The Blade Guardian

by Darren Hultberg Jr

  The air began to rush at my face, forcing tears to form in the corners of my eyes as I plummeted back towards Aetheria’s surface. The wyvern followed no more than a few feet behind, its wings tucked into its breast as the creature gained on me, inch by inch.

  My heart throbbed uncontrollably as my momentum increased. The ground was coming at me faster and faster! The tiniest miscalculation would leave me dead to rights!

  Finally, I spread my dragon wings, swooping just inches above the cold, hard ground as my body and mind were flooded with exhilaration. Foolishly, the pursuing wyvern attempted to replicate my maneuver, but the creature was far too heavy and not nearly as agile. Instead, it crashed into the ground with a sickening thud, its neck snapping under the weight of its body’s own inertia. The creature had been blinded by its desire for flesh, by the rage of its previous failures... and now it had sealed its own fate in the valley of thorns.

  8,000 exp. gained

  Congratulations! You have reached level 33

  Congratulations! You have reached level 34

  You have 4 attribute points to allocate

  You have 2 skill points to allocate

  My eyes widened as the notifications appeared in my field of vision. I hadn’t anticipated that my dive bomb technique would work so... effectively, but apparently even high-level elite beasts weren’t immune to trickery. And not only that, but my ruse had effectively earned me a solo kill on an elite beast, flooding me with an insane amount of EXP!

  With one of the wyverns down, I turned my gaze back across the field. There, Horus continued to charge on with my father and Tham atop his bristly-haired back. Razyr and Sledge gripped my father’s waist, helping him maintain balance while Kord used his long tongue to keep Thamriul’s unconscious body strapped to the boar’s back. They were ok... at least for the time being. Hilda, however, was a different story.

  I turned my gaze northward to find the winged guardian trapped in an airborne struggle with The Great Thorn, the larger of the two elite wyverns. The woman held her aegis shield, Corvus, in both hands as the wyvern bit down on either side, shaking her slender body around in the skies like an armored rag doll. If that thing managed to dislodge the shield from her grasp, then she would be defenseless against the indomitable beast!

  “Hang on!” I yelled, flapping my wings furiously as I ascended in her direction. In seconds I was flying parallel to her and the beast, wings beating furiously as the two continued to battle at my side. Without hesitating, I forged nevermore and took aim at the wyvern’s scaly neck, swiping at the creature awkwardly mid-flight. Unfortunately, the blade did little more than pester the beast, creating a harmless shower of sparks that quickly disappeared in the moving sky.

  “No, Zander!” Salence growled in my mind. “Use the skies. Weaponize them!”

  “What the hell do you mean?” I grunted, spinning away as the wyvern’s stinger jutted in my direction. The creature was trying to keep me at bay while it wore down Hilda’s defenses.

  “Let the wind be the blade that slashes your enemies,” Salence lamented. “Become the point that pierces flesh.”

  Suddenly my eyes lit with clarity as I understood what the dragon familiar was saying, as he made his intentions clear in my mind’s eye. In an instant I swooped away from the wyvern, climbing high above the creature as I beat my wings furiously... Then, I struck.

  I angled my draconic wings as a strong gust blew in, riding the current back in the wyvern’s direction. My speed continued to increase as I angled my descent at the beast, growing faster and faster as if I was beginning another dive bomb. Finally, I activated lunging strike as I leveled my blade at the beast, causing my back muscles to spasm and my wings to flap with violent force, launching me forward with a final push.

  This time the wyvern watched precariously as I slammed into the creature’s side with insane speed, piercing its scaly hide with my etched obsidian blade. The beast roared in protest, releasing Hilda from its grasp as it flapped about the sky in pain, its lifeblood painting the skies green.

  Suddenly, The Great Thorn began to flail, swiping at me with claws and stinger as it tried to tear me out of the sky. Its health reticle had only dropped by an eighth, but clearly the blow had done enough to really piss it off!

  Seeing me in apparent danger, Hilda flew out wide to the creature’s left side before swooping in and smashing its temple with a shield bash. Again, the wyvern screeched, this time slashing at anything and everything that came within its flight path.

  I tried to ascend for another strike, but the wyvern locked eyes on me and darted into my airspace, smashing me across the back with its spiny, scaly tail.

  And then, I began to fall.

  My body began to spiral out of control as I plummeted towards Aetheria’s surface once more. I tried to right myself, to use my wings to catch the current, but the dragon Aether I had been cycling through me was nearly spent. In seconds my aspect of the dragon would fade, and I’d be little more than helpless as I fell from the sky.

  I gave my wings a final flap, doing what I could to correct myself and slow my descent as my familiar’s Aether dissipated and my dragon-like body returned to base form. The ground now rushed at me like it had before, though any feelings of exhilaration I had during my last dive bomb were now replaced with gut-wrenching fear.

  My eyes darted here and there, searching for something, anything that could save me from becoming a crimson smear on the realm’s surface…

  Then I saw it. Just beyond the edge of the valley, a chasm deeper than my eyes could follow. It looked as though the world itself had been cleaved by the sword of a mighty god… and extending over it was a massive ornate structure of stone reaching to either end.

  We had nearly reached the Leviathan Bridge.

  My mind began to wander to a dark place as I came to the realization that in seconds, I would be meeting my sudden, violent end. At least I had gotten them this far, I thought to myself. Hilda, my father… I’d miss them terribly, dammit, I would miss so much. But a warrior’s end… well, it had to come—

  Suddenly, something slammed into my back with powerful force, scrambling my thoughts and rocketing me forward mere feet over the edge of the valley. A pair of slender arms wrapped themselves around my waist as we glided, straining to keep us aloft as we closed in on the bridge.

  “Hold on!” Hilda whispered into my ear as we crashed into the bridge’s smooth surface, our limbs scraping against stone as our bodies were tossed about. For seconds we skidded across the bridge’s entrance until finally our bodies came to a rest among a cloud of dust and debris. I turned my head to look at her, cracking a half-hearted smile as a line of blood began to trail from my nose.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, devoid of energy to even stand at this point.

  “No problem,” she replied, her limbs extended as she lay flat on her back and breathed in heavily. A sudden screech brought us back to reality as we used each other to sit up and eye the massive wyvern that continued to make its descent in our direction.

  “I got nothing left,” she muttered as her Aetherial wings dissipated with a soft, sapphire glow.

  “Neither do I,” I replied, forcing myself to stand. “But maybe we can die on our feet.”

  Hilda nodded, taking my side despite the pain coursing through her frame. She put her hand in mine and together we stood defiant near the end of the bridge, waiting for the scaly reptilian to descend.

  In the distance I could see my father, his hand outstretched as he charged atop his boar. He would never make it in time... hell, I wished he would turn away. Even in a world of violence, no father deserved to witness the fall of his son.

  Candor yelled something that I couldn’t discern, so I averted my gaze to the sky, scaly, venomous death mere seconds away. My muscles tensed. My mind raced. This was it. This was the end!

  CLICK! CLICK!

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as the strange sound of two mechanisms activated just feet behind me, launc
hing two massive steel bolts straight into the air. The projectiles cut through the sky like lightning, one slamming into the wyvern’s gullet and the other piercing one of its sinewy wings.

  “Fire again!” a woman’s voice shouted, bringing about a second round of steel bolts that cut into the wyvern’s chest and neck, dropping the mighty beast right out of the sky. Its health reticle faded as the beast crashed into the valley’s edge, skidding to a stop just feet away from us on the cold, stone bridge.

  I turned about slowly as experience points showered me like translucent flower petals, catching sight of the small force that had assembled at my back. Two massive ballistae stood on either side of me, jutting from secret compartments in the bridge, and manning each of the weapons was a pair of armored soldiers, their iron breastplates etched with the symbol of the wolf.

  Then I caught sight of her, the woman standing at the head of a small legion of soldiers, her face tattooed in war markings and her right hand replaced with a short, silver blade. Ezry of the iron wolves, a woman I had watched Morose slay, stood before me, her wraith familiar floating eerily above her left shoulder.

  Her gaze met mine for the briefest of seconds, a look of triumph in those emerald eyes. “Take these fools into custody,” she ordered, pointing to Hilda and I. “It’s time for them to face some iron justice.”

  27

  Mercenary’s Mark

  There was no resistance offered as the iron wolves swarmed us, spears and blades held precariously close to our faces. I probably could’ve tried to shadowshift away if I had any mana left coursing through my veins, but staying in dragon aspect form for so long had left me an empty shell.

  I watched as my father marched up to the crowd of iron wolves, fearful that he would see me in distress and launch a hopeless assault. Thankfully, his gaze met my own for the briefest of seconds and he quickly understood... this was not the time to fight.

  The man dismounted from Horus as the iron wolves surrounded him with spears, giving him enough room to function but not nearly enough to escape. These men and women were refined and efficient, just as I remembered. And oh, were they deadly...

  “Bind them and cage up their sprites. We’re taking them to Lorethain where they’ll face judgement,” Ezry ordered, calling on a group of her soldiers as they tied our hands behind our backs. She then took a glance at Horus, who shook nervously around the wolves’ iron weapons. “And get a leash on that damned pig.”

  ><><

  The group remained mostly silent as we trudged across the massive stone bridge, exposed to the cold wind that had overtaken the area. We all had been bound save for Tham, who had been hauled off by a pair of the iron wolves’ battle clerics.

  As we marched, I tried to rationalize how Ezry could possibly be alive. I was certain I had seen Morose’s sword pierce the woman’s flesh... hell, I was even wearing a pair of the woman’s gloves! Yet here she was, back from the dead and seemingly ready to exact her revenge at a moment’s notice.

  At least they were civil, I thought to myself, though the looks I was getting from Ezry had me second-guessing that early judgement. I could feel the contempt in her gaze as she studied me with those sharp, green eyes of hers. She held me responsible for the deaths of her companions, swift deaths dealt by the hands of Morose... I just knew she did. If only I could explain to her that the ravens wanted me dead just as badly, that the assassin had nearly slain me back at Ravenhold just nights before!

  “H-hey,” I muttered, drawing a swift look from the battle archer. “I think maybe there’s some things going on here that you don’t quite understand.”

  Ezry stopped in her tracks, bringing the entire company of over twenty men to a sudden stop. “Things that I don’t... understand?” she asked without looking forward, her voice raw and full of scorn. Suddenly, she spun on her heel to face me and blasted me in the stomach with a well-placed punch.

  I dropped to a knee, sucking air as a few hit points drained from my health reticle. “Oh, I understand,” she continued, her rage building with each word. “Your fearless leader ruthlessly murdered my group... he even nearly killed me!” She raised her wrist, where a blade now sat in place of her severed hand. “If it wasn’t for my wraith and his spirit displacement ability, then I’d be a corpse as well!” The floating familiar responded to her words, nudging her cheek in an odd, affectionate sort of way.

  “You attacked us, first,” Hilda interjected, rebuking the woman with more than a bit of fire in her voice. This seemed to set Ezry off, and the battle archer marched over to Hilda and delivered a hard kick to the kneecap. Hilda dropped, unable to protect herself due to the bindings on her wrists, though she made sure to stay locked with Ezry’s fiery gaze.

  “Well now I’m going to end it,” Ezry muttered, pressing her blade appendage against Hilda’s neck. “That leader of yours took everything from me… even my ability to fire a bow. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Nooooo!” I screamed, charging in and pressing a shoulder into Ezry that seemed to knock the woman off balance. She quickly composed herself and blasted me with a hard punch in the chest, dropping me for a second time.

  This time my father interjected, shouting “Leave him alone!” as he struggled to escape from a trio of soldiers. One of the soldiers, a man much smaller than my father, became nervous and jabbed at his abdomen with a spear.

  “Enough!” Ezry roared, bringing an almost instantaneous stop to the chaos amongst the ranks. The calamity seemed to have triggered her soldier-like instincts. In fact, I was sure I could see the conflict in her eyes, her desire for revenge in an intense battle with her need for order, for justice.

  Again, she marched over to me, grabbing me by the collar of my coat and hoisting me to my feet. “Just give me a reason to kill you,” she growled, low enough so that the others couldn’t hear.

  “Why haven’t you?” I responded. To be honest, I still wasn’t sure why the woman had kept me alive.

  “Because the mission is to bring you in,” she responded through gritted teeth. “We know who you are, Darkblade... the prodigal warrior of ravenflight. We had men on the ground in Airrigar during the siege of Vazryn’s castle.”

  “Wait. You don’t understand—”

  “No,” she growled, cutting me off. “You’re valuable to them... valuable enough that we can barter you to call off your guild’s dammed assassins. I refuse to watch any more of my people die… Now be a good boy and march!” The woman prodded my back with her blade-hand, but I absorbed the pain and held firm, demanding to be heard.

  “Please,” I pleaded. “Just let me say one thing.”

  The woman paused, giving me a sharp look as she circled me with her blade. “The iron wolves don’t give an audience to deceivers like the ravens... however, I don’t intend to drag your carcass back to town…. Lorethain is just ahead over the next ridge. Speak your mind but understand that you will obey me afterwards.” The woman’s wraith familiar left her presence and floated over to my head, its ever-shifting form prodding at my temples as if it was preparing to hit me with a mind wrack.

  I took a deep breath before looking the woman directly in the eyes. “I’m truly and deeply sorry for what happened to your friends, for what happened to you. You were right to pursue me... I was the face of a dark, treacherous organization and I was too blinded by their lies to see it. But that’s not the case anymore.... they pursue me and my kin just as they pursue you!”

  “More lies!” Ezry retorted, leaning in close enough that I could feel the heat from her breath. “That’s all you ravens ever do. You think you’re so cunning, but you’re nothing but a fool... and I am iron!”

  “Just look at his hand!” Hilda blurted out before one of the soldiers placed a gloved hand over her mouth.

  Ezry gave her a quick glare, then turned and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Another trick?”

  I shook my head solemnly, trying to convey honesty with my gaze. “Just... look.”

  The battle archer strolled arou
nd to my back and leaned down to inspect my bound mitts. Suddenly, she let out an audible gasp as her gaze settled on the strange scar that had formed on my hand. Recently the thing had taken a star shape and adopted an odd lavender luster…. And from what I could tell, it had just greatly surprised my iron wolf captor.

  “That’s a mercenary mark,” she gasped, her voice noticeably softer. “But you only acquire one of those from abandoning a guild.” She paused, considering. “The ravens don’t tolerate defectors. They hold their secrets too dearly. They... they’re going to pursue you to the ends of the realm.”

  I gave her a solemn nod. “Like I said, they want me dead. Now can you please accept the fact that maybe we’re on the same side and release me?”

  Ezry opened her mouth to respond, but before she could form the words a large crackle, followed by the sounds of shallow screams, echoed over the nearby ridge.

  “Ma’am, I spot smoke!” one of her soldiers yelled, scrambling to the top of the ridge as he peered out over the distance. Ezry and I quickly followed, my arms still bound but a blade no longer wavering near my neck. I could feel the tension in the air as we approached the crest of the ridge, fearful of what might await on the other side...

  And then we saw it.

  Our destination, the town of Lorethain, a satellite base for the iron wolves... was ablaze. Pillars of fire rose from behind the town’s now unmanned barrier as plumes of smoke were carried off by the passing wind. People... women and children, soldiers and able-bodied men made desperate attempts to escape through the town’s gates, but others dressed entirely in black hunted them down with blade or bow, eliminating any possible chance of escape.

  My sword hand began to twitch as my gaze shifted to the skies above Lorethain where a cloud of winged warriors rained down hell on the innocents below.