Shadowborn

Chapter 109: A Final Gambit

chapter 109: a final gambit

we almost made it.

the walls of the cavern inched closer and closer, but that only meant arthal’s men were ramping up their efforts. the soldiers came at me in groups, but they were well oiled and nothing i did pushed them to panic. they’d get in, slow me down, exhaust my shadows, maybe get a hit or two in, then get out.

the real problem were the shieldbearers. while a number of them carried kite shields that caused no end of trouble for an offensive attacker like me, there were a few that wielded tall, thick tower shields that had some kind of enchantment capable of resisting ash’s magic. the first time i ran into one i was forced to use another spitter sphere to get past him. rolling it under his shield while i attacked from above and setting his ass on fire—literally—was the only reason i managed to avoid getting pinned down.

i wrapped my injured side in shadows to try and compensate for my injury, but it was still slowing me down. every movement, every breath, hurt like a motherfucker. but as the edge of the cavern drew nearer, my worries only grew.

i hadn’t had a beast come at me in a while now, which could only be a bad thing.

my worries proved to be founded almost immediately. i hit the last of the buildings, dropping spitter spheres of all kinds to try and slow my pursuers down. using my shadow-wrapped arm i’d downed enough potions that i was starting to feel the burnout, which meant i didn’t have much longer before i was shit out of luck.

i ran as fast as i could towards the nearest opening in the wall, sending up a prayer to anyone listening that it wasn’t a dead end. i dumped the last of my mana into shadows that immediately got to work fending off the crossbow bolts and spells being fired at my back.

it was just as the end was in sight that they came. maleks swooped down from above, landing between me and the exit to the cavern. i barely even slowed down, hurtling into them with the jailer’s blade and ash’s shadows.

i knew my enemy had reached their final gambit when the beasts engaged me fully. the maleks both lunged at me with tooth, fang, and tail, halting my run. out of my peripheral i saw ashai loping towards us at breakneck speed with arthal’s troops following at a slower pace.

the maleks had shifted their strategy completely in the opposite direction. where before they’d fought only defensively, now they fought with no regard for their own well being at all. they hardly even flinched when i landed deep, fatal blows. the jailer’s blade cut deep and ash’s shadows tore at their vital spots. they got in more than a few licks before i dispatched them, but they did their job.

before i could take a step past the malek’s corpses, the ashai were on me. there were five of them, and they moved in unison to surround me before they all lunged in. i opened my connection to ash and her shadows surged, but two of the ashai practically dove into them and took the brunt of the attack. my next strike with the blade bit deep into another of the ashai. deep enough to do some serious damage to the beast.

and that’s where everything went wrong.

rather than recoiling from the strike or trying to attack me, the ashai wrapped its lower limbs around the blade and roared in my face. angry red runes lit up across its flesh, glowing brighter and brighter by the second. i tried to pull the blade away, but the ashai held on tight. a quick glance around told me all the other ashai were glowing with the same runes.

zaren, no! ash screamed.

then the world went white.

for a moment i was weightless. there was no sound. no feeling. nothing. then i was slamming into the ground and the world returned with a vengeance. the cavern melted into swirling color and dancing spots while the silence gave way to a ringing that drowned out everything else. i tried to move, but my entire body was screaming with pain and confusion. i couldn’t remember how to inflate my lungs, much less get to my feet.

the ringing was starting to fade. everything was starting to fade. whatever had just happened, i was pretty sure it had reduced my health to zero.

i was dying.

a groan slipped past my lips when arms hauled me to my knees. someone pressed a hand to my chest and i felt healing magic seeping into my broken, battered body. whoever it was healed me enough to repair my nerve endings but not enough to stop the waves of pain that were making me swim in and out of consciousness.

i heard ash’s voice in my head, but it sounded like it was coming from the other end of a tunnel. i couldn’t make out what she was saying, only that she was scared. for her and for me. my vision finally started to return, and when i looked past the two soldiers currently holding me up i saw six craters in the ground maybe twenty or thirty feet away.

the insane bastard had blown up six ashai just to take me out, and that was after all the other guards and beasts i’d killed or injured. just how far was he willing to go to stop me? more importantly, why was i still alive?

i figured i was about to find out when arthal stepped past the line of soldiers. he strode up to me with his hands clasped behind his back. i wanted to try and strike out at him, but it was then i realized the jailer’s blade was no longer in my hands. i guess getting blown up after losing most of the functionality in my left arm was a decent enough excuse to lose my grip, but i still couldn’t help but be furious with myself.

arthal’s lips moved, but my hearing was still pretty far behind my sight in terms of recovery. reading his lips i thought i caught the words “potion burnout” and “no mana” come from him, which made sense. what i sincerely hoped he didn’t know was that i still had enough soul essence for one last move.

he jerked his head towards me and i felt hands cover either of my ears. more healing magic passed into me. just enough to get my hearing back. the healer stepped away and i looked up at arthal. “is this the part where you monologue?” i croaked.

he chuckled. “you always were a willful one.” he stepped to the side as a man walked up and held something out to him. it took a second for my blurry vision to make out the jailer’s blade in the hands of a man as tall as safina, only he had the same coloring as noelle. arthal smiled wide. greed glowed in his eyes as he stroked a thumb down the flat of the blade.

ash’s shadows clung to the giant, but he seemed relatively unaffected by her magic. arthal stepped away from it with visible difficulty and turned back to me. “i suppose i have to fill the time somehow, so a little monologuing wouldn’t be amiss. i can’t kill you just yet, after all.”

“and why might that be?”

something flickered behind his eyes. displeasure bordering on anger. “for now let’s just say you’re not allowed to die until you’ve answered a specific question.” then he looked around at all the soldiers surrounding us with their weapons ready. “i must say, i’m impressed. i certainly didn’t think you’d get this far. sacrificing so many of my pets was unfortunate, but well worth it, i think.”

“a lot of sacrificing for little old me,” i pointed out.

he hummed. “what? you prefer i send incrementally stronger agents after you? give you a chance to increase your level bit by bit until you stand a chance of actually stopping me? no, much better to let you run amok. to let you think you’re winning battle after battle when all you’re accomplishing is undoing my work far too late to matter, all the while i’m building up the resources needed to put you down like i should have done a long, long time ago.”

yeah, i figured it was something like that. “didn’t realize i’d made such an impression.”

“oh, i understood the moment i heard news of your return and i started parsing through each and every bit of information about your actions during the war.” he started pacing back and forth. “every tactic. every decision. every one of zagrith’s soldiers and generals you dismantled. all of it pointed towards one simple truth.” he came to a stop in front of me. “there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to taking the infamous godslayer off the board.”

who the hell referred to grimsbane as ‘zagrith?’ “i’m flattered.”

“you should be. just as i should thank you for bringing the jailer’s blade directly to me.” he reached out with his other arm—the one that noelle had lopped off. up close i could see it had the same coloring as noelle and the giant holding the sword currently. light blue markings went from his knuckles up his arm until they disappeared under his sleeve.

he grabbed the blade and lifted it with a feral smile. ash’s shadows tried to attack him, but he barely even flinched this time. “i should also thank that little malachai of yours. all these years and i thought it was your primal class that allowed you to wield it, but i was wrong. that you would turn out to be of zaverrian descent was a twist i never would have seen coming.”

he gave it a few swipes and the shadows started to shift until they were the color of blood. “like the new arm? i should thank subject seventeen for that, as well. amazing what you can do with a little divine bond magic, isn’t it? that upstart allura has no idea the depth of her own domain. luckily, i do.”

well, that answered that question. too bad there was a pretty good chance i wasn’t going to be able to pass along that tidbit of information with the way things were going. i met his gaze with all the strength i could muster. “you hurt someone i care about, and i’m going to make sure you pay for it.”

there was a beat of silence, then he laughed. hard. “oh, but that’s true many times over though, isn’t it, subject thirteen?”

my blood ran cold. i felt like my heart had simply stopped beating in my chest. i looked at arthal. really looked at him. not his appearance, but the way he moved. the way he walked. the way he talked. the inflection of his voice. the look in his eye. the way he seemed to be ahead of us every step of the way. like he knew me.

because he had.

arthal’s smile widened. “it certainly took you long enough to piece it together, thirteen. i wasn’t exactly subtle. not as subtle as i normally would have been, at least. i’ve always been aware of my own pride, but using an anagram was a bit much, even for me.”

if i wasn’t in so much pain and anguish over failing to kill karn, i might have been shocked that the rathum was currently talking.

“you fucking cut me in half, you mongrel!” karn howled.

the rathum rumbled again. “quit your whining and sew yourself together. it’s a shame you poisoned him against us before we could discover him. he would have been a useful asset.”

i let my head rest against the stone while karn apparently reattached his body. i felt waves of divinity, which meant he was using more of allura’s essence. “this won’t end here, you know,” i called, putting my final gambit into play. “they brought me back once, they’ll do it again.”

“weren’t you listening, you daft boy?” karn snarled, dragging his legs towards him. “you need a soul to be resurrected.” he poured glowing, golden liquid over the cut and the two parts of his body sealed together.

actually, i had been listening. so when he finally managed to stand and scooped up the jailer’s blade, i had to make sure to hide my relief. long claws wrapped around my torso and hauled me up until i was once again on my knees.

“this one speaks the truth,” the rathum said. “so long as his soul is in play, our plans are at risk. kill him and be done with it.”

karn looked down at me and lifted the blade. “with pleasure.”

i met his gaze, and something in his eyes flickered. an uncertainty. he knew me well enough to know that i wasn’t ever going to just lie down and die, but he was too slow.

they’d forgotten about my shadow copy.

a normal cast of [echoes of darkness] would have fallen apart from the damage done to it, but not an empowered one. as karn lifted the blade, it lunged from behind. it plunged one of its own shadowy swords through karn’s chest and snatched the jailer’s blade from karn’s hand.

the rathum let me go and shot forward, placing its massive body between my shadow copy and karn’s gasping body, but karn wasn’t my target. not any longer. there was no getting past the rathum. if it was stronger than the one the seven and i had killed, then i could train for months, maybe even years, and not be able to take it on without a small army at my back. no, while the rathum protected karn, my shadow turned and thrust the blade...

right through me.

with proper medical attention the part of my side it plunged through wouldn’t have been fatal, but i doubted anyone was going to try to patch me up. especially not when i felt the pull of the blade on my sword and surrendered to it.

the rathum roared and the cavern melted away, along with all my aches and pains. when i opened my ‘eyes’ i found myself in that endless space inside the blade. inside, ash waited for me.

she had more substance than before. her figure was clearly feminine, and she had hair now. it was long, flowing like she was underwater. when she turned towards me, her face was featureless. “i’m sorry, zaren.”

i nodded. “we gave it our best shot. we didn’t give up, not until the end.”

“no,” she agreed, “we didn’t. you are... i’m glad you were the one to take up my sword all those years ago. i never said it, but thank you for not taking [cursed existence]. having a companion for the first time in millennia has been the best stretch of my miserable existence.”

“it’s not over yet,” i told her.

her head raised. “you’re dying, and there’s nothing i can do to save you. you don’t have enough soul left for me to destroy and remake your body.”

“that’s your domain, right? destruction and recreation. souls. it’s what this god needs, isn’t it?”

“yes.” she turned away. “after destroying his own plane, he’s forced to use the souls of other planes to do his bidding. he can’t destroy everything in his path because he needs mortals to affect the worlds he subjugates. if he had my power, he could truly create his own world. he’d have no reason to leave anything standing.”

“was this a part of the plan, then?” i asked.

“i think so,” she admitted. “with your soul trapped alongside mine, there’s a way to deny him the part of my magic he craves. mutual destruction. we have until he arrives to figure it out. then, when the god comes for me, there’ll be something we can do to hurt him. slow him down. it’ll cost us our existences, but it’s better than becoming a part of him.”

“i see. that sounds like a pretty shit plan if you ask me,” i pointed out.

she walked towards me and pressed her hand to where my cheek would have been. “maybe. my sister came up with it a long, long time ago. she had the power to see the future. a domain as rare as mine. i remember that now. she said that this was the only way.”

“i always hated being a pawn.”

she may not have had a face, but i could hear the tears in her voice. “i’m so sorry.”

“fuck that.”

ash flinched. “what?”

i shrugged. “if your sister knew the future, then she knew sitting around and waiting to die isn’t something i’m too keen on doing. i’ve been told i have ‘issues with authority.’”

“zaren...”

“you heard everything they said?”

“i did, but—”

“be sure to pass it along, then. and tell serena that this wasn’t her fault. it’s nobody’s fault but karn’s.”

“i’m trapped here, same as you,” she argued. “i can’t connect to noelle over this great a distance.”

“you won’t need to.” i stepped away from her. towards whatever array of ancient spells formed the prison that was the blade. “i don’t blame you either.”

“wait, what are you—”

i reached out with my soul, and the blade reached back. “thank you, ash. for everything. take care of them, will you? consider it my final request.”

she reached for me, but the jailer’s blade was already tearing into my soul. i closed my eyes and collected every scrap of soul essence i had left.

and then, with it, i cast [sever].