Chapter Two Hundred And Ninety Eight – 298
Light and sound swirled in a mad, unrelenting cacophony. The skin of the world stretched around them, filled with radiance and utter nothingness, extremes that threatened to tear sanity itself from their Minds. All that held them together was a whisper thin glimmer of power, a construct in the vague shape of a ship, wrapped around them like a cocoon.
Without warning or fanfare, they burst from the skin between Realms. Zara's ship of light turned to smoky shadow within seconds of touching the Corporeal Realm, and the Haarguard collapsed to the sodden earth. A scream shook the portal behind them, enough that ears and eyes began to bleed, and Zara made a final effort of Will and Intent. The portal unraveled, also becoming as smoke and then as nothing at all.
Zara fell back into the mud and let the rain wash over her.
When next she awakened, it was to the muffled groans of the guards. The rain still poured, and now she found herself in a shallow pool of mud water and her clothes soaked through. Metal clanked and leather scraped softly against itself as the others shifted or stood. Zara came to her feet, though not without struggle; it felt as if her stomach wanted to turn itself inside out, and her head felt liable to explode if she so much as breathed incorrectly.
A pair of feet tromped through the mud, splashing it carelessly toward her.
"Reed," she whispered, playing gentle with her head.
"Sorcerer," the Hand growled back. "What in Avet's name was all that?"
"An unexpected visitor," she admitted. "A denizen of the Void that found its way into the dark between Realms."
"You speak of the Void again, as if it were true and real. This creature was a monstrosity on par with nothing I've ever faced. Yet I recognized its stink." The Hand stepped closer, his huge body dwarfing Zara's own. Heat steamed from him in the chill rain, and thunder rolled in the distance. "That was a Primordial, Sorcerer. How? How could two Primordials cross our path within a span of months?"
Zara closed her eyes and looked up, letting the cold water sluice some of the grime from her face and hair. "Ill times come for us all, I'm afraid." She peered at the Hand. The man was sporting two cuts across his lips and nose, though they were closing slowly. Perhaps with his advanced Body they'd heal without a trace. Perhaps not. "Worse comes if we do not move."
"So you say," Reed growled.
"So it is," she shot back. "Do you think I'd have risked all that for a paltry threat? Hm?"
Reed grunted and looked away.
"No. I'll not have discontent at my back. If we are to save Haarwatch and everyone associated with it, your ward included, then we will work together." Zara let some of her power sing through her channels, a rhythm that even the Hand could recognize. "Or not at all."
Reed ground his teeth, so loud she could almost hear a molar break, and he nodded before swiftly marching away. She watched him, eyes still bright and Spirit still stoked with irritation.
Fool of a man, you'll have us waste ourselves against one another. Zara checked her senses, extending them as far as she dared. They were close, and she could not detect the redcloaks particular brand of power. "We must all of us move on, quickly. Setoria is but a half day away."
"Half a day's ride?" Kelgan asked. His left side was a mass of bruises from their dangerous journey, though he still held his spear with a sure grip. "We've lost most of our mounts. And that potion...It still addles the others."
He was right, of course. Zara should have addressed that first, but her Mind and Spirit felt muddled. The Long Passage had taxed her more than she had anticipated, especially at the end. "The mounts we can do nothing for, but the potion should wear off in a few glasses."
"And until then?" Thangle asked, somewhat meekly. His beard was matted with mud and rain, and his eyes were rimmed with dark circles.
"Until then, we march. Mount those we can, and we take to the road." Zara's voice was a whipcrack, louder than thunder. "Move!"
Those that could snapped into action, securing their still-drugged allies to avum and pulling the thick cloth blindfolds from the birds. They weren't nearly as frazzled as on shorter jaunts, but Zara could feel their Spirits quail for moments before they recognized the firm earth beneath them. The potion-dazed guards, on the other hand, were as murky as the puddles around them. They merely followed the commands of the others with rote movements and a survival instinct buried in all mortals.
They'll be fine, she reassured herself. The potion was a low dosage. I only fear for the distance we have to cross yet.
They had not emerged where she wanted.
For much of they day and well into night they traveled, having emerged in the early morning. Zara had little clue how many days had passed, or how few, but her senses assured her that Setoria was close and the redcloaks hadn't yet overtaken them.
They had gained time, that was clear, yet what little they had felt squandered as the company was forced to a steady half-march. Those guards that were fully aware were bedraggled and sore, aching in places they had no names for and which they could not properly explain, even to themselves. Aching feet and pulled muscles were the least of it.
The flight across the liminal space had strained their Minds and Spirits beyond what most would consider natural, and she was lucky they hadn't lost anyone. It was a risk that was as likely as the beasts reaching them through her defenses, but it existed. A part of her felt ashamed at her deception, but the greater portion knew it was necessary to keep them going. They were given a Choice to enter the dangerous Long Passage, and that had been enough.
Still, every one of them had a strained core and bruised Aspects. Skills were not used overmuch, and those with Mana pools had trouble regenerating them. On top of it all, the rain never once let up. A steady, cold drizzle seeped down collars and into boots, driving an unseasonable chill into their bones. All in all, a miserable march, one that extended well into the night.
They rested, barely, but a sense of urgency let none of them sleep longer than a handful of glasses. The stakes of their mad flight to Haarwatch's sister city was known to all of them, their fears shared equally. For her part, Zara couldn't rest at all, and instead spent her time staring into the wet dark, as if her Will alone could bridge the distance to Setoria.
The drugged guards had yet to wake, all of them still dazed beneath the work of her potion. That confused Zara. Alchemy was an exacting tool, one that did not change based on the whims of chance. Yet that made it all the more worrisome when the guards did not stir. She kept that from her face and words, however, merely assuring Kelgan and the others that the same fatigue affected the dozing guards. The explanation was accepted readily, if not happily.
The early morning had them moving again, but by noon, inevitable exhaustion dogged their bones. They rested again, this time for several glasses. The Aspect strain they all felt was not something potions and tinctures could heal, or else she would have brewed up a dozen different benedictions. Instead they were at the mercy of time itself, as their cores attempted to fix what their journey had bent. An agonizingly slow process, even in the best of times, and that did not describe their current situation in the least.
Despite their convalescence, Zara roused them before three glasses passed. Her gut twinged, vibrating along with strings of Affinity that did not let her sleep or even close her eyes. The Inquisition was drawing close. They could already be there.
"We must move faster," she said.
"The guards are exhausted. Even those still sleep walking," Kelgan said. Beside him, Karp nodded in weary emphasis. "We couldn't move faster unless we were carried," he joked.
"Fine."
Zara and the others turned to Darius Reed as he pressed his thick-fingered hand into the rain. Zara saw white-green Mana tinged with the faintest of oranges seep from his channels. The Mana Gates in his left palm and elbow opened wide and spat forth a liquid stream of power. It shunted aside the rain, kicking leaves up from the soaked ground as it swirled and fused. With a sound like a thousand errant breezes, it solidified into a half-invisible platform of thickened air.
"Get the guards onto this, I'll carry their burden from here," he said.
The other guards quickly guided their groggy and confused compatriots onto the platform. It was enough to hold them all, if only just. For all his show, Reed was clearly straining with their combined weight. When he caught Zara watching him, he flushed and growled.
"What are you gaping at? We march on!"
Glasses drifted past upon greased tracks, so smoothly and fluidly did the time move. Glasses that were a rush of tree and leaf and rain-soaked moss. The flora of the Verdant Pass were just as massive here as back in Haarwatch, more so in some cases. The level of insects and small animals steadily rose, buoyed on the higher ambient Mana in the air and earth. But all of that was information Zara hadn't the time to contemplate. There was only the movement, only their advance.
Then they were there.
The forest ended, massive trees and roots twisting the ground before it opened into a flat, rain-trampled field of wild grass. More than rain-trampled.
"Haah...haahh...blind gods," Reed panted. He was shaking from the effort of holding onto the drugged guards. "An attack."
The field, easily a mile in either direction, abutted a massive wall of gorgeous blue stone that rose of a height with Haarwatch's own orichalcum masterpiece. Gold details decorated the crenelated tops, bas relief sculptures of beasts and the defenders fighting against them. Actual defenders stood at the top, bows and spears and swirling Skills brought into play as they beat back a monster horde at the gates. Above it all, Setoria's standard flew tall and proud, a golden lion atop an unbroken field of blue.
The monsters were everywhere, crowding up against the entrance to the city as if they knew that was where ingress was promised. Hundreds of beasts, all the same type, crawled atop one another as fire and ice and arrows clad in either slammed into their bodies. Many of the Skills broke against their hidesthey were Tier II, all of them, a creature called a Shriek that she had encountered once or twice in her life. They resembled nothing so much as massive, avum-sized hounds covered in heavy muscle and festooned with spikes. Their faces were humanoid skulls, with dull red lights burning in their deep-set sockets, and they possessed a massive, bulging throat that rippled as a ululating sound was struck up in fury.
Tier II they could handle, and if they were at their full strength it would have been a simple issue to wade toward the front gates. Now, hurt and reduced to so few, Zara did not like their chances. Even worse was the leader of the horde, a creature twice again as large as the Shrieks with not one, but two skeletal faces atop its thick neck.
Analyze...
Name: Twice-Cursed Shriek
...
Zara let the rest of the information wash away. It wasn't important, not truly. She could tell the leader was easily Tier III, well beyond any of her people save the Hand himself. Not that any of them were up to fighting at the moment.
She extended her senses again, scanning the skies...and breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Zara could sense no lure, nothing drawing the horde to attack. She had to assume it was merely an unfortunately timed side effect of the wards in the Pass being down for months.
"We have to break through," Zara said.
"With what strength?" Reed motioned to the rest of the team, all of whom were collapsed against trucks ten times wide than themselves. "Every one of us is exhausted. Had I not carried these men, I would simply wipe these pests away." Reed panted and mimed a slashing gesture at the horde. "As it is, I'm not sure I could take on all of those Tier II's, let alone the leader."
Neither could the guards atop the wall. Their spells and Skills were proving ineffectual against the toughened hide of the Shrieks, and the Twice-Cursed ignored anything they tried. Zara licked her lips, considering.
"I could...but then I would be spent," she admitted in a low voice. "The crossing cost me more than I care to admit, but this," she sucked in a tight, firm breath. It was time to roll the dice, once more. "This must be done. We must reach the Waystone before the redcloaks. Darius, I will need you to lead them once we're in the city. Stop the signal, stop the Inquisition, by whatever means necessary."
The Hand considered her for a long moment, his Spirit shifting through so many moods it was almost dizzying. In her state, Zara was not amused by his mercurial emotions, but soon thereafter he settled. Solidity reigned through his Aspects, like the stout trunk of an oak. He nodded.
"I will see it done, Sorcerer."
She extracted no Oath, not for such a thing. The Hand knew where his best interests laid, and he would follow their plan for Vess' sake if nothing else. Zara turned back to the horde, and called upon her power.
"Stay back. When the giant falls, make for the gates," she told the guards. The Willful few gave sharp nods of acceptance and stood, reaching over to help their fellows as well.
A song built within her. Outside of her. In everything it was, a Harmony that could not be denied. Zara paced forward, moving further than such simple steps could account for, and rose up into the air. As if a set of invisible stairs had been erected, she climbed higher with every step, and the song rang out all the louder.
Silence fell among the horde and atop the walls, as everyone and everything turned to look at her. Aquamarine liquid surged from her Mana Gates, enveloping her feet and palms in a shimmering fluid that drowned out the cloud-choked sun above them all. The rain itself swirled around her, seized from the skies and forced to spin wildly around her form.
The Twice-Cursed Shriek rounded on her and its massive throat ballooned. Air Mana gathered within its throat, and a massive, ear-shattering howl exploded from between its jaws. The ululation swept its own minions apart, splitting them like grisly logs and hurling grass and sundered earth into the air.
Zara grimaced, pelted with the sonic vibrations. Little else could have threatened her, but the overwhelming sound had, just briefly, drowned out the rarefied vibrations of Creation. A discordance that fought reality itself.
No. I have control. She flared her Intent, gripped hard upon the skein of the Realm, and reminded herself of her purpose. I will save this Continent, whether it likes it or not!
With a desperate cry, Zara spent the last of herself. Her Intent solidified, a howling razor of crystalline power that speared into the Twice-Cursed Shriek's open throat. Harmony sang, and its fevered blood answered.
She ripped it out.
All of it.
"Run! Now!" Reed bellowed.
Kelgan snapped out of his daze enough to see Zara fall from the sky. A sky that was utterly excised of rain.
Instead, it was filled with blood.
"Now people! Push your Bodies or die!" Kelgan shouted, and those few that remained awake stumbled into a loping run. His legs burned and his chest felt afire, but Kelgan didn't stop. Not even when all that blood fell back down onto the fields in a gruesome downpour.
The fields were rough terrain, torn by the giant Shriek's outburst, but of greater concern were the hundreds of lesser Shrieks around them. Yet as their company approached, the Shrieks fled. But not from them.
None had gone near where Zara had landed.
Kelgan could only get a glimpse of the Sorcerer before the Hand picked her up, but it was enough to know she was alive. And then they were at the gate. Kelgan's vision had begun to narrow into a dark tunnel, but he caught snatches of the Hand shouting at the gate guards. And of the doors slowly, agonizingly opening for them.
They had made it.
Visit freewe𝑏n(o)vel.𝑐𝘰𝑚 for the best novel reading experience