Drakelings — Maribelle

I make it a ways into the forest, and look back, peeking out from behind some shrubbery. Just outside the tree line, a wyvern is landing and five drakelings are disembarking from it. Back at our camp, a chaotic battle is already underway. I see Ferry launch himself into the sky with an explosion, dodging some kind of crystal magic, before he quickly dispatches an assassin who attacks him in midair.

He looks like he’s having trouble, but I have to believe in him and focus on my own survival. My heart screams at me as I turn around. I want to help him. I want to fight by his side.

The drakelings chasing me begin to spread out, searching for me in the woods. They move quickly. I run.

I weave between the trees, darting through the mountain woods. Tears drip down my cheeks. Sticks crunch beneath my feet as my fast footsteps propel me. I try to make the sound of my movement as quiet as possible without sacrificing speed. It doesn’t work.

Something is behind me. It’s faster than me. I’m about to be caught.

I spin around and raise my sword. The drakeling has purple scales and black spines. It carries an obsidian war axe. Based on its aura, it’s stronger than me, stronger than the evil adventurers had been, but much weaker than Ferry.

In the brief instant that we make eye contact, my body decides between fight and flight. Ferocious rage explodes within by heart. I will not die here, and I will not run.

‘Lizard, I will crush you,’ my spirit declares.

He swings down his war axe in a brutal strike. He’s fast.

I barely manage to dodge, the whole world slowing down as my focus is pushed to the limit. When I counter with a strike from my sword, the drakeling blocks my blow with practiced ease, the shaft of his war axe deflecting my blade with minimal force.

My fist smashes into his face. He wasn’t expecting me to drop my sword and punch him.

He takes the blow with a grunt, swinging his axe in a sideways strike. Dangerous magic concentrates in the axehead as it comes for me. I’m too close to dodge.

I spin around, and his blow hits the backpack I’m wearing with a deafening bang. The stuff inside the pack goes flying everywhere. The magic-imbued axehead is stopped just before my spine when it collides with what feels like a lumpy hunk of metal. The impact knocks the wind out of me, but I don’t miss the chance to counterattack.

Once again, my fist collides with his face. With his axe stuck in the remains of my backpack, he is wide open. I hit him two more times before he finally dislodges his axe from the mangled pack, the last of its contents landing in the dirt.

I jump back, gaining some distance. He charges forward, not wanting to give me a chance to take a breath.

I roll between his legs, picking up a dagger from the ground and burying it in his ankle. He hisses in pain, green smoke rising from the wound around the dagger’s blade.

He stumbles backward, limping from his wounded ankle. I take the chance to pick up the other dagger, the one with the sharpness enchantment.

He leaps forward with his good leg, and hacks at me with his axe, fury in his eyes.

I meet the shaft of his axe with the blade of the dagger, and the supernaturally sharp edge cuts through the wood like butter. The axe head goes flying and I dodge it with a tilt of my head.

I feel a satisfying sensation within my spirit as the truth of my declaration becomes assured.

My dagger pierces his heart. I rip it back out of him, and he collapses, bleeding profusely from the hole in his chest.

I pick up my bone sword from the ground. Its destructive aura doesn’t sting me anymore.

“Good.”

I decapitate the drakeling with a single, swift slash.

The moment his head hits the ground, I hear a hiss of rage from behind me. It’s a brown drakeling with green spines, holding a spear that consists of little more than a sharpened stick.

I face my new opponent, a bloody dagger in my left hand, a blade of destruction in my right.

‘I’ll destroy you too,’ I declare.

The drakeling flicks his spear, and tree roots erupt from the ground around me. I attempt to dodge, but I am caught by surprise.

The roots wrap around me, holding me in place. The drakeling charges at me with his spear.

No. I will not die here.

The tree roots shatter into splinters. Cracks form in the earth beneath my feet. My spirit roars.

I meet my foe’s spear with a slash of my blade, the air crackling around the bone with pure destructive power.

The drakeling dodges my sword, but is hit by the wave of destruction that follows it. He coughs blood. I don’t waste any time. I charge forward, stabbing with my blade and unleashing another blast of destructive power.

The drakeling nimbly dodges my attack and stabs me in the shoulder with his spear. It hurts.

He jumps back when I slash at him in retaliation. I don’t let up, immediately throwing my dagger at his face. He dodges just quickly enough to avoid a lethal wound, a shallow cut left in the side of his head. I swing my blade in a sideways slash, a swath of destructive force ripping through the forest in front of me, splintering tree trunks and making my enemy shriek in pain.

I charge forward, taking advantage of his moment of weakness, but he jumps back and slashes with his spear. The forest becomes my enemy. Trees converge on me, swinging their branches like heavy clubs. Roots rip out of the ground and wrap around my legs.

My aura of destruction shreds the roots and branches, but they still hinder me. My prey is escaping. I cannot allow that.

I crouch down and leap forward. Magic courses through my legs as I propel myself so fast that the world blurs around me. The only thing that remains in focus is my fleeing foe.

My sword pierces through his back and a blast of destruction tears through his flesh and bone. He bursts like an overripe tomato, reduced in an instant to a loosely connected mess of pulverized meat and shattered bone.

Once again, I feel the satisfaction of fulfilling a declaration. I become stronger, but the effect is not nearly as pronounced as after the last battle. I suppose this victory was less impressive.

When I finally take a breath, my singleminded focus on victory fades, and I almost puke.

What did I just do?

Searing pain goes through me as an arrow hits me in the hip. I cry out, looking to where the arrow came from.

There are three of them, one of which feels much stronger than the ones I killed. I turn and run.

The three drakelings chase me. I’m faster now than I was before, but the arrow in my hip hurts like crazy. I grit my teeth and ignore the pain. I need to escape.

My three pursuers spread out slightly, but not enough to lose sight of each other like they did before. They’re not underestimating me anymore.

I dodge an arrow that flies over my shoulder, and turn to the left to run in the only direction they’re allowing me to go. They’re herding me back towards the grasslands, and there is nothing I can do about it.

A massive boom resounds from the direction of the bottomless rift. A wall of white rises into the sky, slowly becoming volcanic ash. A moment later, there is a flash of light and heat so intense that it evaporates the clouds above me. The small section of grassland that I can see spontaneously catches fire, ignited by the radiating heat.

I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. That was obviously Ferry, and whatever just happened, it involved him unleashing every ounce of his magic. I had no idea he had that much power.

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With renewed vigor, I run towards the still rising wall of ash. It’s exactly the direction my pursuers want me to go, but I don’t care anymore. Ferry needs help.

An arrow hits my left arm, but I ignore it. I keep running. I burst out of the tree cover.

The grasslands have become a field of charred stalks, thick with smoke that obscures my view. The flames have already consumed their fast burning fuel, and are dying out. Without hesitation, I run into the smoke, heading in the direction of the bottomless rift.

My pursuers continue to chase me through the field of ash. A couple more arrows swish by me with inches to spare.

Finally, I see the site of the battle through the smoke. By the edge of the canyon, there is a furrow in the ground with a thick wall of volcanic ash still rising from it. Ferry is trapped inside of a large blue crystal. A dozen drakelings are securing the crystal to a wyvern with straps.

I sprint straight towards him. I will break the crystal with my entropomancy and set him free.

‘Ferry, I will absolutely save you,’ I declare.

An arrow hits me in the back. I think it pierced a lung. It hurts so much, but I fight through the pain and keep running. I cough on the smoke, and blood comes out of my mouth.

Several drakelings stand between me and my trapped brother. Some of them are really strong. Still, I refuse to fail.

I force magic to surge through my legs, and I jump forwards, leaping over the heads of the drakelings on a trajectory that will take me straight to Ferris.

A green drakeling wearing blood stained cloth intercepts me in the air. He punches me in the stomach. I put all my magic into strengthening my body to take the hit.

Blood spurts out of my mouth. I feel my organs burst and my ribs shatter. My small body folds in half over the drakeling’s fist before I am sent flying.

The sheer acceleration makes me black out for a moment. I am brought back to my senses when I smash into a stone wall. I am falling. Below me, there is an endless abyss of darkness.

My limp and broken body cannot move. There is nothing I can do but fall.

Something breaks inside me. I have failed my declaration. My sword stings my hand again, and the burning power within me is blown out, becoming little more than a flickering ember.

I drop helplessly into the abyss. The darkness consumes me.

“I’m disappointed, Maribelle. I didn’t expect you to fail so soon. Though, to let you die here would be a waste. You would be extinguished before even having a chance to burn.”

Something wraps around me, leathery vines that pull my broken body through a narrow tunnel without walls. The darkness becomes as thick as water, suffocating me.

I open my eyes.

I’m lying in some kind of cave. The walls are soot black stone, covered in faintly glowing red vines, the only source of light. A faint violet haze fills the tunnel. The air is thick. The wounds in my body are gone. I look at my shoulder where I had been stabbed by a spear. There is a scar there, healed over completely, as if it was an old wound. I’m alive, in good health, even.

My clothes are torn all over, and stained with my dried blood. There are two objects on the ground beside me. My sword, still radiating with destructive energy, and the sunflower that had been in my hair. Somehow, it survived the whole battle, and even followed me to this place.

I hear footsteps. There is only one person it can be.

“Bezvillia?”

She rounds the corner of the dark passageway. Seeing her in the flesh is different than in my dreams. She’s bigger, around four meters tall, but there’s more than that. Her presence extends far beyond her physical form. With every breath, she pulls the world in, then pushes it out. With every step, the universe moves backwards so that she may advance relative to everything else. She is a fixed point in existence, powerful, and beautiful.

“Thank you. You saved me,” I say.

“Do you know your mistake?”

I hesitate. I don’t really know what my mistake was. I think for a bit and decide on an answer.

“I got too confident. I fought when I should have run.”

“Wrong. You wouldn’t have been able to escape your pursuers, even if you had run.”

“Then, my mistake… I did nothing wrong. I tired my best until the very end.”

The banished goddess leans down over me, her four glowing eyes coming close to mine, staring intently.

“Your mistake was that you failed to impose your will upon the world. You were too weak.”

My heart catches in my throat. I sob, just once. A tear drips down onto my bloodstained shirt.

“Ferry, is he dead?”

“He still has around six hours to live, the time it will take for the drakelings to fly him to the maw of their lord, Kalamath the Feasting One.”

“Please, can you save him?” I ask.

“No. My power is confined to the rift. There is nothing I can do.”

“Can you send me back out? If there’s any chance, I have to try.”

Bezvillia pulls a dusty rectangular piece of stone out of her robe. It is engraved with an intricate pattern of runes. There is something magical about it.

“I don’t have many of these, but they are all but useless to me. It’s a teleportation talisman. Break it, and it can send you to something familiar, if you focus on it.”

“It can send me to Ferris?”

“Yes. I will give it to you, if you want. However, have you already forgotten your mistake? Right now, you are weaker than you have ever been. As your word was broken, so was your spirit.”

“I’m still too weak. I can’t save him. Even at my strongest, I couldn’t save him.”

“Indeed.”

I sob again, the tears flowing more freely this time. Is ferry really going to die? Is that it?

“Why do you despair?” Bezvillia asks, tilting her head just like she did in my dreams.

“Because… Ferry…”

I shut my mouth, biting my tongue. I can’t say that he’s going to die. I refuse to say it, not now that I know what power my words can have.

“Look, child,” Bezvillia says.

A flickering illusion appears in the air. It’s a still image of a flying wyvern. Ferry is inside a crystal hanging below the monster, strapped to its large body.

“This shows things as they are,” Bezvillia says.

She seems to be expecting some kind of reaction out of me. I take another look at the illusion. It takes me a moment, but then I notice it. The image is moving, ever so slowly.

“It’s slowed down,” I say.

“Yes. This realm is my prison, but I have power here. I can even control time, to an extent. As a gift to you, I have made time flow three thousand times faster than in the outside world. If you stay here with me, you will have a little over two years before your brother is fed to Kalamath.”

“Two years?”

“Yes. I will teach you, so that you do not make the same mistake again.”

I jump up and hug the goddess. Crying into her soft grey robes.

“Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you!”

I feel her huge hand rest on my back. Powerful energy courses through her long, slender fingers, tickling me.

“In return, you must promise to eventually reach your full potential, and be my ally, always.”

“Yes. I promise.”

“Speak properly, Maribelle. Do not sully yourself with mortal folly.”

I look up at her, a bit confused.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Before, you spoke of surpassing me. If that is truly the extent of your ambition, then there is one thing you must never forget. The difference between the mortal and the divine is that mortals speak with noise, and divinity speaks with sprit. Your words must hold your will.”

“Oh, you mean I should speak like this,” I declare, with both my voice and my spirit.

“Good. To speak as a mortal is to imply that there are limits to your will, limits a supreme being cannot have.”

“Won’t people think it’s weird if I talk like this?” I declare, somehow.

It is hard to get used to. It feels strange making a spirit declaration when I'm not actually declaring anything. There must be more to spirit declarations than what Ferry told me.

“Perhaps, but I suspect others of your kind will notice it less than you expect. If they scorn you for speaking with your will, then they are pitiful fools.”

“Got it… Oh, I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

“Yes. Your voice is still unrefined, but it will improve with practice. Do not worry. We will have much time to converse.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Bezvillia. I promise I’ll be your best student ever.”

I give her a thumbs up, a big smile on my face, my heart now filled with hope. She smiles back.

I’m going to become strong and save Ferris, no mater what. Technically, I still haven’t failed my declaration. It’s interesting. My spirit broke, not when success became impossible, but when I gave up. Remembering my lost power makes my stomach sink a little, though.

“What about the power I lost? I feel like I have to start over.”

“Child, the power you had was obtained over the course of four days. You have two years.”

I smile to myself, laughing a little. She’s right. If I work hard, maybe I can even surpass Ferris.

“What will my training be?”

“I will teach you entropomancy. I happen to know a little bit about that branch of magic, and you seem to have a talent for it.”

I grin, practically trembling with excitement.

“If you are to be my disciple, you must learn etiquette and history.”

I’m not so excited about that, but I can’t really say no.

“Okay.”

“Also, I will enchant that sword of yours. It seems a little bit bare bones at the moment.”

It takes me a couple seconds to realize that she made a pun. I snort.

“And while I’m practicing entropomancy, you can practice your sense of humor,” I tease.

She raises her eyebrows at me. Apparently she wasn’t expecting sass. Oh, these two years are going to be so much fun.

…

They were the hardest two years of my life. Bezvillia is scary.

I’m taller now, for one. Almost as tall as mom, probably. I’m stronger now too, obviously, but I never had any point of reference aside from Bezvillia, and she’s crazy powerful. I can’t wait to see the look on Ferry’s stupid face when he sees me. I miss him, and I miss Mom.

I’m going to utterly crush those stupid lizards for messing with my family.

“Are you ready?” Bezvillia asks.

“Yeah.”

I flip the rectangular piece of stone around in my hand.

“I’ll miss you.”

“You can always visit the rift. Please keep me updated on your search for the Grey Talisman.”

“Of course.”

“Goodbye, Maribelle.”

“Bye, Bez.”

I break the rectangular piece of stone, focusing on my brother’s image. Space folds around me, and I see the sun for the first time in two years. It’s bright.

Ferris is still inside the crystal, perched on the edge of a wooden platform that has been built over the indefinitely gaping mouth of a dragon. The dragon itself is enormous. Its head alone is twice as big as Mom’s inn, its body mostly buried in a forested mountainside. Its eyes are closed, its head turned up at a seemingly awkward angle which makes it easy for food to be dropped directly into its throat. A blue drakeling is making a speech in a hissy, screechy language that I don’t understand. A red drakeling is preparing to push Ferris off the edge.

At least fifty drakelings are in a group around the platform, watching intently.

Heh, they haven’t even noticed me yet.

In a single leap, I land on the platform. I summon my blade, and strike the crystal, forcing a blast of destructive energy into it.

The crystal shatters.

The red drakeling has pulled out a dagger and is slicing towards my throat. I’m in the mood to show off, so I let him cut me. His blade cuts a huge gash in my neck, severing both my jugular and my esophagus.

I punch the drakeling in the face, moving the wound down my arm, out my fist, and into his head. I blow his brains out.

Ferris is gaping at me like an idiot.

“So, are you gonna roast some lizards or not?”

He nods, releasing his aura and forming a white blade of fire at the tip of Radius. I click my tongue in annoyance when I realize that his aura is still stronger than mine. Well, I bet he was way weaker than me back when he was fourteen, so it’s fine. It’s completely fine.

Two powerful drakelings approach us. One with blue scales and a crystal in its hand, and one with green scales and brown spines, the one that punched me into the bottomless rift.

“The green one’s mine,” I tell him.

“Sounds good,” he says.