Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 22Arc 7: : The Burning of Tol

The ogre stared down at the armored figures lining the walls, an almost curious manner to its attention. Its skin had a smoky quality, like it were only half solid, its shoulders broad and its small head vanishing into a mound of muscle, a stripe of hackle-like fur running from between its brows down its curled back. It had to have been more than twenty-five feet tall, yet it perched on the relatively narrow wall with an easy balance.

The shock of the moment passed abruptly as a daydream. The Storm Ogre opened its maw, revealing a crackling light behind wolfish teeth. Its growl was the low rumble of thunderclouds.

It’s about to shout. I remembered when these things had fallen on Garihelm in the late spring. They could release a howl so loud it acted like a shockwave, shattering buildings and bursting eardrums. At this close proximity, it would probably kill or incapacitate everyone on the wall.

I moved. Many of the sconces on the wall had gone out, creating plenty of shadow. I pulled out my crossbow and fired it mid-stride. The bolt of blessed gold flew like a spear of fire. Storm Ogres are earthly spirits, not demons, and sanctified metal isn’t their bane in the same way. But it does channel aura very well, and my shot struck the beast with the force of a warhammer. Its gathering power faltered and it reared back, snarling.

My distraction gave others time to act. Cyril barked an order, and some of the archers started to fire. Not all, though. More than a few had died when the thing fell, and the noise of the storm above drowned out the commander’s voice. The ogre barely registered the darts flying into it.

I loaded another bolt from the quiver on my belt. They were small and easy to carry, but I only had a little over a dozen of them. I slotted it in, cranked the string back with a grunt, lifted to shoot—

Sickly yellow lightning crackled around the ogre’s arm as it swept out in a backhanded blow. It hit one of the sentry towers, shattering it, and debris cascaded across the wall. A piece of stone hit me in the chest, knocking me down, and soldiers screamed as they flew through the air.

I got to one knee, shaking off the disorientation. My armor had taken the blow, but a small dent now marred my breastplate.

I let the crossbow sink back into the Dead Roads, then reached into the rubble and pulled my axe out of that same realm, lifting it free in billowing tongues of miasmic darkness. I lifted it high, brandishing it for all to see, and the ogre’s werelight eyes fixed on me.

“You see this?” I snarled. “This has taken worse than you.”

The ogre hunched low, growling at me like a wolf. It was enormous, mighty as a lesser god, but it could be killed. I’d done it before.

But without my Arts?

I could hear the terrified and scattered soldiers around me, the wails of the wounded. The town burned. Bolts of lightning flashed and rumbling peals of thunder echoed every time one of the storm spirits attacked, and each time people died.

I had to try. I had to do something. Gathering my will, I whispered the words of my Alder Oath and shaped my power.

The ogre sensed the shift and lifted its right fist high. The storm above flickered and flashed, and a sword of lightning began to form in the beast’s hand.

I felt the fire in me flare. It manifested as gilded tongues of phantasmal flame along my black armor. It burned my skin, sending bright lines of pain up my arms. I winced, but ignored the pain and levered my axe behind my head. Godsven’s Dawn would smite this thing. I just needed to act before it finished its own Art, a race.

The pain from my demon scars hadn’t ebbed. It was a distraction, one that wasn’t easy to ignore with the additional discomfort of fresh burns marring my body beneath my armor. I slid my feet apart, steel sabatons scraping through shattered gravel.

Even before I swung, I knew the power hadn’t shaped itself properly. In the instant before the ogre struck, I brought my axe down with a hoarse cry. Rather than a golden lightning bolt with enough force to crack a castle tower in half, the aureflame formed a jagged scar-shape of dancing energy that clawed its way out in every direction, most of the power scattering uselessly. Some of it hit the ogre, causing it to grunt and hesitate on its swing but doing little damage.

I stared at the smoking wound I’d left in the stone beneath me when I’d brought my axe down. A hollow despair worm its way into my chest.

A sonorous voice rose above the storm, followed by a burst of bright white light. The Stork of Osheim stepped forward, his beaked visor lowered to conceal his face, his sword raised high to reveal the Sacred Mark worked into its hilt. The sword shone with clean, pure aura. It didn’t burn as hot as mine, but I could sense a complex technique in that glow. The same symbol on the sword’s hilt began to form in the sky, fifty times as large and a thousand times brighter.

The ogre winced, its own Art fading as it lost its concentration. Cyril was praying, I realized, his voice lifted in a hymn praising the Rightful Queen of Heaven and admonishing Her detractors. I could feel his faith like music in the air, like a choir singing from the trembling stone.

I wasn’t certain whether Cyril Stour had been a paladin before that moment, or if the monster in front of him and the plight of his city had awoken that potential, but a True Knight stepped forward and struck at the beast. The auremark in the air lingered, but the light around his sword scattered into a thousand winged needles that began to fly at the ogre like white hummingbirds. More of the same came from the symbol in the air, like it were a hive spitting out a swarm of endless shining wasps.

The ogre howled with rage and swatted at the needles, but it may as well have tried to bat away light. Wherever they touched they burned it, embedding themselves into its flesh. It was already half phantasm itself, and there was nothing more effective for hurting it than aura.

Fine. No great techniques, no fancy tricks. I could fight without them. Dashing forward, I swung at the distracted monster’s ankle. My axe cleaved through its smoky flesh, leaving a trail of aureflame to mark the swing. The ogre went down on one knee, grabbing onto the wall to keep itself from falling off.

More soldiers were beginning to fight back. Their arrows and pikes shone with bright light, blessed by Cyril’s magic. With a groan the ogre started to tilt to one side, beginning a slow fall down off the wall.

I noted it fell townside, and made a snap decision. Lunging forward, I enhanced myself with aura — using it to make myself stronger and faster seemed to work as normal, even with my Arts fouling — and leapt onto the monster’s shoulder. It groaned with rage, turning its head to bare glassy teeth at me. I took one of its eyes with a swing, making it wince away, then embedded my axe into its neck and rode it to the ground. It slide down the slope below the wall, falling to the street in a landslide of snow, broken masonry, and dirt.

I hunched low, grabbing its fur and doing my best to endure the electric energy that came off it, which made me want to flinch and let go every time it snapped out. It didn’t feel too different from being bit by my own magic, and I kept a grip.

The ogre crashed into a house, destroying it, and I almost lost hold. It stopped, lying on its back as it struggled to get up.

I planted a steel shoe on its chest, tore my axe free, then brought it down with an angry huff. My axe split its skull, relatively small compared to its massive body, and the light faded from its remaining eye.

I jumped down onto the street as the spirit began to dissipate into rainwater and mist. Taking a moment to catch my breath, I turned to face the hill behind me. The castle’s wall rose some distance above, battered and defaced but intact, and I could make out soldiers moving on it. Cyril’s white-armored form and distinctive helmet came into view, and I lifted my axe in a salute before turning back toward the town.

That was just one. Time to figure out who led this assault. Storm Ogres were attracted to war, and often acted as omens preceding some great conflict, but something told me it wasn’t just their nature that’d brought them.

I recalled the omens I’d seen on my journey to Osheim. The battlefields, the dead villages, the eerie silence hanging over the land like it were holding its breath. Even before, storms and beasts from across the wider world had been gathering like carrion birds.

East. Those storms had been moving east.

My scars still ached. I lifted a hand and wiped blood from my cheek before moving forward.

The town burned. Buildings were shattered, bodies lay scattered across the streets. I could hear distant shouts, the rumbling growls of the ogres, the clashing of steel and more eerie calls like animals stalked the alleys. Many people had been outside, sleeping in temporary camps when the inns and churches were too full. Those same camps had been full of armed people here at the Cardinal’s call, and I could tell they’d fought back. There were twisted shapes among the dead.

Many of the dead had been eaten. Whatever happened here had been horrible, and ended quickly.

I passed the ruined face of a church. There’d been people sheltering there when the sky had started to fall on the town. Someone wept close enough for me to hear, but I couldn’t spot them, and when I tried to follow the voice it kept getting further away. I soon gave up and moved on.

Ghosts followed me, flitting from alley to alley, window to window, shattered stone to toppled pillar. I ignored their excited whispers at first. The sky roiled above the town. The air no longer felt cold, but neither had anything like warmth replaced it.

The world felt wrong.

One of the creeping shades came near. It merged with my own shadow, lit on the wall of a shop by the burning remnants of a toppled inn. It took a different shape after a moment, my horned pauldrons and flowing cloak becoming regal robes, my bristly hair turning long. Features formed, then violet eyes turned to regard me.

“Remember what I told you,” Orson Falconer said. “You cannot be rid of us, Alken, but we do not have to be your enemies.”

I paused. “You will always be my enemies.”

“But we can also be an asset. Or shall you continue to fight with crippled magic?”

My jaw set, but I didn’t reply. Doubt gnawed at my thoughts. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t entertain this, but…

I noticed one of the bodies left by the massacre that’d taken place on this street. It was a young man. A shattered lute lay under his hand. The minstrel I’d listened to that first night in the town. His chimera had died with him. Its long neck lay over his chest, like it’d tried to protect him at the end.

My soul was already tarnished. I’d long since given up on any hope of salvation, for myself at least. Was it really right to refuse the strength I needed to protect people? Or just vanity?

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This is how they take you, I reminded myself. It’s a slippery slope. A necessity today, a convenience tomorrow. Then you’re one of the monsters. I moved on, feeling Orson’s angry eyes on my back.

I came upon the first group of living people a short time later, near the town’s central square in a wide avenue lined with shops and taverns. A group of House Stour bannerman were mingling with a more mismatched band of armed pilgrims. Some of them noticed me, and perhaps seeing my black armor and grim aspect they tensed and raised weapons, but I held up a hand.

“Where is your leader?” I asked.

In response, a priest in red robes stepped forward. An Arda devotee, a member of the Priory. I tensed, but the old man didn’t seem hostile as he gave me a quick dip of his head. “Heir bless you, Ser Knight. You just came from the keep?”

One of the others, a young commoner with gear that looked like it’d come from a village smithy, spoke up in a voice edged with panic. “We saw one of those monsters fall on the castle. What has become of the Stork? Is Lord Cyril still alive?”

“He lives,” I confirmed. “The castle holds.”

They all breathed sighs of relief, but an eerie call in the near distance made many of them flinch. Someone in the background was praying fervently.

The Arda preost studied me. “You… You are him, aren’t you?”

I closed my eyes. I don’t have time for this. “You’ll have to be more specific, father.”

The man shrugged and smiled. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and we are surrounded by many enemies. These stalwart men and women just fended off an attack by one of those storm beasts. We were able to fortify that church.” He nodded to one of the temples lining the street, which looked battered but intact. “Me and some of the other preosters were able to focus their faith into a banishment and send it back to the sky. Several of my brothers died in the effort, though.”

I realized that must be why we saw the churches being attacked from the castle. They were powerful weapons against supernatural enemies, focuses for aura. “But you’re all out here?”

“We were rescuing people.” One of the knights, a glorysworn in armor sporting a boar motif, pointed to a collapsed building. “They tried to breach the eastern gate, but we fought the main wave back. There are scattered groups of irks and other foul things in the town, so we sent out hunting parties to keep them from killing indiscriminately. It was working before the damn sky started falling on us.”

“Elves don’t fight alongside Edaean spirits,” I said. “Storm Ogres are wild, uncontrollable.”

“Well,” the boar knight said darkly, “someone didn’t tell these that. And it’s not just ogres and faeries. The attackers who assaulted the gates… many of them were men. Knights, but I didn’t recognize their styles. They wore dark armor, much like you, forgive me for saying so, and used a very powerful magic. One of them, a huge bastard, threw a green lightning bolt at the gate and nearly destroyed it right there.”

A green lightning bolt? Many of the most famous warriors in the world had famous Arts, but that one didn’t ring a bell in my memory. Turning, I pointed to the distant castle on the hill. “The garrison holds there, with Lord Cyril in the lead. You should get anyone you can find and reinforce him, let him tell you where to focus your strength.”

The Priory cleric nodded. “And you, Ser?”

“I’ll be hunting.”

“‘Ware! They’re back!”

The call came from a woman standing at the back of the group. Everyone, including me, turned to focus their attention down the street.

A flood of things moved towards us. They advanced in a skittering, disorganized tide. Hunched, loping forms covered in filthy fur, or insectile creatures of carapace and snapping mandibles, some small as children and some hulking. They barked and howled, brandishing crude weapons.

But that was not all. Among them were other forms that moved with an eerie grace, tall and elegant, armed with slender swords and long spears tipped in black iron that shone as though dipped in liquid moonlight. Those had skin in various pale shades, though all bore a corpse-like pallor and toed the line between animal and human just like the others, with eyes that were either shiny black or ghostly white, mouths brimming with sharp teeth.

The majority of them were Irks. Wild changelings. Beastfolk. They’d always dwelt in the world, but had appeared in number during the Fall, fighting sometimes for the traitors but often acting as roaming bands of marauders, killing any humans they found and razing villages.

The other creatures, though… those were true elves. But something was off about them.

The cleric began to pray in a breathless voice. Others shouted. All started backing away, standing shoulder to shoulder to block the street and prevent that tide from getting close to the church with all the survivors in it, or the castle lying behind us. Someone vomited, another was weeping even as he strung his bow and took aim.

Not all of these people were veterans. Many of them were damned children, here at the promise of fighting evil and serving their God and their emperor. Markham… what were you thinking? We have plenty of knights, we didn’t need to scrape the barrel. It’s the chivalry’s job to fight and die, it’s the entire reason our society is organized the way it is. The Houses provided warriors, the common folk worked the land, and the Church was our bridge and memory.

But there was no help for it now. I pushed through the mass to take up a position near the front, even as I inwardly stewed. I’d hoped to find whoever was leading this attack and get some answers before I wet my axe too much. The shapes moving toward us filled the street. There were scores of them, probably many of those who’d infiltrated the town. Beneath the overcast sky they were hard to make out to mortal eyes, a writhing mass of fiendish shadows, lit only by the witchlight burning off the Sidhe.

Behind us, the priest continued to chant. “And they shall reveal their true shapes, and become as the Wolves of Darkness, and the faithful shalt be tested, for in the days of blood and woe are the virtuous proven true and the courageous rewarded—”

He was referencing a sermon about the Adversary, and using it to spur these defenders against the Sidhe. And I could hardly blame him, because they looked like demons.

“Stand, Aureates! God is with you! Her angels are with you! The Choir sings this night!” This came from the boar knight, who had a surprisingly melodic voice for such an unkempt and burly man. He brandished a heavy maul, hefting it onto his shoulder after taking a moment to secure his helm’s tusked visor.

The storm peeled open, a web of lightning flickering across the black clouds. I could see another Storm Ogre several streets away, its apelike form large enough to tower over the rows, loping like something undead through the town as it stalked for victims.

Shields were raised. Polearms lowered. Crossbows and bows of yew and ash were released. Someone used an Art, a flash of blue-gray light that coalesced into a shimmering multi-color sludge on the street that caught the front wave of irks and mired them like they’d just run head first into a bog.

But these did not march forward in a phalanx. In the flashes of lightning I saw some of them moving along the walls of buildings, or jumping from roof to roof. No shield wall could stop that.

One of the elves raised a bow and fired. It would have killed the preoster, but my axe flashed out and cut the streak of silver out of the air. The man kept praying without missing a beat, unaware of how close he’d come to death.

The oncoming wave crashed into us, and I officially joined the Siege of Tol, the first battle of the Second Great Urnic War.

A man to my left went down, falling with a choked scream beneath no less than three scuttling things that tackled him to the street. They began to eat him, dismantling his armor and tearing into his flesh while he still lived with economical speed. With a swing I killed one, sinking my axe into the back of its neck before lifting for another strike, but the other two scurried back with their mouthfuls of flesh without fighting for the meal.

The man already had his chest opened, and was missing most of his face. He still screamed, his bloodied, skinless visage staring in blind horror at the stormy sky. I tried to put him out of his misery, but a flurry of claws and sharp fangs in the corner of my vision tore my attention away. I brought my arm up just before I lost my own skin to a barking thing with tufted ears and a swollen muzzle. Though small, it fought with a berserk strength.

Should have brought my damn helmet, I thought, even as I let my power flare and covered my arm in aureflame. The irk screeched in agony and let go, and as it writhed on the ground I stamped down with a steel boot to break its neck.

Nearby, the Glorysworn with the boar helm let out a roar as he charged headfirst into a larger beastman and bucked. There was a flash of dark amber light as his Art struck the thing, tearing into its guts and sending an arc of blood and filth across the face of a nearby building. For a moment, the image of two enormous tusks had appeared before the man. It scattered many of the smaller creatures, clearing a path that gave others more space to kill.

And I fought, swinging my axe again and again, aureflame flickering with every swing to leave smoking, smote carcasses at my feet. I advanced, and those to either side advanced with me, each step being bought with blood.

The defenders held, but we were being flanked. Irks were climbing down the buildings or simply leaping atop us, causing bedlam in the mismatched group of fighters. I could feel the mob being forced back toward the steps of the church. The knights were well equipped for this kind of combat, able to take most blows on their armor and kill at leisure, but anyone with less than a full suit was subject to the same fate as the man who’d just been eaten alive. Even the knights could be swarmed if surrounded, their armor peeled like the skin of a fruit and their bones cleaned with horrible speed.

The cleric made the difference. He was an adept, and his prayers channeled his aura into the defenders, giving them strength and focusing their will, making their blades keener and their arms tireless. The noise of shouts and screams and the clashing of metal fought against the tumult in the sky.

But if the cleric died, or if we couldn’t hold the street and they got into the church with all the people huddled in there… it would be a slaughter.

I wasn’t suited for this. Holding a line, fighting shoulder to shoulder with others… all my skills and techniques were better suited for being the tip of the spear, butchering my way into the midst of the enemy and taking its head. Even back in the Karledale, I’d been more of a raider and a champion hunter than a proper soldier.

So do that, I berated myself. “Hold them back!” I roared, then stepped forward in a flutter of crimson cloth as my Briar cloak flared behind me, twitching in anticipation of more blood to soak into its threads.

And that was when the elves came.

One of the tall shapes who’d been hanging back as the irks threw themselves at us suddenly flashed forward, spinning in an artful pirouette that made three men tumble dead. It was a female elf, nearly six feet tall and long limbed, her face like some amalgam between a beautiful woman’s and a shark’s. She saw me and laughed musically, loping forward on legs that were more animal than human. She wore very little, just flowing white cloth and jewelry made of phantasm, like shapes of light playing across her arms and legs.

I could feel her glamour blazing off her like sunshine, a disorienting magic that tugged at my will and made my arms feel heavy. The mortal man in me wanted to lower my axe and watch her dance, let her come close, perhaps grace me with a single kiss—

But I was not all mortal, and the Alder’s fire flashed at that presence that reached out from the she-elf like miasmic tendrils. She flinched, and I used the opportunity to grow Faen Orgis’s handle, willing it to extend a foot and a half. A spear point of iron-hard and sharp oak formed above the blade, and I levered it back.

But before I struck, I spoke to the elf in Sidhecant. “Why are you doing this!?” I asked her.

She just laughed in response, a flirtatious sound, then spun forward before lashing out with one of her bronze blades. The twinkling lights on her limbs made her movements liquid and difficult to track. The blade put a very shallow cut on my chin and a groove on my breastplate as I dodged.

More of the elves had advanced, and they were moving through the Aureates like scythes, leaving bodies every time they moved.

Gritting my teeth, I gave up on diplomacy and lunged forward. The elf must not have expected a mere man to move so quickly, because she dodged too slow and the upper shoot of my axe’s oaken handle drove into her sternum.

She gasped, her black eyes going wide with shock, and it was like they cleared suddenly of a fog. Her gaze focused on me and she spoke in her kind’s own language, her voice soft and sad.

“Aures Aaleshni… Is it really you? Does an Oradyn of the Earde still walk free of Alicia’s betrayal?”

I nodded, still holding my weapon tight. “Where is Maerlys? Did she order this?”

But the elf-maid didn’t seem to hear me. Her shark eyes hardened and she bared pointed teeth. “Where were you? Where were you!? We cried out for you!”

She started to shake and writhe against my weapon. Cursing, I ripped the point out and pushed her back, but she didn’t attack. The elf fell to the bloodstained cobblestones of the street, twitching and spasming like she were suffering a fit.

And she wasn’t the only one. The other elves had begun to suffer a similar episode, halting their slaughter as they threw their heads back and screeched in high, piercing voices. A third of the men and women who’d been fighting with me lay dead, and more than twice as many irks, but the fighting paused at this unexpected development.

The changelings began to whine and cringe away. They were afraid. I looked at the elf I’d been fighting.

She let out a howl as her back arched. Her limbs twisted beneath her and started to break. More joints were forming. Her white cloth fell away to reveal expanding ribs ready to burst from her chest. Shapes moved beneath her gray skin like writhing serpents.

Her limbs stared to elongate. She rose on them, her spine curled back in an expression of almost artful agony, empty breasts lying flat to either side, mouth gaping to reveal a long, lolling tongue. Her head twitched to one side on a twisted neck, and her many-jointed limbs suddenly steadied. The rest had experienced similar transformations, their immortal flesh bubbling, glass bones they normally shaped over centuries of self improvement cracking and reforming in mere moments.

My scars throbbed with pain, but I didn’t need them to tell me what was happening. The sight of it informed me well enough, as did the warning burning within my Alder-infused soul.

These elves were Woed.

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