Chapter 11: The Scabbard: Part One
The boy felt his flesh protest as he struggled up once more. Strangely it didn’t hurt, at least not like it should. He was aware of the damage, of his fur burning, of his muscles moving despite being stabbed by lots of splinters of metal and concrete. But even if he knew about it there wasn’t any real pain. What he did feel was a sense of wrongness, a sense that things weren’t as they should be. His wounds held him back and kept him from moving as he wanted, even if they didn’t really hurt.
Snarling he pushed to all fours once more, the movements of his beast form coming easily, instinctively. One of the stick-thin corpse things came at him, three black dogs with fire in their mouths and eyes following. His huge paw came down and all four went flying as the concrete beneath them shattered under his massive strength. They weren’t dead, but that was for the best, maybe this’d keep them out of the fight for longer.
“So futile.”
His head swung around, fast as a snake, but he still wasn’t quick enough. The spear whipped out, a slash rather than a stab, scoring a line across the boy’s furred face. The wound didn’t burn as it would have if he was in his human form, instead, it was cold, a line of ice that just missed one of his eyes. Instinctively he lashed out in return, but once more his clawed paw only his air and concrete.
The mounted hunter had dodged him with ease, his huge horse moving way too fast, and the spear lashed out again, this time tracing an icy line over the fur of his foreleg. The boy watched as the line lit up with yellowish-green flames, and suddenly wondered if the line on his face was also burning where it should be freezing.
“You are strong, but it means nothing!” The hunter declared, falling back to stare at the boy. “This can only end one way, boy. There will be no more running, no more hiding, no more escaping. This hunt only ends when you are brought down and surrender. You shall be the coin with which we purchase the freedom of our brethren!”
Even though the boy in his bear form outmassed the hunter in size it didn’t seem to make a difference. Herne still managed to loom over him, a figure that towered like some cruel cliff, unflinching and unpassable.
No! This wasn’t what he’d wanted! This wasn’t what he’d planned!
The boy felt anger and fear fighting in his stomach as he tried to psych himself up to continue the fight. Where was the angel that had been helping him? The boy had lost track of his ally when he’d been hit, but now he couldn’t see the winged figure. Where was-
“Call this meaningless!”
The shout came from the side, and the boy barely had enough time to glance that way before something tore across his field of vision. Whatever it was left a line of light seared into his sight as it passed, a line that lingered even after he closed his eyes to keep from being blinded.
It was a good thing he did so because, in the next moment, his sight went red as a blazing brightness lit up the darkness behind his closed lids. The huge bear was sent stumbling back, tearing up more of the half-collapsed warehouse as he did so. Blind and deafened he fell out of the ruins, losing his bearings. He quickly recovered, only to find himself some distance from where he’d been, separated from his ally.
That was when the attack was renewed.
In an instant more of the dogs were on him, biting, scratching, the hounds of the Hunt trying to harry their quarry into the ground. He surged back up to his feet, shaking his body, rather ironically, like a dog shaking off water. Most of the dog-like creatures flew off, but some refused to relent, their teeth and claws digging into the bear’s flesh, anchoring them.
Growling with frustration the boy tried to swipe them from him, batting at them as though they were leeches that had clung to him. Unfortunately, the body of the bear was unsuited to reaching for its back and sides, and his attempts to paw them off failed. Neither was the heat of his body deterring them. He was burning as hot as a furnace, but the beasts ignored it. in frustration the huge bear threw itself against the remains of a wall, trying to flatten the beasts against it.
The boy felt a momentary flash of satisfaction as the wet sounds of bones within flesh breaking reached his ears, but that changed to panic as the wall gave way, crashing down and leaving him unbalanced. The great bear teetered for a second, then tipped over into a rolling fall that sent up a cloud of dust as he came down.
Blearily the boy struggled to his feet once more, something made easier by having four of them in his current form. For the moment he was blessedly free of his attackers. The ones that had been on him were still recovering, and his accidental collapse of half a warehouse had formed a temporary barrier for the others. It wouldn’t last long but-
Movement to the side drew his attention! It was hard to spot, more like a flicker in the dust than anything else, but keyed up as he was the huge bear didn’t hesitate to react. One paw swung around . . . only to pause as the dust cleared and he found his target to be a man rather than a monster. He was black-haired, on the older side, had scars on his cheeks and was clutching some cloth-wrapped item to his chest as though his life depended on it. What surprised the boy was that the man didn’t look afraid. There was shock and dismay, but not fear.
The man was the first to react, dodging backwards and away from the enormous paw that had frozen in midair. His eyes were wide, but not panicked. There was calculation there, much to the boy’s surprise. Surrounded by monsters, rubble and destruction, this man was keeping himself together. The huge bear wasn’t sure how to react, pausing with indecision.
That decision was made for him as a figure came out of the dust still choking the air. It was one of the slim and dark figures from before, only now the cloak and hood other like it had worn had been torn off, revealing the features beneath. Pale skin, eyes that blazed both sulphuric yellow and green as well as blood red, and teeth, lots and lots of teeth. The boy was a bear big enough to make dinosaurs back off, but even he felt a jolt of instinctive fear seeing teeth that should have been in a shark in the mouth of a man.
“Die mortal!”
“Wha-”
The scarred man might have been dangerous, but he was taken by surprise as the pale man with hellish jaws sprang at him like some sort of hunting tiger. Belatedly the boy tried to react, his own jaws snapping forward to try to catch the attacking monster, but his oversized teeth snapped shut bare inches too short.
Both the man and the monster went down in a roll, the man just managing to get his cloth-wrapped item up between them. A smart move since it was the only thing keeping those monstrous jaws from taking a bite out of his neck. The bear tried to move to help him, but a sudden barrage of arrows shot out of the dust and thudded into his shoulder, drawing a snarl of pain from the transformed boy and forcing him to turn to face this new threat.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out the two scrabbled in the rubble. The only reason the scarred man was able to hold off his supernaturally strong attacker seemed to be that the pale-skinned man had totally given in some sort of bestial fury. He was fast and ferocious, but he was also being stupid, seeming to fixate on the wrapped item between them as though it were a personal affront to him.
Then more arrows were flying at him, and the boy turned bear had to shift his head to keep them from hitting his eyes. A paw rose and then came crashing down with the force of a boulder hurled by an ancient catapult. The broken pavement shattered further, and concrete melted into magma as heat suffused it. Molten rock surged forward in imitation of water, cresting into a wave and surging into the dust where the arrows had come from. There was a burning sizzling sound, so he knew he’d hit something, but there were no cries of pain, not even a grunt of discomfort.
He’d known it would be like this. He’d known that fighting his pursuers was practically pointless. The ones he’d killed in the past had always come back, so it hadn’t seemed worth it to try. His stand tonight had been an act of desperation, him refusing to go down without a fight.
A distant explosion reminded him what else was different tonight. The boy was not alone. There was that angel that had fought with him, and there were others out there as well. He could do this! He could win! He could-
He didn’t see the blow that took him off his paws and hurled him back into the half-collapsed warehouse. He felt the impact though, his left side going momentarily numb, then flaring up with bolts of pain as though someone had jabbed a cattle prod into his ribs. Hell, he was pretty sure some of those ribs were broken, or at least cracked. His bones had withstood a building caving in on his without issue, but now . . .
Pain and dust disoriented him, and for a moment he lost his bearings. The huge thrashed in place, on his back and his paws clawed wildly in an attempt to find some purchase to help him right himself. The display would almost have been comical, were the movements not so frantic.
“AAARGH!”
He felt his claw catch on something, something he couldn’t see. He gave it no thought though. Maybe he’d accidentally hit an invisible enemy, by this point he wouldn’t be surprised if the Hunt had something like that to throw at him. The boy yanked his paw back as he finally rolled over, hoping to drag an enemy close enough to claw and bite. Instead, he felt something rip, not flesh, but cloth.
Then the world went nuts!
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“Ow . . .”
I let out a sound of complaint as I forced myself back to my feet, my wings unfolding and pushing off a heavy covering of debris as I did so. The air was thick with dust and smoke, and the sea was slowly flowing in to fill the massive crater that now took the place of the ruined warehouse I’d been fighting in. I couldn’t even see where the bear I’d been fighting alongside had gone, and that thing had been bigger than some trucks I’d seen.
Okay, that hadn’t been my best idea.
Sure, it had worked. I couldn’t see Herne anywhere, and the last time I had seen him he and his horse had been tumbling through the air as though they’d been hit by an invisible giant. That was to the good, what wasn’t was the fact that I felt as though the same invisible giant had then turned around and used me as a football. That move definitely had potential, but I was going to have to get better at using it.
The general idea was simple enough, drag as much energy under my control as I could, condense it, then chuck it at my enemy and watch the fireworks. Not the most sophisticated example of energy manipulation, but it had the virtue of simplicity. Well, in theory anyway.
It was something of a modification of his basic TK bolts. Those were made by compressing Arcana magic, impressing my will on it and then blasting it off. What I’d tried here was a cruder application on a larger scale. Rather than using Arcana, I’d drawn in everything, not just raw mana from myself and the ambient energy. It had been all the free-floating elemental magic I could drag in, fire, earth, dust, sea, stone, air, night, starlight, everything that made up the world around me. Sure, it was only trace amounts of each, the bulk of the energy being drawn from my own reserves, but it all added up.
The result had been a massive globe of roiling mana almost as big as I was which I barely had any control over. Technically it had been a success since it hadn’t blown up in my face and I’d been able to shoot it at Herne. But given that it had exploded before hitting him, meaning I got caught in the blast as well . . .
Yeah, not my best work.
Still, it wasn’t a total failure. There’d been power there, lots of it, enough to put my previous best to shame. I’d only been caught in the outer edge of the blast and it had been enough to send me crashing into a brick wall hard enough to crack it, but Herne had been much closer, at least I’d managed that much. I didn’t imagine it was a winning move, but that had to do something, right?
“You . . .”
I took a certain vindictive pride in the fact I could hear the pain in that single word. The problem was that there was also plenty of anger as well. Before, Herne had been treating me as a pest to be put down, one unworthy of his proper attention. Now . . . I think I’d managed to get under his skin.
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The wind swirled, a strong gust gathering the dust and smoke, then carrying it away, revealing the battlefield.
Herne no longer rode on his horse. In fact, I couldn’t see the steed anywhere, making me wonder if I’d managed to take it out. Herne himself clearly hadn’t come away from my attack unscathed. One of his antlers was broken, his furs were visibly torn and a thin line of blood dripped down his left leg. It seemed to be mostly superficial, and he certainly wasn’t moving like someone who’d been hurt, but hey . . . I’d made a god bleed! That had to count for something, right?
. . . just how hard had I hit that wall?
“I was going to show you some mercy,” the words came out of the Horned God like boulders grinding against each other as they began an avalanche. “You and the boy are brave, and that warrants some respect, some forbearance.”
He paused, and the butt of his spear slammed into the ground the already cracked concrete vanishing into dust beneath the supernatural wooden shaft.
“But defiance has a price. You may take pride in forcing me to treat you as a serious foe, but must also offer up a payment of pain and blood.”
Okay . . . that didn’t sound good. I was still feeling a bit loopy like I couldn’t quite get my feelings to properly connect with what was going on. I knew it was a real danger, but I didn’t feel afraid. Instead, I just felt . . . giddy? Amused? As though it were a joke, rather than a serious threat.
Damn, I might really have a concussion. I knew it was a real problem, but somehow it just added to the joke. I barely held back a laugh as I tried to ready myself for combat, only to stumble sideways. The world swam slightly, and my wings made it harder to stay steady as my balance wavered, but at least I didn’t fall over.
As it turned out, my luck must have been working overtime, because right after I regained my balance the wall beside me cratered inwards as a mass of vines and wood slammed into the spot my head had been only a second or two before. I blinked at it stupidly for a moment, almost burst out laughing, and then barely managed to get my shield up in time to block the second attack.
It was like being hit by a living battering ram, as though some part of a forest had decided I was their mortal enemy and lashed out with a limb as thick as a tree trunk that moved like a striking viper. My shield held, but the sheer force of the impact took me off my feet and hurled me back against the wall I’d been standing against. Still, even though I hadn’t had the presence of mind to brace myself, I had instinctively formed a spherical shield around me, not a flat pane in front of me. My impulse to go for full protection saved me a lot of pain as the shield protected me from the brick wall, even as I was slammed through it.
My head was still ringing, but I swiped out with an arm, the clear grey-white colour of wind instinctively being drawn on, and a short savage gust cleared the area about me, and sent the loose debris hurtling at Herne. The god raised his spear, and a wall of vines and trunks burst out of the concrete to shield him.
It bought me some time though, and I used it to get higher up and to reinforce my shield bubble. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could beat Herne, but I was pretty sure I could stall him. Whatever was holding up my companions couldn’t last forever. I mean, what could be holding up Kali? I literally couldn’t think of anything that could stonewall someone like her, especially if she brought out her Destruction power. I could see her being delayed, but not indefinitely. The same went for all the others to one degree or another. Athena and Hadriel were consummate divine warriors, and Joan wasn’t far behind. All I needed to do was hold out until reinforcements got to me.
“Your struggles only serve to prolong your punishment,” the Horned God declared. He waved his spear and all about him more spectral hounds began to form. First a handful, then more and more until there had to be dozens of them. In response, I reached out to the rubble around me, picking up the largest chunks and levitating them up beside me. Out of all my attacks it had been the debris I’d shot that Herne had bothered to block. I didn’t know if that meant it was a weakness, or if it simply meant he didn’t want to get any dirtier, but I was going to follow it up. If he didn’t like that then I’d see how he liked his own personal meteor storm!
There was a brief pause as I readied my attack, and the huge pack of ghost dogs crouched and readied themselves. Then . . .
GOLD! Perfect, pure and shining! This wasn’t the gold that was hoarded in greed, not the gold that nations lusted for and based their wealth upon. This was the gold of the top, the apex, the victor! The gold of medals, crowns and laurels! It was the gold that was striven for, that was respected and held up as the reward of effort and brilliance!
The sense of it washed across the battlefield like a tide, and everyone just . . . stopped. In that instant neither me nor Herne were paying any attention to each other, the conflict between us forgotten as both our heads snapped over in the same direction. Sensing where the golden power radiated from was trivial at best, you might as well have been trying to find the sun in the sky on a hot summer’s day, it was that easy. I blinked in surprise as I realised that the huge form of the bear I’d allied myself with was right over next to it, so close it was practically touching it. As for the source . . .
It lay there on the ground, partly wrapped in cloth but enough of it visible to identify it, even at a glance.
“That . . . that is the scabbard of the Albion’s guardian king!”
The world seemed to slow as I tried to process what I’d just heard. King Arthur’s scabbard? Here? How? Why? Was this why the Oracle had sent us here?
I didn’t think, I just dived, reaching out with Arcana as I did so, trying to pull the scabbard to me even as I shot towards it! I did it all as fast as I could, but Herne reacted almost as fast. I’d moved first, but he was closer. Just as the sheath started to come off the ground his spear came down on it, like a hunter stabbing down on a leaping fish.
His hand reached for it . . . and I did something incredibly smart, or maybe incredibly stupid. I didn’t slow down, instead I poured on the speed! Herne just had time to grab the scabbard before I ploughed into him. At any other time it would have been suicidal, an open invitation to be run through by his spear. I’d seen how fast he was with that thing, and I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it. At that moment though, he was the most distracted he’d been since this fight started, his spear was out of position and his free hand was occupied. It was the best option I had, so I crashed into him with all the force I could muster, swinging at his head as I did so.
Yes, I’d caught him flat-footed, his focus on the sheath rather than me, and I got a good hit in, a punch packing not just all my strength, but also all the force of the momentum of my flight. I’m pretty sure Kali would have approved, since it sent the Horned God staggering. I saw his grip on the sheath loosen, and I savagely yanked on it with my TK, my halo singing as I shoved all the power I could into the action.
The move was partly successful, the scabbard shot towards me as though I’d wrapped it in invisible chains and the other ends were attached to to a speeding train. There was just one problem, Herne refused to let go.
“Insolent brat!”
I could practically taste the frustration dripping from those two words as his spear shot towards me, but I’d been expecting it. The weapon was still wickedly fast, stabbing out like a viper, but an overdose of adrenaline had sharpened my senses to a razor edge, and I knew where it’d come from. I wasn’t as fast, but this time I was the one that had moved first, my left wing sweeping up, the hardened sword-like feathers smashing into the side of the spearpoint, a screeching noise like an iron nail on a chalkboard clawing at my ears. I didn’t think my feathers could have stood up to a direct blow, but they were up to parrying the spear to the side.
I just had time to see his eyes widen in surprise, then they were obscured as I slammed my fist into the skull mask that he wore.
That might have been a mistake. I felt pain shoot up my arm as I felt a bone in my hand crack at the impact. The punch had been strong, but it hadn’t been perfect. The impact hadn’t just been on my knuckles, I was pretty sure the bone ridges of the mask had snapped at least one of my fingers.
Herne was sent stumbling again, the skull mask he wore now cracked and a trick of blood running down his cheek. Even so, he still held onto the scabbard with a death grip, fighting my Arcana even as I kept up the pressure. All around us, the spectral dogs he’d summoned milled around, their eyes fixed on the sheath as though it were a side of fresh meat, but otherwise unmoving. Their body language was confused, and uncertain, as though they were waiting for orders that hadn’t come and dared not do anything until they came.
I took it all in out of the corner of my eyes, but most of my attention remained squarely fixed on the Horned God as I refused to let up for even a second!
My right wing came around, trying to stab its sharpened feathers into his bare left arm. The black lines tattooed on his skin lit up with a dark green light and the sword-like feather just . . . slowed. It wasn’t as though anything was resisting me, but instead, it was as though the distance my wing was trying to cover had grown. It was still moving, but that last inch had instead become a thousand yards!
“RRRAAGH!”
My surprise only gave him a small opening, but Herne seized it ruthlessly. His cracked mask slammed into my face, the headbutt throwing me backwards as he was too close for my shield to defend me. my face creased into a snarl as I gestured sharply with my broken hand, ignoring the pain. In response a spike of rock shot up from the ground, trying to impale the god, but he was already moving out of the way, his chains rattling as he threw the sheath away!
I goggled in surprise at the move, then cursed myself as I saw a figure grab the thrown scabbard. At first glance, it was a man, but a second look made me notice the pale skin, the yellow-green pits of fire for eyes, and the teeth that I’d seen far too many times in horror films. The vampire-like man caught the treasure, then hissed as his hands smoked where they touched the exposed metal. Still, he didn’t let go, instead, he darted backwards shifting his grip so he only touched the cloth.
“Take it!” Herne roared, not taking his eyes off me as he did so. “This is what we need! With this, we can repay the Old Bloods, free our brethren, reclaim Queen Maeve’s honour! I shall hold him off! GO!”
I had to swallow a curse as I tried to send Arcana telekinesis at the new threat, but somehow Herne slashed his spear through the magic before I could reach him, the Arcana falling apart before I could get a grip. And just like that, the situation was reversed. Now I was the one that was forced to act and Herne was the one who only had to worry about buying time. Damn it! Every advantage I’d had was either gone or reduced, the Horned God was definitely stronger than I was, and unless I somehow managed to catch him off guard again I wasn’t going to be able to hurt him nearly as badly again.
Then there was no time for more thoughts. Flames roared up in my hands, twin pools of heat that I condensed and fired at Herne as fast as I could. He brought up his spear and swatted at the flames, batting them away as though a phantom hurricane had suddenly ripped them from the air. Behind him, the pale man was turning, getting ready to run. I tried to think of something to do, anything, but nothing came to mind that wouldn’t be stopped by Herne. Snarling I reached out to the sea with one hand, even as I started to build up lightning in my other.
Then a roar split the air, and the pale man disappeared in a blur of brown and burning red. His body slammed into the concrete a few metres away, twisted and broken but still burning with the discoloured flames that I knew would help him recover. What didn’t go with him was the scabbard, which was instead caught in the mouth of the huge bear that had re-entered the fight.
“NO!”
Herne turned, reaching for the sheath, I saw my chance! Lightning stabbed out like a spear, but even distracted as he was the horned god reacted, his own weapon darting out to bat the lightning away even as he hurled himself at the giant bear. The massive beast saw him coming and lashed out with a paw, and I flung myself forward as fast as he could.
Everything happened at once, one action blurring into the next in a chaotic mess that I could barely keep track of. The bear tried to pull back, but Herne’s spear stabbed out, piercing flesh and impaling bone. Despite the huge size difference, the bear's movements were arrested, the spear in its face holding it in place like a nail when it tried to shy back. In the same movement, the horned god lunged forward, his left hand clamping down on the sheath and yanking it back as the bear’s mouth opened in reflexive pain. Then my left wing stabbed into Herne’s back, the sword-like feathers running straight through him, piercing his heart and both lungs at least, maybe even his stomach and liver too
“Huurrk!”
It was the first exclamation of pain that Herne had made in the entire fight. Not letting myself think of just what I was doing I twisted my wing, turning the bladed feathers inside him. If he’d been mortal it would have shredded his entire torso.
Herne wasn’t a mortal though. Even though he’d been run through by something like five swords there wasn’t even a drop of blood. Instead, that damned yellowish-green fire spilt out, licking around my feathers. Strangely it didn’t burn, but I could feel it slithering over my wings, more like cold slime than burning fire.
“RRRAAAHHHH!”
The huge bear didn’t let the chance pass. Even with the god’s spear sticking out of its muzzle the bear didn’t hesitate. Its jaws came round, closing on the impaled god like some kind of industrial machine. I swore I could hear the cracking and snapping of bones as the bear shook its head.
I saw a glint of gold, and my attention was dragged away to where the wrapped form of King Arthur’s scabbard lay. Without hesitation, I reached out with my magic and pulled it to me as hard as I could. The sheath shot at me like a cannonball, hitting my outstretched arms with enough force that it actually hurt, regardless of my enhanced durability. Still, I wrapped my arms around it as though I was a starving man just handed a full baguette sandwich with all the trimmings.
“NO!”
Herne’s reaction was immediate and violent! As he shouted the word the ground around him exploded! Dozens of roots, each as thick as a tree trunk speared up through the concrete, shredding the few nearby buildings. The bear took the brunt of it though. At least twenty roots slammed into it, the force so great that even as massive as it was the beast staggered back as though struck by a truck. Even worse, though the bear’s hide resisted most of the roots, three broke through, impaling it through the shoulders and side. Blood closer to molten metal than biological plasma, gushed out, sizzling as it hit the ruined pavement.
For its part the bear slumped in place, the fight having gone out of it. I could hear a low whine coming from it, a pained animal noise that tugged at me.
Herne staggered to his feet, dragging my attention away from the bear and back to him. The god was hurt, wounds that would have killed a mortal a dozen times over wracked his body, but he burned with that unnatural fire, and he refused to go down. Leaning on his spear, now pulled from the bear’s bones, as though it were a staff, he glared at me.
“That sheath . . . give it to me, or I swear I shall tear you apart and take it from your corpse!”
It wasn’t a boast or an attempt at a bluff, there was too much vitriol, too much malice. That was a promise, one I could bet my life on. One I was betting my life on. I could feel fear trying to get a hold on me, I could feel doubts and uncertainties clawing at the back of my mind.
He could do it, I was sure! I’d seen those others recovering from being smashed into paste, from being burnt all the way down to ashes. Herne was hurt, but those damned yellow-green flames were already starting to work at the edges of his wounds. I could keep fighting, but . . . would I do anything? Could I win? Every injury I inflicted healed, and I could see other figures drawing closer in the dust and debris, eyes shining in the dark with yellow and green fire. Could I really keep the scabbard? Would he really kill me?
I wavered . . . unsure of what to do. I was tired, I felt like I was just banging my head against a brick wall, and my only ally was bleeding, down and in pain. In that moment, I didn’t know which way I’d choose.
Then the choice was made for me.