discover, as it closed in and vanished, that it was nothing but an illusion. It made sense when Artorias began to think about it - everyone, none of whom had been present in New Londo as it had begun to slide into the Abyss, claimed that the four kings had dragged them down. However, Artorias realized that only one of them, Jar-Eel, had even been undead, much less corrupted by Kaathe. In reality, there would only be one king in this Abyss.
Artorias ignored another flash, indicating the appearance of another twisted king who vanished soon after, instead trying to spot the real man in this void.
"Jar-Eel! Show yourself!" The wolf knight demanded, his voice echoing across the void. No reply came except the appearance of another false king. In anger, Artorias lashed out with his greatsword, slashing through the illusion and causing it to burst into grey light. At this, an ominous chuckle sounded through the abyss.
'So the famed wolf knight finally comes to finish his mission..." A deep, twisted voice sounded across the void. It had a sound of metal grating on metal, and echoed in a booming fashion, resounding multiple times across the void before finally fading.
"Face me, you bastard," Artorias growled, raising his sword and spinning slowly, trying to ascertain which direction Jar-Eel would come from.
"Me, a creature of the abyss, face the legendary abyss walker? One of the most renowned swordsmen in history, only ever bested in combat one single time... I hear its what cost you that arm. Still... who am I to refuse a challenge? A bit of fun before you fall to the embrace of the abyss once more..." Artorias shook his head, firmly denying that he would fall again. The statement lacked conviction - even as he spoke, he could feel the darkness pressing in, eating away at his soul. There was only so much time he could spend down here.
A sudden shout from above shocked Artorias as a man his own height dressed in twisted and mangled dark bronze armor dropped on him from out of nowhere. Expecting an attack from a horizontal plane, Artorias was caught off-guard, and Jar-Eel's dark hand found his throat, tacking him to the nonexistent ground and sending his sword spinning away into the darkness. The wolf knight felt the dark burning through his body as Jar-Eel's corrupting hand clutched his throat, and desperately tried to remove the corrupted king with his single arm. As he felt his life draining away, he remembered Raven's words, all those years ago.
"Lifedrain doesn't - can't - choose what to take, nor can its wielder. Only the victim, by deciding what is most valuable to them, can choose what the dark hand will steal. If your life matters more than anything, you'll die - if humanity, you'll lose it, souls are the same. The dark hand can be tricked, though, into taking exactly what you want. It's as simple as trying to guard that part of you above any other..."
Artorias changed his struggle - instead of trying to keep Jar-Eel's hand off of him physically, he fought to seal away a specific part of him - the darkness slowly creeping up on his soul - so that Jar-Eel could not take it. Instantly, he felt that part of him ripped away, cleansed, and Jar-Eel recoiled as his art of Lifedrain backfired. Artorias spun to his feet immediately, rolling towards the direction in which his sword had been thrown. The wolf knight snatched the blade where it hung seemingly immobile in the void, spinning to face the undead king, who growled.
"Figures that someone would have taught you that trick," Jar-Eel commented, "So I guess I'll do this the old-fashioned way!" The king raised his hand, glowing a sickly white as he held it aloft, before slamming it downwards. A storm of abyssal darkness exploded outwards, humanity sprites, dark beads, and pursuers all being simultaneously thrown towards the wolf knight. Artorias calmly stared into the onslaught, and felt a subtle warmth as his silver pendant activated on his neck, deflecting every last spell thrown at him and causing them to dissipate back into the void. Jar-Eel roared in fury as, once again, the tools of the abysswalker denied him his victory.
"None of your tricks will work, Jar-Eel. You'll have to face me blade-to-blade," Artorias told him calmly, raising his greatsword once more in a defensive stance.
"I hope you remember, wolf knight, that those who live by the sword... die by it!" Jar-Eel dashed forwards with superhuman speed, slashing at Artorias with his curved greatsword. Artorias blocked the first strike, a low right uppercut, and dragged Jar-Eel's sword up and around his body until Artorias' greatsword was underneath his own blade. Artorias immediately slashed back in the other direction, attempting to cut Jar-Eel in two, but the undead king caught the blade on his rippling shield of darkness. Artorias drew back to deflect a strike high and left, slamming his sword down on top of Jar-Eel's own blade to his right. As he pinned the sword, Artorias elected to kick the king in the chest rather than attack with his own blade, sending Jar-Eel sprawling backwards while holding his blade in place. The result was the immediate disarmament of the undead king. Artorias left the sword where it was, seemingly hanging in the air, as he stepped up to Jar-Eel's prone form.
"I find that quite true," Artorias stated, looking at the undead king, "And it seems that you've held your blade a time too many." Artorias raised his sword in a feint for a long overhead strike, and watched as Jar-Eel reflexively raised his hand to form a shield with the energy of Lifedrain. Artorias immediately adjusted his strike to become a downwards thrust, slamming into Jar-Eel's left hand and throwing a blinding white flash across the void as the shield of dark energies shattered. Artorias casually pinned Jar-Eel's left hand down with his foot, raising his blade once more.
"Please..." the undead king begged, "spare me..." Artorias shook his head.
"I'm sorry, my friend... but I cannot break the oath I swore." The wolf knight rammed his sword down. As he did, the black void vanished along with Jar-Eel, and Artorias found himself falling again, this time with a point of reference. The floor of a large, empty cavern rushed up to greet him. Artorias braced himself, landing in a dive roll to minimize impact. It worked, saving him from broken legs or worse. He heard steel clatter to the ground beside him - the sword of Jar-Eel. It was about the right size, he reckoned, to make a good gift for Sif. He rammed his own sword into the ground before picking Jar-Eel's up and placing it on his back. Then, as he was about to withdraw his own sword once again, he noticed something. The blade gleamed white, untainted and untarnished as it had once been. His defeat of Jar-Eel had lifted the curse placed on it by his failure in Oolacile. He smiled as he took up the familiar blade.
Then, he noticed something in the cavern which made his mirth at victory vanish. The primordial serpent, Darkstalker Kaathe, was waiting expectantly at the far side of the chamber. Artorias approached the serpent slowly.
"Greetings Undead Warrior... I am the Primordial Serpent Darkstalker Kaathe, -"
"I know who you are," Artorias growled as he raised his sword. His posture induced a nervous swallow in the primordial serpent. The pair stared each other down for a stretched moment. Then, without further warning, Artorias lunged.
Kaathe screamed in pain.
AN: And there you go. I dropped a few hints for what is to come across this chapter, but it's really placing the conclusion to Artorias' arc at the beginning of the arc. I was going to put it off for longer, but a few people (shout out to Mihairu7) showed me the logic of putting it in here. As a result, you get this chapter now, as well as a rather rapid update.