The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 400

ARTHUR LEYWIN

Leaning against the base of a squat apple tree and chewing on the last of its ripe fruit, I stared out at the fields south of Blackbend City.

Once these flat plains and low, rolling hills would have gleamed gold with endless fields of wheat, but large swaths of farmland had been crushed flat by the tent city now ringing Blackbend’s southern edge and the ten thousand or more troops stationed there. The gray-and-black clad soldiers moved with stiff, short steps, and I saw many heads bent in conversation and furtive glances being cast about. More than once, ranking officers stopped to shout at a group of gossipers as messengers rushed about with a frantic air.

After a brief jaunt to the Relictombs to ensure both Regis and I were at full power, we’d followed the wide swath of churned sand that marked the Alacryan army’s passage through the desert and into the foothills separating Sapin and Darv. The tempus warp I’d recovered from the Wraiths would have made it a simple matter to teleport the distance, but I needed to ensure that the Alacryan force didn’t split or divert to a different destination.

Despite their multi-day lead, the soldiers who had retreated from Vildorial had only recently arrived. From my distant vantage point, with my senses heightened with aether so I could more clearly follow the bustling of the many soldiers, I tracked the comings and goings of the war camp for a while, content to just watch as the Alacryans stewed in their own uncertainty.

It had already been a couple of hours while Regis and I waited under the apple tree. Unforunately, there had been no sign of the retainer and regent, Lyra Dreide, or of the two Scythes. They would have made a convenient prop for the spectacle.

It felt good to be in the field again, an enemy in front of me. My return to Dicathen had been defined by furtive rushing through underground tunnels and living in fear for my family and all the Dicathians under my protection. I was tired of skulking about and hiding. This was a war. It was past time to fight it.

But I could only do so now because of the Lances. The damage to their cores, forced on them in the same ritual that bound them to their respective kings and queens and catapulted them to white core, had been healed. Varay, Bairon, and Mica were, at the very moment, back in Vildorial, meditating over the remains of the mana in the Vritra horns I’d acquired in order to grow stronger for the first time in a very long time.

When the Lances next faced the Scythes, I was confident the results would be very different.

A horn sounded in the war camp, and soldiers began to gather.

Ready?

Regis drifted free of my body and condensed into the form of a full-grown shadow wolf. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Together, we began moving quickly from the hilltop where the lone tree grew, down into a slight valley that opened up into the trampled fields, and directly toward the sprawling encampment. Once in plain sight of the guards watching to the south, we slowed to a steady march. It didn’t take long for them to spot us.

Another horn blew, then another. These were more wild and, I thought with some amusement, somehow afraid. Several men jumped on broad, quick-moving lizard mana beasts called skitters and rushed to cut me off.

Still a hundred feet away, one of them gave a shout, and the sand-yellow lizards all skidded to a stop, holding well back.

Their leader, a man in his early twenties with a thin blond beard and dark, steady gaze, took in my appearance and went pale. The other soldiers all turned in his direction, and I could tell that they all recognized me from the rumors even if they had never seen me directly. The skitters, sensing their riders’ discomfort or perhaps made nervous by Regis’s presence, shied and tried to pull back.

“St-state your identity,” the leader said, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and sat taller. Without waiting for me to respond, he immediately asked, “Are you the traitor to Alacrya known as Grey? If so, know that the regent Lyra of Highblood Dreide has given orders that you are to be killed on sight.”

I looked him right in the eye and said, “What are you waiting for then?”

He raised his chin, one hand on the bridle of his skitter, the other on the handle of his sword. “What do you want here?”

“That’s easy,” I said, pointing past him to the tent city. “That, gone. You, gone. Now.”

The boy’s jaw tightened beneath his blond beard. To his credit, he did not immediately flee, although I could tell he was thinking about it. “You are only one man. There are several thousand soldiers at my back. Surely you don’t—”

I reached for the relic armor. The sight of it unfolding over my skin made the soldier yank hard on the reins, and his skitter danced sideways and nearly threw him. “If you’ve seen me before, then you know I always offer the opportunity to lay down your arms and leave with your lives. The Vritra Clan is my enemy, not the people of Alacrya. Disband this encampment and prepare to leave Sapin immediately.”

He kept up eye contact for a long moment while his skitter still strafed side to side, now actively attempting to pull away. Finally, he let it, and the mana beast whirled around and shot off toward the war camp. The rest were quick to follow.

“Tired of sounding like a broken record yet?” Regis asked, letting his tongue loll from one side of his mouth.

“It gets harder to offer clemency each time they refuse it,” I admitted, crossing my arms as I watched the skitter-riders hurry away. “But it’s the right thing to do, Regis. If I could snap my fingers and send all these Alacryans back to their own continent without any violence, I would. But…” My voice grew firm as I felt my will harden. “Anyone who would make themselves a pawn of the Vritra—whether they’re born in Alacrya or Dicathen—has chosen their own fate.”

The scouts had reached the camp, and a muddle of chaotic activity followed. Shouts and arguments rang across the hills. I watched as the higher-ranking officers clashed with growing animosity and the camp’s organization quickly dissolved under a lack of leadership. I thought the Alacryans might collapse into violence, but then a booming voice drowned out all others.

A gargantuan woman in heavy black plate armor hurled a man to the ground and pointed at me with a burning greatsword, and the Alacryans began falling into line. While a few groups of soldiers broke ranks and fled north, most hurried into well-ordered rows of battle groups at the woman’s direction. Shields flared, empowered weapons and armor blazed to life with mana, and a rainbow of spells were activated.

I couldn’t help but be disappointed as I looked across the field at the thousands of Alacryan mages.

“This really would be so much easier if they had sense enough to run for their lives,” I muttered.

“Much less fun though,” Regis japed, chuckling darkly. “Maybe it would help if they got a good look at me in all my glory?”

I nodded my approval. “Do it.”

With a wide, lupine grin, Regis activated the Destruction godrune. His body blazed with the purple flames, his physical form expanding and transforming, growing huge and bestial, all hard, sharp angles and jagged fire and long black spikes. His head widened and flattened as obsidian fangs grew out of his mouth. Wings sprouted from behind his arched shoulder blades, and then I leapt onto his back.

Regis lifted up off the ground and gave a roar that shook Blackbend. He breathed out flames of pure Destruction as he wheeled through the air high above the enemy.

A tremor of terror shook the awestruck Alacryans. A Shield ceased conjuring and turned to flee, but the woman who had taken charge of the army appeared before him in a flash of white-hot fire, her sword already swinging. He didn’t even have the chance to conjure another protective shield before he fell into two burning halves.

“Any other who shames their blood by turning tail condemns their blood as well! By the Vritra, I’ll make sure your mothers and daughters bleed for your cowardice!”

At the woman’s threat, spells began to fly, filling the sky with blues, reds, blacks, and greens. Cutting rays and bursting missiles erupted around us like fireworks. Regis’s Destruction-infused breath burned away several of the strongest spells. Others, I batted aside with aether. More missed or reflected harmlessly off the relic armor or the thick layer of aether cladding Regis’s bulk. What little damage we took healed almost instantly.

“Cockroaches,” Regis rumbled in his much deeper voice. “They’ll be less than ash when I’m done with them.”

“Wait,” I said, counting on one last gambit to break the line without a full-scale slaughter.

I didn’t have to look for the aetheric pathways between me and the Alacryan leader. As I imbued the godrune with aether, it guided me, and I vanished from Regis’s back and appeared in front of the leader, just inside the effective range of her overlarge sword.

She grunted in surprise and brought the blade up defensively, both the flames and the purple lightning wrapping around my limbs reflecting in her dark eyes.

Faster than she could react, my hand snapped out and caught the blade. Realmheart flared to life, making visible the mana in her weapon. I severed the flow, snuffing out the mana, then pushed aether into the steel. Although of fine make, the metal couldn’t handle the pressure and exploded, peppering us both with shrapnel. Although harmless to me, a piece slashed across her cheek, and she snarled as she stumbled back from the explosion.

God Step took me behind her. My gauntleted fist drove into her spine where her armor opened to reveal several runic tattoos. The bones shattered, and her lifeless body flew into the backs of a nearby battle group, knocking them to the ground.

The exchange had been so fast that most of the Alacryan soldiers hadn’t noticed and were still slinging spells at Regis. Only those closest at hand had witnessed their leader's demise, and most of them could only stare in dawning horror. The smart ones, however, broke ranks and fled. And as soon as a few had done so, dozens more followed.

‘Well, that was dramatic,’ Regis thought from above. ‘The center of their line is caving in on itself. Most of them are running like hell.’

Lay down a line of fire just beyond the front line, I thought back. Avoid the fleeing soldiers where you can, but don’t hesitate to burn anyone who keeps fighting.

The jagged fire jumped and twisted in a way that expressed gleeful excitement. ‘You got it, boss.’

Tipping into a dive, Regis ducked and weaved between the bombardment of spells before leveling out just in front of the foremost shields, which made up a kind of wall of wavering flames, whirling water, crackling lightning, and transparent panels of mana. Destruction blazed from his monstrous maw like dragon’s fire, spilling over the field and splashing against the shields, devouring the mana.

I stood at the center of the chaos, a stone unmoved by the retreating sea. No one attacked me—most would not even look at me, as if avoiding me would somehow make me less real. They stumbled over each other, pushing and shoving as they ran around me, away from the violet flames and toward the city.

The encampment itself became an obstacle, but the surge of bodies trampled it under heavy boots, collapsing tents, overturning tables, and kicking campfire ash everywhere as they charged headlessly past.

I began moving toward the city gates, slowly walking amidst the chaos and insanity. The front lines had crushed back into the rear ranks, and where those who attempted to flee were blocked by those who fought on, all out brawls erupted. But no one came within fifteen feet of me, even if avoiding me meant diving through the high flames of a cooking fire or batting down their own allies.

The heavy, resounding vibration of large bells suddenly rang all throughout the city of Blackbend, the backdrop to our battle. Many of the fleeing soldiers were rushing toward the city’s open gates, although, as the army shed more soldiers, many were forced to flee east or west along the lines of the city wall or risk clogging the gates and being stuck outside.

‘Something’s up inside the city. Spellfire all over the place. People are fighting back.’

Through the narrow openings on the second level of the gatehouse, I could see men scuffling and fighting. Then, an instant later, a mossy-haired elf hurled an Alacryan guard from the gatehouse to be dashed on the stones below. In the next moment, the grinding and clanking of thick chains rumbled across the battlefield, and the gates began to pull shut, right in the face of the retreating army.