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The rain had all of a sudden ceased to fall and the sky cleared. It had not been a natural storm, Cassida suspected, though such corruption had been unheard of for millennia. Cassida Rane blinked up at the sky, his shirt sodden and loose on him, hanging like an extra skin from his shoulders. He felt the warmth of the sun on his cheeks and was calm for a handful of heartbeats.
‘Malanor! Deal with her,’ Tiberius’s voice shattered Cassida’s calm. Athena was still out there facing off against Malanor. Mage Hunter against Mage Hunter.
The distant din of steel on steel cascaded over the walls of his stony prison. There was a break. A mumbled comment. A wheeze. And, finally, a wet thud.
Tiberius gasped, swore, and roared some phrase chewed with so much rage that Cassida thought he had spoken in a foreign tongue. There was a rush of air that whistled over the open roof of Cassida’s prison. A scream. A laugh.
Cassida Rane smiled. Such rage meant only one thing, Athena had emerged victorious in her duel, though what good it would do them he didn’t know. In fact it would probably lead to little more than a more painful death for his apprentice but regardless, he was proud of her even if it had been against a Mage Hunter.
‘There they are!’ someone shouted. The voice was unfamiliar to Cassida Rane, though it was certainly a young and eager man. ‘Master Cassida Rane was right, the Grand Master is a mage!’
‘Then he is no Grand Master,’ the stalwart voice of Kristof Galahan thundered. ‘To arms Mage Hunters and fell your prey!’
A battle cry erupted, though Cassida could not figure how many made up the party of Mage Hunters. He hoped their ranks had swelled but he doubted it. Something about Tiberius’s manner told him whoever remained in the Castrum was untrustworthy and, or, incapable of meaningful assistance.
The ground rumbled a great deal. The moist air became dry within a heartbeat and a fresh storm settled over Cassida’s stony prison. A deafening dull screeching warbled around Cassida. He searched around until he found one of the walls had sank into the ground about a foot. He ran at the wall, hoping it was loose, and barged it with his shoulder. He hit the wall with an unmoving thud. He shouted soundlessly and rolled his shoulder, loosening the pain. Screams rang out beyond the walls, steel clashed with steel, and sounds of thunder echoed all around.
The plinths of rock shuddered, shaking a scattering of pebbles and gravel from themselves. They sank a little more, becoming slanted and parting at the corners. Cassida ran to peek out, to see if he could spy anything, but all he could make out were figures he didn’t recognise fighting and dying to a great swathe of corruption pouring out of Katriona Evershard’s and Tremlor Aralius’s Foci. The ring and the skull unpicking the weave of creation one mote at a time. A woman stumbled and then fell as horseshoes erupted from the ground ahead of her, catching her boots as she ran. Vines of leather burst forth like eager worms, undulating in the air, before collapsing across her and burrowing into the ground. She squirmed but a hundred leather belts held her down, the final one slithering across her neck, piercing the ground with eerie slowness and then tightening. Her screams died, her writhing became violent. There was a click, and she was still.
Cassida ran to another gap in his prison to see Ophelia’s crystalline tower was melting. He could see little through the misted glass-like structure but it appeared she was low to the ground, unmoving.
‘Care you do not over exert,’ Tiberius called out.
Katriona sent a flood of hornets at Naran Ulgar, he threw his hood over his head, turned his back to them, and crouched. The hundreds of vicious insects rammed into back, exploding into a fine grey powder. He rose and continued his charge. The mage woman sent conjured a sphere of water around his head, without missing a step he reached inside his greatcloak and found a stake of ankacite. He inserted it into the bubble and the swirling orb of water popped, splashing harmlessly to the ground.
Cassida Rane could reach an arm through the gap in his prison now. He clawed at the stone and found it came away in his hands as dusty clumps. He took his sword and struck the rock. The dry stone burst into sand. Cassida shimmied through the opening.
Athena was already free of her cage and she was advancing on Tiberius with haste. Tiberius swung his sword and a whip of fire leapt from the fake ankacite. Athena swatted the fire away with her own sword, the flames dying on impact and her sword flashing a pale blue as it negated the corruption.
Tremlor Aralius held out his golden skull, the eyes flaring crimson, and a host of purple-black streaks dripped out from between the teeth with a crackling wheeze. The tadpole like blurs flitted toward Tokvil Astercain, swimming around the young Mage Hunter faster and faster until they formed a banded nest around him. He slashed at the shapes but missed the actual things themselves. The young man went limp, sword slipping from his hand.
Cassida Rane reached inside his greatcloak for a handful of caltrops and tossed them at his ally. One of the blurring discs vanished but the other seven remained. Tokvil rocked on his heels. A mist escaped his ears and the man fell to the ground, landing with a dull thud, motionless.
Tremlor’s eyes darted to Athena. ‘Tremlor! Care! She has…’
Athena reached inside her sleeve pocket and armed herself with the ancient teardrop shaped crystal. She slashed with her sword, forcing Tiberius to deflect with his own, and then lunged for the Grand Master’s neck with the crystal, the sharp end of the teardrop of infinite shapes bit into the man’s neck. He winced, hissed, then staggered back, palming his neck beading with blood. ‘What… was that?’
Tremlor’s arms dropped to his side, ‘No…’ his voice barely a whisper.
Tiberius staggered forward, swiping the air lazily. Athena sidestepped the strokes with ease and moved in, jabbing the odd shaped crystal into his neck again. This time the crystal drank the blood, the life force flooding the crystal like a mist. ‘It cannot be,’ Tiberius uttered as he saw what Athena held. He staggered away, his eyes turned black and he fell backwards, dead and soulless, his body a withered husk.
Cassida Rane felt joy mix with nausea at having seen such a sight.
Athena held the teardrop shaped crystal to the sky, the blue jewel now a brilliant red. ‘It worked,’ she uttered.
‘You beast! You inhuman monster!’ Tremlor Aralius shrieked, froth bubbling between his teeth. ‘I will destroy you!’ he raised the gold skull and aimed it at Athena. The eye sockets flared with black fire, flickering white at the edge, and a flood of twisted sprites like fiery tadpoles rushed forth. The ground beneath Tremlor lightened in colour. as the moisture. was drawn from it, the hard earth cracked.
Cassida Rane dove in front of the sprites. The flames skittered across his body, drawn to him by something, and they swirled about him turning the air cold and misted. Cassida tried to escape, tried to swat them with his arming sword, but they were too fast and too numerous.
Athena turned to Tremlor and Katriona. She charged at them, sword in one hand, bloodied crystal in the other.
‘I think you’ve slain enough of our kind,’ Katriona Evershard said. She drew her hand back and waved the earth to rise beneath Athena in explosive gouts and sudden towering pillars that split the ground and sent dust raining down upon them all.
Athena screamed and was lost amidst the pillars and dust.
Cassida rolled on the ground, the sprites gnawing at him but leaving no marks. He felt himself splinter apart, as if the beings feasted on his soul. He drew a knife from his belt and slashed at the sprites when he could, the blade bit into one and there was nothing but a pile of black ash left behind. Neutralising one was not enough. The remaining worms gnawed at his neck, his ears, his ankles, his hands, anywhere they could get too.
Naran Ulgar swung at Katriona, the flash of ankacite distracting her from her attempt on Athena’s life. The ground lay still, the dust settled, and Athena emerged, grey and brown from head to toe but alive. Katriona had a long knife in her hand, deflecting Naran Ulgar’s clumsy swings.
Tremlor leaned on his knees with his elbows, panting, ‘Too much. Too much.’ His lips were cracked, his skin sallow. ‘Katriona, we… we.’
‘We need to leave,’ she flicked her knife at Naran, catching the knuckles of his sword hand, and ran towards the lowered drawbridge. Naran dropped his sword and fell to his knees, four of his fingers lying in the mud by his knees. He clutched his shortened sword hand, shivering and crying.
Ophelia Dakson stood upon the bridge, alone, small of stature, but impassable. ‘You will not leave here alive,’ she cursed.
Cassida Rane was on his feet, five of the nippers still flurrying over him and under his clothes. One paused on the back of his hand, it was the size of a small lizard, a gecko perhaps. He stabbed it, his sword going clean through without blood or anything. Cassida Rane focussed on the next one, his eyelids drooping. The sprites scattered, slinking across the ground in a haphazard fashion until they faded into smears of grey ash.
Katriona wordlessly summoned. A cloud of black smoke amassed above the drawbridge, over Ophelia Dakson. The young Mage Hunter threw her hood over her head, reached inside her greatcloak and launched an obsidian chain at Katriona. The mage dove to one side, the chain cracking the air where she had been like a whip, her hand resplendent with her Focus never wavering from its target. Katriona Evershard crashed into the dirt with a wheeze. The cloud of black smoke swirled as wide as the drawbridge and from it fell drops of liquid fire, few at first and then a deluge. The first drops splashed against Ophelia’s greatcloak harmlessly, the flame puttering out on contact, but the roaring pelt of liquid fire pummelled Ophelia to her knees, the planks of the drawbridge catching first, then her person.
Ophelia Dakson screamed.
Katriona Evershard scrambled to her feet and dashed past the young Mage Hunter.
‘Katriona!’ Tremlor Aralius cried, the golden skull Focus caked in dirt, his hands grey and cracked.
Katriona ran.
Cassida Rane broke into a sprint after her. Naran Ulgar cradled his deformed hand, Ophelia Dakson rolled in the sodden mud, the unnatural flame refusing to subside. Cassida ran to the drawbridge, the burning beams creaking under the sudden weight. Katriona Evershard was on the other side standing still. A short figure was beside her. Katriona cupped the figure’s chin and embraced her, it was her daughter, Katrine. Cassida Rane remembered what had been said about the girl, that she was the future, a child of the greatest mages of the day. He readied his sword arm and advanced.
Katrine saw him, her young, piercing eyes narrowing. She extended a hand, no obvious Focus in sight, and the air shimmered.
Cassida Rane slammed into some invisible force, falling backwards. He rose and slammed his first into nothing. The world rippled and a dull thud echoed all around him. Katrine scowled at him before simply walking away with her mother. Cassida swung his sword. It struck the barrier with a flash of white light and was flung from his hand to skitter across the drawbridge, the blade chipped.
‘Cassida! Master!’ Athena called.
Cassida reclaimed his sword, watched Katriona and Katrine Evershard disappear over a hillock, and dashed back to his apprentice through the smouldering embers of unnatural flame. Ophelia lay on her back, her greatcloak shredded, her hair burned away, her skin charred. The whites of her eyes glowed against her blackened form but she breathed, low rasping breaths. Naran Ulgar knelt beside her, a wad of cloth tied with a belt around his fingerless hand, screaming for a medicus. Seven other Mage Hunters lay dead on the field, Cassida recognised Rasman, Tokvil, and Freia but the others were strangers to him. Athena and Kristof stood over Tremlor Aralius who had been bound with ankacite shackles, though his hands were little more than stone, and gagged with his own shirt sleeve. Kristof Galahan leaned on his sword, wheezing. His sword was clean but the mere act of standing seemed to weary the ancient man.
Cassida removed Tremlor’s gag knowing the shackles and lack of Focus were enough to stifle the man’s corruptive powers.
‘You have only delayed the inevitable,’ Tremlor cawed. He swayed on his knees, the greyness of his hands spreading up his arms. The skin cracking like old leather.
‘Perhaps,’ Kristof Galahan sighed. ‘But that is enough for now.’
Tremlor straightened his back, ‘What is it to be? Hanging?’
‘No, not a hanging.’
‘A beheading?’
Cassida shook his head, ‘Not that either.’
‘Then what?’ Tremlor’s mouth was downturned.
‘Many, many, many questions in the cells below the Castrum. Surrounded by ankacite with not a cellmate to confide in,’ Cassida Rane said. He said this not knowing if it would happen, he was not Grand Master, no one was. The Chapter Commanders would have to host an election, if enough remained, if not… well such problems were not Cassida’s concern, he was merely a Mage Hunter and as a Mage Hunter his duty was to destroy or capture mages for the preservation of creation.
‘I will tell you nothing. NOTHING!’ Tremlor foamed at the mouth, raising on his haunches. Athena slapped the flat of her sword across his forehead and he toppled back down, a thin line of blood oozed above his eyebrow.
‘They all say that, they all talk in the end,’ Cassida Rane said. ‘We would know every secret you have and everything you know, you will reveal your sources, your alliances, your enemies, your smugglers, your strongholds, your weak links, your life will be unrolled before us to investigate, to question, to prod, to scrutinise, and then, maybe, you will be granted death. For you have slain my friends, my fellows, conspired against the commonfolk, tricked men into slavery beyond the mountains, and, worst of all, threatened to unravel the world.’ Cassida gestured to the tight knit web of colours that the lay across the land, through the air, leading into Tremlor’s heart, into the dried husk of Tiberius, and across the drawbridge to wherever Katriona Evershard had fled with her daughter. A dark smell clung to the air, burning and earthy, that stuck to the back of the throat and made the eyes water. The landscape up to the walls of the Castrum had been churned, sodden, droughted, and made moist again. Any life had been destroyed no matter how small or large.
Tremlor Aralius began to mutter, the moisture in the air around him froze into glittering orbs the size of a grain of sand. Thousands of them glittered but nothing else happened. Sweat beaded from the Archon of All Mage-kind’s forehead, his cheeks flushing, before he expired, falling face first into the dirt. The moisture fell in a single blur, soaking the ground. Tremlor’s wrists were crimson and black in places underneath the manacles. ‘You will not contain me!’ Tremlor’s roar was muffled by the dirt.
Naran Ulgar stood beside Cassida, ‘She’s dead.’ His voice was a low grumble.
Cassida Rane looked away from Tremlor and closed his eyes for a few heartbeats. Ophelia Dakson he had only known for a few days, a week at most, and yet she had fought beside him with all the vigour of a firm ally. Her, and all the other dead, would receive high honours for their part in restoring the Order. He turned back to the Archon.
‘Get him up,’ Cassida Rane ordered.
Naran and Athena hoisted the corrupter up by his arms. ‘You will never see the light of day again, your wrists will never be free,’ Cassida thought of Ophelia as he spoke, the spirited woman in the prime of her youth, cut short by this vile mage and his troop. Justice had to be done.
Tremlor was dragged off, the fire in his eyes fading as he crossed under the gate of the Castrum. The weight of the ankacite would finally be getting to him. Cassida did not know how it felt to be within the influence of that sable stone but Tremlor visibly shrank once inside the walls. The shackles had caused a significant change but the fortress itself must have radiated some force within itself. Kristof Galahan stood beside Cassida Rane. ‘Are you sure he should be kept alive?’
‘For now I am,’ Cassida answered. ‘What would you do?’
‘Sentence him, nothing he says can be trusted. As for our honourable Grand Master he is trapped, I will search for a means of communicating with someone inside a crystal,’ Kristof said with a sneer. ‘Out of interest, do you know where she found such an ancient device?’
‘I do not, you will have to ask her,’ Cassida Rane said, the stench of corruption clawing at his nose and throat. He could taste it there was so much of it in the air. Kristof nodded and shuffled back inside the Castrum. Cassida’s attention roamed until it settled on a crumpled form laying in a pool of blood stained mud. The earth was rust coloured, cracked from drought yet sodden with a deluge of water and blood. Cassida sidled over to the corpse of his master. Ascalon lay face down in the fissured mud. Cassida knelt and lay a hand on his master’s shoulder. He was too slow to save him, too focussed on rooting out the rot from the Guild of Mage Hunters, forgetful of why they had set off in the first place, but for all those failings they had caught the mages responsible, or at least the head of the snake. It was possible other mages still existed as spies within the Guild but they would be rooted out too, in time. If he had been quicker, Cassida knew, he could have saved Ascalon. He whispered his apologies, rose to his feet, and went to find a pyre shroud.
A great many Mage Hunters appeared before Cassida Rane had reached the gate house. Regulars too had gathered. He slowed as he crossed under the portcullis hoping none were antagonistic.
‘What’s going on?’ ‘Have we been attacked?’ ‘Who is the cause of that corruption?’ the questions came from the gathered hunters. Eager heads, young and old, peered round him, through him, at him.
‘We have been, the Castrum stands firm and traitors within our midst have been rooted out,’ Cassida Rane searched the faces of the hundred or so hunters, most were strangers to him. His years in the field meant he recognised few and far between.
‘Where’s the Grand Master?’ a young Mage Hunter spoke up as he wrestled his way to the front row.
‘In gaol. He is a mage.’
The revelation rippled through the group of hunters and the wandering regulars who’d joined them.
‘Bollocks,’ came one voice. ‘You’re Cassida Rane, you accused the Grand Master of being a mage when you lost the election. What have you done?’ responded another further back.
‘He did what was right, what we all should have done,’ Kristof Galahan’s phlegmy voice crackled over the murmurs. ‘Tiberius is a mage in league with Tremlor Aralius, the foremost mage of our time who was gathering an army to his cause beyond the mountains. Cassida is a hero.’ The ancient man leaned on a gnarled cane.
Silence loomed over the Castrum’s gate. Cassida and Kristof stood firm against the mass.
‘Then who is Grand Master?’ the question came from no one and everyone.
‘An election will be held, the Chapter Commanders, if any remain, summoned once more,’ Kristof said. Cassida let him speak, he was the one skilled in diplomacy and the bulk of the Guild respected him.
Resistance melted away, confusion took hold and mutterings about Tiberius. Cassida Rane continued on, breaking away from the group, to find a shroud. When he returned from the guard house the Mage Hunters and regulars had dispersed with some remaining behind in small groups investigating the remnants of the corruption outside the walls of the Castrum. He lay the white linen on the ground next to Ascalon. Gently Cassida shifted his master onto the cloth crossed his arms across his chest and folded the pyre shroud over his dead mentor. Patches of scarlet bloomed through the white. He tied the black ropes firm. Cassida knelt remembering the many years he had spent under Ascalon’s tutelage.
‘Master, Tiberius is in chains. Two Mage Hunters are standing guard at the door to the room that hosts his cell so he cannot talk his way out of it,’ Athena’s voice shocked Cassida from his reverie.
‘Very good,’ Cassida rose to his feet, the cold of the earth had seeped into his joints. ‘We must bury the dead.’
‘I hear arrangements are being made. The other Hunters are uneasy, Kristof has instructed them all they are not to leave until a new Grand Master is appointed.’
‘He’s right, they can grumble all they want.’
‘He’s suggesting they elect you, master.’
Cassida shuddered, ‘Me?! Why me?’
‘Because you are the most skilled among us, it was you who spotted Tiberius’s corruption, you who gave confidence to the resistance, you who trained me to commit to investigating rather than bow to the wishes of bureaucracy. A great many see you as a hero of the Castrum, master.’ Athena’s face shone with pride.
‘I did what I had to do, I just wish more had listened initially and that so many deaths could have been avoided,’ Cassida looked down at the blood stained sheet and the form beneath it.
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Thank you all for your patience. This is the penultimate chapter, the final one will be posted tomorrow.
No matter where we are in the world of men, there will also be strife and politics. Well written