The Altar of Storms

Aranthir imbibed a full vial of the precious indigo spice, the familiar jolt setting his head spinning. Sparks danced in his vision as he fought to control the sorcerous energies coursing through him. With practiced focus, he closed his eyes and calmed himself until the energies were under control. He cast across himself and his companions a spell of ironskin, and then a spell of warding.

"This should defeat the sorcerer's spells, but it won't hold for long. Do this quickly," he told them. Janguld nodded, and the Sisters' faces were grim with determination. They had not forgotten their captive companion up there.

They crawled up the last few yards together until they could peer over the rim of the summit, a nearly flat, bare expanse of the same loose, rocky ground that they had struggled over for many miles to reach this place. Seven men in dark raincloaks stood before an altar, their cloaks pulled tight against the driving rain.

The altar was a great slab of polished granite under the open sky. It was surrounded by five mighty stone statues of hooded figures. Their outstretched hands linked together to form a ring, and through that ring Aranthir could see in his mind's eye currents of arcane energy running in a great circuit. Between the statues stood another man in an open cloak, billowing behind him in a mighty wind that whipped across the summit. In one hand he held out a staff of gnarled wood while the other held open a book from which he read aloud. At his feet, chained to the altar by wrists and ankles, lay a naked young woman, her body slick with rainwater.

"Ramissia!" Raenia hissed. "The bastards are going to sacrifice her for some dark ritual!" she drew her blade and rose from the lip to rush forward.

"Hold!" Aranthir hissed, grabbing at her shoulder. He pulled her back to the ground where her cuirass ground loudly against the loose rocks, though fortunately the noise was lost amid the roar of the storm. "Move quietly and take them by surprise. There is no need to rush in foolishly."

Raenia scowled, but nodded in agreement. Aranthir signaled to Janguld and Selvenna to approach quietly, then the four of them pulled themselves over the lip of the summit and crept forward. Aranthir held a poignard in one hand and his sword in the other. They were right in the sorcerer's field of vision, but his head was turned skyward, only lowering to read from the book. He called out in a fell voice that echoed about the mountaintop, louder than the wind.

A bolt of lightning split the sky, striking all five heads of the statues at once. Red arcane energies coursed through the statues, circling faster and fast. Thunder boomed, rattling Aranthir's teeth with its force, and the sorcerer cried out in triumph.

"I've done it!" he cried. "The gods answer my call! Now, Lords of the Heavens, take these sacrifices that I offer and open your gates that I might join you!"

The naked girl wailed, the mercenaries shifted in confusion, and the sorcerer lowered his gaze to look upon his unwitting dupes. His face, first full of gleeful triumph, fell as he spied Aranthir and his companions approaching behind them.

"Intruders!" he shrieked, pointing with his staff. The mercenaries whirled, and Aranthir sprang at them in return. He plunged his poignard into the throat of one man and tore it back out, sending a spray of blood across his nearby fellows. With a cry as one, they sprang into action. Blades flashed, illuminated by a fresh bolt of lightning, and there was a clash of steel in the rain. Aranthir knocked aside one blow and countered with a would-be killing stroke, only to be defeated by the man's brigandine. The man staggered back and a companion darted in to take his place.

They stood six against four, with the element of surprise. Raenia and Selvenna attacked with vengeful fury, their blades ringing against those of their foes again and again. Janguld darted back and forth, lunging forward to exploit a gap in his foes' posture before nimbly sidestepping their counterstrokes. Aranthir discarded the poignard and closed both his hands about his longsword.

He feinted, then struck a heavy, two-handed overhead blow against his foe. The man wore no helmet and the feint had totally flummoxed him, so the blow landed squarely on the crown of his head. The man next to him cried out as Aranthir clove a skull in two. He unleashed a spray of blood and brain along with a roar of triumph. The adjacent man quailed, shrinking a half step back, and Aranthir closed in for the kill.

At the edge of his vision, he saw a glowing orb of green fire streaking toward him and threw himself out of the way. The orb turned to follow him, but not fast enough. It cut across his vision, close enough to his face for him to feel the fell heat of the thing, but went streaking off into the darkened sky and dissipated. Aranthir turned to the source of the thing, the sorcerer on his altar.

"You know not what you have stumbled into, half-blood," he sneered. "You cannot stop me, but now you will become a dying witness to my apotheosis! Die, puny one!" he thrust his staff at Aranthir and conjured forth another burst of green flame. Fire poured down from the altar, scattering the combatants who battled before it. Aranthir rolled across the rocky ground with the sorcerous fire licking at his heels until at last it went out. He then turned and leapt onto the granite slab of the altar. The sorcerer turned toward him, his face lit by the red glow of the statues above them.

"Do not interrupt me," he snarled. He held the book before him and read aloud from it. Words of ancient power reverberated about them, shaking the very mountain beneath his feet. The statues trembled and Aranthir felt the power coursing through them. The sorcerer smiled a cruel smile. "I have the power to unmake you, half-blood. Does that frighten you?"

Aranthir sprang forward, blade held overhead in both hands, and brought down a mighty stroke on the sorcerer's head. Runes in the sword's fuller flashed, and for a moment, the sorcerer's face fell in fear. But he raised his staff and from it burst a flash of blinding light. Aranthir fell back, shielding his eyes from the light, and when it cleared, the sorcerer had retreated to the far side of the altar.

"You cannot defeat me!" he cried, and thrust his staff into the air. In answer, a bolt of lightning cut from the heavens, striking the ground at Aranthir's feet. The ground roared and cracked, hurling Aranthir backwards. His hair danced, his skin crackled, and his sword was torn from his grasp. He landed on his back on the rocky ground below the altar, looking up into the falling rain.

He turned dazedly to look at his companions. One man lay dead at Janguld's feet, another knelt on the ground near Raenia, clutching a bleeding wound in his side. The rest battled on against the three of them, steel ringing against steel as the storm thundered on above. From the altar, Aranthir heard the sorcerer laugh, then cry out to the heavens again.

"Take my sacrifice! Take all my sacrifices and give me the power I deserve!" Aranthir snatched up his sword and charged back toward the altar. The sorcerer faced him as he mounted the altar, the girl still lying at his feet. He conjured again and a wall of glittering ice erupted from the ground, enclosing himself completely. Aranthir slashed at it, his sword flashed in the light of the storm, but he failed to so much as chip the wall. The sorcerer smiled mockingly at him, his voice strangely filtering through his protective barrier.

"You cannot harm me in here, half-blood. Stand there and await your doom, for this may take some time." He began to read from the book again, chanting in a deep voice that set the ice shell shaking.

Aranthir stood with his blade at the ready. In his mind's eye he could see the sorcerous energies of the altar flowing into the ice wall, empowering the sorcerer within. Each time the storm thundered, a fresh surge of energy pulsed through the statues. His mind reached back to his instructors the Colleges of Sorcery at Ildranon. The lessons rang clearly in his mind. When confronted with a sorcerer drawing power from a power source, interrupting the connection to the power source is always preferrable to battling against it.

In his mind's eye, he shaped a siphon for the energies that flowed from the statues to the sorcerer and planted it between them. Immediately, he felt the energies coursing through his veins. Using them, he enlarged his siphon, stealing not a portion of the altar's energies, but soon enough the entirety of it.

As the flow of power to him was cut off, the sorcerer stopped his chanting and raised his head from the book. His face fell at the realization, and Aranthir smiled.

He jolted as the power suddenly surged through him. He was energized with an unearthly vigor and felt his body swell with power so much that he feared he would soon burst. Sparks danced along his arms and down his sword, his heart pounded, his vision sharpened, and he felt fill to burst with raw sorcerous energies. The fury of the storm coursed through him as the sorcerous energies were redirected. Channeling them into his blade, he caused it to burst into white flame. The flames coursed up his sword and he returned his attention to the sorcerer's icy bastion. Within it, the sorcerer looked on with growing consternation.

Aranthir smote the wall of ice with a mighty blow and it cracked, a long spiderweb pattern radiating out from where he had struck it. He drew back his sword for another blow. The sorcerer flattened himself against the opposite wall, clutching his book and staff to his chest. Aranthir smashed his sword into the ice again and the spiderweb scurried out across the whole shell. The sorcerer reopened his book and began hurriedly casting a new spell, but Aranthir was faster.

His third blow shattered the icy fortress entirely, chunks of it raining down on both of them. One large chunk struck the sorcerer on his head, interrupting his casting. He grabbed at his head, letting his staff fall, and backed away. But Aranthir did not let him leave.

He closed in, sword flaming white, and slashed again. The sorcerer just barely darted aside, his robes singed by the eldritch flames. He turned tail and ran, the book clutched to his chest, crying out in terror.

"No! Please! I am to be a god! A god! I'll give you anything! Just don't—"

He cut off as Aranthir seized him from behind and plunged the flaming blade through his chest. The sorcerer cried out in agony, his robes catching fire as he spasmed his last. Aranthir pulled his head back and looked into his eyes as the light left him. Overhead, thunder pealed one last time and the sorcerer fell dead. The book tumbled from his grasp and flopped open on the wet ground.

The arcane energies continued to course through his veins, threatening to overwhelm him, and Aranthir cut off his connection to the altar's statues. The fire on his sword went out and he felt his unearthly vigor wane.

Triumphant but exhausted, Aranthir turned back to the battle below the altar. There now stood only two, and Janguld quickly slipped beneath one man's guard and cut his legs out from under him. He fell to the dirt, and Raenia plunged her blade into his exposed neck where it burst out the other side to spark against the rocks.

The last man turned and ran, but quickly slipped on the loose, wet ground and tumbled forward. He skidded through rocks and then off the edge of the mountain, screaming all the way down until his cries were lost in the wind. Aranthir sighed in relief, his swordpoint falling to his feet as he slumped against a towering statue.

Raenia tore one off one of the dead men's cloaks and ran to her sister chained to the altar.

"Ramissia," she cried, "Are you alright?" the girl looked up to her sister, the tears in her eyes washing away in the rain.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she sobbed.

"I know, and I'm sorry." Raenia knelt beside her, covering her with one of the dead men's cloaks. "But you're safe now."

"Gannica?" Ramissia asked, choking on her tears.

"She's at a Temple of Askallon. She's hurt, but getting better. She can't wait to see you."

"They... did things to me," the younger woman sobbed. Raenia nodded.

"I know, but they're gone now. It's just us, and we'll get you to the priests. Selvenna, help me with these chains!"

They wasted little time in prying open the ancient shackles and helped Ramissia to her feet. The statues above dimmed in the rain until the fire in their eyes went out and they stood dormant again. Janguld yanked a pair of boots off a dead man and handed them to Ramissia to spare her bare feet from the jagged rocks.

The rain slackened, and Aranthir turned to look west. The dark clouds above turned gray not far to the west before at last giving way to blue sky just above the horizon.

Janguld turned back to the dead men and his eyes alit on the jeweled sword, which he took for himself. As the White Sisters comforted Ramissia, he and Aranthir picked the corpses clean of anything of value, claiming coins, jewelry, and assorted weapons. Janguld took an onyx signet ring from the sorcerer's hand, then turned to the ancient tome lying on the altar.

"What about the book?" Janguld asked. He picked it up from where it lay, its strange pages undamaged by the driving rain.

"It should be somewhere safe," Aranthir replied. He extended a hand toward Janguld and his old friend closed the book and passed it to him.

"Will you take it to Ildranon, then?"

"Perhaps. It's a long way."

"Aye, but I'll travel it with you if you'd like. Though it will wear out my boots to be sure. Even just getting down this mountain will be a difficult task."

Aranthir smiled and pointed over the edge of the summit. Down below in a rocky bowl were the dead men's horses, clustered together for warmth and protection from the storm.

"Well," Aranthir proclaimed. "At least we won't have to walk back."