The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 393

Chapter 393

BAIRON WYKES

I could practically feel the frayed ends of Varay’s nerves firing next to me. At her other side, Mica’s mana signature was a weak hum. And yet, both Lances stood firm in the face of a terrible enemy. A swell of pride fortified my own commitment.

I was glad to stand next to these warriors in defense of my home. Each of us had faced down certain death at the hands of an asura. Looking away from my companions, I leveled a ready stare at the two Scythes hovering above, refusing to let any fear of them creep into my heart.

Cruel laughter echoed through the cavern, resounding from stone to stone as it built like the pressure before a thunderstorm.

“Done losing? You’ve already lost!” the white-haired, scarecrow of a Scythe I had wounded shouted down at us, her previously playful voice now full of menace and cruelty. “Don’t you feel it?”

On the far edge of the cavern, a horrible pressure was drumming out of the walls in sharp bursts, several sources of mana and paralyzing killing intent all slamming into one another with the force of maces against a bare skull.

Even from so far away, the sensation made my fingers grow weak around the haft of the red spear.

“But please, don’t stop fighting,” the Scythe continued, her snarl easing as she adopted her darkly playful mannerisms again. Black-purple flames were burning through the wound I’d given her, wiping it away as if it had never existed. “It would be oh so disappointing to finally get a chance to fight in the war only for the mighty Lances to give up so soon.”

Speaking for only Mica and me to hear, Varay said, “Mica, cast defensively, keep them occupied, distracted. Bairon, focus on landing blows with that ungodly spear. We have a chance if we can cut off the flow of their mana, even briefly.”

“Yes, that’s the spirit,” the Scythe said, suddenly giddy. “Scheme away. I can’t wait to shove that cursed spear up your—”

“Enough, Melzri,” the purple-haired Scythe cut in, her voice oozing like sludge through the air. “Let us finish this before the Wraiths arrive.”

The Scythe I’d fought, Melzri, sobered. “Of course, Viessa. Good impressions and all that.”

Even to my enhanced senses, Melzri was little more than a shadowy blur as she suddenly flew into our midst. I had just enough time to pull my spear up into a defensive position before her strike landed. The blow sent me skating backwards, my feet digging long gouges into the courtyard.

She wielded a long, curved sword in each hand. One swirled with black wind, the other with dark fire. Both blades snapped out simultaneously, one at Varay’s ribs, the other at Mica’s throat. The strikes deflected off stone and ice, and the other Lances let themselves be pushed away by the force, then flew up into the air.

A dark cyclone was spinning into being above us as Viessa worked some horrid spell, but my focus was on Melzri.

She didn’t pursue the others, but spun again and catapulted herself at me.

Ice reached up from the earth to wrap around her limbs, and the dust sank unnaturally to the earth as the gravity between us became several times heavier. The Scythe jerked mid-lunge, and I sidestepped and pulled up my spear. Her blades clanged against the shaft, and I countered with a series of lightning-quick thrusts that were batted aside by her blades.

Above me, everything became howling darkness, and I lost sight of Varay and Mica.

Melzri was a vortex of burning, cutting steel, leaping, spinning, and striking with impossible force and speed, the twin blades seeming to come from every direction and angle simultaneously as I struggled simply to keep my spear between us.

She’d been playing with me before, I realized with a sickening certainty. Just waiting for the other Scythe to finish off Varay and Mica. Otherwise, I never would have landed the blow that forced her to temporarily retreat.

Cutting off these spiraling, unhelpful thoughts, I focused on the Scythe and her weapons, letting myself sink into the hyper-focused state required to effectively utilize Thunderclap Impulse.

Mana infused every synapse in my body. It sparked in my mind, enhancing both my thoughts and reactions by several times over.

Her swords were both cutting toward me, one at my right knee, the other at my left elbow. Instead of flailing wildly in an effort to block both blows at once, I leaned into them, the enhanced perception of my lightning-enhanced senses allowing me to thrust my body forward between the two blows. My pauldron rammed into the Scythe’s face.

It was like running headlong into an iron hyrax.

Lightning rushed through me, condensed into a single point on my arm, and then exploded outward with enough force to send Melzri hurtling backwards. Her swords closed around me like shears.

I dove into a forward roll, so close to her weapons that I felt the fire lick at the back of my neck.

As I came to my feet, Melzri was bearing down on me, already recovered, her body rotating and her blades turning around her like those of a thresher.

The ground cracked beneath me as I launched myself backward with another condensed burst of lightning. Cocking back, I threw the asuran spear with all my might.

Melzri twisted in her flight, flowing like wind around the spear. My sped-up senses barely saw as she let go of her own weapon and tried to grab mine out of the air.

Her body jerked violently. The grace and precision of her movement were suddenly a chaos of limbs as the spear yanked her sideways and sent her spinning to crash and tumble across the ground. She vanished with the crunch of breaking stone into one of the fallen buildings.

The red spear turned in a wide arc and flew to my hand, but I was already moving in to close the distance between me and the Scythe.

With a curse, she hurled away a large section of wall that had collapsed onto her, giving me the perfect opening. I aimed for her core, driving the spear down with both hands.

Her counter was little more than a blur, even with Thunderclap Impulse active. The wind-wreathed blade jumped up to parry my thrust, and the spear’s head sank deep into the stone beside her. At nearly the same time, something burned across my back, and then her flaming sword was in her hand again as well. As I hissed in pain and reached for the line of fire across my back, she lashed out with a kick to my chest.

The cavern bent and wobbled as my perspective struggled to correct with my sudden backward motion. I was vaguely aware of crashing into and through something very hard, and then, I was lying on my back.

Above me was the writhing, roaring black stormcloud. Within the cloud, I could vaguely sense the other two Lances struggling against the second Scythe. They were relying on me, on the asuran weapon Arthur had gifted me, and I needed to stand up, to help them, to fight.

But the fire seeped into my blood.

I knew it immediately. No matter how much time passed, I would never forget that wretched encounter with the Scythe, Cadell, in the flying castle, or how it had felt to lie there, helpless as a newborn as his magic ate away my life from the inside.

I imagined actual flames alive in my blood, each frantic thump-thump of my heart spreading the blaze.

Melzri appeared above me, her movements businesslike. One arm was hanging lower than the other, but as I watched she rotated it until the arm popped back into place. She gave me a curious look, her eyes burrowing through my skin and into my blood and bones.

“What does it feel like?” Her words were soft, almost reverent. “Tell me, and I’ll speed your demise.”

I laughed with derision, then my body spasmed and my back arched with agony, every muscle going taut. “It feels…just like I remember,” I gasped out through clenched teeth. The spasm settled, and I took several deep, painful breaths. “It took me months to regain my strength after the other one filled me with fire.”

Her gaze sharpened, and she leaned toward me, the wind-shrouded blade pressing against my breastplate. Her eyes were wide, and a muscle in her cheek trembled as she suppressed a manic grin. “Go on…”

I met her eyes the color of curdled blood. Outwardly, I was calm. Peaceful. I had accepted my death—again. But inside, the real battle was raging.

“My body didn’t feel like my own, not for a long time,” I continued, inwardly focused on controlling my release of mana. “This alien force had been within it, and even after it was gone, it had left a residue that I couldn’t wash off my soul.”

The edge of her sword slid across my breastplate, sinking into it with the low whine of metal on metal. “You’ve got a surprisingly beautiful way with words, Lance. Finish, and I will relieve you of this pain.” She bit her bottom lip as she waited, filled with anticipation.

“I thought I’d never heal, not really. My time as a Lance was done. I was cursed to linger as a burned-out husk of my former self.” Her eyes closed as her blade slowly parted the leather backing of my armor and then the flesh beneath. “But I had so long to think about it, Scythe. I planned, and I hoped.”

“What did you hope for, Thunderlord?”

Slow, steady downward pressure. The feel of steel scraping across bone, and then…

“That, one day, some foolish Alacryan would be stupid enough to try it on me again,” I growled.

Her eyes flashed open, reflecting the white lightning burning from my many small wounds as I completed casting the spell I had designed for this very moment.

Thunderlord’s Wrath, I chanted in my head, nearly gasping with relief.

For all her speed, Melzri couldn’t react quickly enough.

Instead of retreating, she leaned into her blade, and I felt it scrape against the edge of my sternum as it bit deep. The lightning filling my body—my blood—raced up the steel and into her. I could feel every particle of mana as it attacked her nerves, crashing along her arms and into her torso.

She was thrown off her feet, then crashed through a statue of some ancient dwarven lord. He fell to the ground in pieces, his cracked face staring up at me forlornly.

I floated off the ground after her, wreathed in reaching tendrils of lightning.

“I just couldn’t get rid of that feeling of fire in my blood,” I said as Melzri thrust herself up from the ground and into the air. The twin blades jumped back into her hands. One arm was blackened up to the elbow. “So I learned how to turn my blood to lightning!”

I punctuated this last word by focusing on the deep wound in my chest. A blinding ray of lightning exploded out of me. Melzri brought up both of her swords to deflect the blast, and a shield of wind and fire encircled her. The lightning condensed and built where the two spells impacted, growing and growing until the pressure ripped the mana apart.

The explosion sent us both hurtling backwards, tumbling through the air like newborn birds fallen from the nest.

Inside me, white-hot light struggled against the devouring darkness. Every vein and artery screamed with the strain of it, but I was winning. The spell she’d used was specific, designed to eat away at my life’s blood. Without anything to burn, the soulfire was fading.

Taking hold of my tumbling flight, I righted myself and readied the spear, letting mana flow around it, infusing it in a shell of electrical energy.

The black cloud above me rippled, and a small dwarven body plummeted out of it, crashing into the ground nearby. I gave Mica one quick glance to ensure she was breathing, then cocked back my arm to throw. But, Melzri was gone.

With a sound like the cracking of thin ice, the cloud above snapped. Darkness was replaced with fluttering white as it became a snowstorm, and I could see the entire landscape of the battle raging above.

Varay and Viessa were both stationary, each facing the other as they hovered a hundred feet overhead, their battle one entirely of will and magic.

The snow of the conjured storm was falling inward toward Viessa. Within it, the shapes of armed and armored men formed out of the gusting flakes were cutting and slashing all around her. Black scythes of wind countered, defending and destroying the conjured warriors as quickly as Varay could form them.

Several mages had gathered along the winding roads that curved around the cavern, and as one they began sending spells hurtling at Viessa.

Helen Shard was firing arrows of burning light from one edge of the cavern with her band of adventurers at her back, each casting and throwing spells of their own.

From another ledge, the Earthborn brothers were sending earthen spikes like stalactites at the Scythe. Beside them, Curtis and Kathyln Glayder were both casting defensive spells in the form of shields of ice and glowing golden panels of flame. The cavern shook with the roars of Curtis’s world lion.

Adjusting my target, I threw the asuran spear.

It painted a bright red afterimage across the cavern, flying true toward Viessa’s heart.

I sensed the flare of mana and took a jagged, lightning-infused step away. The tendrils of electricity surging around me reached for the twin swords closing in on my neck.

It wasn’t enough.

Black wind and fire cut through white lightning. Steel glinted hungrily.

Melzri had manifested out of the shadow right beside me. Her face was a mask of concentration.

Then the light was warping, the air hardening and turning to dark crystal around me, and in an instant I was trapped, my entire body encased within a shell of black diamond.

The twin blades rang off the protective spell, lodged into the diamond, and stuck fast.

Through the opaque crystal, I could just see Melzri’s silhouette spin around as a smaller shadow wielding an oversized hammer flew at her from the side. I felt each blow of the hammer shiver up through the ground beneath me as the two exchanged strike after strike. I could also sense the strain on Mica’s core as she pushed herself to her limits.

Whatever magic Viessa had used on her had left her weak. She was almost to the point of backlash.

The crystalline structure trapping me in place shattered.

Mica was on the ground, Melzri pinning her. The Scythe’s hands were wrapped in bands of black fire, and each blow burned away a layer of Mica’s flesh, leaving her face cracked and bleeding.

I channeled all the power of Thunderlord’s Wrath and lunged, wrapping my arms around the Scythe. The lightning coiled around us both, pinning her to me as I yanked her away from Mica’s prone form. Desperation fueled my strength, and I held on despite Melzri’s power swelling in my arms, threatening to shatter me.

Her body burst into flames. Soulfire battered against the energy cladding my body and restraining her.

I began to tremble.

I couldn’t hold the Scythe for long.

Then my mana winked out like a doused candle flame.

I was stumbling backwards, Melzri still in my arms. Her soulfire was gone.

Together, we fell.

As I lay on my back, waiting for the pain to hit me, I saw what was happening above.

Varay was sagging, near the end of her strength. Viessa was winning the battle of wills, pushing back against Varay’s conjured army, the lines of sharp black wind cutting closer and closer to where Varay hovered.

An arrow slipped through Viessa’s defenses and sank into her thigh.

Then the pain hit.

Above, Viessa fell back, surrounding herself with shadowy shields, no longer able to counter the barrage of attacks. _{frёewebnoѵēl.com}