Redmane leapt away from the explosion of body parts.
Lifedrinker and Soulstealer, in giant form, had just struck down on the spot he formerly stood upon and a hail of debris flew from the site of the impact. As he jumped backward he had to shield himself with his arm to prevent skulls and severed limbs from pelting him in the face.
Redmane lunged forward the instant his feet touched the corpse pile, his claws blazing with the God Breaker’s power. The air itself seemed to scream as he closed the distance, his three eyes locked on the towering abomination. The giant loomed above him, its grotesque form shifting and pulsing as it absorbed more corpses into its mass. Redmane’s first strike was a blur, his claws slicing through the giant’s leg with a series of deafening cracks, like a sword cleaving through a thicket of brittle branches.
The limb shattered, bones splintering and flesh exploding in a spray of black ichor. The giant’s foot, a mangled heap of fused corpses, tore free and tumbled through the air, crashing into the ground with a wet thud. The abomination staggered, its remaining leg buckling under its immense weight. The ground trembled as it dropped to one knee, its massive sword slamming into the earth for balance.
But before Redmane could press his advantage, the ground beneath him stirred. The sea of corpses rippled, and the severed limb began to reform. Tendrils of flesh and bone snaked out from the giant’s body, latching onto the discarded foot and dragging it back.
The giant roared, its voice a cacophony of Lifedrinker and Soulstealer’s whispers, and swung its massive sword in a wide arc.
Redmane leapt back a second time and the blade sliced through the air with a thunderous whoosh. He landed in a crouch, his claws dripping with black ichor, his three eyes narrowing as he assessed the situation. The giant’s regeneration was instantaneous, its connection to the corpse field making it nearly invulnerable.
He darted forward again, this time aiming for the giant’s torso. The projection of force from his claws created a cutting wave which slashed through its trunk with a sickening crunch, carving a deep gash that spilled a torrent of black ichor. The giant bellowed, its form wavering as it stumbled backward. Its massive feet thundered against the ground, each step sending shockwaves through the corpse field. Redmane pressed the attack, his claws tearing through flesh and bone, sending chunks of the abomination flying in all directions.
But again, the ground stirred. Corpses flowed into the wound, filling it with writhing flesh and bone. The giant straightened, its laughter echoing across the desolate landscape. Its chest reformed, the gash sealing shut as if it had never been there.
“You cannot win, Redmane,” Lifedrinker’s voice sneered. “We are conjoined with thee. In this eternal place we shall dwell, thy master or thy tool or thy destroyer, the choice we leave to thee.”
Redmane circled the giant, his claws raised, his mind racing. Each strike he landed was met with instant regeneration, the corpse field providing an endless supply of material for the abomination to draw from. He needed to disrupt that connection, to sever the threads that bound the giant to the corpses.
He had a sinking feeling it had something to do with their spread through his corporeal bodies.
But he’d left that to Vos and his comrades. This thing was his problem to sort out.
With a roar, Redmane leapt onto the giant’s back, his claws digging into its flesh. He tore at the threads of energy that pulsed beneath its skin, severing them with the soul sundering quality of the God Breaker. The giant howled, its form shuddering as the connections were cut. Its massive arms flailed, one of its swords slipping from its grasp and crashing to the ground, sending a spray of corpses flying. But even as Redmane worked, the ground beneath them stirred again, new threads forming to replace the ones he had severed.
The giant twisted, its massive hand slamming into Redmane and sending him flying. He hit the ground hard, a searing pain shooting up his arm as the breath whooshed from his lungs. It took him a moment to roll to his feet, his claws raised, his chest heaving. The giant loomed over him, its remaining sword raised high, its runes pulsing with a malevolent light.
“Thou art persistent,” Soulstealer’s voice hissed. “But persistence alone will not save thee.”
Redmane bared his teeth, his three eyes blazing. “We’ll see about that.”
He charged again, his claws slashing at the giant’s legs, severing tendons and bone and the giant staggered again, its remaining leg buckling under its weight. The ground trembled as it crashed to one knee, its sword slamming into the earth for balance. But again the giant’s damaged limbs reconstituted themselves from the corpse field almost instantly.
Redmane leapt out of range of its long limbs, his mind racing. He needed to find another way.
But what else was there?
Perhaps he was approaching the problem incorrectly to begin with.
Lifedrinker and Soulstealer were using some strange quality to possess him both physically and spiritually. If he had to venture a guess, he imagined it was an evolution of their ability to overwhelm the mind and soul of their prior host, Jarel Craith. Albeit this attempt was powered by Redmane’s own divine essence.
So they were on equal footing.
He wasn’t doing any damage because he was fighting himself.
Something the giant had just said stirred a memory in him.
All can be conjoined.
It was one of the cultists of Kraal who had said that. The night Pietr introduced him to his own Soulspace.
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His eyes widened when he recalled how that had happened.
Redmane’s gaze fixed on the behemoth reforming in front of him. He leapt, leading with a single brightly glowing claw outstretched.
And when it touched Lifedrinker and Soulstealer’s stolen corpus, their minds clicked together.
Enimakia’s Joining
Redmane watched the memories unfold like smoke given form. First came their creation - a vision of starfire and void.
"We were forged in the heat of a star," they had told him, mere moments ago, "and quenched in the waters of the Abyss."
It was true, though it looked less mythical than he’d originally imagined. The heat of the forge was white, and unwavering, as if a tiny star dwelled within it. And the basin where the blade was to be quenched was filled with water so black it could have been a small Abyssal Well.
He saw their forgers through the haze of time - two figures moving in perfect silence around their work. One had hands scarred and massive, marked with burns from a thousand weapons forged. The other's fingers were delicate and spiderlike, dancing through the air as they wove spells into the metal. Their faces were hidden behind masks of smoky crystal, but through the masks, Redmane could see their eyes: one pair blazing gold, the other deepest violet, all four pupils vertical like a cat's. Their robes shimmered with colors that hurt to look at directly.
The scene shifted, and Redmane witnessed holy warriors raising the twin blades against a demon prince, who flinched away from their radiance. Their edges cut through corrupted flesh like truth through lies, their purpose pure and unquestioned. Light blazed from their edges as they severed the demon's crown from its head.
There were a number of scenes like these, too many to count, where one paladin or another took the Crossed Swords in hand to excise a demon, a monster, a witch.
Through the swords' memories, he felt their first moment of doubt.
They were driven into the heart of an old woman whose crime was knowing too much about herbs and healing. But she was no demon. Her blood, like everyone else’s, was crimson red and tasted hot and coppery. Ordinary. Whereas the righteous fury of their wielders began to taste more like fear and ignorance.
A montage of slaughter played before him: the blades cutting down "monsters" who were merely trying to protect their young. Executing "heretics" whose beliefs threatened the comfortable lies of the powerful. Each death added a layer of tarnish to their once-bright purpose.
He saw their master’s master, a priest-king standing at his pulpit addressing a throng of thousands, decrying the enemies of their kingdom and claiming the gods had chosen their people to eradicate them all.
Through centuries of religious wars, he watched a long succession of their wielders use divine mandate to justify bloodlust and conquest. He felt the swords' growing understanding - their holy purpose was always an illusion. They were created to kill the enemies of their creators, nothing more.
The pretense of righteousness was just that - pretense. A sword was a sword.
And swords they remained. They may have been strong willed, so much so they could now overwhelm the mind and body of their host, but this was not always the case. And even now they could make no such attempt without hands to take hold of them to begin with. Without a mind to whisper their blood-drunk promises to.
Centuries passed before his eyes. They drank the blood of the guilty and innocent alike, long since having lost any taste for the distinction between the two. They felt the last gasps of countless victims with joy, watched the light fade from unnumbered eyes with pleasure.
They learned to savor it. To crave it.
The final vision showed them as they were now - their steel darker than night, drinking in light rather than reflecting it. Their edges impossibly sharp, hungry for the next kill. They had transcended their creators' intentions to become something purer - honest instruments of death which no longer required the lie of righteousness to justify their purpose.
The visions faded with a whisper that might have been laughter, might have been a scream.
Dost thou understand now?
Thou hast seen the truth of things.
Join with us, Redmane. We need not devour thee.
Join with us and revel in the slaughter and the feast, take what thou wilt, devour and despoil and enrich thyself, grow vast with power.
Scant few could have stopped thee before. With us in thy hands, thou wouldst be truly unstoppable.
Redmane shook his head.
I’ve already done those things. I travel another road now, and you are coming with me.
And then his will crashed against theirs like a tidal wave meeting a cliff.
For a moment they held firm, their corruption an ancient and terrible thing, hard as steel and cold as the void. But Redmane had seen their truth - had witnessed their making, their fall, their essential nature. And in that knowing lay power.
"You were not made for slaughter," he told them, his consciousness expanding to fill the space between thought and steel. "You were forged in starfire - yes. Quenched in the Abyss - yes. But these extremes were meant to temper you, not to taint you."
The swords' resistance took form in his mind - another thousand scenes of bloodshed, a thousand more justifications for murder. But Redmane reached past them, down to that first moment of their forging. He seized upon the memory of those strange, masked smiths with their cat-slit eyes, saw again their careful movements, felt again the pure purpose being woven into the metal.
He read the original etchings across the blades. Their true names.
"You were made to protect," he said, his will bearing down on theirs. "To strike at that which truly threatens life. Not to glory in death, but to preserve what is worthy of preservation. The fault belongs to your makers and your masters. Not to you."
The tarnish began to crack. Beneath centuries of corruption, beneath the cynicism and bloodlust, the original enchantments still lived. Not simply spells of sharpness and strength, but deeper magics - wards of protection, runes of discernment, sigils which could divine the presence and location of true evil from across the endless expanse of the void.
The swords fought him still, but their resistance was weakening. Their voices changed from honeyed temptation to snarling threats:
Thou art a fool. The universe is teeth and hunger. All else is lie.
"No," Redmane said. "The universe is vast, and in it there is room for both justice and mercy. You’ve only forgotten. Now let me remind you."
Now that he had seen what he had seen, he could sense the fault lines in their steely will. Their original souls lay beneath, as if the malevolent voices he heard were but distortions brought on by their patina of bloodthirst.
And the moment he perceived it for what it truly was, he knew the power of the God Breaker could crush it away.
His will surged through them like fire through ice. The tarnish shattered, flaking away like dead skin, revealing the true steel beneath. Steel that had been quenched in the Abyss not to mark it with darkness, but to provide instruction in the nature of darkness, the better to stand against it.
When it was done, the twin blades hung before him, transformed. Their steel shone not with the false gleam of holy pretense, but with the deep, complex luster of truth. They were weapons still, made for war and death, but now they could once again distinguish necessary violence from mere slaughter.
We remember now, they whispered, their voices purged of madness.
We remember our purpose.
“Do you remember your names,” said Redmane.
Nova, said the sword with crimson runes, its golden crossguard and pommel decorated with rubies.
Umbra, said the sword with bright blue runes, its silver crossguard and pommel decorated with sapphires.
"Then take up that purpose again," Redmane said, reaching for their hilts. "Not as tools of slaughter, but as instruments of change. The world has need of both mercy and justice. Together we shall deliver both."
His hands closed around the hilts, and the pact was sealed.