D’Arden recalled the streets with more clarity this time as he walked along them with purpose. The sun had set beyond the horizon only a few minutes before, and already stars were beginning to appear in the cold night sky. The Deadmoon was rising over the trees to the east, as it did every night, and though it now appeared as a haunting orange in the sky, soon it would bathe the landscape in its pale bone-white glow, draining the color from everything and rendering the world in shades of gray.
Even in the dim light of the setting sun and the rising moon, D’Arden found that he remembered the way through the streets, back along the route they had come when retreating from the ancient gate that led to the Old City. Calessa was one of the oldest cities in the land, having been founded nearly a thousand years before on the site of a river. When that river dried up, the harbor and docks had been abandoned and most of the population moved into the denser part of the city. Eventually, what came to be called the Old City was entirely abandoned, sitting alone and desolate by the side of a dry river.
History was one of the subjects they were required to study most strongly during the strenuous training to become an Arbiter, and he knew the history of most of the cities and towns and lands nearby as well as he knew his own life. With the ability to use the manna freely within the tower, they had been able to call up images of the past and see it as though through a window, watching battles and the rise and fall of kingdoms and knights and the Arbiters themselves, as though it had been somehow recorded in moving pictures. In fact, it had been recorded, in a way – every event left an imprint in the flow of the manna beneath and throughout the land, so that every happening was remembered by the world itself.
Once more he stood before the old, crumbling gate of Old Calessa. He frowned; the scent of the corruption, the feeling of a concentration of power was strong beyond that gate. Though on this side he could feel the manna flowing freely, pure and vibrant, he somehow knew that one step beyond that forgotten gate would land him squarely in unfriendly territory once more.
The demon had done many terrible things to this place, but D’Arden had trouble imagining what horrors might be lurking amongst the moss-covered, crumbling stones of Old Calessa.
The sounds of battle reached his ears; strange sounds indeed for such a cold and desolate night. With one hand he drew the crystalline manna blade from the sheath on his back, and it came free with a low rasp. The cerulean light emitted forth in a gentle glow, forcibly adding color to the rapidly fading colors of the world around him.
He took a few steps towards the gate. The sounds of battle were unmistakable; steel on steel. He was almost certain he heard arrows flying through the air and hitting against something solid, possibly stone. Holding the sword parallel to the ground, he broke into a dead run through the gate, only flinching slightly as he crossed the threshold separating his power from the enemy’s.
D’Arden skidded to a halt at the intersection of what had once been two roads, with the buildings crumbled around him, a few of them showing their foundations through large holes in the walls. Directly ahead of him were two soldiers, dressed in full armor, crouched behind rubble as arrows broke against their cover. They had no ranged weapons of their own. Up ahead he could hear the sound of ringing steel clearly in the darkened evening.
One of the soldiers pulled what looked like a knife out of a hidden holster within his boot, and stood up, perhaps to throw it at the enemy. Instead, an arrow pierced his throat. Gagging, the soldier stumbled backwards, clutching at the bladed shaft with his hands while blood streamed down over his silvery armor and stained it bright red. Choking, gasping, he collapsed to the ground and shortly expired.
The other soldier looked back in his direction, and surprise registered on her face. “Who are you?” she demanded, as another arrow snapped and shattered into many small pieces on the stones around them.
“My name is D’Arden Tal,” he answered. “I am an Arbiter.”
The soldier shut her eyes tightly as a gasp came from the road up ahead. It was followed shortly by a guttural male scream, the sound a man makes as his innards are unexpectedly released by the point – or the blade – of a sword.
“That’s it… I’m the last one,” she whispered. “I’m going to die.”
D’Arden began boldly striding forward. He had no idea what it was that lay beyond those rocks, and he had no inkling as to what it might be that had managed to slay at least these two soldiers in such a short amount of time with such deadly accuracy. If they were using steel, they could not be touched too deeply by the corruption – elsewise they would simply be using their ill-gotten manna gifts.
As he passed the rubble that the soldier was using for cover, they came into view. They were about his height, but they had dusky, leathery red-grey skin that covered their entire bodies. Protrusions of bone stuck out from their heads and their backs, and great tusks adorned their broken faces. These were zagoths, related to true demons, but not the dangerous, corruption-spreading kind. These demons were simple warriors, minions perhaps of the greater demon that dwelled within the city, but perhaps not. These creatures plagued the landscape, raiding cities and slaughtering neither for food nor sustenance, but purely for the joy of killing. They thrived off it, requiring nothing else to fuel them and drive them onward for more killing. They were disgusting things, but they were sharply intelligent and their dark eyes glittered with malevolence.
Two of them nocked arrows in their bows, both of which were likely made of human bones. The arrows flew at him, and the world itself seemed to slow down.
His manna blade flashed cobalt in the night air as he swung it once and then again in rapid succession before him. Each arrow shattered as the sword cut through it, the bladed tips knocked harmlessly away. Not breaking his stride, he took three more steps forward and cut down sharply at the zagoth holding a curved and serrated steel blade, standing over the body of the third soldier. It turned to face him, but not in time. The manna sword cut through the flesh and bone of the shoulder, and the demon let out a howl that echoed amongst the crumbling buildings. Blood came forth, not the red blood of a human wound, but instead the thick, black ooze that flowed through the bodies of the dark ones that walked the land. The manna fire could not take hold in these demons, for they did not rely on the corrupted manna for their power. There was nothing to be purified here – these creatures, such as they were, were natural.
The sword was his only weapon here – collected blasts of manna worked well against demons and those touched by the corruption, but they could do little against the pure and the natural. So, rather than rely on the manna fire to dissolve the zagoth that now shrieked in agony before him, he brought his sword around for another swing that separated the demon’s head from its shoulders in a flash of light.
He spun gracefully around, having heard two more arrows leave the strings of the bone bows. The sword followed his movements, neatly deflecting two more arrows and shattering their shafts into hundreds of tiny shards. With a cry, he charged forward as one of them attempted to load another arrow, but it never came out of the quiver. D’Arden’s blade whistled through the air and cut through the zagoth ’s left arm and deep into the chest cavity, causing the black ooze to spout forth and the demon to groan and collapse into the dirt.
Just one aggressor left. He heard the next arrow coming, but he did not have time to spin and deflect it with his sword. It sank deep into the side of his thigh as he came around, and he cried out in pain as the metal pierced flesh and rent muscle in its path. Blood began to flow down his right leg as he rushed forward, too lost in the battle for the arrow to do much to slow his momentum. As the manna blade came around at the last demon, it attempted to hold up its bow to deflect the incoming attack. The bone was too brittle, and it shattered even as the blade cut into the crown of the zagoth ’s head, separating a good three inches of skull off above its eyes. There was a spray of dark, pitch-like blood that splattered against the walls of the nearby stone foundations, and then all was silent.
As the adrenaline faded from his veins, D’Arden felt the pain of the arrow in his leg very sharply. He cried out once more and sagged heavily against the closest stone wall, closing his eyes and breathing deeply to regain his balance. The world swam around him. He only hoped – he did not pray, for to pray was to die – that the arrows had not carried any kind of poison on their tips. A flesh wound he could live with, and might even be able to seal long enough for him to finish his mission without too much undue scarring, but he would not be able to deal with a poisoned arrow. A toxin would overcome him in minutes, as his body was weakened against attacks which bore no trace of manna, but simply natural danger.
Gripping the arrow shaft tightly in one hand, he snapped it off. He closed his eyes tightly and groaned against the agony as the arrow moved and blood flowed out more strongly. Holding what remained of the shaft as tightly as possible, though it was slick with blood, he pulled hard on it and it came free with little additional damage. The arrow was not bladed nor was it barbed, but a simple round point designed for a pinpoint, killing shot. These zagoths had known that they would be fighting soldiers.
They hadn’t counted on an Arbiter.
He turned back to where the soldier was still hiding behind the rubble. He saw her face appear from behind the rocks, and then, as she sensed that the danger had passed, she emerged from her cover.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
He slid his manna blade home into its sheath that hung from his back, and it clicked as it locked into place. “Practice.”
She looked down at the wound on his leg. “You’re bleeding.”
“It will pass,” he grunted, the pain of the wound still very fresh and at the forefront of his mind. “I’ll be fine. It wasn’t deep nor was it crippling. I was very glad to determine that the arrows weren’t poisoned.”
He looked into her eyes – the black pupils at the center were taking up most of the colored part of both eyes. She was obviously suffering from some kind of battle shock, most likely from seeing two of her compatriots coldly dispatched.
“Where did these zagoths come from?” he asked, trying to snap her back to reality.
“I… I don’t know.” She seemed to be having trouble focusing. “We were… were on a routine patrol through the low quarter, and as we passed by the gate we heard sounds. We followed them into the area and then we were attacked. We hadn’t been here more than five minutes when you arrived.”
“Fortuitous timing on my part, then,” D’Arden said.
He took a step towards the soldier, and she instinctively took a step back. Her eyes were wide and glazed, and they darted down to the ground to fixate on the body of her fallen comrade, who had been split open like a ripe fruit by the demon’s blade. There was blood everywhere, lying on the ground and mixing with the coarse black fluid from the bodies of the zagoths.
“I’ve… I’ve never seen so much bl…” she trailed off, and D’Arden thought that she looked distinctly as though she were turning somewhat green. His suspicions were immediately confirmed as she collapsed to the ground and began retching.
He took a step backwards.
Taking a moment to realign himself, he looked around the area. There were no signs of any other demons in the immediate vicinity, and for that he could be thankful. That would give him time to get the young soldier back through the gate to the low quarter and on her way to giving her report on the situation they’d encountered. If there were demons living here in the Old City, Captain Mor would want to increase the soldiers positioned in the area before things got too dangerous for the people. If he had the men to spare.
“Have there been many problems with demons in the area?” he asked her as she finally seemed as though she might be recovering, having expelled most everything that she’d eaten that day onto the ground.
“You’re talking like… like this is just something that happens all the time,” she said softly, still staring at the body of her fallen comrade. “But that’s probably… probably true for you, isn’t it? Oh, poor Jadzen…”
“I have seen a lot of death in my time, yes,” D’Arden said, somewhat flustered and confused as to what that had to do with anything. “Death is, however unfortunate, a part of life. Your fellow soldiers died bravely fighting against an enemy that they had little hope of conquering even given proper time to prepare and plan.”
“We weren’t even supposed to be fighting,” she said, her voice weak and distant. “It was just supposed to be a routine patrol. Walk through the area, make sure the citizens aren’t at each others’ throats. There wasn’t supposed to be any danger out here.”
D’Arden frowned. He’d never seen a soldier so despondent at the loss of their comrades. It was painful, certainly, but this girl seemed to be in complete shock. He wondered if sending her off on her own to report back to the Captain was the wisest idea, especially if there were still zagoths in the area.
“How long have you been a soldier?” he asked, trying to bring her back to reality.
“A year, but we’ve never had to really fight,” she said. “We’ve had to… to put down a few of the touched, and we’ve had to keep peace among the citizens, but there aren’t any demons in Calessa! They’re not supposed to be here!”
He didn’t voice the idea that there was, in fact, a demon in Calessa, and it had been there for several years. The girl was obviously spooked already, and he decided that it would be wise not to make it any worse. Regarding these zagoths, though, she could be right. If they had not seen any demons before now, it would not make sense for them to be suddenly appearing now, unless the corruption was strengthening their resolve, making them braver.
“What do we do with their bodies?” she asked suddenly, looking up at him. Her eyes shone in the light of the Deadmoon, and tears were coursing down her cheeks. “We can’t just leave them here!”
“I’m afraid we have little choice,” D’Arden said as gently as he could. “There’s no way that we can carry them anywhere from here. We can do our best to arrange them, but they’ll have to stay here in the Old City.”
“It’s not fair!” she cried, slamming her gloved fists down onto the armored chest of the fallen man. “We were supposed to be going to get drinks together as soon as our patrol was done. We were going out to have a good time tonight… and now I’m the only one left.”
Unstable was simply not enough to describe her. These young soldiers were not battle-trained nor experienced enough to know how to deal properly with death. This was likely her first brush with death, or if not, certainly her first encounter with sudden and violent death. He remembered having felt like that himself, once…
“Come,” he said to her softly, extending his hand. “It’s not safe out here for you alone. I’m looking to find why it was that I was drawn here, and while I believe it may have been in part to save your life, I don’t believe that these demons are done, and that there are more lurking about. We should find them and destroy them so that they don’t harm anyone else. Are you a fair hand with your sword?”
“Not top of my class, but I’m not bad,” she said quietly.
“Good,” he said with a nod. “You should accompany me so that you might achieve vengeance for your fallen comrades. When it comes to people, vengeance may not always be the best option, but when dealing with demons…” he paused for a moment, watching her expression. “It is always the best option.”
As he watched, a fire seemed to alight in her gaze. Her eyes locked on his and she nodded. “Vengeance.” She climbed to her feet and drew the sword from the scabbard that hung at her belt. “Tell me what I have to do.”
“We can’t go rushing headlong into battle,” he cautioned, holding up one hand. “You’ll need to follow me and do exactly as I say. This place is dangerous and there could be zagoths lurking around any corner. If you rush in too quickly, all you’ll find is your own death waiting for you.”
She nodded. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
Good. This one had a reason to follow him, to listen. He hoped that it would turn out better than his last association with a young Calessan soldier. There was still a dull ache at the thought of having lost Mikel to something so trivial, so minor… but such was life, and the thought drove him onward.
If the Old City needed to be cleansed of simple, mundane zagoths, then he would do so – and he would utilize this girl’s sword to help him. He was fighting to save the population of this city, and it was obvious that they needed someone now who could fight an everyday problem as much as they needed someone who could fight the corruption that was spreading across their lands.
“Then we will find them, we will strike swiftly, and we shall destroy them,” D’Arden said, nodding at the girl. “What is your name?”
“Elisa,” replied the young soldier.