Christopher Kellen - Elegy

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.