XXVII: Live With Eldritch Magicks

"I don't know how you're doing it, but I commend your ability to fight my soul fire. Still, young Thunder Watcher, from the moment I saw your pathetic little form sitting high and mighty atop that great orange pillar, you were truly marked for death," Baroth says. "This is inevitable. Do not fight it. It will do you no good — make the pain even worse." 

The sky, the forest, Katal itself turns black, white, and gray — all color is sapped and drained. I struggle on the ends of the antler, trying to pull myself out. Noticing this, Baroth extends his antlers out and branches them excessively, making it so that multiple antler-points dig into my insides. 

I scream. 

I try delivering a backwards kick with lightning, trying to recreate my previous escape from this position. But he is too far out. I try lobbing lightning behind me, yet other antlers penetrate my arms, my hands. One antler slaps me so hard in the back that my vision gets blurred. Another strikes me across the jaw, breaking off a few teeth. One particular tooth gets embedded in the upper jaw. My mouth bleeds. It would take lightning to spit that one out — not that it matters. I am hurting all over. 

This much will break me. 

The regeneration already comes slower, despite being moderately enhanced by my angel dust.

Where did this power come from? Why wasn't he using this before? 

I suspect it has something to do with the entirety of the world now looking like the colors he splays in his wake. It feels as if I'd entered another realm entirely. 

"Actually, on second thought, please, continue struggling," Baroth says. "Your screams are truly musical. I wonder, did your mother scream like this?" 

What?

I crane my head around, fury in my eyes. Upon seeing this, he smiles. 

"I did my homework. What? Did that hurt your feelings Raiten? Does the lonely little Thunder Watcher miss his mommy? His bitch mother? You know, I'll be sure to play with her corpse once I'm done with you. Or maybe, I'll keep your soul on the brink of death, only to bring you back to life to watch me — I still haven't decided. Honestly, I have been planning out how to beat you for so long that I never really got around to ironing out the details of your death. But I've dreamt of it. Oh I've dreamt of it many nights, lusting for it. You don't know little one. You don't understand how much I've obsessed over it. 

"It took so long to get the elk. But once I did, I hunted and hounded, relentless. And then I saw and studied — admired how much you'd grown. I respect your resolve to an extent, Watcher. Oh, perhaps I'll play with that female of yours or that stupid pet shark you keep. Maybe I'll visit Erot and his farm. Damn I should've done that first actually — might've been better. Oh well, mistakes can be overturned. After all," he brings me close to him, face to face. 

His black eyes begin bearing into me. The soul fire catches my soul. The antlers start ripping my body apart. 

"After all, Watcher, I am—" 

I spit out my tooth, imbuing it with all the lightning power I can muster from the thick angel dust in my blood. The dust winks out immediately. But the tooth…

It drills straight through the elk's head, shooting through its cranium, making its eyes twitch, gloss over. Purple blood spurts on me from the small hole. 

Baroth's body goes still. 

The world of monochrome begins to fade — back to normalcy. 

And, we begin to fall, blood flowing in droves as the antlers retract, the soul fire disappears, and I soar away from the elk, losing consciousness. 

…

Sorina: 

"Where is he, Umbrahorn?" I ask. The shark follows the trail of destruction left in Raiten's wake. Chunks of the forest are decimated. Animals are scorched. Ash and earthly remnants flurry down from the sky like snowfall. 

Mist-Cloud follows close-behind us. I ride Umbrahorn for now — just in case we get into a fight. If we need to run, however, Mist-Cloud is the mount I'll take. 

"He should be… right here. What the —" Umbrahorn begins looking around. No, I realize. Did his trail end? 

Earlier, from afar, we witnessed Raiten's crimson lightning clash against blue soul fire. It was a harrowing sight — something straight out of a martial children's tale in Sorayvlad or a folk song in Catolica. 

We followed that trail only to find nothing. A desolate clearing — the trees around us turning to ash, burning away. 

The eye of the forest, as one might call it. 

"Sniff again!" I tell the shark. He gives me a side-glare. 

"It doesn't work like that. I'm telling you, my senses are very keen and they tell me —" 

Something big and hefty thumps right in front of us, startling both Umbrahorn and I. The shark rears up and throws me off its back in surprise. 

I roll to the left and unsheath my dagger, pouncing on our foe. 

It's an elk. Or… some hellish creature made to resemble an elk. Eight black eyes. Four clawed hooves, four regular ones. Giant, imposing antlers. One angel wing. One devil wing — now half burnt off. 

And a hole through its head. 

"It's dead," I mutter. 

"Is it? Are you sure?" Umbrahorn asks. I look at him, surprised to find him hiding behind Mist-Cloud of all things. 

"Umbrahorn?" 

"Check again! I'm telling you, check!" The shark yells. Shrugging, I take my knife and slit it across the elk's throat. Purple blood drains out, sticky and viscous —more so than normal blood. It's almost like honey. 

"Why are you so afraid? Do you know what this is?" I ask. 

He doesn't answer. I've never seen the prideful spirit like this. It should be amusing— yet it feels more disconcerting. 

Before I can press him, minor wind spirits surge around me. I consider asking the little sprites what happened, but instead, they start whispering frantically. 

"Run, run, run! They are coming. The soldiers are coming!" They yell. 

"Who?" I whisper. With sprites, you have to whisper — lest you blow them away. They can't be seen by the naked eye, so spirit mancers sometimes employ them as spies — though apparently they are fickle and hard to control. 

"Catolica, Catolica!" They hiss. "Catolica, Catolica!" They say it like a mantra now. 

Then, they soar away, riding the wind currents. 

I have a quick mental debate with myself: fight or flee? I look at Umbrahorn, shaking like a little boy in his first battle. With a sigh I make a decision. 

"Umbrahorn, we have to go! Let's hide behind the treeline, up the hillock. At least then we can nab a look at our enemies." 

'Enemies' I call them. Yet Catolica used to be my home. Your home that now steals from plague-bearing free villages, I remind myself. 

"What about the elk—"

"Leave it, let's go!" That snaps Umbrahorn out of his fear spell, for a moment at least. We ride up and off towards the hillock, my eyes fixed back on that dead elk. There's something so… wrong about it. Even its corpse is menacing. 

As soon as we reach the crest of the wooded hill, I spot Catolica troops moving into the clearing that we left. About two dozen men filter in, dressed in drab kilts and red gambesons. Front-runners — scouts. I recognize the regiment type from my father's old troop. 

They hold their weapons out to the elk and prod it with their metal, poking some new holes into the beast. One of the men kicks it. Nothing. Then, an angry looking woman shoos the men away and kneels down next to beast. We can't hear them, no matter how much I strain my wind senses. 

The woman spouts some orders. The men snap into motion — a dozen of them go and pick the beast up, heaving it over their shoulders. They struggle to place it on a wagon of sorts. 

Then, I spot something even more worrying. 

"Umbrahorn, you see that, right?" I ask. 

He nods. "They have him." 

In the wagon, slumped over the side railing, is the bloodied form of Raiten. 

And Catolica has him in chains.