Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 11

Harald ran for his life.

His lungs stewed with infection, and his every breath was a gurgle. His throat was closing up and his body was drenched in a fever-driven sweat, while his vision blurred so that the hallway slipped and swayed before him.

Shock. He felt numb, overwhelmed, and for the first time some part of him wished he’d held onto the Helm of Wrath.

Perhaps it might have given him an edge, but most likely it would have just guaranteed a quicker death.

What had even happened in there?

One moment he was conversing with the urbane and decadent man he knew, the next he was plunged into a hellscape beyond his imagining. The air had grown so thick with pollen and humidity he’d begun to suffocate, the ground writhing and fleshy with living vines beneath his feet, the walls, the very ceiling turning into a verdant womb intent on destroying him.

And Thracos?

Harald stumbled into the wall but kept running, his shoulder rubbing against the stone till he managed to push off. He felt hungover and drunk and ill and all at the same time. He wanted to puke, but he feared he’d be unable to stop if he started, that he’d choke up his own spasming innards if he did.

Thracos had become a monster. A demon in truth. Tall and gaunt and radiating such terrible command that Harald had felt himself truly humbled for the first time in forever.

Had he dreamed he could defeat such a force of nature? His foe had blazed with power, had shrugged off his every attack, had obliviated Shadowpaw without looking, disdained the Goldchops, even taken a full-on strike from Chryon’s Scourge without flinching. Sheathed in bark and thorns, easily nine feet tall, his eyes blazing with green fire, Harald had felt himself a child sparring with his father again, sweating and cursing and knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell of defeating the man.

But he’d gotten away.

And now he risked damning his friends with his final gamble.

Quenching the light sources had been his ace card. Letting Thracos think he’d given it his all, hoping against hope that the man would lower his guard just enough that Shadow Fortitude and Veil of Shadows would allow Harald to strike a mortal blow. And for a second there, when he’d cleaved through that monstrous root that had surged up through the flagstones, Harald had thought he might win.

The Scourge had connected, had rippled and filtered through its toxic alternate dimensions, had sent Thracos spinning out of his green web.

But no.

The man had been curious, amused, and little more.

Horror.

Horror clasped Harald about the throat and squeezed.

But his friends.

Together.

Together they might yet stand a chance.

“Help,” he croaked, fighting to call ahead as he reached the last familiar corridor. “Kársek.” It was little more than a clotted rasp. He could feel tiny ciliated organisms pulsing on the insides of his cheeks, writhing under his skin. Thorns were pushing their way out of his ever cut and wound. He could barely sustain a jog. His stats were down across the board, nearly halved by all of Thracos’ assaults.

One more corner.

Surely he was almost there?

“Help,” he called again, trying to pitch his voice to carry. He felt as if he were drowning in his own living spit. “Help!”

A doughty form stepped into view. Never had a face been more welcome. Kársek’s brow was furrowed with concern, his rune hammer in one fist, his short, honey-hued beard twisted into a single braid. His green eyes flared wide with alarm, but wise and steadfast as he was, he simply stepped aside so Harald could stagger by, and turned to face whatever followed after.

His other friends had turned to him, eyes wide, rising from the small meal they’d been sharing in the chamber’s corner.

“Harald?” The Eclipse Edge appeared in Sam’s fist even as the burning orange circlet appeared about her brow. “Use your scales! Heal!”

Harald fell to his knees, his sluggish, panicked thoughts turning to the wisdom of her words. He’d been so overwhelmed he’d not even thought to shove his hand into his scale pouch.

“Thracos,” he rasped, spitting green mulch onto the ground. “Anna. Compressed World. Hurry.”

He fumbled with the drawstrings of his pouch. His hand was shaking too much to open it.

Then same was there, an Aurora Veil worth 1,000 Copper Crescents glimmering in her palm, which she pressed to his cheek even as she stared past him in horror.

Sweet energy and healing flowed into him as her Radiant Healing forced his system to absorb the scale.

“Khazadrok.”

Kársek’s voice resonated so that it Harald felt it more in the cavity of his chest than heard it with his ears, and a second later a percussive BOOM sounded as the rune blasted rock apart.

Grimacing, fumbling his own pouch open, he thrust his fist at last into his collection of Golden Dawns and set to absorbing as many as he could while he swayed and turned about.

Kársek was giving ground, rune hammer held before him with both hands, as Thracos picked himself off the ground from where he’d hurled himself, a slender, twisted new arm already growing from his ruined left shoulder.

Damn it.

The rune had missed.

Hitting such a preternaturally agile foe was next to impossible. With the Aureate Master, Harald couldn’t begin to guess how high Thracos’ Dexterity had climbed.

Nessa stepped up, the Dawnblade in her hand, her expression blank, eyes wide, as her Will of the Blade aura swept over them all, uniting them in purpose and coordinating their movements. A moment later her Harmonic Resonance layered over that, causing Harald’s heart to lift with terrible, precious hope, giving him the will to straighten his shoulders and face their dire foe.

Sam’s Beacon of Hope only reinforced this uplift, but with a purer, less martial edge; Harald felt the raw edge of his terror subside, and his thoughts ceased their panicked tumble as he became fully present once more, trying to determine their best hope at conquering their wounded foe.

Then, to his surprise, a fourth aura stole over them all, as a commanding presence bid him summon his best, demanded that he serve with all his heart, and inspired him to sacrifice everything in order to achieve victory. Stirred and impassioned, he realized this was Anna’s Passive washing over them all, Crimson Entourage.

With this last, Harald finally felt the ominous and oppressive power of Thracos’ own auras subside completely, allowing him to finally become his own man again, to cease operating on instinct and fear.

But Thracos was hardly overcome.

He rose to his full height, nearly ten feet tall now, spindly and enshrouded by his living cloak of vines, his skin sere gray, his face elongated and crowned with a crown of burning gold vines that cast swaying feelers into the air. Already vines and roots were worming their way out from under the flagstones, emerging from the cracks in the walls.

“This need not end badly for you all,” intoned Thracos, his voice turned into a storm wind bulling its way through the canopy of a mighty oak. “Surrender the Twilight Crown -”

Anna threw her bronze sphere. The Masterwork Artifact flashed in the torchlight as it hit the ground before the Level 7 monster. Thracos’ reaction was instantaneous—he leaped back even as vines burst forward to smother the Artifact, for fear, no doubt, that it was some kind of explosive.

But it was the very opposite.

The space around Thracos grew fey and strange. The flagstones abruptly warped as if seen through a twisted mirror, rising up all around him so that it seemed he stood at the base of a bowl-like depression. The air curved and glimmered, rainbow hues appearing around the circumference of the World’s warping, and the ceiling itself smeared itself down and around, as if it were made of wax and placed above a flame.

The deluge of vines rose and curved up of their own accord, only to emerge from the curvature of distended space in strange directions, their movements suddenly uncertain as their foes vanished from where they’d been a moment ago.

Terrible hope blossomed in Harald’s heart.

A great dome of silvery-white light descended upon the entire chamber, encapsulating them all within its divine glory and radiance.

Sam’s Starfire Bastion. Thracos roared in fury or perhaps even pain as the white light bathed him, and he understood why—Thracos might be a mortal raider, but in his Cosmos he harbored a Demon Seed, making him the enemy of a Netherwarden Knight such as Sam. He didn’t have time to wonder why his own Seed was spared—all that mattered was that their foe was momentarily blinded.

But even suppressed and encaged, Thracos was hardly nullified.

His cloak flew out from his shoulders even as his friends moved in to launch their attacks, its great rippling surface expanding into a huge carpet of vibrant growth, thick and dense and overwhelming the curvature of the Compressed World to burst free and flood the room with its power.

“Watch out!” Harald cried, hating the futility of his own warning.

Kársek was closest. He swung his hammer in an arc at the descending matt of greenery, and the runes on his weapon flared bright as he unleashed destruction upon the falling ruin. But it wasn’t enough.

Nessa had plunged forward, Dawnblade drawn back perhaps with which to unleash a Celestial Strike. She tried to halt, to leap away, but the attack was too swift, too complete.

Sam had remained by Harald’s side, and she summoned her Shield of Valor before them both, its kite shaped face familiar and rising up to block as much of the verdant assault as she could.

The living green tide washed over them all.

Harald summoned his Umbral Aegis just in time, the shadowy plates of steel-hard glass encasing him from head to foot just before the vines and parasites and fungal blooms drenched them all.

Shouts, screams, but when Harald regained his balance, his armor spattered with growths trying to worm their way in, he saw that this assault had at least been mitigated by the Compressed World—the ground was smothered in perhaps six inches of living growth, instead of the deep dense carpet of before.

Coughing, hacking and spitting, Nessa reeled upright, clearly fighting the urge to gag and vomit, and swung the Dawnblade. A single devastating arc of searing white light flew forth, cutting through rising vines of thorned ivy to curve into the compressed space around Thracos, its straight path suddenly widening like a marble released around the inside of a bowl.

A spiritual weight fell upon Harald as before, and with a groan he felt his knees weaken. His Artifacts became a dead weight upon his Cosmos, their very might and presence a liability, his confidence waning and his resolution growing tested. He felt the layered Auras that were propping him up strain under the assault—and hold. Where before he’d faced this spiritual attack alone, he now was buoyed by his companions, and with a shout he pressed forward, striding through the muck.

A vast root exploded upward from under Nessa, nearly tearing her leg off in a burst of blood as she screamed and was lifted up, impaled through the thigh.

Anna hurled her Mourning Thorn, taking a handful of skittering steps onto the pulsing matt of infectious green and swamp brown life. The gleaming star exploded into a cloud of spinning blades and flew with impossible surety into the warped sphere that surrounded Thracos, disappearing into the glimmering prismatic hues and impossibly bent flagstones.

A sphere, Harald realized, that was filling up with living matter that thrashed and fought against the Compressed World’s boundaries. Already it was nearly two yards’ high, Thracos just barely visible in its center like a badly wrenched, oscillating figure.

“Kársek!” Harald cried out. “Sam! We need to coordinate our strongest attacks to hit at once—Anna, on my mark, can you release the Compressed World?”

“Not sure that’s a good idea!” Sam shouted back, moving out wide. Moss or lichen or some writhing substance was blossoming across her arms and chest, little feelers bursting free even as she fought to wipe it off.

“Let me know when!” Anna called, voice tense and low. “I can recall it the—”

The Compressed Sphere collapsed of its own accord.

A deluge of green muck poured out, lifting Kársek off his feet and tumbling him under.

Thracos cried out in anger and flung out his long-fingered hand. Ivy burst up around Sam, slithering around her limbs and torso with impossible speed, thorns tearing her leather and snagging her chain.

Nessa screamed, a purposeful, resolute cry, and leveraged herself up to sitting, using her own pierced leg as a fulcrum, to hurl her Phaseblade daggers at their foe, one, two, three.

The blades passed through intercepting strands of ivy and weaving branches as if they were there, to sink into Thracos with disturbing ease, disregarding his roiling bramble armor and thick plates of living bark.

Then the flesh in the side of her leg completely tore free and she collapsed to the ground yards below.

“Now!” cried Harald, hoping against hope his friends could hear him.

Kársek wrestled his head and shoulders out of the tapestry of constricting mulch and ichor to thrust his rune hammer forward.

“Khazadrok.”

Sam swung the Epic-ranked angel-kin blade, and Judgement’s Light flashed forth, unleashing the devastating arc of divine light.

Harald brought the Scourge around and poured the guttering power of his three Thrones though its length so that a Demonic Edge flew out, the exact obverse of Sam’s holy power, its sizzling, spitting outer curve consuming all before it.

And for good measure, he commanded the Gold Chops to chase the assaults so that they soared but a heartbeat behind.

The giant ghostly rune, large as a barn door, flew straight through Thracos who was reeling from the Phaseblades. Judgement’s Light and Demonic Edge hit a second later, following the giant tree-formed man as he was lifted off his feet and hurled backward, and the Goldchops sailed into the hallway, giving pursuit.

Such was the power they had unleashed that the chamber seemed momentarily deprived of air, Harald the ability to breathe. Throat beginning to close again, sweat pouring into his eyes, he reeled and gaped, trying to probe the depths of the dark corridor to see the consequence of their assault.

Only to realize that was exactly the wrong move.

To wait and watch was to give Thracos time to heal, to regenerate.

Summoning the last of his reserves, he sprinted forward, feet sloshing and tearing free with each step as minute tendrils sought to bind him fast. His vision blurred, and his strength was diminishing by the moment.

But he had to act.

He had to finish the job.

He lunged free of the grasping matt of greenery into the hallway behind, its edges frayed and ruined by the rune’s passage, and saw Thracos levering himself up to standing a good dozen yards away.

What remained of him.

His bramble armor and dense bark was shattered and blasted apart, revealing pink, raw flesh, oozing sap, and fibrous white material that foamed. His new left arm, which had already regrown a foot in length, was torn away anew. Half his chest was missing, so that his organs hung free, held in place only by a net of vines, while one leg ended at the knee, sinews and sap and weedy growths already extending themselves to reshape it.

“Heh,” grunted Thracos, his ruined face splitting into a smile. “Good. Yes.”

Harald hesitated for but a moment as he met those burning green eyes. Was that pride he saw in their depths? There was certainly no fear, no horror, no dismay. If anything, he thought he saw… relief? Pleasure? Satisfaction?

With a cry that tore itself from his core, Harald staggered forth the last few yards and swung Chyron’s Scourge with everything he had.

Razorvine surged out of the remnants of Thracos’ armor to score deep wounds along Harald’s torso, arms, and face.

But it was too little, too late.

The Scourge slammed into Thracos’ elongated head, rippling and moaning as it dragged fell energies from distant dimensions into being, and the man was knocked back, his entire skull bursting outward into a spray of emerald and purple crystals that froze into a wave, a dashed mockery of the demon-kin’s visage, a core of crimson and raw brains pouring forth as he fell onto his back and lay still.

The abyss approves of your bleak dominance.

Your slaughter has filled the void.

By the decree of the Fallen Angel, you are granted the next echelon of your destiny:

Abyssal Master 6

There was more text, but Harald dismissed it for later. He stood swaying over the dead body of his foe, staring in numb horror at the beautiful ruin his head had become. Slowly his body shrank, losing its arboreal aspect, even as the greenery all around them blackened and withered and rotted away.

“Is it done?” Kársek’s gruff call pierced Harald’s shock. “Is he dead?”

“He’s dead,” confirmed Harald, drawing back from the body. “He’s… he’s dead.”

He returned to the chamber. With impossible swiftness the greenery and roots was vanishing, shrinking and receding under the flagstones, leaving them buckled and shattered but soon bare and fragmented.

Sam knelt beside Nessa, her hand over the Delve Captain’s ruined leg. Kársek hawked and spat, then hawked and spat again. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin split here and there as if it had grown too tight, letting blood smear itself and soak into his thick clothing.

Only Anna, who’d remained at the very edge of the chamber, had come through unharmed, but her hand was over her mouth, her eyes glassy.

“We did it.” Harald forced his voice to carry, his tone to sound resolute. His Thrones guttered and died even as he spoke. “Together. He’s dead. We’re safe.”

Kársek nodded grimly, unperturbed.

Nessa let out a soft cry as she sat up, face bathed in sweat, but already her torn-open thigh was healing, Sam’s eyes closed as she pressed another gleaming scale to her leg.

“I leveled up,” said Anna, a hint of exhilaration beneath her breathless wonder. “I’m a Level 3 Thornblade Marquessa.”

“And I have gained a deeper understanding of my rune,” grunted Kársek, plucking a remaining creeper from his sleeve. “A stroke of insight forged in the heat of battle. I will have to ponder its implications.”

“Ah,” gasped Nessa, and then seemed to pass over some threshold of pain, for her shoulders sank a fraction of an inch and some measure of color returned to her waxen cheeks. “That’s… thank you, Sam.”

“No, thank you.” Sam sat back on her heels. “If your Phaseblades hadn’t gotten through his defenses…” She shook her head.

“We did it together.” Harald wanted nothing so much as to sink into a crouch, to lie down, even. But instead he patted Kársek on the shoulder, and strode over to Sam and Nessa. The skin over her thigh was healed shut, but her flesh still looked inflamed. “The Throne Hunters. We did this. Together.”

And in the following silence Harald felt Vic’s absence more acutely than he had since his friend had left with Eclavistra. No quip, no mock-complaint, no droll commentary.

It was as if they all waited to hear Vic’s voice, for everyone remained quiet, until at last Sam forced herself to stand.

“I also leveled. Netherwarden Knight Level 4.”

“I think we all did,” said Harald. “Nessa?”

Who grimaced as she shifted her leg, then nodded. “Yes. Level 6.”

“We are becoming a formidable force,” said Kársek approvingly. “Two Level 6’s, a Level 4, and a Level 3. And my own understanding of the Rune of Destruction has increased.”

Harald looked back at the dark hallway in which Thracos lay dead. It was hard to believe they’d survived. He’d seemed unstoppable, an insurmountable foe.

“We’re stronger together.” He recalled his father’s words to that effect, and felt that truth resonate through his soul. “Together, we can do this.”

Whatever ‘this’ is, he half-heard Vic say, but of course there was nothing but silence.

“We should move.” Sam’s tone turned brisk, though Harald could see the exhaustion in his eye. “This much activity might draw scarecrows.”

“Or worse,” agreed Nessa, tone sober. “Thracos was but a single Silver-ranked raider. There are entire teams of Gold-rankers after us. One of them might be able to detect the sheer amount of power that was unleashed in here.”

“Is that possible?” asked Anna, tone hushed with concern.

Nessa shrugged one shoulder. “Possible? Yes. Likely? Who knows. Better to be safe than dead.”

“Agreed.” Harald took a deep breath, trying to find the reserves to break camp, to move somewhere new, to find a safer corner. “We’ll take… how about just a few moments to catch our breath. To finish healing up. Then we’ll move.”

“Agreed,” echoed Sam. “Enough time, at least, for me to read my new Ability descriptions.”

A flicker of excitement sparked in Harald’s heart. Level 6. Was it possible? Only the night before he’d reached Level 5 while fighting Fosso.

Killing Thracos had impressed the Fallen Angel, it seemed.

“Five minutes,” said Nessa, closing her eyes and shifting back to lean against the chamber wall. “Five… just five minutes to rest.”

Harald slid his hand into his belt pouch and started absorbing more scales. Exhaustion began to slip away, the last of his cuts and gashes sealing over. Suddenly parched, his mouth tasting execrable, he made his way to their corner and took up a water skin.

The urge to drain it was overwhelming, but there was no telling how long they had to make their supplies last, so he forced himself to just take sips.

Then, eagerness stealing over him, he lowered himself to sit against the wall, and summoned his latest updates about his new Level.