Chapter 35

Assassin


X Assassination X

Nimble feet alighted atop the blackened, broken surface of frozen Skinblight, coming to rest without any sign of slippage. The first man, crouched against the driving winds and smokey, sulfurous stench of the arctic winds, touched his ear and said to himself, "We're close. On your mark, everyone."

Silence answered his quiet words, while the second man finished his ascent beside him. This man's boots, made of delicately molded leather inlaid with mithril plates, made soft scrapes that were lost to the wind for anyone besides the first man. He was panting yet not nearly as hard as one should after running miles in a full plate regalia.

Without touching his ear, Thomas remarked, "I'm surprised to see you keeping up."

"Kindly go fuck yourself, General," said Commander Raeloth, collapsing into a kneel at his right. "I may have never ranged, but you don't make a Second-Rank Spell-Breaker without learning a proper sprinting buff."

Thomas snorted up a lungful of icy wind. "You call that sprinting? You should see what SI:7 does to its rogues."

"Oh, here we go again. Mr. I-Have-No-Mana-And-I-Must-"

"In position," whispered a cool voice into their ears. Thomas and Raeloth halted their banter instantly, falling back into proper motions.

Raeloth touched his ear, brushing the marble-sized gem nestled inside with his thumb. "Alright, lads. You know what we're hunting. I don't want any more casualties over this, so if you're name doesn't begin with Thomas the fucking Swiftblade, I damn well better not catch you trying to engage it."

The twosome looked at each other, nodded, then scrambled down the jagged bluff, back into the torn up plains.

The Exilee were fleeing. While the army kept better form than most, the terrain made it impossible to maintain their pristine ranks, breaking them into loose, vulnerable teams scattered across the wastes. The land they tread was black as pitch, complementing the ebony sky, leaving them pallid specks of light against the dark. The Skinless roamed unseen among the blackness, surrounding the disparate bands, strangling them. Fingers of boiled tar quenched the dim stars one by one, consuming whole bands of the Exilee or their allies like an amorphous entity swallowing the night sky.

But for the enemy, that was not enough. As if to prove that their progress was nothing more than a mere indulgence on Ghat'Nothos' part, that it could smother them whole at any time it wished but was delaying only to prolong their suffering, the enemy had also deployed Singing Blades among the hellish wastes. The exact number was unsure, but at least one of the Worldslayers hunted their ranks at its own leisurely pace.

Thomas found that unacceptable.

A human's lifespan, since he was sixteen years old, had been spent selling murder to those he found worthy. An orphan raised in Elwynn poverty did not have issues slipping a piece of sharp metal between the ribs of some big-shot human comfortable on his throne. But sometimes it wasn't a human face on his contract; sometimes it was a local gnoll boss moving too close to a community. Sometimes it was a jungle cat with a taste for goblin flesh. Sometimes it was a dragon, emboldened by isolation within its roost. Sometimes, even, it was an immense gronn, sitting surely on the top of its food chain, all too inconsiderate of the little human scurrying about its feet.

Between the teachings of Merridan and the narrow focus of SI:7, Thomas lived his life proud of the contracts he chose to fulfill. The blood money left no mark on his conscious. There were things in this world that needed killing, and for a bit of gold, he didn't mind being the one to see it done.

This time, no one had handed Thomas his contract. He didn't have a shiny, clinking reward waiting at its end. Starting with that fateful day where Thomas had offered to guide the Sunfury blood elves back home – or even before that, as he hunted the Cabal to extinction – the nature of his services had changed. His reasons had changed. His titles had changed. But the methods?

Thomas had signed the hit with his own shaky hand.

WANTED DEAD, Singing Blade...

With two careful folds, Thomas had slipped the paper in his usual pocket and pulled together his team. His whole life, Thomas had been selling murder – human, inhuman, it made no difference to him. As he had told Baelin Drekthac before, he spent his time hunting monsters, no matter their shape. That's just who he was. Of all the titles he'd ever been given – rogue, agent, thief, murderer, champion, hero, ranger, Ranger-General – there was only one that ever fit perfectly.

Assassin.

"Target found," hissed Raeloth, touching the gem in his ear. "Everyone, close in. Engaging now."

Thomas turned his body mid-run, falling shoulder-first into the deep shadows around the jutting stone before him. The world went true black, swallowing Thomas whole, and then rushed back a moment later with the darkened shroud of his enemy's back. Already, the cloaked figure was turning, the whistling end of its scythe blade arcing backwards straight for his gut.

To his ears, the blade screamed its path and position. Without even a disdainful glance, Thomas gracefully turned his momentum right, his daggers still descending, and he scored the first hit, sinking the biting teeth of his metal into the thing's broad back and ripping outwards as he passed.

Acid blood sprayed vengefully, and the other scythe began to menace him from the front, crying murder around its haunted blade. Thomas' form blurred in response, surrounded in evasive shadows, as he pitched low to the Skinblight soil. He struck with his off-hand, still streaming black blood from its ashen blade, but the gesture was futile. Dark, oily light began to gather between them, and just barely did Thomas throw a second layer of shadows around him – this one thick and purple – and the spell passed him by in a brilliant storm of color but little effect.

Recovering his feet was done in a wild exchange of blows, sending strangely colored sparks in the air as their weapons met and parried. Immediately, Thomas found himself disadvantaged. Though the double-ended scythe was a cumbersome weapon, it was wielded with supernatural grace and ease – as he had known in his last engagement with a Singing Blade – and only two of the creature's four arms were used in its assault. The remaining two continued to weave spells unceasingly.

His Cloak of Shadows faded as he rolled outside of a wild swing, leaving him undefended against the bubbling wave of green descending fast upon him. Frantically, Thomas threw himself aside, raising his off-hand – Jerath's ashblade – but the liquid continued smoothly, splashing over his left arm and immediately burning into his armor.

Thomas cursed. He carried with him four daggers – his regular two and two ashblades, being Jerath's and Deynora's. However, while the blades had spell-breaking properties, it appeared they weren't good against those of physical manifestation. The Singing Blade would know that already. A second later, as the whistling scythe returned for him, Thomas noticed the acid peeling off his arm as if by magic, revealing the sturdy leather of his armor beneath.

Raeloth had caught up.

Abruptly, Ghat'Nothos' assassin lost its footing, flung several feet into the air by a harsh levitation spell, and Thomas gouged deep into its chest at the opportunity. The distorted, confusing appearance of its black skin took sudden shape in the dim lighting as someone cast Sin's anathema, taking from it Ghat'Nothos' magic.

Thomas knew he could not beat one by himself. Well, perhaps he could, but not with certainty. Fortunately, he didn't have to. He had chosen his team carefully, seeking to fill the absence of the power-houses he had battled beside before – that of King Malthon Eyenhart, who fought as the Lord of Light, or of Baelin Drekthac, the Dragon of the Ymirjar, fiercer and more deadly than the beasts he plundered the name from. Thomas knew from their exodus that none in the Exilee could yet fill the shoes of those able to challenge a Singing Blade in the flesh, but a blade didn't need many hands to find the killing stroke. Only the right circumstances.

Ungrounded, wounded, cut from its enormous power boon, the Singing Blade remained entirely unshaken, responding with lethal efficiency. Thomas was forced to retreat from its screaming weapon, and then the magical might of an eredar spell-weaver expressed disdain for the mortal interlopers. For Thomas, there was nothing to do but trust in the spell-breaking ability of Raeloth and the Ashblades.

As he readied himself for the next assault, a bolt the size of a vrykul arrow impaled the stitched, blackened hide of the creature a hairsbreadth from its oiled scales. The bolt was charged with arcane power, blasting a hole thicker than just the thrumming wood, and the tumbling creature roared. Thomas recognized the arrow as surely as he did its effects; Ranger Lord Merridan Twilwing, his friend Buck, had given him another window of opportunity.

A turn, slick as shadows, left Thomas behind the flailing creature, its arching back helpless to the plunging knife. He twisted, pulled, and lost his grip on the hilt as microfiliments of black fleshstuff wrapped tiny tendrils around the metal unexpectedly, trying to draw it back into the broken skin, clinging greedily to the ashen blade. Thomas perceived the eldrich response in adrenaline-addled slow-time, marveling boorishly for the barest fraction of a second at the peculiarity, then coolly released the dagger once its blade was ripped free, sending the metal flying in sluggish arcs upwards amidsts the acid spray of Skinless blood.

For a moment, Thomas wondered humorously if the next bolt from Merridan would take him through the back for the stunt as he also sent his off-hand dagger spinning upwards, each rotation marked by the faint swish, swish, swish of its thin point splitting air. Perception was always different for one of Thomas' sort, placing each and every object around him in a perfect map by only their sounds, plainer and clearer than his own eyes could match. Presently, he was stepping backwards, dangerously close to the path of the enemy's weapon that wailed and cried out its exact place in his world, while drawing his remaining daggers.

Juggling, as Thomas called it, was a favored pastime of his that Merridan long-thought beaten out of his stubborn head. However, it was a practice buried, not forgotten. For an enemy with four arms constantly shifting their hold of a double-ended weapon, Thomas thought it worthwhile to engage it with four daggers. The siren song of the scythe trailed short, just past his body, then curved back with a new lungful of sound.

Thomas' left dagger caught the blade – enough to maneuver, not parry – and he slipped in for a boring strike with the second ashblade that split the scales with supernatural ease. Both twirling daggers were still airborne, the first reaching its peak, when Thomas stopped resisting the coming scythe and used its force to push right. The buried ashblade moved with him, tearing an ugly furrow through the scales, and then was similarly left spiraling free as he released it.

His acrobatics found their failing as the speckled ebon blade continued lusting for his flesh, unimpressed by his display of using it as a springboard of force. Thomas tracked his daggers, the enemy's arms, the budding spells, and then dispersed through the shadows to the exact place behind it.

The singing scythe whistled quiet, breathed in, and screamed his way again.

In that same time, Thomas had already begun reaching for the first falling ashblade, hidden in a fine mist of acid blood leaving the grab awkward. However, barely a drop touched his glove as Thomas caught hold and ducked back, pulling free of the cocoon of falling blood, and began resolving his next course of attack with the blade. The second dagger, that which was his, had reached its peak. One of the enemy's four hands had seemingly fused into a flat blade of fingers, and it was darting quietly in its own intercepting path. The blind enemy maintained its perceptions no differently than Thomas.

Time passed oddly in this state. The oily distortion along the Singing Blade's skin was beginning anew along its left shoulder, crawling slowly outwards, and he nearly wondered why it seemed his supporting mages had gone silent before remembering that barely three seconds had passed in the current exchange. Shadows still clung to his skin and soul, the lingering backwash from stepping through them that needed to fully dissipate before he dared to pass again. It only took a handful of seconds for the Shadow to fade, yet each one carried a high price in this engagement.

Thomas met the thrusting hand with his dagger, intent on cleaving it through. His plan was a success, yet as his body was devoted to the motion of stepping farther in to make another wound with the other, he realized that the split through his enemy's arm was not a triumphant cut but rather like the natural split between fingers, widening up its palm, wrist, and forearm with morbid ease, the sharpened points of the tips still poised for the meat of his hip. He knew beyond doubt that those fingers would pierce his heavily enchanted leather like wet parchment; he'd seen it done enough through the heaviest Ymirjar plate.

However, his body was already committed, and a change in momentum was too slow a response, and the greedy Shadow was slow to fully relinquish him back to the materiel world, preventing him from another escape. His breath hitched with fear, then resolve as he braced for the pain. At least the sharpened fingers were not nothonium to claim his soul at the wound.

The pain did not come. As though a furious man had hooked him by his cloaked and yanked back, Thomas felt himself wrenched from his doomed path backwards, just outside of the reaching nails, and he slid without grace over the arctic Skinblight in attempt to regain himself.

Thomas panted in the wake, his mind frantic after the narrow save. Merridan, he presumed, still glowering with rage at the resumed juggling. Speaking of, he noticed the second dagger was halfway fallen, too low and distant to catch, while the second ashblade was approaching its apex.

Anathema crashed into the Singing Blade, wiping it anew but with less effect than the first. Three Ashblade arrows soared in, but two were deflected by an arcane shell and the third glanced off its scales. The previous rends in its natural armor were already beginning to seal, the adamantium fleshstuff flowing together as though water. On his fourth exhale, Thomas felt the final clinging touch of the Shadow leave him.

He Shadow-Stepped.

Thomas ended the movement not behind the Singing Blade, where two of its arms were waiting with sly menace, but to its immediate right, ducked low as if fallen, and he hamstrung the creature unabashedly, swinging wide after to spray its blood away, also flicking the dagger away to catch the other ashblade. His other dagger thumped hilt-first against the Skinblight, clattering against the ice with roaring touches.

It was still clattering, clang after clang, when Thomas ripped another deep cut in the leg and flipped the acid-soaked dagger away. Its sound was a honing beacon as he dodged the first counter-attack, kicking at its good leg in retaliation and using the tail-end of his momentum to scoop the rattling knife. Though still low and without opportunity to attack, Thomas relished the feeling of holding both his daggers again, tracking the falling ashblades by sound, and he began to rise outside the path of the oncoming scythe blade, dipping low with its back-blade.

However, while Thomas was not in position to attack, his allies had no such trouble. Black-flecked ice sprayed upwards as another levitation spell ripped the thing's footing from it, unintentionally spraying its troublesome blood in every direction from its many wounds, but Thomas placed his trust in Raeloth's protection and dove straight in, this time hacking out a slab of thick neck sinew. While the ashblades were good for ignoring spelled defenses, Thomas' special blades had their own enhancements. Flesh was ripped out in chunks by the smooth blade, meant to obliterate a heart in a single thrust rather than hemorrhage it. The similarity between his daggers and Merridan's blasting arrows was no accident.

Thomas felt the air ripple with the creature's scream at that wound, but no spell was laced in the sound. At least, no spell remained in the sound; Raeloth's ironclad authority over magic was expressed subtly but powerfully. Paying it no further mind, he threw one dagger towards the open mouth, where it would lodge point-first if the creature didn't move, and promptly caught the first ashblade in a reverse hold already descending for another score. He hit, feeling the blood oozing, but noticed too late that perhaps Raeloth's authority was merely fucking paperclad.

He pulled around him the Cloak of Shadows, but his stomach was already swimming with sickly sensations from the spell that sank through. Bile choked up his throat, a metallic flavor exploding through his mouth in a unsettling foretaste, and then he retched blood into his mask, losing sight for the barest moment.

The world of sound burst into reality then. Staggering Thomas was in path of the descending nothonium blade, arcing from over the enemy's head mid-tumble from the levitation. His spread feet left only one true path out of the scythe, but he saw a fel-encased fist thundering down towards him from that same angle, destined to hit him if he moved or didn't. Still choking on the burning taste of bloody vomit, Thomas leaned himself towards the approaching scythe and crossed his daggers in preparation for a heavy parry.

Heavy did not describe it. The scythe hit without even the slightest drop in momentum, an unstoppable force pining for his mortal flesh. His block pushed him backwards, back into the path of the fist clenching an unknown spell, but Thomas found fortune when his feet did not lose their steadiness in sliding. Kicking off the ground, he spun upwards, daringly close to the Singing Blade's body. The desperate maneuver saved him from both the scythe and the fist, but it left him unready for the third arm that hammered against his belly from an unprepared angle.

Thomas hit the ground hard, his stunned mind losing focus of everything for a precious few seconds. His Cloak of Shadows prevented another save from his allies, leaving his already rolling body ease prey for the taloned foot that slid through his armor and into his back. The spike that should have been a hard nail squirmed inside him, wracking havoc to his innards, burrowing like a parasitic worm through his flesh.

He dropped the Cloak and was rescued in a storm of arcane pushes and pulls, crying out as the talon shlurped out of its gushing home. The rescue sent him sliding away again, ending him on on one knee. Already healing spells would be started for him, its certainty ensured by Raeloth's aggressive spell-breaking against the enemy's curses. Thomas forced himself past the debilitating pain to lurch forward again, ready to meet the Singing Blade head on again.

The moment after the first healing spell crashed through him, Thomas nearly froze up. His fine hearing managed to catch the furious Thalassian whisper, "Gods fucking damn it," from nearly a hundred yards away. Before him, the Singing Blade showed Thomas the caught daggers, holding them with the weapon that named it.

"This is why. This is fucking why," Merridan continued to himself, accompanied by the creak of his massive longbow. "Gonna box his fucking ears off."

Thomas showed a grim smile at the doom, mostly at the peculiarity of his ears picking up those angry sounds while the others remained beyond his immediate perception. He pushed himself back into the charge as the heavy bolt hit the creature and the tremendous twang reached his ears nearly simultaneously. Despite taking the blasting bolt directly in its head, just beside its presumed ear, his enemy barely staggered, its neck bent and twisted around like an over-wrung rag. The coils of flesh began to writhe.

They engaged in another spray of sparks as metal scraped metal. Navigating the three armed hands, when his opponent was both stronger and faster, proved less of a burden than Thomas expected, for no longer was the enemy able to change the scythe between hands as easily. Also recognizing this, the Singing Blade finished its maneuvers with a near SI:7 textbook Mutilate, clipping Thomas' wrist with the ashblade, then threw them both aside as the nothonium scythe flowed from one blade's strike into the other.

Thomas' daggers were airborne again, marked by their unique sounds, but moving away in fast arcs rather than the managable lopes of his juggling. Employing shadow tricks, Thomas managed to disengage and retreat, fleeing after the one that was his, and instinct had him throwing blinding powder back at the enemy's eyeless face. He realized the futility with a bark of laughter as he caught the dagger after it rebounded off a black slab of broken earth, jumping up to propel himself off its geometrically perfect flatness and outside of the swing of the Singing Blade close behind.

Mid-fall, Thomas committed himself to a double thrust of his daggers, knowing he was in-path of its response. His muscles complained at the speed he was forcing them, timed against the lightning reflexes of his opponent, and still his daggers had only penetrated half of their blades when he Shadow-Stepped away. The hideously forged scythe blade had been a needle's width from touching his armor when he escaped.

Thomas caught and sheathed the other ashblade, and his free hand was raising a vial of swiftthistle tea to his blood-drenched lips when he noticed the enemy similarly vanish from its place, filling his vision with its filthy blackness and already mid-swing. Although he was never flat-footed, let alone caught as such, the expression applied as Thomas gawked at his assailant's reply. His right dagger was hovering listlessly from where he released it to catch the ashblade, ready to be caught in its descent once he swallowed the tea, and his over-taut muscles did not have the spring to suddenly take him away.

The response that saved Thomas was not immediate or punctual, but it came nevertheless with the Singing Blade a scarce moment from claiming his life. Some quick-thinking harasser must have had the levitation spell half-spoken, for the hungering enemy was suddenly thrust back in a graceless backflip, its scythe screaming by Thomas' face in frustrated failure. The spell was cut short by the enemy's own machinations, but Thomas already had his mouthful by then, and his body automatically finished the motions, catching his right dagger again. He swallowed. The effects were immediate.

Swiftthistle tea, in small doses, had a variety of harmless uses. A smashed drunkard might find himself sharpened to near sobriety. Soldiers after a hard march would be suddenly rested and even eager for a night incursion. Lovers could eliminate the time between rounds, keeping busy as rabbits. Many of the elderly that were energetic and spry could be explained by the thorny thistle in their gardens. In high doses, athletes crushed their competition in sudden bursts of inexplicable energy. Scouts could cover vast distances without even winding themselves. Nightwatch needed no sleep, and those that could keep still were often twice as alert.

Assassins, after a potent batch, were soon to leave their marks a gory mess of broken pieces. To drink swiftthistle was often the mark of forsaking subtlety, trusting the hyper-alertness and inexhaustible energy for such a savage assault that even hardened veterans of war could not possibly withstand it.

Against such a foe, the Singing Blade merely found itself matched. Sparks showered and sprayed in a firestorm. No longer was Thomas' every hit defined by elaborate gambits, instead aggressively deflecting the opposing strikes and ripping chunks from its body. Just once he was scratched by the nothonium scythe, accepting the howling blade's touch to carve a massive hole through its hulking chest. His skin peeled away from the thin slice, eaten by black phages until his arm looked chewed upon by wild beasts, and the gems studding the dark blade glowed brightly at the meal, its song screaming triumph. Anathema must be cast upon him before that wound could be healed.

The swiftthistle-enhanced exchange was furious, violent, and utterly short-lived. In only a handful of seconds the artificial energy was expended, his heart hammering unrepentant at the need to recuperate. Thomas' whole body ached in the wake, especially around the joints, but there was no reprieve to be had against this opponent. Fortunately, while the Singing Blade was yet to die, the wounds gained under the tea remained extensive and slow to heal. The creature was a juggernaut of flesh, its flesh rent and torn like a dwarven tank after cannonshot yet still moving unwaveringly.

Briefly, Thomas was left fighting one-handed, but in time his allies bathed him in a deluge of pungent and nauseating anathema, then healed the maimed arm. Soon after the recovery, the Singing Blade made its first martial mistake, one arm just slightly over-extended his way, and Thomas scissored off the limb at the wrist. He'd seen such wounds heal in seconds in prior battles, but combined with its other grievous injuries and deprived of Ghat'Nothos' blessings, the stump remained an acid-spurting mess.

Bit by bit, Thomas claimed more and more of his foe. An arm, its foot, once a short-lived decapitation. Each time, the wounds healed less favorably. Tentacles would burst from stumps, catching its footing, then ebon bones like stub-legs. Twice the Singing Blade sought to catch Thomas in magical explosions – the first rolling harmlessly over the Cloak of Shadows, the second a physical conjuring of thorny Skinblight meant to impale everything in the area, which a quick Shadow-Step narrowly avoided. Both attempts left his opponent more damaged than himself, and it was finally apparent that victory was in Thomas' grasps.

First came its attempt to escape. A frantic, screaming, half-mad Lorrin Foxfire snapped shut every rip in the ley lines. When it sought to run, Thomas proved his early banter with Raeloth when Sprinting after it, stepping through the shadows when it Blinked. Like wolves at its heels, the Singing Blade was harried and run down, where finally it resolved to die with him.

The acid blood became the true threat then. In cold, calculating decisions, the suicidal eredar began to employ blood magic, drawing out its own perverse life force in reckless attacks able to consume Thomas to the bones in only a single splash. Thomas knew nearly nothing about the rare school of magic, but by the horrific success of its spellwork, he was quick to assume that it was a school stronger than Raeloth's spell-breaking. Commands and advice were screamed in his ear by his two lead collaborators – Buck and Raeloth – but neither them nor Saela's priestly shields could save his left hand from being melted away.

Moments later, two elves smashed into the fray. There was Commander Raeloth, leaping at blinding speeds from a broken block of land and crashing against the ruined body of their enemy in a staggering display of swordsmanship. Second was a Blood Knight, whom must have been Flenadar – the intercessory figure meant to pray a divine shield around Thomas when the Singing Blade's death throes began – and he charged the fiend with a glowing shield already around him, immune to the acid.

Of all the Exilee, Raeloth was the best at arms. A blade master and spell-breaker turned captain, now commander, he was a hero amongst his kin, one who survived the dark days of Kael'thas' fall by his own skills and genius. Those who had followed him in the aftermath, such as Maloree, now stood as captains in their own right. Despite Raeloth's many feats and skills, Thomas knew the commander could not stand long against even this wounded Singing Blade. Even where his skills were enough, his arms and armor did not have the enchantments needed to low this thing.

Sucking in a hurting breath, Thomas forced himself through the cold shadows once more, leaping onto the blood-drenched back with only one hand ready. He scored a deep stroke along its neck, nearly decapitating it, before the magic-controlled blood sprayed his way in a lashing whip. His quick drop left his knees and elbow slick with armor-eating acid, but there was no time to spare that attention.

Thomas hamstrung the creature, saw Raeloth's fire-glowing sword bounce futilely off the black-green scales, and he whistled shortly, throwing his dagger Raeloth's way. The fel green eyes gleamed bright with realization, throwing back his sword to catch the blood-damaged dagger, and he reengaged in earnest. Thomas drew his other, watching Flenador's Light-infused weapon stagger their enemy with each blinding swing, and he urged the Blood Knight to retreat before his divine shield fell.

The following engagement proceeded clumsily, with Thomas focused firmly on saving Raeloth from the attacks that would otherwise cripple the commander, but the elf's own swings sang a song of cut wind to rival that of the scythe, slicing stroke after stroke into the hideous, undying body until the blasting-enchantment finally melted off the runed blade.

Flenador began his retreat, the golden shield dissipating when he was a dozen yards away, while Thomas and Raeloth fought together in a swirl of blood, anathema, and flashing blades. The two mortals were screaming their hate and defiance when the Singing Blade finally gave up its life in an explosion of blood, flinging the devouring liquid in every direction. Thomas escaped through the shadows, and he found Raeloth protected by a flat wall of gold light. Their enemy collapsed between them, long limbs falling gracelessly, and the howling weapon finally grew quiet as its roughly-shaped blade sank point-first into the frozen Skinblight.

Thomas and Raeloth panted after, looking at each other with wide eyes, desperately searching for proof that it was over. The elation died a short death at the sound of a terrible crack, a precursor for the approaching death rite. Even deprived of its blood by the wicked magics, it seemed this foe was not to depart without its customary ceremony. Raeloth and Thomas immediately turned to flee, the commander beginning to layer himself in protective magics, while Thomas was glad to see the bubble of Divine Intervention settle firmly over him.

Once turned, Thomas' flight was stopped short by the sight of his protector, Flenador, standing mere feet from him – hand still raised from the paladin-stolen spell. The Blood Knight was too close to the Singing Blade, and by the grim smile, he seemed to realize that too.

The horrible snaps of the body behind them gained ferocity, catalyzing the oncoming explosion. Under the chilling sounds was Flenador's voice, picked up by Thomas' trained ears, saying, "The blade. Retrieve the blade, sir."

Thomas turned, seeing the scythe still standing innocuously beside the twisted corpse. They were meant to claim it and break it, to free the countless souls devoured by that ugly metal. Thomas looked back, mind racing with possibilities. Just as he decided to forsake the blade and throw himself before the man, shielding him with the indestructible aegis, he found the knight being hooked by magic and pulled away as Thomas once had. One of their allies also realized the situation and was reacting. Yet the gesture was futile, only succeeding in taking Flenador too far from Thomas to successfully block.

The shadows clinging tightly to his soul reminded him he could not yet Shadow-Step after him, but even as Thomas began to Sprint, he saw a portal successfully rip open a handful of yards away. A mob of Sightless poured through, fighting each other in a hurry to retrieve the scythe.

Heart twisted, Thomas found his body moving by instinct towards the Sightless, his next step angled back towards the corpse of the Singing Blade, and he began to race them back. Flenador, behind, was left to die.

In three steps, Thomas lost sight of the world. Light blinded him, and the roaring explosion wiped clean his entire perception of the greater world. Through completely untouched by the death rite, his feet stumbled at the sudden lack of ground beneath him, dropping once, then twice to new ground, and still he ran where he thought was forwards, knowing the blade would remain as unaffected and untouched as the Sightless somewhere beside him, presently guided by some extrasensory, Ghat'Nothos-blessed perception that humans did not have to the scythe's current place.

The light burning against his eyelids finally began to die from its angry red to dimmer blacks, and Thomas opened his light-seared eyes to a pale world of white mist that was equal parts snow and acid. His ears rang, still mute to the greater world, as he ran several more blinded steps. Slowly, his senses began to reboot, and he heard distant footfalls that took several sluggish moments for him to realize were his own. Next came the scratching and pounding of another, and he fought to place the Sightless in the white world. Murky shapes began to form around him – jagged, geometrically-perfect blocks of broken earth, clumps of mist more acid than water, then finally the retreating silhouettes of the Sightless. They had the scythe.

In the final few seconds of his shield, Thomas felt the last of the shadows slip away, and he saw a flash of the doomed Flenadar's face as he was pulled away before gritting his teeth past it. He Shadow-Stepped, still with only one arm and dagger, and fell upon the Sightless mob.

By the time the divine shield fell, plunging Thomas into a painful world of fine acid mist in every direction, he had slain the leader and reclaimed the scythe with his only hand. He struggled to fight with it on his way out, but the double-bladed pole was neither a staff nor a plain scythe and was cumbersome and useless in his grip. The nothonium tip scrapped off a scaled hide, its other blade nearly hooking Thomas through the leg accidentally, but then he leapt free of them and began to flee. His body was wet with the mist, wracking him with slow decay as he fled for his life.

The Cloak of Shadows and Evasion saved him from the reaching tentacles and spells, but it was still several dozen yards before Thomas cleared the fallout, running back to the dark world with the stormy sky and blackened land. He saw no trace of the pale specks that marked his fellows' faces, but he continued running under the agony in hopes that he would be found. His heart, pounding dangerously fast from everything, managed to flip horribly as he saw several more portals rip open before him.

Despair turned to adrenaline-aided bloodlust when the first flash of Light fell upon him like a cold rain, soothing away the burning pains of the acid. He turned and saw Saela, hands bright with divine magicks, and before her was their val'kyr already swooping his way. The black-winged angel roared out the runic spells of the vrykul as herald for her coming, and when her large fist finally clamped down upon Thomas' shoulder, black light exploded through him with a fire hotter and more painful than the acid blood. Yet in the wake, hissing and wild-eyed, Thomas found his left hand restored, fingers clenching and limber.

The scythe was tossed to the val'kyr's waiting hands, and then Thomas drew his two remaining daggers, the ashblades of Jerath and Deynora. Black splinters and globs of acid hurled their way, but a shield protected the undead woman in her retreating flight. Now healed, Thomas spun back and waited for the Sightless – ready, willing, and prepared to fight.

He spat the final taste of blood from his mouth and grinned beneath the mask, a gesture suddenly dimmed with the memory of Flenadar. His heart blazed with fury, loss, and regret, and then he began his vengeance upon the first that sought to leap past him, hooking it with his daggers and driving it into the black-caked earth. A killing-spree began.

A Singing Blade had been assassinated. Try as it might, Ghat'Nothos would not recover its weapon either, leaving a scouring message that the old god could not ignore. The cost had been high, but their enemy must now think twice about hunting their scrambled ranks with his Worldslayers. That, Thomas knew, was a victory in its own right.

Finally, Thomas stood alone – bloodied but whole, the cleansing light of Saela worrying away at any flaw upon him. The val'kyr had joined the one called Hilda, surrounded by an armored guard of winged vrykuls, and they were soaring towards the airborne command.

Panting, aching, he sheathed a dagger and touched the orb in his ear, demanding coarsely, "Report."

"Squad Sin'adare, one casualty," Saela said first in Common, seen touching her own ear from her place.

"Squad Azure, no casualties."

"Ashguard, no casualties."

"Squad North, still standing." "-and fucking bored."

Thomas didn't reply to the bandits, still waiting for the last. The quiet ticked by for a second, then two, three, until an obviously reluctant Velanee took up the mantle, Whispering, "Squad Bloodmist, one casual-"

"-ot bloody yet!" shouted a harsh, elven voice. Its grating sound sent relief sweeping down Thomas' back, a gesture visibly echoed by the nearby Saela. The Commander, Raeloth, cut in and out of the line, either unable to hold the orb or finding his damaged. "-ck-sucking, mana-bomb lovi- … still alive, north-west of the fucking deathbomb. Only sli...ly wounded... That's my left leg, you milk-skinned dolt! You attach it to the left flaming side!"

With a neutral expression, Thomas touched his orb and said, "Glad to see you still standing, Commander."

"I can shove my half-melted foot up your ass right now, Ranger-General, s- … -ar you'll be spitting acid blood and shin bone!"

The rebuke evoked a soft laughter when the line was closed, and Thomas debated telling the man to walk it off before sobering. He announced, "We're heading your way, Commander. We'll have a cart ready if you need it."

"Did we get it?" the man asked, his own tone softening to something nearly human.

"We got it," Thomas replied simply. "See you soon, Commander."


AN: And here it is, the first chapter written since my long break. Knowing I'm a fair bit rusty, I kept it simple – essentially just one long fight scene. I'm not perfectly happy with it, especially the part involving "juggling" daggers, but I don't think it's dreadful. I drew pretty heavily on the fight between King Varian and the Singing Blade that was long-since cut from this story (but kept in my notes for reference).

In other news, I've stumbled across a few plot-related mistakes, especially in the chapter "Descent Into Madness." The demonic pact between Sin and Sekara was meant to replace their need for experimenting on the qiraji, yet they brought along Jeurabis for that exact role. She has since been appropriated for a new role, but I still need to go back and tweak a few of the lines in the posted chapter.

Lastly, I have been making slow progress in the story. I've written the next few chapters. Hopefully I'll be able to get them out in due time.