by Stone Thomas
“Get away from her!” I yelled.
Nola looked up at me, puzzled. Then the glowing white outline of the goddess of chaos and awkward moments emerged from her body. She wasn’t a lumentor; Lumentors took ages to develop as their pent-up rage destroyed the parts of a soul that were still good and decent. She wasn’t just a ghost either. She was a goddess, and Duul’s plan for her was finally starting.
“You thought you’d walk away from this fight,” Kāya said, her voice still tinged with sadness. “In a way, you will. But it’s my soul that will animate your body.”
+61
Lily and Ambry still battled alongside one battalion of Halcyon residents while a second group fought in the center of our hill with Mamba and Mayblin. All Nola and I had was a dozen gi-ants and a lionkin against the god of war and Kāya’s ghost.
“Say goodbye to your goddess,” Duul said. “I’ll still let you serve her body after her soul is destroyed. Unless, of course, you’re ready to serve your true master.”
Savange, shaped like an old woman now with a cane, stepped toward the massive war dog, staring up at the god on its back. “His power is unrivaled,” she said. “Can you feel it? It beams from his body in waves. The things he’s done, the things he’s yet to do. The plans he’s buried like treasure.”
Meanwhile, Kāya went straight for the heart. She reached her spectral hands into Nola’s body, sinking her glowing, white fists through Nola’s ribs.
“Twenty-six seconds,” Brion said.
“Seraph,” I said. “Feed your energy back to Nola. Give her everything!”
The golden familiar took a step toward Nola, but Duul raised his fist. Five nearby cretins glowed in Kāya’s lilac color while five anibombs lost their shape, becoming wisps of energy that flew toward the cretins’ bodies. When the glow died down, the cretins were swirled with lilac. They had merged somehow, and one attack explained what that meant.
A single cretin ran at the guardian that tried to support Nola. They battled briefly before the cretin rolled its head back, screeched at the sky, and exploded in light purple flame. The guardian blasted back and vanished in a pool of lifeblood.
“How?” I asked.
“The shrine,” Brion said. “It allows them to use Draw.”
“We destroyed the shrine,” I said.
“You destroyed the shrine Kāya was building, yes, but not the shrine Duul built to Kāya,” Brion said. “Fourteen seconds.”
“Nola!” I yelled. “You have to go. Fly, as high as you can. Soar above these black clouds where Kāya can’t follow.”
“I won’t abandon Halcyon!” she said, her voice a weak tremble.
“You are Halcyon,” I said. “I know you’re cold, and it’s hard to move while she drains your power, but you have to try. Go!”
“Nine seconds,” Brion said.
Nola stepped back, then jumped. Her wings didn’t flap in time, and she didn’t get airborne. Kāya floated alongside Nola, her hands still reaching deep inside her, draining her of what little AP and XP she hadn’t spent yet.
“Four seconds,” Brion said. “That’s no time at all.” He ran at Kāya, getting between her and Nola. His former goddess’s hands sapped energy from the lionkin now while Nola stumbled back, away from her attacker.
“I can’t fly forever,” Nola said.
“You won’t have to,” I replied.
She bent her knees, looked to the sky, and launched. I had never seen her fly like this before. Her legs locked side by side, her toes pointed straight down, and she moved her wings in long, powerful thrusts that rocketed her body toward the heavens.
“Attend to your unfinished business!” Duul yelled. His voice was deep and gravelly. When his volume reached its peak, my bones rattled in my chest.
Kāya gave a meek nod, left Brion cold and weak at her feet, and trailed after Nola in the air.
“A pity I have to destroy your little city,” Duul said. “It was coming along nicely, but then, that was the problem. It serves as a symbol to those who would resist me. The elves of Mournglory draw strength from the example you’ve set. I won’t lose Valona the same way. I have great plans for her.”
His war dog turned and they charged north while four explosive cretins crept toward me. The gi-ants skittered back, then dove into the dirt, digging themselves to safety while I lifted a simple iron spear against four foes.
“What you did for Nola,” I said, pressing my back against Brion’s. “That was decent.”
“It was a start,” he replied.
“Too bad we’re about to blow up,” I said.
“Are we?” he asked. “There are still twelve gi-ants.”
“They left.”
“Down is not gone.”
Cretins crept forward with their mouths gaping, long sharp teeth glistening even in the low light. Then, before they came within two feet of us, they vanished. Gi-ants clawed at their feet, dragging them into holes deep under the surface. A moment later the cretins erupted, blowing dirt and rock straight into the sky. I wiped it from my face with my palms.
“I guess the numbers aren’t gone then?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “But the tempest has quieted somewhat.”
“I have to stop Duul,” I said. “Round up as many guardians as you can. I doubt we’ll unlock Draw, but there has to be something we can do. And, Brion? I’m trusting you. Nola saw something good in you once, and I refused to see it then. I see it now. If I don’t make it out of this, Nola will need a priest.”
“I could never fill your boots,” he said. “My feet are three and a quarter inches too wide. But I will do my best to serve her.”
I left Brion behind and ran.
The center of the hill was crowded with bodies. Mamba stood at the center of two dozen cursed men, all pinned to the ground by tightly wound snakes. Slain cretins and war dogs left black sludge in their wake. Our fighters kept beating back attackers, but others lay injured or exhausted. Only a few still had the protective marble shell of their potions.
Energems left here and there on our hill had filled to the brim with energy. I raced past the pulsating stones toward the northern half of the hill, losing Duul as he galloped away on his massive canine familiar.
“Charging blindly into battle, as always,” Savange said. Her voice was slow and grating.
“Not now,” I said.
“But now is all we have,” she replied. “I have nothing left to learn from you. The world is waiting.”
The hill became dark again, the way it was before Savange peeled the shadows away. Still, I ran. Ambry and the others had placed torches throughout the hill, and it was more than enough light to find Duul by.
Then, it got darker. My peripheral vision shrank inward, forcing my sight into a tunnel that tightened and closed in on me. I stopped running. I rubbed my eyes, but it was no use. I was completely and utterly blind.
“Enough!” I yelled. “I revoke your access to my shadows. I cancel our contract.”
She laughed, long and hard, while I felt around for a building, or a torch, or anything. “Our contract is binding,” she said. “The price of my services is death, and today you will pay me in full.”
There were explosions up ahead. Our cannons were far behind me, and Kāya was in no position to summon new familiars. These were cretins that had absorbed anibombs into themselves, and they would destroy Halcyon if I didn’t stop them.
I stepped forward in the dark.
“Arden?”
“Cindra?” I asked. “Is that you? You should be resting!”
“I am safe,” she said. “I’m on Halcyon’s highest tower, at the northern edge above the temple. See what I see, and follow me.”
My vision swirled again. Cindra stepped into the street from between two buildings while the shapes of Halcyon’s residences came into focus briefly. Then a cloud of darkness overtook them again.
“I will not be outdone,” Savange said.
Glimpses of our fledgling city
bloomed in my sight, then vanished, then shifted, then swirled. Cindra’s power of illusion battled against Savange’s hold on my shadows and I ran again, dodging past blind spots and following the fleeting image of my slime woman guide.
Then I saw him, the god of war raising his sword against Halcyon’s homes. Cretins by his side erupted in purple flames.
Standing between Duul and me was the war dog he rode here on. It thrashed its head into a nearby building. Only a few shingles broke from the roof, a testament to Vix’s expert workmanship. Her skills improved the damage those buildings could withstand, but they weren’t invincible.
“Stop!” I yelled. Duul’s war dog smashed its head into the building again, letting loose a few bricks.
“You could have served me,” Duul said. “You could have helped rid the world of the empire’s domination over every precious soul.”
“So that you can dominate them instead?” I asked.
“I will shatter the empire’s illusion of stability and give men the freedom to act as their minds and bodies dictate,” Duul said. “The empire was always destined to fall. War is the inevitable end of all governance because only anarchy is freedom.
“All the rules and laws, the morals and ethics that constrain the spirit. All they do is silence a natural impulse that yearns for expression. The Great Mother has shackled our hands for too long. The other half of the pantheon rises as she falls.”
“Not every impulse should be expressed,” I said. “Like right now, I feel another bout of unintentional alliteration coming on, but I’m going to fight it because I’m in the middle of something serious. Trying to stop you from waging war on the world and forcing its women to carry your children. Can we talk about that part? Because it’s pretty screwed up.”
“The world has always been at war,” Duul said. “The next generation will be half-man and half-god. All will be of the same nature, the same mind. A new world order will commence, one in which war and peace are one and the same.
“The Great Mother’s peace is rooted in fear,” he continued. “My law will stem from might, and the Great Mother will play a leading role. She is the ultimate prize, the future mother of the heir to my throne. Once my powers have grown, I will work the miracle of new life upon her self-righteous womb.”
“I can’t let you do that,” I said.
“You won’t have to,” Duul said. “Letting me suggests you’ll have a choice.”
Duul’s war dog smashed its head through the front wall of the home it was attacking, then turned its attention toward me. Just like with Kāya’s location-distorting familiar, Duul found a way to pump this creature’s size up, well beyond a normal war dog. It stepped toward me, flexing the rippling muscles of its legs and its back. Long, sharp fangs hung from its mouth like shards of glass.
The war dog was nearly as wide as the dirt road and there was no getting past it. It bent its knees and prepared to charge, so there was no going under it.
I did what any valiant hero full of legendary epicness would do. I ran like hell away from it.
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I pumped my legs as hard as I could, running away from Halcyon’s residential area where some of our residents were still hiding in their homes for safety. I led Duul’s oversized familiar toward our commercial strip instead, where the buildings were new and empty.
Then, as I passed a small intersection, another monstrosity barreled toward me, one with a small yellow elf on its back.
“This thing is a bit unruly!” Mercifer yelled. He held onto the long bone horns of the lord of the rocks, its skeletal body no longer inanimate. Four long legs ended in clawed boney hands that left deep scratches in the dirt. I ducked as it leapt over my head and landed on the war dog, rolling both of them over.
Mercifer fell from the creature as it collided with Duul’s creation. “I told you,” I said. “No bones! But… nice work!”
“I made a mount out of it,” he said. “But he’s a feisty one.”
The war dog bit at the skeleton’s leg bones, but the skeletal dragon scratched back. Mercifer darted down an alleyway between homes now that his work was done.
Duul lifted his sword high, yelled, and ran. I ran too, drawing this fight further from Halcyon’s residences.
Two cretins blocked my path, but I shouldered past them and kept running. They gave chase, aiming ribbons of dark magic that sailed over my head and splashed against the road before me. I turned back, sent a Piercing Blow through the black metallic body of one cretin, then spun toward the other one and activated the skill a second time, stabbing my spear through its round, eyeless face.
Their mangled bodies lay there, twisted heaps of slain cretin leaking a thick, dark lifeblood onto a street still hazed with the lilac smoke of blown-up cretin-anibomb hybrid minions.
In that moment, panic froze me solid.
That smoke. These cretins. This place.
It was happening.
The row of buildings turned into half-finished construction beyond this point. I glanced at the nearest completed building, forcing myself to read the polished metal sign that sat by its door. “Hinnabee’s Sweet Shoppe.” He must have changed careers when he moved here from Valleyvale.
I didn’t peer inside the window. I knew exactly how empty that shop would be.
A throaty roar erupted behind me, a sickening garbled sound as Duul let out a war cry. His old, loose throat couldn’t hold an even tone. He charged toward me, massive and strong, but wrinkled like a grippersnout. His body was draped in leathery blood-red skin that hung like a rumpled curtain.
Around his neck was something new. A necklace. It was a string of long, sharp beads made of smoky black glass. Each bead was like a bird’s talon, curving to a sharp point.
I kept running, past the row of shops and into the open. I crossed the hill while Duul waved his massive sword and yelled. That weapon was impossibly black, vile ore like my old lance had been. If Nola managed to fend off Kāya’s ghost, it was Duul’s deadly blade she’d face next.
The god of war chased me to Halcyon’s edge and just a few yards from Valona’s shrine. A silent mummer sat idle inside the stone cylinder. Beyond this point was our wall, sizzling with electricity.
“Nowhere left to run,” Duul said. “You should run to me, not away. You were cast aside by the empire. You only live because your parents defied the Great Mother and brought you to Meadowdale to safety. You only exist because my acolyte sheltered you. You owe me everything you are and everything you will become.”
“I never asked for Father Cahn’s shelter,” I said. “He betrayed his own goddess to serve you. I refuse to do that to Nola.”
“Your goddess,” Duul said, “uses you the same way her line has always used mortals. She is the Great Mother’s blood. Pampered and privileged, her kind have always wielded power to suppress. I will yield it to unleash. Do not fight your future or your nature. Serve me.”
“Why do you try so hard to recruit me?” I yelled. “You have your servants! I’m no one to you.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, yet,” Duul said. “But there are things I can offer you that Nola cannot. That the Great Mother will not. I can offer you your family.”
“I’ll never accept you, or your false promises,” I said.
“Then I will find another who will,” he said. “You are not the only orphan, Arden Hochbright!”
Duul’s sword burned a brilliant red as he slammed it into the dirt, but I dodged. He was large, and he moved slowly because of it. I ran around him, forcing him to pivot with each attack.
Every time I thrust at him, I missed. My new spear was too short, and I knew better than to get closer to him. He filled his weapon with some unknown skill over and over, as if the action points he spent were nothing to him. Then his sword’s light flickered out. His AP was spent.
I lunged forward, stabbing him in the side with my iron spear while he reached toward his necklace. One of the glass beads lit up, then turned clear. Duul raised h
is sword and it burned with red energy again.
That’s all it took. One bead to revive his power. He continued to attack while I dodged. I didn’t have the energy to keep this up. Duul’s blade found my arm when I dodged too slowly, then scraped down my leg when I didn’t jump far enough away.
Our hill exploded again in the background and I stopped for a moment to lean on my spear for support.
“Enough!” Duul yelled. “I expected better from you, Arden. You run from my blade rather than meet it with your own.” He tilted his head toward the sky. “Kāya! Bring me the body of the Great Mother’s golden descendent. Claim the power of prophecy her line has guarded for centuries. Tonight, the future is ours!”
“No!” I yelled. “You want me to serve you, take me instead. Leave Nola alone!”
“You had your chance to serve me,” Duul said. “What use are you now, bloody and weak? If you can’t protect Nola against a lunatic goddess, how would you help me slay the Great Mother? Tell me, Arden. How?”
Duul’s sword was a thick black blade that curved to a point. Red energy pulsed from its hilt, rising up the handle and engulfing the blade in flickering crimson magic. He slammed it toward me, but I rolled forward, escaping his blade by rushing toward the god that wielded it. I was just inches from Duul’s body now.
I would only get one shot this close. It was time to cash in the XP I had earned slaying cretins and war dogs, and skilling up a hundred fighters before our battle began. I flicked open my skill menu, improved Upsurge to increase the skill’s stacking limit, and gripped my weapon tight.
I triggered Upsurge to double my next polearm skill. My body began to glow with faint white light. I triggered it again, washing my body in white flame as my power accumulated. I pulled back my spear and activated Piercing Blow for twenty times my normal attack power.
My polearm sank into Duul’s knee, releasing dark red blood from the deep puncture after he yanked it free. The massive god of war kicked me in retaliation. I landed on my side and something crunched against my hip. A warm, wet sensation trickled down my leg, giving off a sweet buttery smell.
