Chapter 78: B3 Chapter 27- Sheena & Alicia: Vessel Of Chaos (Part 2)
Sheena
The Talionis was the surest example of what the abuse of magic could do to a person, and what harm that it could inflict on those who didn't deserve it. Putting them down was not just a mercy to the fool who had submitted to the process of its creation, but perhaps the entire world.
My opening move was to hit the nearest Talionis with a barrage of rapid-fire miniature fireballs, and I was frustrated to see that the attack had little effect. The armor welded onto its ravaged flesh served to mitigate most of the damage by deflecting the impact of the spell while absorbing the heat generated by it. So even the armor is contributing to its resilience. Guunzel took quite a few things into account when he made these abominations.
In retaliation, my target unlatched a tomahawk from its hip and threw it at me with a sideways toss, the whirling blade whistling as it cut through the air. I just barely managed to duck down to my left as it passed over me, missing my hat by inches. I've got to keep it away from me. At close range I won't stand a chance.
Dragging the bladed edges of my staff along the ground, I twisted it in a tight circle, drawing the same circular path over and over again. Sparks flew as I fed my resolve into the spell. My blood seemed to boil in my veins, acting in tune with the power I was conjuring. The heat in the circle formed into a snakelike shape, coiling around the tiny circle, contained by my concentration. When the blades on my staff began to turn red, I swept it along the ground toward the Talionis.
Freed from its containment, the fire surged along the ground like it was covered in oil. A wave of intense fiery wrath slammed into the Talionis, who made no effort to move out of the way. The sheer force of the impact sheared through the monster's arm just below the shoulder, severing it in one clean blow, and scorching the entirety of its body in the process. It didn't cry out or seemingly react in any way to suggest it was in pain, although I wasn't sure if it was because it wasn't hurt or was incapable of expressing such.
The freakish creature bent down, picked up its arm, and jammed it back against its shoulder. In a flash of green, baleful light, the blackened skin knit itself back together. Well if I needed any more confirmation that Guunzel made these things with necromancy, there it is. Eternity knows how that bastard figured out how to use such magic, but maybe I can wring it out of him when this is over.
With the arm successfully reattached, the Talionis resumed its attack as if nothing had happened. Its sword was still firmly in its hand, so it charged forward in its stilted, unsettling gait. Alright. I have had it with this. You want to see me at my best?
Manipulation of the elements was a straightforward technique, but just because elemancy was the most basic of magic schools didn't mean it was the least effective. Let's take a page out of Kuro's book. Remembering the spell he'd used to help us walk on air back at the Repository, I decided to put a spin on it. Concentrating the power just under the Talionis' feet, I weakened the pull of gravity just underneath it for an instant.
With no force keeping it anchored to the ground, the monster bounced up three feet into the air, tilting forward with no way to halt its momentum. Maintaining the lessened gravity beneath the Talionis, I buffeted it with small air currents to lift it higher. Like the angriest balloon in the world, it floated up, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty feet up. Sorry, Guunzel. You may think you came up with a neat little trick…
With a flick of my wrist, I inverted the gravity and flipped the entirety of its focus to the space above the Talionis. In the same moment, feeding smug satisfaction and maybe a little pride into another spell, I amplified a burst of air downward originating from that same space. The armored brute streaked down and slammed into the ground at breakneck speed, shattering the marble and creating a small crater.
I wasn't going to stop there. Rotating my wrist again, I reversed gravity under the Talionis and started the process over. At the apex of its rise, I brought it down again. Three, four, five, six times I repeated the spell and elemental manipulation. The crater beneath the Ishmarian grew, and each time its armor strained to hold up under the brutal assault. Somewhere between the eighth and ninth times I heard bones snapping, and that encouraged me to keep up my attack.
After six more cycles, I wasn't able to handle the strain of the process. Inverting the flow of gravity was already quite an advanced spell and manipulating it the way I had just done was even more taxing than just holding the spell as it was intended. With a heavy sigh I released my grip on the Talionis, crushing it against the ground one last time in the hopes it would stay dead.
…but the crushing truth is, you can't out-magic a witch.
Bent over, leaning on my knees, I took in a deep breath, trying to clear my head. I can see why Kuro doesn't do this more often. Doing magic in ways it wasn't intended is quite exhausting. As I was recovering, a series of snaps and pops from the crater announced that my foe was still alive, for lack of a better word. As it attempted to stand, bones knitting audibly as it did so, I spread my arms out in anger. "Oh, come now! That is not fair!"
Screaming a battle cry, Alicia came up behind me and rushed past, her maul already angled up and over her head as she leaped up to deliver a brutal strike directly to the Talionis' head. There was a flash of multi-colored light from the runes draped over her weapon, and as soon as the light subsided the monster keeled over. When it hit the ground, it didn't try to get back up, nor were there any sounds of its skull repairing itself. It remained blessedly silent.
"Well done," I said as I stood back up. "I guess you're starting to get the hang of those runes." She shrugged. "Maybe. I might need a bit more training with them. It only worked after I hit the other one a bunch of times." Looking behind me, I saw the crumpled remains of the other Talionis, its armor dented in a dozen places and its helmet stoved in.
"Makes sense. Your runes must have disrupted the necromancy when it tried to rejuvenate the Talionis' body. Once it did that, you negated the magic still animating the corpse. So we'll have to force the magic to repair the damage we do before you nullify it." Taking my staff up, I motioned to where Alverd was still fighting against the remaining two Talionis. "Come on, we need to help him!"
Alicia was just about to move when her expression went blank, then her eyes narrowed. With inhuman speed she twisted her body just in time, the shaft of her maul up in a horizontal block as Guunzel appeared behind her, his weapon coming down to try and split her head open. The axe blade bounced off her maul, and he jumped back as she tried to swing the maul back at him in a hasty counterattack.
"Where are you going, princess?" His tone was eerily calm, as if he were asking the question over afternoon tea instead of on the battlefield. Somehow, that aloofness unnerved me more. "Surely your mentor taught you better than to turn your back to the enemy?" He was holding both of his golden battleaxes, but was still standing straight in a mockingly relaxed posture. "In my day, dreck like you would've never made it past your first week in berserker training. The strong would've weeded you out in an instant."
"What would you know of that, Guunzel? You have no honor, let alone any idea of what it takes to be a berserker." Alicia smashed the head of her maul against the ground twice in a fearsome show of strength, like an animal performing a territorial display. "You're just a soulless old man who lived way longer than he had any right to." She gnashed her teeth, spitting out each word with utter hatred.
An angry growl emanated from his helmet. "Spoken like a child who has never had to see war with her own eyes. Pampered and spoiled, self-righteous and arrogant. I see your mentor failed to show you just how ugly the world really is, princess." He ran the blades of his axes together, the grating sound of the metal underscoring his words. "Let me be your teacher. Let me show you what decades of fighting a war has taught me."
I waved my arm at her. "Don't fall for that. We need the runes to kill the Talionis. Alverd needs your help." I could still hear the battle he was waging in the distance, and though I couldn't see him without turning my head away from Guunzel, I knew it wasn't going well. "Let me stall him."
Alicia's eyes flicked between me and Guunzel, and her expression told me her mind was racing. A second later, she stood up. "Toss me your staff."
"What? Are you serious?" I was incredulous. It wasn't like I needed it to cast magic that would allow me to defend myself, but I failed to see what use it would be to her.
"Just trust me," she said. I did as she asked, and as the staff sailed over to her, she threw her maul over to me at the same time.
While she caught the staff easily, the same could not be said for the maul. I barely managed to receive it without falling over, as the oversized metal head meant it weighed far more than my staff. "You can use the runes, right? Then you help Alverd and then we can kill this bastard together." She nodded to me. "I'll be okay. I just need to hold him off."
She's so brave. It barely took a moment for to convince herself this is what needed to be done. I envy that kind of resolve. Maybe when you don't have magic to solve all your problems, the only way to address them is to just charge headlong at them.
"We won't be long. Hang in there." I rested the maul against my shoulder, bracing it with both arms to keep it upright. Then I ran over to where Alverd was still fighting. Eternity be with you, Alicia. Make him suffer for all he's done.
Alicia
When Sheena ran off, I aimed the twin blades of her staff at Guunzel, the ornate headpiece of her staff reflecting his black-armored visage. "I spent far too much of my life not paying attention to the things I should've. My eyes are open, my mind is clear, and my body is strong. I am not a child. I will defend Ishmar's future."
He sneered at me through his helmet. "Idealism. Hope. You can't build a future on a foundation as weak as that." He hunched forward, his axes raised in front of him, and began circling me, his legs moving in a counterclockwise direction around me. I matched his movement as he continued to berate me. "I am Ishmar's past, present, and future. I am every man and woman who has shed blood in Ishmar's name. I AM Ishmar." The last three words were hissed at me with burning rage bubbling beneath.
"Not anymore." The rage simmered in my blood, gathering like a flood behind a gate, waiting, begging to be unleashed. Surging through my mind was the image of the river, the waters flowing around me. This time, I didn't need to struggle to maintain control. Almost immediately the rage seemed to respond to my whim, coiling around me like a snake waiting to strike. "Not anymore, old man."
Guunzel roared and swung his right hand forward. As soon as I perceived the twisting of his torso I was already preparing to counter. The narrow space between the twin blades on the head of Sheena's staff was the perfect tool for the job. The cut came at me diagonally, and I thrust the staff upward at his arm to allow the axe to slide between the blades of the staff. The axe, propelled by the force of his swing, lodged in the U-bend at the base of the blades, just as I planned.
With a violent, sudden lurch, I pivoted my body clockwise and threw my full weight into swinging the staff. Guunzel, off balance from his attack, was unable to hyper-extend his leg to keep up with my maneuver, and as the staff swept away from him it wrenched the axe free of his hand, flinging it away across the Palace grounds.
Going with the momentum of the swing, I twisted my body, spinning like a top and bringing the staff around for a second attack, angling it into an overhead blow aimed at his helmet. The sheer speed of the attack was almost too much for the general, but he held up his left arm to catch the blade, deflecting it off the dragon-tooth metal of his gauntlet.
I don't think Sheena's staff is going to get through that armor. The best I'll be able to do is disarm him. As far as I can tell the only place I can get a killing blow in is the narrow space between his helmet and his breastplate. The neck. Like most plate armor forged in Ishmar, Guunzel's armor had a raised section that curled around his neck and opened only in front of his chin, meaning that the window to land that strike was maybe a few scant inches at best.
The Sword of Evros can penetrate his armor. Dragon tooth metal or not, his armor won't hold up against the fang of Evros herself. Guunzel must have sensed an opportunity or a gap in my defense because he stepped forward and punched me in the face with his now empty right hand. The impact of his fist against my face was solid enough to rattle me even through my rage, and I staggered back a few steps miraculously keeping my footing as my world spun.
Guunzel wasn't going to let me off so easily though. The crunching of the marble floor was my only warning as he charged towards me with his other axe sweeping towards my head. Holding my weapon vertically, I thrust to the right to intercept his attack. The edge of his axe came uncomfortably close to my face, but the staff held back his weapon far enough to avoid it slicing my skin.
Polearms aren't my specialty. Sheena's staff is weighted all wrong and it's too long for me. If I don't get my hands on something more familiar…
The glint of something out of the corner of my eye distracted me long enough that I found my answer. Guunzel's axe was lying on the ground about ten feet away. He said it himself, turning my back on an enemy isn't smart. But maybe that can work out for me. I broke into a sprint, barreling towards the fallen weapon to scoop it up, my legs pumping as hard as they could to carry me across the blood-slicked marble.
When I was only a few feet away, I bent my knees and slid, allowing my momentum to carry me across the slippery ground. I easily grabbed the axe and rotated my body to plant my forward foot, stopping my forward momentum but allowing it to also prop myself back up to a standing position. With Sheena's staff in my right hand and the axe in my left, I stared down Guunzel.
To my surprise, he hadn't moved. Instead, he was watching me warily. Did he really just let me take his weapon? What's he up to? When he didn't move, I felt a familiar bad feeling pool in my gut. Is he… mocking me? Playing with me? No warrior would willingly let his enemy have a chance to run away. He's trying to goad me. He has to be. He wants me to let my rage take over, and make a stupid mistake. Unfortunately for him, I'm not like other berserkers. Rutger taught me better than that. Inching back towards him with the staff pointed out at his chest and the axe held close at my side, I tried to provoke him to attack me again.
When he didn't respond I decided to make the first move. I took a running leap towards him, stopping just short of him to swing with the axe. Rather than parry, he sidestepped to my right and brought his own axe around to aim at my head. Only by bringing my right arm up in an awkward parry did I prevent the attack from cleaving my skull, but the impact threw me off balance and a kick from his armored leg knocked out my right knee and I fell.
Rolling away, I narrowly avoided his follow up attack, the axe coming down with enough force to crack the ground. I wasn't in control and I felt like I was wading in water up to my chest. No. Calm. Control. You can't beat him yet. I am not defeated yet. The feeling subsided, but it was still present at the back of my mind. There has to be some way to slow him down or something!
Letting out another roar, Guunzel lunged forward and charged at me like a provoked bull. Purely out of impulse I threw his axe at him and it lodged in his helmet. He let out a cry and stumbled past me. I tried to hit him as he passed, but only managed a glancing blow off his shoulder plate.
The axe was stuck in the helmet. Dragon tooth metal was the only thing that could have a hope of cutting through itself, but the attack didn't penetrate far enough to cause any real damage. Guunzel wrenched the now damaged helmet from his head, and there was a small trickle of blood flowing down between his eyes. They were wide from shock, but fury quickly replaced it.
"Keep up, old man. I thought you were supposed to be teaching me a lesson." I was getting insufferably cocky, but I also knew it was managing to keep his attention on me. I waited for him to attack me again, but instead the general let out a scream and threw his helmet at me. I barely managed to duck, the horns grazing me as I moved my head to the side. But as I tracked the helmet, out of the corner of my eye Guunzel moved.
The next thing I knew, he was on me. With both hands on his remaining axe, he made a reckless attack at the staff in my hand. I tried to parry, but the overwhelming force behind it not only knocked it from my hands, it cut through the shaft and split it in two. As the two pieces of Sheena's staff went clattering away, Guunzel reversed his swing and brought his axe back around.
It bit deep into the side of my stomach, just under my ribs. The shock of the sudden wound took the strength from my legs, and they buckled under me. I fell onto my back, and even as the breath was forced out of my lungs by the impact I still screamed as Guunzel pulled his axe out of me. He loomed over me like death personified, then swung his axe down on me.
I threw up my hands to catch his weapon, and barely managed to grab hold of the hilt in mid-swing. Both of us were now fighting with all of our strength. "Yes, I am. Lesson one, princess." Dropping the axe, he used his left hand to press it against my open wound, the metal-clawed fingers tearing at the split flesh and sending white hot pain shooting through me.
"Children like you should learn to respect their elders."
Sheena
The irony of spending a lifetime of reading stories about gallant knights riding to the rescue of fair maidens was that I actually had a decent idea of what to do with Alicia's maul, and while I may not have had the raw strength to wield it as it was intended to be wielded, I could still use it in the way I wanted to.
The two Talionis were so focused on Alverd that they didn't see me coming. Screaming what I hoped sounded like a fearsome battle cry, I ran forward with the maul leveled like the lance of a charging jouster, both hands keeping it steady as I hit the first assailant in the small of his back. The monster let out a choked gasp as the heavy weapon bent its spine backward, but I didn't wound it enough to force its regenerative properties to kick in.
It did try to backhand me with a swing of its sword, but not even its undead body was capable of contorting itself enough to manage it effectively. The swing went well wide of my head, although it did knock my tall hat off. Seeing a chance, Alverd bashed the other Talionis away from him with his dormicite shield and then ran my attacker through with the Sword of Evros. Not stopping there, he twisted his wrist and yanked to the side, cutting a huge chunk out of the Talionis' torso in the process.
As the necrotic energy began sewing the Talionis back together, I thrust the head of the maul forward, smacking it into the monster's back. I had no issue activating one of the remaining runes; it erupted in a multi-colored flash, sucking away the green light of the necromancy animating the corpse and rendering it inert. Now deprived of its animating power, the undead flopped to the ground like a lifeless fish.
The other Talionis came back at us without delay with a poleaxe aimed at Alverd's leg. He parried with his shield, the magically reinforced dormicite easily withstanding the dragon tooth weapon's edge. It bent itself back to avoid Alverd's counterattack, the spine cracking loudly as it did so. When it lurched back upright, the creature attempted to attack me instead.
I held out my hand and let fear and concern feed the creation of a blue shield in front of me. The spherical barrier protected me from the blow, holding up against the fierce strike with no problem. Inhaling slowly, I flicked my fingers and dropped the shield, willing my emotions to fly out ahead of me through my hand as a blast of wintery air. I aimed for the beast's legs, coating them in frost that soaked through the skin and into its bones.
Now the monster was not only fighting its own rigor mortis, but the power of magical ice as well. I sprayed the icy air across both of its legs and the ground, trying to anchor it in place or at the very least restrict its movement long enough for Alverd to finish it off. Taking his cue, Alverd gave a flourish with his sword and made three quick cuts with the speed and grace of an experienced swordsman.
The Talionis fell apart into several pieces. Bisected at the waist, its right arm severed and the head now cleanly decapitated, its parts hit the ground in a grisly tumble. The head was still snapping its decayed teeth through its helmet, rasping unintelligibly. Alverd nodded at me, and I grit my teeth. As the torso of the monster began to reach for the head with its remaining arm, we took hold of the maul and drove it down onto the Talionis' head.
Another flash of light and it was done. With one last horrific death rattle, the Talionis ceased moving, finally freed of its cursed existence. Just to be sure, we lifted the maul up and smashed it against the head one last time, crushing it like a rotten fruit. The last of the runes on Alicia's maul went quiet, their powers expended.
Alverd and I didn't have time to rest on our laurels. Alicia's scream of pain warned of her peril. I dropped the maul and broke out in a run towards Guunzel who had her pinned and was already wrestling with her to deliver the killing blow. The two of us ran as quickly as we could, but I didn't think we were going to make it.
As I concentrated fear and desperation into an orb of freezing cold in my hands, Alverd thrust forward with his sword.
Alicia
The corners of my vision turned black as the water overtook me. I tasted iron in my mouth, choking on the taste of blood as my control faded. My hands were struggling to hold up Guunzel's wrist, the blade inching closer to my face, the general's frenzied eyes glaring at me through my fading vision.
Beneath that, the rage simmered. It wanted to be free, it wanted control, it wanted to be released to tear Guunzel limb from limb. It was a siren song luring me deeper into the river's clutches. Can't… think. Pretty soon… I won't… be able to… fight back. Maybe just… for a moment…
Just as I was about to surrender to the rage, Guunzel turned his head as something large and angry hit him. The full weight of an armor-clad knight blindsided Guunzel like a battering ram, and the Sword of Evros appeared over me. I swear I saw myself in the dull sheen before it buried itself in Guunzel's chest, piercing the Legionnaire armor like it was wet parchment. He let out a garbled sound, distorted by my failing senses, and suddenly the weight on me and the pain in my side vanished.
As Alverd and Guunzel fell out of my line of sight, Sheena appeared. Her arm was outstretched with the palm facing outward, a torrent of ice shards spilling out of a white orb hovering just in front of her. She paused, then knelt down to me. She cradled my head carefully with her right hand. "Hold still. If you move you might pass out. I can't close a wound that bad without time, but I can at least stabilize you."
A rush of energy emanated from her hand, passing through my head and down my neck to the rest of my body. It was like cool spring water after a long sparring session; the tension in my body disappeared and feeling returned to my limbs. My vision cleared almost instantly, although the dull ache of my wound was still present.
I forced the siren song back down. Not today. I direct the river where to go. I stand in the river but it will not carry me away. Repeating the mantra in my head helped me focus, made the visualization stronger; I was the one who would not be moved, could not be moved. When Sheena offered me her hand, I took it, and she lifted me back up. A fresh jolt of pain shot out of my wound, but I clenched my teeth and took it. Like all berserkers say, if you can still feel pain you can inflict it too.
When Alverd's shield came to a halt just next to my foot, my mind blanked for a second. The next moment, Alverd came tumbling across the marble, his armor making unpleasant crunching sounds as he did so. Guunzel was still alive, even with the Sword of Evros now lodged in his breastplate. He may not be a berserker but he's damn near close. Stubborn old man, he just refuses to die.
The horrible wheezing gasp that came out of his mouth told me that the Sword had likely punctured his lung. "Duty… until death. That is what… is expected of… a soldier." He lumbered forward, no longer worried about if he was armed or not. When he reached Alverd, he brought both his fists together and brought them down on Alverd's head. He tried to bring his arms up to protect himself, but Guunzel bashed his arm aside, then brought his own back up for a second attack.
I grabbed Alverd's shield and sprinted at Guunzel, my wound no longer a concern to me. All I could see was the old bastard about to strike Alverd. Bracing my left arm against the shield and pushing my right hand onto it, I leapt over Alverd and in front of Guunzel as he swung. The old man wasn't ready for me, and my impromptu defense threw him off balance. I made a wild haymaker swing at his face with my right fist landing a satisfying punch against his square jaw.
In the midst of this, Sheena appeared screaming like a banshee. Grabbing hold of the hilt of the Sword of Evros, she planted her foot against Guunzel's knee and pulled, dislodging the blade from his chest. He snarled and backhanded her, sending her sprawling. The Sword landed next to me, the ruby set in its crossguard almost inviting me to pick it up.
Before Guunzel could regain his footing, I reached down and curled my fingers around the hilt. The Sword of Evros seemed lighter than air, and the way it felt in my hand was more than it felt like it belonged there but that it wanted to be there. Pouring everything I had left into one last battle cry, I thrust up and forward with the Sword.
The point met no resistance when it hit Guunzel's armor. It went straight through his black metal plate and out the back plate with ease. His eyes bulged as I pierced his heart like a fish on a spit. As he gurgled, choking on the blood now flowing out of his mouth, I leaned forward.
"I will make a better future for Ishmar, and you have no place in it."
Then I twisted the blade, wrenching it through what was left of his heart. Guunzel let out one last rasping sound before the fire went out of his eyes. I withdrew, pulling the Sword free and stepping back as his corpse fell forward. Blood pooled under him as the great scourge of the Algrustian border finally perished.
I turned to Alverd, kneeling in front of him as best I could without aggravating my injury. He already had a nasty mark on his face that was probably going to turn into a full black eye soon. I offered him his shield. "Are you okay?" I asked.
He smiled at me weakly. "I am, thanks to you." In spite of everything, an explosion of warmth and almost childlike euphoria erupted in my chest. I turned my face so he couldn't see how embarrassed I was. "You know how I feel about laying down on the job. Had to make sure you weren't holding out on me." Godsdammit, that was a perfect chance for you to just be honest and you blew it, Alicia. Old habits be damned, he gave you a compliment and you didn't appreciate it.
The feeling of his hand on my shoulder almost made me jump. "Well luckily if I decide to become a layabout you'll be there to set me straight." There was such earnesty in his voice that I felt like I could just melt on the spot. I fumbled for a bandage in my pouch and tried to press it against my bleeding side to give me an excuse not to make eye contact.
"And don't you forget it," I said, trying to sound smug and not like my guts were threatening to spill out of me.
Sheena came over and helped me apply the bandage. "I'm going to need at least ten minutes to treat a wound like this. If the cut had gone deeper he might have damaged your internal organs, and then we wouldn't even be talking right now." She smirked at me. "Typical old man. Had to leave a mess for the young folk to clean up on his way out, hmm?"
I was about to reply when a screech split the air. A truly monstrous dragon, bigger than most Ishmarian mounts by at least one and a half times normal, was making a zigzagging attack on the Repository. The riderless dragon was protected by black armor with scalelike patterns painted on them, and a spiked metal ball on a chain attached to a metal nub on the end of its tail. That has to be Guunzel's personal mount. Only someone of his stature would be given the honor of riding such a beast.
A ballista fired but the gigantic dragon corkscrewed past it, showing incredible maneuverability for a creature of such size. Opening its jaws, the dragon opened its awesome wings to their full span to halt its movement just in time to spew fire into the fortified position where the defenders were making their stand.
The flame swept through the bunker in an instant. The only mercy was that those men had died quickly. With the main point of resistance neutralized, the other dragon riders turned their attention to the other hardpoint, but Guunzel's mount had other plans. Instead, it landed on top of the Repository itself, where it then started tearing at the stone with its claws. Every so often it would swing its tail, smashing the spiked flail against the walls as well.
I don't know how long we have, but that dragon is going to tear the Repository open like a cheap cloth sack. Once it does, the Encroacher will no longer be contained. With the city as it is, it'll have thousands of souls to feed on and an army of cultists to help it do so. Maybe that was the endgame all along.
"Yeah, he did," I said. We watched helplessly as the dragon ripped the tower apart, demolishing it piece by piece with terrifying ease. "A much bigger mess than we can handle."