Chapter 92
Tobias stormed down the hallway and out onto the academy grounds.
"You're angry," Riley said, continuing to battle Captain Obvious for the title.
"By the dead Gods, you were there! How can you not be? The utter disdain. They're still people!" he seethed.
His rage was only fueling the general feeling of unease she felt. A strange sense that she was being watched settled upon her like a wet blanket the moment they had ventured outdoors.
"You were almost in the same position," Riley poked at the anger balloon.
It popped as he sagged, "I was until I met you. It's ironic, isn't it? Had things gone a little differently, I'd either be dead or locked in at 10 bells every night; instead, I'm a Ranger and given all the respect I'd have never had, and the difference is as thin as a hair."
"That fear, though, made you a better man. You care; you didn't try to boss or bully me or take me even when it would have been easy to do so," Riley argued like a defense attorney.
"Thinking you were always destined for a copper torc changes your perspective about those that wear them, that is for certain," Tobias agreed as they came to the towering oak under which they once met Justinian.
"It feels like another life," Tobias said, touching the tree and closing his eyes. Slowly, his emotions simmered down to a deep reflection and gratitude for what might have been but thankfully wasn't.
"How about some tea and a jogana fruit if we can find it, tenganut if we can't. There'll be more than one vendor on the way to the cathedral," he offered like a peace offering.
"Like I'm one to turn down food, but it's not necessary; you didn't hurt me," Riley explained.
"It's not that… It's…I…" He struggled for his words as he tapped his leg and began to move, “I love you.”
A wave of emotions rolled over her in an instant, causing her fur to bristle. Riley faltered, almost stumbling, tossed by the deluge, but a warm undercurrent anchored her and helped her find her footing. Images flashed of her being hurt in the Antlion cavern and the desperation he had felt, mixed with long hours suffering in training, as she ran and worked beside him, giving way to shared meals and long, deep talks. Devotion, gratitude, and... love.
It was certainly not romantic, nor was it exactly familial. Instead, it was born on the battlefield through the experience of mutual suffering. It was a bond that transcended words, knitting their souls together in a way that transcended even the magic that had made it possible, reforging them, making them both better and, somehow, whole.
As she felt his emotions, they framed her own, stopping her in her tracks. She could not deny what her spirit knew for truth.
"I love you…" Riley said , having said as much before, but this was strangely different.
Contentment chased the unease to the further corners of her mind as they turned down the switchback path, retracing the route they had taken home from class all those many months ago.
It was one of many changes that had occurred since arriving in Calaria. Those months felt like years in the greater span of time, carrying oceans and volumes of experience that her twenty-five years of life on earth hadn't touched.
She had simply lived more and done more here. Her life in Calaria was a life writ large.
Riley reveled, content in the wonder and the terror of this strange new life, as the sun shone down irregularly, broken up by the pitch of roofs and squat tenement buildings, their four or five stories of height making them skyscrapers by the standards of the Ashenrealm. In the distance, growing closer by the moment, was the spire of the grand cathedral of the realm.
They had passed it often, but Riley hadn't yet been inside. She knew from the outside that it contained towering stained-glass windows, which added color to its dark grey stone.
Its crystal spire gleamed in the morning light as if beckoning to her. Its construction was built not as a fortress in the center of a town but as a capstone, a crown jewel. A growing excitement punctuated her hops as she pondered what it might look like inside, just as a cloaked figure dashed by them and pushed Tobias into an alley. Figures emerged out of the dark, with the runner drawing up behind, surrounding them both.
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Tobias drew his sword.
All were wearing masks over their eyes and had hoods up. Riley saw the glows of power begin; auras of reds, greens, and blues began to appear as she felt her own anger rising in contest to her fear.
"You're outnumbered, Ranger," said the biggest one, centered before Tobias with a sword out, his black clothing and mask belying all identifying features, save for cold green eyes, that seemed dead and lifeless.
Tobias scanned around him, "Guard, to me! Guard to me!"
They all laughed as the leader spoke, "So you are a coward."
He growled as a sadistic smile crawled across the lower half of his face like a spreading wound.
"There's four of you and one of me, so who's the coward, really?" Tobias replied with a sinister grin as his black blade exploded into flame.
"Learn to count, there's six," the man chuckled.
"Six? I only see four?" Riley said, confused.
The man's face lost all mirth as Tobias charged, and Riley pulled at her power.
Flame wall-Righteous flame... COMBO!
Orange and white light lit up around them in a semicircle, licking the stone of the buildings, leaving it black and charred. The man coming up behind ran right through the flames, caught unaware, his clothes catching in an instant.
"It burns. Put me out!" He shrieked in pain and surprise.
Riley, with her wide vision, saw his skull glowing orange as if lit from the inside out. A white light penetrated through his eyes. The next moment, he collapsed in a writhing heap until a final shudder heralded his death, still cooking within the flame before crumbling to ash.
The rest leapt back with shock and horror etched into their gaze as the brute in the center charged, meeting Tobias' blade.
The ring of contact rebounded off the walls as Tobias shifted his blade to parry, dropping away, coming up in Form 1, slicing diagonally.
The man shifted back a fraction of a second too late, leaning back on his foot, barely avoiding a lethal blow. A red line began leaking blood, blossoming across his face, starting at the left side of his jaw and tracing up, cutting a corner through his eyebrow a scant inch from his right eye.
Ice bolts and a chunk of earth flew from the other two casters in support, striking Tobias upon his jerkin, knocking him to the ground, taking his wind.
Riley reached for her vines, pulling with everything she had. The ground rumbled, and cobblestones flew as a massive tree root ripped up from the earth, wrapping up the ice caster.
Flailing, he cast his magic while Riley slammed her paws to the ground. The root, following her will, smashed him brutally down into the cobblestone. The sound of grinding bones and snapping vertebrae sang a deathly chorus as his ribs caved. Pink froth spewed from his mouth, stifling his cries of pain as he died.
"Tougher than I thought. Target his companion, I'll finish the whelp," the brute of a leader chuckled.
Tobias stumbled up on his feet, blood trickling down from his nose.
Bolts of earth flew towards Riley, sending her scrambling up against the wall, a rock clipping her ear. Her stomach tensed in fear as her mind registered the damage, the warm, sickly deluge soaking her fur and leaking over her head.
Referencing their health bar, Tobias was down about twenty percent, but ok, while hers was barely down at all. Pulling hard, watching their shared mana pool, now below eighty percent, she cast...
Flame wall
The orange light suffused around her, but compared to her spells, it was cheap. A wall of flame roared between the caster in support, sending him scurrying back to avoid the fate of his fellow.
"Are you ok?" she asked dumbly, trying to hold off on casting her healing spell, knowing it sucked down the most mana.
"Hell no, but I can still fight," Tobias replied and charged, dropping his blade low, telegraphing his move. The brute surged forward, his hands glowing purple.
Their blades clanged again, but a wave of force impacted Tobias, driving his sword back towards his shoulder.
Sensing that he could not stop the motion, he turned it, causing the flat of it to slap against his collarbone. It gave way with a sickening crack as the blade dropped from his hand.
"Tough, but not tough enough," the brute chuckled, lifting his blade for a killing strike.
Fear darkened Riley's world. The world seemed to slow. Without thought, Riley reached for her darker magics, driven towards rage.
Chaos cracker.
The black bolt flew from her, striking the man in the chest. Still in mid-swing, he screamed, somehow continuing the deadly travel of his blade, though his clothes decayed, and a necrotic blackness spread across his skin. The unmistakeable smell of rot flooding the air.
Her mana bar dropped down another five percent as she kept power to the flame wall, keeping the support caster back, trying to juggle the battle as Tobias pitched forward at the last moment, pushing himself up between the man's arms.
His dagger was in his still functional left hand. With force of will, it erupted into flame as he drove it into his gut, pulling it upwards. The blade sliced like a hot knife through cold butter as it burned and sizzled on its pathway up, finally meeting resistance at his breastbone.
Tobias twisted it, then drew it out and stabbed into the man's ribs again and again, the blade still burning, letting out a feral scream of rage as he did so.
The brute's eyes flickered in shocked surprise before the light of his life faded away, his limp body forcing Tobias to the ground, causing another scream as the weight came down on his broken bone.
"Tobias!" Knowing it was well past time, Riley reached for her healing magic.
Healing Halo
A sickening and strange gurgle proceeded the crack of bone as the collarbone violently snapped back into place. A sense of sickening agonies hit Riley through the bond, leaving her woozy.
Another figure emerged from the dark and appeared behind the remaining support caster.
They never saw them appear, the being moving like a creature of living shadow as a black blade erupted from their chest, disappearing only for the entity to swing, taking off their head.
Sabine swung her sword sharply, clearing it of blood. "Can you run? I got here as soon as I could."
"You were following us! What kept you!" Riley cried.
"Later, Tobias, can you move?!?" she shouted.
"Get him off of me and I can," Tobias replied, his face ashen white.