by David Burke
The celestial’s attack caused Barak to lose his focus enough that the judgment cross flashed and then disappeared. Gilthan began to fall but his body rapidly shrank back to his normal size. Kyle jumped into the air and caught him as he was falling. When he landed, he saw that Gilthan had been cut open across his chest.
A long, angry red scar cut a diagonal path across the elf’s chest. His breathing was ragged, and his essence was disrupted. Kyle could feel a wound within his soul but didn’t know exactly what it was. A portion of his power pushed into Gilthan.
The bond between them was there but Kyle could feel how it had been damaged. He spoke softly, “Don’t worry. You have been a faithful friend. I will do everything in my power to stabilize you.”
The push of his power increased as Kyle spun his essence wheel faster. He tried not to rush it but sought to draw just enough power to stabilize Gilthan. He saw the wound existed on different layers. It was there in the physical form cutting through skin and muscle. It was equally there in his essence disrupting the paths and even down into his soul where it tried to sever the bond formed with the splinter.
This was something that Kyle didn’t understand but he could still sense it. His power extended enough to allow him to see even though he had no understanding of what he was seeing. A surge of war essence reconnected the bond in Gilthan’s soul. That much felt natural. The rest of it was too complicated for now and Kyle didn’t have any power that could heal wounds of the flesh.
Before he could attempt anything further, he looked up and saw the great dragon flap its wings and send Hilde tumbling through the sky. She spun and tumbled till she threw out her wings and caught herself. A blast of flame erupted from behind her almost like jet engines pushing her forward at the dragon.
Torn between helping Hilde and Gilthan, Kyle looked up. He realized that Kierra was in more imminent danger. He braced himself to leap again hoping that the rest of the team would see Gilthan’s condition and come for him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Skrug running over and felt at ease with his decision.
Now he could go to war with a demi-god. He braced himself and leapt into the air. Accelerating as he propelled himself with the power of Sky Essence pushing at him. He flew through the air towards Hilde. She was spinning uncontrollably as her power surged. The flames leapt and she couldn’t seem to focus.
Kyle felt the chaos within her power. There was a surge within her. Then a second. He could feel one connection and then a second. Something was off about this. He was bound to her in two ways and could feel as her power spiraled out of control. It was like she had two heartbeats in her and they were out of whack, throwing her control of her power out of whack.
For an instant she burnt so hot that it started to sear the flesh of his arms as he held her. He grunted and bore the pain. It was part of war. He wrapped his aura around her and tried to calm her power. Flame and war as once. They once had been. Even as he fell to the earth, he felt a surge of peace go through him.
When he landed the arena, flow melted as though a comet of fire had struck. Hilde’s eyes opened and she looked on in horror at the burns that covered Kyle. “Oh no, please my love.”
“Shhh…, all is well,” Kyle said as he laid her down.
The dragon had come to rest upon the ground as well. That suited Kyle. He might be able to fly into the air, but he felt more natural with his feet upon the ground. He walked forward as his soul bound weapon appeared in his hand. This time in the lance form as that would work better against the dragon.
“You will pay for what you have done.”
“I will pay? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. You are a pretender with power you can’t understand. I even felt a divine splinter within that boy elf. I don’t know how you have gathered all this together or what Krig’s ploy is, but I shall not be denied. The bitch can keep her intrigues. I am going to feast upon your power now,” Barak replied.
Kyle felt anger but his senses told him that Kierra had carried Hilde to the relative safety of the tunnels. At least they wouldn’t be in the direct line of fire. The last remnants of the audience were working their way out of the coliseum. Mostly only the very old or very young with their parents were left. The most helpless. As much as Kyle wanted to obliterate this beast, he couldn’t let this turn into a free for all.
As his senses expanded, he could tell that contingents of Thena’s army were marching from the city proper to the arena. There were dozens of mages with them. Maybe it would be enough to deal with this demi-god and maybe not. The problem was that Kyle realized that in his current form he was not strong enough to deal with him. He needed some time to think.
“My power? Do you even know what I am?”
“Some trick of Krig’s. A vessel that he put power into. Who can say. He was half mad with fears of an enemy that never came. It was a kindness to put him down,” Barak responded.
“I hold no love for Krig. He tried to do me dirty, so he can burn in whatever passes for hell in this universe for all I care. But his power is mine now and I’m not going to just hand it over to you.”
The dragon lifted it head and began to a loud, deep guffawing laughter to the sky. “His… power… is yours?” He had trouble getting his words out between laughing. “Is that what you think? You know nothing of power. If you had the power of Krig you would have killed me already.”
“Oh I possess his power, but I also have a few things that he never had. For one I have mercy. More importantly than that I have a brain and can think things through. I may not have all of his knowledge but some of it. Although I would like to know your name,” Kyle said. He continued to play for time as other parts of his mind sought a solution.
“Why not? Playing with my food is rather satisfying. My name is Barak. I am the demi-god born of the union between Lige, greatest of the gods and the green dragon Kalamistra. I have lived for hundreds of years and I will live on for hundreds more after you are fertilizing the ground with the rest of my shit,” the dragon answered.
“Ha, the greatest of the gods. That is rich. He sits back passing judgment but doing nothing to improve the lives of those who follow him. He didn’t even have the nerve to prepare for battle against the enemy who drove the gods here in the first place.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Never mind, I don’t want to hear any of Krig’s prattle. You at least sound like him. So, you have mercy and brains that he didn’t? Hmm… the first won’t save you and the second I doubt. Is that all that is unique about you?”
“Oh no. You must not have been paying attention earlier. I am not just the war god. I am so much more,” Kyle said as he held out his hand.
First, he conjured a sphere of condensed air that spun in his hand. “I shall be the god of the sky.”
Then the air dissipated and a clod of earth flowed up his arm to form a stone gauntlet around his hand. “The earth is my domain as well.” As he spoke an inkling of what he needed to do had come to him.
The stone fell from his hand and a small black flame jumped up from his palm. “I am the master of death. I shall be the god who protects and elevates the people of this world.
“I don’t know what sort of illusion that is, but if you truly were Krig’s heir then you would know that each god only has access to one type of essence. It is what balances the world.”
“I don’t know about balance, but it is time for growth,” Kyle shouted back. He had realized that size was the biggest difference between them now. This Barak could use sky, justice, death, and a limited war essence from what Kyle could feel. His power level in justice was higher than what Kyle had been able to master so far, but Kyle thought he could match it if push came to shove.
The problem with amping his essence usage up that high would be that it would be like turning himself into a beacon for any powerful being to sense. It would do him no good to defeat Barak only to then be hounded by the gods. He just wasn’t ready for that yet. He would be. But next time h
e fought them it would be on a field of his choosing. He wouldn’t make the same mistake that Krig had.
So instead of focusing on essence power he ramped up the spinning of his wheel but poured it all into his construct. Hopefully, this would dull his aura. As he did, Kyle grew. First to ten feet, then fifteen, and still he grew on faster until he stood forty feet tall. With the strength that he drew from the earth this new form had pushed his Strength and Constitution just beyond forty and into the Divine Tier.
Without another word he charged at Barak. His lance had grown with him, so that as he hooked one arm around the dragon’s neck, he thrust the spear forward. Barak shifted so that instead of piercing deep into his chest the spear skewered his wing and pinned the dragon to the ground.
Then they grappled. Kyle roared in pain when dragon jaws bit down on his forearm, but his divine constitution was too great for it to do more than pierce his skin. His body was composed of more than just flesh and bone. It was a manifestation of his essence. Kyle squeezed but found the sinuous neck to be too pliable for choking.
The rolled around on the ground punches and kicks capable of shattering stone fought against a spiked tail and great gouts of flame. Powerful talons which were longer than a sword competed with bursts of War Essence.
Back and forth they surged. The army had arrived, and Kyle realized soon he would have to make a decision. He could only maintain this level of attack for a limited time and yet Barak was too powerful; he hadn’t been able to strike a decisive blow.
Kyle took a chance and pulled the lance out of the ground. Instead of trying to fly immediately, Barak whirled around on the ground and lashed out with his heavy tail. It knocked over even the giant Kyle and left an opening for another attack.
The dragon gathered his essence and prepared to use the same judgment spell from earlier. Kyle sensed the power gathering and wasn’t sure how to respond without somehow breaking into the power contained within his mantle. It wasn’t some distant idea now. Rather his mantle was inside of him, but he hadn’t made it fully his yet and couldn’t tap into that massive well up power- yet.
Time seemed to stop as his mind explored every possibility and rejected then one after another. Finally, one way forward revealed itself. There was a link into Barak that Kyle could pursue. It was an attack against which there could be no defense. He thrust out his hand and called to the War Essence within the demi-god.
It wasn’t his most potent essence, but it was there all the same. He yanked on it and in his soul cried out, “No, you are denied access to War Essence.” With that the power was ripped from Barak and his essence wheel began to wobble.
The dragon screeched in agony and coughed up blood as a piece of his inner being was ripped out. The strain of that attack drained the last of Kyle’s energy and his body rapidly shrunk back to its normal size. He was still powerful but now not sure he could take the dragon on.
Barak seemed to have no desire to fight though as he leapt into the air, wailing in a mournful voice as though he had just lost the love of his life. It cut a strangely terrifying image and Kyle knew he had made an enemy for life. This could only end with one of them dead.
Chapter 25 - Choosing Sides
Unexpectedly, Kyle found himself the target of the soldiers and mages whom he had expected to be his back up. Arrows and spells were fired at him without regard for the fact he and his team had just risked their lives to save all the civilians who had been here.
Apparently, the military decided that he was too much of a threat. Any question he had felt about staying in Thena ended here. There were other cities and on Verden and it was time for a fresh start. He used what little Earth Essence he had left to pull a wall up from the ground. It wouldn’t last long but it provided him a moment of shelter as he streaked across the arena to the tunnel on the other side.
There he found not only his team but Saber along with some trainers, Selma the fleshmage, and Meeka with two of her guards. Behind them Nyda was standing as she wrung her hands nervously. Gilthan was up on his feet with a puckered red scar across his chest but it seemed to be rapidly healing and at least his essence felt back to normal to Kyle. Hilde burst into tears, “I’m so sorry.”
“It was an accident, I felt your control waiver. Don’t worry, you saved us all but now we need to run because the army apparently wants to kill us.”
“Where are we running to?” Saber asked.
Kyle turned and raised a stone wall to block the entrance to the tunnel. “That won’t hold them for long. They have far too many earth mages. But what do you mean we?”
“Selma and I talked about it. This place is dangerous. There is no way to know when another monster is coming. So, if you don’t mind, we’d like to stay with you at least until it’s safe,” Saber responded.
Lady Meeka chimed in, “We can’t really delay. I don’t know how you drove off that monster, but we have to get away from here. Please take us with you. I will make sure you get paid for it.”
Hilde suddenly perked up. “You need to build a following. We talked about this. Saber has arranged for horses for all of us. Even have a cart for Skrug and a big draft horse for you.”
Kyle groaned but she added, “Not just any horse can carry you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess the team is for it. We can sort this out later.”
A deep exhaustion began to settle over Kyle. He had pushed his body beyond what it had been accustomed to. There was a fragment of a memory which popped up into his mind. He recalled what it had been like when he and the others first became more than mortal. Weeks had turned into months as they struggled to adapt.
Those weren’t his memories though. They were taken from him vision beyond the Blood of the Fallen. So much of what others told him about this world was shaken by what he had seen there. He still had much to talk to his people about but just as that memory wasn’t his, so he also couldn’t afford the kind of time that Krig had taken to adapt.
Kyle was just going to have to depend on the idea that learning to be a god the second time would be faster than doing it the first time. Afterall, he had those memories to draw upon, even if they were incomplete.
So far there had been truly little security in Verden. For some reason Kyle didn’t expect that to change so the transformation from mortal to god would just have to go faster. It was midday by the time he had gathered himself. He found himself astride a horse but didn’t remember getting here.
When he lifted his head, he found Meeka riding beside him. Of all the faces he expected she was not on the list. If she noticed the disappointment in his eyes, she didn’t let on. “Oh good, you are awake.”
He shook his head as though to shake that foggy feeling from his head. What he wouldn’t give for a big cup of coffee now. Caffeine and sugar would be just what the doctor ordered. Surely Verden had coffee. He had been too busy adapting to think about it now, but for some reason it popped into his head now.
“Wow, I must have slept all night,” he replied. Then he glanced at the noonday sun and added, “And apparently the morning too.” He had almost apologized for keeping her waiting, but the feeling passed. It left him wondering why he would even think like that in the first place. He had never been one to apologize for things he couldn’t control, even less so. There had to be some perks to being a god.
“More like half a week. We have been on the run for almost five days now,” Meeka said with a laugh.
“What? That isn’t possible,” he protested.
Hilde flew down from above landing on the horse behind him where she wrapped her arms around his waist. “She is telling the truth. You were in some sort of fugue state. We were able to get you to move but you haven’t spoken and barely opened your eyes. Something was shifting around inside of you.”
“I don’t know what she means, but we have all been very worried for you,” Meeka said.
“Oh, okay. Thanks, I guess. I really don’t remember any of it. What h
as been happening?” He asked, intending that Hilde answer him but Meeka jumped in again.
I had the rest of my house guard act as a distraction, but I fear that many of them may have been killed. I think the senate and army are blaming House Avarda for this damage. Like I could just conjure a dragon from thin air. Either way, I doubt it will be safe for me to go back to Thena for a while. Perhaps we can make it to some of my country holdings.”
“That isn’t going to happen now, my lady, I fear,” Saber said as he rode up. “We have had to ride as hard as the horses could go to the south. The elf girl Nyda has a way with them, and Selma has been using her magic tirelessly to keep the horses going. But all of us are about ready to drop. We made it far further than expected but the soldiers tracked us for days. Every time that we thought we had lost them a scout would show up. I regret that Gilthan and Kierra have had to kill several of them just to keep us safe.”
