The Monster's in the Details

by Ren Ryder

  “Bell!” I called.

  “I’m going in!” she said.

  “Wait!” I called after her.

  Bell flew in ahead of me, casting a powerful wind working down on top of Ailill’s head. It wasn’t enough. The attack bounced off the fae’s shields and dispersed gusts of wind across the clearing. Ailill seemed unfazed; he was picking at his manicured nails like he had expected this result from the start.

  I wanted to hesitate but didn’t. Instead I drew within striking range and started pummeling his shield with my staff. My supercharged attacks bounced off one after the other, creating a thin smattering of cracks out from the impact points and sending up sparks, but otherwise failing to breach. The backlash from my last attack pinged against my hands and sent my staff spinning into the air to land somewhere behind me.

  Ailill gave me a look full of grace and pity. “Do not blame yourself for this, for I am chosen. The gods themselves have decided I will shepherd the weak and the undeserving into a new era of peace and prosperity. Why else would I be possessed of such grace and power?”

  Unhurried, Ailill unholstered his wand from his belt and pointed it at me with a casual flick of his fingers. From out its tip came a condensed ray of black-and-green mana that struck me from close range. I catapulted twenty feet across the clearing and rolled to land in a heap in the dirt.

  Ailill ambled over and peered down at me from on high. “Ah, drat. Have I broken you already? My toys never seem to last.”

  Getting to my feet, I was struck by a bout of dizziness that made my vision dance with stars and shadows. A sudden feeling of weakness overcame my body, and I fell back to my knees to stare open-mouthed at Ailill.

  “You see, I’m a pureblood life mage. When my attack hits its target, it does more than the simple barbarity you’re no doubt accustomed to seeing fighting riffraff.”

  “A life mage with infinite life to draw upon. How cheap~” Bell commented from up above.

  Bell commanded focused blasts of wind, condensed into hammer-like shapes to rain down on the unsuspecting Ailill’s head. Again and again the hammer-blows fell onto the champion’s dense shielding, but they had little effect on the unexcitable fae.

  “Know your place, sylph.”

  Ailill rubbed his clean-shaven chin and raised his eyes up to Bell, who was floating in the air above him. He waved his wand to cast an arcing blade of pure life mana that struck Bell out of the air like a flyswatter. The sylph fell to the earth, unmoving.

  “Bell!”

  I’d never seen the sylph hurt before in battle, not ever. Seeing her lying there like a broken doll did something to me that I didn’t expect. I overflowed with pure fury.

  I needed a sharper weapon than I possessed to break through Ailill’s defenses, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, besides showing the elitist champion the error of his ways.

  I rose to my feet and ran straight at Ailill like a charging bull. His shielding stopped my headlong rush short, but I wasn’t done. Shaking my head from side to side, I focused my attention on his glowing shield where cracks from Bell’s and my combined assaults created a network of weaknesses.

  Channeling mana into my bare fists, I pounded against the barrier in a rage. I rained twenty, fifty, a hundred consecutive blows against the weakened shield, pouring all my wrath into the attack.

  All the while Ailill looked on with calm, bored eyes. “You see, whatever you do, however you approach me, your resistance is futile. Lucky for you, I’m feeling rather magnanimous today. I will allow you to concede this battle to me before it costs you your life.”

  I howled and poured more power into my attack. Every bit of mana I’d summoned, I channeled down my arms into my fists to empower my attacks. A hail of palm-strikes impacted the barrier over and over and over and over until finally, something gave way and the shield shattered into pieces beneath my wrath.

  Ailill finally gave me a delicious reaction. His eyes went wide and he leapt backwards to create space between us. He assessed me anew from safety, his body language changed to reflect some level of caution.

  I looked, Bell was still laid facedown in the dirt. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing if she was still breathing. I just had to hope she was okay.

  I walked over and picked up my staff with renewed confidence, twirling it in my hands.

  “You were saying?” I asked.

  Ailill brushed dirt off his fur clothes and smirked. “So you breached my defense. A fluke or a miracle, but certainly not cause for alarm. Let me show you the true power of one destined to claim his birthright, the mantle of king.” He was so haughty and sure of himself that he didn’t even replace his shields.

  Or, I hope, he isn’t able to.

  I still wanted to throttle him.

  Drawing a vast volume of mana from my source, enough to run me dry, I channeled power through Bell’s sigil to empower myself with wind mana. I felt like the wind itself. Strength flooded into my limbs and I hopped lightly from foot to foot, testing my mobility.

  Shaking with emotion, I said, “I’m going to make you regret what you did to Bell. She isn’t just any sylph, she’s my familiar. And I wouldn’t expect you to understand this concept, but we’re partners, we help each other— and I don’t plan on letting you tarnish the bond we have.”

  Ailill just stood there, still as a stone, not reacting to my words at all. Rather than seem perturbed by my words, he donned a cloak of pretentiousness that made him seem bigger than he was.

  I tensed my muscles and got ready to bring the fight to Ailill. “You better prepare yourself, king.”

  For Bell, I channeled wind mana in vast quantities. My staff creaked as I charged it with more power than it could handle. Still I pressed on, packing it with vicious wind mana until cracks started running down its length.

  Lightning fast I streaked across the distance separating me from the high-and-mighty champion, coming in with a quick crosscut aimed at Ailill’s shoulder. I moved too fast for the fae elite to mount any kind of defense or counterattack. When I felt wood impact bone, I released a blast of focused wind mana out my staff.

  Ailill was blown back by the force of my attack. His right shoulder a mess of blood and tendons, for the first time he looked uncertain of victory. But I wasn’t going to give him time to beg for forgiveness or reach into his reserves to turn the fight around.

  I struck while he was on his back foot, sweeping my staff through arcing paths to create a storm of wind scythes that sliced the air with their passage.

  Ailill dropped his wand in his hurry to mount a defense, raising his hands up in front of him to create a hasty barrier of life mana that disintegrated under my unending attacks.

  I exhausted every drop of wind mana channeled into my splintered staff before I stopped to survey the damage. When I was through, I was shaking and exhausted and all too aware of how drained I was.

  I shouldn’t have worried.

  Ailill was down. The champion's defense broken, his body was covered in countless wounds that oozed purple blood. A lot of them were deep, and some of them looked fatal. His decadent furs had been ripped to shreds, and he was all but naked before me.

  I stepped up to the fallen champion and looked down on him with the single drop of pity I was able to muster for him.

  “So this is all there is to a pureblood champion whose birthright it is to take up the mantle of the Seven Year King? I’m not going to lie, I expected more.”

  Ailill gasped and sputtered, trying to eke out a response.

  Just then Ailill’s rune-brand began to pulse a deep red. Like it sensed he was on death’s door, and it was just waiting to swallow his life and feed it into the Otherworld’s last harvest. That reminded me that we were all pawns in a greater game, and I stepped back from the brink of murdering the defenseless elfin mage in cold blood.

  “Thank you for your service,” I said, then broke my splintered staff over my knee.

  I bent down and unbuckled Ailill’s be
lt, taking his hand-and-a-half sword for my own. Then I walked over and picked up his discarded wand, holstering it in the wand holder without bothering to inspect it.

  “To the victor goes the spoils, isn’t that right?” I echoed Oberon’s words from the start of the third trial.

  I took a knee beside Ailill, who was still struggling to speak. “What’s that?” I asked, cupping my ear to listen.

  “Kill me,” he rasped. “I won’t survive the shame of this defeat. Kill me.”

  “So you admit defeat?” I prodded.

  “I do. Now please, end my suffering.”

  “I accept your forfeit, but I won’t kill you,” I told Ailill, then I grabbed him by the leg and started dragging him towards the edge of the barrier. It wasn’t far. “Remember, you’re an all-mighty life mage. I bet you can heal even the most grievous of wounds, given time. Time I’m determined to make sure you have.”

  I put all my strength into throwing the broken mage as far as I could. His body sailed through the air, boneless, and crashed into the earth on the other side of the barrier.

  As soon as that was done, I ran over to Bell to take her in my arms. My body sagged in relief when I realized she was breathing. Her small body felt like it weighed nothing. Although she had green-and-black marks covering her body that looked life-threatening, she wasn’t bleeding anywhere that I could see.

  Bell always seemed larger-than-life, so seeing her like this turned my world topsy-turvy. I cradled her in my arms and held her tight against my chest. I wouldn’t let any more harm befall her.

  Oberon’s voice boomed across the Wildwood. “A champion has been decided! Congratulations to the reigning champion, our Seven Year King. Please make your way before the court to be declared the formal winner.”

  As if I was going to fall for that. Oberon was more inclined to see me lynched than get off his high horse and declare me king. If all went as planned, Willow already had our exit plan underway.

  Clothed in legitimacy in the wake of my victory in the final trial, Oberon wouldn’t be able to kill me outright. I was sure that wouldn’t stop him from trying; however he could bend the rules to see me dead, he would. At least Lord Eurius’s possessive advances to reclaim his daughter might be put off by my victory, or so I hoped.

  Time to make tracks.

  Keeping my pace down so I didn’t jostle Bell, I ran outside the barrier, popping the bubble. With the realization that I had survived everything the Otherworld could throw at me, I ran with purpose towards a new beginning in the human realm.

  A shout stopped me in my tracks. I skidded to a stop and looked around.

  “Kal! Over here!” Fin waved to me from across the Wildwood.

  I jogged over to Fin, who looked a whole lot healthier than when I last saw him. The ogreish human champion’s skin had lost its pale, white pallor and been replaced with monstrous vitality. He had some incredible regenerative abilities, to bounce back from the brink of death so fast.

  Fin saw me cradling something to my chest, and he bent over to look. “What happened to Bell?”

  “Life mage, a nasty one. She’s going to be alright I think, but I want to get us out of here before the other shoe falls. I don’t think Oberon is going to take my win well, and I don’t want to be around when he finds out. Tradition is a flimsy defense against the wrath of a spiteful king. I need to leave the Otherworld before it all blows up in my face.”

  Fin smacked his thigh. “Right, I forgot. Willow brought me to a waystone and asked me to come fetch you after the trial. It’s a bit of a hike to get there, so buckle in. Follow me.”

  Fin oriented himself on some unseen point in the Wildwood and struck out at a fast clip that I struggled to match without jostling Bell too much. I followed him ever deeper into the Wildwood to parts unknown, climbing a steep rise that seemed to incline ever upwards towards the clouds high above.

  We stopped our hike at the peak of the rise, atop a small plateau.

  The battles of the day caught up to me as my adrenaline fled my body, leaving me worn-out and spent.

  I took an opportunity to get one last look at the Dayside’s brilliant skies, the sun’s rays beating down on my face. The Otherworld was a wildly beautiful, vibrantly alive, and dangerous place. My path of thorns across the breadth of its lands had broken me down and the crucible I’d undergone along the way reformed me into a stronger version of myself. I still had the same character defects and was riddled with weaknesses, but I was ready to face whatever New London had to throw my way.

  “Over here,” Fin called me over to where Willow sat crouched beside a stone monolith.

  Covered in runes and swirling lines and figures, the rock pillar shone with otherworldly light. Her hands ran across the stone, pressing different runes in sequences and activating each one with a burst of luminous power. I didn’t pretend to understand what Willow was doing to operate it, I just wanted her to work faster.

  My anxiety rode in front of my common sense, and I checked our surroundings for any oddities.

  “How long is this going to take?” I asked, shifting from foot to foot.

  Fin put a finger to his lips. “Shh, you’ll break her concentration. She’s been at it for awhile now, but the activation sequence is tricky I guess.”

  Oberon crashed to the earth, landing in the midst of our party and filling the plateau with his powerful presence. “What, leaving so soon, are we? Fatally wounded, the Seven Year King should be sacrificed to scrounge some merit from his sad failing. The tithe must be paid, you see? What a pity, that our people will have no king to celebrate, but I will not see a halfling bastard enthroned.”

  Fin and I made a wall to guard Willow, who was shaking like a leaf at Oberon’s appearance. She didn’t stop her work with the waystone, though she looked like she might faint. Oberon seemed inclined to talk, otherwise we would’ve been corpses already.

  “Willow, come now. Enough of this farce,” Oberon spoke past us to the cowering nymph.

  I spoke on her behalf. “Willow, you don’t need to listen to this windbag.”

  Oberon looked at Willow, then to me, and a smirk stretched his face into a cruel mask. “You don’t remember her? But she remembers when you saved her from being sold into slavery. That is no nymph— she’s a dryad, and so long as I possess her sapling, she will do what I say.”

  The faerie king’s words shocked me. “Willow, is that true?”

  Willow just shook her head, tears streaming out her eyes and down her face.

  I connected the dots and it all started making sense. Why Willow acted on Oberon’s orders, putting obstacles in my way towards advancing through the trials. I knew Oberon had something over her, but if he had her sapling in his possession, he held the dryad’s life in the palms of his hands.

  Oberon grandstanded, pacing back and forth across the plateau like an evil overlord. “The tithe has long since been paid in the blood of champions, wretched humans for the most part, by design. This last harvest will see the Otherworld flourish for many more seasons. You were not meant to steal the mantle for yourself. Now I must personally see to your culling, but it is a simple matter to pluck a few weeds before they grow to taint my forest.”

  I tried to draw mana from my source, but I was run dry. There was nothing left, no way for me to put up a fight against the overwhelming might of a faery king at the peak of his power. Fin may have looked much recovered, but whatever power he could bring forth against Oberon’s towering strength would be wiped away in an instant.

  We were going to die. Like chickens with their heads cut off, we were running around not knowing we were dead yet.

  Oberon waved a hand, calling up a big ball of light that drowned out the Dayside’s sun and blinded my eyes with its brilliance. “Say your prayers to whatever foolish gods you kneel in subservience to. Your souls will be forever chained in service to the prosperity of this, our great Otherworld.” Oberon’s hand came down, and bright death rained down upon us all.

  A
nother powerful presence descended over the top of the plateau, stopping just short of landing. “Hold on a moment, Oberon. I would have a word before you make the mistake of crossing me.”

  Oberon’s hand halted midair, and his ball of bright death stopped short of consuming us.

  “I recognize this champion as king,” Lord Eurius said, his attention falling heavy on me, and the bundle I carried in my arms. “He has little power of his own, and relies on my daughter for much, but I see he has some potential. I would not see his life cut short by your disdain for the circumstances of his birth. This personal vendetta of yours ends here.

  "Little one, please finish your task. I will see to your safety here and beyond. You have my word.”

  Oberon was deathly quiet throughout the entire exchange, his hand still poised to strike.

  Willow was openly bawling now as she finished activating the waystone. Radiant light streamed off the ancient stone, creating a small circle that expanded to hold Fin, Willow, and me in its embrace. Willow scurried outside the waystone’s reach and hid behind Lord Eurius, who speared me with his gaze.

  “If my daughter dies while under your charge, I am holding you personally responsible. There is no place in this Otherworld or any other world that I will not be able to seek you out and visit my wrath upon you.”

  “I, I won’t let her die,” I gulped down a hasty breath and finished, “I promise you that, you have my word.”

  Lord Eurius sniffed. “That will do. You would do well not to make me regret my choice here, boy.”

  “You won’t regret it,” I told him.

  The light of the waystone encapsulated Fin and I, leeching the color from the Otherworld as we shifted planes. We stepped then fell sideways into the human realm, leaving the faerie realm behind us. New London awaited us on the other side.

  Endnote

  I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again. Reviews are the lifeblood of indie authors like myself, and whether you enjoyed this book or not, I would greatly appreciate it if you would take some time out and leave a review over at Amazon.