Luther's Pride Part 46

It was too early for Luther to express his hope, but he had to agree with Helena. Marne and Raoul were dead. Branan had completed his spell to gather the storm above them, but Criella’s teleportation was fast, and she had plenty of power remaining in their shared pool. 

Things might have been different if not for their illegal marriage, but Luther’s heart held no guilt. Only hope. 

A scream pierced the thunder above them, and all eyes lifted to see its source. Saehild plummeted through the sky like a stone, moving too quickly for any wind Branan might conjure. He tried, but Criella’s sudden reappearance beside him, alone, distracted him and forced him on the defensive. She grabbed for him, but he held her at bay, even as she teleported around him. He spun with his staff flying so quickly that Criella had to keep at a distance or risk taking a blow. He might be older, but his strength was no laughing matter. 

Saehild’s flailing form scrambled, her knife abandoned as she attempted to cast another spell, conjuring a creature that might save her. Only now, she had to race against time, and she didn’t have much left. Criella had placed their arrival in the sky in the perfect position for her to reach maximum speed seconds before she’d strike the ground. 

Lucas fired another blast, trying to close the distance. The beam of light flew wide to avoid Branan as Criella stepped behind him, always keeping her opponent between herself and Lucas with clever footwork. Branan tried to sweep her legs out from under her, but she teleported back. 

Saehild’s scream grew louder and louder until the wet, sharp impact of her body hitting the ground between Lucas and Branan made everyone gasp. Her body burst apart like a melon, ricocheting into the sky. Chunks fountained through the air and spread out in haphazard shapes. Her blood darkened the earth, and the wind bore the smell to the stands as people gagged and coughed in horror and disgust. 

Lucas’ armor of light dropped as he scrambled away from the mess. The giant bird she’d half-summoned vanished in the wind, its bones mere fragments mingled with hers. Saehild’s scattered remains joined Marne’s headless corpse, her head, the shattered snake skull, and Raoul’s impaled corpse as landmarks around the battlefield. 

What had started as five-on-one was now two-on-one, and only Branan was a threat. Criella might not be accustomed to the violence, but her hatred for the people she slaughtered kept any disgust for their gore at bay. Luther wondered what time she might need after this to recover. He adapted to the horrors of war and battle over his years away. She had no protection except adrenaline from the gore she'd created in the arena.

Whatever ease Branan and his spouses expected to have killing this solicitor who was not their equal as a warrior, they found the prospect more daunting than they had intended. She might not have their skills in hand-to-hand, but she used her brain as well as her power, and the balance of the fight had shifted in her favor. The hyperventilating Lucas was useless to Branan, an unanticipated liability. 

“Such barbarism,” The duke said, covering his mouth with a monogrammed handkerchief. His tone of horror confirmed to Luther that he’d never seen a battlefield. “This was supposed to be a simple execution.” 

“It is, your grace,” Luther said, earning him scowls from all fourteen of the duke’s companions. “Have you never seen one before? I’d say that Criella is executing her enemies quite well. A pity they underestimated her might. A mistake, I think, that no one else will make.” 

“The match isn’t over yet,” The duke said, though he didn’t sound as though he had any hope that his pawns would survive. 

“It will be soon,” Luther said, grinning. “I look forward to you praising Criella’s might.” 

The duke didn’t answer, but his jaw clenched, and a vein by his temple throbbed with his pulse. Annoying him was almost amusing, even though Luther knew it was unwise. The duke’s spouses glowered at Luther, but he ignored them. Let them have whatever grievance against him that they wished; they wouldn’t challenge him over it, and he had no intention of ascending to rule the duchy unless the duke proved it necessary. 

Abandoning all pretense of bravery, Lucas fired several quick blasts toward Criella, earning him several curses from Branan as the wounded man struggled to fight her and succeeded only in holding her at bay. 

His staff and her rapier clashed several times, but Branan used his superior reach with the staff to keep Criella out of range of hitting him with her rapier. Even as she teleported to try and close the distance, he spun his staff quickly enough to deflect her and regain the advantage. 

She wasn’t as skilled a fighter as he was, and his arms and weapon were longer than hers. She had to realize that he had the advantage in melee, but she had no range besides thrown knives, which he could blast away with wind. Not to mention if she stepped any further away from him, he might strike her with lightning from the sky. 

She should abandon Branan and kill Lucas before he managed to get a lucky shot in, but Luther didn’t want to risk distracting her by shouting his opinion. 

He reached for her with his mind, careful not to distract her by melding their spirits. Perhaps he should use Rhosyn’s arcana and try speaking to Criella’s mind again, but after the last time he used that spell, he feared distracting her enough to wound or kill her during her fight. 

Criella kept her thrusts going, but she was tiring, and her constant teleporting had slowed to footwork, the first sign that she was preserving her power: a feint, but a potentially costly one. 

Branan grinned and barked a laugh of triumph as his reinforced staff struck Criella’s blade aside so fiercely that it knocked the blade from her hand. It spun end over end and clattered against the ground well out of reach. He pressed his advantage, striking at her torso. 

Criella’s tail lashed, throwing a knife into Branan’s shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to stop his next strike from landing just below her breastplate. She staggered back, vanishing, but Branan closed the distance between himself and her sword. He lowered his shoulder and plowed into her as she reappeared, knocking her to the ground.

He didn’t relent, following the strike with the butt of his staff to her wounded leg. He knew better than to strike her head, where such a blow might usually end a fight. He’d seen her headbutt Raoul and knew he’d only risk breaking his staff. 

The duke’s expression settled into a confident grin behind his handkerchief. 

Criella crawled backwards, rolling to avoid a blast from Lucas, who was rallying with Branan’s victory. The two men towered over Criella’s prone form, and Luther clenched his fists, urging Criella to move, screaming at her in his mind. 

She teleported away as Branan aimed a second blow at her leg wound, limping as she reappeared by Raoul’s run-through corpse. She tugged at her Rapier lodged through him and into the ground. He’d slid somewhat along the blade, but she struggled and jerked for a moment too long. 

A bolt of lightning struck from the sky and thundered through the arena. The light overwhelmed the people in the stands, with many hiding their eyes. Its crack of thunder shook their seats, rattling Luther’s bones and making his teeth buzz. The noise covered her scream as raw, unbridled power tore through her. Luther blinked, the afterimage of her screaming face preserved in his eyes like a painting more vivid than reality. 

Smoke wafted from her body, but she was still standing, struggling to move. 

She vanished as a second blast struck her sword, and the smell of cooked meat wafted toward the stands as Raoul’s corpse, and the sword in the ground took a second blast. She was still alive, Luther realized. The blade stuck in the Earth had likely redirected the worst of the blast, but it still wounded her worse than the cut to her leg or the blows to her body. The pain, the searing power, it wasn’t something anyone walked away from. Maybe Helena, with the proper prep and alteration of her body, might withstand a strike from the heavens, but even then. 

She’d need a healer as soon as this was over, or he might lose her anyway. 

Criella reappeared, but not where Branan expected. He struck near her discarded sword, expecting her to attempt to reclaim it. Instead, she appeared beside Lucas, stumbled, grabbed his arm, and vanished. 

Lucas’ scream rattled Luther’s ears. His earlier cries had been high and shrill, full of surprise and alarm. This scream was one of deep pain, as if it boiled up from his very core. Everyone in the crowd gasped at the sight. 

Criella had vanished, and so had Lucas’ left arm. Perhaps she meant to take him with her like she had Saehild, but the pain of her wounds must have distracted her. Her intuitive casting wasn’t as precise or as repeatable as a skilled, learned mage. Intuition and practice could only get her so far. In this case, it was a boon, but it also put her at risk. Sloppy teleportation had killed more than one student of magic.  

Blood spurted from the ragged tear of flesh and bone at his shoulder. He collapsed as Criella reappeared, panting at the other end of the field. She tossed his arm to the ground and vanished again, reappearing in several places as bolts of lightning attempted to keep up with her. 

Each bolt from the sky burned an image into Luther’s eyes, like an instant painting that dissipated in time for the next to take its place. Several overlapped, but all of them bore Lucas’ anguish and Branan’s frustration. A few of them even captured Criella’s fear. 

A cacophony of thunder followed each bolt until the rumbling blasts threatened to break Luther’s ears. Those closer to the arena had already moved away with their hands over their heads, many covering their ears with their hands. The duke continued watching, but pressed his hands over his ears along with one of his spouses to protect themselves. 

Branan had no way to know where she might strike or be next, and she made no effort to form a pattern. She’d vanish, reappear in a spot at random, and vanish again, keeping her prey guessing as Branan and Lucas huddled closer together. 

Luther could feel the drain on their shared pool. She had plenty of power left, but had used far more than she would have if she were fighting without their union’s support. No one had yet realized it, too fascinated by the spectacle of the fight, but Branan likely suspected something was amiss. He was too knowledgeable to miss that she should have been out of power by now, even if he didn’t know the source of her continued teleportation. 

Branan drew closer to Lucas, who was on his knees, covering his stump with his hand to stem the tide of blood. He cried, screaming into the gusting wind as it whipped around them. 

“A shield man! A shield!” Branan cried, smacking Lucas with his staff. 

Lucas cried with effort, raising his hand and casting a spell. A dome of light encased him and Branan just as Criella reappeared before them, cutting them off from her. She reeled back, stumbling, and Branan struck. Not a single bolt, but a forest of lightning forks filled the arena from the sky above. The light was bright enough that Luther had to close his eyes, and even then, he only saw white behind his eyelids. The light vanished, and thunder took its place. The boom shattered the railings surrounding the arena, sending splinters and debris flying. The shockwave of it smashed against them, and Luther and his spouses raised their hands to shield themselves to no avail. Thunder knocked Luther and his spouses back, though the splinters didn’t fly far enough to reach them. 

The duke’s spouses raised a barrier between themselves and the debris, which likely would have slaughtered many of the servants and commoners if they had not already fled the section from the earlier thunder. The arena field was blackened earth, with small fires and scattered chunks of glass. The clouds echoed the thunder, rumbling in the distance as everyone caught the breath Branan knocked from their lungs. The wind whipped through the stands like an angry whip, making it even more difficult.

Then, as quickly as it began, the spectacle ended. 

Lucas and Branan crouched beneath his dome of light, somehow safe from Branan’s magic. Before them, face down in the dirt, was Criella’s smoking form.  

Luther rushed forward, abandoning his seat. Helena grabbed his arm, keeping him from launching over the broken rail and into the arena. 

To a loud gasp from everyone present, Criella struggled forward, her head rising from the earth, and her eyes meeting Luther’s. Burns covered her body and her tail. Her face was almost unrecognizable. She stared at him, but Luther didn’t know if she could see. Her chest wheezed in a single breath that rasped with pain. Her breastplate glowed bright and hot, sizzling against her. She never cried out, though the burns on her face and neck might have made it impossible for her to do so. Still, she was alive. 

“She’s still–” 

Lucas’ blade pierced her back, running through her heart and staking her to the ground in a single, extinguishing thrust. 

Luther didn’t hear his own scream as the dimming light faded from Criella’s eyes. He kept his eyes on her until the end, with her until the end. He didn’t look away, even if part of him died with her. 

The duke muttered something behind Luther and Helena to one of his attendants, but Luther didn’t catch it. It was just another insult, some snide remark the duke expected to go unchallenged. 

Luther lifted his gaze to Lucas, who stared up at him, panting. He released his sword and clasped his severed arm with tears in his eyes. Behind him, Branan clasped his gut where Criella had cut him. He leaned on his staff as he walked, nearly beaten, but still alive when his enemy was not.  

“I’m going to kill you,” Luther said, his tone far more even than he anticipated as he stared into Lucas’ soul. “I’m going to tear off your other limbs one by one, and when I’m done, there will be no burning of your body. No ascent to heaven for your soul to escape my fury. I will carve the tender flesh from your bones and keep them. I’ll make decorations of them, and display your fragments in this arena so that everyone knows you were never anything but an animal.” 

Lucas swallowed, doing his best to appear brave in the face of what seemed an outlandish, yet unnervingly specific, threat. The weight and tone of Luther’s words made everyone in the arena, even his wives, look at him differently. He was demi-human, after all, and had spent too much time among the barbarians outside the empire. 

“I swear it,” Luther said. “By her soul, mine, and the gods above.” 

Lucas shifted away from him, stepping into Branan’s embrace and wincing as the older man clasped his hand over Lucas’ severed stump. 

“Well,” The duke’s voice was nervous, but grew more bold when Luther didn’t immediately turn his fury in his direction. “With that on the record, I’ll handle their healing.” He gestured to his spouses. “I officially declare the Feothe clan to be the victors!” He shouted to the gathered crowd, though no one cheered for them. “Let their might be praised!” 

The duke and his company cheered, lifting a ‘Huzzah’ into the air and toasting to the victors with gusto. That was the proper custom, after all. The servants, Luther, and his wives, remained silent—each glaring at Branan and Lucas as if they deserved worse than death. 

“Let it be known!” Luther bellowed, using a trick to make his voice carry throughout the field, and perhaps even beyond. “That I, Luther Le Fey, have a challenge leveled against the Feothe clan, and they have accepted. I will give them the customary three days for grieving if they require it, but I expect them to honor their word and meet me on the field of battle in that time.” 

Branan looked afraid. He glanced to the side, then corrected his gaze before it met Raoul’s corpse. He shook his head, even as he fastened a cloth around Lucas’ wound, and the duke’s spouses entered the arena to help them. 

“What challenge?” The duke asked. “You can’t issue one for another three days.” 

“He issued one to Raoul,” Helena spoke up, stepping forward. “Raoul accepted, but had to settle the challenge he’d already levied against Criella first. As is the law.” 

“And who was there to witness this challenge?” The duke asked. “I suppose since Raoul is dead, the only witnesses are Luther and you, his wives? Or perhaps one of the servants would be willing to accept their Lord’s bribe to say that they witnessed it?” 

“I witnessed it,” Emily said, stepping forward. “And I’d accept no bribe.”  

“Emily–” Lucas’ shock was pure dismay. 

“And I am not married to the Le Feys, nor am I his servant,” Emily said, not looking at her brother. “Raoul accepted the challenge on behalf of his clan and was eager for the battle, but since he had already levied his challenge against Criella, they had to settle that matter first.” 

Branan grumbled something under his breath. 

“So you would hold them to that challenge?” The duke asked. “Even if Branan were to join my union during his period of grief?” As if he expected that to settle the matter, to dissuade Luther’s grief-driven follies of oaths and enmity. 

“Your grace,” One of his companions spoke up and whispered something in the duke’s ear. 

“I see,” The duke said, frowning. “So Branan and Lucas cannot join our union if we hold the challenge as already issued and accepted.” 

“It was issued and accepted, your grace,” Emily said, adding a curtsy out of respect. “Branan and Lucas are aware of it, and any psychomancy or truth magic would reveal it.” 

“Hm.” The duke mused, glancing at Branan and Lucas. “Five against two hardly seems fair, especially when they are so wounded.” 

“It’s more fair than the fight they offered Criella,” Luther said, speaking the obvious. “But by all means, let them recover,” Luther said. “If they wish it, they may have their three days to grieve the spouses who so foolishly threw their lives away. As is the law.” 

“Still, it hardly seems fair.” The duke muttered. “A loyal subject might at least give us the chance to persuade him to let bygones be bygones. The Feothe clan might be reduced, but Branan has been a dear and loyal friend of this empire for years. Will you not even give me the chance to dissuade you, as a personal favor to your lord?” 

Luther turned his wrathful gaze toward the duke, and the duke stepped back, then straightened. He brushed his doublet as if his momentary abandonment of condescension for fear of Luther might go unnoticed if he overcompensated with haughtiness. 

“Assuming that Miss Burville is willing to submit to a truthseer and is telling the truth, you must give him three days,” The duke said, sighing. 

“Yes,” Luther said. “And not a single hour more.” 

The duke swallowed. “Fine. Now will someone please heal them? Poor Lucas looks as if he’s about to faint. Can we reattach the arm?” 

The duke’s companions rushed forward, helping Branan and Lucas from the arena. Other servants took to the field, gathering what they could to prepare the pyres. 

Luther held the duke’s gaze until the duke grew uncomfortable beneath his eyes and turned away, joining the chatter amongst his companions about Luther’s rudeness. 

Helena squeezed his arm. “Come, my lord. Let’s get you–” 

“No,” Luther said, wrenching his arm from Helena’s grasp. “Criella might not be my blood, but she was family. Let me see to her final rites. I do not trust my guests to do so.” 

Helena nodded, backing away from him out of respect as he walked toward Criella’s fallen form like a man without a soul. Jowangshin shed her tears, but descended into the arena to help. Helena followed her. Eira and Rhosyn held each other at the edge of the seats, weeping. 

Luther knelt in the dirt beside Criella. He stared at her empty body. His mind replayed her words from last night, reading together in the library. His memories of her soft smile and clever eyes imposed themselves over her scarred corpse, taunting him with visions he’d never witness again.

Criella chose to fight instead of forfeit, sacrificing herself to help Luther, and taking her freedom as her idol did in that damn book. She’d loved him, even agreed to marry him without shame or fear. None of it mattered, though. She was gone, as was her love. None returned from death’s guiding hand.

Luther gave himself over to his tears. An anguished sob escaped his throat, burning him as he wept. Disbelief gave way in the face of undeniable confirmation. Criella was dead, lying before him, never to move, smile, laugh, tease, or frustrate him again. 

Luther bent over her body, his tears falling onto her burns. Helena knelt beside him, and Jowansghin knelt on his other side, wrapping their arms around him, holding him as grief wracked his ribs with sobbing breaths and lamentation. There were no thoughts or words that he could express, only primal sorrow that flowed through him, uttered in a language so universal that everyone who heard him understood. 

Criella was dead, and Luther was broken.