Savior of Arcadia

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  She answered him with a sudden rush, but the Drake darted back; huge flaming wings burst from his back as his battle standard finally manifested. The dark red conflagration shifted, rippled, and danced, warping the air, and Jone drew back for a moment from the wave of heat it unleashed. “Away with your false pleasantries, Francis! Where was that consideration when you murdered me with a blade through the heart? Or trapped me on a doomed ship headed for the Abyss? You talk as if you know me, but we were never anything more than enemies.”

  “You think it unwarranted?” Drake continued to dodge her advance, circling her and sizing her up as his insubstantial wings fanned the air; lightning arced and sparked as it clashed with her own golden banner far above their heads. “I have always considered civility highly important, especially with one’s enemies. You talk as if I don’t respect you; certainly you know by now that is not the case.”

  “Respect, like when you killed me under a flag of truce, my knees buried in mud, my arms bound by those you’d paid to turn traitor?” She could feel her rage and Rote’s rising together, coiled tight at the memory. “When you had your people torture us for weeks? Or was it when you rained fire, steel, and stone down on those I tried to protect?” With difficulty, she took a deep breath and reigned their feelings in. I can’t let him get under my skin. Our skin. I can’t afford mistakes here; no doubt that’s what he wants.

  “I played the game to win, Jone, just like I always did. I think you still confuse victory with honor.” He snorted, a puff of smoke and flame that made her wary. “As if you’ve never robbed us of peace. If you hadn’t murdered me when the opportunity arose, this all could have stopped after Elizabeth’s death.”

  “I…” Her feet hesitated. Then, with a growl, she shook it off. “My mistakes do not exonerate yours, Drake! I slew soldiers. And murderers.” She stared him down. “And only when I had to. How many innocent men, women, and children died by the hand of you and yours? How long ago did you lose count?”

  He blinked, the supernatural red fading slightly as the comment hit home. “It seemed necessary at the time,” he responded, his breath a whisper. Then he shook his head, and ring of unhealthy crimson was back. “You’re as much of a soldier as I am, Jonelise! But with a good three centuries less to make mistakes. You know how one thing leads to another, duty calls, and events spiral out of your control. Or have you enjoyed the siege of Elizabethia?”

  She shook her head, refusing to rise to his bait. “You know, one of the last things Elizabeth said was that you sought to pin your regrets on her, to dress up your lust for war and victory as simple duty. And I’m not buying it. We could have made peace, Drake! Her people didn’t need to die, and neither did she!”

  “Yeah, still don’t agree with that one.”

  The privateer narrowed his eyes. “You think I wanted to have to kill Elizabeth? Her blood is on your hands too. She was once my dearest friend, my sworn liege—”

  “But she had to die,” Jone growled, “before she decided the monster under all that jewelry and fine clothes was too dangerous to keep around. Because she was the one person in this world who could snap her fingers and kill you, and you were afraid.” She spat on the floor, and it sizzled as it hit the whitestone.

  His eyes flashed with anger and his body tensed—but instead of leaping at her or breathing flame, Sir Francis Drake closed his eyes for a moment. And when they opened again, the anger and ring of red were gone, lost in clouds of gray and blue, like midmorning steam.

  “You’re not wrong, Jonelise.” He set his feet and stopped circling her. “How I wish you were!” He smiled; a weary, melancholy expression. “I think that’s what I admire about you most: your clarity of vision, your zeal for truth. I envy you; how uncomplicated your world must be.” Drake settled into his combat stance, one hand out, knees slightly bent, and pointed his dragon-hilted dueling blade at her eyes. “So shall we write the last verse? I think I might be ready.”

  Her answer came in the sweep of a tritanium blade.

  Drake’s dueling sword rang as she slapped it aside and powered through his attempt to parry. The razor’s edge ripped effortlessly through his doublet and sheared through flesh as it dove deep into his ribs, a strike so hard it burst through the man’s back.

  Blood smoked and sizzled as it splashed the whitestone.

  The Drake coughed crimson as his face twisted in pain.

  He grinned.

  The Drake inhaled; Jone’s vision dimmed as it drew the very air from her lungs.

  She wrenched the blade free of regenerating flesh as she dove aside, but the blast of dragonfire never came. Instead, a burst of air hit the stone and threw her into the air, but tossed an injured Drake gently back. She flailed, weightless in the air, then slammed to the ground as her opponent inhaled again. She rolled to the side, desperate to dodge—

  When the next breath came, it was pure wind and ice. Frost crawled across the stone quicker than she could blink, burying her arms and legs in ice in a flash. Frozen to the still-warm whitestone, Jone strained as air rushed past her, drawing her golden braid toward her foe as the light around them dimmed.

  And when he breathed out again, it was pure dragonfire.

  Frost turned straight to steam in the face of liquid flame. Jone pulled hard on her followers’ faith, shattering chains of ice. Her skin flashed hot as Rote added her own power as well, and they broke free and rolled to the side just in time to avoid the wash of blazing liquid as it flooded past and left melted whitestone in its wake.

  But it didn’t stop there.

  Flame chased her, licking hungrily at her heels as the exhalation went on and on. Jone tumbled and ran as Drake swept the gout of dragonflame after her. Wayward molten beads struck her armor or burrowed into her flesh; flashes of red-hot pain lanced through her and threatened her with missteps that would cost her and Rote their lives, but still she ran.

  Until it finally sputtered out, leaving over half the Observatory floor scoured smooth and glowing cherry-red.

  In a flash, Drake was in her face. His blade dove point-first for her heart.

  Desperate, Jone parried and backpedaled as she fought Drake and the lingering, burning pain at the same time. Liquid globules of fire still ate away at her flesh, sizzling and sparking agony even though her healing easily outpaced it. Rote stirred, anxious, and she ground her teeth as she worked her great blade back and forth, leaned and ducked and dodged as her skin smoked and sizzled. Meanwhile, Drake pressed her viciously, weaving a dizzying web of cuts and thrusts; most bounced off her blade, while others glanced off her armor or drew thin, quickly-healed lines across her exposed flesh.

  Jone barely kept from smiling, for she knew that pain was temporary.

  The agony faded. Drake lunged, extending half a step too far.

  The Arcadian soldier stepped into the blow, twisted her wrists and her waist and knocked his strike aside. Her greatsword’s pommel slammed into his elbow to the sound of crunching bone. Drake staggered as Jone completed her spin and buried her blade in his spine.

  But The Drake didn’t fall. Instead, he breathed fire.

  “Jonelise!”

  Jone winced away as flame lashed the floor, but the attack wasn’t meant for her. Drake staggered as she planted a boot in his back and yanked the blade free of trapping bone—

  —only for the man to spin, grinning victoriously, his blade white hot with trapped flame.

  His wild swipe sheared through her runecrafted, tritanium gorget and nearly took her head off.

  “No!”

  Arcadian lifeblood fountained onto the stone. Jone collapsed, barely holding onto consciousness at the sudden loss of blood.

  “I. SAID. NO.”

  Smoke poured from her lungs. Shadow lashed at Drake, entangled his limbs and drove him back. Eyes wild, he swung at the darkness, trapped white flame still seething from the runes carved into his dragon-hilted dueling blade. Slowly, he drove the shadows back, but it bought Jone the time she needed for her
mass of followers to pump magic through her body and save her life.

  With a gasp, Jone sat up and rolled to her feet. Smoke poured hastily back into her lungs, and her skin burned.

  Drake stood tall several feet away, garish wounds weeping blood as they slowly healed.

  “Not good enough! I’m a revenant, Jonelise!” He laughed as he glanced down at his grievous injuries. “You should know better than any that I can’t be killed anymore!” The Drake smiled, pain and triumph and tainted red warring in his eyes. “Not unless you slay me in the same way I died before, remember?”

  “The Tower. Push him off?”

  Jone shook her head. Probably not far enough to kill. Or similar enough...we don’t know exactly how this works, remember?

  “Talking with your little friend?” Drake saluted her with his white-hot runeblade and spat a ball of blood to the floor. “Best hope she’s got some answers for you.”

  With a puff of air, he was in her face again. Jone met him head on and clinched blades, her greater might overpowering him as she jabbed the tip of her sword deep into his shoulder. She winced away from a quick breath of flame, only to discover the feint and flinch as his sword seared a slash across her cheek. Pushing past the strike, Jone kicked her foe in the gut, doubling him over as she raised her greatsword high for a head-cleaving blow.

  But before her counter strike could land, Drake knocked her back with a breath of air and threw himself safely out of harm’s way.

  Blood dripped down her face as the pain swiftly faded. Across the Tower’s stone, Drake rolled his shattered shoulder, testing it despite the damage.

  He smiled.

  “How is this possible?” Jone shook some of the blood from her sword before it could drip down and slicken the handle. The plain leather grip was already wet enough as it was. “Your shoulder and spine should be broken, and you’re not even healing that quickly.”

  “Well, it’s not pleasant, I’ll give you that.” Drake touched at one of his heinous wounds and grimaced. “I was never much of an invoker, you know? But with my...condition, I don’t need to be.” His eyes darkened for a moment as a hungry shadow passed through them, but he shook it off with visible effort. “I’d say that perhaps you should have worked with the amulet’s power for longer and learned its secrets...but on the other hand, I honestly can’t recommend it.”

  “Why in the Abyss is he so hard to fight, though? Our followers outnumber his a hundredfold or more. And I’m awesome.”

  He’s the world’s preeminent evoker, Rote. With three hundred years of experience. Do you have any ideas?

  The spirit swirled with agitation in the back of her mind. Then paused. “Actually, yes. I—”

  Jone stumbled forward as the Drake sucked in an impossibly deep breath.

  “Keep him busy! I need a few moments.”

  You...what? Jone fought for footing against the rushing wind. We may not have a few moments!

  But the spirit didn’t respond; Jone felt her attention elsewhere, far away.

  The driving wind abruptly cut off and became Dragonfire.

  Jone stumbled forward and cursed.

  This far away, the gout of blazing flame expanded to cover her entire side of the Tower. There was nowhere to go, no cover to hide behind.

  So Jone took ten quick steps and dove out the window again.

  An oversized telescope tumbled to its demise as she knocked it aside and smashed through hardened glass. She hooked her fingers firmly on grooved stonework as a blast of dragonfire blew out all the windows above her, a shower of melting glass that sprayed into the night. Her eyes dried in an instant; Jone could feel her skin baking and her hair sizzling from the mere proximity.

  More worrying were the drips and droplets of dragonflame that landed on her arms, or ate through her gauntlets and into her flesh. That concern only mounted as the blazing pain spiked, her hands grew numb, and her burning fingers slipped inevitably toward the edge.

  Jone stuffed the hilt of her greatsword into her mouth, bit down, and threw herself to the side.

  She tossed herself from one window to another, under the cover of dragonflame, staying low as it roared endlessly over her head. One dizzying “leap” after another, Jone worked her way around the tower, flanking the blast and trying not to look down at the dizzying fall that awaited her if she missed.

  Until finally, she slipped.

  One smoking hand failed her; Jone jerked, her heart pounding with adrenaline and panic as she dangled from the side of the Tower. Frantic, she pushed energy toward her injured hands, trying to out-heal the voracious flame as her fingers slipped slowly toward the edge…

  ...And tightened on the very lip, even though she couldn’t feel them any more.

  “Back! Did you miss—-wait. What in the Abyss are you doing?”

  Shut up and help!

  “I am helping. More than you, it looks like.”

  Above their heads, the dragonflame finally sputtered out. Between them, Jone’s body hugged tight to the side of the Tower, lest the last dregs of liquid flame splash down on her and end them. It splattered past them instead, a bit more fire and light added to the blazing city below.

  She bit down on the convenient hilt of her greatsword against the pain as her hands finally caught up and healed, torment surging as relentless magic forced her nerves to regrow and cry out. Then she threw herself back through the gaping Observatory window.

  Sir Francis Drake met her, blade in hand.

  Jone spat her hilt out into her own hand just in time to parry the first two strikes. She knocked the second one heavily aside and plowed her shoulder into her foe’s slender chest, knocking him back. As the Drake stumbled, she set her feet and put her whole body into an empowered strike aimed at cutting the man in half.

  Another quick burst of air knocked her back and broke her momentum. Drake leapt back, already breathing in—

  —and caught her thrown greatsword right through a lung.

  The Drake hissed fire as Jone tackled him to the hot stone. She slammed her forehead into his nose, shattering it in a spray of blood and disorienting him. Jone slammed heavy punches into her foe’s face, ribs, wounds, anything she could reach as he struggled to resist with one arm.

  With the other, he pulled her blade free and drew in a quick, deep breath.

  Jone palmed his jaw with one armored hand and slammed the privateer’s mouth shut; flame dribbled from his lips and nostrils as he tried to cough. She twisted his face away and smashed his head against the stones, but not before he smeared a thick glob of molten fire onto his thumb and thrust it at her eye.

  Jone instinctively jerked away, and the Drake twisted beneath her and rolled her aside. A puff of frosty air slid her across the stones; his banner-wings flapped once as he exhaled and leapt back, once again on the other side of the room.

  The room darkened as he inhaled once more.

  So, about that plan?

  “Yeah. Just stand here. I got this.”

  Jone swallowed hard. Seriously?

  Across the room, a gargantuan ball of dragonfire bloomed, hungry for her flesh.

  “Shhhh. Yeah. It’s fine.”

  As the flames ate their way across the stones, Jone suddenly wasn’t herself any more, as the spirit that shared her body stepped forward and seized control.

  Helpless, crammed into the back of her own mind, Jone watched the flames rush forward.

  And relaxed, lending Rote her faith and power.

  Rote flexed and reached out. Time seemed to slow. Dimly, Jone could feel another, multicolored web of followers out there, funneling their own power to Rote.

  Lots of it.

  Spirits. All of them. Everywhere.

  Rote drew on Jone’s power to call out to her own kind—and they responded, from the tiniest sprite or sylph to the largest, nameless things that still lay hidden at the Core of the World. That power mixed with her own as their bodies blazed, as the Drake’s fire bloomed around them.

  Da
rkness and smoke congealed, a black mirror that reflected Drake’s fireball right back at him. A backlash of elemental fire gushed around them for an instant, but shadows surrounded her, shielding their body until the flames expired.

  Across the room, the Drake breathed in and hastily smothered his own magic, eyes wide in disbelief. Ribbons of darkness yanked Jone’s greatsword back into her waiting hands as Drake launched himself at them sword first.

  Rote promptly fumbled Jone’s greatsword and nearly dropped it.

  What are you doing? Parry!

  Rote leapt backward as the Drake’s blade sliced air an inch from their throats, then almost fell down.

  “You’re all...put together weird! I don’t know how this thing works!”

  Jone’s body stumbled and flailed, barely driving Drake back. By the Abyss, Rote!

  “Well, sorry! Maybe if you ever let me practice…”

  The privateer pressed the attack. His red-hot blade sheared through the tritanium chain on Jone’s side and bit painfully into their ribs, then spun and darted for her eye.

  Jone surged forward and pushed the possessing spirit aside. Blade held backward in her hands, she caught the thrust on her hilt and brushed it aside. Her pommel found his face in return as Jone stepped forward; Drake reeled and spat blood as it crushed his already-broken nose. The dueling blade lashed out, and Jone sidestepped smoothly, spun the greatsword around in her hands—

  —And sheared completely through one of Drake’s thighs.

  A gilded runeblade clattered across marred, bloody whitestone as Sir Francis Drake fell, stormy eyes wide with alarm, a severed artery pumping rich crimson liberally onto the floor.

  Frantic, his face creased with pain, he drew in a hasty breath.

  Jone’s skin blazed as Rote stepped forward and smothered flame. Liquid darkness, thick and cloying, quenched the dragonfire quicker than it could pour from his throat.

  And as the Drake choked on shadows, Jone stepped up and skewered her foe through his other lung.

  Drake wheezed out a weak burst of air, but Rote surged forward, laughing madly, and swatted it trivially aside.