by Aaron Oster
“And what would that be…um…Elder?” Mordio asked, deciding that that would be the best way to address this obviously powerful being.
“Two people will be showing up in your territory in the next week,” the man said. “A woman and a child. I need you to kill the child, then take the woman into your custody.”
Mordio blinked, not sure if he’d heard the being correctly.
“You want me to kill a child?” he asked.
“You will need allies, as she will not give him up easily. Should you succeed,” the man continued, as though he hadn’t even asked the question. “I will reward you with great power.”
He raised his hand, and a small red sphere began glowing above his palm, radiating more power than Mordio had ever felt in his entire life. He fell to his knees, feeling his body begin to tremble and shake, his eyes reflecting the brilliant sphere. It seemed to fill his entire vision, the world fading around him and centering on that beautiful power.
Then, the man closed his fingers, and just like that, the power was snuffed out.
“One week, Shah Mordio,” the man said, turning to leave. “Do not disappoint me.”
“So, he wanted me dead, not my mother?” Roy asked, his mind racing back to the dream and trying to remember the details.
“That’s what I just said,” Mordio replied with a growl, then promptly leaned over and vomited black liquid into the clay jug.
Roy let out a sound of disgust, while Aika looked like she wanted to both leave and stay. The god-like man Mordio was talking about couldn’t be Doragon, as the description didn’t seem to match. The man had red eyes, but that was the only thing they seemed to have in common.
Mordio spat a few times, then snagged a waterskin from a hook on the wall. He took a sip, swished it around his mouth, then spat into the clay jug. After another sip, he leaned back against the wall and continued his story.
It had been nearly a week since the man had appeared and given his decree, but Mordio wasn’t sure whom he could really trust with this information. All his life, he’d believed that Green-Belt was near their heights of what a Martial Artist could achieve. But now that he’d seen this figure and felt the power he offered, he knew just how wrong he’d been.
If this information were to become common knowledge, the entire power balance of the Waterwood could be thrown into chaos. When people found out, they would start working harder, pushing limits they’d never imagined were surpassable before. Their world would change forever.
On the other hand, the man had warned that they would be in for a tough fight and had told him to bring backup. But who could he trust enough to keep their mouth shut?
Finally, on the day of, Mordio made up his mind. He would bring a dozen of his middling fighters with him and tell them it was a special training exercise. Should they pass, they would be rewarded with better positions in the clan. But one of the conditions was that they couldn’t ask any questions.
If any of them survived to the end, he would just dispose of them. Then, when he received his reward, he would pretend to have reached the pinnacle of power achievable by any Marital Artist and claim it as divine favor. After that, taking over the Waterwood would be easy. The life of a single child would cement his legacy in the history of the Shah forever!
“You were seriously going to do it?” Roy asked. “Just kill a five-year-old for a little power-boost?”
“Wouldn’t anyone in my position?” Mordio asked with a shrug.
“Most would consider the murder of a child beyond appalling,” Aika said, her opinion of this man reaching a new low.
“Hey, I wasn’t going to reject this powerful man’s offer, especially not after I felt what could become mine.”
“I suppose once you kill a child, turning on your clan-members isn’t too difficult either,” Roy said.
“As I said, the power was going to make it all worth it,” Mordio replied, unapologetic.
“But something went wrong,” Roy said. “I’m still alive, and my mother is nowhere to be found.”
“Yes, something went wrong,” Mordio said, his face darkening. “I should have brought along more reliable fighters, and I paid for that mistake dearly.”
20
The chase had been a long one, but Mordio could feel it coming to its inevitable end. The woman was tired and beginning to flag. Up ahead, most of his men were giving chase, flanking their quarry and hemming them in. They were close; he could feel it.
A bloodcurdling scream from up ahead was the first sign that something had gone wrong. A moment later, one of the small dots of blue vanished, followed quickly by three more. Mordio felt his heart skip a beat as they drew nearer, and the screaming intensified. His men were falling like ants, dying one after another in rapid succession.
“What do we do?!” one of his men asked, looking at him fearfully.
“We keep going,” Mordio said, making a call.
If they let this woman go, they would never get another chance, and the power he’d been promised would slip through his fingers. Not only that, but the idea of that man coming back to punish him for his failure was far more terrifying than any woman or child.
When they finally reached the place where the fighting had been occurring, Mordio had to reconsider his opinion of the woman.
She was terror incarnate! Her body was shrouded in the mantle of some sort of Beast, emitting black and white light and tearing through his men as though they were nothing. Behind her, with his back pressed against a fallen tree, was a small, terrified looking boy. But his men, like the true idiots they were, had completely ignored the child and turned their full attention on the woman instead.
“Not the woman, you morons!” Mordio yelled. “Go for the kid!”
He felt his heart stop as the woman turned on him, her eyes blazing a bright blue inside the shroud of energy. One of the remaining men tried to blindside her, but her arm flashed out, sharpened claws ripping into his chest and tearing his heart to shreds.
“Stay away from my son!” the woman screamed, her voice echoing so loudly that Mordio had to cover his ears.
“Kill the kid!” he yelled, ordering his last remaining followers after the child.
The woman screamed again, dropping to all fours as her body contorted. She seemed to be in a great deal of pain, whatever power she was using taking its toll on her. But when the men rushed in, trying to take advantage of her supposed weakness, the woman lashed out once again.
Blood rained down on Mordio as one of his men flipped through the air, crimson droplets flying from his slashed throat.
“I got him!” one of the men yelled as he leaped from behind the log and grabbed the child by his arm.
The boy cried out in alarm, and the woman whirled, letting out an earth-shattering scream.
The man let out a cry of surprise, which turned to screams of agony, as the tree – thought to be dead – suddenly sprouted dozens of wooden spikes, impaling him and filling him full of holes.
The woman staggered to one side, dropping to her stomach as the man slumped. Only one fighter remained on his feet, and he didn’t seem to want to approach, so Mordio did what any great leader would. He grabbed him by the arm and threw him at the woman.
His last remaining fighter only had time to utter a scream of terror before he was eviscerated, his body falling to the ground in an unrecognizable heap, and Mordio used that brief window to make it around the woman and rush the child.
He dove, hands extended and reaching. There was no way he would survive against the woman if he killed the kid outright, but if he took him as a hostage, then maybe he could work something out, give himself some time…
Pain flashed in his chest as he reached for the child, and Mordio collapsed to the ground, finding himself eye to eye with the woman. Her pupils were slitted, her sclera a deep yellow. Now that he was closer and the strange energy warping her body was no longer covering her, he could see that she barely appeared human.
“Wh
o betrayed us?” the woman hissed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mordio said, trying to loosen the woman’s grip on his arm.
The woman snarled, revealing needle-like teeth, and tightened her grip.
“WHO?!” she demanded, her voice jarring him down to his very soul.
“A man with red eyes!” Mordio shouted – against his will.
He snapped his mouth shut as he realized what he’d said, but it was too late.
“So, he thought to kill my son,” the woman said, baring her teeth. “But you’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Her other hand flashed out, tearing away the front of his robes. Mordio felt hot pain in his chest as five needle-like claws pierced his skin. Then, the entire world went black for an instant.
When the grip on his arm loosened and Mordio scrambled back, he looked at the woman in horror as she smiled up at him.
“My son…will be safe now. My debt…will be paid.”
The child was shaking her as her eyes closed. She didn’t move, but Mordio knew deep in his soul that she was still alive.
Crashing sounds came from behind him, and Mordio cursed to himself as he realized he’d been followed. He needed to come up with a believable story quickly, otherwise, he’d be in serious trouble.
“But first, the kid,” he muttered to himself, moving forward to end him…
But he couldn’t. Unbearable agony shot through him, forcing him to his knees. Looking down to his chest, Mordio’s eyes widened in horror.
“What… What did you do to me?!”
The woman didn’t answer, her body continuing to lie so still that she appeared to be dead…
“She cursed you,” Roy said, his mind reeling from everything he’d just heard.
From the description alone, it sounded as though his mother had been like Ferry, a Beast who’d taken on a human form. But how was that even possible?
Mordio grunted, then pulled the front of his robes open, and both Roy and Aika winced at what they saw beneath.
His skin was sallow and pale, seeming almost normal, like that of an elderly man. But at the center of his chest was a dark, blotchy patch, looking almost like someone had injected him with a bottle of ink. Dark lines stretched out from the dark patch, traveling up to his throat and down to his waist.
Five small puncture wounds sat exactly where he’d been pierced by Roy’s mother, the spots raised and puckered, standing out even against the corrupted flesh.
“What the hell did it do to you?” Aika asked, her voice sounding in a mix of fascination and disgust.
“It made me incapable of even thinking of killing the child,” Mordio said, glaring at Roy. “Any time the thought even popped into my head, I was wracked with such pain that dying would have been bliss.”
“So, what did you tell Korgo when he showed up?” Roy asked. “And more importantly, what happened to my mother?”
Mordio stumbled to his feet as Korgo came rushing into the clearing, followed by more men. He looked around in horror, then turned his attention on Mordio, the only survivor.
“What the hell happened here?!” he demanded, as Mordio quickly tied his robes shut.
“We came out here to hunt down this dangerous criminal,” Mordio said, turning to face him. “But the woman was tougher than we were led to believe.”
Korgo didn’t really seem to believe that was what had happened, but he couldn’t exactly challenge him.
“What about the kid?” he asked, looking past him to the small boy shaking his mother’s shoulder.
What Mordio wanted to do was order his death, but even the thought of doing that wracked his entire body with pain.
“We can’t kill him,” he replied. “But if he’s half as tough as his mother, he’ll be an asset in the future.”
The boy tried to turn away, but Mordio pulled a cloth sack from his robes and pulled it over the kid’s head.
“Carry him back to the clan,” he said, giving Korgo his orders. “I’ll clean up here, make sure that unfriendly eyes don’t see what happened.”
Korgo nodded, grabbing the kid and heading away from the gristly scene. It was only once he was sure they were gone that he turned back to face the woman.
“What did you do to me?” he demanded again, but just as before, no answer was forthcoming.
“You have been cursed.”
Mordio spun, seeing the red-eyed man standing before him, his face impassive.
“Can’t you do something about this?” he asked, feeling panicked.
“No,” the man replied simply.
“What about the power you promised?” Mordio asked.
“The boy is alive,” the man said.
“But so is the woman,” Mordio replied. “Just take her.”
“I cannot,” the man said. “You failed in your mission, and now, you will suffer the consequences…”
“After that, I went back to the clan one last time, to order them not to kill you and to pass the leadership over to Korgo. Then, I traveled to the oldest of the Felrin elders to see if they could do anything about the curse. The man showed up once again, then dragged me out here to live out the rest of my days.”
“Why is it you look so old and worn then?” Roy asked. “You barely seem alive.”
“The damned clan is why,” Mordio said bitterly. “Each time you were mistreated at their hand, I suffered along with you. My life was shortened, and my ability to absorb Essence was all but destroyed. I cannot leave this place, for the red-eyed man bound me here with his power and ensured the darkness would not let me go.”
“And what about my mother?” Roy asked. “What happened to her? Where is she now?”
Mordio pointed over his shoulder.
“Right in the thick of it. When I returned, her body was already half-buried in the ground, and tendrils of power seemed to be spreading from her. Do you think this part of the forest is natural?”
“So, what you’re saying is that my mother is somehow responsible for the Blackwood and that she’s buried herself somewhere in the area?” Roy asked, finding that hard to believe.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Mordio replied, leaning over to spit into the clay pot once more. “I can still feel her, though she’s buried deep. If I had the strength, I would have dug her up and tried killing her ages ago, but I’m stuck, weakening with every passing day. I won’t last much longer, maybe a year or two, and nothing I’ve read has offered me any insight as to how this curse might be cured.”
Roy stared at the man for several long minutes, thinking over everything he’d said. He now had many answers, but along with those answers came a slew of new questions. Like what had really happened to his mother if she wasn’t dead, and who that red-eyed man had been. At least now he knew how he’d come to be in the Shah clan and why they’d kept him alive all those years.
“If I wanted to be merciful, I’d kill you here and now,” Roy said. “The fact that you suffered every time someone from the Shah clan decided to torment me does make me feel a bit better. But I think you still deserve more. So, I’m going to leave you here to live out what little life you have left, knowing that despite your best efforts, I am still very much alive, while the Shah clan ceased to exist after I visited them just a few weeks back. In fact, Korgo was kind enough to let me suggest a new clan name.”
Roy’s lips curled upward as he turned to leave, Aika rising to join him.
“I hope you enjoy being Ari Mordio for the rest of your days,” Roy said as he pulled the door open.
The cry of anguish that tore itself from the man’s throat was almost pitiful, but after the story Roy had heard, he didn’t feel the least bit sorry to leave the man as he was. In the old tongue, ‘ari’ translated to ‘ant.’ Roy had chosen that specific name to remind them that he could come back at any time and squash them if he found out they were back to their old ways.
Bugs were also the lowest of the low, and any clan carrying the
name of an insect would be forever shamed.
Roy had left the man alive, but just as with the Shah clan, they were all functionally dead. Just as he’d promised himself so long ago, the Shah clan had been destroyed for what they’d done to him, and he had been the one to do it.
21
“Back, back!” Hermit yelled, throwing his arm out before him and summoning his Reiki Armorer technique.
A shield of pure black fire materialized before him, catching the blast of crimson and dispersing it to the sides. There were screams from behind as several of the weaker Martial Artists ducked, trying to avoid the spray of flames.
He cursed silently to himself as two figures appeared overhead, a man and woman, both with fiery red hair and long, scaled tails flicking behind them. They wore no clothes other than the Belts around their waists, both of which shone a solid gray.
“Kumo!” Hermit yelled as the two Sages began readying another attack.
Sanshoo Kumo was at his side instantly, his body glowing with the telltale signs of a Movement technique.
“Keep them moving. We’re almost to the border.”
Kumo nodded, throwing an arm out to the side and destroying a swath of fiery, lion-shaped Beasts that were attempting to attack their flanks.
They’d been traveling for nearly a month now, constantly having to backtrack and take long detours to avoid the packs of constructed Beasts that ran wild. Worse, they’d been harried nonstop by the pair of Sages who constantly showed up just long enough to slow them down before running.
Getting into a battle with a Sovereign was not something they wanted to do, but why they kept attacking was beyond him. Right now, the working theory was that they were buying time so that a stronger fighter could come to take him on.
According to Kumo, his mother, Olga, had taken the enemy Sovereign down before she’d been killed. But that didn’t mean the Cavern Beast didn’t have others working for him. What Hermit didn’t understand was why the Beast didn’t come to attack himself.