Heretic Spellblade 8 - Ch1

Smoke trailed across the sprawling city known as the Aurelian Spires as riots and open battle ripped through it. It grew so dense it blocked out the Gharrick Mountains the city sat beside. The ancient sandstone towers that gave the city its name shimmered with a dying golden glow, returning to nothing more than weathered bricks that stretched to the heavens.

Dark elf soldiers and citizens fought at the bases of the spires themselves, along marble concourses and courtyards, and at the gates that led into the caves beneath the mountains. Ten times their number in human, elf, and beastkin slaves poured out of the rundown buildings, their slave collars disabled by a literal act of a goddess an hour earlier.

Nathan von Straub watched the chaos from the peak of the Jormun Spire, the central spire that ruled the dark elves and the city. Or it had. The only living souls in the tower were him and his allies. Although living might not apply to the person clinging to him at this moment.

“I figured you to spend less time watching, more time doing,” Artemis said, her black cat ears twitching as she stared at him instead of the burning city.

He grunted, magic reinforcing his eyes as he surveyed the city. A voice spoke inside his mind, relaying him info about the Spires and other fortresses across Doumahr that he couldn’t visibly see.

Artemis’s head sank into the crook of his neck and she purred against him. When he continued to ignore her, her eyes narrowed.

He hissed with pain when she bit him. “Were you always this impatient?”

“You’re ignoring me,” she said.

Her tongue lapped at the blood seeping out from the teeth marks she’d made in his neck. The wound should heal almost immediately. For that matter, she shouldn’t have been able to make it at all. Nathan’s physical durability was so high he shrugged off magically enchanted crossbow bolts these days.

But Artemis was an undead Messenger built to slay a goddess. She was also the last vestige of the world Nathan had failed and fled from to save this one. Her true name was Jafeila, and she had been one of his most trusted and powerful Champions in his original world. She’d finally decided to rejoin him, instead of repeatedly trying to kill or kidnap him.

“I’m analyzing the situation,” he said.

“The Spires is on fire and there’s an army of freed slaves burning it to the ground,” Artemis said, voice far too cheery for her words. “Oh, and a Messenger is overwhelming the Champions defending the binding stone as we speak. I’m guessing the one in the valley to the south is also being attacked, but that Messenger is all talk. We beat her.”

The third person present scowled at Artemis. Ciana had held herself back despite her concerns about the Messenger potentially harming Nathan, but the perpetual black glow of her horn suggested she had some less-than-positive thoughts about the situation. Or lewd ones, but the thoughts coming across Nathan’s mental link with the unicorn knight suggested otherwise.

“You say that as if any Messenger Nathan can defeat is weak,” Ciana said.

“No. I’m saying that any Messenger Nathan could defeat before I could use my own head for juggling practice is weak,” Artemis corrected. “I can’t believe they’re still showing up.”

“Messengers are still dangerous to ordinary Bastions. While I can handle them easily, there are few other trigems and nobody else has any experience battling them,” Nathan said.

“Nobody else needs them. Ciana here can probably solo some of the weaker ones.” Artemis reached out a hand to poke Ciana, but it was batted away. “Anyway, you know what’s wrong. Why waste time?”

“Because more than the Spires is burning,” he said. “Within the next few hours, invasions are likely to start in portals across all Doumahr. I need to determine who to send back, and who to commit here to deal with Siv and the Spires.”

Siv was the Messenger invading through the nearby binding stone. Nathan had fought her twice before—once in his original world, and once earlier this year.

Artemis shrugged, either unwilling to share advice or simply uncaring. He couldn’t tell.

While she remained the woman he loved, even the past couple of minutes with her made it clear she’d changed irrevocably. There was a callous disregard for life he’d come to expect from every Messenger.

“You’re right, though. Time spent up here is time wasted.” He turned away from the edge of the tower. “We should rejoin the others and take action.”

The floor he stood on was an eerily empty half-circle of pure ivory, with golden pillars ringing the outer edges to hold up the sandstone above it. Even with the golden glow fading, magic in the stone prevented it from collapsing due to simple physics. The floor was a half-circle because the recent battle against Sofia had destroyed most of the upper levels of the Jormun Spire.

Nathan considered using the staircase down, but a quick check of his mental links confirmed his allies had teleported to the courtyard at the base of the spire. He raised a hand and prepared his own teleportation spell. An eerie black light—not shadow, but light that appeared to drain away all color where it touched—coated his hand.

Artemis bit her lip and took a step back. He paused his spellcasting.

“Artemis?” he asked.

“I might not get the best reception,” she said.

Her tail lashed the ground nervously, and her ears twitched. He could tell she was about to bolt, and he’d lose her again if she did so.

“I don’t care,” he said flatly, and she froze. “Did you come here just to say hi and then leave again? If you’re not going to be around others, then what did you expect?”

She bared her teeth at him and hissed, her tail standing on end. He half-expected her to run off after that.

Instead, she paced. “I expected to shove you in a fancy interdimensional box and fuck like animals. This world is a ruin, Nathan. I wanted to find you, take you, and live happily. The idea that you’d somehow become…” She shook her hands in his general direction. “This! Wasn’t on my mind.”

“But it’s happened. Are you really going to walk away?” he asked.

Her eyes locked onto him with the sort of intensity cats usually reserved for their prey. Maybe he’d been wrong to assume Artemis had given up on kidnapping him.

“I don’t play well with others. You don’t know how many times I’ve killed everyone,” she said quietly.

Ciana stiffened.

“Even you, Ciana. You’re never as bad as… some. Kinda hot how far you go for Nathan, even.” A wicked grin crossed Artemis’s face. “I’ve seen more of our ‘friends’ than you ever can, Nathan. You might fuck them every night—”

“I don’t have that much stamina,” he said drily.

“Okay, every week.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’ve seen sides of them you never will. And coated castles with their insides. I can’t come back from that.”

He met her gaze. Lingering beneath Artemis’s typically manic gaze, and the unending desire she felt for him, was fear.

But he saw no regret.

“They’re different people than those I knew before. Just as the ones you’ve killed are different,” he said. “You said you’ve finished your job. And it’s not like you’ll be the only Messenger who’s tried to kill everyone or succeeded in the past.”

Artemis opened her mouth to argue, then simply pressed a palm against her face. “I still don’t get how you stand that goat who killed everyone. Even if she’s not the one I want to kill, you should have reduced her to a living sex toy or found some magic to make her live every second in excruciating agony.”

“That’s not who I am.”

“I know.” A wan, almost sad, smile from Artemis. “Maybe you need somebody like me to do that for you. But, fine, I’ll try to play nice. If somebody stabs me, I’ll stab them back, though.”

He pulled her into a hug and she tentatively returned it, her muscles tense. Ciana even placed a hand against Artemis, as if trying to reassure her. The undead catgirl shot her a strange look, but Ciana merely smiled.

Nathan finally cast his teleportation spell. The ivory surroundings of the Jormun Spire vanished, replaced by a marble courtyard surrounded by sandstone spires.

Eight companies of his knights guarded the entrances to the courtyard, although a quarter of them had pulled back due to injuries. They wore mixed uniforms of the Royal Knights and Imperial Army, as Nathan drew his elites from both.

A scattering of Champions lay in small groups, although a few stood. Some bore the scars of deep wounds, with bloody uniforms and rents in any armor they wore. Others simply appeared exhausted after the recent battle. Slaying a goddess had pushed them beyond their limits.

Sen worried him the most. She lay on her back, arms crossed over her chest and eyes closed. For a moment, Nathan’s heart stopped. With her red cloak drawn over her body, he’d thought she was dead and the others laid her to rest. Only the presence of the mental link between himself and the sapphire residing within her collarbone kept him from shouting in panic.

Although he kept his emotions off his face, they still roared within his mind long enough for some to notice. Seraph’s and Fyre’s heads snapped over to him from where they’d been talking with Vala.

“Nathan! Get away!” Fyre shouted, her wings flaring around her and beaming with golden light. She drew her scimitar, ready to shoot across the courtyard.

Artemis tensed beside him and her amethysts gleamed.

Only for Ciana to block Fyre’s charge and slam her greatsword into the marble, point-first. Her artificial left arm shined with white light, much like her horn.

“Fyre, stop,” Ciana said, her voice almost like soft thunder.

Fyre stumbled in mid-air, eyes wide. Everyone shot to their feet, including Sen. Uncertain, they held hands over sheathed weapons.

“Artemis is with us,” Ciana said. “She’s free now.”

“I mean, I’m partial to a collar,” Artemis said, but the wariness in her eyes didn’t match the joking tone of her voice.

A pair of buxom succubi hovered in the air above the group, their dresses fluttering in the wind. Both of them stared down Artemis, while the catgirl shot them an annoyed look.

“That’s not going to do anything, you know,” Artemis drawled.

“I can’t get a damn thing off her,” Laura said.

“Neither,” Maura said.

“We don’t stop being Messengers just because we go rogue. You should know that.” Kadria strode toward Artemis, ignoring the way the other Messenger’s tail puffed out further with each step.

Nathan wondered if he’d need to comb out Artemis’s tail for it to go back to normal with the way she looked. But when Kadria stopped a few feet short and did nothing, Artemis slowly calmed down.

“I take it your ‘job’ is done, then?” Kadria asked.

“Yup.” Artemis nodded. “You and everyone else managed to keep Nathan alive. Guess that’s a step up from the ‘you’ I want to butcher and the piles of corpses I’ve gotten used to hanging around other Nathans.”

If anyone had started relaxing around Artemis, they stopped. The reminder that she actively slaughtered countless other versions of Nathan and his allies threw cold water on the idea Artemis might be safe.

“This is unwise,” Tarako said.

Her nine bronze tails fanned out behind her as her zoisites glowed, prepared to unleash her Nine-Tail Slash. Not that she truly would, given the sheer number of soldiers behind Artemis that would be caught in the crossfire.

“I’ll handle Artemis,” Nathan said. “It’s my fault she’s like this. I’ll take care of her.”

“It’s really not your fault,” Artemis said drily, glaring at Kadria. “And I’m not some drowned kitten to be coddled.”

He winced. “I know, but…”

Admitting aloud that he just wanted her back seemed almost cruel to the Champions who fought for him and loved him with everything they had. As if he was rejecting them for a shade from his past that had forced itself into his life.

His eyes landed on the one person who he feared hurting the most.

Fei. The “younger” version of Artemis—or Jafeila, really. She was what Jafeila had become in this world, when Nathan could care for her, love her, and keep her away from the horrendous tragedies that dogged the Jafeila he’d loved and lost.

A confused frown marred Fei’s face as she stared at Artemis. Following Nathan’s gaze, Artemis looked at Fei, then hissed and looked away.

Second later, Artemis blinked and looked back at Fei. The two alternate versions of the same woman stared at one another.

Neither spoke a word.

Slowly, Fei approached. Short, cautious steps at first, as if she might need to draw her scimitar to block Artemis’s. Then long, confident strides full of her typical grace and casual sensualness. Artemis even scowled at Fei, her eyes flicking to the bountiful curves of her younger self.

Nathan might not live down saying Fei had bigger tits than Artemis. He’d be getting bitten by Artemis for years for that.

Fei stopped directly in front of Artemis. This close together, the similarities and differences between them were immediately apparent to Nathan.

Both wore the black and gold Royal Champion uniforms of the Empire. Fei’s was let out a little more in the chest, and she had a touch more fat around her hips, thighs, and arms. Nathan would call her curvier. Her hair was lustrous, long, and in excellent care despite the recent battle. Which made sense given they’d just come from a wedding.

Artemis looked older, and not just because she was. Her green eyes held a weariness and an edge of something Nathan could only describe as darkness against Fei’s bubbly innocence. She even had a quarter-inch on her younger self. And where Fei had curves, she had lean muscle. A life of constant battle and labor meant Artemis’s build reflected Sunstorm’s more so than Fei’s, save for the massive tits.

Fei held up a hand, as if hesitantly reaching out for Artemis.

Finally realizing what was going on, Nathan said, “Wait, don’t touch—”

Artemis grasped Fei’s hand with her own, and the two catgirls laced their fingers together while staring into each other’s eyes.

They stood there, unmoving save for their breathing and blinking. No sweat poured off them. They didn’t fall into seizures or grasp their heads in a sudden outburst of horrific pain as Nathan and Fei had experienced when interacting with their alternate selves previously.

“How? What?” he asked, confused.

Even when Oliver, his alternate self in this world, had changed enough to no longer cause pain on sight, Nathan had still suffered a brief bout of pain when he’d struck the other man.

To make matters more confusing, their gems flickered with strange colors. Fei had three sapphires in her collarbone, and Artemis three amethysts. Even as a Messenger, Artemis still used her old Champion abilities, presumably powered by her contract with her former employer.

Nathan idly wondered who would power them now. Would it be like the Twins and Kadria where they drew strength from the binding stones through him?

But the immediate issue was that Fei’s and Artemis’s gems were changing colors. Both women had sapphires and amethysts at the same time, and they changed every second.

“This would be a nice time to say something so I don’t think that you’re merging,” Kadria said.

“We’re not merging,” Artemis said. “I already got the last of Fei’s memories when we fought at Tervuis’s Ford.”

“And I’ve gotten… enough of yours from eating Sofia’s magic.” Fei shot Nathan an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I was doing it on purpose. Each time, I felt like I could understand more about her. That maybe I could help you get her back. Because I know—”

Artemis let go of Fei’s hand and instead pulled her cheeks. The younger catgirl squawked and tried to push the Messenger away, but was powerless against the far stronger woman.

“This is what makes you so annoying. You knew Nathan wanted me, even though he already had you, and you weren’t trying to murder me and hide the body?” Artemis clicked her tongue as she let go of Fei. “This is why I couldn’t kill you and replace you. I don’t think I was ever this innocent.”

“You had to be.” Fei pouted.

“Don’t use logic on me.”

“I didn’t know Fei could even use logic,” Sen joked.

Both catgirls glared at Sen, and she winced.

“Okay, gonna take a while to get used to that,” Sen mumbled while scratching the back of her neck.

Nathan still remained confused. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s something we can worry about later,” Laura said. “Especially as the kitty is already linked to you.”

“Yeah. I finally felt it when they did the light show with the gems,” Maura said. “Not that it was a big deal. With Sofia gone, we have all the time in the world to deal with the binding stone Artemis claimed. Just need to deal with the invasions and—”

A link? Nathan checked and felt a mental tether connecting him to Artemis. One he hadn’t formed.

Only it felt nothing like any tether he’d ever created. Almost like a shadow of a tether hovering alongside Fei’s. He’d need to investigate that later. Especially as he did need to worry about Artemis’s power source.

“Sofia’s not gone,” Nathan said.

Silence. Artemis backed away from Fei and drummed her fingers against her thigh in boredom, while staring up at the mountains. Her eyes locked onto the cliffside exit from the nearby portal.

“Run that by me again?” Maura asked.

“I felt her die, Nathan,” Fyre said. “The Spires are mine. When Sofia died, the belief in Omria coalesced into me.”

He frowned and looked at Artemis.

“Uh, I don’t know the details. But she’s definitely alive.” Artemis raised her hands. “That big armored guy went to say hi to her wherever she resurrected herself.”

“Resurrect? That’s…” Kadria’s face paled. “No. No, no, no!” Her hands shot to her horns, which darkened. “I was played the entire time? Did Atlas feed everything I researched about the goddess and the places of power back to that monster, and just throw me to the wolves?”

The Twins lowered to the ground, their expressions grim.

“Uh, kinda want to kick her while she’s down, but it’s getting pathetic at this point,” Laura said.

“Yeah. Especially as I have no clue what’s going on.” Maura scratched her head.

Artemis opened her mouth to answer, but Nathan poked her with mental magic to keep her silent. Her face turned bright red in response, cat ears and tail flattening.

“Don’t do that,” she whined, looking at him while pressing her fingertips together. “Do you have any idea how massive your mental presence is? I’m not used to it.”

He stared at her. For once, she didn’t seem to be joking.

Apparently something about his mental magic got her hot and bothered. He made a note of it.

“We can worry about the reason Sofia is back later. For now, it’s more about handling the immediate aftermath of this battle,” Nathan said.

“Like I said earlier, that’s easy,” Artemis said.

“No, it’s not,” Seraph interrupted. “Fei knows that. I would have thought you would have as well.”

Fei puffed her chest out, while Artemis rolled her eyes.

“I’m not sure if you know me—” Seraph began to say.

“I do,” Artemis said. “Not well, but I’ve bumped into you enough to know that you’re basically Narime without the ego and a fetish for being fucked under and on top of desks.”

Seraph blinked. Then she blinked again. “I don’t think that’s a fetish. It’s more just where I happen to be when Nathan visits me.”

“Well, try to fuck him in different places.”

Realizing she’d been drawn into Artemis’s rhythm, Seraph shook her head. “Then you know I handle military affairs. Fyre’s already mentioned that the fallout from the battle is much worse than feared. The entire continent is at risk. Within hours, there may be breaches across all of Doumahr. Those hours are all the time we have to regroup, plan, and distribute ourselves across countless binding stones.”

“The Spires are burning,” Astra said, her expression hard.

“We’re not abandoning the city,” Nathan said, heading off any arguments. “But Seraph is right. Not everyone needs to be here. Last time we lost days quelling the riots because we lacked the ability to handle them and Messengers were a massive threat. It’s different now. Fyre?”

The prophet looked at him, but appeared distracted.

“Can you try to rein in the slaves?” he asked.

She bit her lip. “I can try, but…” Fyre looked at Astra, who looked away. “This is the dark elves reaping what they sowed. I can’t magic away their fury, even if I promise to take them away. How many of them view this city as their own?”

Damn. He’d worried that might be the case. Sofia had whipped the slaves into too much of a frenzy to easily stop.

Which left him with two options, both horrible.

Looking at the Twins, he finally forced himself to choose the lesser evil they’d offered last year to solve a different problem.

“Maura, Laura, help Fyre calm the slaves down and keep the dark elves from slaughtering them in retaliation,” he said.

“Uh, you mean by…?” Maura twirled a finger around the side of her head.

“Yes. But without completely warping their minds. I don’t want a slave army, I just want an end to the riots that doesn’t end in a massacre. If I have to come back and teleport half a city away later, I’ll do it, but this will have to do for now.”

The Twins nodded.

Everyone else held their tongue about his decision. Astra likely had the worst opinion of his decision, but the alternative was the outright slaughter of half the city’s population. Nathan doubted she wanted him to ask her to justify why the dark elves should live and the slaves should die.

“What about Siv?” Vala asked. “She’s invading right now.”

Artemis snorted. “You just killed a goddess, even if she came back. Hardly a worry.”

Narime and Seraph shot Artemis concerned glances.

“I actually agree,” Nathan said. “We held back against Siv last time out of concern that defeating her with the help of the Twins might destroy relations with Trafaumh. There’s no reason to hold back this time. I’ll take Artemis, Ciana, and Kadria. Everyone else will head back to Straub through Reine’s portal and either rest up, heal, or begin planning where to go next.”

When Astra opened her mouth to argue, he headed her off.

“The binding stone in Forselle Valley is in danger, too, Astra,” he said. “If you want to help your people, go defeat the Messenger there. But I imagine Dmitri might need your presence to help with the Champions near the Houkeem Desert. I’ll need to find the dark elf Bastions, but it’s possible one or even both have fallen.”

Astra closed her eyes. Seconds passed.

“I understand,” she said.

With the hardest decisions made and no fights breaking out, Nathan asked Reine to create a portal back to Straub, where she was hiding out after the wedding had been interrupted.

He remained in the courtyard, watching as his knights began to retreat to the portal and pull out. Fyre and the Twins fluttered away, flying toward the battles howling from elsewhere in the city. Without Sofia, waves of summoned knights no longer threatened the Spires and the Falmirian soldiers were almost all dead. The slaves would slowly but surely fall to dark elf soldiers, but as they did, they’d burn the city to the ground.

The ground rumbled and Nathan knew that the battle between the slaves and soldiers might not matter for very long. An ear-splitting boom rocked the city, sending ripples through the air.

Flames gushed out from the side of the Gharrick Mountains, high above the city sprawl. Nathan knew that a huge cavern separated the cliffside platform and the portal entrance. There could only be one cause for the explosion.

Siv had breached the Spires’ portal. Nathan was too late to help the dark elves stop the Messenger invasion, and he instead needed to plug the impending swarm of demons that would pour out from the mountainside.

- - - - -

Commentary: We're back and jumping right into it. The nature of the opening and the book means I'm skipping a lot of reintroductions etc. They take a lot of time and slow stuff down immensely, so if you need a reminder of appearances etc, there's a reason the book has a character list. Especially as it feels like a lot of people are rereading the earlier books anyway.

Artemis is going to demand a bit of screentime, and it helps that the Spires isn't actually the biggest threat at the moment (Nathan has put down riots here before and it's not like he hasn't crushed Siv the moment she breached 3 books ago). It makes for a good excuse to shuffle a lot of the cast away and minimize the sheer amount of characters being handled at once, particularly as things will be hectic for while.