My father bounds at full speed toward me his blade ablaze, and three jagged daggers of flame speed around the arena chasing Cran. I’m already prepared for him. I slowed my perception of time before he even lunged at me, and within that moment before he committed to his attack, I knew exactly what he was about to do. Within the time spent training with my father, I’ve learned that if I can catch him before he fully commits to a movement or attack, I can have just enough time to dodge, and get a clear idea of his intentions. When he is in the process of an attack, he is planning his next move, which barrages me with information, but in the moment of execution his essence is clear with me.
My vision quickly shifts to essence as the momentum of my father’s attack carries him behind me outside of my physical vision, and I see him prepare to kick off a wall of his cave arena with my spiritual eyes. Time slows and I see in my mind’s eye a faster version of my father moving toward me revealing where his blade will be and prepare my body to react to the phantom projection. I quickly dodge and again my father speeds past me and his blade takes a chunk out of the stands directly in front of me.
“When are you going to fight back?” asks my father breathing heavily wrenching his sword from the stone of the arena.
“When you start to get serious,” I say shooting three large icicles from my wrist at the fire daggers pursuing Cran, “I’m honestly just practicing dodging you right now, and it is getting weirdly easy. I may still be slower than you, but I’m learning to read you like a book.”
“Every time we fight your arsenal grows larger,” says my father catching his breath staring at the three icicle spears impaled in the walls of the cave amphitheater, “your arms look absolutely awful though. Every spell you make forms a new scar on your arms.”
I look down at my forearms and he is right, they do look kind of horrific. My chain arm now has several straight lines of text looking like a row of icicles going down from my elbow to my wrist, and my plasma bubble arm, now has several inscriptions in circular patterns going from my wrist to my elbow. At times the scars appear to shift and change their wording, much like the illusory script on my father’s sword when light catches it. Cran was just as marked up now as I am, as several of his own leaves had scrawled red writing for his own store of spells.
“Every time we fight, I need a new strategy to take you down. I can’t just chain you up anymore. I also have to fully fuel every spell on my arms and recover to max strength just to have a chance against you. Though most of my efforts have been working on my current spells, so they have more than just one charge. I run out of ammo too quickly against you, and sometimes in our fights I find myself in want of an extra ice spear, plasma ball, or blood shield,” I say looking at my scars and the ones that need more essence open up and fill with blood only to heal back over when the required essence fills them with the power they need to be used again.
“I think that the scars add a rather rough and masculine look to Skath,” says Cran floating next to me, and his shaft morphs and sprouts several branches that weave together. Beside me Cran now stands as a plant doppelganger emulating my appearance. The way he looks is exactly what I had seen in my vision of him when I gave him a piece of my soul.
“I like it better when you transform into a boar or bird. Honestly when you take my shape it kind of creeps me out,” I say playfully punching Cran’s shoulder, “Then again, sometimes it’s nice to have you assist me in human form, as it’s a bit easier to adjust to you in this form than a boar’s.”
“I can be much more than that,” says Cran and his branches making up his body split and broke from his central body. Each piece of himself that freed itself from his body reshaped itself and the air was filled with small insect like humanoids with little shields and swords and his voice spreads amongst each of his little warriors, “I can be an army.”
He shifts his shape again and all his army shred themselves into scraps and come together into a contraption looking like a giant bow with a massive arrow that looked more like something you would use to fortify a wall than an arrow, “I can also be your artillery.”
The ballista split and cracked, and from inside of it Cran flew back to my side as a staff. I smile and take him into my hand and place my thumb in the nook where Cran shoves his needle like branch into my finger. I let him take some of my essence to recharge his transformations, and to provide the blood necessary for him to write new inscriptions and to learn my own inscriptions upon my arms. Together we have learned so much about our abilities and ourselves.
“I’m surprised I’m not anemic by the sheer amount of blood I have to use every day,” I say watching Cran feed, “My soul can now replenish my entire store of blood almost five times over now and still have essence left over necessary to use that blood in spells, but I still can’t believe that I haven’t suffered some health side effects from all this bloodletting.”
Cran, satisfied with his meal retracts his needle like branch and breaks free of my grasp and my father shakes his head and says, “I can barely watch you use your magic anymore. I’ve seen gore in my day, but to see it so profusely the way you use your body honestly makes me gag and throws me off sometimes, even when I’m fighting at the edge of going berserk.”
“Wait, did you just say what I thought you did,” I say hearing my father’s words filling me with surprise and excitement, “does that mean Cran, and I are strong enough to continue to the next part of your training?”
“Yes, you two are finally strong enough. Though, I am curious to test you against the berserker, I fear for both of us if we were to try it,” says my father slapping me on the back, “It takes all my concentration just to restrain myself as is. I almost berserk every time we spar. If I went any further, one of us would have to die to stop me.”
“I prefer both of us being alive. I’m just glad that our training in this cave is over. How long has it been?” I ask, curious to know how long I’ve lived in this time void of a cave. Not having seen the sun for… I have no idea how long.
“Four weeks,” says my father, “the snow is gone now, and you have around a little less than a week before the first signs of spring appear.”
“We’ve been training for about a month in here,” I say shocked by just how long I’ve been here, “It doesn’t feel like we’ve been here that long.”
“Today you hunt Dargot,” says my father and the cave that had remained long sealed reopened behind me, “I’ll gather your friends, and we will wait for your return. You may not return home until Dargot is slain, or else your final challenge will be facing me with nothing held back.”
My father in less than a blink of an eye disappears leaving a slight breeze behind him. The braziers left blazing for so long extinguish in his absence, and I’m left to complete my training. Being trapped in this cave for so long, made the trial of killing Dargot feel so distant. However, now it is upon me, and I still don’t know if I can kill him.
I know that killing him could possibly save several lives. I know that. I know that he has killed so many and has left a wake of death in his path. However, I still have my promise to Uzuri weighing on my mind. I desire to protect, but to instigate violence to achieve a better future is different than defending those you love. One is responding to a threat, and the other is basically justified murder. I hate that in some way committing what I consider to be inherent evils may lead to burgeoning good. The more I learn and talk with my mentors, I cannot deny that maybe I’m wrong in how I see the world.
Just wanting the world I desire doesn’t mean that it reflects or changes what is real and right before my eyes. I could want a world where people strive to understand and include each other, but that isn’t the world I live in. I could hope for a world that has good and evil defined in clear terms like perceiving the difference between colors, but that isn’t the world I live in. I could strive for that world with all my might, but someone may see my world as unworthy, undesirable, or evil unto itself and fight to destroy my efforts to create the world I feel would be a better place for all who live on this globe flying through space. Maybe hope and ideals are just veiled disappointments. Now I have to kill a boar and add to the blood already staining my conscience, all so that I can save Uzuri without harming anyone else. I’m a hypocrite, and I guess I’ll have to leave the healer behind to be what I need to become to achieve at least one of my dreams that could be a reality.
“Cran,” I say in the darkness of the cave, “I think I should probably do this on my own. I don’t want you to stain yourself with this.”
“Whatever we do, we do together,” says Cran a blue bioluminescent fruit growing from the hole his two branches form, “For glory, or for shame, I go with you. You gave me life, and the chance to live up to my mother, the queen of the mountain. Now you’re stuck with me.”
“Then let’s do this,” I whisper and with a quivering hand grab Cran in the air, “and thank you for coming with me. I was bluffing before. I don’t think I can do this alone.”
Branches grow from Cran in the form of an arm and Cran places his hand upon my shoulder, “you won’t have to. I’m here, and you have so many others waiting for you and cheering you on right now. Together we will save Uzuri, and together we will live to see ourselves free of our life debt. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll settle down and my saplings will give their branches to your future children as a safe place to play? Right, now though we have a boar to slay.”
“Don’t waste essence, on me,” I say smiling with watery eyes while brushing Cran’s arm off of my shoulder, “we may need every scrap of essence we have to face Dargot.”
I shift my eyes to essence and send my consciousness out into the forest to find Dargot. My vision jumps into the sky and chases down Dargot’s trail, until I find the beast in the western wood. The boar looks like he is on the hunt for something, probably a deer. Knowing where my mark is, I was about to change my gaze back to reality, but I hear something.
“Eat... Eat… Two legs… flesh… nice… when eat… less… pain…” says Dargot in my mind, “females… better tasting… revenge… on large one…”
Wait, I can read the thoughts of animals and maybe even plants, but not humans. That’s odd, but then again spiritually speaking humans and celandil do have divine destinies so maybe they are spiritually different from animals and plants. I was able to read Cran’s thoughts before I made him into an essence reservoir as well, so I guess this ability is limited to reading intentions in actions for humans, but I can hear the thoughts of everything else even if it’s a tad more broken up.
My mind gets hijacked by what Dargot meant by two legs, and females. My vision jumps a distance away from Dargot, and I see my mother and Ashe running deeper into the woods. Their souls and essence are silent to me, but they both look panicked, and Ashe is limping using a spear to run as fast as she can. Did they go and try to hunt Dargot without me or dad? My eyes swap back to reality, and my legs without me telling them to move spring into action. I sprint out of my father’s cave and launch myself forward into the forest. Kicking off trees to maintain my momentum, I push myself faster than I had ever gone before.
Stolen story; please report.
I’m soaring through the woods keeping tabs on Dargot’s progress toward my mother and Ashe. Each kickoff of a tree I see the boar making fast progress to close the distance between him and his prey. My mother grabs Ashe and begins to run as fast as she can for both of their lives. I take a leap, and Dargot charges onward in his hunt. My mother stumbles in a snow patch and Ashe tumbles onto the ground. Both of them take valuable time to get back up and continue running, with Dargot hot on their tails. However, in their fear Dargot is chasing them into a trap. My mother was just running away and probably thinking more of Ashe than where she was going. Dargot is chasing them into the black walls of the valley, and they will be cornered.
In my own desperation I force essence into my legs and launch myself above the trees, directly toward where Dargot was leading my mother and friend. I fly, or rather plummet like a thrown stone above the world, but my soul doesn’t beat within me. I’m stronger than I was before, and I cannot have my mother die because I was too cautious with myself. As I drop from the sky, I clutch onto Cran who slows our decent while extending our distance and prepare for another large leap. Essence pooling in my legs I hit the ground and force all our momentum back skyward crashing into branches that tear at me as we continue our flight.
“Aim me at Dargot!” I yell as Cran and I jet toward the earth again.
“You don’t have to yell! I knew what you were thinking!” yells Cran as he changes our trajectory.
I throw my feet forward and prepare for landing seeing the boar as we fall. I let go of Cran and brace for impact. I feel my feet connect with Dargot’s incredibly muscular body and kick off of him to try and transfer as much of my momentum into the beast as possible. Dargot squeals as he tumbles into a tree, and in the brief moments of me flipping backward, I see how close we were to tragedy. My mother stands in front of a kneeling Ashe, her spear primed for what was going to be Dargot’s fatal charge.
I land on my feet and see Cran arrive behind me. Dargot though wounded wasn’t all that fazed by my meteor like kick to his side. The boar stood almost three times as tall as me and was quickly recovering to challenge me. How in the hells my father professes to exist, my mother was able to go toe to toe with this thing for so long, I have no idea? That thought reminding me of her, I turn back and see that she hadn’t escaped her tussle with Dargot unscathed either, as her side is covered in her blood. I need to get them out of here.
“Rescue the injured, I got this?” says Cran transforming into a wooden boar, “see? No yelling needed.”
My mother puts Ashe on Cran, and she walks to join me. Her eyes were determined and focused, and I know that she won’t back down to her nemesis. I want to tell her to run, but her expression and the determination in how she holds her spear tells me all I need to know. She won’t let the boar win.
“I’ll get Ashe to safety, and I’ll attempt to treat her wounds. Try to hold on until I return,” says Cran charging into the woods. Dargot now back on his feet prepares to charge us, but I’ve faced faster, and held back stronger. I return Dargot’s challenge and barrel toward him before he can begin to move. I grapple with his tusks, and I’m shocked by the sheer brute strength he has. Dargot is near comparable to my own strength, and we struggle against one another to try and obtain an advantage.
My mother seeing the opening I’ve made charges the boar, and stabs at its thick meaty armor like hide with her spear. I feel like I know what my mother’s strategy in fighting the boar was, watching her fight. She had always engaged it in a war of attrition to bleed and weaken it until it ran for its life. I join in with her assault, my wrist quickly forming plasma balls that make steam explosions taking out chunks of Dargot’s hide, and I also form ice lances that pierce Dargot’s sides.
In my struggle against Dargot, I feel something crack and loosen. One of Dargot’s tusks fractured and I lost my grip on his face and my balance as well. I fall under the boar, and I think he knows that he has me where he wants me. Time slows and speeds up as I dodge the stomping hooves of Dargot. Still grasping the tusk, I plunge it up into Dargot’s belly and he squeals in pain. However, instead of getting off of me, his assault increases, and I return my favor by continuing to plunge his tusk into him again and again.
“I’m back!” yells Cran and he charges at Dargot’s side in his boar form.
A blood shield from my arm seeps out of my body to catch Dargot’s stomping hoof to catch him off balance, and I quickly grab a seed from my pocket and jab my hand into the hole I was making with Dargot’s tusk. I plunge the seed into his gut and increase its growing speed with my essence and blood. I then send a small plasma orb into Dargot and prepare to make some distance between me and the boar.
Cran collides with Dargot, and he falls onto his side. I quickly jump grabbing my mother away from Dargot. I cover my mother’s ears with my hands and brace for a loud explosion that came from within Dargot. Smoke seeped from the hole in his gut and it almost seemed to also be expelling from his nostrils as well, but the boar wasn’t down for the count yet. Dargot got back up from his side, gore spilling out of him.
“Eat… Eat… Pain… Less… When Eat,” grumbles Dargot’s essence, “kill male… kill female… eat… two legs… eat… must… kill… revenge for pain… eat…”
“Cran, ballista!” I mutter terrified by this monster’s horrible strength and endurance, “The seed bomb wasn’t enough. Those could destroy a stone block as large as I am. How is that thing still standing?”
My mother gets back up to her feet, and lifts me to my own feet, as Cran transforms into a ballista. I have no time to waver. I summon chains from my wrist and arm that form from materials found in the ground and air. The chains I form brandish clawed hands on the farthest end of each chain. I launch the clawed hands to plunge their claws into the flesh of the boar and cast the bracelet part of the chains off of my body to wrap and secure the excess of my chains onto trees to bind the boar into place. I repeat this action several times until every charge of my chain spells are depleted and the boar is tethered by ten chains to various trees.
My breath is coming in heavy now and my soul is bounding in my flesh. My chain arm is utterly depleted of essence and had used all the essence in my body to recharge the chains beyond the charges I had prepared. I grab two more bomb seeds and speed up their growth using a few of my remaining spells. I then expend one of my spells to fill my body with essence to grant me protection and inhuman strength again. My emergency reserve expended, I know that if I try to fuel anymore spells, I’ll no longer be able to use essence to shield my body and will be as vulnerable as my mother. I lunge at the beast and shove the growing bombs up his nose. I leap out of my bombs range and hear Cran fire a sharpened log from himself. The bombs explode and I hear a meaty explosion as the giant lance pierces Dargot through his maw.
When I look at the boar, its face is utterly destroyed. Flesh hung like curtains from his boney jaw that was trying to clench down on the log spear. Dargot’s head more skull than a head now still moved and contorted. Dargot refused to die and was doing everything in his power to have one last meal. I use the last of my stored spells to create more bloody shields that I freeze into saw blades and then ignite their edges with plasma and send them to cut into Dargot’s flesh. My soul within me bounds against my flesh again and my strength is failing fast. Cran rushes to my side and plunges his needle like branch into my finger to fill me with some of his essence.
I with Cran at my side rush the boar again, a spear blade launching from the ground and joining with him to make him a spear. Cran then ignited his blade and released several plasma orbs behind us. My mother ran up to join us in our final attempt to put down Dargot. Dargot as if sensing our weakness strained against the chains and with all his strength ripped himself free of the metal claws that held him bound. He charged us as we charged him.
Cran slid into his neck and my mother slid under Dargot and stabbed upward into his heart with her spear. The plasma balls collided and seared into his side, but the boar continued his charge. Still clutching Cran, Dargot ran until we hit a tree. I feel a branch connect with my back and plunge into me; my internal essence armor depleted there was nothing to defend me. Dargot then backs up as if to charge me again, but he stumbles.
“Eat… but… pain… gone…” says Dargot’s essence as he collapses onto his side, “sleep… pain… peace… at last…”
I pull myself from the tree, and Cran dislodges himself from Dargot, and gives me a little more of his essence to help me heal. It’s finally over, Dargot is dead. I killed him. After all I went through to get here, and having saved my mother and Ashe, I almost want to celebrate. However, I still had to kill to get here, and though I feel some shreds of victory in having brought down the demon boar I also feel shame. Having now faced Dargot, I know that no band of humans would have been able to kill him. His stubborn desire for life would not have let him die. I do believe what my father said is true, now that Dargot is dead a true devil has been exorcised from the valley and it is safer for everyone now he is gone.
“We did it!” yells my mother, but her celebratory yell was filled with pain and was breathily weak.
I rushed to her side and pull up her shirt to see a massive gash in her side that had been left to bleed for the entire fight. A single spell on my chain arm was left unused, as it wouldn’t be useful in a fight. A sterile needle and thread made from transmuting my flesh into a silky substance emerges from my arm.
“Antibiotics, and pain killers at the ready,” says Cran as two fruits float down for my use.
I quickly get to work reviewing what my grandfather had taught me about emergency medicine in my head. I do what I can to disinfect the wound and stop bleeding where I can. My mother winces as I sew her up. Cran feeds her the pain killing fruit and does what he can to help me as I work. As I begin to finish my work on the wound itself, Cran fashions a fabric bandage from himself and makes a fluffy substance to absorb any blood leakage as I prepare to wrap her wound.
“You are going to be alright,” I keep repeating as I nervously finish my work.
“What of Ashe, she was also injured,” I say looking to Cran.
“It was a flesh wound, nothing serious, just painful. I administered the same care that you gave your mother,” says Cran and I see in the distance Ashe limping, her pants ripped revealing her bandaged leg, “I think they’ll both be alright, but infection is still something we should worry about. I can make antibiotics and we can watch their recovery. Hopefully with the quick treatment given Ashe’s leg and your mother’s side, both of their lives should be saved.”
“Thank the gods, if there are any,” I say under my breath, and I collapse onto my back.
“No thank you Skath,” says my mother lying next to me, “you saved our lives.”
“I’m so sorry, I thought that your mother and I could take the boar,” says Ashe kneeling next to me, “You were gone for so long and the buds of spring are almost here. I thought I could help you by killing Dargot for you, even if it was against your father’s wishes.”
“Why did you risk yourself like that? You don’t want to reestablish the ‘true high matriarch’ like Lilith does, and you don’t seem to like me in the way Mary does,” I say puzzled by Ashe’s bravery and surprised that she would do something so rash when she seemed the most levelheaded of the Sororitas Daemonica.
“It’s because you are my only shot to see what’s beyond the black cliffs!” she says digging her nails into me absent mindedly, “I’ve always thought that there was more to this world than these walls, and I always thought that the high matriarch wasn’t telling the truth when she said there was nothing beyond the cliffs. I want to see the world and all it has to offer, not just sit here constrained by the traditions of my parents.”
“It is true that I won’t be here in Unadeam much longer,” I say looking at Ashe whose appearance used to reveal how in control she was of herself, but now she sits beside me a disheveled mess.
“I know that I owe you more than you do me, but please help me achieve my wish. Please take me with you when you go,” she pleads, and I place a hand on her leg.
“I’m not sure if you can come with me, but I’ll do what I can so you can see the world beyond these walls,” I promise her, and to my surprise I feel her lips upon my forehead. I blush as I look at Ashe, wondering if I was somehow lied to, and it wasn’t truly Mary who had feelings for me.
“Thank you,” weeps Ashe, and when she notices my expression of confusion and the redness in my cheeks she to blushes and loses her composure, “That kiss was only to thank you… Don’t tell Mary about that, she’d hate me for it… so don’t think too much about it.”
Ashe gets up and attempts to limp away, only to fall on her face and my mother starts to laugh, “who knew that you’d become so popular.”
I’m too tired to react any further to all that’s going on around me. I have broken my promise to Uzuri, but if I hadn’t my mother and Ashe would be dead, and so many others would be as well. I continue to endure the mixture of guilt and pride that fight for supremacy within my mind, as I drift off to sleep.