by Michael Mood
“I rather doubt you do!” Angloriel yelled back.
“You're impatient,” said the figure. “I even know what you'll be thinking in a few moments.”
“I don't like riddles,” Angloriel said. “Are you the caretaker of this place?”
“You'll be thinking 'Why didn't we see this coming'?”
Then the scratching sound got much louder and dark shapes began to fill the large hall. Wren's stomach sank. The shapes were monstrosities. All were animal in some way, but their forms had been so twisted that it was hard to recognize what type. There were legions of bears, hawks, insects, horses, crabs, turtles, so many others. Some walked on two legs, some on four, some on six, some on more.
They were Foglins.
She knew it.
D'Arvenant looked dumbfounded.
“It's always important to know your prey,” said the figure. Then he pointed to the group and the Foglins rushed.
-3-
Wren only had time to worry about herself in the frenzy. Three Foglins charged her, their mouths open wide and showing rows of horrible serrated teeth. Just as they reached her, Crasher was there, pounding into them from the side.
Wren drew the long knife from the termite sheath and brandished it in a shaking hand. Her heart was pounding so hard she swore it would tear through her chest and end her life before any Foglin ever could. She moved nervously away from the small pack of Foglins that were now attacking Crasher. The bear fought valiantly, but he was over-matched. He gave ground slowly, dodging back from swinging appendages. He roared and the sound filled the hall.
I can't let him die.
Wren charged in and swung, putting all her strength behind the blow. The knife crashed against one of the Foglins, but didn't cut very deeply. The impact made her arm numb and Wren fell backwards onto the ground while dodging the retaliating strike.
“Mistress?” Tessa asked. Wren could feel the mouse shaking in her pocket.
“We're fine,” Wren said. “We're fine.”
She scrambled to her feet and lunged again. She was tackled from behind just as she felt a whoosh of air over her head. She fell heavily on her side, knowing that she was likely dead. She felt serenity about that, surprisingly. But she didn't have time to contemplate philosophy. She hadn't been tackled by a Foglin. It had been the robed woman, Domma.
Wren and Domma rolled away from each other and regained their footing. Wren saw that Crasher's thick brown fur was covered in blood. One of his eyes was shut as well.
Wren patted her pocket, looking for Tessa, but the mouse wasn't there. She must have fallen out! A Foglin with a head like a hawk careened at her then and it was all Wren could do to get her sword up to block the incoming attack. The Foglin's arm – a disgusting thing covered with oozing sores – crashed into the blade. Wren's strength wasn't enough and the impact made her arm buckle, dragging the sharp side of the knife that was facing her across her chest. She screamed as she felt her flesh part just below her collarbones.
The Foglin drew its arm back for a second blow and then stopped. It tilted its head in pain and tried to swat at its neck.
There was a small, furry bundle running around on its shoulders.
“Tessa!” Wren cried. Blood was running down Wren's chest like a hot river, but she managed to swing her blade into the thing's head, catching it just above its misshapen beak. The Foglin stumbled back, hands now clutching at its ruined face. It let out a terrifying shriek as Wren turned her attention elsewhere.
Crasher was holding off at least five Foglins. It was hard to count as they writhed and danced. The bear seemed to be more blood than fur at this point.
“Crasher!” Wren yelled.
She saw the limb falling, but Crasher didn't seem to. Wren knew she wouldn't be fast enough to get there. She reached deep into her Well and drew the power out, aiming it at Crasher. A pale blue barrier sprang up around the bear, and the strike that had been meant to end his life skittered off the top of it.
Crasher took advantage of the momentary Shield to swipe out with his powerful paws. He raked through three of the Foglins in one massive swipe. Two more were crushed to the ground when he charged at them and he opened his powerful jaws wide to dispatch the last one.
The bear, panting heavily, fell to his side on the ground on top of the pile of Foglins he had slain.
Wren tried to make her way over to him, but she became faint and fell before she got there.
“What are these things, mistress?” Crasher managed to say.
“Foglins,” she wheezed.
“Foglins,” said the bear. “I shall remember that.” Then he closed his one good eye and was still.
“No!” Wren screamed, but the effort cost her much.
The last thing she saw was another pack of Foglins around her. The terror almost kept her from passing out, and she struggled as blood ran from her, but the world inevitably went black.
Chapter 32 – Of Love and Power
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Otom pulled his robe down into a Skada and wrapped his hands in Fire. After so many weary months of travel he felt a surge within himself as he charged the nearest pack of Foglins. He fell into a powerful stance, low and ready. The first Foglin that came to him met a swift end, Otom's fist bashing through the side of its skull. The thing cracked open and blood and bone spattered out. Not normal blood, but the black blood of a Foglin.
Then Otom was dancing, his powerful legs taking him high and low, left and right. He whirled and tumbled, his martial arts becoming again a part of who he was. Each Foglin that came against him fell gasping with some wound inflicted by the hands of a man who had been born a fighter. He vaulted the low swing of a Foglin and kicked out while still in mid-air. His heel connected with the monster's face and Otom heard a fantastic snap. He used his momentum to handspring himself back to his feet, whirling just in time to block a series of blows from a Foglin whose arms were thick as tree trunks.
Otom would not be stopped.
He heard Raven scream and whirled to see her down on the ground and backing away from a pack of Foglins, scrabbling on her hands, her dark hair stuck to her head with blood. He summoned more power and placed a wall of Fire in front of her, allowing her time to get to her feet and run to him. She was trying to cling to him, gripping wildly at his robe, and he was trying to shake her off. She was bawling, unable to talk through her sobs.
She's going to get us both killed.
Otom spun and grabbed the head of an approaching Foglin in his burning hands, throwing it to the ground with all his force. The monster's body went limp as it connected with the stone floor.
Otom pointed to Raven and then to a nearby window. You have to get out of here if you can.
She nodded, her teeth gritted. She sprinted over to the window and scrambled up to it. Her slender body barely fit through, but she made it, harp and all.
Hopefully there aren't more out there.
Otom turned back to survey the fight. The Kingsguardian's sword was wheeling in the air, slicing faster and faster. He seems fine. Animals were running all over the place in a panic, but the old woman seemed to be taking care of them and herself. The girl with brown hair was holding her sword very badly, but she was still standing for now. He saw Halimaldie running towards the back of the building, daggers held in both hands. But Otom couldn't find the blue-and-yellow-robed woman, Domma, so he pulsed his Detection, worried that she might be in trouble.
She was against a wall and surrounded by enough Foglins that Otom couldn't see her. He made straight for her then, charging over the corpses of monsters as he ran. The Foglins were closing in on her, surely within reach soon. He caught sight of her.
The woman threw back the hood of her blue and yellow cloak and in what seemed to be a last desperate attempt to keep them away she yelled, “Stop where you are in the name of God!”
Otom's heart stopped. Suddenly his jaw hung slack and the Fire on his fists went out. He was struck dumb in the midst of the battle. Tears
formed in his eyes.
He would have known her anywhere, in any time, in any place, in any world, hair or no hair, and the first word to pass from his lips in thirteen years came free.
“Allura,” he whispered.
-2-
Otom crashed into the Foglins with such force that he carried all of them a good ten feet away from Allura. He was a man truly alive for the first time in a long time. He felt life and love surge through him, but most of all hope. He ignored the wounds on his arms and legs as he battered the Foglins with renewed energy.
His arms were powerful pillars of fire, and the flesh of the monsters burned away as the inferno that was Otom broke into them. With powerful strokes Otom separated limbs from torsos, heads from bodies. The Foglins that had been attacking Allura were barely recognizable in the small, burning pile that was left.
Allura was alive and here. He didn't know how it was possible and he didn't care. She was marked, just like Otom. Their fates were once more intertwined.
He ran back to her and his heart dropped when he saw her slumped against the wall. He lifted her in powerful, bloody arms and checked her breathing. She was still alive and still beautiful.
“Allura,” he whispered again. “Allura.” His voice wasn't capable of anything louder.
Her eyes fluttered open for a moment and she looked confused.
“Who . . . who are you?” she asked, then her eyes closed again.
Chapter 33 – Memories
-1-
Domma stood in a world that couldn't have been real. It was completely white.
She remembered fighting Foglins only moments ago, but now she was elsewhere and in a different body entirely. This one was at least fifteen years younger with long, flowing blond hair and a more slender figure. She felt her forehead for the soft spot, but there was none. Her glowing symbol was gone too.
“Where am I?” she said, in a voice was still her own but younger, lighter.
“It is time to fill in the gaps, Allura,” said a voice.
“Why do you call me that?”
“Because it is who you are. Try to remember. You have prayed to know these things. It is now within my power to make them known to you, here in this Chrysalis, at this point in history.”
Allura looked around and the place changed before her eyes.
She stood in a cabin in the snowy north that she recognized. She remembered now how she had told Ris . . . she had told Ris that Otom had slept with her at the Kilgaan Tournament. It hadn't been true, but she had said it to him. She had been angry over something. And, oh, the wild look in his eyes. He had come to find Otom and Allura had followed him, trying to get there first. Trying to warn Otom.
Everything . . . Otom's parents' deaths . . . burning down the cabin . . . had been her fault. Everything.
“I don't want to remember anymore,” she said. “Please, don't.”
“It is already being done.”
The mists of her past began to part.
She remembered a day, wrapped in fever, when she learned that Otom had gone to the Dryad Tree for her and hadn't come back. She remembered her heart breaking, and having been so sure that he would return.
But he hadn't.
Silence, in a last gambit to save her life, had hired a local sawbones to come see to her. With his drill. The soft spot on her forehead was from that operation. It must have taken her disease away . . . along with her memory . . . along with her hair. She remembered Silence's strong hands holding her down while the grizzled doctor's drill had whirred closer and closer.
And the screaming . . .
She had run from that house as soon as she could walk again.
“No,” she said, crumpling to the floor. “I should be dead. The way I lived my life . . . I don't deserve . . .”
She remembered wandering lost and alone, reeling from her injury on weak legs, running from Silence's house, from everything.
She remembered walking up the steps of Sunburst Temple for the first time, ragged and beaten, to turn her life over to God, or at least something or anyone who would care for her.
She even relived her times with Potter, the most recent and last of her sins.
“I've been horrible my whole life!” she screamed. “Always misguided! Always selfish! Why would you choose me? Why would you even care?”
“No one . . . is ever . . . beyond . . . redemption.”
And then her world was black.
Chapter 34 – Living Weapons
-1-
Krothair and the Kingsguardian stood back to back. It was like a dream come true for the boy. It was just unfortunate the circumstances that it had come true under.
Krothair could hear the force of Angloriel's blows and it spurred him on to fight better than he ever had. His weapon was alive in the air and where it struck, Foglins died. There were hundreds of the beasts surrounding him and Angloriel, but Krothair wasn't frightened, he was simply doing what Ti'Shed had taught him to do. He was a living weapon.
Even when his sword caught in the chitinous armor of a Foglin and became lodged there he didn't panic. He simply reached into his backpack and grabbed the horse's horn he had stored there. It became his new weapon. It didn't matter what he held, or even if he held nothing at all. Krothair was death.
“Your left, boy,” Angloriel said.
Krothair had seen it, he had just been waiting for the right time. He threw the horn into the eye socket of the oncoming monster. The flesh around its eye seemed to burn as it dropped to the ground, squealing horribly. Then he unpinned his cloak from his shoulders in one fluid motion and threw it into the face of the next Foglin. He dropped low and kicked out, breaking its knees backwards. The Foglin made a muffled sound as it fell to the ground.
Angloriel now held two swords: his own and Krothair's, which he must have dislodged from the Foglin. The Kingsguardian threw Krothair's blade up in the air and it twisted and spun as Krothair jumped for it. He gripped the hilt in both hands and came down hard, cleaving the skull of another unfortunate Foglin.
He rolled and dislodged the horse horn from the eye socket of the other dead Foglin. It had burned it. Something magical resided within that horn.
“Know your prey,” he said aloud, mimicking the figure who had met them here in the Temple. “But more importantly, know your predator.”
He stabbed and lunged, taking the lives of two more Foglins, one with each weapon. Both of his weapons ran black with their disgusting blood. It sprayed off as he swung hard, slicing through the neck of another ill-fated monster.
There was something inside of him. He could feel it now. There was a power that burned within that he was drawing on. It could only have been part of his power as a Servitor. He wasn't getting tired, he was barely sweating. Angloriel was the same way.
Krothair saw something Angloriel didn't. A Foglin's clawed arm shot through the air, coming straight for the Kingsguardian's neck. Krothair couldn't stop it with his sword without stabbing Angloriel so he did the only thing he had time for. He stuck his left arm in the way.
The claw pierced into it and Krothair screamed, tugging it away as Angloriel whirled and decapitated the monster.
“Too many,” Angloriel said.
Krothair was holding his left arm close to his body. The wound burned and throbbed. And the worst part was that he felt Angloriel was right. The hall was swarming with Foglins.
“Every army has a leader,” Angloriel said. “It has to be that man we saw.”
Angloriel and Krothair began to wade through the Foglins instead of simply holding their ground. They worked their way back to where they had seen the man, killing as they went.
Krothair's left arm hung at his side while he hewed through more and more Foglins. He had chosen the horse's horn over his sword, letting the other weapon rest in its sheath.
He and Angloriel danced as a team, as if they had trained together their whole lives. And then it dawned on Krothair that Ti'Shed had probably been involved with both of
them. Suddenly the boy longed for the old man. He knew it was too much to believe that Ti'Shed would coming surging in, his considerable years of fighting experience turning the tide of this battle.
The old man was sick and wounded back in Haroma. Krothair would have to do this without him.
The two fighters found what they were looking for only moments later.
The robed man stood with his back to a stone wall, and in front of him stood Halimaldie D'Arvenant, his silver dagger held at the man's neck.
Halimaldie was shouting, “What the hell have you done?!”
Chapter 35 – Brothers
-1-
Halimaldie had recognized that voice, and that recognition had chilled him to the bone.
He'd lost sight of the robed man, and as he searched for him he prayed he wasn't right. Halimaldie passed through the Foglins relatively untouched, as the creatures seemed to be busy with the other targets. His slow advance was stopped only briefly as one lumbered up to him, tongue lolling. Halimaldie held his daggers out, thinking that perhaps this was the end.
"Get away," he said to the Foglin, not feeling the conviction in his voice.
Just then Otom came tearing through, fists on fire, and utterly obliterated the Foglin.
"Thanks!" Halimaldie yelled after him as the Monk ran on to fight somewhere else.
Halimaldie saw the robed man then, across the room. The man had noticed Halimaldie, too, his eyes widening. He turned and began to run.
"Stay right where you are!" Halimaldie yelled.. He felt something within himself burn away, like the tiniest spark of energy leaving him. His coin lost a bit of its glow.
And the robed man stood still.
Halimaldie ran up to him and pushed him against the nearest wall. He brought one of his daggers up to the man's neck and pushed back his hood. He'd been right.
