-From Aphorisms: 1:13
The mage leaped back, eyes wide. “No! Impossib-” He stopped, looking down at the scroll. It crinkled as he grabbed the end, starting to pull it open-
Shirk!
Vivex took a step before the mage could react, the keen edge of her blade whispering through the scroll. The two halves sputtered and sparked before flashing into flame, almost instantly burning to ash, blistering the mage’s weak scaleless hands.
The mage yelled in pain, fingers curling, the smell of ozone strong! He glared, both hands aimed right at her.
“Die you-”
Vivex’s matte black blade darted, and he never got to finish that sentence.
Thurnk!
The knife slammed into his chest with a wet squelch before blood fountained out.
He coughed, spraying her face with it, and fought to keep his hands lifted, energy still gathering. Vivex tore the knife free, and slammed it up under his chin, piercing the brain and pinning his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Making sure he wouldn’t speak again.
His eyes blazed with light as he shook for a moment, writing as he died. Moreso than any other smoothskin she had seen die that day. Then, they dimmed, blood leaking from their corners and painting his face.
The knife must have eaten what magic was left inside him.
Only thing that makes sense.
She pulled it free, standing tall. black smoke wisped out of the mage’s mouth before floating away on the breeze. The broken arrow still in her shoulder, fresh cuts on her body, she turned and cut the sphere holding Arubra. The barkskin was still there, quiet. Silent. But there.
Too late.
Sap still dripped from the taps.
She looked at the containers, then back to the taps.
Still pumping! She wasn’t sure, but if sap flowed wasn’t the tree alive?
Not even thinking she snatched the ax out of the dirt and smashed the clear containers with it, not daring to let the knife close to them. The dry soil sucked the sap up hungrily as she also knocked the taps free, planning to stuff them with something to slow the bleeding. The bark started to grow upwards, scaring over the damage right before her eyes, removing the necessity.
Roots! Good! Others!
“Hurry! Get the aether!” she pointed to the barges. They could still save the seedling.
“Gods damn you run!” Delre screamed, taking a desperate pull on her cigar and spitting it into the third cultists eye. He screamed and reeled back, holding his face, knife dropping from his hand, though he kept his shield up, taking another two arrows from Rose.
Meanwhile Del strained against the other two holding her
“Azatar’s tongue!” She cursed, muscles bunching, straining against the rings of her mail as she planted her feet and pushed too, focusing on the human woman hanging on her shield arm. “You fuckin shrooms can’t… hold… me!”
Del gave a titanic effort, lifting the woman up and over with a single arm! Smashing her down into her orcish companion, making them roll into a pile of rubble.
Del scrambled to her feet, looking for her weapons.
Still bellowing she kicked the burnt cultist in the hip, knocking him down before she stamped down with a hobnailed boot.
CRUNCH!
His skull burst like a rotten melon, hot wet blood splattered over her armor. She ignored that, bending quick to pick her borrowed dagger back up just in time.
The lighter woman was up first, hissing, her eyes shifting in front of Delre to have vertical reptilian pupils. She slashed with a cleaver wildly. Del blocked then hooked the woman’s weapon arm, driving a gauntleted fist hard into the lighter woman’s face. Blood blossomed from a freshly broken nose.
Need the ax!
Just as she spotted it, the larger of the two female cultists stood, charging forward with a bellow as she stood to her full height.
Twang! Thunk!
The Orskar woman blinked for a moment, slowing, then crumpled face first, one of Rose’s arrows sunk deep in her temple, eyes rolling up as her jaw went slack. Showing she had at one point filed down her tusks.
The smaller woman turned, then screamed, Del’s dagger sawing into the flesh of her arm as she struggled to get free. She dropped the cleaver into her other hand, screaming.
“N-no! Murder-”
Delre grabbed the hatchet from her belt and buried it into the woman’s shoulder, severing nerves and muscles, seeing the pain and rage in her reptilian eyes. The tears in them too. She tore her hatchet free and slammed it home into her skull.
She’ll be back to haunt me.
The corpse fell away.
Exhausted, she bent down to pick up her ax before the next one showed up.
“Tydrik… is this a curse? What have I done?” She whispered, still fighting. One got past her to Jon and Dan. Rose tried to shoot him, but he got behind cover too quickly. Del wanted to move to them, but she was once again surrounded.
The cultist by the two boys swung his sword. Jon caught it on the haft of the sledgehammer he had grabbed, and Dan tripped the cultist. Del saw Jon lift his weapon high. She turned back to parry a thrust with her ax in a similar way, hearing the crunch of Jon killing his opponent.
She smashed hers in the face with her buckler, the rim shattering all of his front teeth, leaving his mouth a bloody ruin. He crumpled to the ground and her ax whirled, smashing into his back. Cleaving through to the stones below.
There was an unearthly hissing cry, and the cultists all scrambled out of the way, hiding in the recesses of the buildings, and retreating away from her. Delre could see the mage lifting his hands again, finally close enough to get a good view of her.
Shit!
The other cultists pulled back and away, not wanting to get incinerated like the first wave of nuts.
She wanted to dive away too, but she could feel through the stones that the other three were limping to the exit into the sewers, which was right behind her. Exposed.
He’ll wait for me to turn and then blast all of us at once. She couldn’t let that happen.
“Del! Come on!” Rose shouted.
“No! Run! I’ve got my runes on the buckler!”
“But-”
“Now dammit! Jon, Dan! Take her!” Del blew smoke from her nostrils in frustration, not taking her eyes from that thing getting ready to blast them.
There were others still running to get away, still arrows shooting from the cultists to find bodies far too young to die. She had to do what she could for her new clan.
She didn’t look back, hearing Rose screaming and fighting, but the two boys were bigger than she was, easily dragging her down.
The dwarf braced herself once more, preparing for her death. She lifted the hatchet, swinging it once to clear the blood, dragging it gently along her face after. The honed edge cutting her cheek easily.
Blood for the oath.
She held up her pitiful buckler, screaming what she knew would be her final war cry at the mage. She could die protecting her friends.
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“By the Minter and the Stone! Just try to kill me you bastard!” Rolling harsh syllables of her mother tongue echoed through the space. In the human tongue she added. “And you better do it this time you fucking freak!”
She hoped the others had gotten out. She didn’t close her eyes. She would watch her death coming, prove to Tydrik she deserved her place in what came next.
“Sorry for swearing so much,” She whispered, lifting her hatchet high, her blood bright on the blade. “One last toss. I do so with my eyes wide.” A breeze blew into her face, and she smelled the sea.
A tall bald human stood up behind the cultist, one hand formed into a blade.
Crack!
The creature’s head snapped to one side, vertebrae snapping, the malevolent light in the yellow eyes fading. The gathering Aether in his hands dissipating.
The dwarf blinked, then shouted, “What the fuck?!”
Tok turned and strode over to the barges, his blood spattering the ground as he sheathed his weapon onto his back, moving the sheath so it was easier to do so. The others were killing any of the survivors, swift efficient movements. No unnecessary suffering.
A mercy.
Vivex saw one of the humans stir. He had lain in amongst the corpses, and was now slowly trying to crawl away.
Clever, though he would have been caught eventually.
Kill. Poacher!
She strode over, kicking him over onto his back. She stared into his wide terrified eyes, savoring that look for only a moment, growling. He said something, holding up his hands, but she didn’t listen. The ax slammed into his forehead easily.
She heard a grunt behind her. She turned.
It was Shashk.
She grunted back, holding out the ax, handle first. “I required it, ambassador.” She remembered to use respectful prefixes, but couldn’t help using one for exhaustion as well.
Shashk snatched the weapon from Vivex, eyes narrowing. She looked over to the mage, then pointed a claw at it, “Bring me the corpse.” There was a long pause. The sounds of butchery and the screams of dying prey echoing. Then she added, as if it pained her, “Initiate.”
Hope surged.
Initiate! It wasn’t anything definitive, but it seemed like an improvement. The prefixes were neutral as well!
She ignored her growling Instinct and grabbed the meat by its ankle, dragging it over.
Vivex could hear Tok directing the others to grab more of the aether containers and he was already pouring several around Arubra.
Shashk gestured with her tail, and Vivex just waited, not moving. “Peel the outer layers away, fodder!” Shashk hissed with annoyance.
Vivex felt her scales flicker to the black and red, and she forced herself to desaturate the colors quickly as Shashk’s tail undulated. “I don’t know the… The language of the tail.”
She started peeling away the robe, which was sticky with the dead smoothski-
She hissed and pulled back.
“The dehk-zuir.” Shashk said, filling in the gap in the Initiate’s knowledge as she glared down at the chest of the thing before them. Hideous as all of the genera were, this one was a heretical amalgam. A biological blasphemy.
Demonic.
Right over the heart was a patch of scaled skin. Growing out from under the usual flabby gulper-like flesh they all had. And the pentagonal pattern of it was… wrong.
“Falsescaled…” Vivex hissed, full of hate. She struggled not to hack at the body, her Instinct slamming into her limbs and tearing at them, frothing with the need to utterly destroy this thing. She lost control of her pattern, twitching and snarling there.
Shashk looked down at her with flat turquoise eyes, and grunted ever so softly. “Perhaps.” She hissed, dragging out the three syllable word thoughtfully.
A cicada buzzed cautiously, as if testing to see if it was safe to continue hunting out mates or not.
Shashk’s frill flapped as she scrubbed some of the mud off of her body, growling “Skin it, so that the acolytes may divine some knowledge from its hide. Do not eat the meat. It is needed for their rituals as well, and is cursed besides.”
She turned her back with a pop of her tail, sliding the ax into her belt. “Your true studies begin at the end of this cycle,” that would be five days and six nights, “I will rescind my judgment for now.”
Vivex stared, unsure if she should let herself hope. I have more time? Could it be possible?
“Until then, learn from Keshka and Zegoth.” The Redscale looked over to the group of Greenscales with bows that were also entering the clearing. The large male and disguised female foremost amongst them, “You have met both.”
Shashk looked over her shoulder, her frill fluttering slightly, dismissive. “Your aim with your bow is atrocious. Focus on that. As for your mind, I cannot believe you would ru-“
Quickly!
“Forgive me, Ambassador, I felt the call too strongly.” She added a prefix of wanting to continue. She couldn’t miss this chance, and her Instinct urged her to interrupt. Knowing it was right somehow. Vivex desaturated her pattern again, hating it, but knowing it was necessary.
Shashk’s eyes narrowed, the frill flapping out entirely, but only for a moment. She waited, signaling she would allow this one outburst by not speaking.
“I must re-learn the smoothskin language. Please. As an ambassador, you must be the most fluent.”
“I will not tolerate insubordination.” Shashk said, prefixes of finality enunciated like cracks of her tail.
Vivex lowered her head, mimicking Tok’s show of deference as she continued to gently strobe her respect and submission, grunting. The red and black flickered in her mind though.
“Your Provider has a soft spot for you, fodder.” Shashk hissed turning back around and forcing Vivex’s chin up with a claw, staring into her eyes.
A cicada buzzed, the breeze starting to pick up as Arubra stirred behind them.
Vivex glared at the tall female, jealousy building.
I’ll find my revenge! Nobody dismisses me!
Care. A test. Her Instinct whispered, though she could feel it too wanted to exact a price for how Shashk had treated her.
Something in the Redscale’s eyes changed, and the frill signaled something she couldn’t catch this close up.
“You fought on your own long enough for us to get here. To repay that debt,” Shashk turned away, pushing the Initiate’s head so she had to catch herself, “I will teach you both the smoothskin tongue, and the dehk-zuir.”
She started walking away towards the other Redscales, adding “But if you take too long, fodder, I will abandon you, and label you as what you are to me, runt.”
Vivex boiled with hate. Teeth bared, she wanted to just take the knowledge from the other female.
Fight! Attack! Fury poured out of her Instinct at the slur as well, the two halves of her mind bouncing the emotion back and forth faster and faster.
She closed her eyes. No. Not yet. If she could just crack open a person’s skull and gain their knowledge that way she would, but that just wasn’t how the world worked. Shashk had something she didn’t just want, she needed it.
So, out loud she said “Thank you,” and after a pause she managed to force out “my teacher.”
Shashk grunted, tail moving in another motion she couldn’t understand.
Vivex bent and started skinning the mage with practiced movements. All around her the others were doing similar things. Collecting weapons, arrows, skins, butchering the meat for a meal for all of them.
“Th… Thank you… Vivex…”
She looked up, and saw that Arubra was looking at her with those strange starfield eyes of hers. She had scars on her face now, and it took Vivex a moment to notice that they were just like her own.
She grunted at the barkskin.
“H… here…” She whispered, reaching out a hand.
With a sudden wrench of pain the arrow pulled out of her shoulder.
She snapped and stood, glaring at the barkski-
It wasn’t bleeding.
She looked down, and saw that the wound was healed. Not as well as Shashk’s medicine. She looked at the barkskin, who had pulled away slightly. Then grunted.
“It was necessary. Grow stronger, Arubra.”
“I’ll try… I know you will.” She slipped into the trunk of her tree, “I will… tell you more when I am strong again. Know my voice on a stranger’s lips.” There was a pause, then, almost inaudible “I will never be weak again…”
Vivex blinked as the wind picked up, before finishing her work skinning the mage.
She stood, holding it, and the disguised female looked down at her. “You are to train with me, so said the Ambassador. I am Keshka.”
“Vivex.”
The female grunted, and gestured for the Initiate to come closer to the growing fires. The smell of roasting meat making the Initiate’s stomach gurgle.
“Come, we will discuss this arrangement.” Keshka hissed.
The guards around the mage spun, screaming and attacking as a unit.
They. Could. Not. Touch. Him.
He dodged, spun, twisted and ducked around each and every attack. Dancing through a weaving snarling net of weapons. And then suddenly he was gone, as if the ground had swallowed him up.
She suddenly sensed movement behind herself.
“If you want to live-”
She spun, swinging the ax, and the human caught it, twisted, and pealed the weapon away from her as she stumbled. He wore all black, with a scarred face and a bald head. And piercing gray eyes.
The eyes of a killer.
He grimaced, his flat annoyed stare not matching the light in his eyes at all. “As I was saying, young Dvundae, if you want to live, I suggest you flee.” The voice was rough, but not gravely.
“Who are you?” She asked, shifting her stance, buckler and blade held foremost, ready to fight.
He looked at the weapons, then back to Delre. “Really? I don’t have time for this.”
He sighed and offered the ax out, haft first.
“I am an interested party. Now go, we can talk later.” He lifted his other fist, and with a sound like tinkling glass four separate clouds of black smoke exploded out amongst the cultists, who suddenly were screaming and dying faster than ever.
As she stared, the smoke cleared, and she could see that there were four other black clothed figures in amongst the cultists.
Killing, fighting, still overwhelmed, but doing all the delaying action that the remaining gang members would need to flee. Del was in fact the last one there, except for these weirdos.
Deciding not to look on a good toss with suspicion just yet, Delre took back her ax and ran.
Del needed to make one last stop though. She wasn’t leaving without the aethercoals or her tools. The chisels and stamps for rune work at the very least.
Idiot, the least is all you should think about right now! She couldn’t haul a whole smithy on her back.
Still in danger but out of the fight, her tears welled up again.
“Dammit… Dammit!” She couldn’t believe how many of her friends were now gone, how many names would be added to the list of people she had to avenge.
She tore the helmet off, tossing it aside with a clang as she grabbed the scuttle shoveled the ever-burning blue coals into it, grabbing the wooden box of rune-tools as well, dropping the borrowed ax in favor of a torch.
Bastards! She’d show them.
She wanted to take more, but the black-clad warriors were already half way to the exit now. She touched the torch to the aethercoals and it burst to light immediately.
“Fine!” She screamed at the cultists running forward, “Keep the damn place! Lemme warm it up a bit for you though!”
She kicked the huge barrel of quenching oil over. There were several. The old smithy clearly had been something of an industrial one before the shaping of the city.
She threw her torch into the pouring oil.
Fwumph!
Cultists screamed as everything flammable started to burn. The dwarf wouldn’t let the enemy occupy her home.
Never again.
“Hurry, dwarf.” It was the bald one again, the leader of the black-clads, and again she jumped. He was still untouched, but his fellows looked like they had started to take some injuries. He looked at the scuttle and the wooden box, eyes lingering before returning to hers.
“Come on. Let’s be off.” He said.
He knows what these are.
It wasn’t uncommon knowledge, how to carve in and stamp runes, but something felt off to Delre as she realized that.
She ran with them to the sewer exit, which with a few kicks and some swings of her hatchet collapsed behind them.
“So what do you want, human.” She said, glaring at the six of them as they ran beside her. She didn’t like that it was hard to feel where they were, even with her boots, this close and running this fast it should have been impossible to counteract a dwarf’s senses.
Do they have magic boots? That had to be it.
“Oh, to make you all an offer. These cultists wont stop until you are all dead.” He looked at her in the dark, right into her eyes.
He shouldn’t be able to see! He was human… wasn’t he?
“Let’s discuss this once we get to the rest of your little group.” He said.
Where are the others? She only just noticed. They were all gone now.
“Tydrik… fine.” She would just have to keep an eye on this man.
PATREON! It is at least 15 chapters ahead, and I am working hard to get it permanently up to 20, with plans to add even more! All money there goes right back into making the series as good as I can, and every cent of it is appreciated more than I can say.