Mark of the Fool

Chapter 856: Clash

“What is it?” Alex hissed, watching the two mighty beings in the sky, staring each other down.

“Patience, I am making sure, archwizard,” the engeli said. “There is so much divinity in the air that I could err if I am not careful.”

“Alright, but—” Alex started.

The Fae lord’s words interrupted him.

“Think of it. You seem to have power and wisdom,” Aenflynn said. “The young mortals spurned my offer, but I am a generous lord. I will give them another chance, and I think you might make them see reason. After all, wisdom often comes with age.”

“Not always,” Baelin countered. “Your friend, Uldar, he seemed most unwise to me.”

A flicker of displeasure crossed the Fae lord’s face. “It is poor fortune to speak ill of the dead.”

“Oh?” Baelin cocked his head. “So you were truly friends?”

“Pardon?”

“I had simply thought you had used him to your advantage, as many tricksters do.” The chancellor’s beard-braids clinked in the wind. “But it seems that you actually shared a bond of fellowship.”

“Of course.” Some of Aenflynn’s cheer faded. “Uldar was a friend. I did not approve of all of his decisions, nor did he approve of all of mine, but a friend he still was. What happened to him was monstrous. His body withered. His mind melted. It was a horror to watch, and he did not deserve it.”

“Did he not?” Baelin asked.

“No, he—” Aenflynn continued.

Alex’s jaw tightened; at any moment he expected the fae to turn…or for something else to see him. Through the mist obscuring the fae lord’s castle, there were many more fae moving along the parapets and courtyards of the vast palace.

And many Ravener-spawn were among them.

“Yes…I have confirmed it now,” the engeli said, breaking Alex’s concentration away from Aenflynn’s conversation with Baelin. “There is a vast source of divine energy in the tallest tower of this castle.” Her barely solid hand pointed to a vast, white tower rising from the centre of the palace.

“Good.” Alex was ready to call on the Traveller’s power. “But what’s the problem? You said you had something to tell me that I wouldn’t like.”

“There is a powerful divine ward placed around the source of divine energy…even if someone as powerful as you were to enter, you would meet an unspeakable death,” the engeli explained.

“What if I teleported in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Unspeakable.”

Alex resisted the urge to curse. Vilely. “How big is this ward?” he asked.

“Perhaps ten paces…or thirty feet across.” She observed the target carefully.

Alex narrowed his eyes, examining the tower’s width. It seemed to measure nearly thirty feet across. “He probably warded the entire room against intrusion. Is there a way to break such a ward?”

“Some very powerful magics can…or even a mighty form of divinity,” she said. “But other than that…”

The young archwizard considered her words.

‘So it could be broken by powerful spells…but I don’t know any spells that break divine wards, and I didn’t see any spells like that in either Generasi or Brightfire.’ He reasoned, his eyes slowly drifting to Baelin. ‘Baelin would probably know magics that could get through, but he was pretty focused on Aenflynn right now. Maybe Merzhin could find some way through? I’d have to ask and…’

Alex’s gaze drifted toward Aenflynn, reading the fae’s body language as he defended Uldar.

He was focused on Baelin…but not completely. The lord’s body was turned—just enough—to let him keep an eye on the tower.

‘He’s not letting his guard down. No way I want to chance bringing Merzhin here with him so cautious. He needs to be more distracted.’ Alex eyed both Baelin and Aenflynn. ‘I should let them fight a bit more. The longer Aenflynn fights Baelin, the higher the chances that he’ll tunnel-vision and let his guard down about the tower. Yeah, let’s let him think that Baelin’s the only one he has to worry about.’

Alex looked at the engeli. “You said there was only one source of divine energy? Not two?”

She shook her head. “No, just one.”

The young archwizard’s heart fell. “There’s nothing else? Nothing else at all? And you are sure?”

“No, I am sorry archwizard there is…”

The celestial paused, her eyes narrowing.

“What is it?” Alex asked excitedly. “Did you find it?”

“I did not, but I do sense a trail…a faint trail. I think it might be the path that the divine source took to reach this place.”

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“Oh,” Alex grunted. “That’s not going to help—”

He paused, his eyes widening.

“Wait, can you follow the trail?” he asked.

“Most certainly, archwizard,” she said. “I could easily follow the path that the divine source took to reach this castle.”

Alex’s mind worked quickly. “Yes, do that. I have an idea.”

“—lack of gratitude,” Aenflynn was saying. “That is what plagued Uldar. The denizens of Och Fir Nog are grateful for my rulership. They do not forget all I have done for them. But mortals? Mortals forget. Or they die quickly. In both ways, they abandon their pacts and bonds.”

“And so you blame mortals for Uldar’s trouble?” Baelin began to chuckle. And soon his laughter grew until it was thundering through the skies. “Come now, you are more intelligent than that…or at least that is what I assumed. Child, Uldar was largely responsible for his own fate. Were it not for his pride and his excessive self-assurance, he might have survived his poisoning. But we are not here to talk about dead gods. Reflect on something for me, you know that anger you felt when I insulted your dead friend?”

“I cannot help but feel you are setting me up for something, but yes,” Aenflynn replied.

“Indeed. I was setting you up: if you consider the anger you felt when I spoke poorly of a corpse…how do you think I would react when you attempt to kill members of my school, my apprentices and those I have grown fond of,” Baelin said.

“Ah,” was all Aenflynn said.

“Yes. Ah.”

Baelin raised his staff.

Aenflynn whistled, raising his arms.

The air exploded as Alex and the engeli flew away.

Behind them, an apocalyptic clash of mana and divine power unfolded.

But Alex paid little attention to their battle. He knew Baelin could handle things…what interested him was what lay ahead.

The archwizard and the celestial followed the path while violence spread through Och Fir Nog.

There were at least a dozen hive-queens standing between Theresa and the dungeon.

Each was gnashing their jaws together and scraping their scythe-like legs along each other’s bodies. Their insectile eyes were firmly fixed on the huntress.

She cracked her neck, raising the Twinblade.

Four phantom swords appeared, hovering around her as she walked forward, stepping over the bodies of Ravener-spawn she’d already dispatched. Nearby, the rest of her companions struck at the army of monsters around the fae gate, while Khalik cast earth magic to bury the mushroom circle.

She knew that battle would be well in-hand, so she’d decided to remove one more dungeon core from the field with Brutus. Beside the huntress, the cerberus—sheathed in his bone armour—padded along at her side, fangs bared and three growls rumbling in his throats.

Before them, hive-queens released chittering cries.

The one in the centre—a bit larger than the rest—pointed at them with a chitinous digit. “Mortalsssss…must…feaaaaaaar…”

The memory of those words actually stopped the huntress's steps for a moment.

‘Humanssss…must…feaaaaaaar…’

Theresa remembered those same words being hissed at them by the Hive-queen in the Cave of the Traveller at the start of their journey from Alric…which felt like a lifetime ago. Back then, she had never seen anything so hideous or monstrous before. At the time, the creature had seemed indestructible, and so very deadly. Her arrows hadn’t been able to pierce its armour. Her great-grandfather’s swords—unawakened at that point—hadn’t even cut through the carapace of a single soldier silence-spider.

Trapped in the Cave with the enormous Ravener-spawn, all she, Brutus, Alex and Selina could do was run, and try to make for the gate to the Rhinean Empire. If it hadn’t been for Alex’s quick thinking; the sacrifice of a fire-gem, and one of the Traveller’s portals to some volcanic realm, they would have died there.

‘Humanssss…must…feaaaaaaar…’

Back when that first hive-queen had spoken those words, Theresa had been afraid.

Very afraid.

But now?

“Mortalsssss…must…feaaaaaaar!” the largest hive-queen screeched, rising even further up with its centipede-like body looming over her and Brutus.

But now, its words meant nothing to her.

Neither did its size.

Nor its blades.

“I’m not afraid of you.” The huntress cocked her arm back. “I was once the prey of one just like you. Now you’re the prey. Let me show you why you should have run.”

Planting her left foot on the ground, she put her whole body into her throw.

One half of the twinblade spun through the air, steel flashing. Flying fast. So fast, the hive-queen didn’t even twitch before the blade reached its chitinous skull, entering one of its eyes.

It shrieked, rearing back.

Theresa was suddenly there, standing on its shoulder, her hand clasping the hilt of the blade.

The hive-queen froze, as did the other ones around it.

“You should have feared, now you die,” the huntress said.

She ripped the sword from its skull, turning into a whirlwind of slashing blades, both steel and phantom. Where once the twinblade could be deflected by a silence-spider’s carapace, now it sliced through the hive-queen’s chitin like it was moving through water.

The creature’s body was shredded into segments, bits of it sailing in all directions under the force of Theresa’s blows, and she was already leaping onto the next one before the first one’s torn corpse had fallen.

A single slash took the next hive-queen’s head, while her other blades diced its body.

This spurred the others to attack.

‘Ten left’ she thought.

They loomed around her, swarming.

She dove for the ground, leaping off the falling corpse.

Another hive-queen sprang, but Brutus unleashed his cones of sonic energy, stopping it cold, waves of sound smashing its body, cracking carapace, turning innards to slurry.

He leapt on another, jaws tearing, bone-spikes sinking deep in its body.

‘Eight.’ The huntress counted mentally, darting among the centipede-like bodies of the other queens.

The twinblade severed legs and slashed through chitin. Phantom blades carved into carapaces.

Monsters swiped at her, but seemed to be moving like snails compared to her. She split limbs that came too close, the twinblade cutting through Ravener-spawn like butter.

One more fell.

‘Seven.’ She thought.

Another.

‘Six’

Brutus tore a monster apart.

‘Five.’

A double slash.

‘Four.’

Another.

‘Three.’

The remaining creatures looked fearful, recoiling from her, turning to flee to grab the dungeon core.

Theresa shot forward like a ballista bolt, blades held in front of her. She caught a hive-queen’s back, the phantom swords spinning around her like a storm.

The huntress carved through the Ravener-spawn’s body, bisecting it as she landed on the other side.

‘Two.’

Down the crater of pulsating flesh she ran.

The dungeon core was just ahead.

She raised her blades, lashing out, the twinblade carving into the black orb.

She whirled about, ready to end the last two monsters. There was no need.

Brutus was standing over two corpses, heads tilted back, his howls reaching the sky.

She smiled. “Good boy, but we have more work to do.”

Charging out of the crater, she made for the fae gate.

There, her companions were just finishing up, with Khalik burying both the mushroom circle and the last of the Ravener-spawn.

“Next!” he cried.

Things were going well.

One fae gate was closed, and she had killed twelve hive-queens, that each—once upon a time—could have torn her to ribbons many times over. And she hadn’t taken a single scratch.

“I just hope the others are okay too,” she whispered, leaping into the air. “Alex, Cedric…Drestra…everyone. Be safe. We can get through this.”

She joined the others as they teleported to the next mushroom circle.