The Keystaff Chronicles - Chapter 16

With the high elven archers covering their retreat, the companions followed Hazuriel as he led them towards the Everstar Spire. Luthien and Ofeera did their best to keep up with the elf’s ground eating pace while Azarielle and Breaker took up rear positions and dealt with any of the flying fiends that somehow dodged the elven arrows.

“How did these creatures get here so quickly? It’s as if they knew whatever it was that protected the forest had disappeared,” Breaker grimaced slightly as he caught his large throwing star.

“I don’t know about that thoroughly unpleasant patched up giant, but the rest of these ghouls are just animated corpses driven by an instinct to feed. It wouldn’t have been strange if one or two happened to wander over by chance, but for them to all come at once, well, I would guess it’s that servant who summoned them. While I generally don’t condone mage-slaying, he’s an exception.” Azarielle replied.

Then, she added, “I know your preferred method of dealing with people is cutting their throats and having them bleed all over you, which, by the way is very much indicative of deep-seated psychological issues. However, that might not be the most brilliant plan with him. He will most likely work some nasty art and have you ribcage tear itself out of your body.”

Breaker bared his teeth at Azarielle, “You don’t have to tell me that, mage. That is how he killed my brothers.”

Azarielle’s response was drowned out by the shriek of a flying fiend. The young mage spun around, spread out her arms, and spoke several words in rapid succession. Tongues of crackling fire ignited at the tips of her fingers and sprayed outwards, leaving behind fiery trails. The fiery missiles struck multiple monsters simultaneously, and they instantly burst into flames.

“Flashy, but shouldn’t you be conserving your strength?”

Azarielle had continuously expended Arcane power, and the gray elf knew that she was weakening under the continued use of her Gift. Her normally rosy complexion had grown pale, and her breaths came in faster and shallower gasps. Even though Breaker could not sense the Arcane Gift, he was intimately familiar with the signs that indicated a mage’s exhausted state, having exploited that on numerous occasions.

“Style, Sir Slayer, is important,” she replied. Despite her flippant words, Azarielle knew that Breaker was right. Her legs felt like lead, and darkness was already gnawing away at the edges of her vision. She had originally meant to cause the flying fiends to simply combust, but because her concentration and energy were both lagging, she had to attack as she did in order so as not to miss, and that wasted more power. With the sparkling Everstar Spire growing larger and larger in their field of vision, Azarielle knew that another battle was inevitable.

To make things worse, she could feel the darker part of Gift churning inside her like a malevolent storm, waiting to be unleashed. More than one mage had lost their minds or their lives when, unable to control or contain their own Gift, they were consumed by it. Or, she might survive, but in tasting such power, she might be seduced by it and fall under the sway of the Abyssal Ones.

Luthien’s sudden cry startled the young woman from her dark thoughts. The trees had given away to a clearing, and the Everstar spire glittered before them in all its magnificence, jutting out in one singe breathtaking crystalline piece like the horn of a unicorn. All around the spire were homes that seemed to have formed from the tall trees themselves.

It would have been a wondrous sight were it not for the bodies of high elves strewn around them like ragdolls. Men, women and even children – none had been spared. And amidst this carnage, stood three black-robed mages and a man whose hair shimmered like moonlight on snow.

Luthien drew out his weapon and charged towards the man with a wordless roar of rage.

“Lucien the Defiler,” Breaker’s eyes blazed with uncontained hatred as he spat out the words like a curse. The gray elf drew his curved blades but didn’t launch himself at the attacker.

“So, the Brotherhood of the Red Hand teaches its members better survival skills than the Knights of Elad,” Azarielle remarked drily. “Sometimes, I wonder how His Highness has managed to live this long.”

Thought and reason flew from Luthien’s mind the moment he saw his brother, and he charged as rage transformed his world into a red nightmare. His mouth moved, but the guttural, almost animalistic sounds that spilled out were incoherent. The image of Lucien standing over him with a satisfied smile curving his face as he tried to breathe past the blood filling his throat came to his mind again. His brother had just slain their uncle and his hands were still covered in blood from when he had viciously ripped out their uncle’s heart.

“Hello little brother, I see that you are quite well and energetic as usual. How is our honored father – still alive I presume if your are out running about?” Lucien greeted him.

In response, Luthien raised his sword over his head and brought it down in a powerful overhand strike. Before he could complete his attack, he sensed a sudden rush of power directed towards him, and quickly created a shield. The invisible power struck his shield with enough force that cracks appeared along the surface like the tendrils of a cobweb.

For just a moment Luthien to turn his head to see who had attacked him, and saw a group of black-robed mages standing some distance away. Then, he spun back to face his brother. But, that one moment of distraction proved to be costly. Lucien, with a cool smile curving his lips, hand lifted up his hand and pressed a singer black-nailed finger against Luthien’s shield.

A black, viscous fluid spread over the young knight’s shield, seeping through the shinning surface and fell on him in globs. When the foul liquid touched him, it ate through his armor as if the armor was paper, and seared into his flesh. Luthien let out a yelp of pain and surprise and swung his sword at his brother to keep Lucien at bay. Laughing mockingly, his older twin stepped back out of the way with ease that mocked his efforts.

“You are still not focused enough, dear brother,” Lucien shook an admonishing finger at the knight.

Where the black fluid touched him, the skin and flesh split open as if cut by a sharp knife. Luthien tried to ignore the pain and attack his brother again, but the cut continued to grow larger, running up his arm and tearing open a shoulder. Grabbing his injured shoulder with his other hand, the young knight summoned his own power to stem the spread of the injury. Blood flowed from between his fingers and he gritted his teeth, glaring at his brother.

Lucien’s terrible power slithered up his arm like a hungry serpent, striking with sudden and terrible force. It was all he could do to prevent more of his flesh from being ripped open. Meanwhile, his injured arm had grown cold and numb, and the sword that he had held dropped from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

“Oh, it looks like you have improved. The last time this wound went all the way up your chest. I am so proud of you, little brother,” Lucien said.

“Accursed abyssal spawn,” Luthien squeezed the words from between his teeth.

“I must admit that I am a little jealous of you. You have two lovely ladies in your company. My darling Ofeera, you are even more beautiful in person than I remembered! And your lovely black-haired companion must be Azarielle. It’s a privilege to meet you in person at last.”

“To be honest, I would much rather get acquainted with a hungry dragon or some ogres than you,” Azarielle replied.

“What harsh words you say,” Lucien’s widened his eyes in feigned hurt as he pressed his fingers against his chest. “You wound me.”

“I sure hope so,” Azarielle responded. Then, turning to address the black-robed mages, Azarielle said, “Dao, Ting and Kai – I wondered if it was the three of you.”

Dao bowed deeply, “Lady Ree, your slaves wish you a thousand years of health!”

“Me too,” Azarielle replied. “So, if you could do me a favor and disappear, that would be great. And, if you can take that malnourished want-to-be ghoul with you, I’d be thoroughly tickled.”

“Your slaves cannot do as the Lady requests. We are here at the bidding of Prince Yue, to assist the lord Lucien in his task.”

Azarielle rolled her eyes, “Stop referring to yourselves as my ‘slaves’. Slaves would hardly disobey their mistress. Oh well, if you can just stand there and do nothing, I suppose that’s alright as well.”

With his head still bowed, Dao responded with, “His Highness has also commanded that we escort your ladyship back to Long Peace should we have the fortune of encountering you on this trip.”

“Breaker, malnourished ghouly is all yours. Hazuriel, if you would be so kind as to have your men pick a target, any target, and shoot away, that would be great. Ofeera…”

Azarielle’s eyes narrowed when she noticed her friend doing a fine job of imitating a statue, her eyes wide with shock, and her breaths coming in rapid gasps. She had wanted to ask her friend to call down her holy power and attack Lucien, but from the look on Ofeera’s face…

“Ofeera, snap out of it,” she gave her friend the equivalent of a gentle mental shake. “I think Luthien is doing a good job of bleeding to death over there. Please help him.”

“Ah… ah! Luthien!” Ofeera gasped, noticing for the first time that the knight was kneeling in a swiftly spreading pool of blood. Without another word, se rushed over to where he was.

A dark shadow swept past her, heralded by a flash of silver that spun end over end towards Lucien. At the very last moment, the weapon was suddenly redirected, abruptly curving to the side and landing harmlessly onto the ground.

“Well, well, a brother of the Red Hand.”
Breaker was upon him in a flash, moving almost too fast for the eyes to follow as he struck at the throat, the shoulders and chest in quick succession. The first few blows changed directions just before they struck their mark, but not even Lucien was able to turn the last attack away from himself quickly enough to avoid injury. The tip of Breaker’s sharp blade drew a thin line of blood across Lucien’s cheek. The wound healed almost immediately, the flesh and skin knitting back together and not leaving behind a scar.

“Breaker, duck!”

Hearing Azarielle’s shout, Breaker dropped to the ground just as arcs of black lightning lanced outwards from the tips of Lucien’s fingers hurtled through the space where he had been. At the same time, a volley of arrows flew in the other direction, aiming for the vile prince.

Lucien murmured a few words and cocooned himself in a shield, furrowing his brow ever-so-slightly as he felt the arcane imbued arrowheads chip away at his power. “Oh my, it would seem that we are going to need a little bit of help.”

He sliced open the base of his palm with a sharp nailed and cast the blood onto the ground. Then, he spoke a few guttural words and all of a sudden, the bodies around them began to move.

“Alright, you need to go now,” Azarielle pointed her finger at Lucien and spoke her own words of attack. A crackling fireball sprung into life and hurtled towards the vile prince, growing in size and gaining momentum as it went. Lucien’s eyes narrowed as he spotted fiery death hurtled towards him. Azarielle’s power passed over him in a wave of scalding heat that made the ends of his hair stand up.

Lucien threw more of his own power into his defensive shield even as he braced himself. He knew that he would not be able to strengthen his shield enough to absorb such a powerful attack, and though it would not kill him, he would not be able to heal himself instantly either.

A wall of green-yellow light snapped into place in front of him just as the blazing fireball reached him. The arcane flames stripped through wall layer by layer until it crumbled, but the wall did absorb some of that immense power so that by the time it blew apart his personal shield, Lucien felt nothing more than a momentary roar of flames.

It would seem that Prince Yue’s gifts were not entirely useless after all.

“That was frightening,” Lucien said as he slid his hands over his shirt to put out a few lingering flames. “The apprentice of the great Azariel Gwenevar indeed.”

Azarielle gritted her teeth and moved her fingers slowly as she felt the first hint of numbing coldness deep inside of her. She had hoped to severely wound Lucien with that swift attack, and had poured much of her remaining power into it. So long as Luthien’s unpleasant brother couldn’t raise the slain elves as ghouls, they would be able to fight with high elves’ help.

Forcing a smile onto her face, she turned to Dao and said, “Of all Yue’s servants, you were one of the least unpleasant. You are not going to get a fruit basket from me during the Holy Birth festival for sure.”

“My lady, I have no desire to fight you. If you would come with us now, we will return you to His Highness immediately.”

“Dao, you know that I almost got eaten by Yue’s pet dragon when I left right? Do you honestly think I’d willingly follow you into another one’s stomach?”

“My lady, I assure you that His Highness had no intentions of…”

Azarielle didn’t wait for him to finish. Drawing her short sword, she launched herself at him.