Her gaze locked upon Neal and Lord Hyve both, before she readied herself to charge. Neal saluted fist to chest, Hyve scowled.
“'Tis cursed!” Mord shouted. “You dare not charge it!”
Hyve frowned but raised his fist, acknowledging their plan.
“Bloody hells. You're joining us on this suicide charge, Mord? And how the hell are those fools warding our arrows? I thought only windwalls could do that,” Malek muttered.
Mord laughed softly. "There are magics quite different from those you know, Malek de Sousel. Magics dark and terrible. Foul and potent. For the price of a man's soul, there are many, many gifts that can be wrung in exchange."
Jess shivered. "Mord," she hissed, but her horror did not stop her cry, kicking Mercy forward, trot quickly stretching into a ground-eating gallop.
Mord laughed, his stallion effortlessly matching Mercy's pace. “Fear not, my prize. I would not bargain my soul away so cheaply! Nor do I doubt that you will see us through. Now let us strike once more!”
Mord's chilling confidence washed over her. Insane as their charge was, Jess was leading it, bloodied saber raised high, peering intently at her enemies as they tore across the turf, hissing as she caught sight of yellowed gazes, withered lips worming into twisted smiles.
“She comes. Be ready.” A sibilant hiss in a foul language she had never heard before.
Yet understood perfectly.
“Jess!” Twilight's cry, harsh and urgent.
"Now!" Jess cried, lashing out with her saber even as she pivoted left, Malek and Mord flanking her still, and perhaps they could see the crackle of multihued energies tear through the air where her saber cut. Certainly, the air cracked with the sound of thunder hammering ears still ringing from the earlier melee, Jess wincing and forcing herself forward even as she lashed out, feeling foul strands of blackest fiber tortured souls snap under the force of her blows. Two spells cut, and the middle wizard stumbled back, his brethren shouting in a tongue foul and terrible, the trio pulling forth blackened wands as one.
"Jess!" Mord shouted, voice strangely free of bravado or mockery. "Those black wands are soul killers. Beware!"
Jess nodded and hissed, not even feeling the sting across her cheek, her saber having arched back almost of its own accord. She almost thought she heard it hiss with her blood.
"Jess!" Malek roared, and Jess felt the wave of vile energies washing over them as they finished their race around the awful dome of magics glowing all the colors of darkness, trapping so many Squires and seeming to pull the very land into a place infinitely foul and terrible.
Her saber lashed out as an enemy sorcerer spat out the foulest of curses, one Jess intuitively sensed could sear flesh from bone.
A horrific howl echoed through the air as her blooded blade smoked and sizzled against the wave of darkness, screams of the damned suddenly filling her ears, infinitely distant but a heartbeat away, then gone as if they had never been.
The closest sorcerer cried out, blood pouring from his ears, yellowed eyes gazing at Jess with naked horror.
And then they were upon the milling raiders, enemy swords hastily drawn even as Jess's saber whipped out, all her terror and fury translating into a series of wicked slashes slicing through exposed wrists, desperately raised arms, and lightly protected necks with equal ease.
The slaver's swords rang against armor or were blocked by saber and shield. With every desperate thrust Jess countered and struck in a single beat, Mercy pivoting with squeezes of her thigh so nuanced that they moved as one, even as her furious slashes turned slavers into walking corpses, blinking in surprise at the crimson spray gushing from their bodies before collapsing to the ground.
"Jess!" She desperately arched away from a furiously thrust sword while snapping her blade downward, the bandit's weapon just grazing Mercy's flank even as the slaver's snarling countenance ruptured in an explosion of bone and brain, Malek's war hammer dropping him instantly.
“Bloody bastards are dead!” Malek hooted, before turning his hungry gaze to the three robed men, even now protected by yet another shimmering ring of magic as they continued their guttural chant. “Cursed blackrobes are warded again, aren't they?”
Jess's smile turned bleak and cold.
Saber sheathed, leaping off her mare in one motion, stumbling only for a moment on her pinked foot, Jess slowly unsheathed the blade she favored above all others, her exquisitely balanced longsword at last in hand.
She hardly felt the sting as her blade kissed cheeks now freely bleeding, deep as those wounds were.
And the fierce exultation she felt as she lashed through the air, rupturing the frantically cast shadowy matrix she sensed racing for her soul, was as sweet as any wine. For all that her skull and cheek throbbed, they were only dimly sensed, so engorged she was on her own battlefury. She heard a mad howling laughter echoing all about as the dark-robed mages hissed and stumbled back, only then realizing that the voice was her own.
“Now your friends shall pay for daring to interfere!” One shouted as they fled into the keep proper, a single cursed shout slamming the door shut behind them.
Jess blinked and frowned, shaking her strange euphoria away.
“Jess! Eloquin and your friends are being pulled into Shadow! You must rescue them now, or not at all!”
Exultation instantly transformed to terror.
Jess pivoted around with nightmare slowness, seeing Eloquin's fierce grimace, bleeding hands seeming to grasp Shadow itself as he desperately clawed up the now yawning chasm of hideous magics they had been caught in, dozens of Squires crying out in panic and despair.
Jess blinked in awe, only in that moment clearly seeing the silvery chords that seemed to bond Eloquin to all of his Squires, even those who were shrieking their terror, pulled free of that shadowy cliff, in the grips of a hideous black wind seeking, Jess sensed, to pull them all into eternal nightmare.
“Jess!” Twilight and Eloquin shouted as one.
Terror beyond words infected her as Jess launched herself forward, sensing that a desperately grasping Eloquin, far stronger than any mortal man had a right to be, was only seconds away from losing his grip.
Seconds from slipping into darkest nightmare for all eternity.
Jess screamed and lashed out even as Eloquin snarled, Squires crying out as Abyssal winds sought to lever them free of their master's grip, desperate souls soon to be devoured by hideous things long consigned to the Hells below.
Longsword propelled by terror and fury cleaved through strands foul and strange.
A flash of brilliant color and Jess howled, collapsing to the ground, horrified she had lost her friends forever.
“Jess, move!” Malek's voice. “We have to get out of here, we dare not stay exposed!”
Head throbbing so horribly she could barely stand, Jess forced herself upright, ignoring the hot sting of tears, sobbing with heartfelt relief.
For Eloquin's gaze calmly met her own, as did the haunted gazes of dozens of her fellow Squires, collapsed upon the ground, shaking with exhaustion and relief. Of the hideous black void seeking to pull them all screaming into Hell, there was not the slightest trace to be found, only a circle of blackened grass upon which exhausted Squires shuddered and wept.
"Well done," her mentor said quietly, clasping Jess's shoulder. "Well done indeed."
On shaky feet, they stumbled to what mounts they had, Neal and Hyve both ready to provide cover fire and support, yet not a single arrow was fired by surviving slaver or Velheim soldier as Squire and Aspirant gathered their fallen, making their way for the tree line once more.
It was then that Jess very distinctly heard screams.
The screams of a woman begging desperately for mercy. The faint cries of her child.
Her head snapped around to the source. Children in the extremis of agony.
Mord, by her side even now, had stiffened and paled, armored fist clenching the amulet Jess knew he wore, his haunted gaze meeting Jess's own.
<
br /> Jess felt her heart start to hammer. “Mord, isn't that Sable?” Jess remembered all too well exquisite features that were near the mirror of Mord's own, only softened with a woman's beauty; eyes haunted with pain Jess could only guess at, for all that she had favored Jess with the most jaded of smiles.
And the way Mord had looked at her, free of bile and hostility, his smile for Sable alone.
His cousin, Mord had said, though Jess suspected they were so much more than that. The only acquaintance Mord wasn't always seeking to taunt, test, or dominate.
Jess squeezed her eyes tight, clenching her recovered spear tightly to her.
“She's in trouble, isn't she Mord?”
Stricken brown eyes gazed desperately into her own. “Jess... will you help me?”
Jess swallowed, never having seen such painful need in Mord's features before. Never having seen him look so human. So vulnerable. “You know I will,” she said, turning to Malek.
Malek chuckled bitterly. “Bloody hells, Mord. How did your cousin end up here, of all places? This is a trap, it must be!”
“You know what Sable means to Mord,” Jess said quietly. “It doesn't matter what gambits are in play. Sable and her daughter are in dire peril.”
Mord went deathly pale, not denying it, even as he turned his haunted gaze to his solemn-faced mentor. “Master, I must... I must beg you for help. Sable and her retinue, far too small it was, damn it, had been heading toward the capital. They would have been a perfect target, her status all too apparent.” He shook, forcing himself to say words that did not come easily to him. “Sir. I am asking, no, I am begging for your help.”
Jess's throat was dry, her heart hammering as Sable's sudden cry was audible to all the assembled Squires and Aspirants. It was the first time Jess had seen Mord gaze so at anyone, arrogance replaced by naked fear for someone he loved, a desperate plea to anyone who would listen.
Hyve sighed, giving his mustaches a nervous tug. "I am sorry, my lad. As grateful as I am for your valiant service on the field of battle, we were lucky to escape with our lives. Lucky to escape from whatever foul magic lies in wait, a triple-pronged ambush set right for us." Hyve gave a suddenly stone-faced Mord a fatherly pat upon his shoulder. "Rest assured, my boy, as soon as we get back home, Dean Echobart will hear of this immediately, and will no doubt bring the full might of every elementalist who owes our college a favor, and together we shall purge this foul holding from Erovering, once and for all, infernalist den or no!"
Jess locked gazes with Eloquin. His lips hardened into a firm line. “It would be foolish, Jess, beyond measure. Space is warped, there. I know you can sense it.” His eyes froze her in place. “I have no doubt that you could survive dipping your feet into that twisted place, none the worse for ware. But if your fellows entered, at least a few would perish even if others would prosper, as strong as I've made you all.” Ice blue eyes pierced her own. "And it is forbidden for me to enter any realm of Shadow. Within Dawn alone, do I hold sway."
Jess shivered, so much conveyed with those words. Jess nodded her understanding.
"Stay in the forest!" Jess cried to her peers. "Sixty students under your care, and you will be safe here!" And somehow, by the soothing rustles of the trees all around, Jess knew this to be true.
Even as the screams changed in pitch, fury turning to horror. And from there, agony.
In an instant, she had pivoted Mercy around.
“Jess...”
“Please don't say anything that would force you to expel me!” Jess cried to her mentor, not even looking back, chasing after a strangely human looking Mord, in that moment all animosity forgotten, Malek muttering curses but following just behind.
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Bloody hells, it's a trap. It has to be! Why torment her now, of all times? The wizards must have found the amulet you two share. They must think that's how we managed to find their base. They must think we've come to rescue Sable, and now they seek to pull us into the heart of their base! All of this it is to bait us. To bait you, Mord.”
Mord snapped his head around. Dark eyes filled with panic and fury glared back at Malek. “Do you really think I don't know that, Sousel? It doesn't matter. I will save my cousin!”
Bitter curses followed, but Malek did not slacken his pace as Mord kicked his mount into a gallop, none of them slowing down until they were right before the keep's main entrance.
Malek frowned, dismounting and glaring at the massive door before them. “Eloquin said something about a warping in space, that the other Squires would be put in danger... what the hell are we getting into, Jess?"
Jess had no words, merely glaring at the barrier they faced, toughened hardwood reinforced with multiple bands of metal. Jess had no doubt that even a ram would find it a challenge to burst.
Sable's panicked screams rang through the courtyard.
“Jess!” Mord gazed at her with naked desperation that struck Jess to the quick.
There could be no doubt. Even if Mord hated the world, there was one soul he would fight to protect.
“Break!” Jess roared, pointing her longsword at the barrier.
An explosion of wood and iron, as if the force and fury of all the forests of Dawn roared through her in that desperate moment, her mind ringing still with the desperate cries of a terrified child in dire peril.
Jess did not hesitate even as a furiously racing Mord unsheathed his longsword and charged into the keep to shouts and screams, she and her shieldbrother but feet behind.
And all was fury and chaos.
They were not alone.
Half a dozen roaring men wearing half helms and rawhide breastplates charged them, wide bladed halberds striking out in deadly unison to what would have been terrible effect against anyone save Jess's brothers-in-arms.
Jess roared and charged as the soldier's polearms tore themselves free of surprised hands, lashing out with her longsword in a vicious series of Zwerchhau strikes. Exposed necks were the only target she needed, multiple foes falling with throats ripped open from her brutal onslaught, the air suddenly thick with the spray of crimson and the coppery stench of blood.
Within moments it was over, Jess grinning fiercely at her two closest comrades, all of them coated in crimson and stinking of blood and gore.
Malek flashed a bleak smile. “We strike with all haste and fury, showing no mercy, giving no quarter!”
Mord nodded bleakly before stiffening, pleading sobs from his amulet now echoing strangely through the massive front hall they found themselves in. A vast room Jess now saw had been set up almost like a soldier's camp; the entire base of operations that single grand chamber, dozens of straw ticks with a central eating station were visible, no doubt latrines located just outside. Why the soldiers had not populated the entirety of the keep began to take on darker possibilities when Jess spotted the symbols written in chalk around the entrance to the corridor beyond.
Written in symbols any soldier would understand. Danger and death lay beyond.
Malek turned to Jess. “What could possibly be beyond that would frighten scores of Velheim soldiers or bandits or whatever exactly it is we're facing? Why didn't they just clear it out, or set up camp somewhere less threatening?”
Jess shrugged, a strange prickling sensation crawling up and down her back as she glimpsed the way the sickly green light wavered in the corridor beyond.
Mord grimaced. “I won't lie, Jess. The corridor ahead is at the bleeding edge of reality and the horrors below.”
Jess frowned. “What are you saying, Mord?” Even as she said the words she did not slow down as Mord resolutely approached the corridor ahead.
Mord sighed. “So long we have danced around certain dark truths, Jessica de Calenbry. I have enjoyed it, but now I need to know.” Intent eyes locked upon her own. “Are you one of us, Jess? Does your clan serve? Do you know the secrets to surviving the horrors that lie just beneath the veil of mundus?”
Jess shivered and looked away. “I don't know w
hat you are talking about.”
"Jess, now is not the time for games. Are you protected by sigils? I have to know!"
Mord stiffened as Sable's voice cut through the air once more. Pleading not for her own life, but for her daughter's.
"That's Sable. Come, Jess, help me save her!" Mord immediately began racing down the main hallway, Jess and Malek sharing a curse, but footsteps behind.
Jess shuddered, feeling suddenly twisted and strange, as if some hideous force was attempting to squeeze her, to suffocate her, her feet suddenly dragging through molasses.
“Jess!”
A furious surge of effort, and Jess was through, taking desperate gasps of air and coughing, Mord looking at her with strange concern before Jess blinked and smiled, realizing that far from being the choking effluvia of toxins she had thought it only moments ago, she actually found the air quite sweet.
She grinned at a shuddering Malek who blinked, shook his head in confusion, and eventually smiled back. “Jess, what the hell was that?”
Jess shrugged, looking back at the main chamber, wavering strangely, as if they peered at it from the bottom of a lake. “No idea. But keep your eyes sharp, and be ready for anything.”
Malek chuckled softly. “Aren't I always?”
Mord smiled coldly at the both of them, looking as arrogant as ever, and strangely reassured. “Excellent. Proceed slowly. Those who lack the courage of our clans and come here unprepared? They tend to change.”
Jess frowned at this, even as she took in the widening corridor of stone, seeming to grow larger with every step, and Jess was suddenly not sure if they were above or below ground.
Malek frowned, “What are you talking about, Mord?”
Mord was about to answer when the corridor was suddenly filled with hoots and howls, half a dozen slavers charging out a narrow side passage that seemed almost a crevice, glaring at Jess and her friends with yellow-eyed madness before shrieking and charging as one, lashing out with swords and whips.
In the first mad seconds of combat, Jess thought it a bizarre mix of weaponry. Then as her blade cleaved through one whip spraying caustic green ichor as it writhed upon the ground, it's owner shrieking, she realized they weren't weapons at all, but rather tendrils sprouting from her enemy's flesh.
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