by Eric Vall
I wanted to step into the fight against the sorcerer with a clear mind and clean weapon. I had no idea if the Qianlong would aid us or fight against us, and I had to be prepared for anything. I worked tirelessly as I wiped at the blades and haft of the polearm and when I finished, the metal sparked in the morning light that filtered through the dense tree cover.
I stood as the brush behind me shook, and I turned halfway to see who it was. Haruhi emerged from the bushes quietly, and she gave me a small smile as she watched the water drip from the blades of the God Slayer.
“The Ritual of Kurin?” the sage asked as she tilted her head and came closer.
“The what?” I questioned back as I glanced at the God Slayer then back at Haruhi.
“In the far East, they practice the Ritual of Kurin before every battle,” the librarian giggled as she ran a finger over one of the blades. “They clean their blades in the mighty river Mizu before each battle. Normally, they submerge themselves completely in the river before they start, but I don’t think there’s enough water here for you to do that.”
“What is the meaning of the ritual?” I inquired as I glanced back at the brook.
“To cleanse not only the weapon of its past doings but also to cleanse the wielder. I’ve never seen the ritual done before, but I’ve read about it hundreds of times, and that’s why I thought you were doing it.” Haruhi smiled as she placed her paw over mine on the haft of the God Slayer.
“No, I wasn’t, but it seemed like a good thing to do,” I told her as I turned back towards the brook as the water rushed past. “I took the God Slayer and the set of armor I wear from a pompous man who entered into my dungeon. He thought he could slay me, but I proved him very wrong. I don’t know how many lives the God Slayer took before it was in my hands, and honestly, I cannot count how many it’s taken after it became mine.”
“There’s an old legend that says that every blade remembers each life that it’s taken. I wonder if the God Slayer could speak, what it would tell us?” The sage whispered as her hazel eyes moved to each of the three blades.
“We should be grateful that the God Slayer can’t speak, I don’t think I would want to hear what it has to say.” I chuckled as I slammed the haft down onto the ground, and the blades slipped back inside of the polearm.
“You’ve been holding me wrong the whole time!” a squeaky voice called from the bushes and Haruhi and I whipped towards the sound.
“I don’t like how you just slam me into the ground all the time, I’m a polearm, not a shovel!” another higher pitched voice that was obviously Carmedy’s cried.
Haruhi giggled from beside her and dropped her hand from mine as she raced over to the bushes. The sage parted the leaves and exposed both Rana and Carmedy huddled together. The fox and alchemist burst out laughing and stood up. Rana brushed off some stray leaves from her pants and stepped out of the bush.
“Well, there you have it, God Slayer talked for a moment and gave us its infinite wisdom.” The redhead grinned as she placed her hands on her hips and nodded once.
“The God Slayer doesn’t like how I hold it? Tell me how my grip is wrong?” I snarked down at the fox, and she snorted through her laughter.
“And don’t forget, it doesn’t like how you slam it into the ground all the time!” Carmedy cried as she threw her paws into the air.
“Then what should I do to extract the blades? That is the only way I know,” I uttered as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I don’t know! You’re the Master!” the alchemist chuckled as she threw her paws into the air. “Figure it out! Maybe ask it politely to extract the blades on its own!”
“I will try that next time.” I grinned as I placed my arms around Carmedy and Rana’s shoulders and guided them back towards the campsite.
The walk was short, and when we arrived back at camp, Annalise and Morrigan were almost finished packing up the tent we’d used last night. The high queen lifted her head to us as her long chestnut braid swung over her shoulder. The swordswoman’s face was pinched, and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked directly to me.
Morrigan also looked strange, her stoic expression was gone, and her dark eyes constantly flitted towards the two peaks. Macha and Fea flew over our heads in looping circles and every once in a while, one of them would caw loudly. I quickened my pace towards them, and my first impression was that they were both upset that Carmedy and Rana ran off and didn’t help put the tent away, but that wasn’t the case. Something deeper was wrong, and when I neared them, Annalise pointed between the two peaks.
“Smoke, and awhile back, Morrigan and I both saw flames.” The high queen told me in a cold, calm voice.
“She’s distressed, I can feel it.” Morrigan murmured as she lifted a single hand into the air and both ravens dived towards her shoulders.
Fea and Macha landed gracefully and perched on the elven woman’s shoulders. The birds turned their heads towards the peaks and made soft chirping sounds with their black beaks.
“Do you think Tuzakeur is here?” Annalise asked in a worried voice as she and Morrigan stuffed the massive tent into its pack.
“Yes,” I growled deep in the back of my throat as I gathered the rest of my women around me. “I can feel him; he’s here.
We gathered up our things from the campsite, and for a moment, I stopped to watch as Haruhi painstakingly loaded both of the pistols in her belt. Both Annalise and the sage were up late last night as the high queen taught the librarian how to fire the guns accurately. They worked together late into the night and didn’t come back until both Morrigan and Rana were asleep. The sage loaded the little silver balls in then made sure that the pieces of flint Carmedy gave to her were in place. When she finished, Haruhi slipped the two pistols into their holsters. The sage stood and looked me directly in the eye. An intensity I’d never seen before burned within the irises of her hazel eyes. Haruhi was unsatisfied by her battle against Nanook and wanted to redeem herself this time.
Once we finished, we headed towards the path between the twin peaks. The guard towers came into better view, and I took in what used to be a massive stone structure. There wasn’t much left of it, just the basic shape and a few carved stones scattered here and there where the towers would’ve been placed. We hurried past them on the path that led uphill and from the crest, I could make out blasts of fire and billowing black smoke.
I didn’t need confirmation that the sorcerer was here; my senses were already on fire with his presence. It seemed that he’d reached the Qianlong before we did, and we had to hurry to get there. My dark powers curled around me as I prepared for the battle against Tuzakeur, whether it be the real man or another proxy.
We came over the crest of the hill, and the crumbling Qianlong town came into view. It was like nothing I’d ever seen, and though we couldn’t, I wanted to stop and take it all in. When I glanced over at Haruhi, her thoughts told me she wanted to do the very same thing. Most of the buildings were built into the walls of the mountain. No stairs led up to them, and I assumed that most of the dragonfolk who lived there had simply flown up to them.
We hurried past a stone square and towards a huge palace beyond, and this time, Haruhi fell a bit behind. Her round glasses glinted in the bright sunlight as her mouth dropped open. The sage was in absolute awe over the untouched city of the Qianlong tribe. No human or catkin had ventured into this place before, and it was an unbelievable discovery for the bookish sage.
The palace was a massive, sprawling building with huge columns spanning most of its length. Each of the enormous doorways inside was dark inside, and a lot of its roof had fallen in, but it looked to be the most intact structure in the whole of the city. Adrian told us that most of the town had disintegrated away, but he was very wrong. The Qianlong city was still here after hundreds of years; empty yes, but not gone completely.
“Come on, Library Lady, no time for dilly dallying, we’ll look later, it’s time for running!” Rana cried as she pushed Haruhi
’s shoulders and forced the sage forward.
“It’s all so beautiful…” the librarian breathed as she strained her neck to look back, but the redhead forced her forward.
“Haruhi,” I said in a firm tone, and her attention snapped back to the task at hand as her paws gripped the handles of her revolvers.
“Yes, Master, I’m coming.” The sage whispered back as she hurried to catch up with the rest of us.
We all knew that the only source of the smoke and fire could be the temple beyond the palace, and we moved towards it as more black clouds lifted into the sky. The temple reminded me of the one that once worshipped me long ago, most of the space was open except for a roof and rows of cream colored pillars holding it up. It was beautiful, surrounded by lush fronds and other wild plants natural to the Canartian islands, but that wasn’t what made my heart pound and my pulse quicken.
“Holy fucking shit, is that what I think it is?” Rana asked in a hushed voice as she pointed towards the temple, and my women stopped to stare.
The beast Morrigan had described in her dream sat curled on the steps of the temple and stared down at a man clothed in a jet black cloak. I didn’t have to guess who the man was, I already knew from the strange, tentacle-like shifting of his garment. The towering Qianlong above him breathed in deeply, and blood dripped from her open maw onto the steps at her feet. Though parts of her body were scorched and dripped scarlet blood, she was magnificent, and her sky-blue scales shone and reflected the morning light. Even as she moved, the iridescence of her scales changed to scarlet reds that matched the liquid oozing from her wounded sides. This was Heijing, the descent of Guoshe of the Akalong tribe and Anteng of the Qianlong tribe.
Tuzakeur may have been only a mortal, but he was a sorcerer that had nearly defeated a dragon and that was not to be taken lightly.
“Give me the sacred item, beast!” Tuzakeur screamed up at the dragon, but the beast’s expression never changed from the mask of rage.
I reached for the God Slayer as the Qianlong’s talons gripped the stairs and launched itself forward. The roar that ripped up its throat vibrated through the temple and up the side of the mountain. The creature was massive, bigger than Morrigan described, and I stopped for a moment as I took all of it in.
“The Divining Rod of Izher will never be yours,” a voice boomed not from the beast but from all around us as the dragon spoke. “It was passed down through the generations of my kind and to fall into the hands of a mere mortal would be an embarrassment to my ancestors. You will have to pry it from my cold, dead talons before I had it over to scum like you.”
“Then that’s how it shall be done,” the raspy voice called from beneath the hood, and then the sorcerer cackled with mad laughter.
I slammed down the haft of the God Slayer as the newly cleaned blades extracted from the weapon. The crack of my weapon against the stone of our feet resounded around the temple, and I felt my power ebb and flow all around me. My women fanned out behind me with their weapons drawn as both the Qianlong and Tuzakeur whipped their heads in our direction.
“The sacred item is ours,” I spoke directly to the dragon, and her eyes widened then narrowed on my face. I turned and glanced back at my women as I spoke. “Kill the filthy sorcerer.”
“You wouldn’t dare kill me,” Tuzakuer smiled from beneath his hood, and his blood-red eyes met mine. “I have your foxy’s little family hidden away; if I die, you’ll have no hope of finding them.”
I’d reached into the deepest recesses of the socerer’s mind and searched for any signs that this was a proxy. There were no traces of a proxy’s birth like the one from the Dama’s dungeon. This was no proxy; this was the real Tuzakeur.
I’d grown tired of this game, tired of chasing after the shadow of the sorcerer and now, it was time to end this for good. Rana had suffered enough through the trials and tribulations of finding the sacred items for the bastard while having her family stolen away. With all the rage bubbling up in my belly, I wanted to end this right here and right now. I wanted nothing more than to rip the sorcerer limb from limb in the presence of my women and the Qianlong.
“I wouldn’t dare?” I snarled as my hand tightened on the polearm, and black energy pooled around the great weapon. “You do not know what I would or would not dare to do.”
Tuzakeur’s eyes widened at the seriousness in my voice, and he knew that this would be a fight for his life. There was no chance that I would allow this man to leave the Qianlong temple alive.
“Enough!” Heijing roared as she whipped her massive body around and curled her tail around the unsuspecting and distracted Tuzakeur. “I do not care to listen to your incessant squabbling! Leave this place; this sanctuary was built to be away from humans and catkin alike!”
“Why are you so desperate for the items anyway?” Rana screamed as she held her hand over her chest and extracted the Eye of Alipsis.
The sorcerer didn’t have time to speak because the massive dragon’s tail grabbed him by the left leg and lifted him into the air. More blood spilled from the Qianlong’s lips, and I could tell that Tuzakeur had injured her badly, but that didn’t stop the colossal beast from flinging the sorcerer around like a rag doll. Heijing slammed the sorcerer down to the pavement, but the spry man hopped to his feet and cackled madly.
Tuzakeur had gotten stronger somehow, but his magic would never compare to mine. Since the last time seeing him on Machstein, I’d accumulated three other god’s powers along with the others that I already possessed. No manner of magic or sorcery could compare to the power that I wielded, and he would soon learn that lesson. I’d been lenient with him for long enough, and now it was time to end this.
The Qianlong took to the sky, and I followed her movement in the air for a moment. The majestic being moved like a ribbon as her tail snapped out behind her. Tuzakeur ran away from her, but she bared down at him with her huge maw open wide. Her long, blood-red tongue waggled in the air, and as it moved, I saw two small tube-like organs underneath of it. The Qianlong changed direction as the sorcerer lifted his hands to her, and as I watched blue liquid flow out of her mouth and at first, I thought it was fire, but as it touched the ground in front of Tuzakeur, I realized it was ice instead.
The combination of her heritage gave Heijing the ability not only to wield fire from the Akalong tribe but also ice from the Qianlong tribe, a fact that I did not suspect before. I’d seen dragons before in my time in the heavens but never up close like this, and I was in absolute awe of the way she moved and maneuvered through the air so easily. The dragons I remembered from my time were like the ones Morrigan described, huge, hulking beasts with barrel chests and massive heads but the Qianlong was so different from those. Heijing was graceful and moved so lithely through the air that she looked more like a liquid than a solid being.
The ground in front of Tuzakeur crystalized then turned to a pure sheet of ice, and the man cloaked in black struggled to gain his balance. I stepped forward with the God Slayer at my side, and my women rushed out in a formation around me. Rana held the Eye in front of her like a trained swordswoman and kept her baby-blue eyes on the back of the man who’d stolen her family away from her. There was so much doubt in the redhead’s mind as she glanced at me warily. Rana wondered how we would find her family if I really did kill the sorcerer today, but part of her wanted the man dead with every fiber of her being. Tuzakeur had already stolen so much from her, and I hoped that bringing his death would give her a little back.
The sorcerer finally reached solid ground and lifted his hands into the air towards the dragon, and I knew this was my chance. I raced towards him, and my heavy boots slammed into the ground as I gritted my teeth. I pushed all of my dark energy into the polearm, and the weapon thrummed in my hands. The God Slayer seemed to come alive in a way that it never had before, and I ripped it backward as I reached the sorcerer.
I slammed the three blades directly into his spine, and they entered with the spray of yellow blood like I’d
seen back in the dungeon of the Dama. Unlike before, this wasn’t a proxy in his place; this was the real Tuzakeur and the scream that ripped up his throat only stoked my fury. I pulled the God Slayer back, whipped it once over my head and sliced downward with the weapon. The sorcerer’s black cloak split, and a cloud of ravens lifted into the air and obscured my view for a second. When I reopened my eyes, the sorcerer was gone, and I whipped around to find him as his laughter echoed in my head.
“Duck!” Rana’s voice echoed through my head as she screamed the single word in her mind.
The air in front of my eyes shimmered for a moment. I bent forward as one of the redhead’s elven daggers sliced through the air and seemed to bury itself in nothing. More yellow blood spilled out of the unseen wound then Tuzakeur phased back into view. His gaunt face was split with pain as the Qianlong loomed up behind him. Her icy blue eyes rimmed in red were filled with rage, and her massive jaws opened and closed wetly as more blood fell to the ground from her gums.
I gripped the God Slayer with both hands as Heijing and I struck at the same time. Her two front fangs dug into the sorcerer’s back as the blades of the polearm entered into Tuzakeur’s belly. Her eyes met mine over the sorcerer’s body and an understanding passed between us. We weren’t enemies, nor were we allies, we were simply two forces fighting against the same foe, and we would work together until Tuzakeur was dead. We both had the same goal in mind.
We wanted to watch him bleed, we both wanted the sorcerer to suffer until all the life drained away from him.
Tuzakeur may have been a wizard, but he was still a mortal, and that offended the Qianlong. This place was holy ground to her, the place where her ancestors had lived and breathed peacefully for thousands of years without the threat of human or catkin intrusion. This place was mapped out specifically for her kind when the cat-people first came to the island, and it offended her that the sorcerer dared to enter into her domain. If we had come alone, without the sorcerer, we would have received the very same welcome from her, but in a way, we were helping her rid this place of the stain of Tuzakeur.
