It was difficult to even describe the thing that rested in the ruins of Fort Duality as a monster. For the very first time since I had learned about the existence of Calamity’s back on the Thorny Reef, I understood the cultural fear that the Veredenese had about them.
This was more than a monster.
It was more akin to an ancient god.
Even though it was reclining in the ruins of the near castle that was Fort Duality, from its freakish feet to the tip of its head, it had to be over four hundred feet tall at the very least. The creature was, in a way, almost reminiscent of the smaller Revenants that it was apparently spawning. It was a full upright bipedal instead of only partially like its children and retained some of the same features of both lizards and bats that they did.
But that was where the similarities ended.
The Godbound had the basic shape of most humanoid creatures, with two digitigrade legs and two almost human-like arms, clad in mostly dark green scales and tipped in talons larger than city buses from Earth. However, there was an odd pattern of crimson scales that were visible all over its body, forming what appeared to be runes in the same eldritch script that Nerexxa had been using.
Only these were writ much, much larger. They hurt to look at, making my eyes burn to focus upon them.
It was heavily muscled, as well, thick of body and limb, giving it a powerful seeming physique. While the smaller Revenants had only two malformed blade-like wings extending from its back, this thing had more. In a way almost reminiscent of Nerexxa, it had three pairs of bat-like wings curled on its back and clasped on its chest, almost like an extended cloak. But these weren’t flightless fighting appendages like the Revenants I had seen had. These were fully webbed, which horrified me.
This thing could potentially fly?
Two wide, sharp ears extended above its batlike head that twitched ever so slightly in place. However, its eyes and mouth were oddly closed, giving it a near-resting-like appearance.
But it very obviously was doing something.
There was a stolid expression on its gargantuan, bat-like face, visible even at this distance. From in between its thighs, a massive swirling column of smoke had enveloped something that had once resided within the ruined Fort Duality. It spiraled into the sky, and seemed to be the origin of the cloudy murk that had artificially turned day into night.
That…that had to be the Portal Stone.
Tlazo had been right.
The Godbound had already started to attune it to the location of its mistress.
Baldric must have realized this as well because he cursed. “Let’s go,” He said urgently to Liora and I. “We have to make it to that thing before it’s too late.”
I tore my horrified gaze away from the titanic monster at the center of the twin cities, and started to nod along with Liora. But something else caught my attention.
A Revenant was swooping down at us from the sky. This one wasn’t just falling fully formed from the corrupted Aether that was suffusing the area, though. No, instead, it had functional wings instead.
The Revenants were starting to evolve.
To fly
And one was nearly upon us.
“Look o-!” I started to shout, pointing to the beast with its talons extended in our direction hungrily.
I needn’t have bothered.
With a furious snarl, Baldric whirled around and slashed out at the descending monster with one wind-coated hooked dagger. A visible blade of razor-sharp wind exploded from the edge and raced up to meet the Revenant, easily slicing the thing into two pieces that fell to the street below.
But there were more of them. Winging their way through the sky were more and more winged Rhazalian Revenants, where only moments ago they had been falling to the ground like stones.
It wasn’t safe up high anymore.
Liora didn’t waste any time. “We have to get off the roofs,” She said quickly. “We’re easy prey up here.” Almost before she was finished speaking, she leaped off of the edge of the roof we were on, and into the alleyway below.
Baldric cursed but obviously agreed, as he followed after her.
I did the same, after one last dread-filled glance at the Godbound on the horizon.
Once on the pavement of Tlatec, I saw that Liora and Baldric were peeking out around the corner of the alleyway at the street outside. I hurried to join them, and when I did, I saw that the fighting was…going better than expected. The introduction of Tlazo’s undead forces was turning the tide for the battle on the ground, but I didn’t know how long that would last with the introduction of fliers. Already I could see flying versions of the Revenants swooping down and scooping up either Orcs or their undead versions. This didn’t always turn out the best for them, as sometimes their captives would simply slay the monsters and fall back to the pavement. But not always, and attrition would already be eating away at the guards of Tlatec if it wasn’t for an almost endless stream of undead that had started to pour out of the entrance to Tlazo’s underground lab.
The end result was that the Revenant hordes were being pushed back, but slowly.
Too slow for our purposes. It would take too long to fight through the creatures if we wanted to get to the ruins of Fort Duality any time soon.
“We’ll have to take the back streets,” Baldric said grimly, only barely loud enough to be heard over the fighting. “I know the way to the bridge connected to the Fort. Follow me.” At that, the dwarf turned around and walked away from the entrance out into the street. Liora and I followed him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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An unexpected benefit that I didn’t think of, following Baldric through these back streets, was that they were too narrow for the Revenants to squeeze into. The regular citizens of Tlactec, though, seemed to have realized that before I did. This appeared to be the place where the guards who weren’t involved in the fighting were evacuating their charges. We passed more than one group of Orcish civilians huddling in scared groups in the back alleys, overseen by grim and paranoid Tlatecian guards. They eyed our group with suspicion when we hurried past but didn’t try and stop us.
Probably because, although it was a bit strange to find non-Orcs in the city, we weren’t literal bloodthirsty monsters.
But…
I wasn’t sure how long they could keep hiding in here.
I saw more than one Revenant notice the civilians from overheard, and try to scrabble their way in between the gaps in stone. The guards were easily able to handle this, but the stonework kept getting more and more damaged on the buildings we were passing. Not only that, but I swear I heard Revenants breaking into buildings and trying to dig their way through the back walls to the scared people on the other side. We stopped to help whenever we could, but we had bigger problems, as callous as that sounded.
We had to hurry.
Eventually, we reached the line of buildings that lay near the border of the canal that separated Tlactec and Elderwyck. Through the gap in the alleyway that we were hiding within, I could see the bridge which led to the ruins of Fort Duality that rested in between the twin cities. The titanic form of the Godbound dominated the horizon with its dread power, with its resting legs alone being taller than the buildings we hid between. There was a problem, however.
The entrance onto the bridge was absolutely swarming with Revenants. There must be hundreds to thousands of the things milling about near the demolished guard checkpoints that used to block the path over the bridge. Not only that, but the entire street extending as far as we could see on both sides was filled with an uncountable horde of the Godbounds creations. There didn’t look to be a way forward, to my eyes. But they weren’t acting like I had seen them elsewhere in the city. They were almost calm, with a form of enhanced intelligence and watchful eyes that were exhibited in both the waiting fliers and the ground-bound.
And I think I knew why.
There looked to be an evolved form of the Revenants leading them. Much more so than the fliers even.
It was twice as tall as a human man, and that was because it stood upright like its progenitor, although in a hunched-over position. The bat-like lizard thing watched the world with forward-facing eyes on its digitigrade legs with its own set of wings draped over its shoulders. I didn’t dare to use Observe on it in case the thing felt the Skill, but it was very obviously more powerful than its brethren. It radiated a strength that I could feel all the way from where I was hiding.
I swear, I swear, I could feel a Mantle radiating off of the thing, even at this distance.
The rest of the Revenants crowded around their apparent, acting like loyal and watchful hounds at its beck and call.
There was no easy way around any of them.
Unexpectedly, Baldric sighed from his position next to Liora and I. We were all cautiously peering out of the exit out into the street, trying to figure out a way that we were going to reach the island. “We’re not all getting through there,” He said, almost peacefully.
I cut my eyes his way. “What?” I asked, not understanding his meaning. “What do you mean, all?”
"If we try and get past that thing," Baldric said calmly. "It's just going to follow. Alone, I could stealth under its attention, but not with the two of you. It's guarding more than just the bridge, too. I can feel its attention watching the whole of the border with the canal. I'm going to have to do something...else, instead."
Else? What else?
But Liora seemed to understand. She unexpectedly crouched down and looked the dwarf in the eyes. “Please don’t,” She said quietly, almost pleading with him. “Please…I…I can’t…”
Fondly, the spymaster of the Nocturne Division reached out and cradled the Gnoll woman’s hands. He rubbed his thumbs almost comfortingly over her furred knuckles before meeting her eyes. “You know I have to,” He said calmly, causing Liora to look away briefly. Baldric reached up, though, to cup her furred cheek in his rough hand tenderly to look her in the eye. “You do. You’re a smart girl. You know almost more than I do what we signed up for, in the Division.”
“I do,” Liora whispered, laying her hand over his on her cheek. “But…I don’t know if I could survive losing anyone else.” For the first time since I’d ever known her, the woman I had known as Dusk for so long sounded to be near tears. “I’m…not strong enough.”
A smile stretched its way over Baldric's craggy, bearded face. “You are,” He said confidently. “I know you are. I’ve only ever held you back from your true potential, Liora Valen.”
By now, I was starting to understand what the Florensian dwarf was intending. It…was hard not to.
There was only one person here who could potentially take on that evolved Revenant and distract it long enough. But not even Baldric could fight both that evolved Revenant, and the hordes that surrounded it alone.
He was going to sacrifice himself, so we could reach the Godbound.
God, I felt like a piece of shit voyeur for intruding on this farewell.
“When I’m gone,” Baldric said, causing a short, sharp sob to escape Liora. He used a thumb to wipe away one of the tears that was escaping Liora’s lavender-colored eyes and smiled. “I want more for you than this life. You could be so much more than just another blade in the dark, Liora. Join the Academy, and build something for yourself. Greycton owes us both for this. He won’t raise a stink. Promise me, Liora. Promise me you’ll do it.”
Her head lowered, Liora gave a small nod. “I promise,” She breathed, before lunging forward and wrapping Baldric in a hug. “I promise.”
A measure of tension escaped Baldric then, and the dwarf almost looked to be at peace. The two of them separated slowly, and then Baldric unexpectedly turned to face me. “Afraid I’m not going to be able to continue your training, Hart,” He said wryly. “You stick to the plan we made, listen to Greycton, and you’ll go far. Hell, you could even become one of the greats, if you put your mind to it.”
I took a deep breath and did my best to smile at the dwarf. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Baldric. Thank you for…everything.”
Baldric snorted. “Don’t worry about it. You might not have been in the Division long, but you were a decent Agent,” He said, before reaching up to his neck and withdrawing something from under this vest. As it was exposed to open air, I saw that it was a pendant of all things. Actually, I think it was a locket, with a stylized version of the House Florens crest on the front. He unclasped it and then handed it to me. “Here. Give this to Azarus, will you? I…always intended to talk to the boy and hash things out, but. Well. Old habits die hard, wouldn’t you say?” He gave a gallows chuckle. “Apologize to him for me. If I had just stuck around…maybe he wouldn’t have to go and live with the Savoy.”
I nodded at Baldric, and slipped the pendant around my own neck for safekeeping, tucking into my worn-down, blood-encrusted Loyalist armor. “I will. I promise I will,” I swore.
If I survived.
At that, Baldric seemed to have finished his final goodbyes. With a lingering glance between him and Liora, he approached the exit of the alleyway. “Once I get started,” He said without turning, with his back to us. “You’ll have to jump into the river when I have their attention. There’s a back entrance into Fort Duality at the bottom of the canal, and that should still be intact. Once there, make your way up…and do what you have to.”
He drew the two hooked daggers that he had retained hold of through everything that had happened to us.
His namesake.
“Goodbye…papus…” Liora whispered next to me, before Baldric could leave forever.
Baldric looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Goodbye, suki.”
At that, the spymaster of the Nocturne Division, Baldric of House Florens, turned around and…
Stepped into the street.
He immediately drew the attention of every Revenant that lay out there by exploding forward into a swirling morass of razor-sharp winds. Dozens and dozens of them died instantly, but neither Liora or I were inclined to waste this chance.
We sprinted out into the street, onto the gore-covered cobblestones of Tlatec, and dove over the side of the railing that separated the twin cities.
As I fell, I could see Baldric engage with the form of the evolved Rhazalian Revenant.
Strangely, there was a smile on his face.