Grym Prophet (Song of the Aura, Book Three)

by Downs, Gregory J.

  Gribly nodded in agreement, walked over to his wall of earth, and thrust his hands towards it. With a grunt of surprise, he realized he had fused it together so hard that it had become stone, hence being able to withstand the heat of the golden ships' fireballs. I'm becoming more powerful every day... we all are!

  “Very well,” he huffed, “I can work with this.” With another grunt he shoved his hands into the bare face of the rock, sinking his fingers into the surface, then broke it apart. All along the wall, rock shivered, shook, and diffused into sand. As the entire structure collapsed, a strong wind blew the grit and grains into a spiraling mass that scattered into an enormous dust cloud, blowing outward in a veil that would obscure the vision of anyone on the boats. “Good work,” he called back to Lauro.

  “Right,” the prince agreed, “Now let's give them something they won't forget!” The land was clear again, but the golden ships would be blinded for a few moments more. The river was almost invisible behind a gray-brown dust cloud that flashed from moment to moment, illuminated by the titanic struggle within.

  “I'll form the stones into something usable,” Gribly decided, “And you can help me throw them. We'll make a storm of our own!”

  Lauro nodded, and Gribly set to work.

  He stomped his feet, first the left, then the right, and the earth buckled beneath him. He swept his foot across the dusty ground, pulling his clawed hands towards him forcefully, and the heaving ground burst upward in a thick vortex of churning earth.

  Suddenly, whatever he did was magnified a hundredfold. With a quick spinning motion, Gribly turned a full circle with his arms outstretched, intending to cause the vortex to grow taller and spin faster. It did all that and far, far, more, shooting up for a hundred feet, flinging soil and shards of rock in all directions, spreading wide as three men laying end on end and almost engulfing Gribly, who leaped backwards in a handspring to avoid it.

  The earth-vortex followed his example, slamming into the ground to form a huge U-shape over him. Standing stock still, he lifted his arms toward its peak, feeling the earth with his mind. What had happened? There was so much... wind.

  Lauro laughed out loud behind him. Gribly looked at his friend and saw his wild eyes... it had been him. Lauro was Striding Wind to augment his Stone Striding.

  “Together we can do anything!” the prince yelled, raising his arms. Wind whipped Gribly's vortex faster and faster.

  The smokescreen cast when Lauro blew the dust cloud forward was thinning into nothing. Without warning another fireball roared out of the nearest ship towards them.

  “AGH!!” Gribly cried, stepping to one side and moving both arms in a high-flying arc towards the flames.

  The vortex whipped one end up from the ground, soaring through the air faster than should have been possible thanks to Lauro's efforts. Its end slammed into the fireball a hundred feet away, engulfing it in swirling stone and earth, crushing it easier than a flat stone snuffing out a candle.

  “END THIS!” Lauro shouted, and he punched the air with a wordless screaming battle cry. Lightning shot from the sky and smote the whirling pillar of earth, flickering up and down its outside. Gribly saw small dark forms scurrying about on the ship's deck, running and leaping overboard. One figure in a dark cape raised his fist and shook it at them, then vanished in a plume of smoke. “NOW!” Lauro yelled.

  Gribly flung his arms to the sky, and the vortex became a tornado of awesome proportions, flashing with lightning and frothing with tormented earth.

  I’ll never be helpless again, he realized.

  Then he slammed both fists into the ground with a shout that shook the earth.

  Doom fell on the golden ship. The torrent of earth and wind ripped the war vessel apart as if it were made of tin, shredding its metal bulk and hurling huge pieces of shrapnel for hundreds of feet all around. Fire blossomed in a series of mushroom-like explosions as the mysterious glowing innards of the ship were mauled by the vortex of alien elements.

  Suddenly Gribly felt the power added by Lauro's Wind Striding flicker, then die. “We've got trouble!” the prince shouted.

  Gribly cursed, channeling the rest of his earth vortex into the ruined shell that was left of the ship. They had taken down one themselves, and three seemed out of commission thanks to the Aura. That left one warship still mobile- it would have to be dealt with later. Arms loose and ready for Striding, Gribly turned to face the problem that assaulted Lauro.

  Smoke billowed up from the ground, spinning in a sort of weak imitation of the larger vortex they had summoned before. Lauro threw a mild, testing blast of wind at it, but the smoke appeared undisturbed. Orange sparks shot up in a fountain of fire from the inside, and the next second the flames spewed forth a creature like Gribly had never seen before... or so he thought, at first.

  It wore black robes, with black plate armor scattered at vital points on the thing's body. It had the general shape of a man, but its hands and feet were clawed, and its skin was jet-black and wrinkled. Milky, bulbous eyes glared at him without pupils, and fangs bared in the creature's mouth. It raised a hand, and branded runes in its palm began to glow with fire.

  “What in the Blaze are you?” Lauro spat. The thing turned its head towards him with a jerk, hissing through teeth that seemed better suited to ravaging small animal corpses than talking.

  “I am a Child of the Pit.”

  Gribly began to slink to one side. He's one of the ones who chased Traveller, all that time ago!

  “What makes you think you can touch me?” Lauro sneered at the creature, which howled, flicking its wrists and generating a ball of swirling flame in each hand.

  “I have been taught by the Golden One himself the arts of Pit Striding, foolish man-child! I will burn you blacker than death!”

  “Hah!!” Lauro laughed, and thrust his arms forward, hurling a small bolt of lightning he had been gathering straight into the Pit Child's chest. With a gurgling yell, the black beast-man was launched into the air towards Gribly, who had sneaked around behind him. “Now!” yelled the prince.

  Gribly punched out with his left arm, and a sharp, tooth-shaped spear of rock burst from the ground, impaling the Pit Child as he tumbled back to the ground. The hideous face contorted in a snarl of defiance... then froze in a mask of death. Ebony blood trickled from the corners of its mouth and dripped from the fist-sized wound that penetrated its back and emerged from its chest.

  BOOM! Thunder rumbled overhead, and both friends looked to the river simultaneously. There was nothing to see except sky-high pillars of smoke, and a few half-submerged smokestacks. The Aura had completed their task.

  “You know,” Gribly remarked, swaying a little from the shock of the battle's aftermath, “I think this is getting a little easier!”

  Then he passed out.

  Chapter Twenty: The Prophet, the Prince, and the Pirate

  “But we have to go after her!” Gribly shouted, almost in Traveller's face. The gray Aura was the only one who would even speak- Wanderwillow seemed to have suffered some sort of depression or injury ever since the Forest of Foretelling had burned.

  The sky had mostly cleared, and dawn had finally broken over the Grymclaw once more. The land was in a momentary lull from its usual ferocity. With the escape of the warship bearing Sheolus, Gramling, and Elia, and the destruction of the five rearguard ships, the storm that had been brooding for so long seemed to have moved off inland, wreaking havoc on the rest of the continent of Vast.

  Traveller had revived Gribly, and Wanderwillow had silently healed both Gribly and Lauro of their most grievous hurts. Now the prince, the prophet, and the gray Aura stood on the bank of the Grymslip, hotly debating what course of action it would be best to take. Wanderwillow was summoning some sort of forest dwelling at the old site of the Swaying Willow Inn, for a purpose he would not divulge.

  “For the first time in a long time,” Lauro said, “I agree entirely with Gribly. I don't care if I lose my chance at regaining my honor in
Vastion- we can't let those bloody fiends have Elia!”

  Traveller sighed, taking off his long soft cap and mopping his forehead with it. “I suppose I'm to blame for all of this... gallivanting about in people's dreams, setting things in motion... But you just don't see, do you?”

  “See what?” Gribly wanted to know. Traveller sighed again, and replaced his cap.

  “Aurum Therestore- I mean Sheolus, as we've named him now... He knows of your destiny, Gribly. He knows you're meant to be the Creator's prophet, whether now or in the future. If there was any doubt in his mind before, since he did have your brother in his thrall, it's gone now. You were able to call me all the way from... well, somewhere, and that tells him who you really are.”

  “So he wants to kill me? That's nothing new!”

  “No, no, no!” Traveller exclaimed, looking more annoyed with every minute that passed. “He wants to capture you! He can't kill you yet... he still needs you.”

  “Needs me? For what?”

  Traveller sighed his deepest sigh yet. “For... for the Day of Norne.”

  “What in Vast is that?” Lauro asked. “Every time we talk with you Aura or the Clerics who serve you, all we get is riddles and half-truths... I think it's time we deserved a straight answer, don't you?”

  Finally the gray Aura smiled. “If you put it that way... But only because it is imperative that the prophet know why we wish him not to give chase to the Legion Sheolus.”

  “Legion? What is a Legion?” Gribly asked, though he began to feel he knew.

  “An Aura who has fallen away from the Light,” Traveller said solemnly. “At the beginning of time, we were many, we Aura... some of us more powerful than others, but all on the same side. But when the world you mortals know as the physical one was created... some of the Aura began to have thoughts of rebellion. They wished to make the world as they saw fit, not the Creator! So we, the Aura of the Light, were tasked with imprisoning our shadow-tainted brethren in the Underworld.”

  “The Blazes...” Lauro breathed, and Gribly realized they had both begun to hold their breath, “They're real...”

  “Oh, they are indeed,” Traveller continued. “Kerbus, the Underworld... all the places mortals have forgotten, or turned into legend. We managed to contain most of the Legion, as the tainted Aura began to call themselves, in the prison we built for them beneath the earth, where they cannot escape even to the Otherworld. Only Sheolus, formerly the Golden Aura, escaped our grasp. We have been hunting him ever since, from sea to sea and land to land. Only now has he dared show his face, and...”

  “But what do I have to do with any of this?” Gribly wondered.

  “All you have encountered on your journey has been for a purpose, Gramlen, Gram's son. Have you and your friends not felt your power increase as time goes on... far beyond the usual abilities of a Strider?”

  “Well, yes...” Gribly answered, “But we were told that in the past, all Striders could do what we do.”

  “In the past, yes,” Traveller agreed, looking somewhere over the horizon and not liking what he saw. “Before the Legion was tamed and imprisoned, yes... in the distant past.”

  “Wait,” Lauro broke in, “Do you mean-”

  “It has been thousands of years since we locked our enemies away, Prince of Vastion. Now their prison is weakening.”

  “Will-” Gribly bit his tongue with a sudden rush of fear. “Will it break open? Will more archdemons like Sheolus escape?”

  “No.” Gribly and Lauro heaved a collective sigh of relief. “Not unless he sheds the blood of the Creator's chosen one, on the coming millionth year since the imprisonment of the rest of the Legion.”

  Gribly felt his skin grow cold and clammy as fear gripped him like a vice. “You mean all the war... all that's been going wrong in the rest of the world, is because this dark Aura... this Legion is hunting me? He needs my blood to release the other demons?”

  “Oh...” Lauro said. “That makes things a little more difficult, doesn't it?”

  “You see now, young prophet,” Traveller added, “that greater powers are at work than you could ever have imagined. Besides myself and Wanderwillow, there is but one Aura in this part of the world able to help us in this fight, and even he cannot reach us in time to pursue Sheolus. The archdemon has your brother under his sway, and your... and bait to convince you to follow him. You are the only card he does not hold in this game, and we need to keep it that way.”

  Gribly hung his head, but Lauro cursed loudly. “I don't see what choice we have, Grib.”

  “Don't call me that,” Gribly snapped, fighting back memories of Elia and the tears that came with them.

  “I am truly sorry, Lad,” Traveller said sympathetically, crossing over and putting a hand on Gribly's shaking shoulder. “The loss of the Halanyad is bitter, for she played her own part in the pattern of destiny well, and will be sorely needed in the future. But we simply cannot risk-”

  “Shut up!” Gribly shouted suddenly, pushing the gray Aura away fiercely and glaring at him with tear-drenched eyes. “All you and your stinking spirit brothers care about is destiny! You don't care that mortals are people, too! We're not pawns... stop treating us like them! This isn't a game!”

  “I know, Child,” Traveller tried to sooth him, “but-”

  “No buts! I don't care what happens to me, and I don't care if the whole world burns! I just want Elia back!” His voice had risen with every word, and only now he realized he was screaming in Traveller's face, red-eyed and angrier than he had ever been in his life. With a surprised gasp he stepped back, rubbing his eyes and cursing under his breath for losing control.

  “By the Aura, Gribly,” Lauro exclaimed quietly, “do you realize what you're saying?”

  “I... I...” Gribly clenched and unclenched his fists. “I'm sorry,” he finally managed, sinking down to sit on the riverbank, facing away from them all. “I just... I can't seem to let her go. I guess it's all useless, anyway... How would I even start chasing them? They're probably making their way down another river and out of the Grymclaw this very second.”

  He punched the wet soil in his frustration and despair, ripping up a clod of dirt and hurling it with Stone-Striding-imbued force, not bothering to look where it landed.

  Clunk. The clod hit something hard and metallic, then plopped into the river-water with a splash!

  “Actually,” Lauro said behind him in a shaky voice, “That may not be such a problem after all...”

  Gribly looked up. Out of the water like the ghost of a long-dead leviathan had come the most curious warship he had encountered yet. Part Reethe-whitewood, part golden metal and smoke-stacks, part Zain hardwood and sails, it was rising inch by inch right out of the river like a hunting beast coming for the kill...

  Lauro stared in disbelief at the runes burned or carved into a huge metal panel on the side of the ship. “The Invincible? That's its name...”

  “Indeed 'tis!” hailed a voice above them, and the last person anyone expected to see appeared climbing out of a hatch in the closed deck, slipping down its curved side to land nimbly on a gang rail that overhung the riverbank.

  “Captain Berne,” Gribly grinned, sorrow forgotten in surprise and wonderment. “What in all the world are you doing here?”

  ~

  “They sacked the place, the blood-thirsty rogues,” Berne snarled, and Lauro saw murder reflected in the normally jolly pirate's eyes. “Blew Mythigrad apart with their Pit Stridin', and their fire-throwin'... they used unholy powers, I tell yuh all! Combining their sorcery with huge metal siege weapons that could throw a house a mile!”

  “So that's how they do it,” Lauro muttered under his breath.

  “How many were there?” Traveller asked intently. Berne studied his questioner warily for a second before telling- he was suspicious of the gray Aura, and downright afraid of the brown. “I'd say nearly... thirty? Forty? They came an' went, came an' went, slaughtering us wherever we look'd. Me 'n' Yan an' the crew manag
ed to sink a few o' the blighters, but it just warn't enough.”

  “Damnation!” Lauro swore, angrily pacing the length of the sparsely furnished captain's cabin and barely restraining himself from punching the wall with all his might. Captain Bernarl, openly a pirate now, had taken them aboard the Invincible for a short tour, as a favor, and he didn't want to upset the nymph any more than he had to. Wanderwillow, of course, had not accompanied them.

  “If you'll pardon my asking,” Traveller put in, “how did you escape, much less with a full crew? And what of this ship?”

  “Ah,” said Berne, leaning back in his captain's chair, “Now there be somethin' for the tale-fire, there be.” The seat was comfortably cushioned and fashioned from metal and gears that allowed it to assume any position he wished, one of the many unexplained mechanisms on the ship.

  “Pray tell,” Gribly asked, a little sarcastically. He was becoming more jittery and impatient with each minute Berne dragged on... and Lauro thought he knew why.