by Eric Vall
As I invoked more and more of my godly power, the valley the Tintagal soldiers advanced down rippled then smoked as a lane of the hillside changed and morphed into a dripping river of lava, and an old friend lifted its scaly head from the depths to set fire to the grass and burn it to a crisp. Unlike before in my dungeon, the magma hydra took no time to reveal itself to the Tintagal soldiers as it rushed forward. Liquid fire dripped from between each head’s massive teeth and some of it splattered the battlefield and incinerated a few of the Tintagal soldiers.
From beside me, Rana, who had not joined the initial charge, glanced down at her chest and then at the elven daggers she held tightly in her fists. The fox-woman was pensive, and I could tell she was unsure if she should take out the Eye of Alipsis, Rana’s parting gift from the Tichádáma, even though she didn’t know how to use it just yet. Though she was well-practiced now with her daggers thanks to my tutelage, they were not the most useful on the open battlefield compared to the god’s giant claymore the Tichádáma gave her.
Rana sheathed the elven daggers with a sigh as she decided which weapon she would use. The redhead placed a paw over her heart, breathed deeply, then closed her eyes as she thought of the holy sword. It took only a second, and before I knew it, the hilt of the Eye of Alipsis emerged from within her. With a sweeping motion, Rana pulled the sword out of her and held it out in front of her with some remaining trepidation.
“Do what you feel is right,” I instructed her, and she swiveled her blue eyes to mine and give me a curt nod.
“I-I know,” the fox answered softly, but I could tell she was still unsure as she took in the beautiful claymore in her paw. “It’s just… I’ve never used a sword before, but… it feels like the Eye will show me the way.”
“Then use it.” I smiled, and instead of answering, she gripped Frei’s reigns and kicked her heels into the wolf’s sides.
Frei took off down the hill, and the redhead’s curls blew out behind her as she let out a whooping war cry. I gripped onto Marbas, and he sensed the change in me and leaped forward with the pounding of his huge paws. The talons above the pads of his feet tore grass and dirt free from the hill as we pounded towards the fighting.
It was already obvious who was winning as my horrendous monsters split holes in their ranks, and the bodies of Tintagal men piled up around us. As soon as Marbas and I reached the flat space of the valley, I pulled back on his fur, and the massive Bánwolf reared back with a loud snarl. The Tintagal General’s eyes met mine across the carnage, and I gave him a wolfish smile as I lifted one hand into the air, my fingers curled towards the sky.
Fathomless black smoke coiled up from the palm of my hand. The smoke moved as it were alive and formed into a shifting, trembling orb above the flesh of my hand. The General’s eyes narrowed on me as he gripped his reigns and urged his steed towards me. His horse whinnied away in my frightening presence, but I slammed my free hand forward on Marbas’ neck, and the great wolf tore forward towards the General.
Our eyes were locked together as I moved towards him, and his horse became more frantic the closer the frightening wolf I rode got. The General fought between keeping his eyes on me and calming his horse, and the more hysterical his horse became as it tried to escape, the more his attention was swayed away from the approaching danger. I gritted my teeth and swung my magic-filled hand forward towards the Tintagal General and his panicked horse. The orb of darkness flew through the air and slammed directly into the middle of the General’s breastplate. I watched in slow motion as the metal bearing the Tintagal Boar’s head caved in with a crack, and the General was blown out of the saddle completely. I laughed darkly as he landed on his back, and his terrified horse tore off in the opposite direction as it bucked out wildly at any passing soldier in the way.
I gripped Marbas’ fur, and the wolf skidded to a stop above the cowering General below us. The Tintagal man was shaking as he struggled to breathe as the blow had knocked the wind from his lungs. He stared up at me hatefully, then in a flash, he reached for his sword, but he was too slow for Marbas and me. The connection between the Bánwolf and me was strong, and I didn’t have to speak for him to hear my command. The colossal wolf bent forward with his mouth open, and before the General could swing, Marbas’ jaws came down and closed around the General’s head. With a sickening wet crack, his head separated from his body. My Bánwolf dropped the severed head with a snuffle then bumped it with his nose, and the head rolled to reveal the General’s frozen expression of fear.
I dropped from Marbas’ back, and my boots crunched against the frozen ground as I pulled the God Slayer from my void pocket. I slammed the weapon down on the hard ground as I moved towards the General’s head, and in one swift movement, I speared it on the end of the polearm’s blades and held it aloft as I turned and faced the carnage I had created. As I turned, something out of place in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I focused in on it. A single rider rode higher above than the others, and the person on the back of the beast wore no armor, but from this far away, I could hear her cackling laughter.
Instead of a horse, this person rode a colossal white bear, and when I homed in on the rider, I saw that it was a woman. Her long wavy hair whipped out behind her, gray like smoke though her face was beautiful and youthful. Despite that, I noticed that the bare skin of her shoulders and part of her left arm was rotted with mixes of sickly greens and deep purples around the exposed bone. I watched in confusion as the rider swiveled on top of the beast and moved her entire body to one side of the saddle. The gray-haired woman bent a knee and pressed it firmly into the middle of the seat with the other foot still firmly planted in the stirrup. She used her bent leg for stability as she lifted a bow into the air that looked suspiciously like bone and aimed it at one of the Tintagal soldiers.
Despite the loping, rough trot of the bear beneath her, she stayed perfectly stable, and I watched as she reached behind her and pulled an arrow from the quiver on her back. The rider let it loose with a wicked smile, and the shaft flew true and buried itself in a soldier with a moist thunk. It took me a second to realize the grass in the wake of the bear had turned black and died as the woman and the bear raced in circles around the valley.
The rider’s mad laughter reached my ears as a flash of red and black blew past on the other side of the valley, and I turned to see a second rider. My eyes widened at the sight as I took in the beast the second woman rode. I had only ever seen the striped beast in paintings and detailed tapestries and seeing it in person made my avatar’s heartbeat go a little faster. The Valgarian tiger tore at the ground, and the muscles under its blood red and thick black fur rippled with power. The woman rider was almost as beautiful as the tiger she rode, and the black hair that billowed out from her high ponytail was so dark black that it was almost blue.
The warrior on the tiger held a huge claymore that resembled the Eye of Alipsis, but the blessed weapon that Rana possessed looked much tamer, if such a thing was possible, than the one this woman held. The leather binding that worked around the hilt matched the color of the tiger’s stripes, and I watched as the second rider dove into the fray without even a glimmer of fear. The claymore slashed through the air and blood lifted like a mist and spattered the riders face, but she didn’t reach up and wipe it away as I had expected. Even as the rider moved, her steed swiped out at enemy soldiers and tore them to shreds with its huge claws.
I moved my eyes through the fray to follow the second rider, but instead found a third interloper that shouldn’t have been there. This rider was a man who rode upon a camel, like the ones we had seen in Valasara but seemed out of place in the colder country of Tintagal. In his boney hands, he clutched a scythe between both hands and maneuvered the beast he rode with his knees. The rider’s face was sunken in as if he was ill, and the top of his head was bald, even his face was clear of his hair, not even eyebrows. His eyes were colorless and faraway, but he moved the weapon in his hands deftly as he grimaced down at the Ti
ntagal soldiers who attempted to attack him. He pushed the scythe as if he was cutting down crops of wheat or barley instead of living men and as soon as the few he was facing off with were dead, he moved on to the others. His face was expressionless, almost like Morrigan’s but every once in a while, his seamless brow would knit, and his thin lips would press together as he hacked away at the enemies.
Then I saw the fourth rider, and I stopped in my tracks and nearly dropped the God Slayer. He was the only rider who rode a horse, but the horse looked near death, all of its skin pulled taut against the bone, and the red eyes within its skull were bulging out of their sockets. This man held no weapon and was cloaked entirely in black, and for a second, I almost thought it was Tuzakeur from the way the cloak flowed out behind him like smoke, but when he turned his head and looked in my direction, there was no cursed sorcerer underneath. No, his face, like his fellow riders, was youthful and handsome, but there was an unearthly glow to each of them that told me these were no mere humans fighting a battle with us, these were completely different beings.
I steeled myself and climbed back onto Marbas, the God Slayer with the General’s head still stuck on the end in my grip as I watched as the fourth rider raised a hand at a huddled group of four Tintagal soldiers. The enemy men fell silent then their eyes rolled back and exposed to the whites. Each man collapsed at the same time into a heap, and I knew they were dead as their souls slowly seeped up and out of their still bodies.
If these people were what I thought they were, then why were they here? The bigger question was why were they helping us in the first place? From their faces and the supernatural blaze that surrounded them, they weren’t human nor were they elven people, and the only other option would be to assume they were gods. The only gods I had witnessed here on earth were the ones trapped inside dungeons, and I knew that the only other place that gods resided was in the heaven’s realm.
I watched each of them closely from Marbas’ back, and each of the four riders never attacked the Tamarisch soldiers, only the ones from Tintagal. From the way their weapons moved with precision and never missed their mark, I assumed the gods forged them just like the Eye of Alipsis. My heart beat anxiously as I watched each of them weave their way through the ranks. Though they had shown no aggression towards my soldier or my minions, I had to be ready in case I had to battle them. While I had never taken on four gods at once, I was sure I could prevail, though I feared the damage such a titanic battle would do to the surrounding mortals and the countryside itself.
“Quis es?” I called out to them in the god’s language, but only the woman with the bone-like bow looked in my direction then looked away with disinterest. The cloaked man sped past me, and I screamed to be heard over the roaring battle as my creations wreaked havoc. “Exaudi me!”
The hooded man only glanced over his shoulder at me with cold black eyes then went back to slaughtering the Tintagal soldiers without care. I was becoming enraged, I hadn’t asked for anyone’s help and yet these four, what I assumed were gods, had shown up unannounced. I didn’t need their support, and the more I watched them, the more questions came into my head as to why they were there. I watched a single arrow fly past my head and bury itself in a soldier that was attempting to sneak up on me. I turned my head and watched the gray-haired woman gallop away on the massive white bear without even a backward glance in my direction.
My creations and the Tamarisch army had nearly destroyed the Tintagal army, and now, the few remaining men were attempting to retreat up the side of the valley from where they came, but the molten lava there blocked their path. With my attention back to the battle, I urged Marbas forward, and he obliged with gusto as he ripped into the last remaining men. I glanced around the battlefield as Marbas filled his belly with Tintagal flesh and watched as Annalise tore Bloodscale loose from the back of a dead soldier and surveyed the nearly empty battlefield.
I smiled to myself as Rana stumbled over on rubbery legs, and she and the High Queen clanged their sword blades together in celebration. The redhead wiped sweat from her brow and took a deep breath as she noticed my eyes. The fox gave me a weary wave, and I lifted the God Slayer into the air as her sweet voice lifted into the air in a cheer. I could tell from her good nature that she had done surprisingly well while wielding the claymore.
After Marbas had eaten his fill of the dead soldiers, I urged him over to where the Tamarisch soldiers and my three minions regrouped. All the soldiers turned as I approached and took in the sight of the General’s head on the blades of the polearm. Adam and Amos rushed forward as they patted each other on the back and laughed loudly together.
“You surprise us every time, Master,” Adam said as he bowed his head to me, and I smiled down at him.
“Man, I wish Ansel had been here to see that damn fire hydra, he probably would have peed his pants.” Amos giggled to his twin and Adam nodded in agreement.
“Okay, but that thing with those real lanky gray creatures and the catapults? Terrifying and bloody brilliant.” Adam said as he reclined his head back to look up into my face.
“It was nothing,” I laughed lightly as I ran a hand through my hair. “Barely any power expended at all.”
“If that was only a fraction of your power, I don’t think I want to know what would happen if you went all out,” Amos said as his eyes widened.
“Man, I wish we could bring you along for all battles and wars, I don’t think we lost a single soldier today with your help,” Adam said as he turned and counted the ranks that remained on the battlefield and the rest that were headed back up to the encampment. “And Amos’s eyebrows are still intact, so that’s another victory.”
“Stop talkin’ about my damn eyebrows!” Amos shouted as he punched his older brother on the shoulder and Adam laughed heartily.
Over their shoulders, I watched as Annalise, Rana, and Morrigan made their way over with wide smiles, and the high queen strung her arms around each brother as she beamed. Her chocolate brown eyes met mine, and her smile widened as she looked up into my face.
“That was amazing, Master,” The swordswoman breathed. “You’re amazing. Every time I think I know the limits of your power, you go and impress me again.”
“Thank you, my love, but there is no need to compliment me or congratulate me. I was merely doing what I promised, to protect the people and land of Tamarisch.”
“And those other riders,” Rana cried as she threw up her paws excitedly. “Dang, they were so cool!”
I stopped and stared down at the redheaded fox for a moment as her ears trembled with exhilaration then asked, “You saw them?”
“Of course, we did! They were awesome!” Annalise cried as she reached out for me, but I stopped and moved my eyes over the remaining Tamarisch soldiers and saw none of the four riders.
“Master…” Morrigan uttered as she stepped forward and leveled her dark eyes with mine. “Did you not conjure them?”
“No,” I answered as I lifted my eyes to the crest of the opposite hill and saw four silhouettes that I barely recognized.
“Were they sent by the gods, Master?” the elven woman breathed with disbelief in her voice, and I watched as the four riders turned their backs to me and were gone over the hill.
“No,” I murmured back as I looked deeply into the darkness of her eyes. “I think they were gods.”
Chapter Six
After the battle was over, I left Marbas to feast on the dead Tintagal soldiers, and as I hiked back up from the valley, Fea and Macha lifted from Morrigan’s shoulders. The two black ravens swirled through the air as they beat their wings, and I stopped about midway to watch them for a silent moment.
Their movements were graceful and serene despite the horrific scene below. The birds moved in unison as they took turns swooping down and scooping up the released souls of the Tintagal soldiers. Their black beaks gobbled them down and while it turned the stomachs of the Tamarisch soldiers watching, it was something my minions and I were used to
seeing.
As I turned and watched my women speak animatedly to the Decathmor brothers, I wondered about the four people who had joined in the battle along with us. They seemed familiar to me but not enough for me to know their names or faces, but I felt that way about all the gods and deities we had met. No, with these four, it was if I knew them in another life long before the one I had now, but the recollections were fuzzy and had faded in my memory. The two who stuck out the most to me were the woman with gray hair and the cloaked man, they were the most familiar and deep in the pit of my stomach. I felt as if they were kin to me in some way that I couldn’t place just yet. Maybe it was the aura of hatred that poured from their presences that reminded me of myself, but still, I had so many questions and no way to find answers.
I would have only thought they were illusions or some wandering spirits of the Tintagal plains, but since my minions and the soldiers had seen them, it couldn’t be that. They had appeared and disappeared so suddenly that I hadn’t any time to stop them after the battle, and during it, well, they aided my armies. Unwanted or not, only a fool interferes with an ally.
If only I could remember where I knew them from, then maybe I could puzzle out all the clues they had left behind. All that I knew for sure was that they were gods, the woman on the bear was dying or dead, and the cloaked man possessed powers that were in some way similar to mine. He had killed four of the Tintagal men with a simple wave of his hand, and that’s what worried me the most.
These four gods could have killed all of the humans without much effort, but why had they only attacked the Tintagal side? I had formed no alliance with any gods. If anything, all the gods I once knew in the god’s realm and met in dungeons had turned against me when I fell from the heavens. Some of them knew my name, and some didn’t care enough to learn it, but most gods were selfish and self-centered enough to only care about themselves. The only god we had encountered that wasn’t that way was the goddess of Machstein, and she had been murdered because of that kindness.