Chapter 196: Harrakan Viv’s Instant Portable Rearmament Program

Once again, the Pure League called for salvation and once again, the Dark Blades answered. They left their fortress, their families. They fled the light of the day to gather in secret spots so that they may snatch victory from the jaws of disaster. Those of them that were left, anyway.

 

It was a thankless task. Deeds carried out in the dark so that others may reap the rewards, bask in the glory, as always. The Dark Blades would fight and bleed against impossible odds before disappearing back into the whispers of late night taverns.

 

To slay the Empress of Harrak, five cadres had gathered. Almost fifty Dark Blades. It was all that could be spared. They had met near the Frontier Citadel on their way to the Steppes. Quietly, they had traveled through the tall grass in thin lines, leaving the world undisturbed behind them. No one had seen them. Even the predators that dwelled there could not catch the elusive assassins. The Dark Blades were the shadows under Luten’s extended fist, and their reach was long indeed. The Empress would be found. The Empress would be killed. To make sure they fulfilled their role, the cadres had brought a tool of great power the likes of which even Enttiku’s servants envied. It was the Dark Blade, their namesake, and it would be wielded by Shon.

 

It was a great honor. All the blade’s wielders had their name inscribed on the obsidian stone at the heart of the oldest fortress where the elders gathered. Shon had been chosen as the new generation’s most promising student despite her humble origins. Even now, her fingers ached to touch the hilt of the revered weapon. It hung at her side like an itch that craved to be satisfied, always calling, and it had a weight of its own. The old masters always said one should not bring a new knife to war, but one should practice a hundred times first. Not so for Shon. She had never even drawn it. She wanted to so badly. Surely, she would have the chance. It was said the Empress was a dangerous caster with proficient defenses. The Harrakan beast would not fall that easily, and Shon would have her chance.

 

Finding the remnants of the Red Tribe proved surprisingly tedious. Not difficult, as the kark made no efforts to hide, but longer than usual because they would not come out to meet the pacifying expedition. Everyone knew the kark were simple creatures with hot blood who could not stop to think about, well, anything. The fact they waited could only mean that the empress had a way to control them.

 

“Iron, I bet. Those beasts would do anything for iron. Even when we were hanging the brutes I could see their warriors look at our shiniest armor. They’re like those shine-obsessed birds Baranese countesses keep as pets,” Jal whispered near the blinded campfire.

 

It was a foolish thing, to give iron to the kark, Shon thought. They would just take it and then turn on you once the iron ran out.

 

“It’ll all end once you slide that thing between her ribs, right?” Jal added, his eyes hungrily searching her flank.

 

Shon didn’t react. Jal and her had shared a bed before, but since she had been chosen to carry the blade, he had grown bitter. She could not let that affect her on her first mission. True wielders were beyond petty emotions. She would prove to everyone the choice of the Elders was the correct one.

 

***

 

Two weeks into the trip and as supplies dwindled, the cadres came upon a kark patrol. Shon got to see what her seniors were capable of once fully unleashed. A dozen kark fell in seconds, throats severed before they could cry in alarm. It was a grisly spectacle but it also made her feel better about their chances.

 

“Don’t let that get to your head,” her mentor whispered as he cleaned the blood off. “Encampments are more protected. Their hunters are to be feared.”

 

Shon nodded with confidence. She wasn’t stupid. If the kark were harmless, then there wouldn’t be so many empty bunks back at their secret fortress. The kark were not very smart but they were cunning, and they liked traps. She would not lower her guard.

 

“No food,” her mentor signed to the group after a brief search.

 

Shon knew what that meant. The main camp must be close if their warriors didn’t bother keeping food reserves on them. Finally, after days of tracking, they had it. No more following old tracks through dusty trails and the wind howling overhead. It was time for her to make history. The cadre leaders signaled that they would spread out to engage now, just in case, and prepare to infiltrate the encampment. At first, the only thing Shon felt was relief. Finally, things were happening. This was soon replaced by tension. Fear escalated when the group followed the tracks north, then west, with the wind at their back. It was an apprehension that went beyond mere stress, since Shon wasn’t green either. Fear pressed on her shoulders and the back of her neck like a waterlogged cape. She knew others must have felt it too from the ways their heads swiveled like mad wind vanes. Cadres covered each other. This was the way. Shon just trusted the others as she focused on the path in front of her, as was her duty.

 

The cadres entered deeper grasses then. The camp had to be closeby. Shon could see a faint brilliance in the distance, though the wind meant they wouldn’t smell the pakar until they were atop of them. The terror she felt only increased with every step she made. Gritting her teeth, she fought it off. It was nothing but nerves, a weakness that true Dark Blades hammered out over years of service. She would triumph over it as she had triumphed over the others obstacles on her path. Emotions were fleeting things. They could not rule her life.

 

A few of the others gasped when the fear reached a peak. It was at this precise moment Shon finally understood that something was very wrong.

 

It could not be mere nerves if everyone else felt it as well. The anguish rose to a crescendo of terror when the intent behind it revealed itself. It was a cold malice of draconic patience, as uncaring as the void, and patient, not in a way a wise woman is patient but in the way a volcano is. That merciless intent was coming from above.

 

Left and right, muted sounds of battle erupted at the same time. They were under attack, assaulted by an enemy entire cadres hadn’t seen coming, and yet Shon didn’t care. That malice, it came from above them.

 

Black mana saturated the air, killing every bit of vegetation for hundreds of paces. Green stalks withered in an instant, falling to dust until the assassins stood on a field of death, exposed like scars on shaven skin. Still, Shon could not move. Above. Look above.

 

Black tendrils and two emerald-colored lights.

 

A dozen projectiles flew up, including Shon’s own dart, but they hissed against a sphere of nothingness. For a weightless moment, everyone Shon knew was still alive, then the sphere was among them.

 

It exploded. Jal took a fragment of the void in his shoulders and it just… disappeared. The thing was among them, killing them. A flailing mass of hair-thin whips tore through the air and two members of her cadre while she managed to get out of the way. Another thrown dart disappeared against a humanoid shape made of liquid darkness that blinked away an instant later. Shon knew this was her target because nothing else she’d ever seen could even come close, but when she tried to follow, her skill stuttered.

 

Shon reappeared a step away from where she intended to be. In the distance, cadre masters fought against swirling figures and lost. It was impossible and yet, they lost. A brief glance revealed why.

 

[Hadal Firstborn]

 

She refused to believe it. They were supposed to have died off before the Pure League was formed. She had known this all her life, yet here they were, flashes in the dark. And she couldn’t help. Her target was here. Shon’s first assault turned into a mad backward dash when the supposedly unmoving witch was replaced by a hurricane of spells clawing, tearing, piercing… it never stopped… and then the spell storm teleported again. Shon struggled to keep up, her skill refusing to obey. The sigils of black mana shook between her practiced hands. Mana was pulled as if by a vortex towards that… thing, and it didn’t stop killing. It was like trying to catch up with a natural disaster. There was no exposed flesh. There was only annihilation mana. Shon used the meaning of shadow for a brief moment of respite and she was not the only one. The surviving members of her cadre rushed at her back… what she presumed to be the back. The Dark Blades’ shadow spell melted on top of them.

 

One of the blades clanged against an actual shield. Shon spotted a flash of patchwork metal before her mentor was swallowed by magic. She existed. She was there. They just had to…

 

The master who should have struck unimpeded was torn in half. All of Shon’s skills broke at the same time. There were eyes under the layers of protective mana.

 

“You are trying to kill a black elemental…” the voice began mockingly.

 

It moved again. It killed again. Hiding didn’t work. Shon looked for an opening but there was none. She was already out of throwing darts.

 

“…with black mana.”

 

The voice felt so distant and uncaring just as Shon’s life was falling apart. Mentor was supposed to tell her to use the Dark Blade, but he was dead. She didn’t have the time. Everyone was dead or dying. She had to do it. She should have done it before, and curse looking for openings.

 

Her hand found the hilt as if called there. She cleared the blade with a cry of agony.

 

It hurt so much. The power refused her at first, then it dug into her soul with ravenous fury. The pain scoured her mind and soul. She pushed through it with a last effort of will.

 

Shon blinked. She was charging forward, blade in hand. Suddenly, she wasn’t scared anymore. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she was doing. The blade guided her body as she strained and ran under and over spells that could cut an armored knight to ribbons. She knew with absolute certainty she would land the blow.

 

She was a vessel for the Dark Blade. Someone was going to die. Even as the hail of spells tore through what was left of her allies she knew the terrible weapon would find flesh. It was already written. It was fate. The blade hissed through the air.

 

A woman interposed herself between the elemental hell and the coming doom. Shon’s eyes widened. The woman had gray wispy hair and sad yellow eyes. What Shon recognized there was altruism. Sacrifice. The notion sickened her.

 

The Dark Blade finished its course in the air when something stopped Shon in her tracks. It was a strange blade, long like a spear, and it extended from the woman’s back.

 

Fate broke. What was written was forgotten. The blade hovered, its edge unsated.

 

“Ah,” a voice said. “I knew all this practice with Solar would eventually pay off.”

 

The Dark Blade dropped from Shon’s fingers. The creature’s wing had extended, pinning the young assassin back like a thrusting spear. Shon had been stabbed by a wing? It wasn’t really even there!

 

Nobody could have so much damn luck.

 

It was over. She was done.

 

The battle was already finished.

 

The monster turned into a woman with strange hair and a pale skin tone, her eyes those she’d seen before. Those were the only truly inhuman features if one didn’t count the wings. Around her, accursed hadals gathered in bursts of shadowy magic.

 

The woman gingerly picked the Dark Blade’s hilt between two fingers. She frowned and said something in a lilting tongue Shon had never heard before.

 

“Nasty thing,” she continued in accented northerner. “I’m keeping it.”

 

“No…”

 

“You are in luck. I need someone to deliver a message. Tell them what happened here.”

 

Shon froze. What was going on? Was she going to live after all? When everyone else had died? Just like that?

 

Suddenly, she was faced with two emerald rings and a fresh layer of terror.

 

“This is the part where you run.”

 

And so, she did.

***

 

“That is a cruel thing to do to a child,” Viv remarked as the girl fled.

 

“She does not know?” Irao whispered.

 

He was the only one who talked. All the other Hadals preferred to sign, and now that the action was finally over, half of them were already spreading out. She noticed that the ladies didn’t leave alone, a sign that even older Hadals were, ah, very healthy.

 

Irao was being polite by staying with her, which she appreciated.

 

The fate of the girl left her a bit sad, though.

 

If you come across this story on Amazon, it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“I don’t think so, not the way she was wielding the blade anyway. I suspect they gave it to one of the youths just for that reason. Accursed thing.”

 

Viv sniffed. Some artifacts were relatively harmless, like the Mirror of the People in the iron mines or Arthur’s coin purse. Others had a will of their own. It took a master assassin to wield the Dark Blade without cost. The girl was too young, unworthy, so the weapon was killing her. Viv felt it in the way her life mana flickered with every strike. She had two months of life left provided she stopped using it at all.

 

“The old ones should be ashamed to sacrifice one of their apprentices,” Viv spat. “Well, whatever, it’s done and I feel much better already. I see one of your men has already looted everything…”

 

“The hunters need more pointy things.”

 

“Should we head back then?”

 

“There are things we must discuss, first,” Irao drawled.

 

“Discuss? Well, of course,” Viv said.

 

It was probably the first time in two years Irao had felt the need to discuss that she could remember.

 

“What needs discussing?”

 

“The Dark Blade is a powerful artifact. Its call, perhaps you can feel it. It promises power. It tells you that with it in hand, you can face any foe. It might be true but the price is too high. Even if you were from Luten, it would still gnaw at you like a trapped hound…”

 

“I absolutely agree.”

 

“You must cast it away. Destroy it.”

 

“Well duh, I’m not carrying a completely cursed item around like some kind of moron just waiting for a catastrophe to happen. I have a solution that will solve this problem forever.”

 

There was silence.

 

“What?”

 

“You have tempted the fates before. You have rescued us.”

 

“You are not cursed?”

 

“And Solfis.”

 

“Still not cursed.”

 

“You have gathered many things that you were warned not to collect.”

 

“Prejudice isn’t a curse, it’s just people being irrational. Anyway, don’t worry, we’re getting rid of it as soon as we’re back at camp.”

 

“Very well…” Irao said in a voice that meant he’d kept a very close eye on her. “I want to ask something else. Why let the girl go? Mercy?”

 

“My dear Irao. If you want to win without a fight, you need a reputation. If you want a reputation, you must leave survivors. And what about you? Not tempted by the Dark Blade?”

 

“No. Bad tool. I don’t need it.”

 

“You could kill an avatar with that thing.”

 

“Viv.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I don’t need it.”

 

***

 

A shadow flew south, high in the clouds where the world became a cotton labyrinth that left dew on her white wings. The shadow could not enjoy it, however.

 

Ten gold talents.

 

Ten gold talents.

 

This is a good price.

 

And for a good cause.

 

Ten gold talents.

 

The shadow approached the center of Enoria, near Regnos and its lone volcano. Far below, Enorian warpriests hunted scattered defiled creatures of cancerous flesh. The aberrants fought back with dumb viciousness.

 

The shadow approached the crater from up high. Thick smoke escaped from a vent, and below glowered the reddish embers of the planet’s blood.

 

The shadow dove.

 

It’s ten gold talents.

 

The shadow dropped the Dark Blade into the vent, where it slowly sank into bubbling heat.

 

Mother wasn’t sure that the artifact could be destroyed, but if it could, then an extended magma bath was a pretty good bet.

 

Ten gold talents.

 

The shadow flew away on quick wings, thinking dark thoughts.

 

I am NOT a glorified courier service.

 

I do this for the gold.

 

I am a smart dragon.

 

Ten gold talents is ten gold talents.

 

***