Colin Tabor - The Fall of Ossard

“Sef, keep an eye on it, they can see everything from up there – including us.”

A pulse of power flew from the top of the Turo, screaming as it zoomed across to hit one of the Cathedral’s towers at its base. It was lost in a ball of blue flames, the writhing fire dying quickly, but not before its stonework fractured to bring the tower down. The rumble of its collapse snuffed out the screams of those it killed, the sight of it quickly smothered by a great cloud of billowing dust. A shocked silence came to settle over the square.

More pulses of power shot out to eat into anything the Reformers considered a threat. The flurry of attacks targeted the dust-shrouded Cathedral and other church-owned buildings, most of them near or edging on to Market Square.

I slid my perception into the celestial where I could watch the amazing pull and tug caused by so many users of magic dragging power from that other world. It moved with huge tides and eddies, the energy passing from and through it, leaving me to wonder; could the boundary somehow tear?

How strong was the barrier between worlds?

In the celestial, lost spirits, shades, and feeders all gathered, eating at the fragments of soul-stuff left over from so many deaths. They also waited for another kind of opportunity; for the chance to slip back into the realm of the living.

Elsewhere, other practitioners of magic took up the fight. For the Loyalists, that meant the senior priests of the Church, and for the Reformers, both the Cabal and priests of the cults. From a dozen different locations jets of energy and crackling bolts of lightning flew. Fires sprang up, bursting into sudden life, explosions blossomed, and buildings collapsed amidst a hail of red-hot stone and rubble.

Amidst the chaos, a pulse of power burst out from the Turo to scream towards us.

Sef cursed in surprise.

As quickly as it was cast, my celestial reflexes worked to diffuse it, stripping its energy away. So empowered, I could defend easily – but not forever. We all had limits.

I gathered myself for something final.

A bolt of lightning crackled out from my hand to flash across the sky. It set the pall hanging over the city aglow, before blasting the top of the Turo off to send stones flying. When the smoke cleared, it revealed the tower still standing, but crowned in ruin.

Beside me, I could sense Sef as he wondered: From where has all this power so suddenly come?

With guilt on my mind, I ignored him.

To the west lay the Port district, in many places it also burned. The air over there swirled about to gather the countless smoke plumes and weave them together. At its heart glowed a pillar of sparks of a deep violet hue. I didn’t have to check to know that it rose over the previous ritual’s site.

Sef yelled above the noise of the wind, fighting, and roar of Ossard’s countless fires, “Look at the River Gate; others flee the city!”

Crowds gathered there, many marked by the white and yellow or black and gold of the Loyalists. They were leaving, ushered on their way by the ghostly priests of St Marco’s.

Passing over the Loyalist district, my excitement soared. For the first time I could sense that I was closing in on Pedro and Maria.

My family!

Sef’s thoughts again fluttered through my mind: She’s so powerful, could she somehow stop all this?

With a cold voice, I said, “To save them, I’d have to kill them – and I don’t want their blood on my hands. Let them kill each other if they must.” Yet, deep down, I knew I could only play with such power because of my feeding on Lady Death. The admission stirred my hunger, it rising from a nagging ache to mature into a throbbing pain.

We passed plumes of smoke as the fires about the city continued to grow and spread, and then, finally, we began to descend towards Ossard’s main battleground; the bloodied and rubble-strewn ruin of Market Square.

I slipped into the celestial to search for the souls of Pedro and Maria. I could taste them; they were close.

There!

“Sef, I’ve found them,” I said as I laboured to weave the view of two worlds together.

“Where?”

“The Malnobla!”

Sef drew his sword. “Let’s get them!”

And my thoughts were also of Kurgar.

The cultists had secured the building, and now used it as it always had been – as Ossard’s seat of power. The Loyalist banners hanging from the balcony were cast down as we watched.

I offered a prayer to Schoperde, begging her to lend me the strength to end Kurgar’s life.

Surely such a thing would leave the new Ossard weakened?

And all the while, I guided us down into the slaughter-ground of Market Square.

It surged beneath us under the tide of battle as the two sides clashed. The dead lay scattered about, but also strangely piled in places like islands amidst a furious sea’s swell. Both sides fought hard, but clearly the Loyalists had been caught out and were now being pushed back. Their only line that held, albeit as a thinning ring, was around their crippled Cathedral.

So close now to the end of all things, my anger at having had my family stolen away to start with only bucked and grew. I wanted them back, and to make the perpetrators pay, but that fury only helped work free my dark hunger. The pain of it throbbed inside me to grow more desperate and hard. At the same time its demands took strength from the deaths around me, as if it could taste them.

We came down amidst the fighting a hundred paces from the front of the Lord’s Residence. There was little space, but an impatient wave of my hand called a force that pushed aside the combatants regardless of loyalties.

Some of their contests finished abruptly as one lost balance and fell on another’s sword; in others, those that struggled to keep on their feet or move back into my cleared space, I dealt with by reaching into the celestial and brazenly draining their souls.

Part of me screamed in disbelief!

The beginning of that feeding hadn’t been a conscious decision, more a loss of my battle to stay in control. Now, blinded by its high, I grabbed another, and another, and then only more.

Sef could feel something of what was happening, becoming restless beside me and afraid. I tried to twist his silence into an endorsement.

Surely I needed souls for power, otherwise how was I to best Kurgar and get my family back? There was also my grandmother to deal with before I could free Marco and his wife and daughter.

In that feeding I claimed six more. Of them, five had been promised to others, and I could feel the celestial shift in anger as larger entities turned to see who dared steal their own.

The fear of being caught by such powers saw me finally calm. I could feel myself stepping back from a crazed binge, one that would see me drink of all the souls in the square. Lost to such madness, I’d even sup on Sef.

The thought both sobered and disgusted me.

I said, “Let’s go, Kurgar’s already claimed the Lord’s Residence. They’ll be there with him.”

Sef nodded, his eyes wide as we landed in the square.

Few combatants noticed us, most too busy in their own struggles. A smattering raised weapons against us, but I just snarled to see them drop.

I’d fed some more!

But I hadn’t meant to…

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I came here for Life, not as Death’s servant!

I grabbed Sef to drag him forward, trying to remain focused on my purpose and get out of the square.

He flinched at my touch.

The crowded battlefield parted before us to reveal a path of blood-slick cobbles, it all lit in amber by the flaring light cast from the city’s countless flames. About us rang the clash of metal amidst the crunch of breaking bones, the tearing of flesh, and the screams and moans of the dying. This was the bleak world the old gods wanted; one where souls were quickly claimed.