Book 6: Chapter 22: A Fated Meeting
The climb to the top of the keep’s wall was brutal, but whatever had been bombarding him on the ground stopped, so Victor was thankful for small mercies. He wondered if perhaps the defenders so high up couldn’t see him clinging to the shadows of the black stone monoliths, especially now that the mist seemed to have made a reappearance, crowding the light of his banner, making it difficult to judge his progress. In any direction beyond fifty yards or so, all he saw was gray. Still, he climbed, leaping from one narrow ledge to the next, devouring the heights with superhuman endurance, strength, and agility.
He'd been climbing for several minutes, perhaps longer, when he felt some agitation from his coyotes. Something was happening around his body, but Victor refused to leave, to retreat to the Material Plane, as one of Valla’s books called the realm of the living. He’d come too far to give up now. Distances were strange on the Spirit Plane; Victor had always found them to be shorter so long as he knew where he was going, a person or place he wanted to reach. He was beginning to understand that things could work in the opposite manner. Something the Death Casters, perhaps Prince Hector himself, had done to this place made it difficult to find the top of the keep’s wall. It wasn’t this high in reality, but here, in the land of spirits, it seemed to stretch endlessly.
“So,” he grunted, leaping to the next ledge, “is it a matter of wills? Is their desire to keep me away stronger than mine to end this climb?” He growled, stoking his rage, allowing his vision to tint red as he pulled himself up. “Bullshit.” This time, before he leaped further, he stared at the wall before him, not the ledge he aimed to climb. He focused on the wall and firmly planted his desired destination in his mind, the wall’s top, an area with no stone in front of him, only under his feet. Focusing on that image, he stretched his hands up, fingers ready to grab the top of the wall, and jumped. This time, he felt it, the familiar blur of passage, the sensation he usually felt when he was “walking” toward Old Mother on the many occasions when they’d met in this realm.
When his fingers found purchase and his knees bumped against the hard stone, Victor opened his eyes and pulled, a savage grin of triumph baring his teeth as he pulled a leg over the crenelation to stand atop a dark stone parapet. He yanked Lifedrinker from her harness and stalked toward a weird, flickering red and black shadow to his right. One of the guardians, if he had to guess, was standing with smoky hands atop the stone wall, leaning down in a posture that made Victor think it was searching for something. Was it looking for him? Victor didn’t have to wait long to find out. As the circle of his banner’s light fell on the shadow, it screamed and turned to him with wide-open, blood-red eyes.
The smoky shadows blasted away from it as though the light was a gale-force wind, and the ghost, as Victor had come to think of the keep's defenders, summoned a shadowy spear and charged. Victor met the spear haft with Lifedrinker’s shimmering, moonlight blade, cleaving through it like a twig, then he brought her up in a loop, arcing to the diminutive spirit’s armpit, and she lopped its right arm off in a spray of weird, luminescent black-red blood. The ghost was the size of an average human with weird gray-tinted, faintly translucent skin, and when Victor maimed it, its mouth stretched into a noiseless howl of agony.
The ghost tumbled back, stumbling in its haste to avoid another cleave. Victor’s moves with Lifedrinker were machine-like in their perfect execution, though, and he compensated for the ghost’s movement, slipping the axe through its shadowy black leather armor, disemboweling it as it fell. Shiny, slippery entrails fell forth onto the black stones. They were silver, red, and cloaked in smoky shadows, and the ghost thrashed, bucking in silent agony as the smoky red Energy spilled out onto the stones. It grew paler and more translucent, and then the spirit was gone. Nothing but a slippery mess of weird Energy remained on the stones.
“Not so tough, are they, chica?”The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.
Simple pawns with weak Energy. Let us seek their master!
“Not a bad idea,” Victor growled, stalking toward the inner rampart and peering left and right, then down, wondering where the rest of the defenders were. His vision was limited to the circle of his banner’s light, however, and he couldn’t quite make out the stones of the inner courtyard. He thought he could see a gap in the parapet near the edge of his light. “Maybe some stairs there.” He was tempted to jump down, come what may, but decided he’d check the perimeter a bit further first.
Victor started around the corner, moving along the walkway, aiming for the gap he’d seen, but then a horde of silently screaming ghosts burst into the light of his banner, black smoke flowing off them like it was caught in a stiff wind. He tried to take stock, to count the enemies coming toward him, but it wasn't easy with them bunched into a crowd, obscured by the smoke as they were. He thought there must be more than twenty.
Victor took advantage of his much greater size, reach, and strength, stepping toward the throng and cleaving Lifedrinker in a wide, powerful arc, shearing through their weapons, armor, and ghostly bodies, breaking their charge. He stomped forward and used Project Spirit to send a wave of sickly yellow, twisted, inspiration-attuned Energy through the crowd. His cleave and the wave of anti-inspiration broke their momentum, and the survivors stumbled back, only to have Victor dance among them, weaving a deadly Lifedrinker through them like they were practice dummies.
“Pathetic!” he roared, ripping them apart, and then another crowd of the ghosts came from the other direction, and he was forced to increase the ferocity of his deadly dance, kicking, hacking, whirling, cleaving, grabbing, throwing, and utterly destroying the spirit-like assailants. To their credit, though he broke their momentum, smashed their comrades, and dashed their ghostly blood in a thick mist, they never fled. Pack after pack came at him, and Victor felt his movements forming a rhythm, his cleaves and chops the percussion for the roars, howls, and screams he and Lifedrinker let loose.
When he stood heaving for breath, Lifedrinker’s metal head blazing with ghostly light, engorged on the bloody Energy of his foes, the keep’s high, black stone wall was drenched in the weird, luminescent blood-like remnants of his enemies and the mist stretching away from his banner’s light seemed thinner. Many minutes had passed while he wove his dance of destruction, and he could feel the rage in his Core ebbing low. Victor let his Berserk fade, wanting to give his Core a chance to recover. As his size reduced and the slick, ghostly blood slowly misted away, he stalked toward the gap in the now much taller-seeming parapet. He could see it clearly; his banner was still burning brightly; only half his glory-attuned Energy had been spent.
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Her eyes were piercing, bright, cobalt blue that seemed backlit by the Energy within the woman’s frame. Her hair, long and black, drifted behind her in the nonexistent breeze, reminiscent of how hair floated when a person was submerged in water. Victor tried to ignore her naked form, but his traitor eyes wouldn’t avoid a darting glance down, taking in the woman’s pale, bare chest and the dark triangle between her legs. When he jerked his head back to her face, she smiled seductively, spreading cherry-red lips to reveal white teeth that, like her eyes, seemed too bright. “Why so grumpy, warrior? Come, wouldn’t it be better to talk and take comfort in my hospitality? You’ve slain my watchers; surely you owe me the courtesy of a conversation.”
Victor stalked forward, Lifedrinker held crossways before him, her comforting buzz a reminder of who and where he was, something he needed as the woman’s mesmerizing gaze locked with his. He found himself looking her in the eye, that she was nearly as tall as he in his non-Quinametzin form, and he frowned at the realization. Was she so tall before? Wouldn’t he have noticed something like that? “A spirit then,” he growled.
“Aren’t we all in this place?”
Victor had to admit she had a point. Even Old Mother had looked young when she Spirit Walked. He knew very well that he could manipulate his appearance on the Spirit Realm if he tried hard enough. He’d simply never felt the need. “Where’s your body?” he asked before he realized the words were forming on his lips.
“Nearby. Does it matter? Tell me, angry one. Why do you come to my keep? Why do you attack my guardians? Now you stand before me, full of rage, murder in your eyes, and I have to ask, again, why?”
“This keep, these lands, they aren’t yours. You’re part of an invading army, and you’ve slain men of mine.”
“Have I?” She frowned, an expression that looked decidedly like a pout on her beautiful face. Victor, forced to stare into her eyes lest he look upon her nakedness, found they were pulsing ever-so-softly with pale blue light. “Who were they?”
“The Naghelli. Two men who came bravely to scout your keep, to have a look at the ghostly guardians atop its walls. Not only did your ghosts slay them, but you hung them from the walls. You shouldn’t have done that.” Victor’s final sentence was a growl, and he began to pump his pathways with rage again. His red, flickering aura surged intensely, casting a red glow that reflected from the polished black flagstones.
“I shouldn’t make an example of assassins that came out of the darkness to attack one of my guardians? I thought to forestall further violence. I hoped their display above my gates would deter further invasion!” She’d come closer as she spoke, and Victor was stunned to see her cool, pale fingertips resting on his wrist, just above his fist where it gripped Lifedrinker’s haft. “Wouldn’t you like to put that brutal weapon down? Sit with me and see what I’ve done with this special place. I’ve built it up here on the Spirit Plane, and there are wonders to behold within these walls. Can’t you feel them?”
Victor loosened his grip on Lifedrinker as he looked into her eyes. He wanted to stare into them, to plumb their depths, and to learn more about this mysterious, amazing woman. “What’s your name?” he asked, letting his rage recede, pulling back his aura and holding it close.
“I’m Victoria. And you, angry one? What do I call you?”
“Seriously? I’m Victor . . .”
“A fated meeting!” Her expression brightened, her eyes lit up, and Victor found himself letting go of Lifedrinker with his left hand, letting her fall to his side, loosely held in his right. “We were meant to come together here, Victor! Can’t you feel it? I think we could learn much from each other. Such strength flows through you, and now that your rage has ebbed and you’ve let go of that brutal aura, I can see there’s a great deal more to you . . .” She’d come close, just inches separating them, and Victor smiled into her face, his hot breath mingling with her cool, quick exhalations. She tilted her chin, staring into his eyes, and Victor felt like she wanted him to kiss her. He could feel her willing him to do it.
Victor brought his left hand up, brushed her wild, black, opalescent hair away from her cheek, and then let his fingers settle against her neck, the side of his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “You’re beautiful, and I bet there is something interesting about you, but,” quick as a viper snatching up a rodent, he wrapped his fingers around her pale, slender throat, “I don’t like Death Casters trying to mess with my mind!” He growled, tightening his grip and flooding his pathways with rage again. He lifted Lifedrinker, and her edge burst into ghostly orange flames as she howled her fury.
