Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 83

The Power of a Bloodshedder

The wooden walls of the keep burned brightly. The gate itself was reinforced with steel but enough of the timber had burned to cinder that Loreli could burst it open with a powerful blast of wind.

Smouldering chunks of timber and white hot iron rained down on the rak defenders in the keepyard. The smoke was thick but Loreli sent forward a gust that dispelled it in front of her. The purple light of her amethyst burned inside her chest. She felt weightless holding all of that energy inside of her. Weightless and with absolute control of the very air around her.

With a light touch of wind at her back, her body shot forward. In easy bounds, Loreli cleared burning debris, and landed into the yard of the keep. Her brain worked quickly, human shapes were discernible through the thick smoke.

Misandrei landed beside her and the pair rushed forward in unison. Smoke dispelled revealing a cluster of tall lithe figures, clad in black hide armour. Theirs was roughshod unlike Loreli’s own perfected dragonhide. There were eight of them in total.

She barely reached to chest height of the figures, but that didn’t matter. Loreli closed the distance to the closest one. It swung a greatsword at her which she evaded easily. Loreli then sidestepped a pike thrust from another rak, and whipped her curved blade up. The blade sliced efficiently along the neck of the one wielding the greatsword.

As the rak fell, she rounded on the clustered group. She pushed out the energy sending a resonating force blast of wind, pushing many of them back. The pikeman to her side came in with another jab but she was too fast, leaping out of the way. It locked eyes with her for a moment and she was surprised by how striking blue they were in the jet-black face. The rak came forward with another jab, a pathetic attempt at keeping her at bay. She wind-slapped the blade away, sucking air from the side. As the pike flicked to the side she gave it a shove of wind.

She pushed forward towards the rak. Her sword flashed out, slicing cleanly across the pikeman’s face. She didn’t bother finishing him. That wound was deep enough he would bleed out in seconds. She turned to see that Misandrei had already made short work of four other rakmen, leaving only two remaining.

Loreli moved to engage the final pair when a noise that chilled her to her bones sounded from within the smoke. It sounded like a chittering screech of a giant insect. A dark shape loomed up in the smoke and, on instinct, Loreli sent a blast of wind towards it. The smoke dispelled away revealing a creature taller than a horse and as wide as a wagon. The light of the burning walls illuminated the carapace and casted dancing shadows along the spines. The creature moved forward on black spider’s legs with enormous claws snapping forward.

What the fuck is that?!

Loreli’s wind blast had done nothing to deter the monster as it scuttled towards her. The thing moved at a terrifying pace, but Loreli was more terrifying. She pushed at her flank with wind, sending her into a roll. She came up to it and attempted to slice at the creature’s legs. Her blade glanced ineffectively off the carapace. The monster swung a claw around at her and she ducked down. Loreli pulled air into her and blasted up above her with as much force as she could muster. The claw passed over ahead and was knocked upwards, exposing the underside of the creature.

It was an educated guess that the underside would be its weak point but Loreli was reluctant to step under the monster in case she was wrong and it came down on her hard. Instead, she whipped out her blade at the joints that connected the legs to the shelled body. As she expected, the edge of her blade sunk satisfyingly into the rough flesh. It had very thick hide, whatever it was.

The creature let out one of its bone curdling screams and Loreli leapt back. Giving herself an extra push of air to be out of the monster’s range. They had not been expecting these things. She looked over at Misandrei who was fighting another one. They needed Endrin. He could smash these things apart with stonespears.

***

Jaz continued to fuel the flames. The forests behind him blazed, the dragon-oil having given more than enough to start a growing wildfire. Even if Jaz wanted to stop it, he doubted that he could pull enough heat to kill it. Jaz was no longer in control, he was simply the conduit by which the fires of the wildfire tunnelled through to the battlements. He could feel the fires scourge his body… and he grinned. The sharp pain of the burns felt euphoric. This was what his body had been craving for weeks. Pure unrestricted release.

Jaz’s eyes flicked to a shape emerging from the smoky corridor where the gate had been. It looked like a portal into a hell world of ash. More human-like shapes followed. They were too large to be Misandrei or Loreli. Jaz felt the will of the wildfire coursing through him. It demanded more. Thirsted for more.

Jaz felt his lips peel back in a maniacal grin. He outstretched his hands towards the defenders. The heat melted out through his edir. It felt as though the heat was something solid and tangible, anything caught between him and the rakmen would be incinerated in moments.

The hide armour of the foremost rak erupted in flames. Followed by the high-pitched screams that usually accompanied such an attack. Jaz did not relent, he pushed more heat. He could see a red glow under his skin. Veins of growing light. His skin began to char and flake but he didn’t care. The fire needed to be out of him.

The armour of the other defenders caught alight. Their weapons turned white-hot and melted in their hands. The body had a staunchly immutable resistance to direct heat manipulation and Jaz could feel the untrained edirs of the rakmen working to resist his fire. Jaz could press on this a little, could cause an opponent to overheat and feel discomfort. That was a testament to his ability that he could achieve even that much. However he didn’t need to target the body. Hide armour and steel were nothing to the fires of his soul.

A deep shadowed part of his mind screamed restraint at him. His childhood mentor had instilled in him the dangers of pulling too much heat. But that was the concern of mortal men. Jaz had stepped beyond that. His soul had been reforged with the fires of his topaz. He was one with the elemental fury of the world. He had transcended beyond the limitations of man. Jaz was inexorable—a creature one with flame and fury.

Jaz took a step forward, raising his other hand. He drew in more from the wildfire behind him. The flames shrank back to only the green and purple flame of the enduring dragon-oil. He blasted it forwards and the walls erupted in flames. Burn it all. His eyes glowed with an orange red intensity. He could feel nothing beyond the searing pain of the fires. And he couldn’t restrain himself. His soul desired more.

Portions of the wall collapsed in falling cinders and ash, the flames eating at everything. Great plumes of smoke billowed up in the air. He looked down and could see embers in his charred skin. He was confused by this. How could he burn? The fires could not consume him. He was the flame.

More rakmen emerged from the smoke, fleeing the suffocation. They amassed around the gate and Jaz felt the rage build in him. How dare they deny my fire. They were nothing but fuel for the flames. He directed his hands towards the group.

As before, many of them burst quickly into flame. But then there was a sudden and direct draw on Jaz’s edir. It pulled at him as efficiently and maliciously as Jaz drew fire. Like a drowning man breaking above the water and sucking breath. It syphoned away his fire faster than Jaz could direct it. The pure and true rages of the fires diminished from him. Jaz was left with an offensive and petulant anger that felt all too incredibly human. This was not the rage of a god, this was the sullen and perverse fury of a man. He felt more of his fire syphoning away from him and he desperately attempted to retract it.

At the heart of the group of rakmen was a single dark figure, holding something above its head. It radiated a brilliant scintillating light of red and white. He could feel it drawing in everything. It was like an infinite void that drew all the power of Jaz’s fire into nothingness. An all-consuming hunger, stronger than that of his flames.

Jaz fell to his knees. The searing pain of his fire diffused in him, leaving Jaz only with after effects of the pain. His cracked and broken flesh screaming at him all over. He could feel the watery sting of his tears on his burnt cheeks.

He was still just a man.

Then he felt the void pull more. It sucked at his edir beyond just that of his fire. Whatever that light was, it wanted more of him. It wanted every piece he had. Every shred of his soul. Jaz stumbled back. The snow around him had long since melted, then evaporated. The growth beneath had withered and the ground blackened by Jaz’s fire. His hands scrambled on that charred earth now. Backing away from the approaching light.

He could not see the wielder of the light. It was a shadowing form in the face of the brilliance of whatever was emitting the light. It reminded him of the light of the soulstone. An incandescent white with cascading rainbow colours. Red was most prominent. Jaz felt a pain similar to what he’d felt when being soulforged. Only it was different. This was not the pain of change. He was being pulled. Drawn out like evaporating water to steam.

Jaz looked down at his hands. They were grey and shrivelled, sucked of any life that once coursed through him. His flesh flaked away like ash. Every part of him screamed in agony. And he could see nothing but the brilliant light until everything went dark.

***

What the fuck is Jaz doing?! Loreli glanced at the walls turning to ash. The flames were so bright and hot that she felt they would jump right out and take her. She kept the flames and smoke at bay from her with a bubble of air.

She couldn’t spare more than a passing thought for Jaz. She had her own problems to deal with. The shelled insect creature was proving to be far more difficult than she’d anticipated. Endrin had finally arrived into the fray. Emerging from the smoke and striking the monster with stonespears.

She kept the thing occupied and distracted from Endrin’s assault but she wasn’t used to being the bait. Loreli was usually the spearhead of the attack. Endrin was the guardian and shield. This role reversal for them was not something they’d had much experience with.

Endrin was also diverting his efforts across both of the monsters that Loreli and Misandrei were fighting. Every now and then Loreli would catch sight of one of a rak attempting to flank her. They were easy to take down, they couldn’t keep up with her superior speed and they fell quickly to her blade.

The claw came at her again and airpushed herself out of the way. The monster launched itself after her and she found herself performing a series of evasive manoeuvres to flee the damn thing. This was supposed to be an easy job. Kill one fucking hindered Prince, isolated and alone in the wilderness.

This was chaos. These were monsters from hell. All Loreli could think of was Fomori monsters, stories that the temples told of from ages long past. This was not what she signed up for when she became a bloodshedder. She’d never thought she would fight literal monsters!

She dodged another claw swing, leapt back again, and a stonespear smashed into the creature's shell. Endrin had been taking his sweet time on that one. Endrin then followed up with another and Loreli could see the shell finally beginning to crack.

Loreli saw a shape move to her side and she struck out, catching the blade of a rak. This one was quick and parried her next attack. The two came embroiled in a rapid succession of attacks. Loreli was still faster and that precision of her attacks would eventually win out. But she could see the lumbering form of the insect creature shuffling back to its feet. Shit! Come on, Endrin! She saw another rak carrying a pike approaching from her left. Oh no. She would need to deal with the pikeman quickly. The rak swordsman was too skilled to dispatch fast enough.

Loreli’s edir was still focused on both the air bubble and blasting the insect monster off-balance to do much else. The swordsman rak advanced on her, not allowing her to disengage from him. Shit. The pike to her left also pressed in.

Loreli took a bold move, redirecting her edir to windblast the swordsman away from her. She turned to face the pikeman but another dark shape leapt out from the smoke tackling the rak to the ground. Claws slashed and she heard what sounded like snapping jaws and tearing flesh.

Loreli didn’t know what the fuck that thing was but it seemed like it was on her side for now. She didn’t have time to investigate further. The insect monster was launching itself at her again and she needed to airpush herself out of the way again. Why couldn’t these shell monsters attack some of the rak?! She thought bitterly.