Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 18

Chaos.

Where Thracos had been a singular locus of frenetic activity, the whole chamber now exploded into violence.

There were—what—over twenty Level 27 foes attacking them simultaneously now?

The first slew of mental blasts poured over Harald’s mind as the scarecrows converged their attacks. But though the edges of his vision rippled as if the periphery of the chamber had been revealed to be curtained backdrop to a cheap play, he shrugged off the assaults with his formidable Ego and identified what had to be done.

The entire battle hung in the balance.

This moment, this terribly delicate moment where his companions could fall back, lose the initiative, and be swamped.

Not on his watch.

Nessa had bid him hold back, and even when he’d realized they were up against a dozen scarecrows some part of him had wanted to give his friends room to breathe, to flex their new powers.

To hold back.

No longer.

Time to show Level 27 what he could do.

Dexterity 17 allowed him to race along the razor’s edge of the balcony’s crumbling outer rim, ducking a swiping claw, leaping over another attack, blast after blast hitting him like invisible sledgehammers that he could simply shrug off.

Deep into the chamber her ran, past the center with its statue where Nessa barked out orders, Anna fighting desperately by her side, and Vic—damn, Vic had pressed deeper, ruby dagger in one fist, The Point in the other.

But there was no time for that.

Flashes of white light filled the chamber. The Shadow Mastiffs were baying, layering their haunting, demoralizing howls over each other into an endless, reverberating dirge of despair.

The auras, stacked as they were, couldn’t hold.

Harald chose the moment precisely, and just before he ran into three grouped scarecrows up ahead, he veered, slammed a boot into the outer edge of the balcony, and leaped.

Out into the air, high above the coursing hounds and scarecrows below, the Scourge held high, and just when he hit the apex of his leap he trigged Thronebound Mantle.

The power of his dark aura went off like a detonation, smothering the howls as the hounds drew back, huge heads raised in dismay. His will, his presence, his shadowed might swamped them all, drenched the room in his malevolent purpose. Harald felt it reach out to where his companions stood, felt it gird their morale, banish their doubts, assuage the shock of the ambush.

Then, laughing madly, he fell upon his prey.

Who, checked as they might have been, realized he was alone in their midst. Cackling, prancing, the scarecrows closed in around him, at least six, while hounds bolted between their ranks intent on savaging him.

Harald hit the flagstones, fell into a crouch, and grinned wildly.

Now this.

This was living.

He unleashed Tenebral Surge.

The abyss screamed within him as it erupted from his core. An endless upwelling of the void, the hungry, searing cold that existed between all things. Harald felt himself a portal, felt his very identity fray as he channeled extreme power, and despite the intimations of extreme peril he held nothing back.

If he was to be a channel to this power, then he’d be wide open.

The Tenebral Surge exploded outward in a ring of roiling shadow whose ebon depths appeared haunted by screaming faces. It blasted over the hounds, through the scarecrows, caused the air to dim, the lanterns along the walls in the back portion of the hall to flicker.

For a moment, all within Harald’s radius became the property of the abyss.

The hounds shrank back. The scarecrows cut off their tapestry of mental blasts. All seemed to recoil in horror as Harald arose, black smoke bleeding off him as Thronebound Mantle enhanced the Aura of the Aching Depths to give him such presence that even elite foes such as these felt terror.

Harald threw his head back, delirious with delight, and summoned Abyssal Grasp as he hurled himself at the closest scarecrow.

A Goldchop sailed overhead, slamming into a hound’s broad chest.

Harald’s three Thrones were thrumming violently as they fueled his Abilities, but the moment the Abyssal Grasp clasped two scarecrows and one hound, their life force, the very essence of their Fallen Angel-gifted spirits began to supplement his draw, allowing him to activate even more powers.

Umbral Aegis wreathed him in hard, faceted plates of abyssal armor, cloaking him from head to toe and visoring his face with smoky glass. The Scourge’s deep, mesmerizing depths turned opaque as Abyssal Attunement sheathed it in jet.

And then Harald got to work.

He parried a scarecrow’s swipe by simply raising an armored forearm, stopping the great talons cold, and swept Chyron’s Scourge through the monster’s chest. The huge blade moaned as it rippled through its toxic alternative dimensions, dragging impossible poisons and reality-warping powers into the present to burst the scarecrow’s chest asunder like a toybox kicked by a petulant child. Its ribs, innards, all of it smeared and ran like wax, hardened into crystalized globules, turning the ruptured torso into a giant geode of the deepest purple as it fell, Abyssal Attunement sending a pulse of rich, stolen power into Harald’s essence.

But he kept the swing going, cleaving right through the first to descend like a storm upon the closest hound. A part of him, distant, alien, humane, flinched at striking the mastiff, but to his vast relief it wasn’t an exact replica of Shadowpaw. This one was shaggier, its visage brutal, its eyes smaller, almost hidden by the fur.

It fought to react, but the confluence of Tenebral Surge and Thronebound Mantle was simply too much. It drew back, faltering, and Harald cleaved its head clear off its broad shoulders.

But even as he swung, he was activating his prized new power.

His very first attempt at something sacrilegiously close to usurping the divine.

The first scarecrow was hitting the ground, fragmenting apart, as Harald targeted it with Grave Concordat.

His will reached forth like a clasping hand, and something elusive, faint, fleeting, was caught to writhe within his grasp.

Time seemed to slow.

Harald bent his will to that shadowed fragment, commanded it with supreme authority, and made it his own.

Deep in his Cosmos, he felt something instantly coalesce. Something new, something that felt familiar, something that he sensed was an intrinsic part of him.

And without hesitation, he summoned it forth.

A scarecrow appeared by his side, but this one was unlike all the others. It seemed to have been wrought from black glass, a singular construction of impossible artistry that mimicked the forms of its living brothers but simultaneously looked utterly alien. Its eyes were glassine and black, its beaked mask, its robes, its claws, all looking to have been hewed from the same great chunk of volcanic glass.

Your will, master?

The voice was sibilant, drenched in eldritch atmosphere, and its utter subservience caused Harald to thrill.

Destroy the hounds and the Thought Reavers. Kill them all.

Your will be done.

The jet scarecrow spun and the closest hound shuddered as blood ruptured from its eyes and ears as a mental blast slammed into it.

One of his Abyssal Grasp victims died, withering up and turning into a husk. A scarecrow.

Harald drew forth Wirmas’ Crystal from his Cosmos, and allowed it to fall to the ground. Spinning, unleashing a Demonic Edge that cut a leaping hound in twain, he bound the second scarecrow to his Cosmos, Abyssal Grasp reaching out to ensnare another hound.

Two Goldchops collided on either side of a scarecrow’s cowled head, both sinking deep as if its cranium had the soft but generally unyielding give of a tree trunk. The monster clutched at its head, staggered, and collapsed.

A second Thought Reaver appeared by Harald’s side, cast from the same midnight ink as the first, and Harald commanded it destroy.

His companions were battling bravely toward him, Vic in the lead. In the distance Harald could hear Kársek summoning his rune. Nessa was a dervish, Sam by her side, both trying to catch up with Vic who dove and rolled and slashed open a hound’s gut with his ruby dagger, causing a stream of sanguine glory to arc out into the air then slurp into the great gem.

Harald staggered as six mental blasts targeted him all at once, but it was only a moment’s nausea. Were there even six scarecrows left? Two up on the balcony, one before him, three fighting off his friends.

They’d still coordinated to bring him down.

A handful of hounds were slinking around, snarling and held at bay by Sam’s burning bright angelic sword, Nessa’s web of interlaced sword strokes, Vic’s endless parries.

Harald flung a Demonic Edge up at the balcony, cutting a scarecrow’s arm off, and felt a hound perish as Abyssal Grasp drank it dry. He released Umbral Aegis, easing the drain on the power, and then let go of Abyssal Attunement as well.

A huge mastiff, bigger than the others, bayed with suicidal resolve and pounced at him, huge paws extended, massive jaws opening wide enough to crush his head.

Harald swung the Scourge down and back and then up and round, clutching the hilt with both hands as he screamed his own defiance back and hurled himself to meet it head on.

Flickerflash they collided, and the Scourge passed beneath its huge paws to slam into its brutish head.

The Scourge moaned as it unleashed its unholy powers directly down the mastiff’s centerline, splitting it down the thrapple, cleaving its head open, its neck, and emerging down through its broad chest as huge, grapefruit-sized chunks of purple crystal rained down upon Harald’s shoulders where he crouched.

The mastiff hit the ground with a mineral crunch, slid, then came to a stop where Vic placed a foot upon its shoulders and studied its warped physiognomy.

“Harry, darling, that sword of yours really fucks shit up.”

Harald rose, chunks of flesh quarts rolling off him, and turned to see that the battle was over.

His friends all stood. They’d all survived.

Around them, scales were tinkling upward to hover in columns over each slain foe. And over a slain scarecrow appeared a black Diamond Servitor crystal.

“Oh, hell.” Vic raised a hand as if forestalling conversation. “Well, isn’t that pleasant? My Demon Seed has stirred. What evocative language. My Strength just rose to 12.”

Harald glanced up at the air, half hoping his own message was but delayed, but nothing showed.

He grimaced. His own Demon Seed hadn’t been that impressed by this fight, it seemed.

Sam had a hand on Anna’s shoulder, and only then did Harald see how red and torn the quilted armor was beneath it. “You all right?”

“Fine,” said Anna, face pale. “One of the dogs got past my defenses. The pain’s already fading.”

“We did well,” said Nessa, reflexively slashing with the Dawnblade though its length needed no cleaning. “Better than well. I can hardly believe we got through that as neatly as we did. Well done, everybody.”

“How could we do anything but succeed when inspired by Harry’s heroics?” Vic grinned. “Honestly, darling, that leap? We should have hired a painter to follow us around just so they could capture moments like that.”

Harald grinned. “I, ah, may have gotten ahead of myself.”

Nessa stared at him. She’d removed the Master as soon as the fight had ended, and now looked merely composed, her expression haunted, the Twilight Crown gleaming on her brow. “Part of me wants to chide you for such recklessness. But.” Her smile was wan. “We’re far beyond formation fighting against goblins on Level 13. The nature of the game is changing. So well done. Way to seize back the initiative.”

“I wasn’t able to contribute as much as I liked,” said Kársek, a single vertical line appearing between his brows. “Rearguard is important, but my rune is as of yet still too indiscriminate in the damage it deals to be used surgically.”

“Fair.” Nessa moved over to the central statue and there sat on the edge of its pedestal. “But the original plan didn’t account for ten or more Shadow Mastiffs to ambush us. If we’d had to retreat, you’d have held your ground while we all ran back behind you.”

Kársek considered, then nodded. “That, too, is fair.”

Sam removed her hand. “Better?”

Anna gave a tentative swing of her arm. “Much, thank you.”

“Be honest, countess.” Sam’s tone turned stern, the same familiar voice she used when she’d chide him about having drunk too much the night before. By the angels, that felt like an eternity ago. “You have to be accurate, not brave, when telling me about how you feel.”

Anna inclined her head. “My apologies. It still hurts, and is tender when I swing it. But it feels more like a sprain than half-torn off.”

Sam’s smile was hard. “You might have lost the arm if not for my Warden’s Pulse. Glad I was close enough to help.”

“Countess, light of my life, I can see bitter self-recriminations clouding your brow.” Vic dismissed his Artifacts and turned to her with a smile. “But don’t forget, you are but a delightful Level 3. That you are even remotely holding your own on Level 27 is near miraculous.”

“High Ego, excellent Class Abilities, three Ascended Thrones, good presence of mind,” said Nessa tiredly. “Ego 18 not only allows you to withstand the Reaver’s assaults, but have the presence of mind to do the right thing at the right time.”

“I agree with Vic,” said Sam, putting an arm around Anna’s waist as she raised an eyebrow at Nessa. “She’s doing remarkably well, whatever the reasons might be.”

Nessa’s Crown-enhanced Ego of 13 was sufficient to allow her to smile and offer a one-shouldered shrug. “She’s entirely responsible for her outcomes. I was just explaining how it’s even possible.”

“Thank you,” said Anna graciously. “I am learning more with the Throne Hunters in one day that I did from years of training. A veritable trial by fire.”

“Keep it up, my lady” said Harald, “and you’ll hit Level 4 after a few more fights. That’s how far outside your supposed capabilities you’re fighting.”

Anna met his gaze, expression opaque, and inclined her head as if in formal gratitude for his words.

Well then. Looked like his cold shoulder before had worked all too well.

“So,” said Sam, tone turning stiff. “Those are your… Shadow Servitors?”

Only now did Harald turn to regard the twin black scarecrows. They were completely immobile, the details of their figures hard to make out, for it was all glossy black upon black, causing them to appear almost as silhouettes unless you looked closely. “Yeah. I swapped out Wirmas mid-combat.”

“What a relief,” said Vic, moving about collecting scales. “These new ones don’t talk? Absolutely lovely. And hello. Look what we have here.”

The black Servitor Diamond.

“That’s the real deal,” said Harald. “Mine are weaker reflections, but that one should pack a punch.”

“Mine?” Vic took up the crystal. “No objections? Wonderful.”

“I don’t want it,” said Sam, her distaste clear.

“I don’t either,” agreed Anna. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to command something so… alien. So powerful.”

“Wise,” agreed Nessa. “And I’d feel greedy claiming it, seeing as I’m already so much more powerful than you, Vic dear. Go ahead. Have fun.”

Vic mock-glared at Nessa, then closed his eyes and a second later the Diamond disappeared. He remained thus, expression easing into neutrality as he no doubt dove into his Cosmos to examine his new servant.

“And you can keep them both?” asked Nessa, looking warily at the Shadow Scarecrows. “Indefinitely?”

“I think so. Though, now that I focus on them, there’s something… brittle about them.”

“Because they’re made of black glass?” asked Sam.

“No, it’s more than that. Or part and parcel with it. I think… I’m not sure, but I get the impression that once destroyed, I lose them?” Harald focused on the twin scarecrows. “Unlike a real Servitor.”

“That’s a relief,” said Nessa to his surprise. “Otherwise your Ability would be so overpowered that I’d be disgusted.”

“It’s not that big a disadvantage,” said Sam. “He can replace any Servitor he loses with the next thing he defeats.”

“That would indicate he’ll be leaning on more common foes, as rarer ones will be hard to replace. Still. You’re right.” Nessa covered her mouth as she yawned. “Oh my. I clearly didn’t get enough sleep.”

“You feeling all right?” asked Harald, stepping closer.

The old Nessa would have snapped at him, or offered a cutting reply, ending the line of inquiry. This Nessa, however, Crown still about her brow, considered his question with an air of melancholy, then shook her head. “No. Not yet. The moment I dismiss the Crown I’m liable to fall apart. But I’ll save that for when we’re somewhere safe.”

“We will need to help you achieve independence from the Crown,” said Kársek gravely. “Our goal is to deliver it to the angel, is it not? That could happen at any moment.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” said Nessa with painful honesty, her smile raw, her eyes gleaming.

“That’s not what I meant.” Kársek frowned. “I mean that we all need to help you in whatever way we can. You are wrestling with forced revelations that you didn’t wish to face. But there is no going back now. The only way that you will survive this is through the aid of your friends. Our support, in whatever way you need it. The desire for solitude in times like these is akin to the death instinct. You must embrace light, friendship, and dare to share your woes once the Crown is gone. As hard as that may be, it is only through community that you shall overcome.”

Harald exchanged a glance with Sam and raised an eyebrow, impressed at Kársek’s directness and words both.

“I… I know.” Nessa knuckled one eye. “The challenge, of course, is that knowing is only half the battle. The other half depends on strength of will, and that’s where I fall perilously short. It’s not as if I’ve not known how badly I was screwing up each time I did angel dust, but the habit was driven by… deeper forces. Simply knowing was never enough.”

Kársek nodded and stepped over to pat her knee. “We shall find a way. We are the Throne Hunters. We stand together.”

Nessa’s expression wavered, tears rising to her eyes, but then she sniffed raggedly and looked up at the ceiling to blot at her eyes with her sleeve. “By the demons, I don’t think I can handle this much emotion all the time. I’m going to crack.”

“Enough talking about Nessa’s fucked up emotions,” said Vic brightly, stepping back into their circle. “I’ve got bad news. We only made some 160 Golden Dawns out of this whole fight. Yes, yes, I can do the math, that’s 16,000 Crescents, but we’re all Third Throners now. That’s simply not worth our time.”

“Vic,” said Sam pointedly, but Nessa waved him away.

“He’s right. As tired as I am, this fight was all the evidence I needed. We’re effectively Silver-ranked as a squad, now. Harald’s hitting far above his rank at 6th, and I’m moderately more powerful as well. Sam, you and Kársek are also exceptions to the rule, while Vic and Anna are potent in their own right.”

“Potent?” Vic’s outrage was only half-feigned. “I just took a Demon Seed to the heart for you all, and that’s the best I get? Potent?” He considered. “I mean, I have been called that before. By various ladies in various compromising situations—”

“So?” Sam spoke loudly over him. “We’re heading down to the 28th?”

Nessa glanced at Harald. “I think so?”

Harald nodded. “I… I mean, this is probably ridiculous, but I think I could have taken almost the whole room by myself. Abyssal Grasp gives me an incredible source of endless power, and the Scourge can take down even tough opponents like the scarecrows with one blow. Add in the Goldchops and my new Servitors, and I think we’re definitely too powerful for this floor.”

“Harry, you were mucking around here when you were just 1st Level,” said Vic. “Of course you’re too powerful now.”

“And the Fallen Angel’s taken note,” said Nessa soberly. “We keep this up, we might trigger a Shuddering.”

“That’s possible?” asked Anna.

They all nodded.

“So down we go to the Eternal Tower,” said Vic. “Good. I need more opportunities to challenge myself.”

“You really have changed,” said Sam. “That didn’t even sound ironic.”

“Because, darling, it wasn’t. Remember that hunger Harald used to annoy us with before? Well, I’m getting a taste of it myself.”

“Then we’re agreed,” said Harald. “We find a well or portal to the 28th.”

More nods all round.

“Check your gear,” said Nessa, tone firming with authority as she slipped off the pedestal. “Drink some water, but not too much. We’ll—” She cut off abruptly, eyes widening in alarm as she tensed and took a step back.

“Nessa?” The Scourge was instantly in his hand, the Goldchops overhead, but shadowed scarecrows turning slowly to seek an enemy. “What’s wrong?”

Nessa dry swallowed, clearly taking a moment to master herself, then raised her hands. “It just broke,” she whispered. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

And in her hands appeared the Disc of Hollow Watchers. Or its two halves, for something, somehow, had snapped it in twain.