Fallen Ambitions

by Vann, Eric J.

  Before anyone could decide on a course of action, two pale Wervins positioned themselves behind the captives and drew their knives. The young man beside Celia let out a gasp, as without warning the knives were thrust into the humans.

  “No!” he cried out.

  To Celia’s dismay, a single stab wasn’t enough to end their suffering. The two Wervins exchanged a glance before they leapt upon the bleeding humans, they stabbed and stabbed at their bodies while their victims struggled and let out hopeless screams.

  Pain spread from Celia’s jaw as she ground her teeth together. She couldn’t hold back a growl as her tail swiped side to side furiously. It was too cruel—these people did not deserve being used like that, simply to spread terror and display these creatures’ misguided thoughts of dominance.

  She unconsciously began to release minor amounts of fire mana, and the temperature of the air around her rose. The Grauda and humans surrounding her all took a step back.

  When the screaming had died down, the two Wervins stood, their once-white skin now smeared in the blood of those they had butchered. They raised their daggers in the air and the host of Wervins screeched and gurgled as one before resuming their disorderly march forward. Celia observed how large their jaws were in relation to the rest of their faces, and the rows of sharp, half-rotten teeth within.

  Celia could practically hear the heartbeats of the humans behind her. She glanced at Issac, who still stood beside her, his knuckles turning white on the hilt of his sheathed sword. One of the younger men turned aside and retched, and others were struggling to keep their composure.

  “Go back and protect your people, all of you,” she commanded. “Deal with any who are lucky enough to get past us. We will take care of things here.”

  She could feel Isaac tense beside her; he clearly didn’t like the idea of leaving the defense of his village to her. But after a moment’s hesitation, he shouted out orders to fall back, in such decisive tones that Celia wondered whether he had once been part of a military.

  She turned her attention back to the Wervins, trying to note any hidden threats other than the trolls. Most of the pale beasts wore simple loincloths, but a few had donned beast furs as well. Celia didn’t know anything about Wervin society—did clothing mean some sort of hierarchy?—but decided it didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She was going to kill every last one of them.

  She focused on the closest Wervin and heat radiated from her mark.

  You have successfully Inspected your target.

  * * *

  Name: Wervin Male

  Race: Beast, Wervin

  Rank: Varied

  Level: 5

  * * *

  Celia sneered inwardly. These creatures didn’t even have proper names! She addressed the closest female Grauda, giving the order to release just as Vhal joined her at the stakes.

  The Grauda hissed and aimed high. The first volley of arrows whistled through the air and arched toward their targets. The Grauda weren’t particularly skilled archers, but with the Wervins clumped together as they were, it would be difficult to miss.

  The Wervins screeched at the sight of the arrows before hastening their forward charge. The projectiles rained down upon their ranks, and the unarmored beasts screamed in pain as bright red blood gushed from the freshly inflicted wounds, clearly visible against their chalky white skin. The trolls, however, did not seem to notice the arrows, even as a few embedded themselves into their thick, marbled hides.

  Another volley was let loose upon them, followed by another. Celia grinned at the utter devastation inflicted upon their enemies. These Wervins had had it too easy. They had come here in greater numbers expecting resistance, but only the same type of resistance the villagers usually offered. That was a fraction of the strength now marshalled against them. They would suffer for underestimating the Fallen, she thought with grim satisfaction.

  Vhal chuckled excitedly as he witnessed the unfolding scene. “Gorshak’s Horde won’t last a week if this is all they have to offer,” he said, and Celia had to agree. But just then, as if in response to their ridicule, a whole volley of arrows simply dropped from the sky before reaching their target.

  Celia blinked. It was as if the air had been suddenly pulled from under them. The Grauda hissed and halted their next volley, as Celia tracked the descending arrows.

  “Oh?” Vhal remarked, his grin growing wider. “Now that is an interesting change of pace.”

  “What is going—?” Celia began, but then she noticed a Wervin who was slightly larger than the rest take a step out from behind the leading mud troll. Purple mist rose from its pale left hand as it jumped and cackled, and the Wervins left standing all joined in.

  “Is that a weaver?” Celia asked, an eyebrow raised. She had not thought Wervins had any.

  Vhal shook his head and leaned forward on his staff. “Take a closer look,” he said quietly. “It’s holding an item, an orb, heavily enchanted…”

  “Purple mist. Dark mana,” Celia said sharply, as she turned to the Grauda and ordered another volley.

  The arrows streaked upward but just as they reached the height of their arc, the Wervin raised the orb high above his head and it glowed a bright purple. Just like that, the arrows again dropped from the sky.

  Celia tracked the arrows as they harmlessly fell to the ground. What was this? She knew absolutely nothing about the fundamentals and power of dark mana.

  The Wervins had halted their charge and now began to chuckle and yelp. Some held their hands up and shook their hips in what Celia could only interpret as an insulting gesture. The mud trolls simply stood there, as if confused by the whole affair.

  Celia glared at the gyrating creatures. She turned to Vhal for answers—only to recoil at the sight of him. His eyes were flickering rapidly between an ethereal blue and an all-consuming black, his ghastly teeth pressing into each other with such force she feared they might crack. A cold chill radiated from him and the grass beneath his feet began to wither and die.

  “Vhal?” Celia said, taking a half step back. The Grauda females around her did the same.

  Vhal relaxed almost immediately, and his demeanor returned to normal, as if hearing his name had broken a spell holding him in its grasp. He turned to Celia, his eyes blue again, and grinned. “My apologies. I had become lost in my thoughts.”

  “Lost in thought?” Celia repeated incredulously, suppressing a shudder. But the calls from the Wervins interrupted her—they continued to gesture and scream with laughter. “Vhal! What is going on?”

  Vhal surveyed the beasts. “Well, that one appears to be dangling his sex at you,” he noted, pointing out a Wervin on one side of the gathering.

  Celia followed his finger and grimaced.

  “My, my, the crude gesture seems to have caught on,” Vhal said, his grin growing wider as more and more began to follow the first creature’s lead and undressed. “Your Succubi powers are far more powerful than I expected,” he continued, chuckling at his own joke. “Perhaps that is how they find and solicit their mates?”

  “Be quiet,” Celia growled, her rage beginning to burn at the sight of the beasts. She didn’t even want to know if her skill would work on creatures like the Wervins. If it did, that would mean they were attracted to her, which was a horrifying prospect on its own. Celia tried to concentrate: if arrows were not going to work, then maybe a spell would.

  Just as she prepared herself to weave a fire spell, Vhal placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Celia flinched away from his touch and glared at the lich, whose blue eyes flashed in response.

  “Calm yourself, Celia. There is no need to get so worked up against such a weak foe.” Vhal slid his hand under his robes and pulled out a book. He studied its contents before tearing out a sheet of paper and offering it to her.

  Celia glanced the sheet of paper warily. “What’s this?”

  “A gift,” he replied cryptically.

  She took the offered paper, quickly examining it. It w
as a spell. A rank three air spell, to be exact, but she had never seen any of the function symbols required to weave it. Thankfully, the page including instructions on how to form them.

  “What does it do?” she asked, keeping one eye on the dancing Wervins.

  “Give it a try,” Vhal said, his grin growing wider. “Focus on the nocked arrows and weave it before they release the next volley. His eyes drifted to the nearest female Grauda, who seemed to understand what Vhal was asking of her. She let out a hiss and the Grauda males pulled another arrow from their quivers and held it loosely against their bowstrings.

  Celia hesitated, remembering the strange behavior the lich had just exhibited, and the eerie feeling he had been giving off when his eyes flickered black. It had been as if… as if death itself had manifested and was using Vhal as its instrument. But she couldn’t see any reason why the lich would do anything to harm herself or her Master’s followers. “What about that orb?” she asked.

  Vhal leaned heavily on his staff. “That orb is of Caelian origin… Just as my family were unrivaled when it came to the necrotic arts, the Caelian Imperial Family were powerful in the dark arts. Within the Empire, only the dark elven family of Noan surpassed them. That orb, along with many others, was created by the Imperial Family exclusively for the use of the Imperial Guard.” Vhal eyes flared, as he focused on the Wervin holding the orb. “It is one thing to find such a weapon, but to be able to harness its power… someone with intimate knowledge of its function was involved.”

  Celia frowned. Why would anyone help such a race—never mind give or teach them how to use a powerful enchanted item? But she pushed that thought to the back of her mind as she steeled herself for the task ahead.

  She raised both hands and focused as a cloud of transparent air mana began to seep from her fingertips and coalesce into the symbols detailed on the page. Unlike her fire mana, air mana was cool and calming; the more she released, the more Celia could sense her rage ebb away. Her weaving was slower than usual due to the unfamiliarity of the symbols involved, but as soon the symbols combined into a single glyph, a low hum reverberated from it.

  Celia admired the complex glyph for a moment, before tossing it at the line of Grauda archers. The spell burst and split into hundreds of what looked to be tiny, glittering white spheres. They hovered there for a heartbeat, before each flowed into an arrow a Grauda male was preparing to unleash. The magical energy infused the arrows, causing their plain wooden shafts to morph into a brilliant silver. When it was done, a faint glow emanated from each arrowhead, visible even under the glare of the morning sun.

  The Grauda males hissed at their own weapons, unnerved. Celia glanced at Vhal, equally perturbed, but the lich ignored her.

  “Aim straight and true,” he instructed the Grauda females. “There is no need to arch your next volley.”

  The females looked at one another, their expressions uncertain. But they gave the order to their males.

  There was the sound of hundreds of bowstrings pulling taught, and then loosing. The Grauda’s silver arrows took flight.

  At first, nothing appeared different—but as soon as Celia had the thought, the arrows suddenly morphed into a streak of white light. The most striking thing about them was the speed. The arrows cut through the air so quickly they left a high-pitched whomp in their wake, the unexpected sound causing the Grauda to flinch back and Celia to cover her ears.

  Seeing this, the orb-wielding Wervin panicked and again raised his purple orb. It glowed brighter, and the silver arrows began to slow, as if they were trying to fly through a thick syrup. Some fell to the ground, losing all momentum. Celia watched in annoyed amazement as more of the projectiles appeared to be affected.

  Vhal shook his head. “Fools,” he muttered, and as if in response to his words, the purple orb’s ominous glow flared brightly… before the whole orb imploded and reformed into a spinning purplish void which began to suck its wielder and the surrounding Wervins into itself. The beasts yelped and cried out as they tried to grab onto something to save themselves—mostly one another—but to no avail.

  A mud troll reached into the featureless purple void as if hoping to pull some of its Wervin allies free, only for its massive hand to disappear into the darkness. It immediately let out a roar of pain. As it pulled back, Celia watched blood spray from the cleanly-severed stump—the troll waved the stump in the air, its other hand trying to stem the flow, but all it did was color the immediate surroundings a bright red. Then, without warning, the purple void shrank until it disappeared entirely, leaving no trace of its victims behind.

  Freed from the orb’s mysterious influence and as if snapped from an over-taught line, the silver arrows shot forward and struck the confused and unprepared Wervins, piercing their flesh—but instead of becoming embedded in their bodies, the arrow ran the creatures straight through.

  Each arrow sliced through multiple Wervins, even those trying to use the trolls as some manner of meat shield. But not even the trolls’ thick hides stood a chance.

  The silver arrows buried themselves into the trolls’ flesh, whole shafts disappearing. Those striking hands or legs pierced all the way through and came out the other side. The giant beasts bellowed in pain before dropping to the ground with an earth-shaking thud. A few even fell atop the Wervins seeking shelter behind them. There was no more teasing and cackling from their foes, only fearful screams and groans.

  Celia and the surrounding Grauda stared open-mouthed. “What in the Abyss was that?” she asked, her eyes snapping back to a satisfied looking Vhal.

  Vhal raised a lazy eyebrow. “Which that are you referring to?”

  “Both!” Celia said.

  “In my time, dark mana was by far the most mysterious and least understood mana type in existence… other than soul mana, of course. From your reaction, it would appear the properties of dark mana are still not fully understood, even after so long.” Vhal chuckled. “It is powerful in many ways, but is also a fickle thing. Not knowing how to use it or over-straining it can lead to a powerful backlash… as you just witnessed.”

  Celia gazed at the devastation before them, wordless. Vhal slowly ran his gray, decayed fingers through his beard as though pleased.

  “That orb was designed to help the Imperial Guard protect their charge from assassinations and other targeted attacks,” he continued. “Stopping a mass attack of arrows would be easy, and I am certain it would have been able to negate any single low-ranked spell thrown at it. But it was simply not intended to stop a whole volley of magical projectiles.”

  Celia slowly nodded. “And the spell?” she asked.

  “Silver’s Gale,” Vhal replied. “It’s a large-scale ritual I was able to decrypt from the air grimoire. I made some changes to the symbols to allow its effects to be weaved at a much smaller scale and power level than it was originally intended for.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Celia looked at her hands and the traces of air mana she let leak from them. Around her, the Grauda had begun peppering the remaining Wervins with the last of their arrows. With the trolls dead and the protection the orb had provided gone, the vile creatures had nowhere to hide.

  “It’s an imbuing-type spell,” Vhal added, almost dreamily. “The category is able to temporarily enhance weapons, armor, or even abilities.” His gaze drifted down to her thighs.

  Noticing this, Celia narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Vhal, I really hope I’m missing something here.”

  The lich looked up again, chuckling. “I was simply looking for your dagger. Its heated blade also uses an imbuing spell, only in the form of an enchantment. These types of spells and rituals are rare and were kept secret under the Caelian Empire by militaries, mage guilds and master enchanters. You have just witnessed why.”

  At this, Celia’s attention returned to what remained of her enemies. With such destructive force unleashed against them, and how they had made light of the situation before, the Wervins had not even reached the
wall of stakes. A few tried now, and got close enough to try their luck with some kind of slingshot, but they too turned and fled after a single attempt. Other than one small stone that bounced harmlessly off a Grauda male’s enchanted armor, the stones they let loose missed their intended targets. All in all, two thirds of the Wervins lay dead or dying, and trolls were all sprawled on the ground, silent and still.

  “Follow them,” Celia said to one of the female Grauda, pointing at the fleeing survivors. “I want to know where they are hiding.” The female sprinted away without a word. Celia tracked her movements as she picked out a few males who followed her out through the stakes, until the sound of clinking and crackling caught Celia’s attention.

  She followed the sound to where Vhal now knelt beside her, his hands reaching into his dimensional pouch to pull out empty glass vials and place them on the grass before him. He continued setting more and more vials out until a substantial number were strewn around him.

  “Vhal?” Celia asked as she knelt to touch the vials. “What are you doing?”

  “What I came here to do,” Vhal replied, and said nothing else as he began to place the vials into wooden racks.

  “And what would that be, exactly?”

  “Wervin blood, of course,” he said. “Why else would I be here?”

  Celia closed her eyes as she tried to hold back a sharp retort, then slowly opened them again. “I don’t know,” she said, “maybe to rid the world—or at the very least, the factions’ lands—of a menace?”

  Vhal glanced up at her for a moment, then shrugged and returned to his task. “A noble endeavor, but the blood is more important to me. I must admit I didn’t expect to encounter trolls. Their blood has many healing properties I am sure Astrel’s alchemic expertise will find useful.” He stood, grinning again, and started ordering Grauda males to quickly fill the vials with the blood of the dead or dying Wervins littered before them.

  Celia sighed; she shouldn’t even be surprised at this point. It wasn’t like the lich to help the helpless. “Why do you want Wervin blood?” she asked.