"Jess, what are you doing?!" Malek cried, even as he followed Jess down the sloping walkway, all the malevolent creatures below turning their pulsating yellow eyes to gaze at them as one. Faintly, the screams of another struggling villager could be heard, even as she struggled desperately in the clutches of one of the demons that stopped to stare at the interlopers approaching.
“You have broken oath and covenant, trespassed against the will of the Founders!” Jess's voice roared through the cavernous chambers. “I renounce you, and all your kind. Back to the Abyss with you, for you shall claim no Dominion here!”
The hideous parodies of humanity hissed and growled as if pained by the force and fury of Jess's commands, and Malek had to catch himself, the very cavern shaking and no few creatures stumbled back even as the remaining humans kept in a pen nearby screamed in renewed terror.
“By the gods, what are you saying Jess? Your words are burning my ears!”
“It is not for you to question your mistress, Hound. Silence!” Twilight hissed, even as he strode by Jess’s side.
From the midst of the creatures emerged a massive warrior some eight feet tall, covered in steel and mail, wielding a serpentine claymore glowing with a sickly green fire. Jess chuckled softly, shuddering deliciously as waves of doom and despair seemed to radiate from the weapon. The icy bleakness, to her, no more than a delightful chill she found curiously invigorating.
The beast then snarled and hissed guttural consonants that washed through Jess with the awful weight of remembrance, even as the monster's left hand shot forth to blast her with a stream of fiery power. Malek cried out as it enveloped her, before sighing with relief even as Jess stepped through it, unharmed.
“By Justice, Jess, your eyes,” Malek cried out in sudden alarm. “They glow like embers. What in Hades did he do to you?” But Jess kept her focus squarely on the armored nightmare they faced, absolutely not paying attention to the mocking laughter echoing through the vast chamber even now.
As one the host of twisted demonriders and their steel-plated leader howled and screamed in unison, gazing rapturously at the roof of the cavern, peering no doubt at the mirage through which their mistress gazed through even now.
“My queen, what would you have of us?” Intoned the massive horned warrior, serpentine blade raised high.
Jess grimaced, all but sensing the terrible queen's mocking smile, yet refusing to take her eyes off her enemy even as she closed.
“Protect the wand and blade as you swore upon your life, fool! Be worthy of the boon of rank and title I granted you, and send this chit and her pets back to the afterlife, if you dare!”
Lilith's awful voice lightened from savage to bemused. "You may play with her as well, Kazikil. Seduce her, entice her, destroy her! Do what you will, but do not incur my wrath, worm. For I can unmake you as easily as I have raised your insignificant, wretched soul!"
"Yes, my queen. It shall be done!" The creature known as Kazikil declared in an ecstasy of devotion, before turning his blazing eyes to meet Jess's own. "Burn for your impertinence!" The creature's awful voice echoed through the massive cavern. "May your soul know sweet suffering for eternity, as I feast upon your flesh!"
Jess could see the chords of sickly red power entwined with the faintest threads of midnight even as the demon summoned forth a web of fiery destruction and threw it at her. Contemptuously, Jess swung her blood covered blade, cleaving the spell in twain as the magics washed off her.
Yet to Jess's hissed surprise, her blade did not cleave through the spellweb without consequence, the ebony filaments of the ruptured spell sliding down to the hilt of her longsword as if of their own volition, to pierce the flesh of her hands, long ingrained instinct alone keeping Jess from dropping the blade in reflex.
“Suffer, fool, as the true might of the Void feasts upon your pathetic mortal flesh!” The hulking demon laughed in gloating triumph, its eyes blazing brilliantly as it stepped back. For Jess had stumbled, shocked to the core at how icy cold those ebony sparks were, as if seeking to freeze her very soul.
Yet to her surprise, she found their taste sweet. Those twisting ebony threads, caressing the edges of the great and terrible Void itself, should have obliterated her instantly. Yet far from being immolated, after the initial shock of their icy caress faded, she began to feel… strong. Whole. Alive and aware in a way she never had before. And somehow, far from being drained dry herself, she compelled the Voidal fires to serve her instead.
Her blade now blazing with crimson and ebony flames alike, Jess roared her contempt and charged, even as the creature fell back and allowed Jess to crash into the monstrous wave of his demonic servants.
Choosing to seize the Vor at all costs, Jess charged, blade first, into their howling numbers. Always moving, always shifting position and stance, never stationary, giving her opponents no time to regroup and counter, was the only way to survive against overwhelming opposition. Above all else, she must push forward. Ever forward. "Malek, to me!" Jess roared. And without thought Malek was at her side, brother and sister in arms fighting together in perfect unison.
Jess could somehow feel Malek, as if they were two halves of one greater whole; utterly in tune with his movements, strikes, parries, his very thoughts, to a degree she had never experienced before, a connection greater even than the time they had faced their entire class of peers in that glorious fight back at Highrock, what seemed a lifetime ago. Pitted longsword burning with incandescent fury, Jess could feel as well those dark sparks of power course through her as each foe succumbed to death, crumpling to ash at her feet, even as her frenzied blows tore through the endless horde with chilling ease.
Swift and terrible, her dread blade feinted, sliced, thrust, and cleaved in a dance of death and dismemberment. Crackling with the hot blood of her burning passions, her weapon served as the brush caressing her enemies with crimson killing strokes, the ash covered floor her dying foes crumpled upon becoming the canvass of her masterpiece.
And her foes' screams did not stop in death. Jess could feel their very essence being savagely torn free, shrieking and struggling from their once immortal shells, helplessly consumed by a hideous blackness she suddenly understood was but an echo of the terrible hunger within her own inhuman soul.
It was an epiphany of horror near instantly smothered by hideous ecstasy. The sweet pleasure of consuming every last whisper of her enemies' vitality, devouring their very souls. A wondrous, vile heat that left Jess shaking with madness and power, an exquisite ache that twisted her wrath with a desperate hunger for more.
Within minutes, the field of hideous hybrids was no more. The vast cavern stank with the fetid gore of scores of dismembered bodies, many smoking even now and crumbling to ash, every last drop of the life-force that had once sustained them inexorably siphoned into the deadly pair striding even then towards the cage of panicked humans, piteous souls gazing at Jess as she approached with naked terror.
"Please!" one screamed helplessly, even as Malek cried out "Jess, what the hell are you doing?" and Jess blinked. Realizing to her horror that she had been about to lash out, her terrible blade a heartbeat away from cutting through the pleading young woman covered in dirt and stinking of fear, as if the captive were nothing but another dark fruit given existence simply to sate her desperate cravings.
With a shudder, Jess pulled back. Blade still smoking, the fires dimmed and Jess forced her quivering body to still. She felt herself shaking with power, sickened to realize that she wanted nothing more than to sink her blade into the sweet, sweet flesh before her, even as she gazed at her own hands and choked back a soft cry.
She had come to save these terrified people.
Now she wanted to devour them. Body and soul.
“Twilight, what’s wrong with me?” a trembling Jess whispered.
“By Dawn’s early mist, Lilith plays a twisted game indeed,” Twilight hissed. “She so corrupted that demon's soul such that he is able to use Voidal magics against you. T
hat pawn doesn't even realize that his immortal soul is slowly sliding into the Void.” Twilight gave a cold shake of his head. “You must be very careful, my mistress. More careful than you’ve been for a very, very long time.”
And the terrible laughter continued to echo throughout the massive chamber of crystalline blue stone buried deep within the realm of dream. Laughter that itched and squirreled within Jess's mind, driving her mad with fury.
Twilight’s solemn words gave Jess pause. She understood without knowing how that she was on the razor's edge of a terrible precipice. Even so, she gazed up at the foe she knew she must overcome. The armored demon lord had taken off in flight, floating high above, near the roof of the vast chamber, his serpentine greatsword pulsing with sickly green energies, and Jess sensed at once that it was the focus point of his unnatural power. The vast chamber shook with her enemy's awful laughter.
“Masterfully done, mortal! Or are you, perhaps, something more? Few demons indeed can manipulate the voidal echelons of abyssal power! Yet you cleaved through my magics like one of our queens out of darkest legend!” The demon known as Kazikil paused to gaze speculatively at a still seething Jess. “I am curious to know the origins of that artifact you possess that allowed you to sunder my spell. What infernal providence is it aligned with? What dark sacrament did you perform to obtain such a unique gift?”
The demonlord's laughter struck Jess as utterly discordant, much like the chuckles of the hellish queen reveling in the slaughter she surveyed from the portal above. For all that Jess knew in her heart of hearts that she had no ear for music, she could sense a wrongness to their voices nonetheless, a taint against all things sublime and pure.
"What dark heritage lies in your veins, woman? I sense you would be a sweet vessel of power, to one who knew how best to use you." With that Kazikil's voice turned cold as frost and the cavern shook with his words. "Serve me, wench! Surrender your prize, and know true power at my command! Or defy me, if you dare, and be broken by my blade and spells that your artifact has no hope to counter, for I have allowed you to taste but the least of my magics! Yet I warn you, mortal, should you refuse to accept my offer and yield your sweet flesh and succulent soul to me willingly, I shall break you in death, and inflict upon you the most delightful of agonies, as I force your shattered soul to serve me for eternity!"
“I choose neither!” Jess roared. “Your death by my blade will be your fate. This I swear!”
And the creature laughed.
Deep, rich, gloating, he laughed. Even as the ground began to shake and crack, even as black ichor began to well up from the ground below. Ichor that slowly took shape, a constant stream of purple lightning arcing from blade and wand to twisted lumps of mud and clay, giving the dark blobs form as they morphed into massive boar-faced creatures of cloven hooves and grotesquely muscled arms, wielding hooks, blades, and war axes of obsidian and bone, snarling in unison at Jess with instinctive hate.
As one they howled, glaring at Jess and Malek, snapping and a barking like dogs upon an invisible leash.
“So be it!” the armored demonlord decreed, even as he floated above the fight. “Then I shall let my abyssal slaves bring me your mangled bodies to serve me for eternity!" With that he coughed out words of guttural darkness, and the twisted onslaught of demonic foes charged Jess and Malek in a great sweeping wave.
The pair fought for their lives.
Every flash of their blade, slide of their feet, twist of their hips or thrust of their hilts served as part of their mad dance for survival. Despite the din and howls about, Jess and Malek fought with the grim intensity of those who well knew that any mistake would be their last. On the razor's edge between life and death, they embraced the only truth that mattered: Their skill with that most sacred of instruments, the conviction of all their talents and powers pitted against the vile forces that challenged even their right to exist, their dispute of steel and fury begun in earnest.
As if they sensed every mad overhanded swing of bone club, they slid effortlessly under their enemies' blows, even as their own blades whistled down in powerful Zornhau strikes to tear limbs from screaming porcine bodies, their backswings cleaving heads from torsos in a great crimson arcs. The split seconds of their enemy's stunned surprise was all they needed to severe a charging foe's spine with a vicious Stechen thrust, or slice open yet another axe-wielding fist, snapping back in perfect rhythm to deflect frenzied swings before plunging smoking blades into the next opening that inevitably presented itself.
Together, shieldbrother and sister lost themselves in a terrible dance of blood and death.
Filled with the essence and awful power of all their dying foes, feeding on those unholy energies with terrible magics that would have had them banned and exiled by any wizard coven that understood the true nature of their gifts, Jess and Malek continued to survive, one perilous second after another. The cuts and blows they received barely felt with the dark energies coursing through them, keeping them upright and fighting with a deadly frenzy that was beyond anything they had ever experienced before.
Slowly they tired, however, as blood-loss began to take its toll, and the slight mistakes that could cost them everything became more frequent, mistakes that would have spelled their doom if not immediately countered by a nimble and deadly Twilight, taking to the field at last. And a master ambush predator he quickly proved himself to be, darting in at opportune moments to hamstring distracted foes, sending them stumbling back to be quickly slaughtered by Jess and Malek’s savage blows.
“Jess, you must head toward the entrance and retreat! They can’t surround you at the ledge!” Twilight cried out at one point, and slowly Jess and Malek began to carve a perilous path through the falling bodies of their enemies that would lead them to a respite from the furious battle. Underneath her terror and exhilaration, Jess felt a welcome tingle of relief as they made sight of their salvation, an island in the midst of stormy seas, just steps ahead.
It was then that Jess's pitted longsword, stressed with the caustic energies and terrible heat of her potent blood, finally snapped.
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Jess!" Malek cried, even as Jess desperately rolled under a terrible overhand blow brought to bear by the foe who had managed to break her blade, yet Jess dodged it even as the creature fell to the ground, writhing in agony, Malek having cleaved its spine with a desperate swing, even as he too was blooded for his trouble.
Realizing she only had seconds to live, Jess raced desperately through her momentarily flatfooted foes, madly buying time.
“Jess!” Twilight cried, and for the first time, Jess heard panic in the voice of her lifelong friend. “You have to do it! Unleash the chords that bind you to this realm! Free yourself! You must wake up! Whatever the cost, you must wake up!”
Her beloved cat’s distress compelled Jess even beyond the imminent threat of death. On the razor's edge of mind-numbing panic, she channeled her choking fear to frenzied speed, racing forth at a sprint faster than she ever had before.
Filled with the terrible certainty that she knew what Twilight was asking of her without knowing how, Jess found herself running madly, dodging past momentarily flustered enemies, even as she gazed deep within her own mind to shadowy regions staring right back at her, whispering of awful rites and hideous acts near as terrifying as the demons striving desperately to kill her. But it was not enough. Even as Jess desperately dodged and weaved, she forced herself to look deeper within, catching sight within the blackness of her mind a shadowy door.
It shook her, even to know that portal was there. And the most awful truth of all was that in order to open it, she would first have to look within its glossy surface and face the thing staring back at her. Eyes of blazing crimson, fiery hair billowing in the endless storms raining fire and blood over a hellish landscape of ash and molten steel. A world aswirl with shrieking winds, the eternal discord of a million million screaming souls. The terrible creature's bleeding smile, however, would be the worst of all. A
thing horrific beyond imagining.
For the smile was her own.
Jess was filled even then with an insane panic, fearing that opening that shadowy doorway deep within her mind's eye would somehow lead to the death of all her friends and loved ones as they were swept away, consumed in a terrible maelstrom of shrieking madness the likes of which she could barely conceive.
“Yes, Jess, you must open it!” Twilight cried, as if he too glimpsed the nightmare image haunting her mind's eye.
"No!" Jess cried, resolving never to open that door, even upon peril of her own life, terrified that the dark premonition of her friends' and family's death might be true. "Never!" she cried as she instinctively dodged to her left, feeling a massive bone club just clip the tip of her helmet, wrenching her neck and sending her ears ringing as it cleaved past her, just as her eyes saw the sparkling light of her possible salvation.
“Don’t worry, Twilight! I have an idea!” With that she made a mad dash for the imposing structure over which the sword and wand hovered and spun, filling the room with their purple crackling energy.
For in that moment of dire vulnerability, disarmed and surrounded by her foes, Jess could all too readily envision Eloquin's hawk-like gaze, knew exactly what her beloved armsmaster would say.
Retreat was no longer an option. She must charge forth, slipping past the furious grasp of endless hordes of hellish foes for the twisted tower of stone, bone, and steel before her, gambling everything on the shear unpredictability of her maneuver as well as her prowess to see her through.
No longer would she seek to butcher the field entirely before cautiously claiming that incalculably dangerous artifacts. The sword alone was her target now, and she must rush headlong for it at all costs, regardless of the enemies racing madly behind her, no matter the traps and terrors that barred her way.
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Bloody hells!” Malek cried, terrified to see his shieldsister race off unarmed through the maelstrom of diabolical foes they fought, even as he dodged and struck with an unpredictable combination of terror and precision lest he himself be overwhelmed, Twilight's darting strikes, hamstringing his foes even as Malek struck and cleaved buying Malek precious seconds in which his enemies might otherwise overwhelm him.
Oblivion's Queen Page 36
