“What is Gehenna thinking?” I say as I watch my father’s progress through the forest. With each swing of his sword a swath of trees is cleared from his path. My father in his rage is clearing a path from my home’s front door to the village, and Gehenna thinks he can somehow kill a man capable of doing this with his own two hands and an old sword. If the village had several ballista’s like Cran can make out of himself, maybe they could wear him down, but to insight his ire like this and expect to win is suicide.
Cran decreases the rate of our descent as we float down for another leap. I push off the ground with all my might and try to extend my gaze to my home. In the essence I see two dead bodies, one of which had a single wooden hand. Levi the guard was sent as fodder to provoke my father. While my allies and I were making plans so no one would have to get hurt, Gehenna was deciding on who was worthy to sacrifice. I’m so confused on how Gehenna could have known my friends and I were striking today and how he was so well prepared for us.
Cran slows our descent again and I again bound off the ground. Cran decides to interrupt my thoughts and says, “I don’t think Gehenna could have been this prepared, if he wasn’t well informed about us.”
“Are you saying we have a traitor amongst us?” I ask feeling exasperated, but a part of me knows that Gehenna would in no way have been able to create a counter strategy without having some knowledge about our plans.
Cran shakes in my hand as if to confirm my suspicions, “Yes, I do. I didn’t pay much heed to it before, but why would Gehenna refer to you as Mr. Demon?”
“Mary,” I say under my breath, and now everything that is going on makes so much sense. She had lied to us last night and feigned being our friend, she even played her part in Uzuri’s escape attempt to look like she was still with us. My allies were known to Gehenna, so choosing the most timid and fearful of us would have been easy prey for Gehenna to single out. I wonder how he threatened her to be his informant.
“From this point forward, we have to assume Gehenna knows more about us than we do him,” says Cran, and with one last leap we launch into the air rocketing toward my father.
“Do you think this is what he wants me to do?” I ask Cran as we soar toward my father, and he alters my trajectory much like with Dargot. Cran responds to me with silence, as the only answer we can reliably say to be true is, we can’t know until Gehenna reveals his hand.
I let go of Cran and prepare to kick my father’s chest. Plummeting from the sky I thrust my legs forward and my father barrels into the trees behind him. I try to use the force of the kick to flip myself backward, but land less than gracefully on my back. Cran lands next to me and I use him to get up to face my father. I pull Cran from the ground and from the ground a spear head forms as I yank him from the soil.
Before I could really collect myself, a tree trunk was launched at me. Cran escapes my grasp and spins in front of me sawing the trunk in two. The two halves of the tree fall harmlessly to either side of me. I was kind of hoping to knock out my father with my surprise attack, to help calm him down, but it looks like I’m going to be in for a fight.
I raise my essence fortifications in my body and several blood shields begin to orbit my body. Two threads of blood erupt from my arm and wrist and two chains construct themselves. The red tinge of the soil turns dark beneath my feet as the iron is harvested from it. I begin to swing the chains around my arms to give them momentum, as they will serve as my weapons and shield. Cran is far more effective out of my hands than in them anyway.
Another roar pierces the silence of the forest and time barely freezes in time for me to see my father lunging at me. I send a shield forward and prepare to move, and as time speeds up, I see my father burst through my bloody shield, slowing him down just enough for me to dodge to the side. My shields that once defended against my father’s blows, shatter to the berserker.
“Dad please calm down!” I yell as I move forward to strike before he can recover from his previous swing. One of my chains binds to my father’s sword, and with less than a twitch of his wrist I’m swung from my own chain into a tree. As I collide with the tree my chain goes limp releasing itself from my father’s sword. Before I can land, I see my father twirling through the air like a tornado of blades, and Cran charges into him in the form of an enormous bird.
Cran grabs my father’s shoulders and though the momentum of my father’s swings twists Cran in the air. Cran strains against my father’s attack, but he eventually musters control of my father and himself. Cran begins to flap his large wings to raise my father and himself into the air. However, my father with a feral look upon his face is unfazed by his attacker. With a swing of his sword the head of the bird flies off Cran’s wooden body. The swing wasn’t entirely for Cran, as a sharp gale of wind emits from my father’s sword and slices into my face.
The essence in my body stops the wind blade from piercing beyond my skin, but now blood streams down my face and into one of my eyes, partially blinding me. Down from the sky, my father shoots air from his blade to propel himself toward me, knives of flame like angry insects dive in and out of Cran’s wooden bird body. Cran shoots out of his bird form and begins to spin in the air making himself into a blazing disk. To get rid of the blood on my face I force essence into it and copy my father’s technique. A blade of wind shoots from the wound on my face. The wound heals after the spell is launched and an inscription scar forms to seal the once bloody wound.
The blade of air connects with my father’s sword and again slows him down just enough for me to dodge away, and for Cran to make his own assault. Cran carves his way into my father’s back, but his defenses are stronger than any time we have faced him before. Cran’s blade in sandy sparks grates down into singed powder to my father’s feet. With a quick swipe of my father’s sword, Cran cuts into two pieces, and then he continues to divide himself, until the air is filled with his little soldiers.
My father growls baring his teeth, and chops at the fairy army that is doing all they can to pierce his essence armor. The chains around my arms, the essence within them fading will soon be dead weight to me. I direct them to wrap around my father’s arms and then they shackle themselves to the trees surrounding us. The metal claws at the end of both chains struggle to grasp into the flesh of my father, so with the remaining essence within them they weld themselves together, forming large shackles on both of my father’s arms. Not losing a moment of time, I continue to sling each charge of my chain spells to wrap around my father’s limbs, neck, and body to bind him to several trees.
My father struggles against the chains, to fight against Cran’s army, but it looks like I’ve found the limit of his strength. Cran collects each of his soldiers and transforms into a boar that stomps his hoof at my side. I gestured for Cran to hold his position and walk up to my father.
“Dad, mom is in danger, and if we work together, we will be able to save her,” I say taking a few steps closer to him.
My father continues to roar his guttural yell, and struggle against the chains. Blazing daggers launch toward me, and I respond by shooting ice spears to counter. With every step I take, steam explosions explode close to me, but I will not stop my approach. The chain around his sword arm turns an angry orange and melts, freeing his weapon. A scroll floats into my father’s sword and it bursts into flame. He swings his sword sending a pillar of flame toward me. The remaining shields circling my body freeze and float in front of me shielding me from the torrent of flame as I walk through it. The sanguine shields evaporate, as I safely exit the blazing tower.
My spells are running low. I no longer have spears, or chains to rely on, and all I have left to subdue my father are the plasma spheres, the single essence recharge, and Dargot’s strength prepared. I also used a portion of the essence in my body to create the wind blade. My spells sacrifice a lot of my blood, and my bones feel like they are about to shatter violently in my body. I sacrificed the recharge and try to fuel two chain spells and a few ice spears with the essence contained in the essence recharge spell. I’m reaching my limit, and if I use anymore essence within my body, I’ll lose my strength and internal defense. I’m close to becoming human, or rather a wounded deer pursued by Dargot.
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Scrolls float into my father’s blade and unfurl and his sword is consumed in what appears to be visible blades of wind. He swings his blade wildly, and my flesh rips open. I continue to walk toward my father, my essence armor and flesh taking the brunt of his assault, but with each slice I endure the blades as they begin to work their way deeper and deeper into my muscles and bone. The threads of essence in my muscles abandon them and form a web of armor, leaving me with only my human strength. Knowing I can’t endure anymore of my father’s wind blades, I quickly come up with a plan of my own. I launch my remaining ice lances below my father and then fire every plasma spell I have at the ice spears. A large steam explosion and an updraft from the heat produced by the plasma balls results. The wind blades are caught in the updraft, and I walk through the fire and flaming gale to embrace my father.
My father drops his sword, as if surprised by his attacker showing him kindness. I continue to hug him and whisper into his ear, “I know you are angry, but murdering innocent people won’t help us now. Together, as celandil and her family, we can rescue mother. Please calm down, I know that Gehenna has done horrible things to us, and he’ll get his, but right now mother and I don’t need the berserker. We need you, Turas. I need you father.”
Cran had stayed back sensing my thoughts and feelings, while also conserving his own essence and spells to heal me and prepare to fight as one if my father was truly lost to us. Cran, seeing that my father was still in my embrace approached us leaving his wooden boar body behind. I grasped him in my hand and felt him inject his needle branch into me to supply me with essence. The heat of the moment had distracted me from the rending pain inside myself. My soul was wanting freedom, and it was being restrained only by the barrier produced by my humanity.
“Father, are you, all right?” I ask panting and grimacing as my wounds heal themselves.
The chains shatter and a concussive wave throws Cran and I backward. My father’s roar was so loud that it ruptured my eardrums. Blood seeps from my ears, and I crawl disoriented away from my father. The chains around him gather upon him creating jagged armor, with clawed gauntlets. A helmet wraps around his face, and his eyes appear to be fiery orbs in the darkness behind his visor. His sword floats up into his hand, and what remains of my chains wrap around his sword and grab onto a boulder, which is then pierced by several tree trunks. He made a giant spiked flail, and with a swipe of his wrist the spiked ball of death closes in on us.
Cran leaping into action dives into his boar body and charges the flail’s head. Cran splinters into millions of pieces and the spiked boulder careens off to the side. Cran’s quick thinking saved me, but from what I can sense of what remaining essence Cran has, it will take time and all the essence Cran can muster to put himself back together again. I crawl backward on my back, my world silent, as I look at the dark knight in front of me. This is how I die.
Though I can’t hear myself I scream at my father desperately trying to reach him. In response to my pleading wails, the berserker flicks his wrist backward and winds up for one last swing. I brace my arms in front of my face preparing for the inevitable. My essence armor may protect me from many things, but against a hit from that mace I’m as good as dead with how little essence remains to defend me. My ears fully heal and sound pops back into my mind, and I hear the chain strain as my father swings his flail at me. I did everything I could for Uzuri, the village, and my father, at least I’ll die knowing that.
I close my eyes, not wanting to see the end. I hear crunching noises and see darkness. There is no pain and I accept that my death must have been swift, so swift that I didn’t suffer. I feel myself being lifted up, and I open my eyes to see my father embracing me. The spiked boulder head of the flail had collided to the ground dangerously close to where I was.
“You actually reasoned with a beast,” says my father weeping and sputtering into my shoulder.
I take a few deep breaths, surprised to be alive and say, “Not a beast, but my father. I knew you were still in there. You wouldn’t kill me, you didn’t before, and you didn’t now.”
Our defenses lower as we almost lean upon each other in exhaustion. My father’s armor falls off of his body in pieces as time passes. We stood as father and son again, the berserker placated by familial bond. Now that my father has calmed down, we have a fighting chance to save my mother. Soon, our family will be safe again.
Time slows for me as my senses detect something amiss. I hear my father choke and hack and my shoulder is covered in blood. I quickly raise what is left of my internal defenses, and a spear bounces off of my flesh and sends me to the ground. In our moment a weakness, we were taken by surprise.
I try to assess my situation, and to my heart-ripping horror I see my father impaled. Gehenna had snuck up on us, and his spear was writhing inside my father’s chest. Pieces of my father’s heart dripped from the spear head, and more of the guard sprang from the trees to send their spears deep into my father’s body. Though it wasn’t necessary, he was already dead before the second spear pierced his side.
“I should thank you for playing your part so well,” says Gehenna gazing at the corpse of my father with frightening glee, “though, a part of me wishes to have you impaled upon this spear with your father.”
“You bastard, how did you know that I would go after him,” I say already guessing that Mary’s information may have tipped him off.
“Oh, that’s easy. Your friend made you sound like a weak pacifist. A bleeding heart who would do everything in his power to not shed a drop of blood. Learning your plan, it surprised me the lengths you would go to not harm a single person in the village. Granted, when given the right motivation you do betray yourself. With this knowledge coupled with the fact you trained with your father, I figured you would be a match for him, or at least weaken him so that we could finish him off,” says Gehenna plunging his spear into the ground, so that my father hovered in the air. His body was held in place by all the other spears that Gehenna’s guard had skewered him with to make a sort of bloody tent held together by my father’s body.
“What would have happened if your gamble led to the decimation of your village,” I say looking at the guards who back away from me. They must have seen our fight, and their essence reeks of fear.
“I know you wouldn’t have left the village to perish. You had me where you wanted and let me go. Either you were inexperienced, or a fool, and learning your plan I knew you to be a fool,” says Gehenna kicking the wood chips of Cran’s slowly reforming body as he approaches me, “You were easy to read, as knowing your goals and your aspirations you gave me everything I wanted. Your mother placed herself in a vulnerable position and I let you and your friends believe that you were succeeding. I did all of this to feed your pride and blind you from my own goals. Oh, she was a good lay. Heh heh heh, with your mother, and Mary’s word I knew your father would attack the village. I knew that you would come after your father. After all your scheming to not shed blood, your weak heart would have you abandon Uzuri to protect those of the village. Your newfound trust would leave Uzuri in the hands of one easily overcome. As we speak Uzuri is being collected, and now I stand here thanking you for all you’ve done.”
“You bastard,” I say, and I feel my soul within me begin to produce more essence. I rush toward him, the feelings of shame for hurting this foul creature replaced by the same rage I felt the day the scarlet sin fell upon my hands. The imagined blood that was upon my hands and body faded into steam as almost envisioned flames replaced them.
Gehenna seeing me charge him signaled to his guard, and my mother was brought forward. Seeing her stops me in place. The only clothing, she wore was her torn hunting tunic, and I could see blood leaking from her side from the injury she sustained from Dargot. Her eyes were furious, but not a word escaped her lips as she was gagged, and what struggle she had left in her was suppressed by the knife held to her throat. When she sees me, and my father suspended in the air, a single tear falls from her eye, but her own anger festered as she struggled against the guard who was just able to keep a hold of her. The knife dug into her neck and blood trickled from a shallow cut made from her struggle.
“I have plans for you yet, as I do not wish to kill those that betrayed the village, and their goddess. You are weak, and in a state that will be perfect to expunge the village of its, and the traitors’ sins. I told you long ago that the trials would be the place where you die, and I will be true to my word,” says Gehenna placing his large hand around my face as if to demean and belittle me. He was talking down to me as a man does a child.
“Why are you doing all this?” I ask brushing his hand from my face, “Why do you hate me and my family so much? Why do you treat your own daughter like refuse? Why?”
“I desire nothing more than a better world,” says Gehenna and his words nearly knock the wind out of me, “A world where demons roam, is a world of sin and darkness. I will be merciful to your whore of a mother, who laid with an incubus, but I must exorcise her sin by sending one last demon to Martog’s maw. Already she performs atonement, as her future child will be raised in the goddess’s light! Then with time, I will rid the mountains of their infestation, including that demon spawn that holds them at bay. Soon I will bring the goddess’s blessings back upon her world!”