by BJ Hanlon
Somewhere in that forest Edin knew the enemy was using his own strength, a strength of negating talents, to disrupt the magi. Edin felt for the void, the negative and then found in there, a giant dark sphere where everything was empty.
“Hello Yio,” he whispered and took a deep, lung filling breath of the revolting morning air.
He summoned his strength and began to surround the sphere. He thought of being inside the inn and showing Berka his talents.
Edin joined the talents, the elements together in his mind, the spirit with the water, the lightning and the wind, the fire and the earth. He spun them around into a twister that began to roar in his head.
Faster, he thought, faster and tighter. Surround and destroy. Smother, overwhelm, overpower. I am the Ecta Mastrino.
Then like trying to push a spring all the way down, Edin felt the push back by something strong.
Or someone strong.
The strength from the god of the underworld was as powerful as anything he’d ever felt. Edin gritted his teeth and felt sweat pouring down his face. In his ears, a great whistling sounded as he tried to squeeze.
Then suddenly there was a boom and a strong concussive blast erupted from the tree line.
Edin barely had a moment to cover himself and his friends with a culrian before the wind knocked over the trees and cracked the fallen rocks and sent bodies and weapons careening off every which way.
It went on for what felt like an hour but was probably no more than seconds.
Then, in the sky there were explosions of color. All the colors of the Ballast Stones.
Toward the water, he saw many of his allies still standing. Magi, elves, men and wolves were now destroying the formerly advancing, now retreating horde.
He spotted some of his friends chasing them down as they scattered into the woods and the winds.
They didn’t matter. Only Yio Volor did.
16
Attack
Edin turned to Arianne and picked up his staff. He slowly descended the small mound until he reached her. “This one, I do on my own,” he said. Edin grabbed her and kissed her deeply and long as if it were the last time they’d ever do such a thing.
Edin struck that thought from his mind. I’m coming back… I hope.
Edin broke the embrace and looked at Dorset. His roommate reached out and took his hand. The man’s grip had gotten stronger since his days of fiddling with books and teaching the gentry’s kids languages and whatever else they knew. The haughtiness of a stuck-up scholar was long gone now.
Edin then turned back and climbed the mound of rock, wood, metal, and bodies. He reached the top and leapt down the other side using the wind to glide.
Edin started to stride across the field keeping his eyes upon the spot where he knew Yio Volor to be.
A pile of bodies and objects stood before him and Edin used a soft wind to push them apart and continued forward with barely even a thought. Above him he heard cracking in the sky like thunder. A pale light shone somewhere above and it nearly caused him to stop.
To his right, dematians were dying on the blades of man and the talent of the magi.
Giants were being felled like the great trees of the forest. Great spiders were becoming tangled in their own webs as they tried to flee as limbs were being hacked off.
Edin started to jog. The air churned above him and around him in a small but still visible twister like a circular shield. It was not one that he’d summoned, but it cleared the path before him, seemingly knowing exactly where it was supposed to go.
Rain, soft at first, began to drop and dampen the field of battle and still the pale light of morning shone through the darkness and the clouds that had been hanging above them.
A single ray of sun originally. Just one that busted on through. Then another and it mixed with the rain to produce a daylight shower.
But there were thunderclouds also, and behind he still felt the rain and damp ground. And through it all Edin felt the entirety of the strength of the world and of the energy that was a part of it.
Energy that would never die.
There was the water that pounded with the waves and rose up on pilings and docks and receded on the beaches and on the land where it deposited nutrients.
There were the winds that turned the mills that churned the grains and carried the seeds of plants to far off lands to sprout and grow from the beautifully damp earth. The fire that erupted from the lightning and burned old trees to make way for new growth.
It was all a circle, Edin began to think, a weird circle. He saw things in that moment that made him realize that this was all connected. They rose up and went down, everything. All the energy he’d ever felt would rise and fall and live and die. It would all come from and go to the Underworld.
Then a great metal rod that looked quite a bit like a metal spear was flung far off into the sky. It twinkled in the light and then was struck with lightning. It dropped and disappeared.
Even Yio Volor and his wan stones were part of the circle. The anti-talent; the anti-life. Edin saw even he was necessary, even he was part of this world in a way that would always be needed.
Yio would never be forgotten while all living things would.
Through the swirling wind he saw three crillios, large ones by the looks of them, race toward him. They all leapt, one right after the other and then got caught in the twister. A giant came after, it too got caught.
Then they were flung far away and Edin was almost sure he heard a splash of bodies in the sea.
The winds died down as he approached the forest. Dematians appeared with hatchets and axes and horsehead knives. They took a few steps out of the cover and Edin sent them flying with winds that nearly burst even his ear drums.
Then he ran into the forest and was covered by the darkness again though he could still see with his penetrating gaze. With the gaze of the Ecta Mastrino.
The trees were covered in the thin gray bearded moss of the swamps of old. Of a dead land. The trees seemed yellow and withered and the earth was wet and damp.
But then a sunbeam burst through somewhere ahead and suddenly Edin stopped. He felt it calling to him. It was there as well as something else.
Someone else.
Yio Volor.
Edin spent a few moments looking at the sunbeam and watching the rain fall within it. Watching them merge and join like a mage with energy, with the talent.
Edin felt the power flowing through him. In and then out, he thought, use and return. That was what he needed to do. That was what he would do… though he didn’t know what exactly to do.
Edin took a deep breath. He pictured Berka and Vistach before him. He saw Elva and Kes, he saw Foristol he saw Pharont and Mersett and the mage Laural. And last of which he saw Master Horston and his mother.
How dare you come from the underworld and attack man’s lands and deliver such wanton death.
He clenched his jaw and tried to quell the anger in him. He couldn’t let it overtake him.
Shivers and courage began to tickle him. Urging him to go on. To finish this.
“Burn Vestor’s last might,” Edin said.
Then he screamed the greatest war cry he could muster. Leaves and trees blew away. The rain stopped briefly and the sun disappeared again behind a cloud.
Then Edin sprinted. There was no need to be secret about this. No need to be safe. He knew and Yio Volor knew that here, outside of the great human city of Calerrat, the end would come.
Edin chopped branches as thick as a barrel with his sword. He wacked through saplings like a man with a scythe. The air rushed through his hair and past his ears. The howling of wolves and crillio beasts echoed through the forest.
Then he saw that darkness before him. The black bulbous shape that held sway in the center of the grayish and yellow lands. He raced toward it and into the clearing that held it. A wide clearing with beasts all around. Beasts and dead and dying men.
A soldier looked up and pleaded with
Edin for help as he crossed to the black mass that looked like smoke.
It was almost like ink that had been dripped in water. He took a breath and let the energy of his combined talents flow through his body and into Mirage.
Edin took a step up with his sword and hacked at the giant bulbous black form.
For a moment, he saw white and then felt his body being flung backward like he’d been thrown from a trebuchet.
There was a moment when he’d lost all sense of time and who he was. But only a moment because suddenly he felt the forest coming upon his back and knew it’d hurt tremendously.
Without even his conscious mind doing it, a great wind buffeted him like a soft down mattress. Edin was a foot off the ground and felt gray beard moss tickling his hair.
Then he dropped to the clearing’s floor and landed on a knee and using the staff as a third leg. Edin pushed himself up and saw the real king of the dematians, the god of the underworld, the spirit of death, and the destroyer of this world before him.
He did not look nearly as all-powerful now. Edin stepped forward, mud grasping at his feet. It was as if the earth did not want this to happen. Edin spun the sword and staff in front of him crossing his arms and having them whistle as they cut the air.
Yio Volor turned and faced Edin. In his hand was the staff that held the five stones. In another was a great sword that was easily as tall as Edin and of a wicked black steel that absorbed the light.
The voice was thick and raspy as it came from the demon king’s mouth. “Foolishly you have come,” said Yio Volor. “Do you really believe that you can fight me mortal?” He took a step to the right and Edin saw a man trying to pull himself out of the circle of death but only his one arm seemed to work.
Yio didn’t even look at him as his foot came down on the man’s head. There was a sickening splat that nearly made Edin retch and look away.
But he wouldn’t give this thing the satisfaction. Edin glared as he started circling the glade opposite Yio and keeping a wide gap between them.
“You do not understand, I am but the trigger. These lands that have risen with me, these beasts and demons as you believe them, it is their turn to rule this world. You cannot stop this. The swamps are not just the only lands that you should fear. The forests grow wickeder, the deserts drier. You have failed. Even now, your great cities fall into ruin.”
Edin tried to keep focused on his enemy but the words struck home and burned and as he said them, Edin thought they seemed true.
“Aldenheim is gone, not to mention your little village. Frestils and Carrow are being sacked and will fall. Those few that escaped will not survive long. It is our time, young human. You cannot stop progress.” As he spoke his voice made a crescendo to a deep reverberation that ran through the forest and rattled the leaves and twigs.
Edin glared. He felt fury and rage press like the adrenaline that pumped through his veins. All sense of calm disappeared the longer Yio spoke.
“You monster! You’ll pay for all you’ve hurt. You will see what revenge looks like!” Edin didn’t think, he ran at Yio Volor. The god grinned his sickening grin with his fangs out like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse.
He raised his sword and slashed at Yio Volor. At the last second, the black sword came up and blocked with such ease and quickness as Edin had never seen.
A moment it was by the god’s leg, then it was easily parrying Edin’s strike.
Edin went with it and stumbled a few feet before kicking something and falling down. He landed hard on a dead dematian and felt something in the body snap.
He didn’t hear the beast behind him approaching. Edin quickly rolled off the body and spun around on a knee holding up his sword and staff getting ready to block or parry any attack.
But Yio Volor just stood there staring at Edin like he was a caged elephant. One that he was curious about and not in the least bit frightened of.
He cocked his head in the way Grent used to and grinned. “You are Vestor’s progeny?” He said, “I thought you’d be strong, but I suppose that he was never very strong either. More of a trickster and manipulator.”
Edin grunted and stood.
“You’re not fit to wear his mantle, you’re no hero, you’re just a boy.”
The boy comment hit him again, much like it had when he was first leaving Yaultan. “Boy?” Edin gasped. “I’m no boy.” He shouted and ran again at Yio.
He prodded with his sword but it was a feint, then he came back with his quarterstaff for a head strike.
Yio didn’t even move for the feint and ducked the head strike with extreme ease.
Edin had swung with such power that he’d spun in a circle and as he was turning, a great hand or foot or something caught him in the back and he was flung away.
He landed hard on the ground. Something caught him just below his ribs and all of his breath leapt from him.
Edin gasped and tried to get more breath to come into his body.
He needed to do something with whatever strength he could find, Edin pushed himself over to his back and looked up at Yio who still stood in the same spot. It was almost as if he hadn’t moved once.
A thought ran through him. Yio Volor also used the quarterstaff and sword as duel weapons. What did that mean? Edin wondered. What did that say about him? About Edin?
“How could you be the chosen one? I do not even break a sweat. This is pathetic.”
Edin growled in the back of his throat and sat up. It took a minute or more to catch his breath but Yio seemed to act like he had all the time in the world.
Edin stood again.
“Ah, the boy is back to his feet.” Yio spat. “The hero of Bestoria, the great and powerful mage. The Ecta Mastrino,” he mocked. “Difficult to use your taint is it not? You see it was I who created the wan stones, it was I who set this wretched continent on the path to war nearly a thousand of your years ago and while the magi and humans were killing each other, I was able to grow my army.”
Edin felt shaky. Of course Yio did that, it was in his nature to tempt evil. Though that didn’t make it any better that he’d killed Arianne’s family and millions of others. Edin let the energy from the staff attempt to replenish his own. It did little and didn’t do anything for the pain.
His chest and his gut hurt. He felt blood trickle from a gash on his arm but he ignored it. That was the least of his worries.
Edin took a breath. His anger was pulsing his brain and making it hard to think. He couldn’t have that. Fury was the weapon of this evil god. He swallowed and cleared his mind as best as he could. He thought of that breath as it went in and out.
Then he looked up at the beast.
“You want to know what is pathetic?” Edin barked, “that you think your puny wan stones can stop me.” Edin flipped Mirage and whipped his right arm out so that the blade pointed directly at the enemy. A life-size ethereal sword flew out of Edin’s blade at Yio Volor’s chest.
The god barely had time to move out of the way. Edin raced after the blade as fast as possible for him which was nearly the speed of a terrin.
He felt the wan stone trying to dampen the talents but he had the energy to fight it. He hoped.
Yio twisted out of the way of the attack and was slowly turning back as Edin flung himself at the monster. Edin slashed with Mirage, trying to cleave his opponent in two but Yio was too quick. He deflected it and countered with a blindingly fast riposte.
Edin barely had time to block it with the staff, after he did, he spun in a whirlwind and aimed a blow at Yio’s feet. That was leapt by Yio and Edin rolled out of the way as the staff with the Ballast Stones was slammed into the ground.
There was a great cracking and the world shook. Edin continued his roll and then came to his feet. Edin spun and saw a giant chasm had opened between Yio’s feet and ran off into the forest.
Holy gods, Edin thought. If I’d been hit by that…
Fear began to creep back into his mind and the rest of the anger fled.
The god swiftly stepped over the chasm and came back at Edin. He swirled his weapons in dizzying arcs as lightning was cracking in the air. The wind coming from it whipped dirt and gravel.
Suddenly, a bolt of blue light shot out of Yio’s staff.
Edin raised a culrian an instant before it hit. A blink later, Edin was on his back not exactly sure what had happened.
He saw a small ray of sunlight coming through dark clouds and then remembered. Without another thought he rolled to his right. A moment later, the spot where he’d been laying crumbled and fell in upon itself like a sink hole.
Edin did a kip-up and landed on his feet. Yio was smiling again.
“I like this,” he said while staring at the quarterstaff.
Edin swallowed and his legs seemed to shake. Then his mind again went to his friends, to his family. Everyone who was gone, and he knew he couldn’t beat this monster. Never. Not even as the Ecta Mastrino.
Then Yio raised the staff above his head and looked at it or through it. A dark cloud gathered in the space above them and then soon the cloud started to descend in a great twister. The roaring of it was louder than all else.
Edin could barely reach out and feel it. The strength and weight was too great for any mortal man to deal with it.
It was heavy and dark and felt like it weighed as much as a galleon.
Edin yelped as it grew larger, then a head seemed to appear in the mist. It was a dragon’s or wyrm’s head and it roared toward Edin.
Over the sound he heard Yio’s wicked laugh. It scraped the bones in his body.
Edin steeled himself and summoned a bolt of lightning and sent it in. It disappeared with a snap. He tried sending stone and gravel and dirt but it all got swept up.
“Run boy,” said Yio.
There was nothing he could do, the fear was too great. He turned toward the forest and started to run. He leapt a log and ran behind a tree. The twister demon thing continued to come. Its roar was louder than even Arianne’s gusts had ever been.
