“Okami!” Alex shouted. “How much further?”
“Soon.” Okami grunted. He was strong, but carrying five people was more than he'd done before. “Stop asking and help me!” Astrid did so, casting the quickstep enchantment on the great wolf. It didn't work quite as well as it did with humans, but it did. And that was all she could do, panicked at the idea that Sigi had rushed off into unknown danger. “Get off!”
“W-what!?” Astrid stammered, but even as she asked the question – she saw the figure hurtling in their direction. Smashing through the few sparse cacti and rocks alike, thrown about like a child and pitting the earth every time a limp limb struck the ground. A vaguely human shaped projectile with a gaping whole missing in the center of it.
“Get off me now!” Okami growled, bucking to loosen their grips, his back covered with the wind bitten bodies of their companions hanging tightly onto his fur. Too late. The armored body flying at them far too quickly to dodge. If not for Brenn's quick action in drawing his shield and knocking 'it' aside with a shout, it would've taken them all off. The man, as it appeared, careened off of the shield and shattered a nearby boulder in the impact. Rising without apparent injury otherwise, shooting forward on jets of fire, spinning from his downed position and stabilizing as soon as he'd noticed them.
“Tyr!” Okami shouted, but the familiar friend didn't turn – only offering one piece of advice.
“Get Sigi out of here, and run. As far and fast as you can.”
They followed him with mixed expressions, they could hear the fighting now. Loud clangs and combustion's of spells connecting. Hundreds of shouting voices by the sounds of it. Just beyond the line of scattered rocks in their path, they saw Sigi – currently straddled and being beaten into the dirt by...
Tyr? Alex jerked her head to the side, but he was just... No longer above them, by the looks of it, the skies were clear.
Who else but he would be willing to break taboo and assault his own lawful wife, going so far as to strike her with closed fists until Sigi's head was bouncing off the ground. Bludgeoning her senseless, but she was giving back as good as she got, a flurry of fists, the pair rolling through the dusty earth like tomcats.
“Tyr!?” Brenn roared angrily, pulling the hammer from his belt and charging. He started quick, but his pace began to peter off quickly. There were... Tyr's... fighting other Tyr's...? Dozens of them, all wrestling with one another. Disemboweling one another. And then there was one. A dozen. One again. It was akin to mirage, the figures all around the fight in the middle were indistinct, before blinking away with a finality as soon as they'd noticed the new arrivals. All of them facing the newly arrived group before vanishing. Maybe they'd never been there at all, leaving only one – still in the process of wrestling with Sigi.
Brenn charged, dauntless through the wild spells being cast by both man and woman. Shouldering through the hail that rattled his buckler and smarter at him. Both were releasing tremendous amounts of mana in all directions, spraying without a care in the world, Tyr a bonfire of scarlet and Sigi throwing chunks of earth smashed apart by the former.
But Brenn favored close range, a weakness now, unable to do much more than defend at the moment. Left lost and confused at what was happening here. Alex got to Tyr first, her fingers extended to let loose a thick bolt of lightning that blew him from his feet and sent him flying. Sigi was battered and bruised, but not overly injured – she'd committed herself well, always so tough in both body and spirit. Brenn made to drag her from the front but she slapped his hand away angrily, trying her best to catch her breath.
Astrid appeared from the rear, weaving light spells together, simultaneously healing and enchanting them all. Barriers of hard geometric light sheathing their limbs, barely visible in a wire-frame outline of intricate white patterns hovering an inch from the flesh.
The 'Tyr's' were back – and madness came with them. A battlefield of clones struggling to murder one another by the looks of it, with all variety of weapons and different brands of magic. Differences in their appearance at closer inspection. Some were small, others were giants among men standing eight feet tall, a handful were women, and some didn't appear to be human at all – four armed and blue of skin. The only similarity seemed to be the snow white color of their hair, that never changed.
“This is my fight!” Sigi cried angrily. Weeping in a display of uncharacteristic and emotional panic, her cheeks streaked with tears and her voice hoarse as if in the midst of a panic attack. “Go away! He said you can't be here!” She wasn't looking at or even addressing Brenn, she was looking at... By the path of her eyes... Astrid?
But Tyr gave them no time to recover, his heels lit up again with fire magic. Howling like the wolf they called him, he blurred from his position with sword raised to prove Sigi's warning correct, albeit ambiguous, but Brenn was ready. Thought he'd been, at least. Tyr might've at one time been a markedly unremarkable mage, but at no point had the man been physically unfit. He was fast, had fair reflexes and near extra-sensory instincts, all of the battlemage proctors had always rated him very highly as a martial combatant. To say 'swordsman' was a misnomer, Tyr trained with all weapons, he simply favored the long because it was the best weapon he had.
Ignoring the 'primus' identifier that had made him seem a disappointment to so many people, he was a prodigy. Already a subjective advanced practitioner of the panther form, picking up quite a few more over the years and earning intermediacy of them all. Someone who never allowed himself to slacken, not for a single day, on his rigorous physical routine.
Tyr would often wave it away, claiming to have unlimited stamina, but Brenn saw the ethic – the man got tired if only mentally and yet never bowed to it. No breaks, he said, what must've been a profane obsession with meeting expectations and proving everyone who'd doubted him wrong through naught but raw action.
And he was about that action now, as it would happen.
The force Tyr's intricately etched boot generated was incredible, connecting with the shield and sending him sliding across the ground with a broken arm. A wrathful blow that opened Tyr's leg up like the pedals of a flower, the bones splintering through the skin. Brenn often sparred with the man but he'd never seen him like this. Hadn't believed him capable of that kind of power, either.
Alex did as she had before, spraying him with vivid lightning tongues of crackling lightning. Her specialty, unbridled control over electricity. “Stop, Tyr!”
Tyr faced it full on, head down and eyes forward, screaming with all his might. By voice alone he sent the spell wild, dashed along the ground, a bestial trumpet alien to a human throat that erupted in waves of irritating spira. Always some new trick, never impressive enough to be relieved that he'd reached his potential, just enough to aggravate her in how little it made sense.
Through the dust thrown about by the shock of it, Alex observed there were bodies everywhere. Scores of remains to indicate some great battle had taken place, many of them fresh kills. But none of them had time to consider the context of the ruined compound and the corpses all around it. All they knew was that Tyr was very seriously and clearly trying to kill Sigi first, before switching his attention to Astrid. Staring at her like he'd never seen anything he hated more than that single woman in his entire life. Their only advantage being that he couldn't seem to decide which to focus all of his attentions on, twitching and rubbing at his arms in discomfort. Akin to the strung out junkies often found around dreamleaf dens, it wasn't a good look, eyes bloodshot and breathing in hoarse rasps.
“Please go away!” Sigi cried again. A great many bones in her body were broken, only rising courtesy of the inner harness of her armor. She could feel several of her ribs grinding together agonizingly, and then the itching heat of healing magic as Astrid helped to relieve the discomfort. Awkwardly summoning a wall of earth with one hand and spraying water to stop Tyr's flames with the other. Not many existed on this world that could fight so crisply in the dire state her body was in, a few moments later and she might've been dead.
Tyr had been very clear, that he could 'smell Astrid' and that he'd kill her if she did. Lunatic whispers about how she, as in Astrid, had betrayed Tyr – cursed him. Made him miserable for all eternity, great pains and 'shattered glass'. He wouldn't stop, and when Sigi had insisted that Astrid would never do these things to him – Tyr had erupted in a rage and attacked her.
Then... A stalemate, with her in the middle, Tyr suddenly slowed in his violence for the first time since he'd risen again.
“Not a chance.” Tythas grimaced. Tyr's fire carried a fair bit of light magic, always had, and the man was no good with dark whether it be using it or warding properly against the element. Scissors and paper, paper and scissors. A counter for a counter. The earthen wall began to melt and crack at the force of all of the heat the man was producing, and Tythas met it with a wave of darkness – stopping it in its tracks, resulting in little more than a warm gust of air. Hopping over the low wall and hammering Tyr with a javelin shaped bolt of shadow flung from a hand – catching the man in the leg and sending him face first into the ground.
Next came the necromancy, the subject he'd been the most talented in, a once in a generation practitioner, that's what Professor Urden claimed. Accessing the forbidden in that moment, breaking the law in desperation as he plucked as many scattered remains up as he could. The bones clacking together – whipping across the ground and sloughing themselves. Tythas didn't like the meat, removing as much of it as he could – it served no purpose other than to weigh down a construct. Until all were lifted, taking on their forms when they'd stood amongst the living, fel green wisps ablaze in ghastly sockets.
“ARISE!” Tythas shouted, slapping his hands together and thrusting them forward. Advanced necromancy, level-4, with a high yield capacity made for summoning a great many lesser to intermediate undead. Nothing special, but he couldn't allow the others to see what he'd truly found himself capable of – not yet. Skeletal figures materialized, ghostly and twitching, joined by at least a hundred....
Pigs...? Plump rotting corpses of ungulates oinking loudly as they might've in life, blanketing Tyr in bones as he swiped his clawed hands all around in a bid to smash through the cordon. Every blow destroyed one of them, but they kept him busy enough, squealing madly and latching onto his legs.
But why pigs...? There were no farms anywhere near the cursed dirt of Baccia...
Astrid raised her spear into the air, slamming it into the ground. Armed and armored like the rest of them, tabard blowing in some unseen wind – cutting a heroic figure made yet more radiant by the light she called to her fingertips. What a scene it made for, Tythas' horde of oinking ghouls setting the backdrop for a swarm of humming white discs, contrast in everything. That was her gift, and not just for healing – that was simply the position she performed the best at in their practiced composition.
“Greater Healing!” Astrid cried. Brenn felt incredible energy rushing through his veins, repairing his broken arm and filling him with vitality. “Rushing Steps! Oxen Strength! Mana Shield! Mountain Song! Trap him underground, Brenn!”
His feet carried him the distance, made anew through the enchantment until his entire body felt ablaze with power. Blowing through what remained of the earthen barrier Sigi had summoned and striking Tyr with all his might. Both hands on his hammer and pivoting his hips into a sideward blow toward the midriff. Sigi shouted something again, but the sound of Brenn connecting with Tyr's outstretched hand was too loud. A tearing at the wind, the clap and flash as he poured his own light into the strike, and then the sharp clang and shock of striking a mountain.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Caught, just like that, the head of the mace frozen in the air – Tyr's digits wrapped around the steel and squeezing until it began to crack. All Brenn could see was a single eye, blue and baleful, the bits of Tyr's face visible through his returned helmet riddled with veins aglow with fire.
“Hearth Guard!” Brenn roared, doubling his strength and durability alike, the strongest active benediction he had access to. Dropping his shield and putting his whole body into the blow. But still, the head of his weapon wouldn't move an inch. Tyr had hold of it, glaring back at him arrogantly. Finally dragging the head of the mace closer before blowing Brenn away with a lateral kick. Shattering his ribs, mouth erupting with a spray of blood, like a child who'd strayed too close to the hindquarters of an easily startled horse. The force of a runaway carriage, carrying him away again – more strength than even his blessing had been ready for. There was such an inconsistency in Tyr, Brenn was not Sigi's equal but he was just as durable – leaving him shaken by the revelation.
Astrid didn't miss a beat, sending multiple healing spells at Brenn before he'd even hit the ground, lancing forward herself and harrying Tyr with bolts of hard light. Spear in one hand and shield in the other, both wreathed in white radiance. Bent low at the knees in a guarded stance, the sound of abused steel as her spear punched clean through his armor. As skilled as they all were, with the women being the best of them, Brenn couldn't help but feel that they were making a terrible mistake. To engage Tyr at long range would've been smart, but it bring themselves within reach of those limbs was a death sentence to most.
Yet Astrid would continue, low and loose in the hips, pivoting and inching around in what Oresundian warriors called the 'breaker'. Breaker for their seaside cliffs and the standard doctrine for fighting in a shield wall, a sturdy root and keen control of the upper body to keep opponents at an ideal range – attacking around their roundshields. A legendary form that had seen many larger forces defeated by the small, but it had one downside. Astrid was tall, agile, and lithe – her root easily broken being so comparatively light in weight, it might work against large monsters or common soldiers.
Tyr was not common, if only in his incessant lunacy.
He struck at her too, a calamitous butting of his head, but it wasn't Astrid who would suffer. Micah had thrown himself in the path of it before it connected with his shoulder, breaking his body in the process. Despite all the pain that had come of it, he couldn't help but feel that Tyr had abruptly decelerated before striking him. Nothing like how he had treated Brenn, a flash of near panic flickering in Tyr's eyes as he watch both man and woman skip away in a loose heap of limbs. Only for a moment, and the twist returned, all snarls and madness. To the point where Tythas would pause again just as he was about to attempt another debilitation, Tyr was swinging at thin air. Behind him, what appeared to be astral projections all stemming from the man continuing to fight one another.
Not targets, Tythas could feel them and they weren't corporeal, and yet when a blue skinned version loosed their bow at Tyr's back, a whole appeared in his chest. Ignoring them, had to – they hadn't come here alone.
Okami, for the first time, struck Tyr in violence with a fury. Having by far the most effect, the wolf was a tyrant when he wanted to be. His paw swiped Tyr off the ground, the wolf blurring to meet his flying body and snapping it between his jaws. Not enough to split the man in half, but enough to shake him about in an attempt to settle his split mind. Okami could feel it, it was maddening. Tyr's mind was like a pane of glass shattered.
Hundreds of independent consciousnesses were battling for control within him, and these things were reflected onto the outside world. Attacking one another and devouring what was left of the defeated to become more tangible in form, desperate to 'get out'. To be 'the one'. Some kind of bottleneck keeping them all trapped and confused, a great weight pressing down in a bid to conquer them. With so many minds all together, Okami couldn't even tell which one was which, he only hoped that his Tyr couldn't feel the pain his partner was inflicting on his mortal body. Tyr beat his fists against Okami's snout, but the blows were weak and without intent, confirming that he was still in there, somewhere within the mess that was his mind. The fire flowing toward him from all directions easily blown away into the wind.
A shard – of the variant which made a primus was in the process of forming, but Tyr desperately didn't want to. There'd been a thing taken and as of yet, it hadn't returned, and with that opened the floodgates. Okami knew everything his partner did, that was how their bond worked – the bond of souls. Tyr's abilities, the splintered legacies, all those little things he'd found were not so mundane as components of making him stronger, they were wards. Once disrupted... Okami was aware of the curse carried by all primus', in the same way his partner was. Once that shard manifested, Tyr would be no more – he would die as real a death as any mortal might. His mind, personality, all gone up in smoke – all the wolf could do was aid in reducing the mental pressure as much as possible. He knew of only one way to do that, and they had to hurry.
With a slam of finality, Okami buried Tyr half in the earth with a jerk of his neck. Leaping up again and spraying him with a crackling pillar of lighting that erupted from the maw, sky blue that remained in the eyes of the observers long after it had fallen. About to be met with yet more fingers of the storm, perhaps a less metaphorical desire to shock his system, all the good it would do them. Astrid had been cunning with her plan to bury him, but humans otherwise were so incessantly predictable.
Sigi raised her axe to the sky, with Alex joining her, following the motion with her spear. The clouds roiled, writhed and danced. The budding dawn became black in the face of the storm, and Tyr laughed at them – danced and cavorted beneath it all. A blue-green lightning bolt met one of pure violet – and he accepted both with open arms. Reveling in the pain and shuddering. But suddenly... Just as the climax seemed to be upon them, Tythas slamming his hands together to send more javelins forward, pigs at the ready. Brenn appearing from behind with a blood maddened face and hammer held in preparation for an overhead blow. All in slow motion, six figures acting in concert with Okami looming behind them, watchful and wary.
“Alex...” Tyr breathed, face twitching aggressively. Caught between a rapidly cascading series of contradictory expressions. “Kill me. Kill me, please. You can do it – you know me better than anyone, do what has to be done. I cannot be allowed to live, I am not supposed to be here. My mother...”
Alex pounded across the ground as Sigi harried Tyr with bits of earth that broke his legs and sent him to his knees, causing both Tythas' spell and Brenn's wide swing to fly wide. Alex leaped into the air, pinning his arms to the ground, kissing him several times on the lips. Embracing him with all of her might. She'd not failed to notice the flare of recognition in his eyes when he'd stared at Micah and Okami both, but if it was her? Alex could stop her, they were the closest out of all of him, of course she could.
“I love you!” She cried. “I'll always love you! Please calm down, we can talk about it, Sigi will forgive you! I know you care for us!” He looked up at her with a curious creasing of the eyes. Something within him seemed to return to normalcy, those eyes she remembered. He was so hard and yet so soft at the same time, the power of their friendship would cease whatever malady was--
Tyr grabbed her by the neck and pounded her into the earth, cratering the ground with her back and rising to his feet and glaring.
The wind left her lungs in a painful gasp, this was not the man she knew. Not the man who would be so dispassionate in all things only to embrace her in the cold of night even after all she'd done to him. How she'd treated him, forgiving her for them all – because Tyr had known all along, or guessed at it, and had put it all on the table...
His fist met her jaw twice in succession before her mind began to turn blank. Mad. Insane. Surely these traits had existed within him before, but this was too much. It just... Wasn't him, this was not Tyr Faeron. She asserted that in her own mind even as he leveled a clawed hand in the air, condensing fire at each fingertip. Prised to bury it in her skull. Panicked mana emissions swarming towards him, blown wide as if they'd hit some transient film that seemed to ward him.
“P... Please...” Alex groaned. “Please don't hurt the others.”
“What kind of foolishness would compel you to lay your disgusting hands on me, female? Do you know who I – Don't kill her...” Tyr warned... Himself? Alex was so confused, recovering from the daze ever so slowly – but this was good. Enough to prepare to sweep his legs should he turn. “Harm her and I'll destroy us both. Ah, do whatever you want, this was fun while it lasted. We're gods, remember? We're eternal. A spot of fun, really, but if you insist... I do. Stop it, now. Leave them be, there is no point to this. This serves the order, listen to the young one. Aye, this is sickening, but common sense dictates we – Yes, yes. I get it, you imbeciles. Never destroy a shardling, but this one is filthy – broken – it should not exist. Us have mercy, isn't that what they say? Fine. I'll go now. Good, you psychopath! You're not one of us! No, literally I'm pretty sure he isn't one of us. Who the fuck is that? Who cares? He's already gone. Why are you all so loud, I'm trying to sleep! Fuck! But you're the loudest one... Shit, I'm so hungry, how long has it been since I've eaten? MEAT! I need some damn MEAT! Cease this objectionable language at once, cretinous slime!”
Tyr... collapsed after that. Face first. His forehead cracking painfully against Alex's own, the limp weight of his body pressing her down. It would seem, against all odds, that it was over. She hoped.
–
Iscari leafed through yet another tome. Something bad was happening, he could feel it – but Tyr was the one who always seemed to resolve these... Events. He'd do that, and Iscari would protect. If not the world, then Tyr himself. The shield and sword. People liked to claim that Tyr was all sorts of things, mostly a great disappointment, but Iscari was beyond confident that his oldest friend was the best among them. That one day he'd be the solution, he just needed healing – when the last generation was gone and it was their time to shine, they'd do so with the gleam of a thousand suns. Everyone would remember them, for all time.
Iscari was so close, and he knew it. He'd read six of the black books and they all seemed to be a piece of some greater puzzle. But of what? That was the question on his mind nowadays, he'd thought them an answer to Tyr's problem – and he believed they were. But there was so much more than simple words written on a page, such subtle nuance and genius beyond mortal men.
The Book of Solomon had led to another, and so on and so forth until there were so many of them. Common convention said there were 13, and that was true – the 13 were part of one larger whole – but there were many 'black books' beyond that. If only as a way the Inquisition rated cursed or forbidden artifacts, or sources of knowledge. It seemed like they all picked up where the last had left off, a collection of volumes, even when the mages who had written of them had no prior connection.
Solomon in particular had surprisingly never read a black book, and he wasn't the first to pen one. And yet, at the same time, he picked up where Pundi of Ind had left off. Sort of, from a wider ideological standpoint at least, almost perfect.
Could be coincidence, but Iscari doubted it. His theory being that someone wanted people to know these things, the truths gods hid from man – and that the knowledge was necessary for them to become what they were meant to be.
His room was dark, curtains drawn with only a single candle lit. Irrelevant, really, Iscari could see perfectly find in the black of night. Trays of half eaten food covered every surface of his chambers, but he would not allow the housekeepers to come inside. Half out of shame at how lax he'd become, half out of consideration for Dag. A darkness elemental and his personal familiar. He took the form of a tiny black goat with four eyes and only two legs, a body like a humanoid. Though he only stood a mere six or eight inches tall, a tiny satyr of a sort with an animal's head and two curling horns. Iscari thought he was cute, Octavian had been of the opposite opinion.
“I know there's something.” Iscari sighed. “There's something here but I'm afraid I'm just not wise enough to connect it all. Theory and guesswork is all well and good, but applying this in practical fashion could take me years.”
“Just keep reading.” Dag yawned. “You'll get it, trust me. It's so obvious that it makes me wonder how your lesser kin haven't already figured it out.”
“Why don't you just tell me?” Iscari asked.
“Are you sure you want me to?” Dag lips curved into something akin to a smile. “Remember what you said? No spoilers please. I thought you wanted to do this one your own?”
“I do.” Iscari said. “Never mind.”
“Women...” Dag scoffed haughtily, snapping his fingers to conjure a knife that he summarily used to begin cleaning his fingernails. Or finger-claws as was the case, making himself at home in the filthy chambers as if he owned the place. “You know, this is a waste of my time – right? Our time, we could be doing so much more.”
“I don't care, and don't call me that.” Iscari's thunderous expression turned towards his familiar. “It is my duty to be a prince, and I accept that for what it is. People mustn't know. I'm serious – Dag, if anyone ever finds out, the repercussions would be terrible for the both of us. They'll kill me, I'm shocked my father hasn't done it himself.”
“Aye, aye.” Dag rolled his eyes and raised a cloven hoof in tired surrender. “Re-read chapter four of Telmund's Behind the Eyes – and I think you'll find your answer. Not a spoiler, just a hint.” Dag winked from two of his four eyes.