Unbound

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Nine - 169

"He's--" The white armored young man trembled, his eyes distant. Haunted. His cloak had burned away and his once-shiny platemail was dented and dull.

"Tell us, Klark. We heard it, we-we saw the explosion," an Acolyte got down on her haunches to look in the boy's eyes. And he was a boy, perhaps no more than seventeen for all that he wore the sword of an Initiate. "We need to know."

DuFont rolled her eyes, though she made sure the others didn't see her. She had been assigned to a group of Initiates and Acolytes, rounding up dissidents in the Crafters Quarter. When the sky lit up, she thought the Stalwart had unleashed its Mana cannons on the city; something the Master Inquisitor seemed more than ready to do. But then she'd spotted it falling.

And the world went mad.

They'd found the boy while trying to reach a local rally point, but when they came to the square no other Inquisition members were there. So they kept moving, down through the Crafters and toward the Wall. That was when they came upon him, sitting against a rock, dazed and bleeding.

DuFont nodded to the Initiate nearby, a man by the name of Graves. He was tall and lanky, but his Skill with the blade at his hip was well into Journeyman. Nearly Adept, if her guess was right. And it always was. "Keep an eye on the perimeter. Those Revenants could come at any time."

DuFont strolled over to the boy and rapped him twice on his helmet. Shock was painted across the Acolytes around them, shock and a little distaste. Especially from the kneeling one, the comely one. Tsk. I'll remember that.

"Times up. We've no time to coddle you," DuFont leaned over the young man, putting her face closer to his own. "Tell us what happened."

The Initiate gaped for a second before his training must have kicked in. Setting his jaw, he blinked and nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Its--the Master Inquisitor. He was onboard."

"And where is he now? We could use a hand with all these monsters running free."

"He's...he's dead."

Soft gasps erupted all around them, and DuFont closed her eyes in frustration. You bastard. You absolute bastard! To the Initiate, she reached out a hand and helped him to his feet. "How?"

"The beast it..."

"We saw," DuFont said.

"It bit the ship in half, we...we crashed," Klark gestured around the bend of rubble. "I-I got out. I fell. Why did I live when he did not?"

DuFont wanted to shake the little idiot, but she restrained herself. "You saw the Master Inquisitor die?"

Klark nodded. "He was torn apart by the beast's teeth. He--I cannot believe he could survive such wounds."

"You'd be surprised," DuFont muttered to herself. To the others she spoke louder. "Everyone, let's fan out. The Master Inquisitor might still be alive. Find him."

Katan better be alive, DuFont swore to herself. Or I'll kill him.

"Leeds, get the water line going! We have barrels to fill and it's black as pitch out there."

"Aye, cap'n," said a thin man with a shock of curly red hair. He was one of the newer arrivals, but she'd recognized him from around the Dust.

Gods, they're all new arrivals.

"And bring Bodie with you!" Cal gripped the daggers at her waist. They'd lost two runners two hours ago because of a lack of fighters and light. They had plenty of bodies, but after the Inquisition packed it up and ran, anyone worth a damn with a blade had joined up with the Wall and what remained of the Guild.

The Guild, she snorted. Without the tower, the Guild didn't exist, not in Haarwatch. Some of the Bronze Ranks were trying to rally at the Wall, but no one had even seen a Silver Rank or Elder since the Eyrie fell. If she didn't know how resilient those bastards were, Cal would have assumed they died in the collapse. Where are they, then?

The Tin and Iron Ranks had been struggling with monsters at the Wall, and it was only getting worse, she heard. And now, monsters were inside the walls too. They'd built outward from their warehouse, if only to accommodate the influx of survivors from the nearby Quarters. A few industrious crafters had built them a wall of dirt and loose stone, more a mound than a proper fortification, but it was something. It had proven its worth a hundred times already, slowing the beasts down before they could trample them all. A few torches had been planted along its length, keeping the area well lit despite the storm clouds that still crackled above them.

Lightning but no thunder. Clouds but no rain.

Kelgan and Yan stepped across the barricade, back from their patrol. The spearman met her gaze and shook his head slowly.

Damn. Still no sign of the kid.

Harn said he wasn't worried about Felix, but she'd had to just about physically restrain Vess from going back out there. Evie was awfully quiet too. Just about as quiet as she got when Mags disappeared. Cal ran her hands through her short hair, causing it to stick up wildly.

She had to protect them all. Somehow. No one else would.

Someone screamed.

Fluid Shift!

Like a greased shadow, Cal spun over the makeshift wall and onto the street beyond. Without thought or hesitation, she sighted down the Revenants charging down the road, hot on the trail of a group of survivors.

"Karp! Portia! On me!" Cal shouted as she moved, flickering through the Haarwatchers' ranks like a ghost. She didn't stop as a flurry of green-gold arrows and golden bolts filled the sky, merely timing her approach. The first row of beasts went down, leaving only six left.

Not nearly enough.

Fatal Flurry!

Seven precise slashes tore through the Revenants like they were made of paper, and a dark ichor sprayed wildly all around her as they fell as one.

You Have Killed A Manawarped Revenant (x6)!

XP Earned!

They're getting weaker, she mused. But where are they coming from? There are still so many.

Harn said the Domain had been teeming with them, but that most had died before it ruptured. So how did so many flood the streets? Her scouts were tentatively reporting several hundred in just the Dust alone. They couldn't handle that many, not as they were. Something had to change.

"Ma'am?"

Cal turned, and the man behind her flinched backward. Her sharp eyes caught him and the others all huddled close, as if afraid of the monsters...and of her. She looked down at her daggers, which were still smoking a visible vapor of black and sepia. She sheathed them.

"You lookin' for shelter?"

The man nodded. Behind him, several women, four elderly folk, and a child looked at her nervously. Cal tried to smile reassuringly, though the way the man's face paled, she doubted she did it right. Damn it, Mags. You were always better with people.

"Good, you can find it right there," she gestured behind him, to the torch line. "Just beyond the low dirt wall. Ask for Portia, or Karp if she's busy. They'll set you right."

Cal turned back around, pushing her Perception out into the narrow maze of streets. Their patrols weren't the best yet, but this group shouldn't have gotten this far. She'd have to yell at someone in a bit.

"Lady?"

A small voice. The child. Cal tilted her head back and saw a little girl, maybe no more than six or seven years old. She was bundled in a cloak and had a small makeshift pack on her back. She gave Cal the fiercest little look. "Is the Fiend here?"

"Amaya!" The man was shocked. Her father she supposed. "Apologies. Apologies."

"No," Cal answered, holding out a hand to forestall the father. "He's not."

The little girl screwed up her face in confusion. "Why not? Mama and Papa called this a safeplace. They said the Fiend protected us when the bugs came. He should be in the safeplace."

"We're looking for him, he's..." Cal hesitated and looked at the girl's father. The man looked just as interested in the answer as his daughter. It had been happening more and more: people asking about Felix. Ever since those prisoners had made it back to the Dust. She cleared her throat.

"He's fighting the monsters right now. Big ones. But when he's done, he'll be coming back here. Alright?"

The little girl named Amaya chewed her lip before nodding once, firmly. "Let's go, Papa."

Cal huffed a laugh and watched them go.

Where are you, Felix?

She needed all the help she could get.

"No!"

Stellis, dirty and terrified, huddled over her two children. It was so dark, she hadn't seen the building leaning until it was too late. She--

She was still alive.

Confused and hesitant to believe, she opened her eyes.

Only scant spans above her, the crumbled wall hovered and...and glowed. A vivid, greenish-blue that was all the brighter for the darkness. Agog, she reached a hand out as if to touch it.

"I wouldn't advise that," said a voice. A woman's voice, kindly but tired. The dirty, terrified woman turned and beheld a tall, statuesque figure with black robes and free-flowing hair the color of the sea. Sharp teeth showed through an even sharper smile. "Though I would prefer if you move."

Stellis flinched and looked down at her children, before hustling them away from the suspended masonry. Once clear, the wall dropped to the ground with a mighty boom.

"I cannot thank you enough, my lady," Stellis began, stumbling over her words in her haste. She was exhausted, driven to her wits end during their escape, fear and adrenaline all that fueled her mad flight through the night. Yet she screwed up her courage and belted out her words. "I fear asking for more, but can you help us? We have nothing. We...we're looking for shelter."

"Of course, child," the woman said, for all that she looked no older than herself. A Naiad, Stellis realized, noting her ochre skin in the faint light of nearby fires. "The Wall is taking survivors in; space is limited, but it is the closer option. There is also a group in the Dust Quarter that is housing families."

"The Dust?" Stellis asked, her stomach dropping. It was so far. The Wall was far closer, but if the woman was right, they were probably full at this point. "Do you know if the Wall is full?"

"I do not. It is a risk, either way, child." The woman held both her hands, palms up, and seesawed them up and down. "I cannot make the choice for you."

Stellis watched the women for a long moment before she nodded. Of course, she finally recognized the robes. That was the way of the old religion, her grandmother had said. The sanctity of choice, freely made. Stellis drew in a ragged breath and held her sons closer. They had both gone so quiet since they escaped their tenement; they had been so brave. She could be brave too.

"The Dust it is, then."

The woman, the chorister, nodded and gave her directions. "When you arrive, ask for Cal. She will put you up."

"Thank you, my lady. Thank you so much," Stellis felt her heart ache as she left, hoping she had made the right decision.

Should never live with herself if she had not.

As the woman disappeared into the dark, Zara snapped her fingers. A woman in a dark cloak and long black dress stepped from behind a rubble pile and curtsied. She had dusky red skin and golden eyes that caught the light of distant fires.

"My lady?"

"Take a walk back toward the Dust encampment, Melle," Zara stared disinterestedly after the woman. "I still sense many Revenants abroad this night and have noticed an excess of energy in you. Burn it off."

"Of course, my lady," Melle curtsied once again, before she moved after the woman and her children. If one were paying attention, they would have noted that she made not a single sound. Zara wouldn't have sent someone incapable, after all.

Honoring the right to choose was a mainstay of the old religions, just as accepting the consequences of those choices. Zara would never break such firmly held beliefs. Her handmaiden simply had some aggression to work out.

That was all.

Zara glanced up at the sky, her eyes awash in a shimmer of aquamarine power for an instant. Even sounding the flows of Mana, she could see little above them. The storm raged silently, releasing muted lightning with increasing regularity between the cloudy peaks. But whatever the Ravager had done, it had drained the skies of power more thoroughly than anything she had seen before. And Zara had seen a lot.

Then, it had died.

The boy had done it.

A remarkable child, she thought with a grim twist of her lips. He hadn't even needed the spell she'd held in abeyance. The cool Mana of it still coiled within her, thrumming lightly beneath the streets. More power than she'd worked with in a long time, a complexity only supported because of how deep she'd Chanted her Intent. There were no half-measures against such a foe.

However, the magic she'd laid down hadn't been strictly offensive, as Zara was not willing to eradicate the city center just to strike a wounding blow against the Domain Core. She possessed no true idea how much Endurance and Vitality it retained, so going too weak would have been a waste of Mana, while going too strong would do the Ravager's job for it. She'd have destroyed the city.

Other magic, however, was far more flexible.

The nature of her own gift was far better at support than direct force, which is why she'd had so much trouble against the Master Inquisitor earlier that day. In fact, she still bore a few wounds from that encounter. Zara grimaced as her movements tugged at them, yet she could not stop. Not until she found him.

Whatever Felix had done had torn the Ravager apart. Which should have been impossible. She had Analyzed the beast before its end and had been utterly devastated to learn it was a Primordial. One of the great enemies of the gods themselves. For all her faith and despite her planning, at that moment Zara felt despair sink its claws in her heart.

And then the boy had performed a miracle.

In the chaos, however, she had lost track of him. He had fallen to the earth, but Zara had faith he would survive. If he was who she hoped, who she feared....He couldn't die. Not yet.

A pained groan cut into the night. Zara's sharp Perception pivoted toward it and she moved fast. Beyond the remnants of five crushed buildings, the burned out husk of a Manaship laid half-submerged beneath the street. Bodies were scattered everywhere, white enameled armor bent and broken, flesh charred beyond recognition. The boy, she soon realized, wasn't here.

But someone else was.

"Sorcerer..."

Zara stepped closer, picking her way slowly, carefully. A handful of spells floated through her Mind and Spirit, ready to be released but they faded to the background as she saw him.

Khorun Katan was pinned to the earth by the majority of the candlemaker's guildhall. His left arm and leg were charred ruins, no more than grizzled stumps in the night. What was left of him was sweating and crazed with burns, though his full head of hair sat untouched atop his head. Eyes still bright with a terrifying Intelligence watched her.

"Redcloak."

"Come to gloat, witch?" Katan bared his teeth and Zara saw blood had flecked them. "Come to laugh at my ill fortune?"

"I was not even looking for you," Zara said, keeping her face neutral.

"Lies, now? Were you...not, ugh...looking for vengeance?" The redcloak tried to shift himself, but the tons of stone would not budge beneath his damaged Body.

"For what?"

"For--! For falling to my golden lance, heretic!" Katan spat. Zara simply watched him, probing at his Body with her Skills.

"I did not fall, redcloak," she said.

"More...lies."

"Believe what you must," Zara said with finality. She was done here. "You have chosen to do so all your life. Be satisfied with your just reward."

"Fight me!" Katan raged, his free hand clawing at the stone that held him captive.

Zara wanted to; blind gods, she wanted nothing else. But she knew she didn't have to, not anymore.

"No." She said, and walked away.

"Lance of the Fall!"

Zara snapped her fingers, twice.

A brilliant crescendo sounded, a bright, joyous series of chords that made the air itself hum. Simultaneously, aquamarine light flooded from the ground below the Master Inquisitor, instantly inundating him in a sphere of pure water. Zara half turned back toward the man who now half-floated, completely submerged in the thickening liquid. His eyes were wide and veins stood out like cables in his neck.

"You have made your choice," she said, and snapped her fingers a third, and final time.

The water collapsed in on itself with enough power to restrain a corrupted Domain Core rife with the power of an entire pocket dimension. Upon Khorun Katan, it crushed his flesh and bones to jelly. With a wet, gurgling noise, the orb became nothing more than a small marble of power before fading away entirely. Only echoes were left behind.

"All choices have consequences."

Deep beneath the bones of an ancient mountain range, silence reigned.

"Report!"

The Archon's voice was a hammer blow to the assembled Arcids. There were twelve, each of them made of slightly different metals, experiments all. The smallest was no bigger than a human, while the largest stood well over twenty feet tall. But not one would meet their master's eye-fires as the Archon strode into the chamber.

"Well? Is there none brave enough? Fine," the Archon stomped a heavy metal foot, and a wash of yellow-red light surged along the squared floor tiles beneath them. A wave of misplaced stone hurled one of them forward, sending it crashing to the ground. "Number 55118, report. Now."

The Archid, its umber colored limbs twitching, stood. In a stilted voice, it began to speak.

"Ahm...All of the Reforged have been thoroughly changed, Master. Not a trace of their Type remains, though a measure of their inherent power--"

The backhand surprised everyone. Metal squealed and crumbled as the Arcid was thrown nearly forty feet and into the far wall. The Archon stomped over to his throne of green and silver stone and sat heavily.

"Number 54773. Report."

"Haarwatch has not fallen," Number 54773's calm voice declared. It stepped out of the crowd with a cool, mechanical precision before stopping only six span from the Archon's feet. It did not glance at its fellow, who was shakily extracting itself from the wall. "I just finished verifying with the advance scouts, and they claim the Wall still stands, and the interior is still relatively secure."

"Still? What of my Mark? Is it still active upon any beast within the Walls?" The Archon drummed his thick, metal fingers against the stone arm of his throne.

"Your Mark rules the Wretches yet, but they are deep within the woods, replenishing their numbers. Within the city, there is no trace of your Mark."

"How?"

"We...aren't sure, Master," Number 54773 adjusted its stance slightly. Nervously, perhaps. "All connection was lost when our link was cut. None of us retain enough Affinity to see beyond it. The Domain shattered, that much we know, so the city is dealing with a number of monstrous outbreaks. But the Domain Core...it is gone."

"Gone," the Archon let out a vibrating sigh through its golden breastplate. "How did the...what was it called?"

"A Ravager King, sir. An impressive creation by the Envoy and yourself," the Archid flattered.

The golden giant simply grunted, and the sound rattled through its chest and neck. "I merely facilitated the power and the plan. My Envoy did the true work. I am but its creator."

"Of course, sir," Number 54773 said. "But as our creator, our Father, you are the reason we can accomplish anything. All credit, all glory begins and ends with you."

Had the Archon a mouth it would have smiled. This one is quite good with words. I should invest more in their Minds from now on."How did the Ravager King die?" it asked.

"It seems there was a Master Tier Human in the city. With a Manaship."

"What," the word was an avalanche of sound, for all that the Archon did not move. "How was this not known?"

This time, the Archid trembled in clear fear. "Th-the ship was hidden. Perhaps in the Eyrie, which had previously proven scry proof. We-we aren't sure. But we do know that the Manaship's cannon fire hurt the Primordial badly. Then the Master Tier hit it with a light based Mana Skill, severing its neck."

"And that killed it?" the Archon leaned forward and felt its stone chair grind beneath it's bulk. "Just that, for a Primordial?"

"Ah, no, sir. It seems there was another figure involved," and here it paused. It glanced back at the other Arcids, but after receiving no help from them, turned back. "There is record of a man."

"..."

"He...this man somehow climbed atop the Primordial and," the Arcid paused and blinked its pale eye-fires at the Archon. "The man somehow tore it apart."

"Another Master Tier?"

"If not higher. A Grandmaster, perhaps."

The Archon shook its head. That was impossible. If such a being unveiled themselves to strike down the Primordial, he would have known, even buried in the Foglands. No, something else had happened in that contemptible city. Something strange. He did not like mysteries.

"If the Primordial died, then why do I still feel the creature's power? Why does it still weigh upon the world?"

It was weak, perhaps the weakest Primordial he'd ever sensed, but there was no mistaking it. Even from within the Foglands, the Archon could feel the pull it had, something he'd grown used to from the vile Maw with whom he'd once shared a border.

"No Primordials were left alive, sir," 54773 replied hesitantly, unsure. "Perhaps further investigation is needed."

"Yes," the Archon snarled as he sat back on his throne. He regarded the Archids before him, their specially crafted Bodies and plundered Spirits. They were nearly ready. "Find this man, and bring down that Wall, in whichever order you choose. We have little time before the Blood Moon comes. You know what is needed; what is at stake."

With a wave of the Archon's hand, the far wall rotated out of sight. The throne room became a balcony overlooking an absolutely massive staging ground, one cut through by viciously hot flows of brilliant lava. Among the flows stood hundreds of massive, metallic creatures, each of them a vivid blue-grey. They appeared sculpted from ice, rather than metal, freezing cold despite the overwhelming heat.

"We have much to do."