Colin Tabor - The Fall of Ossard

Sef smiled with relief. “Cherub, please, your friends are holding us back from an important meeting with Heinz Kurgar?”

Cherub looked to Sef and then to me. Finally, as he blushed, he dropped his gaze to the floor, not willing to act.

I growled, “Kurgar took my family, and I will have them back!”

But the lead Kavist had his own anger brewing to make his voice raw, “Normally I’d not hit a woman, but today I’ll make an exception.”

Sef took a step forward. “You’ll be dead before you do!”

The Kavist put on a grim smile. “Says you?”

I stepped between them and raised my hands between their drawn swords. “Damn you, I’ll not be delayed. I’ve no fear of you – or ending you either.”

His eyes flickered between Sef and me. “Such big words for the witch of woe.”

“I’m no witch.”

“Then what are you?”

“Let me show you, and if I’m greater you may withdraw?”

He laughed. “I’m no fool! Get out of here, or I’ll skewer you!”

But I stood my ground between him and Sef and their steel. I let my hand slip to the breast of his armour.

He started at my touch, but stilled as if to dare me.

Sef hissed, “Juvela!” He thought I was going to feed again.

I whispered to the Kavist, “Can you feel the cold?”

A smirk came to his face as he shook his head, but then it faded.

In that other world, I’d begun to put pressure on his soul. Small tears opened in its defensive shell, and into those fissures seeped the void’s chill.

His gaze dropped to my hand, to where it rested on his armour, then it rose to again meet mine.

“I’m no witch, nor charlatan, or even a cult priest, I’m much more than any of these. I’m a direct child of Schoperde, the goddess of life…”

And then I began to draw his soul’s energy into mine.

He broke into a sweat as his skin paled and his lips began to tremble and go blue.

“…and because of that lineage…”

His eyes watered, and in them his life-light began to flicker.

“…I can take life away…”

He began swaying on his feet as his eyes rolled back to show their whites.

“…but also return it.”

I gritted my teeth as I stilled the flow, then reversed it.

It hurt. Oh by the gods it hurt! My hunger, which had bucked at the taste of his soul-stuff, now raged at being deprived.

I hissed, “I’m no witch; I’m something so much more than that. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead, but I just want to pass you by.”

The colour came back to his face, his eyes righting themselves as the tremors died on his lips. He wasn’t a priest, but he knew he’d just come close to death. With a quick swipe of his arm, he knocked my hand from his armour, yet with the contact broken his show of life faded. Silent, he just stared at me as he fell back into the shadows to hit the wall, and then slumped to the floor.

Sef and I went forward, passing the others as we headed for the Lord’s office.

The door was closed, but the low drone of voices could be heard. I looked to Sef to see him nod, so I threw open the door and walked in.

The office sat as it always had, a large room heavy with ornamentation and wood – and now packed with Reformers. Kurgar sat back in Lord Liberigo’s chair, comfortable at my father-in-law’s desk. His voice stilled at my entrance, after having been busy issuing orders for a ritual that with the passing of so much of the night was now quite near.

He looked to me and said, “Juvela…”

I strode past startled faces, too many of them familiar; including the Kavist high priest, Seig, and the Cabal’s Mauricio.

Had they all been a party to the city’s fall? How long had they toiled to claim their positions and make their plans reality?

Did it matter now?

I just wanted my family, and to leave this bloody mess behind. “Kurgar, you know what I want.”

Sef followed with his sword out.

Mauricio said, “His title is Lord Kurgar, the Lord of Ossard.”

“Lord of the damned!”

Kurgar raised a hand. “Now, Juvela, really, you’re in no position to be making demands.”

“I hold every position!”

“Juvela, I need your family, and I’ll not be giving them up.”

“I don’t think you understand what you’re up against.”

He smiled, a cold light sparkling in his eyes. “No, Juvela, it’s you who doesn’t understand.”

My perception drifted between worlds as I unrolled tendrils of power to entrap his soul and bend it to my will. Before me his soul lay; simple and innocuous, young and newborn.

And then the image shifted – its truth revealed.

Sef tensed beside me.

And Kurgar’s true soul spread before us, bloated with power and the countless souls he’d devoured.

“Yes, Juvela, you’re not Ossard’s only avatar. I’ve eaten much these past days, but also over the seasons and years.”

I just stared at him as my anger boiled.

Was I to be robbed of the chance to free my family, again?

I said, “But you’re serving the old gods, what of the new and our duty to Schoperde?”

He laughed. “While I’m an avatar, I’m not what you think.”

“Who’s your master?” I demanded.

“You really are ignorant. It’s true I’m an avatar, newly born and maturing into my own godhood, yet this life came to me not through Schoperde, but from the very gods she wished vanquished.”

Could the old gods bring forth life of their own?

“Yes Juvela, they can raise their own. In our world we have no need of maternal Schoperde, not any more.”

“But look at the death you bring!”

“And I’m not alone; there are more, and now we gather to celebrate the rise of a new Ossard.” He laughed. “And it’s us against you,” he paused as he dipped into the celestial before returning his perception to me, “you, with barely a dozen souls added to your own.”

I glared at him, my anger unrelieved and my doubts growing. I’d expected to just walk in, grab my family, and then leave, being all but unstoppable. I’d certainly not expected to be challenged by another avatar, let alone one stronger. Damn it, this was where fate had brought me, and that being the case, I could only assume that if silent Schoperde was going to aid me then it would be here.

I swallowed and said, “Schoperde will help me.”

Kurgar grinned while the cultists and cabalists about him laughed.

Sef shifted, uncomfortable.

Kurgar finally joined them to chuckle. “Really, Juvela, do I have to tell you everything?”

I stared at him, my apprehension stirring.

He went on, his eyes sparkling as he savoured his words, “Schoperde won’t be coming to your aid.”

“Of course she will.”

“What makes you so certain?”

As calmly as I could, I said, “It’s the only way for Life to win the divine war against Death.”

Fresh laughter met my answer.

Kurgar said, “Yes, it would be, wouldn’t it.”

And then I realised that he knew something very important.

He shook his head, but his smile didn’t fade. “Juvela, haven’t you realised yet?”

“Realised what?”

“The war’s over, and Schoperde lost. She’s dead.”

Dead?

I could only stare at him.

He went on, “The war ended two decades ago.”

“No!”

“The last great battles were fought much further back. They left her so weakened that all she could do was linger on while slowly wasting away. It all came to an end only recently. That’s why there’s none of her priests left here and precious few anywhere else. It’s why she doesn’t bestow blessings, and why her faith fails.”

“This is a trick!”

He gave a dark laugh. “Look at the Cassaro Valley and the Northcountry; the land’s dying, it treeless and bleak. Life has abandoned this place and the whole of the world, every last bit of it.”