I’d closed my eyes during the process, to focus on feeling the metal and channeling my rage, so when I finished and stepped away, it was the first time I saw the results of my work.
Where a smooth ball of iron once sat in the catapults’ bucket, there now loomed a seething mass of oily black… something. It resembled one of my orbs, but only to a point. There was a certain quality to it that was indescribable. I could look at one of my orbs and think of it as anger, rage, hate, fury, or any number of other emotions, but this wasn’t the same. The metal had turned the darkness I’d channeled into it into something completely different. It was no longer… organic. The roiling ball of darkness before me lacked any connection to the living world and had become an instrument of pure destruction.
“Fire whenever you’re ready,” I told the catapult chief when I finally stepped away from my creation.
I was not the only one standing by to observe the results—word of what I was going to attempt had spread through the entire camp, and almost every soul had stopped what they were doing to see what would happen.
“Do you feel any better?” Tási asked when I stood beside her waiting for the shot to be fired.
“Not yet,” I replied as calmly as I could. “I feel it still. Everything I poured into that hunk of metal is still connected to me. I think I’ll only know the real effect when it actually does its damage.”
“You’re connected to that?!” Tási asked incredulously as she gaped at the seething iron ball.
“Yes,” I confirmed for her. “I was able to channel a small portion of my darkness into it, but I’m not free of it yet.”
“That’s only a small portion of your darkness?” She responded with a mixture of fear and awe.
“Very small,” I smiled. “Líann is able to take much more than that from me.”
It was, perhaps not the best thing I could have said, but my mind wasn’t entirely my own at the time.
“That bitch is insane,” Tási shook her head as she replied. “Both of you are.”
“Yes, you might be right about that,” I concurred absently.
The loud crack of the catapult firing interrupted any further conversation, and the ball that was formerly made of iron shot through the air towards the towering walls of Ondale. A trail of sooty black vapor trailed in the wake of the rage-fueled missile, and when it struck high on the stone wall, it exploded in a cloud of dark, angry smoke. The report of crashing stone echoed back to us, but I couldn’t see the results as I’d collapsed to the ground the second the shot struck home.
It wasn’t fatigue or strain that had overcome me; the sensation was quite the opposite. The sudden release of a portion of my darkness had taken me by surprise, and the internal defenses I’d erected to contain it collapsed once the shadows that were pushing against them had vanished. The feeling that had driven me to my knees was one of relief, not strain, and once Tási and Venna, who’d been standing on my opposite side, helped me up, I surveyed the damage.
The shot had struck about a third of the way down from the top of the wall, and everything above the point of impact was simply… gone. Dark streaks radiated out from the edges of the crater, and half of a small guard tower next to the point of impact had collapsed. The damage was on a scale I hadn’t even imagined possible, and I immediately called for another shot to be loaded.
“Don’t you think you should wait for a moment?” Tási cautioned me, “Give yourself a chance to recover?”
“No,” I snapped as the darkness shone from my eyes for all to see. “I can smell their blood and I want to see it flowing through the streets before nightfall!”
Under the glare of the green flame of my eyes, shot after shot of darkness-infused iron was launched into the crumbling walls of Ondale. The multiple breaches Evans thought might take weeks, I gave to him in only hours, and he arrayed our forces for an assault as the late evening light grew dim. Against the protests of most of my advisors and friends, I took my own place among the forces leading the charge into one of the chasms I’d broken through the city’s defenses.
“You can try and stop me, but you’ll fail,” I said as I nocked an arrow.
“I will guard your back,” Saibra said at my side.
“And I will watch your flank,” Ella added as she stood next to her.
Once it was clear I was going in anyway, my entire guard joined the assault with me, along with all my companions. When the signal was given, we charged forward towards the charred and blackened ruins of Ondale.
The defenders would most likely be waiting to ambush us as we climbed over the crumbled remains of their walls, so as we began working our way through the rubble, I stopped to fire Shockwave arrows into the area beyond the pile of shattered stone. My efforts were rewarded with cries of pain and confusion as the thundering echoes crashed through the streets. The first members of our unit to make it over the rubble quickly dispatched the helpless fools who’d thought to ambush us, and once we secured the area, we moved to support the soldiers trying to enter the city at the next breach.
An ambush had been set for them as well, and without the benefit of a Shockwave to disable their attackers, our assault had been stalled by the heavily armored defenders. Fortunately, they were completely unprepared for our flanking maneuver, and we tore into them with abandon.
I shot my fire and ice arrows at first, turning my targets into charred husks or freezing them completely solid. Then I stowed my bow in favor of more… direct action. My darkness needed to rage, and I let it run wild.
Black orbs shot through the air, slamming into anyone who dared expose themselves to me. When an arrow struck the Shield I’d erected in front of me, I sneered mockingly at the archer who’d fired it before turning him into a pile of dark ash. The deep viridian light that illuminated the world around me seemed to draw me to my targets, and one after another, I ended each and every one of them with devastating orbs of utter darkness. Everything seemed to be going our way until our enemy’s reinforcements arrived, striking our own flank in return.
The lords of the horse lands fought their battles on horseback when they could, but if they were forced to fight dismounted, as the struggle for control of Ondale dictated, they did so in full plate and with heavy weapons, aiming for overwhelming power instead of the lightning cavalry strikes they preferred. This was how they came at us—knights in full armor, intent on tearing through our ranks and killing every last one of us.
The lords of Zonnia and Hygan, along with their lackeys, hit us with the force of a battering ram, and easily broke through the hasty defense a few of our brave soldiers tried to erect. Despite their contemptable ways, the lords possessed both skill and prowess in battle, as their counter-attack so painfully reminded me, but the sight of so many of my own people falling before the detestable lords made my blood boil, and the rage I’d only just released seemed to come back to me a thousand-fold.
With my enemies so close, I drew my blades, extending the Essence Blade to its full length and pulling out the Short Sword of Sharpness for the first time in battle. The remainder of this fight would be up close and personal, and I felt my lips curling up in a smile at the prospect.
The armored knights were brutal and vicious and struck cruel blows with the heavy weapons they wielded, but my soldiers, and especially my personal guard, were well-trained, and didn’t fall into the trap of attempting to fight them blow for blow.
Quick strikes flashed between jointed sections of armor, and cries of pain echoed from within the closed helms of the knights as blades pierced into their eye slits. Beside me, Saibra’s blades made quick work of one of our foes; her blade snaking its way beneath his armor and tearing into the soft flesh of his neck. The man crashed to the ground, wet gurgles echoing within his helm as he impotently clutched at his throat. I squared off against my first armored knight and was forced to dodge his blow when he swung his axe at me much faster than I thought his heavy armor would allow.
The strike clattered off
the cobblestones of the street, and as he lifted the double-bladed weapon, I slashed at him with my sword. He saw my strike coming, but didn’t bother to react, relying on the thick metal plates of his armor to shield him from damage. Against any other weapon, his lack of concern would have been justified, but the Short Sword of Sharpness sliced through his armor like a thin sheet of parchment.
I felt only a slight tug as the blade slipped past the metal plate, and then another as it exited the far side of his body. For just a second, the only evidence of what had occurred was a thin crease in his breastplate. But that narrow gap instantly gushed with crimson fluid as the unseen wound inside him emptied his insides into the confines of his armor. He fell dead at my feet in seconds, bathed in a crimson pool of his own blood.
The thrill of his death caused my vision to flare even brighter still, and it focused my attention on my next opponent. Almost without a care, I marched forward among the din of battle, swatting away any strikes against me as I ruthlessly stalked my next kill. The knight may have noticed my approach at the last moment, I’m unsure, as he turned towards me slightly just before I separated his head from his shoulders. His still-occupied helmet came to rest a few feet away, while the suit of armor that contained the rest of him collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Another flare shined in my eyes, and my sight was drawn yet again to a foe across the battlefield from me. I had no idea who these people were or why I was compelled to slay them, but I’d unleashed my darkness, and it was my turn to do its bidding. This time, I was certain that the doomed man saw my approach as I hunted him down because he panicked and tried to flee from the green light I projected towards him. This I could not allow.
The Bolt that struck him threw him to the ground as it ran wild over his armor. The last traces of its current were still wandering over the metal when I jammed the Essence Blade through the eye slits of his helmet, slamming into the ground beneath him. With my boot on his neck, I yanked the Blade free, nearly ripping the top of his head off when it twisted in my grasp, but the depth of my disappointment was almost immeasurable when my vision didn’t surge and reveal another target for me.
The lords’ counterattack had been repelled, and the last of their forces retreated once we’d turned the tide against them. The streets were littered with the bodies of the fallen from both sides, and we took a few moments to rest and regroup while we tended to the wounded.
Some of our support staff moved up once the area was safe to recover our dead. The Curates and others would attempt to resurrect most of them in the safety of our camp, but any critical personnel who had fallen would have to wait until later. I was the only one who could assure them of rebirth, and I insisted on making those first attempts, to ensure that those losses were returned to us. We’d also taken a few prisoners. So, while my soldiers recovered, I walked over to question them.
They’d already been stripped of their weapons and armor, and had their hands bound behind them, so I loomed over them, shining the bright green light of my eyes on each of them until I found my mark.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman I’d chosen.
“I serve only my lord,” she spat. “I don’t take orders from you, witch.”
“You may want to reconsider that,” Tási sighed from just over my shoulder. “I’m getting tired of watching her break people like you.”
“I won’t break,” she scoffed. “I’m not scared of your fancy parlor tricks.”
“You do realize that it was her who took down your walls, right?” Tási tried one last time. “Does that rubble look like a parlor trick to you?”
“Maybe I can convince her to talk, Tási,” I said with icy calmness as I slowly pulled off my glove.
I stood over her and she stared right back at me, daring to glare into my glowing eyes. She might have been an idiot, but she was a damn brave one.
“I’m going to show you something,” I whispered to her. “Then I’m going to drag you away for a chat.”
As I spoke, I placed my bare hand on the shoulder of the man who was kneeling on the ground next to her. As soon as the last word left my mouth, I shot a black orb deep inside his body, and then simply stepped back a pace and watched as it tore him apart from the inside out, snapping his bones like dry twigs and rending his flesh until he was reduced to a mere pile of ashes.
The woman looked on in absolute horror as his tortured screams echoed through the air and then descended into an unintelligible series of strangled gurgling as he collapsed to the ground.
“W-what…,” she uttered in her shock and confusion, before I hauled her up and dragged her away behind the crumbled stone of a nearby building.
“You have one chance to avoid that fate,” I glared at her. “Tell me where they are hiding and what sort of defenses they have.”
“No.” She desperately held on to her conviction.
“Which first, Tási?” I called over my shoulder. “If you’re going to keep watching me do this, you might as well have a say in things.”
“I’m not here to watch what you do,” she spoke softly. “I’m here to watch over you.”
Fair enough.
“Start the same way you did with Insleí,” a second voice called, shocking me from my purpose.
“You shouldn’t be here for this, Saibra,” I turned to face her. “This isn’t something you should witness.”
“Actually, I think I should,” she replied plainly. “I need to see it from this perspective.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am,” she answered me firmly.
“Alright,” I sighed. “Let’s get started then.”
Despite her professed loyalty, the woman broke down after enduring only two rounds of my special attention. Actually, not even two rounds, as she confessed everything in blue-tinted words colored by the power of See Truth rather than experience a second bout of unpleasantness.
The lords had holed themselves up in one of the heavily fortified mansions within the city. The crowded confines of the city’s streets wouldn’t allow us to bring the full force of our Army to bear, and it would be bloody hell to attempt any assault against their position.
But the woman also revealed that the lords’ ‘final stand’ wasn’t quite so final after all—they had made plans to retreat, should we breach their defenses, and it was through that path that we would launch our attack against them.
We’d begun our assault with only our most heavily armed and armored troops. Our archers and Evokers might have been useful in the attack but were simply too vulnerable within the narrow confines of the breaches we needed to take. But once we’d secured them, and the surrounding areas, we called the rest of our Army forward, and organized our lines before advancing towards the lords’ stronghold.
We met only token resistance along the way, including a few groups that attempted to bait us away from our goal, but with our archers and Evokers taking up their positions among us, those small groups of harassing troops were utterly destroyed as soon as they came within range of our attacks. Aside from obliterating those who ventured too close, we ignored what we recognized as obvious diversions and maintained our focus on our true objective.
The mansion the lords had hidden themselves in was precisely the deathtrap we’d been told it was. Without our catapults, the thick walls protected it well, and we would never be able to take them without suffering horrendous losses. The lords knew this as well, and actually taunted us from atop the battlements of their retreat as we surrounded the outside of their redoubt. I let them believe that I’d settled in to play the waiting game with them before I left to sneak in through their own escape route.
My group consisted of my own personal guard and my companions. I would have liked to take even greater numbers with me, but the narrow confines of the route we’d have to follow made that impractical. Besides, if our surprise attack succeeded, we wouldn’t need any more people than I’d brought, and if it failed… well, the additional troops would only b
e more deaths on my conscience.
The house that the escape route supposedly led to was several blocks away from the mansion. It seemed perfectly suited for the purpose, as the intervening structures completely obscured the stronghold, and my troops that surrounded it, from sight. From this point, the lords would be able to make good on their escape, if need be, or even launch an unseen counter-attack on us from behind. These were no mere amateurs, I was reminded yet again. My foes were accomplished fighters, and it was only the combination of overwhelming numbers, Líann’s successful propaganda campaign, and my own unique abilities, that allowed us to drive them this far.
We surrounded the house, but before we entered, I sent a message to Bane who was circling above the city, telling him of the kills I’d made. He’d reminded me of his intense desire to feast on the flesh of someone who’s life I’d taken myself. Repeatedly. So, I let him know exactly where he could find them and invited him to take his pick from among their corpses. He didn’t respond to me, at least not directly, but I felt his burning hunger as I broke the connection with him.
The tunnel leading to the mansion originated in the cramped basement of the house. The woman told us it would likely be guarded, so I entered with only a small group at first—just myself and my companions, along with Saibra and Ella. We were the best among us at sneaking around and dispatching our enemies quietly, and once we found the staircase leading below, we climbed down the steps as carefully and cautiously as we could.
Our precautions were unwarranted, however, as the basement itself was completely empty. No passage was obvious when we made a quick look around, and the woman had only been able to tell us that she knew the exit led here. So, we were left to attempt to discover it on our own.
Khorim found it for us, hidden behind a rack of shelving, and we moved it aside carefully so as to not alert anyone who might be on guard in the passage behind it. Once more, our caution was unnecessary, as the passage that was revealed when we pried open the door was a long and empty corridor.
Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3) Page 84