Christopher Kellen - Elegy

“I hope that was not your best effort, Arbiter,” the wolf said with a feral grin. “It was good, but I am stronger than that. My master has given me great power in this place, and has promised me an endless supply of food once he controls the whole city without reservation.”

D’Arden cocked his head slightly. “So all of those bodies up there… those are your food? But you’ve hardly touched them.”

“I no longer hunger for flesh, Arbiter. I have little taste for the stuff. My master has granted me the power to live only on the purest sustenance – raw human blood. I take what I need, and I leave the rest for the crows.”

“Except the crows can’t get to them if they’re lying around inside,” D’Arden said, almost jovially. “So why don’t you leave them outside? Don’t you have free run of the city at night, to do as you please and strike terror into the populace? For all of the people who are dead up there, hundreds more are in the streets right now as we speak, laughing and going about their lives, just like always. They do not fear you.”

“They will,” the wolf growled. “I will make sure that they do.”

“Yes, perhaps,” D’Arden said. “But when?”

The wolf leapt at him again, but this was not the same timed strike that it had executed previously. This was more instinctive, reaching out with its snapping jaws and a rumbling growl that turned into a harsh bark. D’Arden rolled under it as he saw it coming and drew the manna blade along the beast’s belly. The wolf gave a cry of agony and came to its feet a few yards away, and the Arbiter rolled to his feet with a look of triumph on his face.

The wolf was bleeding heavily now, its body nearly gushing in some places that same thick, luminescent fluid that had come from the fel dogs outside the city, and the manna fire was eating away at the blood, seeking to purify the corruption within. The blue flames crept up the trailing fluid, but never seemed to quite reach the fur. It was obviously resisting the purification, but it had been weakened – D’Arden could see that in its eyes.

“So, have you had enough yet?” D’Arden asked with a glint of the manna fire in his eyes. “Do you really want to push this any farther? Give up now and I may let you return to the forest and your cursed brethren there, two of which I slew before I entered this godforsaken city, and another that I will slay now before either one of us leaves here!”

The wolf panted, but still managed to laugh. “You have nowhere to run, Arbiter, and nowhere to hide. This is my lair, and you will die here as surely as you would die if you were to face my master. You must be weakening; there is no chance that you could have found a source of pure manna anywhere near this city. Everything you touched would have only weakened you further, and now I will do the same!”

D’Arden worked hard to hide the smile that sprang to his lips. The wolf had underestimated him and his ability to reach out spiritually for the manna – it thought that he was exhausted.

The wolf’s arrogance would be its downfall.

The Arbiter charged forward and swung his sword in a cutting arc. The wolf leapt aside and came back around swiftly, its jaws closing on the air that D’Arden had been standing in only seconds before. D’Arden used the force from his twisting aside to bring his sword downward in a cleaving strike that would have severed the wolf in half had he caught flesh. Instead, his sword only cleft fur, sending strands of hair floating down to the floor.

The fel wolf, whose wounds had healed now, made a wheezing noise which was even more like a laugh than the previous growl. “Do you really believe that you stand a chance against me, Arbiter? Do you really think that you can defeat me in your weakened state? I am going to tear open your throat and drink every last drop of sweet, manna-touched blood from your body, and then leave your corpse for the crows along with the rest of the sorry folk above!”

D’Arden lowered himself into a crouch, holding the sword threateningly between the two of them. He allowed a hint of the smile he had suppressed earlier to touch his lips. “Would you believe me, beast, if I told you that you had underestimated my power?”

The wolf’s jaws hung open and it made the wheezing laughter sound again. “I would say that you were simply trying to delay me to find an opportune moment to strike me and catch me off my guard.”

The element of surprise was his only chance. D’Arden willed up as much manna from his veins as he could possibly muster, but did not allow it to show anywhere outside his body. His eyes might have glowed slightly brighter, but the wolf would never notice in the light of his manna blade. “You have underestimated me,” he said, allowing the small smile to spread into a full grin.

“Die, Arbiter!” the wolf cried, leaping once more into the air.

Thrusting out his hand in the same motion as before, his palm turned outward and his fingers kept close together, he summoned up all of the energy that he could possibly muster into that single point and compressed it, held it so tightly that he felt as though for a moment he might simply explode into nothingness, and then suddenly relaxed his concentration and allowed it to flow forth.

Any normal man would have been blinded by the explosion of manna that emitted from D'Arden's outstretched hand. The light flared brighter than the sun itself for an instant, a single moment in time and then rocketed outward with the force of a lightning strike. It almost appeared to be liquid as it struck outward, catching the wolf full in the chest and crackling around it, the sound of thunder echoing in the deep stone chamber. The wolf let out a yelp that was nearly as loud as the thunder itself, its voice amplified by the corruption that dwelled within it, and the resulting cacophony ached deep in D'Arden's ears.

The wolf was slammed back against the wall as before, but this time, it seemed that D'Arden could feel the very foundation of the building shake with the force. Stone was chipped and knocked loose from the wall, falling to the floor in bits and powder. Dust was dislodged from the ceiling dozens of feet above them, and sand trickled down into the chamber.

The manna fire was licking at the wolf's fur now, and the russet glow that the fel beast sported had dimmed considerably. The blue flames were consuming bits of the wolf's fur and flesh near its feet and around its face. It let out a deep, rumbling growl, but even its summoning of power could do little against the force that D'Arden had unleashed upon it.

"No," the wolf snarled. "No! How? How did you…"

D'Arden took a step forward, the light shining from his manna blade still as bright as a moment before as he reabsorbed some of the energy that had splashed off of the wolf and returned to the earth. He approached the wolf with confidence, knowing that his enemy had been weakened by the surprise assault.

"As I said, beast… you underestimate me," D'Arden said grimly. "You believed that because you have power here that you were the stronger of us, so instead of fighting cautiously, you fought with too much confidence. For that is your undoing, beast… your instincts have not yet gone enough to think that you might, for once, be at a disadvantage when fighting a mere man."

With those words, D'Arden lunged forward and thrust the blade deep between the fel wolf's ribs. The beast let out a howl and tried to snap its jaws at the Arbiter's arms, but D'Arden brought up one of his thick-soled boots across its snout sharply, and snapped its head back to the side. Once the manna fire had penetrated its thick outer skin, the wolf simply could resist the purification no longer. It gave a long, mournful death howl that echoed around him as the pure manna drove deep within its twisted heart and began to unmake the wolf from the inside out, driving out the corruption that gave it the dangerous and evil intelligence and returning its flesh to the power of the land.