Terry Simpson: Ashes and Blood

As exhilarating as the battle had become, Ancel knew it could not last. At least not for him. His legs and chest burned. The weight of his sword bore down on his arms. His breaths were becoming labored.

Mensa chose that moment for all out attack. He flitted in, his earlier speed nothing more than a slow glide. Ancel snatched for the Etchings on his forearm as he brought his hand up, making a solid shield of pure Forms. Mensa’s sword stopped just before it connected.

Ancel never saw the foot that slammed into his chest. Blown back, he crashed into a pillar. Dust rained down.

“You’re almost as good as your master,” Mensa sauntered toward him, “and much better than your father, but you cannot hope to defeat me. You haven’t the power.” He threw his hands up.

Shade shot through the air from the temple and from other points within the city. The essence roared into Mensa. His body expanded, legs and arms growing thicker, more muscular.

Auras spilled about the man. Ancel strained his eyes to take them in. Had he just seen reflections of Mensa within the auras? He peered closely as Mensa stood absorbing more essences. There, he saw them now, multiple images of the man and tentacles. Deep in his Matersense, he also saw where Mensa’s power originated.

One of the pillars hummed. Ancel frowned at its familiarity.

Distracted, he didn’t see Mensa move. The flat of the Skadwaz’s blade took him in the ribs. Ancel felt something crunch. He cried out in pain.

“Your mother thought she could best me also.” The sword in Mensa’s fist glowed black, dark fire spilling from its Etchings. “As did many who were linked with netherlings. Yet, us humans have a propensity for growth that most, if not all other races, lack.”

Mensa drew in more Mater. His body swelled rapidly. It did not only grow in height but in girth, until he towered at least twenty feet into the sky. Dark mists congealed all around him. He laughed, the sound pealing like a great bell.

A burst of Mater resonated from the far north.

“Ah, my master is the process of killing yours it seems.”

A voice whispered in Ancel’s head. Ryne’s voice. “I gave you my light. Now, I give you the world’s light. Kill this fucking idiot, destroy the Chainin he is using, and at the same time you will have helped me and the others.”

Light and heat essences to rival the sun coruscated in the clouds above, igniting them like a flaming sunset. They glowed so brightly Ancel threw his hand up to shield his eyes.

Pure, unadulterated Prima.

Mensa cried out.

Without thought, Ancel reached into the power spilling from Mensa. He allowed it to flow over him, accepted it into himself. He fought his way through its clinging filth to its origin.

The Chainin was within the pillar he felt vibrating.

The voices from Denestia’s essences gibbered and raged. Ancel fed them to the Prima within his Etchings. His body burned.

Light to balance shade. Light to show honor. Honor to show mercy.

The temple’s roof exploded. The Chainin shattered. Prima Mateirum shot into the sky. From both himself and from whatever source Ryne used far to the north.

Flames whiter than bleached bones, whiter than pure snow, whiter than the spots that danced before his eyes, burst from the temple.

Etien strode from the conflagration, his size to match Mensa. He pointed his glowing sword. “Vile creature, a melding of netherling and man such as yourself is an abomination.”

The words also came from Ancel. After all, he and Etien were one and the same. They were the Battlegaurd.

When he swiped his sword, Etien repeated the stroke. Mensa brought up his blade to block. Ancel’s weapons sheared through the Skadwaz’s like a knife through paper. A rain of black blood fell.

Through the power pouring from the Sanctums of Shelter, Ancel sought those of his people who still lived within Randane. Those who a mending could save, and one he prayed for a chance to find help. Drawing on Etien’s knowledge, he Materialized the survivors to where he sensed Irmina’s pull at the Iluminus.

The rest of Randane, he burned.

Connected to the Sanctums, Ryne could tell when Ancel departed Randane. Mater surged from the Iluminus where a netherling battled a human with at least as much power as an Exalted. For now, the human was holding his own behind a Forging that drew on the essences imbued into the Iluminus itself. However, they could not maintain it for a long. If the madness didn’t take them first, they would deplete their sela essences and die.

With the Prima released by Ancel, he’d called up reserves to shut away Kahkon and the Great Divide from any immediate access. He made out the Skadwaz raging on the other side of the barrier he’d erected. Depleted of some of his power when Ancel destroyed the Chainin, thus breaking the link to the shade he had been tapping into, Kahkon could do nothing more. Any attacks would have to be more direct, through systematic destruction of each Bastion. A feat still beyond the shade.

It had been through sheer desperation that Ryne had given the Sanctums light to Ancel, but there was no other way for him to keep Kahkon at bay. Not with the way the Skadwaz had wrenched shade from him. He knew within himself if he’d attempted to summon his other sentient, he would have failed.

Yet, all he’d done was to give the world a temporary reprieve. In all likelihood, Kahkon would consolidate his strength with the resources provided by the Great Divide. That didn’t even bring into account that he possessed the vasumbrals.

Then there was still the Nine. The netherling in the Iluminus had to be one of them.

A shift in the essences made him focus on the gate through the Vallum of Light at the Iluminus. One of Kahkon’s traps was there. A massive shadeling army stationed outside, ready for any breach. The Setian remnants would be opening that gate at any moment. He allowed himself a smile.

With squeeze of his hand, he called on the heat stored within the Vallum.

Kachien was dying. For all his power, Ancel could do nothing about it. Tears streamed from his eyes.

The survivors formed a convoy heading toward the Cogal Drin Mountains and the city of Benez somewhere on the other side of those peaks. Behind them, the Vallum of Light lit up the sky. A field swathed in black marked where Ryne had destroyed thousands of shadelings at the Vallum’s gate.

The trap suggested that either he had more traitors among his people, or it was a coincidence. He no longer believed in coincidences. Galiana would have liked that. More tears dribbled down his cheeks. She had died holding off the Tribunal’s Matii as well as a netherling within the Iluminus. May Ilumni keep your soul safe. For the briefest of moments, disorientation took him. If not for a heart heavy with grief, he would have smiled.

“Don’t shed tears for me,” Kachien said, her voice raspy. “I died well. Fighting. An Alzari could ask for nothing more.” Black veins were appearing along her skin. “Finish me.”

Wiping at his face, Ancel eased his other hand from hers. He lacked the will to speak, so he mouthed, “I’m sorry.” He stood.

In one motion, he unsheathed his sword, triggered its Etchings, and took her head. With his other hand, he Forged fire to consume the body. Heat scoured his face, but he did not turn away. He watched until it went out. When it did, he drew on the wind and scattered the ashes.

A hand on his shoulder made him turn. Mirza nodded to him, his eyes red and puffy. Irmina stood near, her wary gaze centered on Ryne. Halvor and Kendin’s monolithic forms matched the sands upon which they stood. Jerem had left to seek some alliance with the Cardians and Astocans, or at least to plead for one.