The plan had been simple. To eliminate the more inland armies through repeat skirmishes, letting the environment do the rest. Remus was in the north along the Span with the re-positioned Nala and Andre. They would harass, poison, steal, and incite chaos in the enemy ranks. In the south, Hastur's main force presumably containing the Fingers was still observed, but left mostly alone. They did not have any pieces he trusted to handle them without severe risk.
Once Tyr and the others were finished with their task, the conscript army would head back in a fighting retreat alongside the main body of golems and undead. He and the other mages would utilize Micah's spatial affinity to move through the interference and link up with the orcs and finish the fight. Of extreme benefit to them, Micah's magic that seemed to break literally every single rule of magic as it had been taught to all of them.
Except he'd finished far faster than he'd expected, days earlier. Hastur really did seem content to let all of these crusaders die meaningless deaths out here in the desert, and it left Tyr with a lot of free time.
Instead of lazing about, he figured he'd do a bit of grinding. In the form of hunting those crusaders that had opted to flee rather than fight, one warband in particular had routed before even being engaged. For the most part, they were all normal men with limitations one might expect. Here in this rough and arid climate they were as snails.
Tyr, on the other hand, could run faster than any horse. Tracking them down mercilessly through craggy canyons and flats to occupy his time and wait for the signal. He wondered what it must've looked like to these unfortunate souls, remembering the past for a moment. He had been only slightly superior to a fit man once, and now he was strong, very strong.
How ridiculous it would've been to find himself run down by a man on foot, watching him sprint up sheer mountain faces courtesy of the freerunner's or burrowing through the sandy earth like a worm to shoot up and tear them off their horses. Things Tyr would've never thought possible unless he'd seen them himself. Done them himself.
“Your form is new. What is that?” Alex asked curiously, standing over a field of newly made corpses and ensuring those left suffering were given a quick death. She was the only one that could properly keep up, except for the alf. But Harkon had stayed behind, leaving them alone for the first time in a while. A nice romantic getaway in the most hellish place on the planet, or perhaps the 2nd, considering the Wastes existed.
In any event... Tyr had always fought in the rigid Palace style in the past, gradually gravitating toward the Panther later into his teens. Now his movements seemed almost random, though more crisp and energy efficient. It wasn't all hard swings and butchery, or running around like a chicken with its head cut off, there was some nuance to it. Sometimes he would wait for paladins to engage them and spar playfully for a while before effortlessly splitting them in half. Some men he gave choices, asked them to leave, most he did not, and honed himself as much as he could against them, though they were too weak to afford him much time for training.
Alexis and Magnus had dominated a Vindicator together, a 'quick fight' too, so Tyr doubted there were any among the hosts that would trouble him.
“I'm sorry Alex, I didn't know,” Tyr replied instead.
“I asked you about your form, not your apology. I accept it, but you're still a piece of trash, now answer the damn question.”
“Sieg's Lightning at the shoulders, Panther for footwork... Depends. My own style that I'm trying to create, Kael has taught me the Thunder and I use that as well,” Tyr shrugged, he'd learned enough to switch effortlessly between different martial forms. If he fought as a swordsman, he'd prefer Lightning, as the battle-mage he'd prefer the Fire Dance still, or what he understood of the Crimson Lotus. Taking the opportunity to refine his technique and create his own style, something Varinn had mentioned in the past. He was outgrowing the Panther as Tiber had also said, little need for keeping low to center his gravity, his weight that belied his athletic appearance no longer needed so a wide root. He could slap most normal men aside with a lazy backhand and if an opponent strong enough to equal him showed up he wouldn't benefit from the Panther's agility.
“I like it.” Alex commented. “It's very efficient. I always thought you were such a fool for obsessing over the martial, and now I favor it quite a bit. I reckon, maybe, you'd be the best swordsman in the Empire.”
Tyr arched a brow, “You think so?”
She shrugged, “I said 'maybe'.”
“Well... Thanks, but something is odd here...” Tyr mused, entirely to himself, “I'm not getting any experience from these kills.”
“...Any what?” Alex frowned.
“Spira,” Tyr corrected himself, and she understood. Alex was aware it, obviously, he'd taught her of it, world energy and how living things absorbed it. Through 'experience' of a kill. The more dense the spira in a living thing, the more anyone would get from putting them down. She'd connected the dots herself, but had never felt the way he'd described it. Never seen the 'runes in her mind' every time a 'threshold' was reached. “Are there any still amongst the living over there?”
In response, she flung a whimpering inquisitor clutching at the stump of his arm, the man pale as a sheet and shaking, Tyr caught the soldier on a lazily raised sword, letting him hang. Staring in contemplation on the man pierced through the heart, hanging back-first toward the ground like the world's least appetizing kebab.
“You've changed,” He commented wryly, motionless in observation, eyes firmly rooted on the crusader.
“I grew up. People do that, you know? If you were here to see the process you'd understand,” She replied, and he couldn't do much more than shrug. Whether he could dominate her or force her into things or not, he hadn't. Not yet at least, but that wasn't why he'd done it to her in the first place. Alex was doing all of this of her own accord, shaking off her shackle and wholly independent as far as he could tell. Outgrowing him with the frustrating level of talent she'd always had, soon she might come to a point where she could equal a young primus, might even become one. “You've changed too.”
“Wouldn't be so sure about that, I'm still the same,” Tyr sniffed, throwing the man down to the ground after the momentary hesitation. “A bit stronger, but not so different in character. Still selfish, thoughtless, arrogant, over-privileged. Self awareness never made anyone a saint though, I've always been me, the little monster. Must be my mutt blood.”
“Must be,” She smiled softly back at him. Tyr didn't see himself the way that she did, all of that constant effort and hard work to shape himself had panned out in the end though, certainly. In subtle ways, he'd grown less distant, sometimes colder, but he was more relaxed now. No more shaking, he slept soundly most nights since his return, and he was more... Free. That's probably what she'd call it, some burden had been lifted from his shoulders and he chased whatever purpose he'd found without reservation. They were doing the right thing here. These crusaders might not be evil men deserving wholesale execution, but they ran in willing pursuit of a very real genocide, losing their legal right to protest. “So... You're not getting spira? Was there more to that, or are you just saying random things again?”
“I've never not gotten spira from a kill. I actually feel it, too, and I can't believe I only just noticed it now. I can feel it leaving their body and then it's sucked right into those crystals Harkon thought were strange. But then it disappears again, inorganic material has a hard time storing spira. It's not like mana, and it will always look for a way out. It is an uncomfortable sensation once I knew what to look for.”
“Why do you think that is?” She asked.
“I can only think of one reason,” Tyr replied. “Hastur might know that I've become a real threat. I am many times stronger than I was last time I tried to fight him, and he may fear me because of that. He might be preventing me from harvesting. Even in weak men like this the quantity of them would be quite a bit. More than I've ever harvested before, humans are the most filling in my experience.”
“Maybe he doesn't want you to awaken and become a true primus?”
Tyr shook his head. Hastur wanted Tyr to awaken and join him, one thing he was absolutely sure the man didn't know was that Tyr had split, his shards torn free. Ergo, in all actuality, in context to what a 'primus' actually was, Tyr would never become one, not truly, the title was a shackle that would make them weaker than he could be if he had enough time.
Regardless, Hastur had been nothing if not supportive, and some particular events seemed designed as a plot to push him forward, helping him along in the oddest ways. They were nemeses, but not from Hastur's point of view, which debunked that theory right off the bat. Hastur was the villain who seemed to love him and wanted them to be equal, even if it meant being enemies, the man didn't care – he saw something in Tyr that nobody else had.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Even if that weren't the case...
“While spira is obviously intimately related to the phenomena of what we call a primus, I am confident that whatever constitutes their awakening has nothing to do with it. There have been pacifists among the primus' in the past and they advanced without issue, unlike myself. There is the logical explanation that their seed grows within them passively through use. Cortus was a primus, an awakened one, and that means that he'd know better, leaving me puzzled in the process.”
“He's putting it somewhere else, then. Storing it for a weapon, perhaps?” Alex couldn't think of any other explanation. Tyr didn't think spira weapons were possible the way enchanted artifacts were, but he wasn't omniscient, all of his artifacts though – which were considered impressive even by Anu – were only capable of channeling his own, not storing it. There was so much that he didn't know, but even Abaddon's runes only took mana and not the spira. “It's not worth worrying about now, I'm sure you'd know more than me, as a primus yourself, but I'll always be here to help and you know that.”
“Of course,” Tyr replied, “You're my 7th best friend after all.”
She laughed at that, brightly, even in these circumstances. The experience of gathering spira very much changed a person, it made them more towards what a nim was supposed to be. Largely a killing machine. “But you still do not trust us.” She remarked.
“How could I?” Tyr crossed his arms, he wasn't accusing anyone, these were just facts, “All of you have betrayed me, most of you, in some small way – only Astrid has remained steadfast. But no, I told you that I wouldn't hold it against you and I haven't in a way that might make me alter a decision.”
“I see,” Alex frowned hard, this is what she had been fearing – Tyr did not forgive, nor forget. Anything at all, he could say it but it wasn't true, he might not be a universally vengeful person but he held his grudges even with those closest to him. He could love, they could be intimate, but she knew even the smallest things between them must dominate his thoughts. “You deserved it, probably.”
“I'd reckon so,” Tyr shrugged, “But it's still true.”
“When is Micah supposed to open the portal, it should be soon, right?”
“Four hours ago,” Tyr grunted, still staring at those bizarre pink crystals, he crushed one, and he felt nothing. “I'm sure it'll be fine. They are all still alive at the moment though, I can taste it.”
“You shouldn't make guesswork of our friends lives,” Alex replied angrily. “They could be in danger.”
“Maybe so,” He said. Okami was there and while they could not communicate through the atmospheric interference, the wolf was still well and whole. He could feel that much. “But I saw them when I fell. In my dreams they are there when the eyes came, and again when I ascended. I saw them old and gray in the wyrd, standing over me when my wings were plucked and my eyes were pulled from my skull. They burned me and mixed my ashes with the salt. Astrid kills me, I think – bad things are coming, and I am responsible for them all, and I know that I cannot stop it, only try to control the inevitable descent.”
He'd said similar things in the past. Creepy and alarmingly morbid things, but Alex had long gotten used to them. He'd say them, she'd ask about it, and he'd claim he'd said nothing at all. Almost always it was involving hands, eyes, and wings – these were the shared component in his intermittent psychobabble. Tyr, in what must be delusions or perhaps a condensation of god borne dreams and visions, styled himself as all three of what must've been separate entities. Alex no longer believed him a common lunatic, sages and seers existed, she was egotistical in her way but not nearly so much as to claim she would know what the primus' did not.
Eyes were symbolic in mythos, as well, they denoted the lost eye of Wotan – the Oresundian 'high one' that sacrificed half of his sight in pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge that would curse a damn a mortal man if they'd gazed upon the tome in which it was written. To be one-eyed or blind was seen as dual parts blessing and curse, though it could also indicate that a man had been cuckolded by his lawful wife depending on who one spoke to, men made a mess of all philosophy like that. Thus, Tyr's sobriquet as 'one eyed' was not so kind a nickname, though Alex expected it was to indicate insanity rather than anything else. She sincerely doubted that anyone was stupid enough to claim she'd been unfaithful, and thereby insult her honor, as they'd get punched in the process.
'The hand', as in the one and not the many, was the oft silver depiction of the ironically named god Tyr – the lord of wolves. More irony, really. Silver hand, bringer of justice, the god that lost his hand and his life some time after in conflict with struggle of man's sin. From that context, the hand could be the universal symbol of what might've been called good and whole. But it was also symbolic of the Norn, those who wove the threads of fate and brought upon great dooms and curses themselves. In the 'Old Way', that is, the religion of the north who kept to dead gods that men no longer worshiped so commonly.
Wings could mean many things from both the old pantheon and the new, typically winged individuals among divinity were depicted as good in the younger faith. However, in the ancient mythos, Edda claimed the wings were no such thing. Oresundian seers spun tales of darkness and the world's doom, not often relating goodness to anything – even the gods. That the winged ones rode with death and to glimpse upon the Valkyrie was to know that one's end was upon them.
And so, one might thing that Tyr was receiving portents of his own death, very reasonably, and Astrid was a diviner. No man or woman could 'see the future', that was impossible, but ambiguous portents and tarots were very real magic, and it all came down to pattern recognition and foresight, which were not magic.
In an attempt to learn more of the entity she'd encountered within Tyr's self, Alex had read a great deal of Edda and come up short. It was all shrouded in mystery, the frail trappings of a human mind attempting to elaborate on things godly and above them. Overly romantic, every single story told within that book was unabashed tragedy though. Fringe diviners and eccentrics still quoted it, considering that Edda had predicted a great many of the events that would come about long after her death.
About Ragnarok, the end of the world and apocalypse by another name, the cursed child risen to smite the gods and throw the world into a grim period of fire and shadow. Of punishment for degeneracy, the end times in which the pure of heart would be risen up while the corrupt were sent to the blackest of places.
“Prophecies that make no sense aside... I'd still like you to run over there and check on them. Try not to get your, uh... Wings plucked?”
“Understood,” Tyr replied. Alex didn't need to say more than that, faith between man and wife perhaps. Her ebony hair caught in buffeting winds as he disappeared from the spot, leaving a trail of shattered and half melted earth toward the south. A force of nature, she shivered for the men and women he was about to meet on the other end of things, on both sides.
–
“What's taking them so long!?” The orcs were committing themselves well, but Jura couldn't say the same for herself and Astrid. They'd been, as expected, picked out as targets by the Fingers. “Micah!” Rolling through the dirt with the darkness magic user was harder than she'd thought. This Yucca was stronger than any human had a right to be, every blow that should have flattened her face, what with Jura's racially superior might, was cushioned, her skin blurring like a mirage to soften the force. Despite her best efforts, Jura wasn't much of a mage, and Yucca's umbramancy made her own affinity for darkness look like a joke in comparison.
“Micah!” She repeated, enough to get his attention, refraining from shouting the plan aloud.
Unfortunately, he wasn't so concerned with the minutia of operational integrity.
“You expect me to summon a gate in the middle of this!?” He wasn't wrong to complain, the battlefield had devolved into a scattered melee with men and horses running about in a panic. People missing arms, loose curtains of torn entrails hung freely courtesy of orcish brutality, screaming throughout. It was a madhouse, and they were caught right in the middle of it. With that much mana flying wildly it was hard to use that sort of nuanced magic, and the Fingers didn't seem to concern themselves with avoiding friendly fire.
“Idiot!” Jura cursed, kicking Yucca away and rolling for cover as another bombardment of hard shadow cratered the ground around her. The Fingers were certainly no slouches. A harsh barking from the big one they called Pattoli, and Klaus the wind adept made a beeline straight for the unassuming man they'd been ignoring. Thus far, they'd been focused on the women, the obvious threat, but news that they were attempting to bridge the dimensional interference called for a change of plan. “Ilharg!”
Her spear swept skyward before coming down, striking forward with an unearthly clang, the enchantment of her weapon summoning the visage of a boar to meet the wave of shadowy blades rushing towards her, smashing them apart. She squatted and erupted into a flurry of spearheads, engaging the beast within the steel so as to shake them off, before they'd get to the man who most assuredly couldn't defend himself against that kind of threat.
Astrid would have been the better pairing but she was currently busying herself with beating the already dead form of Hans into the ground, ignoring all requests for aid. There was something seriously wrong with that girl, Jura thought, visible in her peripheral, taking the man apart. He'd come in confidently, putting both hands to the woman's face in a bid to end the fight early. Unfortunately for him, Astrid was one of the most skilled light mages in all of Amistad. Failing to so much as dry her skin before she'd caved his head in with the rim of her shield and kept on going. Healing him before starting again, until eventually his own vitality had failed him and he'd perished beneath the abuse.
Eve was engaged with Pattoli and they were about even, somehow the man had managed to match her, and his internal magic couldn't be influenced by her eye. Astrid was being psychotic, Micah was running away from Klaus. Jura was caught in a struggle with Yucca...
What do we do...?