Sorcerer in a fantasy world -
Chapter 104
Chapter 104: Chapter 104
onto my eyes. I blinked awake.
Làidir held his wrists, and in his hands was a golden knife. That divine material that came from the pantheon of Romans gods. But I recognised this figure not as a roman, but the cloaked man who served the Unseelie.
The cloaked man who with Jack had decimated my people and I. I sensed for Jack ’s distinctive mana trace, but he wasn’t here. He was a missile not an assassin. We had a chance if the monster wasn’t here. They’d underestimate us, or perhaps not known I was here.
Làidir’s muscles bulged, ballooning and showcasing her impressive strength. to keep the blade from penetrating her throat and killing her. The assassin leaned down with the full force of his entire body, but Làidir arm strength matched his entire strength. She did not kick or try to throw him off, in my few moments of gaining clarity, most likely because her entire concentration was on not dying.
I cannot say who would have won if I had not interfered, but I did.
I reached out, stretching my arm and palm facing his head, I blasted him a force of lightning comparable to a bunker buster.
Some magical barrier, one made of a pact and many horrific sacrifices, spared his life. An entire village condemned to the unseelie long ago fueled this spell and saved the cloaked man’s life. Maybe it was many villages. The peoples had lived miserably, died for the wicked and their death saved the pawn of their doom.
Though the force of the attack had been absorbed through blood sacrificed, the blinding white light seared his eyes blind. His pathetic rolling back saved him from a lance of steel. That same lance I had conjured blocked Làidir from seizing the opportunity. She instead shattered my failed attack.
I channelled another blast of lightning. He threw a wall of water that caught and trapped the blast. She shouted and the bellow blew the water out of her way. He ran and Làidir chased.
I inscribed a rune of tracking on Làidir so I could follow her.
I grabbed her halberd and summoned my staff and I chased after them. She had caught up, but he used the lethal, divine knife to keep her back. Làidir, strong and skilled as she was could not catch or kill them with just her hands. I threw her weapon to her when I got the chance.
Her weapon in hand, she did better when facing off his gifted knife. He switched tactics to just flight. He was faster than her.
Further and further down tunnels we went. I flung a spell or two, but the cloaked figure dodged or repelled any such attacks. Where the warm, fertile dirt of Druid’s touched land faded it was replaced by cold, barren stone. It was Làidir’s ferocity that kept her hounding him and challenging him to frenzied spurts of chaotic combat.
She cornered in a graveyard. We were deep down now with bats and stalagmites for company. Though many druids adopted for ash or fertilise for their end, some usually outsiders were buried and marked by tombstones according to their own traditions.
I even spotted Làidir’s parents as one of the newer grave sites. I wouldn’t have noticed in all the chaos except for the mana trails that connected them to the two fighting figures.
I saw, with mana sight, and eyes clouded with scepticism two ghostly shrouds. The ghost- like beings were unformed, blank features but shaped roughly humanoid as if made from semi-transparent playdough. Their ’hands’ held onto the shoulders and they ’heads’ looked down on the ones they haunted. Eyes and mouths wide open. One over Làidir and the other over the cloaked figure. Both shrouds had tendrils that connected to the graves of Làidir’s parents.
A suspicion formed of the cloaked figuire’s identity, but I had neither the time nor willingness to contemplate it.
The cloaked man thought with sword and knife. He struggled against the length and strength of Làidir’s halberd.
"Who are you?" Làidir shouted. "Is it you, Father? Why? Why!"
She was wrong.
The cloaked figure, so talkative in our last encounter, was now quiet. I could imagine the sweat and concentration they exerted to just stay alive under Làidir’s onslaught. She strike high, low, fineted, thrusted and swiped and sweeped. She hit twice, once, thrice and never never stopped. She was breathless and unrelenting. I judged, like me, she had held back in our duel.
I watched. I assessed that any interference might give the cloaked man a chance to escape.
She swung up and the air force alone was like a shotgun blast.
His hood blew back and we saw his face. His oh so familiar features. Ones related to Làidir. His eyes now like murky, stale pools. Agere looked back at us. But his hair was black, and his features distorted like his magical trace. The same person, but a different side of the coin. If you had said he was Agere’s cousin I would have believed you, but it was Agere. They matched too close for all their sudden differences.
Agere.
He had betrayed us, and tried to kill his sister. I couldn’t fathom it based on my brief meeting with him. He had seemed so heroic. Any mention of him only reinforced this impression. It might little me, but I felt for Làidir.
She hesitated.
Agere ran.
She chased.
I lost sight of them. Though I could still trace the tracking I’d placed on Làidir.
I felt people coming. People who were coming to assess the noise and carnage Làidir and Agere had left in their wake. I waited for their coming. We could use the help and people needed to know what had just happened.
Many Druids, Morgana, Iris, Umbra and Tara arrived to observe the chaos from Làidir’s clash with Agere.
I brought them up to speed on what had just happened.
"Làidir follows Agere."
"I can’t believe it."
"The cloaked man is Agere." I told them.
"How?"
One of the druids spoke, "There are tales of Unseelie corruption. Stories thought to be just that stories. They can cause a person to shift, but also shift back. Almost like a werecreatures that transform on the moon cycles. Except the corrupted person shifts on command on their master... Clavile."
"Agere is a pawn of Clavile." Morgana concluded.
"What do we do?"
"I must follow soon. Whatever we plan we must decide fast."
"We must strike back." Morgana insisted.
"Agreed." Iris and Tara replied.
The druids talked among themselves.
"He is traitor."
"We don’t have proof."
"His word alone is proof. He has no need to lie."
"Fine."
"We will spare a few of us to attack. The rest are needed to hold back the Romans. Especially if you are all committing your full force against the Unseelie. We will not be able to hold should Mars commit too. We can only hope he holds back, and he might for he was not seen last night." Karn said.
"I will go with them." Marpet the Maripul declared.
"As will I." said two more druids, both human one male and one female. They too were brother and sister as it turned out.
"Following me again, siblings?" Marpet the Maripul asked with a puffed out chest.
"Cannae have you getting lost, now can we?" said Becca the female sibling.
"Whose shoulder are ye gonna ride if not mine, my friend?" said Brain, the male sibling.
"Haha, trusted friends. Let us purge th darkness that lingers beneath our home. Come Sorcerer and companions, let us off to adventure!" Marpet the Maripul declared as he rode on Brain’s shoulder deeper into the dark.
We followed.
Morgana did not have her armour, but she did have her sword. Same with Tara.
I spoke next out of fear, rather than prudence, "This is too dangerous. Go back get your armour."
I was looking at Morgana, but my words were meant for all of them.
I should be making armour for everyone. Including myself. Proper sci-fi shit that would make us into walking tanks. Hell, make us fast as super cars with the durability of a fortress. Halo, space marine, bloody iron man would all pale in comparison. I would make them unkillable. I can’t lose them.
I was starting to realise that beneath my confidence, and power, that I was desperate and scared. We’d lost to the Unseelie and to Mars (or at least so I felt).
I think Iris saw it.
She drew close, placed a hand on my cheek and then prompted me into a hug. I let her pull me in. Her closeness warmed and comforted me.
Umbra came over and patted my head. She had a cute expression as she treated me like a whining pup.
"We don’t have time. Not if Làidir. But we can go back if you want. I think we should seize the opportunity." Morgana said calmly and reasoned.
Iris, Tara and Umbra stayed silent. I processed Morgana words. I was split. A real, large part of my emotions wanted to play safe. Let me go and follow Làidir. Have the rest of them stay back. It was fear and trembling that drove me to that state of anxiety.
I gulped and reluctantly said, "No, you’re right. We press on."
"Let us hurry." Tara said and we rushed after Làidir.
I felt the uncomfortable pounding of my heartbeat in my ears and squeezing my chest, and was it the cold subterranean air or worry that made the hairs of my arms stand to attention, despite all the surging intensity in my body we were rushed through quiet and empty human carved tunnels.
In the absence of much sensation my imagination and thoughts streamed a thousand horrific terrors.
Stone tunnels shifted to catacombs lined with skulls stacked like bricks making a wall or solid rock carved out to coffin skeletons of the ancient dead. The lovely and powerful Circle of Druids seemed to be built on top of a catacombs and as we were soon to see dominion of the Unseelie.
I guided us, but I was following a trace that pointed a direction. It was no map. So, I took us into many, many dead ends. If Morgana, Iris or Tara were frustrated they didn’t show it.
Marpet the Maripul had less qualms, "Another dead end! Come on, Sorcerer. We want to get there before second breakfast."
I’d replied defensively the first time. Now at the fifth, I stayed silent. He wasn’t wrong, but I was doing the best I could.
"We keep going. It is not like anyone else has a better idea of where to go." Morgana replied for me.
Marpet did not contest that. But he did tell a long rambling tale that proudly showcased his impressive tracking skills...for the second time.
We kept going, and eventually I sensed Jack. Làidir was further off and I assumed so too was Agere. It made me question whether we were walking into a trap or just a random encounter. Either way, I told everyone. No one turned back and so we pressed on.
We were walking through a tight tunnel when we came out to a small circular room that was lined and carpeted with human skulls, the rows and columns broken up by femurs and the like.
The countless dead were staggering, but it was Jack that made me grit my teeth and sweat.
Jack that terrible and strange fae creature hopped crushing human skulls beneath him.
Like before he was covered in raven-like feathers, standing on one leg, he glared out of one eye. From out his feathers sprouting a slimey arm with a clawed hand at the end. Somewhere beneath those feathers was a terrible, hoary mouth filled with sharp, gnawing teeth.
"Die, die die." Jack groaned and repeated.
"No." I answered.
Jack unleashed his waves of terror. The druid trio would have been overwhelmed and mental broken, but I extended my protection to them. So, Jack’s terrible attack did nothing.
I’d neutralised him.
"How...?"
"You stand no chance against him. Feel the terror you inflict." Umbra taunted.
"Never, never, never."
"You exploited a temporary gap in my defences. But make no mistake. We aren’t in the same league." I explained.
"Lies, lies, lies..."
"You are irrelevant - to dust." I told Jack.
The heinous monster became just that - dust.
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