by Elliot Burns
“It’s a drepa!” shouted one soldier. “A fucking drepa!”
The word hit home in Jack’s mind. He knew what a drepa was. Or at least, he vaguely remembered it. Alfie had told him about it one night, during one of his bedtime stories about Royaume. Out of all the things he loved about his made-up world, his incredibly dangerous imaginary creatures were his uncle’s favorite. Jack hadn’t agreed; the drepa and other creatures used to give him nightmares, and that was before he had to actually fight them for real.
He knew what this thing was, then. The problem was that it had been so long since his uncle used to read to him, that he couldn’t remember what it actually did. What were its strengths and weaknesses?
The drepa took two long strides away from its crate, covering a distance that would have taken a man dozens of steps to match. It looked around the battlefield, taking in the scenes of carnage with its keen eyes. Then, focusing on the middle of the field where the fighting was thickest, it touched the crystal on its forehead with its long fingers.
As it did, the air in front of it shimmered like the horizon on a hot day. An energy seemed to travel from the drepa and over to the soldiers and raiders. The fighters of all armies - Jack’s, Bruce’s, and Bordan’s alike - put their hands to their faces and screamed. Blood began to seep out of their eyes, their noses, and their ears. It was like their heads were being crushed from the inside out. Just a few seconds later, a dozen men and women lay dead on the ground. The drepa, it seemed, didn’t discriminate with its murder, since some of the fallen were Veik’s men, and others belonged to Jack’s army.
The crystal on the drepa’s head had changed now; half of the blue had drained from it, leaving the other half clear. Jack had already guessed what this meant. This was confirmed when, after focusing on another group of men and touching the crystal, the rest of the blue drained from the crystal. More warriors clutched their heads and fell to the ground, writhing and screaming. Five of Bordan’s golden Troop collapsed with blood seeping from their ears.
Gone was the ringing of swords and grunts of the fighters. All eyes were on the drepa now, transfixed by the giant, horrific creature that loomed across the battlefield. An almost universal look of fear crossed the faces of all combatants. All except Bruce.
That was when Jack understood the giant advantage that Bruce had. It wasn’t just his strength in numbers, his mana nets, nor even his drepa. It was the fact that to win this battle for Lord Veik, he was perfectly willing to allow this creature to kill his own men. While Jack felt the wounds of his soldiers as if they were his own, Bruce would let every man and woman under his command die if it meant victory.
Jack turned his horse and rode west across the field until he found Crowley and Elena. Behind him, the sounds of battle resumed as if un-paused by some cosmic force. He found the alchemist and the tacher fighting side-by-side, both keeping dominant positions on their horses so that the raiders couldn’t get close. Whenever a plucky raider approached Elena, she let loose with her urumi, striking blows with cruel efficiency. Jack guessed that Crowley would normally have fought using his magic, but today he wielded a curved sword. There was a good reason for him saving his mana.
“Lord,” cried Elena, when she saw him. “Are you hurt?”
Jack realized that blood covered his chest, his legs, and the body of his horse. “It isn’t my blood,” he said. “Do either of you know what the hell that thing is?”
“The drepa?” said Crowley. “It feeds on thoughts. It sucks them out of minds weaker than its own and suckles them until they are dry. Its efforts will tire it, but not permanently. Look.”
Jack glanced at the drepa and saw that half of the blue had regenerated in its crystal. It would use its powers when the crystal filled, which didn’t give him the luxury of time.
“Crowley, can you do anything about it?” he said.
The mage adjusted his goggles by winding a metal switch on the side so that he could see the creature better. Jack wasn’t sure how his goggles worked since his eyes were sealed over, but he knew that magic was involved. He wondered what the mage saw through them, and what he thought of the drepa.
“Its mental barriers are layered like doors, one after the other, and there is no chance of finessing them; it would take a battering ram. I can weaken it and open the doors for you, Lord, but my mana would be spent. And that means that I cannot commit to your plan.”
Crowley’s part in the plan was that when the battle was judged to have reached its peak, he would cast a spell of blood-magic to revive any of Jack’s soldiers who had fallen. Part of the spell, he’d explained, involved a refined mix of the blood he’d taken from Jack.
It was a dangerous spell that was far from finished, and some of the resurrected men wouldn’t take well to it. Their brains wouldn’t be able to cope with the experience of visiting the shores of death and then being dragged back. For the ones who returned to the land of the living intact, though, it would be worth it.
The drepa’s crystal was sea-blue once again. Betraying not the slightest effort, it sent forth a wave of mental energy that shimmered as it snaked its way into the minds of the men on the battlefield. More of Veik’s men fell; almost twenty of them. Golden Troop soldiers pressed their hands to their ears as if that would stop the pain that writhed in their skulls. Added to the masses of raiders that already littered the battlefield, it meant that their force of eighty was cut down to just twelve.
The worst was to come with a count of his Jack’s own men. It was hard to tell who was who amongst the corpses on the ground, stained as they were with split blood, mud, and sprays of yellow flek. Instead, he counted those who were living and saw that his numbers were worryingly low.
“Do it,” he told Crowley. “Whatever you have to do to weaken it, do it. If you don’t, it’ll kill the rest of the men and then turn its focus on us.”
Crowley stroked his horse’s head, and the beast stayed perfectly still. He let go of the reins and raised two hands in the air. Blue light crackled on his outstretched palms, mint-blue at first, turning sky blue, cadet blue, then a deep, dark cobalt. It seemed to hiss and spit like a fire, growing as it consumed whatever fuel was around it. Wafts of sulphur odour lashed around, so much that Jack had to turn his head and cough. Crowley’s hands trembled with the force of the spell, and the energy carried up his arms and to his shoulders, before finally, his whole body shook under the pressure of it. With his gaze fixed on the drepa, he unleashed this energy and sent it hurtling across the battlefield.
The drepa had time enough for one last shimmer of magic, followed by the screams of the men whose minds caved under its cruel power. Then, Crowley’s spell hit the creature. The drepa didn’t cry out in pain nor did it seem injured, and Jack wondered if Crowley’s spell had been a miss-fire.
He turned to the mage, but Crowley held up a gloved hand. “Patience, Lord.”
There was no time for patience; either it had worked or it hadn’t. Jack’s choice was made whatever the outcome. He whipped the reins of his horse and charged across the battlefield. His animal sought open ground where possible, and leapt over the bodies of the dead only when there was no other way around them.
When Jack drew closer to the drepa he realized that it was even taller than it had looked. A smell clung to it and seeped into the air around it; it was like the smell that accompanied Crowley’s spells, but there was something dank and rotten about this one. The drepa had no mouth, nose, or ears, only two bead-like eyes. All across its slimy skin were tiny little pores that opened and closed as it took in air.
Now he saw the effects of Crowley’s spell. The crystal set in the middle of the drepa’s forehead was cracked. Blue mists began to gather in it, but they raised no more than an inch before seeping out from the breaks in the crystal and disappearing into the ether.
He wound his dagger to full length and held it at a slant. When he charged, he wanted the blade to smash the already-weakened crystal. With his target set, he urged his hor
se on. It was a good horse, one that covered the distance without betraying fear at the sight of the drepa. It strode forward at his command and approached a creature that many men would not have dared to face.
He adjusted the position of his dagger mid-ride so that when he thrust upwards, his blade would shatter the crystal. The horse took one giant stride forward, and then another. Only a few left now until he was in striking distance.
And then, something was wrong. At first, it felt like an itch on his head, but he soon realized that it was a sensation on the inside of his skull. A splitting pain throbbed through him, an ache that seemed to shake his brain. He could do nothing but pull on the reins and force his horse to stop. The pain wracked through him now, along the inside of his skill, through his brain, behind his eyes.
It felt like when he had sat in his Emperium chair for the first time, before Elena had taught him how to defend himself. A foreign presence had crept into his mind and had settled there. Now it was like a shadow looming in the edges of his mind, but soon it would step further inside, and then he sensed that he wouldn’t be able to banish it if he let it get too far.
It was the drepa, he knew. It must have been. Though its crystal couldn’t fill with blue mana, the barest part of it still held dregs. For a creature as powerful as this, it was enough.
The drepa stepped further into his mind. It was a dark shape, there yet not there at the same time, a spreading blot of darkness. Jack approached it, taking careful-mind steps through his own brain. The battlefield was still on the outskirts of his consciousness, though the sounds were muted as though they came from far away.
Jack used his mind shield, conjuring a study pavise shield to defend against the advance of his mental intruder. He raised it high, but as the dark mist reached him, the shield cracked. Tremor lines shot over its surface, and the once-strong shield fell to pieces.
The darkness spread further now, billowing out. Jack needed to banish it. On the battlefield he needed to charge with his dagger, but he found that while the mist invaded his mind, he couldn’t move.
Jack Halberd.
He heard his name, but he knew it hadn’t been spoken. The words were said to him within his own head. The voice was deep, guttural, and horrible to hear. He conjured another shield. Another pavise again, but this time he clad it in metal and wrapped it with memories. Strong ones, study enough to drive back the seeping fog.
He raised his shield up. Memories coated the surface like a skin, ones of his mother, and of Sarah. He prepared to move forward and drive the mist out of his mind.
A splitting pain crashed through his skull. That stopped him, and the drepa took advantage of the pause.
It all made sense. Jack had seen what a drepa could do. With one cast of its mental powers, it had decimated half a battlefield.
Jack almost dropped his weapon. Fury flooded through him, flames of anger hot enough to heat the blood in his veins. He hadn’t come all this way, built up his skills, built up his army, just to fall victim to a creature like this.
He conjured memories of his uncle. Happy ones, of spending time with him and feeling a bond between them, even if his uncle couldn’t talk back. He coated his new shield with these, and he felt the shadow in his mind begin to weaken.
With this, he used his mind lance ability, and he charged forth at the drepa’s mind-shape. The mist hit the shield and tried to crack it but the pavise held firm. Jack’s memories absorbed the mist and neutralized them, and he drove the drepa out of his mind.
He was back on the battlefield fully now. The clangs of steel swords were gone, because there simply weren’t enough men left to fight. Instead, the predominant sounds were cries of agony, and the deep barks of Bordan as he gave his surviving men orders.
Jack held his extended dagger in position, angled at a tilt so that it would puncture the drepa’s crystal. He gave the reins a mighty tug and his horse galloped forward. There was no mental force holding him back now, nothing to stop him meeting his foe. When he was five feet away he thrust upwards with his dagger and heard the shatter of crystal.
The drepa made no sound as its crystal broke and the last of its blue mana seeped out. Its beady eyes didn’t widen, and lacking a real face, it was incapable of making an expression. Whatever dying thoughts it had stayed in its own mind, and Jack watched with a glowing satisfaction as the creature fell to the floor and then lay limp.
Then, the drepa began to transform before him. A dark mist gathered around it, swirling around and around. The drepa began to shrink. Its body changed, its head took on another shape.
That was when Jack remembered something his uncle had told him about the drepa creature. The drepa wasn’t a monster.
“There are many powers a man can learn in Royaume if he has enough time, Jack,” his uncle had said. The battlefield sounds were gone now, and Jack could almost hear Alfie’s voice. “When a man masters the powers of mind manipulation, he can make others see him in whatever way he chooses. He can become a hideous creature, one that makes others paralyzed in fear when they look at him.”
He remembered it now. The drepa wasn’t a monster; the drepa was a man.
And now, to match his memory of his uncle’s stories, Jack saw the human form of the drepa. There, dead on the battlefield, was Lord Henry Veik. His skull was caved in, his skin covered in blood, and faint sprays of blue mist swirled around him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jack understood now. Henry Veik had been in Royaume so long that he had levelled up his powers in an unbelievable way. Jack didn’t know if Henry had actually been a drepa or if it was a mind illusion, but the result had been the same; Veik had killed scores of seasoned warriors with just a few attacks. Above it all, though, above his powers, he’d been arrogant. He’d failed to see that everything has a weakness, and that Jack had found his. Now, Veik was gone.
Bruce Frier must have banked on the Veik-drepa murdering everyone on the battlefield while he stayed safely behind the crate. The lives of his own men and women had meant nothing to him; that was plain. When he saw that his plan had failed and that the Drepa was dead, Bruce charged back onto the fields.
Jack took a few deep breaths. There was still much to do, and so little energy left with which to do it. Nearby, Elena, Crowley and Bordan were thick in combat with the remaining raider warriors.
Sarna took centre spot, dueling Bruce Frier amidst the spreading cracks in the flek fields. Jack heard a shout that sounded unmistakably like Mav. Turning quickly, he saw that across the field, Mav was in trouble.
Mav was engaged in a one-armed duel with a giant of a man, who wore a black set of metal armor. While Mav had the man beat for speed, if he got caught once by the mace in the man’s hands, he was done for.
Sarna made wary circles around Bruce. It was again a strange fight; haladie blade versus wooden club. Yet, Sarna was the aggressor in this duel, taking strong steps forward that forced Bruce to back away. Every so often she came within striking distance and lashed at him, but Bruce club was made with such strong wood that the haladie merely nicked it.
Jack decided that Mav was in direst need of his help, outmatched as he was by the giant and his mace. He rode away from the Veik-drepa and across the battlefield, dagger ready. His plan was to charge straight into the giant. As he drew close to the raider, he saw movement to his right.
Sarna strode toward Bruce with a swagger, and the grin on her face showed how much she loved being deep in the heart of battle. The flek mists clung to her blade, making it seem as if it was made of smoke. She struck a blow at Bruce, only for him to catch it with his club. This time the haladie wedged an inch into the wood. Bruce pulled it back, yanking Sarna along with it. He headbutted her to the floor, where she fell on her back.
He was on top of her now. He struck her again and again with his fists, so much that when he drew his hand up for another blow, his knuckles were dripping red.
Jack changed direction. He lashed the reins, urging his horse to gallop fast
er and faster. He saw Bruce raise his fist again. The man had gone blood crazy; he was going to smash Sarna’s face to a pulp.
Just meters to the left, the giant lurched forward with his mace. Mav parried once, twice, three times. Sweat covered his forehead; his years were beginning to show on him. The giant moved relentlessly, attacking Mav again and again.
Jack was near to Bruce now. Sarna lay underneath the raider, and she was so still that a deep fear shook Jack’s stomach. He whipped the reins until the clomp of his horse’s hooves was deafening. He rushed across the field.
Bruce had just enough time to turn before Jack’s dagger tore straight through his throat. Blood sprayed in a crimson arc, showering the tremor-lined flek fields, and Bruce collapsed to the floor. He rasped and he choked, but Jack paid him no mind. The man was deader than dead, and he needed to check that Sarna wasn’t the same.