Storm and Stone Ch. 04

Karva'uh surged to his feet with an energy and vibrance he had not felt since he last drew breath. It felt wonderful, absolutely wonderful, to be free of the corruption and find light within his soul once again. Soul, his soul, he pondered. That was something he had not felt in quite a while, but it felt... different somehow, almost diluted if that were even possible. The elf looked down at his hands and was almost afraid of what he saw... they were the hands of the living! His skin was pale white, almost alabaster, just as it had been before he dedicated himself to the role of eternal guardian of the Elgonyith. The fingertips of one hand explored the other and found it supple and soft, even warm. He looked down at his new benefactor, now fallen onto his side and gasping from exertion. What have you done, he mouthed. Amevina heard everything, but was powerless to help, even the glance she risked in his direction could have broken her focus and dropped the barrier.

Karva'uh walked to her side and erected a barrier of his own around the trio.

"Go to him, make sure he will recover. I fear he will be needed soon."

She released her spell and nodded, "Thank you."

Amevina took a knee beside her husband and examined him with care while he fought to catch his breath.

Beyond their protective dome, the battle raged. Vulkan stood toe-to-toe with the wild demon as they traded blows. The wrathling staggered the massive gorilla with its punches, but they were otherwise ineffective. They could not so much as mar the finish of the blacksteel ape, while the demon already bled from several wounds left by Vulkan's spiked fists and shoulders.

All around the rampaging pair, the orcs had gained the upper hand and the Vaszul were pushed back as rank after rank of enemy soldiers fell to orc and elven blades.

Vulkan went back on the offensive with a scream of rage and hammered both of the demon's shoulders at the same time, over and over again until the beast had been driven to its knees. The wrathling drew back a clawed fist to strike at Vulkan, but the metal ape lunged forward and sank its jagged teeth into the demon's shoulder. Vulkan tightened his jaws and shoved the beast backward. The demon screeched in pain as black blood spewed from the gaping wound left behind by the missing chunk of flesh. The gorilla did not waste the opening, it spat out the vile meat, then leapt forward and tackled the demon at the shoulders. When the pair landed, the ground trembled. Vulkan screamed in triumph and tore at the creature's face with his clawed hands. Now maimed, the demon could no longer fight back and the gorilla leaned in for the kill. Blacksteel teeth closed around the wrathling's throat. The creature struggled when the jaws clenched, but it was already weary from the battle against such a powerful opponent. It had grown weak from a lack of competition, so the demon's life left in short order and it gurgled its last, shuddering breath through Vulkan's mighty jaws.

The guardian of the forest stood atop the fallen demon and hammered his chest in triumph. The orcs roared in response and tore into the Vaszul with renewed vigor. The enemy, who had already found themselves confronted by a much more formidable opponent than in the past, were now hopelessly outmatched. The defenders were fearless now, and it seemed as though nothing could stop them.

While those events transpired around them, Arawn had managed to catch his breath and sit up. With the elder wrathling now out of the fight, Karva'uh was able to set the shield to a static strength and join Amevina in her examinations of her husband. The pair braced the exhausted human from opposite sides while he recovered his strength. Amevina made no attempt to stifle her concern.

"What did you do now, Arawn?"

"Wasn't me this time." Arawn groaned. "Shit, that took a lot out of me."

"That does not answer my question, husband."

"No, it doesn't," he told her, then looked straight into Karva'uh's eyes. "I almost lost you. Dagrethon's corruption was nearly complete. Your vessel did not survive," he told them as he stood slowly on shaky legs.

They mistook Arawn's pause to stand for the end of his statement, and Karva'uh gasped in shock.

"Do you mean to say that you have returned me to the living?"

The human's eyes widened and he quickly shook his head, "Oh my flying mother fuck, NO! Absolutely not! I'm not a god, my friend. Not even close."

"Then how," Amevina pressed...

"Well, it's simple, and kinda fucked up at the same time..."

"Yes...," they intoned together and motioned for him to continue.

"I just didn't want to break my promise to him and let him die. So... I...," Arawn sighed, "I made myself his vessel, okay? Apparently, having an inert vessel makes you look like a zombie. If your vessel is a living, breathing, being... seems you get to look like one, too."

"You bound my soul to your body..."

"Not exactly, that would have put you in my body... possession and all that. I bound your soul to my life force. If I understand these Nithraksi memories correctly, I tied you to my life force itself. I just wish I understood more about how I did it. This shit keeps working too much like intuition so far."

The two elves struggled to understand, Karva'uh was obviously the first to inquire further.

"You mean to say that you actively intuit these feats, rather than possess the knowledge required to accomplish them?"

Arawn shook his head, "No time, we gotta get in there."

He pointed to the battle lines, where an enormous human who wore no helm now stood toe to toe with Grok and matched blows with the big orc. The Vaszul had surged forward enough to break past the bottleneck and get more room to fight, but never made it close enough to the dome to pose a threat. However, they had sent two columns of troops through the woods, one on each side of the road, in the hopes of a surprise attack on the unguarded flanks. Vulkan had retreated from the battle, and stood inert back within the boundaries of the allied camp.

Unfortunately for the Vaszul, the massive size of the rubies that served as the beast's eyes also allowed them to function as an amplifier of sorts, and enhanced Vulkan's power over his domain. The ambush columns learned this the hard way, and the sounds of battle were overtaken by the screams that echoed through the woods which surrounded them. No one saw what happened and no bodies were ever recovered, but the trees' bark turned a rich, bright red... the color of oxygenated blood, for weeks after the mysterious massacre. From that day onward, all those who entered the woods to either side of that stretch of road would report a deep sense of unease... some would swear that the trees were alive and whispered unintelligibly to any that dared listen and that they spoke with need... and with hunger.

*********

Just off the road a mile to the west of the Vaszul encampment, a well concealed stone door slid open at ground level from the inside. Out poured a thousand heavily armored dwarves. Armed with torches and battle axes, they were led by one Bronnigut Blackshield, and he wore a smile of grim satisfaction. They formed ranks in the road and Bronnigut turned to his men.

"Alright boys! Lord Stonebrook wanted a party, it's time for us to bring the bonfire! Have at 'em!"

At his command, they sprinted down the road with a cry of dire tidings for the Vaszul camp.

*********

The trio had made it about halfway to the battle lines and General Grokan when they realized that things were not going well at all for their friend. Grok started out strong, and had held his own against the enemy general with his grandfather's greataxe, but the strength of the Vaszul commander was more than he could manage, to his astonishment. Vorsah fought not far away, and it was all he could do to prevent the Vaszul from surrounding them. Vorsah was removed from the equation when one of the enemy soldiers struck him in the head from behind, with the pommel of a sword.

Amevina screamed in both rage and horror. Arawn replaced his mask and hood, then drew his blades. Beside him, Karva'uh's hands turned blue and a small cloud of frost formed around them. The trio redoubled their speed and hurried to aid their friend. They would arrive too late. Grok bled from his lip, and his helmet had been knocked from his head. The mighty orc looked unsteady on his feet.

Before they could reach him, Grok made a wild swing with his axe, aimed at the leader's torso. The enemy general sneered, parried hard with his greatsword and knocked the big axe from Grok's hands. Grok was thrown off balance and the man drove the pommel of his sword into the orc's face. The man used the recoil from the blow to draw back for a second strike, and when it fell, it severed the orc's right hand just behind the wrist. Grok roared in pain and a lucky backfist, launched out of pure reflex, caught the Vaszul general in the jaw and forced him back a step. The sneer turned to a scowl of anger.

"You'll pay for that," he told the orc.

For his trouble, Grok straightened his spine, spit in the human's face, and laughed. The Vaszul general did not take this lightly, and lashed out at the orc with a killing blow. Grok steeled himself in the face of his oncoming demise and to his credit, he never flinched.

Arawn had only been yards away when he saw his friend get disarmed and maimed. He froze in his tracks, wordless, almost entranced. What they could not possibly know was, for that one long moment, that near-infinite moment in his mind, he had been thrust back into the past to relive the day that changed him forever. He could hear his mother's screams, smell the blood... he could even feel the cold metal of the railroad spike in his hands. He shut his eyes when he felt the surge. It was the reason he shut himself away and kept himself restricted to his small circle of friends: he was afraid of himself because he enjoyed killing his father. Moreso, he enjoyed every life he had taken thus far. That troubled him to his core, but it was an internal conversation for another time. His unease could no longer contain the surge of rage that turned his normally warm heart into solid ice, and his eyes popped open.

When Arawn stopped, so had Amevina and Karva'uh. To them, Arawn had merely stopped in shock, closed his eyes, and taken a deep breath. When his eyes opened again, they told a much different story; both iris and sclera had gone completely black. They had barely been given the opportunity to notice when their friend hurled himself forward after he whispered the words... never again. They hurried to catch up when the clash of steel rang out anew in front of them.

Arawn had leapt between his bleeding friend and the Vaszul general just in time to parry the strike. The enemy leader recoiled from the power behind the blow and stared in surprise at the black-eyed newcomer who held a single longsword of elven design, then sneered in disgust.

"Where did they manage to scrape up a runt like you?"

From the size of the man, Arawn expected a much deeper voice. Instead, he sounded like any other man from the streets back home, save the accent. Emotionless eyes stared straight through the general. The only thing special about him was his size. Not even his armor was distinct from that of his brethren. Arawn saw only an unremarkable waste of space. His mind offered no better an assessment; by Arawn's reckoning, this man had died so many times in his mind that it was a foregone conclusion. Reality only needed to be shown the error of its ways.

"Well...your dad said that since I did such a good job teaching your mother how to be a great fuck, maybe I could come here and teach you how to be a man."

Arawn's jibe had the desired effect, and the enemy general responded with a roar and mighty overhand stroke of his greatsword with his right hand. The smaller human parried the strike to the outside with ease. In a mockery of what had been done to his friend, Arawn hopped and slammed the pommel of his sword into the general's nose, then cut through his right wrist in a single stroke. The hand fell to the ground, along with the general's sword. Arawn sheathed his own sword and stepped back.

"Try again, bitch," the smaller human taunted.

Arawn had deliberately chosen the enemy general's right hand. He had noted that the general was a southpaw and thought to embarrass the allies for sending him against them. Grok's injury had been meant to take him out of the battle. Arawn's attack had redoubled the insult and heaped it back upon them with seconds. His words sent the big man over the edge. The general picked up his sword and attacked.

Both elven longswords came out in a flash of steel and Arawn parried the first series of blows with ease. The big man was fast, but so was Arawn, and after he parried a particularly vicious slash aimed at his gut, he launched a kick into the general's gut that stole his breath for a few moments.

Arawn cast his eyes to the western horizon and saw huge plumes of smoke fill the air. He pointed to the sight and taunted his adversary further still.

"See that? Your camp is in ruins, most of your men are dead, and the raiders now have you pinned between us. You've been outwitted, outfought, and outclassed. Surrender and you might have the luxury of spending your last days in a cell instead of standing on a gallows."

"Never..." the Vaszul general snarled.

Arawn shrugged, then shouted over his shoulder "Take no prisoners from these invaders!"

The Vaszul general watched in shock as every soldier in the defending army cheered his words and set about the wholesale slaughter of his remaining forces. These people had always been so reserved and almost... timid... in the past. Now they fought like savages and the general felt real fear for perhaps the first time in his life.

"What are you?" He asked the small human.

"Not what, who, and the who of your question is this: I am the man you never should have pissed off."

The arrogance in the man's tone infuriated the general, and he surged forward and put Arawn on the defensive almost immediately. The Vaszul leader now fought like a man possessed and wielded the greatsword in his left hand with ease as he swung it about as if it were crafted for a halfling.

The smaller human parried low, then high, next he dodged a swipe at his chest and dove into a roll to avoid a lunge. When he came up, he had to parry two high chops aimed at his head. Shit, I might have pushed him too far, Arawn considered.

That thought was confirmed moments later when his enemy scored a slash across his left bicep that almost reached the muscle. Arawn was now on the run and his parkour skills were on full display. To coin his actions evasive maneuvers would be a severe understatement. He hopped, flipped, parried, dodged, countered, even kicked and punched, but he could make no progress against the enraged Vaszul. Still, the general managed to score another hit, this time a deep slash across Arawn's right thigh. This one did reach the muscle tissue, however, and Arawn found himself slowed. Amevina screamed, and for a dangerous moment Arawn was distracted. The Vaszul general capitalized on the opportunity and slashed at the shorter man's stomach. Arawn jumped back just in time to avoid disembowelment. He looked down and reality struck home, blood leaked from a wound in his stomach. He pressed his hand to the wound, it just nicked the outermost layer of muscle. Arawn's rage surged higher than before and his body was wreathed in a black coronal aura.

The Vaszul general laughed and attacked again, but he never landed another blow... and Arawn never evaded again. It was as if his wounds no longer registered. Were his speech not so drastically different, the general would have sworn the human was a barbarian of the Eastern Concordare, such was his rage and focus. The battle ended when the smaller human executed a double-parry that blocked his swing with one hand and severed his left hand as well. Arawn sheathed his blades while the general roared in pain, then launched a drop kick into the man's left knee for good measure. Under the combined pain of an inverted knee and the loss of both hands, the general's roar quickly became a scream of agony.

Arawn turned to find that the dwarves had advanced from the rear and assisted in the cleanup. The Vaszul had been wiped out almost to the last man, who, consequently lie impotent on the ground in pain as he bled freely from the open wounds. The battle was finally over. Arawn turned to his allies and called out.

"Does anyone know who this piece of shit is?"

"This man," Karva'uh stepped forward and explained, "is General Daminas Maktikar, son of Lord Rejillus Maktikar. His father is the supreme commander of the Vaszul's Eastern Vanguard force... of which we just destroyed about a tenth."

"I'm going to go on logic, and assume that you have been to Reggie's castle, keep, or what-the-fuck-ever it is that he lives in."

Daminas' screams had finally died down a bit, whether from a lessening of pain or from blood loss, no one cared.

"That is correct, Master."

"Good..." Arawn stepped over to the groaning man and picked up a longsword from the ground. Without a word, he hacked Daminas Maktikar's feet off at the ankles. He walked up and gripped the general by his throat, then pulled him up to whisper in his ear.

"You tell your father that if so much as one of you shitbags ever sets foot on this side of the Ebonshard Mountains again without a written invitation, I'm going to personally shit down his throat before I level the place. Even if I have to do it by myself."

Arawn threw the man back to the ground without time for a response.

"Send him back to his father," he told Karva'uh. "Where are Grok and Vorsah?"

"Yes, Master. They were taken to the healers as soon as they could safely be removed from the battlefield."

He turned and walked away without a word. Arawn was oblivious to the concerned and fearful stares at his back as he returned to camp. Lake Home had been saved, but at what cost?

*********

When the bloodied, broken, maimed, and dying body of his son dropped from the air into the center of his audience chamber, Lord Rejillus Maktikar was not entertained.

TLW here! Hope you all enjoy reading this chapter as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I'm going to call this the end of Act I because the main focus is officially off Arawn as of the end of Chapter 4. I know you're looking for further character development with the rest of the cast, I've done a little of that here but rest assured, the real meat & potatoes is coming. We are going to see how everything comes together over the next few chapters. Some of you have wondered why everyone is just so accepting of Arawn. Chapter 5 is about half finished already, so it will be on time without a doubt (I took too long in deciding on the split and almost ran out of time making the adjustments. I was actually worried about being late as I wrote the final paragraphs here.), and there's a big reveal coming on that very issue, and I'm also going to try and get a few other questions answered for you in-story as well, because I set a boat load of stuff up in these first four chapters. Thanks for reading and I'll see you all back next time.

Take care, stay safe, and be well,

TLW

P.S. The Dome Explosion is absolutely possible. I did my homework on the TNT equivalent of hydrogen. And no, I won't share the specifics. Since he didn't give the specifics because they wouldn't have understood, I'll tell here... by my calculations (If I didn't get them completely fubar), he brought in enough hydrogen and oxygen in the requisite mix to produce about an 80kt explosion. Unless I miss my mark, at ground level... that boom brings with it about a 6.5 on the modern Earthquake scales (Richter has been replaced, can't remember the new one off the top of my head) :D If you want to know that badly, look it up. Scary stuff. And if I got it wrong, by all means... correct me, please. Admittedly, the explosion is not a likely scenario. But we don't need likely, we just need possible, and plausible. ;)