[Omen of the Witchblade] Chapter 92 — Threads Unwound

Jacob slid back under the rabid assault of a covenant member dressed in black robes and armed with two long, sinuous daggers. He kept his shield up, biding his time until the man’s burst of frenzied excitement wore off.

The moment his flurry lapsed, Jacob struck like a viper, taking the man in the throat. His arms fell limp to the side and Jacob shield bashed him off the sword’s blade to make room for the next covenant member rushing to greet him.

“Where did Shrubley go?!” Camilla cried beside him, working her rapier back and forth to keep the prodding weapons at bay. Jacob drew most of their ire, but some still managed to get attacks off on Camilla.

They were slowly making progress up the narrow ledge that wound its way around the mountain and led to a large cavern that Jacob suspected was where the covenant members were coming from.

The tide of battle was shifting. On the ledge, the remaining forces couldn’t use their superior numbers to their advantage. An advantage that the two skilled swordsmen were quickly erasing with every kill.

They had almost been overwhelmed on the previous mountain plateau when a surge of black-robed killers emerged from everywhere at once. After only a few minutes of intense fighting, they disappeared in streams of black smoke, taking Shrubley–who had been grappling a large man to the ground–with them.

Jacob twisted his longsword, batting aside a thrusting sword with three solid strikes before the black-robed wielder knew what was happening. Jacob shield bashed him in the face and on the recoil, slid his shield onto his back in one smooth, practiced motion.

As blood gushed from the man’s face, Jacob took up his sword in both hands. Flames rushed out between his fingers as he focused on his most cherished aspect: Pyre.

Coiling sinuous tongues of flame swept up the hilt and blade in one direction, and over his arms and shoulders in the other.

Aspect Skill: [Pyre’s Remembrance]

Gouts of white fire flared from the tip of his blade and spread to the clumped up covenant members in black. As the bane of corruption, the Pyre’s flames sought out all forms of foulness and unnatural order.

As Jacob slashed and stabbed, ridding the world of one more twisted soul, the flames of the Pyre shot out and scoured the corruption from those nearby.

Camilla’s icicle rapier took mercy on those writhing from the Pyre’s flames, ending their suffering swiftly. In short order, they cleared the way ahead.

Jacob leaned against the wall of stone and caught his breath. He wasn’t used to being so weak. It had been a long time since he was anything but the Firesoul.

Camilla put a comforting hand on his shoulder and a soothing wash of vitality flowed through him.

Aspect Skill: [Rime Frost Bolster]

Jacob nodded his thanks, and they took off up the path once more. They had just reached the mouth of the cave when the blue sky was ripped asunder. A force like a tidal wave the size of the mountain bore down on them.

Pouring everything into [Pyre’s Remembrance], Jacob commanded the flames to flare on either side of his upraised sword. The force washed over the wedge of flames, split to either side, and crushed the rock into dust until all that remained of the plateau was a narrow walkway into the mountain’s heart.

The flames winked out, taking a good portion of Jacob’s stamina and mana with them.

“I don’t like this,” Camilla confided in him.

It reminded Jacob of the horrifying events the moment he stepped foot into the Forbidden Kingdom for the first time. It was even worse than the Shroudlands.

Still, he kept the fear and horrors witnessed locked up deep within himself. They were his burden to bear, no one else’s.

“Shrubley and Smudge are inside.” He pointed with his sword. “Would you leave them to fend for themselves?”

Camilla bit her lip and shook her head. She would go through the Abyss itself for that little shrub and his bubblegum pink friend, and so would Jacob. Few people who met and talked with Shrubley and his monster companions could say otherwise.

There was something innocent and wholesome about them that compelled you to care for them. Shoulders squared once more, the pair cautiously made their way into the heart of the mountain to find their lost friends.

***

Sylvie sat on the sidelines as she fed Komachi treats. The little pobul that many non-Magi often mistook for a potato-shaped otter, reached out with dexterous paws and took the treats from Sylvie.

Komachi had, once again, over-extended herself. She wasn’t used to being so weak, but with sufficient food, she would recover.

Sylvie passed a large dried berry to Komachi’s left-back paw. It gripped the dried fruit, passed it to her front-right forepaw, and then to her mouth.

She had a very particular way of eating recovery snacks. Always from back paw to forepaw, then to mouth. Try to feed her in any other way and she not only recovered slower, but grumbled and whined the whole time.

Sylvie looked up as a flash of light drew her attention back to the battle at the center of the mountain pass. Hal was facing off against an ogre with an oversized wooden club. He weaved in and around its lumbering attacks, flowing like he was a dancer with that singular curved bone blade.

Miranda and Cal were watching from the side.

Komachi noshed on another berry, turned her head to view the battle, and let out a little squeak like a rubber balloon. “Why he fightin’ on his own?”

“Him and Miranda have some sort of wager going,” Sylvie said with a grin. She knew her brother well enough to be certain he would win. “She doesn’t think he’s capable of taking on a strong monster by himself without any of us in the battle.”

Komachi passed another dried berry from one paw to the other, then finally to her mouth. “Looks like he’s doin’ okay,” she said around a mouthful.

“He’s only using two of his aspects,” Sylvie pointed out. “I haven’t seen him use Beast yet. He’s probably just toying with the monster.”

Miranda folded her large arms. “Any day now would be good,” she jeered. “I could have that beaten with just a few good swipes of my scythe claws.”

Hal turned to her, bowed low with his sword and arm out to the side. Sylvie recognized the danger he was in immediately, but she didn’t warn him. She didn’t even stop feeding Komachi.

Cal clutched his Wizard staff with white-knuckled ferocity. Then again, his knuckles were always white on account of him being a skeleton.

The ogre sensed his imminent victory and swung with all his might in a powerful overhand chop meant to knock Hal’s head into his stomach.

In a smooth, graceful motion, Hal pivoted and turned. His black hair was rustled by the passing cudgel, but he was otherwise unharmed. Hal came up, bone scimitar leading like a ghostly dancing partner. It looked far too gentle in Sylvie’s opinion, but with the ease of a pobul gliding through water, Hal thrust his scimitar deep into the guts of the ogre.

With a vicious grin, he jerked the blade and twisted, ripping it out with maximum force.

The ogre was already dead, but it didn’t know it. The cruel thing was too busy trying to keep its intestines from spilling out to notice the killing move.

“Machi is entertained!” Komachi let out a couple of excited chirps, clapping her paws at the display. For once, she actually seemed a little impressed.

Hal’s arm swept out to the side, pale flames gathered in his hand and extended out toward the ogre. After just a few inches, however, the flames fell one after the other as if suddenly succumbing to gravity.

With a jerk of his hand, the flames blazed brightly. When the fires died down, they had transformed into a series of linked pale blades.

Aspect Skill: [Vertebral Whip]

Just as Hal’s arm jerked back and then shot forward, the sky broke open somewhere far to the south.

The ogre, his attention snared by the strange celestial event, looked up just in time to see the serrated whip coming for his head.

Sylvie stared at the beautiful and intense magical feedback. She could feel the emanations from here. Somebody had nearly ripped a hole in the veil of the Shardrune, but they hadn’t been strong enough.

Unfortunately, they were strong enough to create a powerful feedback storm from the damage.

Hal, Sylvie, Komachi, Miranda, Cal, and the sightless ogre’s head all stared up at the swirling colorful clouds of mana. The clouds were whipped about, forming a halo of power around the distant mountain.

“Where are you going?” Miranda asked Sylvie.

She looked over her shoulder at the towering vampyr. “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve been chasing ghosts because we had nothing better.” She pointed. “This is something better.”

Komachi chirped in agreement, wriggled out of Sylvie’s arms, and took off toward the mountain. The stones cracked beneath the charging pobul’s paws.

***

A Bloodtide member staggered to the side, clutching a mortal wound to his neck. He rebounded and came forward, taking his hands off the wound to reach for a weapon.

Ashera raised a pale finger and wagged it admonishingly at the man. “Ah! I would not do that, were I you. Take pressure off that wound and you will die in a few heartbeats. Tell us why your people are slaughtering innocent bystanders and I will heal you.”

His bloodshot eyes darted between the Archivist and three Magi, replacing his hands over the wound. Blood trickled between his fingertips. If he thought he might find more sympathy than Ashera’s sea glass green eyes offered, he was sorely mistaken.

Solomon folded his bulky arms, inked heavily with Samoan tribal tattoos. The broad man loomed as he habitually did, though he rarely meant to. Despite being a gentle giant, it was easy for anyone who did not know Solomon to misread his contemplative expression as one spoiling for a fight.

Victor, in all his finery, was examining his nails in utter boredom, while Aegis kept the room’s lone entrance secured against any new threats.

“Now, kindly tell us what we want to know,” Ashera said calmly. “Do so, and I will see to it that you are healed of your affliction.”

His eyes darted back and forth. “The covenants are gathering power, I don’t know anymore than that! We’re just told to make as many sacrifices as possible in the name of our covenant! Now please, help me!”

Ashera tapped her chin thoughtfully with a fingernail. “Hmm, no. Not buying it.”

“What!?” the Bloodtide member wailed. He staggered into the corner of the crypt. It suddenly dawned on him that his body would soon join the dead here if he didn’t offer a suitable answer. Then he remembered overhearing something Mistress Semthra had told the High Cleric.

Ashera nodded sympathetically, urging him on. Her pale moonlight-spun hair and silver-tipped horns glinted in the pale light of the crypt’s torches.

“We are supposed to keep the Magi separated,” he shouted, eager to have finally found something that might please the woman in front of him who held his life in her delicate hands. “I don’t know anything more than that, but the goal is apparently shared among all covenants! They fear the Magi coming together under a single banner.”

Ashera looked back at her friends.

Victor shrugged. “It would make sense. I’ve not heard from Charlie, Hal, Jacob, or Thomas in weeks.”

“We have been chasing these blood cultists for many days now,” Solomon agreed. “They are always one step ahead of us.”

Aegis, as usual, kept his thoughts to himself.

Ashera, for all that she hated seeing the suffering of the innocent, had to agree that they were chasing the wrong target. However, without any solid evidence of something better, what choice did they have?

It was either grind monsters out in some random plateau or follow this thread of blood cultists to their source.

“Truly unfortunate that we–” Ashera’s words died on her lips. She felt a rampant surge of concentrated hatred to the northwest. A sense of dread settled over her heart.

“What was that?” Victor asked, looking at the ceiling with Solomon.

“Manastorm,” Ashera whispered, though she couldn’t recall how or where she picked up the word.

“A what?” the two Magi asked simultaneously.

The cultist stepped up to Ashera, dropping to one knee in supplication. “Please, miss. You said–”

Ashera regarded him for all of a second before she materialized her razor-thin rapier in a swirl of ice blue ash and severed his head from his shoulders.

She turned away from the body without bothering to loot it. At the questioning looks, she said, “I promised I would heal him. Sparing his soul from further debasement and corruption is a form of healing.”

Victor chuckled. “That’s cold, even for you.”

“It matters not.” She looked to the northwest. “You heard him. We have been chasing ghosts.”

“You have a better goal in mind, I take it?” Solomon asked, kneeling and looting the corpse.

As streamers of light flew off to each of Ashera’s party members, she nodded. “The manastorm is calling us.”