James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"That word means spit to me, Lord Irvon," Keritanima snapped hotly, making many of the onlookers gasped. "I really don't care how ridiculous you think it is. You can let the Knights escort them out, or you can pick up their remains when my Marines storm this building and kill anything that moves. It's your choice."

Irvon paled again, and stared at Keritanima in shock. "You would dare -"

"I dare anything," she interrupted, glaring at him. "Binter," she said bluntly. "I think the Lord High Priest is stalling. Would you go up there and brain him for me?"

The monstrous Vendari started ahead of the Princess, his massive warhammer held lightly in his right hand, his black eyes flat and promising death as he advanced up the central aisle to a cacophony of gasps and not a few screams from the congregation. "No!" Irvon said in a strangled tone, even as a group of armed priests quickly formed up around the altar and pulpit. "Alright, alright! I'll do as you ask!"

Binter looked back to Keritanima, who only motioned with her head. He turned and moved back towards her, and the entire popluated Nave sighed in relief. It was in that moment of silence that it was heard.

It was faint, but it was very audible. It was a rolling, howling cry, the ear-keening call of a Troll, the sound they made while fighting.

"Troll!" Darvon said immediately, reaching for his sword.

"Binter," Keritanima said sharply, "where did that come from?"

"It came from beneath us," Allia answered for him, kneeling and putting a four-fingered hand on the floor. "It is under here."

"What's under the floor, Darvon?" Keritanima asked.

"The crypt," he replied uncertainly.

Eyes widening, Keritanima turned and fled back up the aisle, leaving the others confused. She had no time to explain. She burst through the open door, pointing towards Lilenne and screaming in a very impressive, booming voice.

"Lower the Ward, Lilenne! Lower the Ward NOW !"

Panting, the Cat wasn't sure if it could take this enemy.

He was covered in blood, both his own and that of his foes, and it had been a long and brutal path. Tarrin had been stabbed, slashed, hacked, poked, and slammed by a myriad of weapons, weapons that the Cat completely ignored. But the constant regeneration had began to slow, and it slowed more and more as he was injured by those who opposed him. The regenerative abilities he enjoyed were quasi-magical, but they still drew strength from his body to operate, and that strength was nearly gone. Wounds that would have sealed instantly if he were refreshed were taking long, long moments to slowly knit together now, and it had left his body weary and his reflexes slowed. His body was tiring out, and even the Cat understood that he had to get free soon, before he was left incapable of healing a mortal blow.

It was a grisly marker by which his fatigue was measured. The hallways behind him were absolutely littered with the dead, mutilated, and the dying, as he cut a swath of destruction and murder right through the ranks of his opponents. There was no grace, no honor, and no mercy in his method of killing. He simply charged forward, accepted any injury that the victim dealt upon him, then ripped him limb from limb. Anyone who crossed him died, from armed guards to unarmed servants, they were all treated with the same merciless finality. Tarrin's feet left prints of red behind as he stalked forward in the large chamber, where a single Troll stood on the far side holding a huge club made from the gnarled taproot of a tree. Trolls were natural enemies of the Were-kin, and Tarrin challenged it with no fear as he stalked forward, paws out wide and preparing to rush the thing and tear out its throat. Men and women rushed in behind that Troll, some of them obviously spellcasters, but it was the ones with crossbows, bows, and swords that caught the Were-cat's attention. But there was no surrender, no mercy, no turning back. There was only forward, there was only rage, and there was only freedom.

With a savage roar, Tarrin burst forward, but his moves were not as fast, not as sharp, as they usually would be. Arrows and crossbow bolts slammed into him, staggering him, but he neither fell nor stopped. The Were-cat ignored the hammering missles, keeping his attention on the advancing Troll. He ducked under and away from a massive sweep of that club, and lanced inside its swing as it carried through. His claws were out, and they flashed once and once only as he slipped up and inside the Trolls' stance, sweeping upwards from the floor and raking right through the area covered by the foul monster's fur breechclout. The crippling move would have worked, had he not missed and struck the Troll on the inside of his thigh rather than the crotch. The move made the Troll give out a ear-shattering bellow, and the Were-cat found himself flying across the room. He struck the far wall head first, bringing stars to his eyes and sending to the floor in a heap, but the shuddering of the floor beneath him warned him that the Troll was advancing to finish him off.

He rolled just as several more arrows and crossbow quarrels struck the floor where he had been, then kicked out with his foot. The blow didn't have much behind it, but it was still enough so crack the shinbone of the Troll's advancing leg as it set it to drive Tarrin through the floor with its club. The Troll hopped back and bellowed again, taking its massive club in both hands and raising it over its head. It moved with surprising speed, catching Tarrin just under the arm as it quickly feinted the overhand smash, then switched to a vast underhanded sweep that caught the weary Were-cat off guard. Tarrin sailed through the air, landing heavily on the floor some paces away, arrow and bolts tearing out or breaking off as he rolled and skidded to a stop. Tarrin was dazed, so dazed that the Cat nearly lost its control of his mind and allowed his conscious mind to return, but the Cat was still too enraged to relinquish control yet.

Not until it was free.

The Troll limped forward with men and women advancing behind him, coming to end the Were-cat right then and there, and the Were-cat was too tired to be certain it would survive.

And then the Weave flooded back.

Screaming in sudden fury, Tarrin's eyes turned from their unholy green to a blazing, incandescent white as the Cat reached out and seized hold of the Weave, using its animalistic ferocity to take command of it. Raw power flooded into him like water over a fall, but where Tarrin's conscious mind could not control it, could not bear the pain, the ferocity of the Cat could . His paws literally exploded into Magelight, and the Cat lashed out with the deadly weapon immediately and brutally. A wave of solid air blasted past the Were-cat's thrusting paws, taking up the entire height and width of the room, and it moved at a speed that defied sound. The Troll's body simply crumpled against the horrific force. In the blink of an eye, the entire far wall was smeared with red stains, bloody clothing, and shattered weapons and armor, from the bodies of everyone that had been before him. They had been crushed into liquid by the supersonic speed and force of the wall of solid air. There was a sudden ear-shattering BOOM , like thunder, that shook the entire complex and caused dust to shake free of the ceiling.

More. The Cat could control the power, but it couldn't allow it to build up, because not even the Cat could stop that mad influx of magical energy from flowing into him. If that happened, it would destroy him from the inside out. He had to expend that power, almost as fast as it built inside him.

Raising his eyes to the ceiling, Tarrin's entire body became engulfed in the wispy white energy as he gathered in the power he needed to use his magic to free himself in one mighty blow. He wove together a chaotic weave of Fire, Air, Earth, Confluence, and Divine power, adding the flows of Water and Mind just so they could be present within the weave of High Sorcery, and give the weave the true power of which it was capable. That weave built inside him, burning him with its power, its purity, scouring away his pain and replacing it with the true might, the majesty, the awe of the Goddess and her Weave.