Conquest of Avalon

Laura III: The Will of the Wisp

Laura felt the energy of her sword course through her arm, empowered by Volobrin’s sage in some manner she hadn’t had the chance to test.

And it doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance before I need to use it.

Tauroneo’s earthen grip was fast approaching, a ripple through the floor of the cave that looked more like water than stone. Already, much of the ground had collapsed into a sinking vortex of mud and dust, Laura kept aloft only by the flame beneath her feet, draining her life every second.

She barely had the chance to keep herself in the air before a falling stalactite missed impaling her by a matter of inches, the near-miss more of a coincidence than the result of any concerted evasion.

I should have known better. I’m fighting a spirit, not another sage.

Sages were limited in their power, often so heavily that they couldn’t even practice properly for fear of wasting it. And when a real duel did erupt, the magic was a foreign thing, a willful energy to be claimed and mastered, then directed against the enemy.

Though I suppose I’m not really a sage either, not anymore.

Before she could pull back, jaws of earth erupted from the wall behind Laura, teeth closing around her and blocking what remained of the light from the cavern.

Crumbling dust filled her lungs, causing her to cough, and she blinked rapidly in a futile attempt to peer through the darkness.

Congratulations, Laura, you made it half a minute fighting a spirit. More than most could boast, to be honest, though few were crazy enough to try.

Fernan’s friend had done it though, against Glaciel. A young upstart spirit, granted, and she’d done it with the help of countless others, each wielding Avaline weapons… But she’d done it, without even magic to call upon.

The whole point of this was to find an honorable death, a warrior’s end… She’d achieved that now, hadn't she? Still, the thought of accepting this grated… A sorry showing, and one frankly beneath her.

Aurelian had crossed the very sun in the sky, and succeeded. He’d achieved his aims before his death. Accomplished something.

Laura coughed flame, setting sparks of dust alight in front of her face.

The jaws were closing tighter by the moment,, but they had been so large that Laura still had room to move around. And the teeth looked thin. Perhaps even thin enough to breach.

She blasted herself forwards, flame at her feet, then spun at the last second to swing her sword towards the mouth, quickly pulling her into Terramonde’s embrace. As the metal impacted stone, Laura channeled magic through the strike of her sword, watching it catch fire and bounce off the stone.

Not enough.

But the teeth were thin enough that another blast of blue flame sent cracks through the rock. I can loosen them. They continued to close in, but now Laura had the room to really swing, and it only took three more strikes to clear a spot to rocket herself out.

Laura emerged to a dark cavern, the other spirits having retreated to the entrance tunnel. She couldn’t catch so much as a glimpse of Tauroneo, but clearly he could see her just fine, since a massive pillar of earth stomped down from the ceiling above, nearly flattening her.

In the air, she had more maneuverability, but that flame drew on Flammare’s waning power, her own life, and even after everything, she couldn’t bring herself to waste it any longer. Not in a fight like this.

Aurelian and Camille Leclaire had both taken the distant approach in their duel, probably the single fight between sages with the highest stakes that Laura had witnessed. Before long, their swords had been discarded, each duelist pulling back. Aurelian’s light had nearly burned the platform down, blasted from afar, while Leclaire’s water had been called up from the sea below, directed the same way she ordered her servants. Even the victory had followed that philosophy, wielding Avalon’s weapon.

Tauroneo is not a mere sage of the earth; the rock of this cave is not his to command, but a part of him.

No matter her mastery, her training, Laura would never be able to claim the same about her flames, let alone the power of Volobrin flowing through her sabre.

It’s an asymmetric fight. That doesn’t make it forfeit, it just means I have to leverage the differences. Lucien Renart had managed the same in his own duels, to extraordinary effect. Even sages feared to tangle with him.

Why shouldn’t a spirit fear me, the oath-breaking sun-slayer? Feeling the dirt on her lips, Laura couldn’t help but laugh, her body shaking as gusts of flame flew from her mouth.

Why should I lay down and die when I can do some real damage?

Channeling power once more through Aurelian’s sword, empowered by Volobrin of Sunderé, Laura threw out an experimental crescent of fire towards the back wall of the cavern, casting a wispy green light across its path.

Perfect.

Tauroneo was surely unharmed by it; he doubtless hadn’t even needed to dodge, but that wasn’t what mattered.

Laura threw out a flurry of slashes, each sending another slice of fire through the cavern, as she kept her eyes focused on the path around it. These, at least, drew on the power infused into the sword rather than her life, though the supply of it was no less limited. And most of the flaming trails didn’t even reach the far wall before dissipating, let alone disrupt Tauroneo’s control of the surrounding earth. That didn’t matter.

And there it is! A reflection from Tauroneo’s horn gave away his position, a glint of green gone as soon as it appeared. He wasn’t far from where he’d begun the fight, only sticking out of a wall perpendicular to the floor instead of the ground.

As she brushed dirt from her eyes, Laura briefly wondered if he even had any legs, or a lower half at all. Perhaps his nature was simply a torso sitting atop the stone.

Hard to see how that would help me, though, even if it’s true. She had to focus on things that would make a difference.

Testing his reaction, Laura directed her fire towards him, but he simply receded into the earth.

Withdrawing didn’t even stop his assault. Stone missiles continued to rain down from the ceiling, intense enough that Laura could barely keep ahead of it with her flight, as the ground continued to swirl fast enough that she surely couldn’t land.

That was demoralizing, but much worse was the reflected light from the swings of her sword, getting slightly closer each time. It took Laura a little while to see it; at first it seemed like they were just dissipating sooner, perhaps already running out of power, but even that would have been better than the reality.

The walls were closing in. The entire cavern was shrinking, collapsing under Tauroneo’s assault.

There would be no loosening the earth to escape this one. The Grottes de la Merle de Gaume, the caves at the seat of the power of the hearth, sat beneath hundreds of feet of stone. Now that the other spirits were gone, there wasn’t even any reason to assume the earth spirit would leave the tunnel out accessible. Indeed, collapsing it had likely been his first move.

Leaving me in a shrinking chamber of air, slowly compressed from all sides.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the ceiling was only crumbling faster, raining down stone so fast that Laura had to resort to knocking them aside with her sword as she moved, setting it alight each time to grant the swing more power.

Which might not actually make a difference, but I’m in no hurry to risk it. Things were bleak enough as it was.

“Looks like Valentine won’t be getting this sword.” Laura laughed as she looked down at her blade. For all its recent magical empowerment, the sword’s flame didn’t look like it could accomplish anything here. Her own fire was keeping her aloft, above a certain suffocation, but each instant of it was draining her life, and beyond that, it didn’t seem like she could do much to escape.

She’d be lucky if her body was discovered in a thousand years.

Doing the obvious wouldn’t be enough, here, just like it hadn’t been enough for Aurelian to beat Leclaire.

Volobrin is the spirit of Sunderé, always with one foot in his domain. The seat of that was Mt. Glastaigne, if she recalled correctly, a dormant volcano buried under snow all year long. Glaciel had split from him to join the Fox Queen, and taken over most of the south in her name. As the Empire had fragmented, she’d consolidated control around Hiverre and left Volobrin to take it back, leaving his old dominion forever split. The Winter War had only made that worse.

The Winter War! The High Kingdom’s soldiers were hopelessly outmatched in the snow, while Sunderé’s sages matched Glaciel’s ice mastery in kind.

Laura pulsed power into her sword, consciously trying to twist away from the same impulse the flames at her feet were using.

I don’t know if this will even work, but it’s not like I have anything left to lose.

As if in direct response, the fire at her feet sputtered out, her concentration lost, and Laura fell towards the churning sinkhole below. The green tint in her sword had shifted to a light blue, still glowing with flaming light.

Swinging it down over her head, Laura stabbed her sword of ice into the earth, pulsing magic through it with as much force as she could muster.

The impact knocked the sword out of her hands and sent a jolt of pain through her shoulder. For a moment, Laura was so disoriented she couldn’t even tell what had happened. As she stood, she saw shimmering crystals beneath her feet, spread in a circle centered around her still-glowing sword, embedded into frozen rock.

“Haha! Yes!” Laura couldn’t help but cry as she stood, narrowly avoiding a spike of stone from above. She lunged towards the sword and ripped it from the stone, slashing fire towards the edge of the cavern to get a sense of how much space was left.

I can’t believe that worked. Fire and ice indeed, and the latter would be far more useful against a spirit of earth.

Better still, even as the ground shifted and churned, the iced-over earth stayed frozen in place.

A laugh filled Laura’s lips as she began running, slashing her sword outward to cover the path ahead of her. Each strike sent forth a blue crescent that froze the ground on impact, creating her path moments before her feet touched it.

She reached the far wall, still closing in towards her, and jumped, sliding her sword of ice up through the rock and freezing a column that stopped moving even as the rest of the chamber continued past it.

Got you. She blasted fire from her feet and continued upwards, trying to balance the mentality between ice and fire, in the spirit of Volobrin. After one failed sputter, she managed to split the difference, and carried herself all the way up to the crumbling ceiling, a hint of a smile on the corner of her face.

This kind of versatility was what made Avalon’s binders so formidable, and now Laura could harness it herself. All I had to give up for it was my life.

She crossed back and forth, shoring up the ceiling and reducing Tauroneo’s influence across the cavern. He’d helped by making it smaller, since she had less ground to cover, and he seemed to realize that himself, belatedly, since the walls of the cavern seemed to stop closing in.

WIth so much glowing crystalline earth, it was easier to see than ever, so there was no need to repeat the crescent flare trick to see Tauroneo re-emerge, splitting apart the unfrozen earth from an ever-widening patch on the ground, more of the walls cracking into shape behind him.

Now he’s shown himself, we can have a real duel.

If Laura had hoped that would make things easier, she’d been sorely mistaken.

The Bull of the West charged through the frozen crystal floor, splitting it apart and sending shimmering shrapnel through the air in his wake. When Laura blasted herself above him, he lifted himself upwards on a massive earthen plateau emerging from the ground, still keeping everything below his waist immersed within it.

With a decisive motion, he grabbed Laura’s ankle and threw her to the ground, sending another shower of crystal fragments skyward as she landed with a painful thud.

No time to wallow. Have to keep moving. If he could repeat that trick, there was nowhere to run. Even if she could evade him a little while, it was only a matter of time in such an enclosed space. Instead of jumping back, Laura flew towards him, striking his podium with the magical ice from her sword.

And Tauroneo remained atop it, staring her down.

Perhaps she’d frozen him in place, as she’d hoped to do. Perhaps he was simply considering his next move.

Either way, I can’t give him the chance. Laura leapt once again, bringing her sword down over her head and feeling it impact the earth spirit with a metallic clang.

She landed on a patch of crystal and looked back up at spirit of earth, still stuck in place, a shimmering blue crack tracing its way through his left horn.

This time he was ready for her, and blocked her follow-up with a wall of stone that nearly drove her down to the ground again. He then withdrew the wall, without pressing an attack of his own.

Laura landed on the patch of crystal closest to the bull and held her sword out, inviting him to make the next move, but he remained still.

“Stop,” he said, the first words he’d spoken since the fight had begun.

“Are you forfeiting?” Laura asked, not entirely sure how sincere she was being.

“I mislike the sense of this. Too many venerable spirits have perished through their hubris, disregarding humans used as weapons for spirits to turn against each other. I have no desire to be the newest victim.” He smashed his fist down against the crystals keeping him in place, sending cracks rippling through the surface, then struck again, and again, until they were naught but shimmering powder.

Laura left him to do it, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. I came here to fight and die, not to win. If I keep going, that goal still isn’t out of reach. Nonetheless, she held back. Perhaps it was just the exhilaration of the battle.

Perhaps some part of her wanted to live after all.

“I cede the fight, Laura Bougitte, warrior of fire and ice, and withdraw my name from consideration. If Volobrin wishes to kill me, he shall have to declare his intentions himself. I will not walk blindly into the same trap that killed Soleil and Flammare.”

At the sound of his name, the spirit of Sunderé slithered back through the air, passing directly through the rock of the cave wall as if it weren’t even there. “I did not grant this human any power, Tauroneo, though it is telling that my domains surpassed your own. And you failed to kill a mere human, withdrawing in such disgrace. It is well that you shall not be the next hearth, for you seem truly unworthy of this seat…”

Volobrin continued on as the other spirits trickled back into the cavern, all watching him stake his claim on the hearth in opposition to Fala.

Lamante seemed to regard him most intensely, unblinking insectoid eyes staring straight through the spectral green apparition.

They were staring so intently, so enraptured by Volobrin’s speech, and the decision laid before them, that no one seemed to care any longer about Laura, nor did anyone stop her slowly shuffling towards the exit.

So Laura left, not bothering to find out what would become of the Hearth. What did it matter? She’d courted death and failed. She’d joined an impossible fight and survived.

The scarlet light of dawn was faint on the horizon, yet still strong enough to nearly blind after so long in the dark. Her sword arm was cramping so badly she had to bend it behind her head to ease the pain, and that did nothing for her other shoulder, still smarting from her fall onto it.

Scattered burns traced their way across her ankle, where Tauroneo’s grip had blocked the propulsion of her flames, and the entire leg that had been grabbed was painful to walk on, though it wasn’t as if flying would be any better for her health.

Absolutely everything was caked in dirt and dust, no doubt making Laura look like a vengeful apparition, and her hands were too dirty to wipe her eyes without making the problem worse.

If my family ever hears about me dueling their new patron, a marriage with Guy Valvert will look tame next to what they’ll have in mind for me.

No, Torpierre was a bridge burned, even if Valentine might still be sympathetic to her plight. Guerron was no better, home of Fernan and Valvert and all who’d been glad to see her leave in the first place. There, nothing had changed.

Though if my luck continues, perhaps I can somehow survive going to war against them. Perhaps she could even win. Laura knew she was a match for any of Guy’s swords, and that was before this gift from Volobrin. Was it so hard to imagine she could beat all of them, and Fernan, and all his villager friends who’d had the courage to face down Glaciel? Not to mention Mara and those ferocious geckos.

No, that course was doomed, and she wouldn’t even accomplish anything in the attempt. What did it matter if she killed Fernan? Revenge would mean little to a corpse.

Setting her sights on Camille Leclaire would be much the same, a passionate spark of rage drowned in its own futility. Perhaps she could kill the bitch, but it would set Lucien and the entire rest of the Empire against her.

Shit, given how I did back in there, I might have a decent shot against Gézarde. The new sun was a mountain hermit of little renown, who thus far had always sent his sages and spirit-touched out to fight his battles rather than stir himself. It could well be that he was less capable than Tauroneo, though his allies would support him for certain if she returned to the cavern to fight.

And then what? she asked herself, as if the answer to that wasn’t ostensibly the entire point.

Then I’ll be dead. Incinerated by Fala, crushed by Tauroneo, shot by Fernan, drowned by Leclaire, impaled on Lucien’s blade…

If a good death was still all that Laura sought, there were many options — none ideal, but present — and in their own way even somewhat tempting. She’d burned four entire years of her life fighting Tauroneo, she could feel that much. Despite everything, her flame still burned within her for as long as she remained alive, with many a deserving target to feel its burn.

But those aren’t the enemy that matters. They still value our way of life, however cavalier they might be with the lives of others.

Those were fights where Laura could go to die, not having made much difference; at most, she could deal out a bit of pain to people sorely deserving of it, but nothing more.

But there was another war, another fight where the force she could bring to bear could be useful, perhaps even decisive. A fight against an enemy that had yet to suffer a true defeat, who would roll across the entire continent if left unchecked.

It was even a way to honor Aurelian, who’d killed fourteen soldiers in the Foxtrap. To turn his blade against the greater enemy once more, using the power of the spirits against those who’d seek to annihilate them all…

Avalon has no idea what they’re in for, Laura thought, a bright smile tracing its way across her face.