by Aaron Oster
Whatever the case would be, Grace was sure that she’d never forget the surly dwarf, not for as long as she lived.
“Now come on,” she said, talking to the spear in a low voice so as not to be overheard. “Let’s get you to Morgan. I’m sure he needs you right about now.”
In response, the spear vibrated in her arms lightly, affirming her statement and making Grace feel just a little better. With the way her muscles were burning from holding the immense weight, and all they’d been through to craft this thing, she just hoped it had been worth it.
60
Morgan knew he was in a bad spot. Gwendolyn had him pinned in place, and judging by how much that first attack had hurt, he had no doubt that she’d be able to kill him by slamming her head into his. Had this been two years ago, he’d have been well and truly screwed. Luckily for him, he was very paranoid and liked to prepare for situations just like this one. If there ever was a hypothetical where he couldn’t use his arms or legs to attack, he’d have to use whatever he had available.
Morgan hated to use his trump card now, but what was the point of a trump card if it was never used? Better to just use it and stay alive, rather than keep it hidden and have the ground painted a new shade of red with the contents of his skull. As Gwendolyn reared her head back for a second attack, he sucked in a deep breath.
Gwendolyn brought her head in, and he activated his Compression skill and blew. The explosion of air ripped the goddess from her feet and tossed her a good thirty yards away, where she landed in a heap and continued tumbling across the ground for another twenty feet before coming to a halt. Morgan flexed his left hand, twisting his wrist to make sure it was still functional, before turning his attention to his right.
The already broken arm had been yanked from its socket, Gwendolyn’s grip on it having been stronger than her grip on his left, seeing as she appeared to be left-handed. The arm had already been useless, so a little extra pain didn’t bother him all that much.
“That was a nasty little trick you pulled,” Gwendolyn said, appearing a few feet away.
She was still untouched, her outfit immaculate, and her skin didn’t have so much as a scratch.
“I wonder what it feels like,” Morgan said before she could move in to attack once again.
“What, what feels like?” the goddess asked, summoning her pink sword once again.
“To be endlessly pummeled, but not take even a drop of damage,” he replied, sliding into a fighting stance once more.
“Suits me just fine,” Gwendolyn replied, swishing her sword through the air and grinning at him.
“I’d be bored out of my mind,” Morgan said, hoping to keep the conversation going.
“What, too good to be a god?” Gwendolyn asked with a snort.
“I have no interest in being someone else’s puppet,” he replied with a shrug. “I’ve already been stuck in that role for most of my life. No, the part that would have me bored would be the fact that no matter what I did, every fight would turn out the same. If you really think about it, what purpose do you really serve, if nothing you ever do will change who or what you are?”
Gwendolyn paused for a moment, her brows pulling into furrowed lines as she thought over what he’d said. A small fluttering out of the corner of his eye caught Morgan’s attention, and he tilted his head fractionally to see what it was. Lumia darted around in the air, far enough behind Gwendolyn to be in her blind spot, but just close enough for Morgan to see her if he really looked.
Even from here, it was easy to see what she was trying to tell him. She was motioning him back to the forge. That could only mean one thing — the spear had been completed. He gave the slightest of nods in the drake’s direction to let her know he’d gotten the message, then addressed the goddess once again.
“If I were you, I’d start looking for meaning in my life. You know, other than destruction and Chaos. You know we don’t want this war, but for some reason, you’re driving the people here to do so, using the fear of what our ancestors did or fear of retribution by unfettered gods. Either way, I really don’t see much point to what you’re doing, but hey, everyone needs a hobby, I guess.”
Gwendolyn’s face went from contemplative to enraged so quickly that Morgan had to wonder if it was some divine power he’d yet to understand.
“You don’t understand anything!” she hissed, raising her sword and taking a step forward.
“Maybe not,” Morgan replied with a shrug. “But at least I’m not so easy to distract.”
Gwendolyn opened her mouth to ask what that meant, when a burst of light exploded from Morgan’s outstretched hand, slamming into her chest and driving her back into a boulder. The stone immediately began flowing around her, trapping her arms, legs, and torso before sinking into the ground. It all happened so fast that she didn’t even have time to react, and as the ground slammed shut, trapping the boulder beneath its surface, Morgan allowed himself a small smile and teleported away.
He appeared next to Lumia, grabbing the drake around the middle, before vanishing and reappearing again. An explosion of stone from behind let him know that Gwendolyn was either already free or close to it, and he silently cursed his bad luck that it hadn’t held any longer. He used Gravity Tear several more times, putting as much distance between himself and the angry goddess as he could before he was forced to use his Hypersonic Flight.
The world vanished as he took off, wind rushing past at such an astonishingly fast speed that his body would have been torn apart if it hadn’t been used to it. At this speed, he covered the remaining fifteen miles back to the forge in under ten seconds, being careful to throw on the proverbial breaks a full second before he wanted to stop. The rushing sensation dissipated, and Morgan once again found himself floating before the smith’s workshop.
“Please warn me when you’re going to do that next time,” Lumia complained, extricating herself from his arms and drifting shakily to the ground.
While it was safe for him to use the skill while holding her, Lumia didn’t handle the massive acceleration and deceleration as well as him. It always left her feeling nauseous and lightheaded, which was why he normally wouldn’t want to use the skill while carrying her. But he was left no other option this time, and he’d needed to get away from Gwendolyn quickly, because she wouldn’t be limited by distance when it came to moving around.
He looked around below for any signs that the spear was ready. He assumed Grace would be tasked with bringing it out, but he didn’t see the small girl anywhere, which could only mean it wasn’t yet ready.
“How did you know?”
Morgan turned to see Gwendolyn standing in the air just a few feet away. Just as he’d predicted, she’d caught up in no time. If she was willing to talk, he certainly wasn’t going to argue. He was pretty much out of tricks by this point. The best he could hope for now was that he’d last long enough as a punching bag for the spear to be completed.
“How did I know what?”
“That we convinced the races of Faeland that you were coming to attack them,” Gwendolyn said.
“I didn’t,” Morgan replied with a shrug. “I suspected it but didn’t know for sure. Well, not until now, anyway.”
Gwendolyn’s left eye twitched, and the grip on her sword tightened. No one liked to be made a fool, and someone like her, a supposed goddess, would like it even less. Morgan knew that the smart thing would have been to make something up, but he’d always been a terrible liar. Besides, he found it oddly hard to lie to someone who looked so much like – and shared a name with – his mother. It just felt wrong.
“Morgan!”
Morgan whirled in the air to see Grace come stumbling out the front door. She was holding up a gleaming length of silvery metal for him to see. Ivaldi had done it!
“Wait. Your name is Morgan?”
Morgan turned to see Gwendolyn staring at him, eyes piercing as she looked him over.
“I would have told you that before,” Morgan rep
lied noncommittally. “But you said you weren’t interested.”
Gwendolyn opened her mouth to say something else, but Morgan vanished, appearing on the ground next to Grace and holding his hand out for the spear.
“This thing is heavy as crap!” Grace complained, finally releasing the spear.
“I don’t know what kind of crap you make,” Morgan replied as his fingers curled around the haft, “but mine are definitely lighter than this beauty.”
“Hey…!” Grace began, her face burning red.
Morgan didn’t stick around to hear anything else. He teleported back up to where Gwendolyn had been patiently waiting.
“Nice stick,” she said, eyeing the gleaming length of metal.
“Like her?” Morgan asked, already getting the sense that this spear was far more than a simple weapon.
He could feel it, a sort of electrical current running through his body. They were connected in a way he couldn’t explain. Even as he held it, he could feel a tendril of something snake from the spear and merge with his core, opening his mind and deepening his connection to the weapon.
There was a consciousness in there, a slow-moving sentience that flowed back to him from his new connection to the weapon. He could sense her in his mind, feel her in his core. He knew that no matter where the spear was, he could always recall it and that there was a whole world of untapped potential waiting to be unlocked. All he had to do was reach for it.
“Yeah, it’s pretty,” Gwendolyn replied, shifting her grip on her sword. “I think I’ll take it back as a trophy, along with your head!”
She appeared before him then, bringing the sword down in a cleaving swing designed to split him down the middle. Not really having much of an option, Morgan threw his spear up in a block. There was a loud, musical-sounding chime as the sword impacted, then shattered, bursting into motes of pink light and dissipating into the air.
Gwendolyn’s eyes widened in shock as the attack that had been supposed to kill him failed. Morgan wasn’t about to lose out on the opening this pause gave him. He activated his Maximum Increase, feeling his power quadruple in an instant. Silver tendrils began to flow from the spear’s haft, covering his arms and moving up his shoulders, even as he spun the weapon and brought it across the goddess’s stomach in a wide slash.
Gwendolyn screamed as the metal ripped through her armor and sliced cleanly into her stomach. There was a loud cracking sound as a burst of green light flashed from the spear tip, sending the goddess flying back. She managed to catch herself after just a few feet, but as Morgan came flying at her, his entire body now covered in glimmering silver wires and clutching the shining spear, her nerves failed her.
“This isn’t over!” she screamed, fear clearly audible in her voice as she clutched her bleeding stomach. As soon as the last word left her mouth, she vanished.
Morgan turned a slow circle, allowing his power to calm down. He mentally asked the spear to retract the armor that had begun to coat his body. She complied without hesitation, and he got a distinct feeling of pleasure that she’d been able to help him injure that goddess. He took a deep, shaky breath, forcing himself to calm down and allow the adrenaline to fade.
While holding the spear, Morgan had, for the first time, been able to sense a god’s power. While he didn’t quite understand it, the sheer scope of it all was absolutely terrifying. Gwendolyn’s aura had burned the same bright pink as her attacks, but the aura itself had stretched so far and wide that he couldn’t see the end of it.
In the few moments he’d been attacking, it had felt like he was drowning in an ocean of her power, and the only thing keeping it at bay was the spear clutched in his hand. Even now, as he saw the pink cracks in space closing up, the memory of Gwendolyn’s power stuck with him. Before now, he hadn’t really grasped the true scope of a god’s power. And now that he did, Morgan wasn’t so sure he wanted to.
It was too late now, he figured. There was no undoing the past, and it was better to know your enemy’s strength and be afraid than to be ignorant and blissful. He now understood the gods’ power much better, and the next time he would have to face one, he’d have a weapon that could hurt them. He was finally on the right path, one that would lead to Sarah’s revival and the fulfillment of the promise he’d made to her.
“Oh my god! That was amazing!” Grace exclaimed as he drifted back down to the ground.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, looking her over.
“It’s a long story,” Grace replied, feeling at her blood-soaked hair. “But can I please tell you about it after I take a bath? I feel disgusting.”
Morgan laughed as he removed a harness, one that he’d had crafted to hold the spear, and slung it over his shoulder.
“You can tell me all about it,” he said, scooping the younger girl into his arms. “Once we’re back home in the North Kingdom.”
Grace laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and Lumia alighted upon his shoulder. They were all back together and all still alive. They’d survived their trip here, and now, they were finally going back home.
Epilogue
Elyssa sat alone in the small viewing room, replaying the last part of the fight over and over again. Unlike the other rulers who’d originally been watching the live projection that one of Ragnar’s scouts had set up, she’d actually recorded the entire thing on a memory crystal, one that was specially designed for just such an occasion. And, while the other rulers had given up and left after the goddess and enemy spy had vanished, she had continued watching.
That was why she now knew everything that had transpired between this Morgan and the goddess. Including the fact that the humans weren’t, as they’d been warned, coming to invade. More shocking than anything else, was the fact that a mortal, even one as strong as this one, could stand toe to toe with a goddess and manage to injure and scare her away.
Never before had Elyssa imagined that such a thing was possible, and had the other rulers been watching, she wasn’t sure how they’d react. Ragnar would probably want to fight him, the gnomes would want to see him eliminated for the threat he posed, but Tork and Malachi were complete unknowns.
On the one hand, the goddess had all but admitted that she was setting them up. On the other, she was a goddess and could wipe them all from existence without a second thought. Going against the gods’ wishes could be akin to a death sentence. Elyssa had always been pragmatic, and as she saw it now, a war with the humans could only end badly. Sure, they might be victorious, but how many years would it take, and how many millions would be lost?
She blew out a long sigh, running her fingers through her long hair and smoothing it out. The scene replayed itself once again. She watched as the goddess shattered her divine weapon against the mortal’s shining spear. Then came the attack, swift and smooth as it sliced into the goddess’s stomach and blasted her back. She heard the goddess’s threat, and saw the clear terror written in her eyes, then her disappearance.
This was followed by the spy coming back down, collecting his two companions, and disappearing. Their wards had flared an alarm as soon as they were gone, which told her that he’d used a long-distance teleportation skill. She only wished she would have been able to witness this fight in person, as all she’d gotten was a fuzzy shockwave from their fighting in the distance. That was likely why everyone else had left, assuming that the goddess had unleashed the attack and that the invader was already dead.
Well, that, and the fact that they all had things to do. In other words, they were doing anything else other than watching a gigantic beast tearing their soldiers apart. No one liked to watch that, though it was because of that, that they hadn’t seen the massive beast’s transformation. Not only that, but it appeared that the beast was on the side of the enemy, something which was unprecedented and completely unheard of.
Elyssa froze the image of the human, just as he was about to leave. It was the clearest shot she had of him, one that showed him in great detail. Sh
e couldn’t help but notice that his features had a sort of wild quality to them. They were far sharper than the female’s, though that could be how all human males looked.
There was just too much difference between the two to completely dismiss the possibility that this human wasn’t entirely human. There had been plenty of mixing of the races here in Faeland over the years, so she knew it was entirely possible for half-breeds to exist. Perhaps this human had somehow been due to the coupling of some beast and a human. Whoever did something like that would have to be quite twisted, but it could explain why the massive drake had sided with him and appeared to be under his control. If there were some bestial aspects to him, it could mean that the humans had an army of beasts on their side, which could mean some serious trouble was coming their way.
The World Beasts were still beasts, and if he could somehow gain control over them, Faeland would not only fall, it would be utterly destroyed.
A light buzzing from her side told her that someone was trying to contact her. It was quite late, so there was only one person who would dare, though she wasn’t sure she really wanted to talk to him right now. Still, she knew him well enough to know that he would just keep trying if she didn’t answer, so she dismissed the projection of the human and opened the communication.
“Ah, good. I caught you before you went to bed,” Ragnar said, stroking his long beard.
“What do you want?” Elyssa asked, putting on an air of annoyance that wasn’t entirely feigned.
“I just wanted to let you know before the others that I’ve had a chance to speak with Ivaldi.”
“Really? That’s what you called to tell me?” Elyssa asked.
She was actually interested in what had transpired there. It was obvious that they’d gone to the dwarf to forge that silver spear, but the real question was how they’d gotten him to agree to make it.