Spears were excellent weapons, cheap and quick to produce, effective at piercing armor, and effective against unarmored warriors; they were the de facto weapon of the battlefield. But if one could get past the point, dive under it and stand up too close for the spearmen to wield their weapon effectively then it was worthless. A weakness that Ashera had compensated with by placing her best warriors at the center of the formation with swords. When a breach in the spearline occurred they were supposed to charge forward and close the gap, fighting with a closer ranged weapon and giving the spears time to reform. A job that neither the sculptor nor the cook could handle.
It simply wasn’t possible.
Lorelai’s eyes changed color, horns sprouted from her head and her nails shifted into the obsidian talons they had been in front of Ashera.
“No point in hiding when the unfaithful are dead.” Opined Lorelai.
Scores of amber eyes turned to see the succubus, lupine minds comprehending what had goaded them to slaughter. The Nightmother, Matriarch of succubi was universally opposed to the Huntress, grandmother of all Lycanthropes. Mortal enemies who implanted their hatred in the hearts of their descendants.
Blind rage filled the minds of the mortal wolves who charged as one body. Nearly forty wolves –Ashera couldn’t count the exact number– charged the demon and four humans. It should have been a bloodbath–
But no human fell.
Nerus struck first. Dancing forward he punched a wolf square in the snout. A foolish attack for a human to make, except the wolf crumpled under the blow as if it had fallen off a cliff and landed on a brick wall. It’s spine shattered, literally exploding out of it’s back as the force of the punch obliterated it.
This strength was inhuman, far greater than Tristan had ever displayed. Yet the scene repeated itself all around Lorelai, Tristan moved with greater speed than the Lycans could ever hope to match, his sword slashing and severing in a macabre dance of fur and vicera. Behind him, Jude spared a second to pray.
“Daughter of hellfire, grant me your tormenting flame so I might strike down our enemies.” Jude said.
Her longsword belched hellfire, covering the blade in black flames.
Wolves saw the fire and planted all four paws against the ground, but they had been too eager. Their momentum carried them forward, skittering across the grass. Jude’s blade spared none, her forsaken power annihilated the wolves. Each stroke of her sword sent an arc of hell lancing into the night, searing through fur and flesh with wanton abandon. Nerus joined her in a duet of sycophancy, parading their new powers in front of the temptress who had granted them.
Balorian Lysandre –the cook– put them to shame. His silhouette moved faster than darkness, a nimble thrust and a wolf collapsed with its second cervical vertebra severed by a kitchen knife. The next wolf he encountered lost its eyes to a pair of salad spoons. A bruise on his cheek caught Ashera’s eye, it looked like he had been punched–
Spoon man was Balorian.
Spoon man had come to slay the Lycans. Ashera was sick, she wanted to dry heave and curse as Balorian licked his salad spoons between uses, somehow delighting in the taste of lupine jelly and eyeball ichor.
Lorelai had stolen her friends. Corrupted her family.
I’ll kill her!
I pray to every god, angel, devil, demon, spirit, and saint in heaven, hell, earth, or any realm. Grant me the power to destroy the succubus Geruvah. No price is too great, no debt will go unpaid. By my hand or yours, destroy Geruvah.
Red eyes focused on Ashera’s remaining eye. Lorelai had heard her prayer. Midnight teeth were backlit by the fire within Lorelai’s throat.
“Balorian, be a dear and put out Ashera’s second eye, she has seen enough.” Said Lorelai in a sing-song voice.
Balorian kicked a wolf in the neck, his foot slashing through the creature's spine and sending its head rolling. “As you wish, lady Lorelai.”
Ashera didn’t have time to squirm or resist. She barely had time to see the same spoon that had stolen her first eye claim her second. Just as it had happened before the spoon slid into her orbital socket, scraping sideways to sever the musculature and tendons before it levered backwards. Her eyeball slurped free. The last sense she had was lost.
“Egh. That’s too bitter, but they might make a good sauce if I candy them in honey and reduce it with carrots… hmm, maybe onions would be better.” Balorian muttered, somehow returning to the fray with a bored indifference.
Ashera’s dead body did not react, but her mind revolted. When she got off this cross, she was going to kill them all. Not just Lorelai, but cheating Tristan, envious Jude, Balorian the glutton, and Nerus the sculptor. They would all feel her vengeance.
Blinded, she could do nothing except listen to the battle, an unprofitable venture that she could not escape. Wolves died, and soon the Lycans intervened, leading their simple minded pack away from their mortal enemy. The battle between Lycan and demon dragged on for three days and nights, immortals striving to best each other with their most potent weapons drained by the blight.
When it was done, Asher could hear the five demons talking.
“Lady Lorelai, what now?” Asked Tristan.
“Take everything we can and join the siege at Juyoma. Mother has need of your suf-strength.” Answered Lorelai.
“What about Ephraim? We could get a sled and-” Jude Asked.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Showing concern for our dear brother? You are one crucifixion too late for honoring our familial ties sister.
“Ephraim’s destiny lies here with Ashera.” Said Lorelai
A howl rose through the woods, sending shivers through the blackwood pines and shudders up forsaken spines. A second howl whispered through the world to answer the first cry.
“They are calling for reinforcements. They will come again, we must flee before they return.” Lorelai ordered.
Sounds of bone doors and items falling reached Ashera, bracketed by the footsteps of her fallen friends. Nerus cursed as he tripped on a half eaten woman.
1. Where are you going? Stay here. Keep fighting the Lycans. Your family is here, stay and die with the people you lead to destruction.
Ashera cursed them with all her soul. Vain wrath filled her belly only to fall silently on a listening world as the demon and her four disciples evacuated.
Once again Ashera was left to rot. The sun rose, stinging her empty eye sockets as it vaporized the morning dew. Howls came and went, circling around her only to fade as they pursued their eternal foe. Ashera thought they might set her free, via tearing into her legs for a free snack, just like they tore into the bodies all around her. She could hear their bones snapping as the wolves slurped their marrow, adding her former family’s strength to their hunt.
Eight nails held her in place, two in each arm and two in each leg. Losing her crippled legs would solve half of her restraints, yet the wolves passed over her. One peculiarly large wolf stopped to urinate, walking in a circle around Ashera’s cross.
Dumb bitch, go piss somewhere else. Lorelai’s corpse would be a great place to start.
No response, not that she expected one. Lycan might be the Huntress’ warriors but they were little more than enhanced humans, they did not have the eyes or ears of angels, they could not see her undeath nor hear the prayer of her soul. So they passed by her grave.
–Days passed–
Mana flowed within Ashera, the power of her soul’s will filled her body. Slowly, painfully, her body began to feel once more.
Footsteps echoed through town. Ashera’s ears twitched as they picked up on the sound of human footsteps crossing open grass. A woman’s voice crossed the stillness, warmth on her skin told her it was day, but nothing more. The footsteps paused as the visitor halted their advance to kneel beside a body. An incantation escaped the visitor’s lips and Ashera felt the quiver of power. Magic was being worked openly in Ellin forest. The visitor moved from one body to the next, granting them their final rites before repeating her incantation in a language Ashera could not understand but recognized as the words of the Seraphim.
She listened as the woman worked, Ashera counted every single prayer. Memorizing it over the sixty repetitions. Magic ebbed with each prayer, washing against the Ellin blight like a tide and guiding the souls of the fallen to the afterlife; be it heaven or hell.
Quickly harnessing the nascent magic Ashera wove power into her thoughts.
Angel of mercy, have you come to answer my prayers? Prayed Ashera.
“I may be a woman, but I am no angel.” Said the woman.
Footsteps approached Ashera’s grave. The spike in her left wrist twisted slightly –no more than a millimeter– scraping against the bones in her forearm. Then it twisted counterclockwise, the motion repeating until the spike slipped free of the hardened blackwood and through her forearm. One of eight seals had been removed. The woman repeated the action three more times.
Halfway free.
“My name is Diana, I am a priestess of the Mother. She has granted me the ears to hear your prayers, and sent me to offer you a curse. What would you sacrifice for your vengeance?” Diana Asked.
A priestess of the Huntress, of course it was a Lycan who had come to her aid. Though what did she mean? Lycanthropy was never called a curse by the Huntress’ faithful. It was their highest gift. An invitation to their family, one that could not be offered to the dead, so why had a servant of the wild grandmother come to her?
Ashera could guess the answer, Hell might have answered her call, they often quarreled amongst themselves, but it was unlikely they would pick one who had already died. Angels –the Seraphim– were almost entirely men, lords or knights, they had few ladies in their midst but for reasons unbeknownst to humanity they universally refused the duties of a holy mother. Even the wife of the twice-ascended Archon refused to be the patron of pregnant women. That duty had been carved out by the wild grandmother, the Huntress, the wrath of a spurned woman and antithesis of the Nightmother deviless of succubi.
I should have honored her while I lived. Ashera thought.
Priestess, no curse would bar my wrath. Look at me, my eyes are gone, my child was taken from my womb and slain before I could hold them. Even their corpse has been desecrated. Stolen so I can never bury them. I was once Loki’s champion, and in my abeyance to the trickster I failed to offer homage to the Huntress. Curse me for my hubris, then curse me again for my dishonor, I deserve Her ire, but let me be the implement of the Huntress’ wrath.
Diana sucked air through her teeth in a long wince. “I was worried you might say that. Mother gave me a weapon… One that will damn your soul-”
Give it to me. I’ll kill the succubus.
“Don’t interrupt! You have no idea the pain, the evil-”
I was tricked. The sister of my soul was consumed by a succubus and I failed to notice! No pain or damnation or hellfire could make me suffer more than I already have.
Diana let out her breath, and peeked up Ashera’s skirt. A gasp escaped her lips when she recognized the damage of a forced birth. Seeing blood drip from above she lifted the hem past her distended belly, letting out a whimper when she saw the double mastectomy. Letting the dress fall she took a moment to smooth the wrinkles on Ashera’s tattered clothes, pondering the evils she had endured.
“I see… Listen well, this weapon is cursed. Mother gave it to me and ordered me to charge it with the souls of the damned. It will grant you the ability to use magic, so long as you add more souls. Did you weave magic while you were living?”
Loki would not have accepted a powerless mortal as his champion. You say feed it souls, but what you mean is that the weapon hungers for souls, damned or innocent.
Diana let out a pitiful laugh, a half hearted ache of sorrow. “The weapon is the summation of Oathinao’s fallen gods, divinities that no longer wander creation. They forged this weapon as their last gasp, a last curse before they fell into oblivion. Their hunger is boundless, the souls they claim are infinite. This power will consume you, be it today or a millennia from now.”
Give me their epitaph, I wish to thank the gods who will grant me vengeance.
Diana sighed, her last warning falling on deaf ears. What had she expected, the woman in front of her knew the meaning of woe, her wounds were evidence of a succubi’s mission successfully accomplished. A family -a lineage that might have birthed a Seraphim- had been truncated by the endless plotting of Hell’s succubi, leaving behind a revenant where there should have been joy.
“Fine. What is your name?”
Ashera.
Ashera, what a fitting name for the relevance of vengeance. In the distant city of Quar that name would be misunderstood as ‘Lady of Ashes’, an epitaph fitting of the hell she would soon have to endure. Diana paused as she recalled the weapon’s epitaph, she had not been its keeper for long and the words were older than the continent of Oathinao. Diana opened her mind and heart, preparing her soul for revelation. Like an itching fire the Mother whispered the words into her waiting mind, and Diana prophesied.
“The weapon has no name, some have called it soulsucker, Thanatos’ sphere, or the orb of death. Regardless of providence it was forged by the fallen gods who smelted their souls, distilling themselves into corporeal essence. Guided by Nyx, Hephestus condensed Thanatos, Erebus, Moros, Hypnos, Morpheus, Eris, Nemesis, Oizys, Geras, Deimos, Phobos, Thanatopsis, Keres, and a dozen others whose names have been lost to war, the rider of apocalypse, into this singularity. Will you accept annihilation to join the gods of oblivion?”
As long as I can kill her I will accept anything. When oblivion claims me I will greet her with gratitude, so long as Geruvah is destroyed, wiped clean from existence.
No sooner than she thought the words a black sphere zipped through space, flying from the pouch in Diana’s hands to Ashera’s right eyesocket. It pushed aside the dust and coagulated ichor to nestle itself inside her skull, warping it so the fist size orb appeared as a normal eye. Granting her a new form of vision.
Her body burned as the orb of oblivion’s gods rewrote her nervous system, reforging her body and mana circuits to accept its annihilating power. Her pelvis cracked, popping into place as a hundred souls willed her to be whole. Ashera smiled through it all, accepting the pain. She had failed her god, her family, and everything she had ever stood for. She deserved the pain of reanimation. Diana covered her mouth, recoiling from the crucifixion as Ashera’s body began to twitch.
She shook her head. No mortal should watch a destroying angel come into being, whatever taboos had tortured the revenant into existence would not be cured by her observation, so she fled. Leaving the orb to empower a new reaper. Four nails would be nothing more than splinters, and Diana was not foolish enough to face a starving ravager. So she ran into the forest, returning to the Mother who had empowered her. This Lady of Ashes might claim a million souls, but hers would not be among them.