Almost as soon as I understood what we faced, the Burnt Rider charged.
It doesn’t do the mont justice, to just say “he charged.” The horned steed Jon Orley rode reared, letting out a terrible scream, then slamd its blazing hooves down on the hill. The hill rumbled. Then, with a burst of fla, the Rider began to tear down the slope. He moved faster with every passing mont, more of those concussive bursts of fla erupting in sequence, emitting echoing sounds like cannon shots, each one seeming to propel him forward with greater montum like so misfiring alchemical rocket. He left a smoldering trail of steaming snow and burning grass in his wake.
“Brenner!” Ser Kross snapped. Only then did I realize we’d all been frozen, transfixed by the sight. Even — why? I’d seen many terrible and supernatural things in my life.
It’s his aura, I realized. The Scorchknight had struck us with an enormous wavefront of power, of pure awe and terror. Not unlike my own ability to compel people with my voice, but done on an enormous scale. The kind of sorcerous might that would take…
I'd rarely faced anything that potent. To be fair, I’d never faced a Devil Cavalier before. The sight before was almost an exact comparison to the drawings I’d studied in the archives of Elfho, preparing myself to face the horrors lurking within the hinterlands of my world.
“Form up! Lances!” Lord Brenner’s roar pumled the air, breaking through the wavefront of awe the Rider projected. No magic there, just charisma, training, and loyalty. The knights and lesser n-at-arms in the village scurried into motion, archers spreading out into loose packs, shieldbearers passing their burdens to their masters, and the Hunting knights themselves forming ranks with their war spears raised like a line of trees.
Hendry tried joining the cavalry, but his father grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Rearguard,” was all he said, his voice a savage snarl. Then he donned his own helm, an elaborate piece with antlers of gently shining elfhorn and a white plu. He took his own spear, a broad-headed thing of ancient make with a black blade. To my auratic senses, it blazed near as strong as the oncoming threat.
The Table ghosts in knew the weapon’s na. Ursinhunt. A mighty arm.
Brenner took the lead of his knights. Ser Kross and I joined them on our own mounts, though we kept a ways apart. Without full plate or lance, I wasn’t much use in that charge, and the knight-exorcist had ard himself with only his old sword, and wore no helm.
The Burnt Rider had already cleared half the long slope, quickly bearing down on the village’s bridge. Brenner ordered his retinue to a trot, and the kynedeer began to leap forward, quiet and graceful in comparison to that oncoming blaze. Ser Kross drew his blade, his face calm as a statue’s, and spurred his lionhound after them.
Before I joined the charge, a thought struck and I looked for Emma. She still stood with the archers and rear guard, her face pale. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she seed to be mouthing words. Her griffyn paced beneath her, clearly agitated.
I moved my own chira over to her. “Emma?” When she didn’t respond, I spoke more firmly. “Lady Emma.”
Emma blinked and looked at . She swallowed, opened her mouth, then drew in a shuddering breath. “It’s him. He’s here for . I can hear his voice in my head.”
I cursed. The damned revenant — and I ant that literally, in this case — hadn’t just struck us all with a broad wave of magical power. He’d gripped the young Carreon in so sort of psychic hold.
I didn’t have ti to break it just then. At least it would keep her back, away from the fight. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
She only blinked at , eyes unfocused. I didn’t know if she heard , but I took my axe in a tight grip, turned my chira, and spurred it after Brenner’s knights.
All the mystery and uncertainty, the mortal and supernatural politics, the fluid moralities in my life, I didn’t know how to navigate all that. But my enemy had placed himself in front of , placed himself in my reach.
I could handle that.
Having fallen behind the others, I saw what unfolded next. The Scorchknight tore down the snowy hill, leaving a blackened, steaming trail in his wake, frad by a red haze clinging to the ridge at his back. Above the hill, that evil rune still scarred the sky.
A fell sight, juxtaposed by Brenner’s own charge. Though he only had twenty odd cavaliers in his retinue, the archaic design of the House Hunting armants and their elegant, almost fey beasts gave them a near mythical aspect. Led by Brenner, crowned in his shining helm and holding aloft his dire spear, they seed a company of faerie knights out of so ancient war. They spread out as they cleared the bridge, their dextrous mounts leaping over the stream rather than bothering with the bridge itself, and took to the snowy field beyond Orcswell. They seed to unfurl as they galloped, forming a pair of wide wings about Lord Brenner, making him seem himself sothing beyond mortal.
And yet, the presence of the lone rider in black overwheld the scene. He blazed with infernal power, burning enough aura that even one without an awakened soul could have seen it. He surged forward, heedless of the numbers arrayed against him, and leveled the weapon in his left hand. The lance was far longer than conventional, practically tall as a small tree, and made all of warped black iron. Cruel barbs and branching protrusions, again reminding of a tree, sprouted from it.
I urged my mount forward, getting the avian-headed mammal to stride forward as fast as it could go. It let out a croaking squawk, not unlike a huge crow, and we gained.
But not fast enough. Jon Orley couched his ridiculously long lance, and the Hunting knights did the sa. Brenner led the charge, so he ford the tip of the arrow bravely closing in on the devil.
Brenner held a far shorter weapon than his opponent, more a boar spear than a cavalry lance, and he seed to realize that well enough. When only twenty yards separated them, he lifted the ensorceled weapon and hurled it like a javelin. The black tip of the heirloom arm hurtled through the air, changing into a shadowy ripple as it completed its arc.
Brenner had aid for the horned destrier the Burnt Rider rode, and his aim was true. Or, it would have been. With impossible speed, the Scorchknight drew a slender sword from the horse’s saddle and swiped it, leaving a blurring line of heat and embers in the blade’s wake. A ripple passed over the fields, sothing part sound, part force, and the severed halves of Ursinhunt’s haft fell into the snow.
An anguished cry went up from many of the knights at the sight of the legendary weapon’s breaking. Brenner, however, only grimly steered his mount aside, moving out of the way of Orley’s charge. Though he’d likely intended to land a crippling or even lethal blow, his throw had slowed the undead cavalier, even if just a bit, thanks to the blast from the spear's destruction.
Lords Hunting and Orley went by one another like two falcons streaking in opposite directions. Instead, the Scorchknight’s heat-blackened lance went through one of the n-at-arms who’d strayed from formation in the last mont, perhaps shocked by the magical eruption from the broken spear. Orley’s lance went through him, and then the man behind him, and then through a third rider—
The world detonated. My vision filled with a flash of fla, just before I felt a wave of sulfurous heat wash over in a sudden onrush of wind. When that blast cleared, I saw only a blackened patch of snowless, steaming, burning ground where three of the Hunting knights had been. Their remnants, along with their steeds, had been scattered across the snow in sizzling chunks of flesh and tal, both fused together by the heat.
Jon Orley did not stop, barely slowed. He’d broken through Brenner’s charge with ease, and now he had an open path to the village, and his true target.
Well, not quite open. I still happened to be between him and the bridge.
The griffyn beneath croaked again and tossed its big head, terrified of the approaching threat. I whispered into its ear, lacing my words with aura and speaking in Sidhecant. Beasts aren’t immune to the preternatural charisma the elves gifted , and the chira let out another croak with less fear and picked up speed. I brandished Faen Orgis, sending a surge of power into its oaken hilt. The bronze blade began to emit an amber-tinted glow, less dramatic than Orley’s own infernal blaze but no less bright.
That blaze closed in on , impossibly huge in my vision. I could see more of the Scorchknight in detail then. His armor had once been very fine, the visor fashioned into seraphim wings, the lines of the cuirass and pauldrons elegant and etched with scripture. Now, heat and fla had warped the armor, stretching it over the body beneath, forming an almost organic mass of charcoal-black tal made all of jagged edges. I couldn’t see eyes through the beaked visor — perhaps he had none. He seed a shadow, an iron carcass left behind by an inferno, his limbs too long, his fra too thin, heat fusing tal to flesh just as he’d done to the Hunting cavalry.
Yet this was no mindless thrall. The Rider couched his barbed lance, his form perfect, his movents decisive. He ca at like the best of tourney champions, that impossibly long weapon intent on skewering .
My weapon wasn’t long enough to match it, nor did I have a mount trained for that kind of combat. I also didn’t much like the idea of eting that explosive charge, capable of turning fully armored n into little more than scattered debris. The Scorchknight was like a living cannonball. More than that, I wasn't sure I actually had a ans of killing him -- after all, he was already dead.
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So I’d have to do sothing I hated doing, and avoided unless desperate. I’d have to use my weapon’s magic.
Humans aren’t the only vessel in which Auratic Art can take root. Objects, locations, and even natural forces can beco host to Phantasm. Many warriors across the world have their armants imbued with power by clerics and mages of all sorts, when they lack a magic of their own. Even with a personal magical technique, having additional powers attached to one’s arms and armor, or other accoutrents, can serve to give a fighter more tools in their arsenal.
The armor I wear, which once belonged to the dark elf Irn Raya, can cloak in shadow and swallow sound. The ivory ring I wear devours parasitic spirits who’d invade my dreams. And my weapon, the Axe of Hithlen, also known as the Doomsman’s Arm, has a hungry magic all its own.
I whispered old words, and the axe woke from its fitful slumber. It was a living thing, in a way, and I felt its presence in the world as it stirred, its own aura beginning to flicker forth. I braced myself, clenching my jaw, and almost soon as I had, spurs like new-ford branches erupted from the uncarved oak the axe’s handle had been fashioned from. Two pierced my hand, essentially fusing it to my grip, and the pain sent agonizing lines of fire up through my arm.
A crackling sound filled the air, and the axe’s handle began to twist in my hand, and grew. As it drank my blood, hungry as any vampire, amber-tinted wood split and stretched, revealing a darker substance beneath. It continued to grow, bending and twisting, grinding and cracking all the while.
Monts after I’d activated the weapon’s Art, it had grown to the length of a halberd, then more. Branches and spurs ford along all that length, the upper end of the haft twisting around the elf-bronze blade, several long spurs of sharpened wood forming a point like the spear-tip of a true halberd. Molten gold burned in gaps and wounds along the weapon’s mutated body, like sap released from within a rent trunk.
I veered my mount far to one side, clearing myself of the Scorchknight’s couched lance. As I passed him, ten feet to his left, I took the halberd in both hands and swept it through the air like I might a cavalry glaive, or a mounted reaper bearing his scythe. Even as I swung the gnarled tree the weapon's handle had beco grew, extending to the length I needed. The shining crescent of my weapon’s blade struck Orley, catching him in the shoulder above his left arm — the one holding the lance.
Light burst into the world once again. The shock of impact went through the weapon and into my arms with teeth-biting intensity, but I kept my mount and kept hold of my weapon, completing the sweep with a shout. Amber embers burned through the air for several seconds, showing the arc of my swing, and the overlong handle bent dramatically from its own weight, becoming almost a whip.
The length of my weapon and the shock of impact caused the griffyn to falter. I managed to get it under control and turn. Orley had also slowed to a stop. I hadn’t knocked him from his horse, but I saw a burning golden line crawling over one warped pauldron and along the shrunken tal of his backplate. He stood there for a mont, both he and his horned horse eerily quiet.
He lifted his left arm. It trembled, and he didn’t seem able to bring it up more than halfway. The winged helm turned, showing its profile from the side, and I felt the full weight of the Scorchknight’s attention on for the first ti.
I’d been an obstacle before. Now, I sensed I’d drawn his interest.
I’d hoped to kill him. I cursed, steeling myself. “You won’t go near the girl,” I said. I’d drawn on enough aura that it escaped my lips in little plus of gold-tinted mist. “She’s under my protection.”
Jon Orley didn’t say a word. He, and his dark steed, only stood there in deathly stillness. Out of the corners of my vision, I saw the rest of the Hunting knights gathering in a wide circle around the Burnt Rider, surrounding him. Brenner had drawn a new weapon, a spiked hamr, which he rested on his shoulder as he glared at the infernal warrior.
Orley sheathed his black sword and took the great lance in his right hand. He flexed the fingers of his left, the sound of bending tal as he moved those digits gratingly loud and subtly sickening. The gauntlet had fused to the hand beneath, forming steely claws at his fingertips. Then, letting that arm fall limp, he lifted the lance in his right hand in a salute at the Hunting cavalry, raising it defiantly toward the sky.
“You are not welco on my lands,” Brenner growled. “Back to Hell with you, devil.”
I caught Ser Kross lurking behind the knights, pacing his leonine mount around the standoff’s periphery in search of an opening. He had his old bastard sword in hand, and looked calmly determined.
I felt a shiver in the air, not of cold. Orley had started shifting his aura into a new configuration. My eyes were drawn up by so instinct, and I noted how the tip of the Scorchknight’s lance almost seed to form a centerpiece to the burning rune in the sky. Possibly a coincidence from my angle of view, but I doubted it.
He wasn’t saluting, or challenging. He was channeling.
The others hadn’t noticed. “Brenner!” I shouted. “He’s doing sothing!”
Brenner growled in frustration. “Stop him! Forward!” He spurred his own mount on.
Previously still, the devil horse turned its burning eyes on Brenner. Lord Hunting's kynedeer bucked beneath him without warning, letting out a cervid scream of terror.
The other knights hesitated, and then it was too late. With inhuman dexterity, Jon Orley began to sweep his enormous lance around him, spinning and twirling it. I didn’t understand what he did at first, but then I saw the smoldering lines forming across the frozen ground beneath him wherever the barbed tip of the war spear slashed, stretching entirely around his steed and extending for several yards in every direction — complex patterns and intersecting lines.
He was drawing a rune.
“Kross!” I bellowed. Then, spurring my griffyn forward, I brandished the elongated Faen Orgis.
Too late. Orley finished his sketching and then once again aid his lance at the sky, almost as though attempting to pierce the heavens with it.
And he did pierce... sothing. I felt it, like a wound in myself. Two realms, two worlds fused together, for only a mont, one gnawing into the other with teeth of flaming iron, savaging it.
And that other place, which I felt for only a mont, spat poison into the wound.
Black ooze began to bubble up from the ground around Orley’s horse. Like shadowy pustules they burst, revealing smoldering fire within, and sothing else rose out of them. Blunt, leathery heads split to reveal iron teeth, red eyes opened to glare out at the day with bloodshot hate. They were front heavy things with huge paws, each near large as a full grown man, their hides covered in patches of dark scale erging tumorously from ash-filthed fur.
Hounds. Hellhounds.
One of the beasts shook itself like any ordinary dog, clearing away the tar clinging to it, then opened its mouth and seed to cough. A plu of fla erged from its jaws, catching one of the nearest knights. The man immolated, and I didn’t even hear his scream as the heat scorched his lungs. He fell from the saddle as his kynedeer, also set ablaze, began bounding away in a mad panic.
A score of the nightmares crawled out of the tar. What ca next was chaos.
The hellhounds began to leap from the sigil Orley had carved into the ground, flying through the air like smoldering shadows. Wherever they went, they brought death. One flew at , and my mount would have panicked if I hadn’t pressed my own will on it, keeping it calm. I brought my transford weapon down, cleaving the infernal beast from spine to chest so one shoulder gaped open. It bled molten lead.
It fell, and my chira went over it. I chopped another, the longer reach I’d gained letting keep them at bay, then had a clear path to Orley.
Kross had beaten to him. His lionhound, previously placid, almost dopey in appearance, had one of the hell beasts in its jaws, its snout wrinkled as it crushed the smaller creature. I could sll sizzling flesh — the creature’s burning blood was terribly hurting the chira, but the knight-exorcist’s mount endured it stoically.
Ser Kross slashed at the Scorchknight, who caught the exorcist’s sword on his lance in a spinning motion, wielding the cumberso weapon with one hand as thought it were no heavier than a baton. The motion must have had incredible force behind it, because it nearly knocked Kross from his saddle. Orley continued that whirlwind motion, sweeping the iron pole in a downward slanting arc. The motion made an audible whoosh, generating a gust of blistering wind I felt even twenty feet away.
The lionhound made a mournful, baritone sound, then slumped to the ground. A great gash had ford across its broad chest, just below its throat, the edges of the wound cauterized by the lance’s heat.
Orley brought his lance up above his head, spun it so the back end of the weapon — no less sharp than the other end — aid square at Kross’s throat. Never once did either he or his black steed make a sound, save for the low crackling of flas and the whistling wind of his weapon’s motion. The Church knight looked up from his dying steed, blinking in mute shock.
I reached them, and in a desperate, foolish move, hurled myself from my chira’s saddle. I slamd into Orley from the side, and we both went tumbling to the ground. I rolled, losing him in the tumble, and managed to stop in a crouch, breathing hard, bruised, but intact.
My armor had protected from the worst of it, but I’d been burned wherever my skin had touched the more fully armored rider. I ignored the pain, adrenaline and focus keeping my edge sharp.
Orley stood to his full, impressive height. Again, in silence, his iron-masked visage rotated as though to look at sideline without actually fully facing . That lodramatic cloak of flas had vanished, leaving him as little more than a charcoal shadow in the world.
That is, until the seams of his armor began to glow red hot and he turned to face fully.
“Pissed you off, did I?” I grinned wolfishly at him, tasting blood in my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue during my tumble. I rested the butt of Faen Orgis on the ground. The weapon had beco most of two feet taller than , a true halberd now instead of the bearded battle-axe it normally resembled. My own blood ran in rivulets down the handle, where several branches still pierced my palm, curling back around as though the oaken haft were jealously holding my hand close. It still grew, though that change had slowed. The grating sound of breaking bark ford an odd music with Orley's growling flas.
In a whirl of wind and embers, Orley swept his lance down and aid its tip at . I could read no emotion in that tal-masked head, but the crackling heat in the air told I’d angered him.
Good.
However, before either of us could indulge in that eting further, our attention was drawn by the sound of a sword hissing out of its sheath. I looked to one side, where I saw a dark-haired, hawk-eyed figure standing in a gap amid the dance of fiery hounds and fighting soldiers, striding toward the Scorchknight.
“You wanted ?” Emma Carreon snarled. A red haze writhed around her as her aura unfolded into the world. Sweat beaded across her skin, and she looked very pale, but her face was set with grim determination.
No. “Emma!” I shouted. “Get back, you can’t take him!”
She ignored . “You killed my parents,” she said, her voice taking on a dim echo as she drew power. “You murdered my grandfather, my mother, my father. You destroyed my family, and now you won’t leave alone.”
Two slavering shadows approached the young noblewoman from behind. I started to shout a warning, panicked, as the hellhounds lunged.
Emma lifted her chin, bared her teeth, and no less than six scarlet pikes erupted from the ground around her with banshee shrieks. They skewered the two monsters, suspending them in the air, breaking limbs as the auratic spears bent them with the force of impact.
Emma swept her sword across the grass, and the pikes dissipated into red mist. The hellhounds fell to the ground, exploding into fla as they died. The last survivor of House Carreon never took her eyes off the infernal warrior.
“This ends today.”
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