[Beastborne: Voracious] (Book 5) Chapter 24

“Ko-maaaah-chiiiiii!” cried the little pobul as a dozen barrels of brew were tossed into the air from the wave of Draconic energy that saturated every building within Brightsong. Every blade of grass, every little fiber was changed.

Elora caught the pobul, stuffed her into her leather armor, and then leaped about the place with enhanced reaction-speed courtesy of Komachi’s buffs, and caught most of the barrels before they shattered to the ground.

What wasn’t caught by Elora was protected by the various dwarf workers who had been apprenticing under Komachi’s Brewmaster tutelage. Brewmasters, as it turned out, were highly respected masters of their craft and more dwarves than could fit in the Town Hall wanted to learn the craft.

It didn’t help that most of them were needed to work on building things, so there was a constant rotation of dwarves who came and went based on which team of dwarves was working that day.

The brew inside the barrels was one of Komachi’s best, and yet it could not explain the sudden suffusion of strength that was making the barrels bulge threateningly.

If just one of those had landed without a careful pair of hands to soften the fall, the Town Hall would have surely been leveled by the force barely held within the barrels.

Komachi poked her head out of Elora’s jerkin and touched a paw to one of the barrels that were being stacked back in the rack. The wood was slowly shifting to a polished ebony hue.

“Are you doing that?” Elora asked her familiar.

Somehow, Komachi sensed that Elora was thinking of her as her familiar instead of the other way around. The little pobul squinted at her.

Then Komachi shook her head, and they watched in awe as the barrels were re-situated and began to change. The change rippled outward from them, turning the stained and scuffed up floor of the Town Hall into a black ebony polished so brightly it was like a dark mirror.

Simple fixtures all around the Town Hall became either black, ivory, or gold. Elora’s spine tingled with a chill as she remembered that horrible nightmare where she’d faced Hal as the Founder.

He had made his stronghold out of black and gold. It was beautiful and stately in its own way, but the similarity troubled her as the Town Hall shimmered with magic that got into every floorboard and nail.

What had once been a well made, if a little rough, Town Hall now looked as if it belonged as part of a grand castle or a city the size of which would dwarf her home of Fallwreath.

And emblazoned upon each of the black-as-night brew barrels was a golden seal of three dragon heads in a circle with a curl of flame between them.

“What is going on?” one of the dwarves asked.

“I don’t know,” Elora said, looking around in wonder at the utterly alien Town Hall. The chairs that were broken were repaired and now padded with leather cushions.

“Everything is changed,” Agda, the young dwarven woman, said with her hands on her wide hips. “This be the Founder’s work?”

“I… think so,” Elora said slowly. She wished it wasn’t. This was beyond Hal, wasn’t it? It should be.

They had all heard the wave of sound and magic that rolled through the place. The dwarves had called it a Trinic Call and spoke of it as if it was something both wonderful and dreadful at the same time.

Elora had no idea what it was, but the moment the barrels were secured, the Town Hall was emptied of all souls except Elora and Komachi.

“Let’s go see what’s going on, Komachi.”

“Machi!” cried her pobul happily.

I’d be pretty happy if my brew barrels seemed to magically upgrade in potency without having to do a single thing, too.

By the time Elora was out of the Town Hall, a sudden rush of air from above chilled her to the bone. She looked up to the sky and saw the dragons, Orrittam and Naitese, moving at speed toward the Gap.

Oh, no.

She sped off after them, praying that the sinking feeling in her stomach was just her nerves.

***

You would have to be both blind and an idiot to miss what Hal was doing. He had practically set up a beacon of light that pointed all challengers straight to him.

Hirash clove through the Manatree’s barrier with more difficulty than he would have liked, but he was through in just a few seconds.

Standing between tall chains of mountains in a narrow valley that he knew as well as the back of his hand, Hirash grinned maniacally to himself. He was finally in Brightsong.

Coppery lightning struck and slashed at the mountains, carving them into manmade shapes the likes of which even Hirash was stunned to see when the smoke and debris cleared.

He gathered up his magic. The false Founder hadn’t seen him yet, and he was distracted weaving colossal magicks that would have blinded him to a full-frontal assault.

It should have bothered Hirash that he couldn’t feelthe magic. This was, after all, what would be considered a Great Work. And yet, Hirash’s anger was so complete, so furious, that he hadn’t registered just what the Founder was doing.

[Unmending Destruction] lashed out of the Archmage’s palm. A pale light streaking toward the false Founder to unravel his very existence.

It was impossible to defend against, and it sought out the foe in question until the magic itself wore away. The best you could hope for was to avoid it long enough for the spell to run dry.

Which usually took half a day or more.

And in the meantime, Hirash was free to cast as many other spells as he wished. The false Founder would have a hard time dodging all of those as well as the [Unmending Destruction]. All it took was one wrong step, a fraction of a second’s hesitation, and it would be all over.

Golden light sparked off the man as he turned to the spell heading toward him like a shark to a wounded seal.

Just in case, Hirash began casting [Break] in the event that the false Founder was better than he had thought. He might think poorly of him, but to completely underestimate the person who had already slaughtered a Kinslayer was the height of idiocy.

However, as Hal turned to look toward Hirash, the look of panic and surprise on his face was as delicious as a ten-course feast. Hirash nearly wanted to holler and whoop like a First Year student.

Holding [Break] in his fingertips, the shattering crystalline energy sparking between them, Hirash watched the man’s demise with glee. He wanted the false Founder to see who had killed him, to know his reign had come to an end by the Archmage’s hand.

The Kinslayer’s death must have been due to something entirely else. There was no way a man this easily caught off-guard was some sort of actual threat. Besides, Hirash had always thought that he was better than any Kinslayer, and now he was about to prove it.

See me, Founder Rinbast, and know my worth!

The pale light of [Unmending Destruction] winked out inches from the boy. Hirash waited for the implosion, the strange swirling light that would unravel the boy’s existence and pull it into a pinprick sized hole until it was all gone.

It was his most powerful spell. Countless lives had been sacrificed in its creation, and it exacted a heavy toll on the caster. Hirash could feel the strain on his body, making it difficult to do something as painfully simple as holding his current spell, [Break] at bay.

Hal turned to face the Archmage. There was an unnerving lack of dissolution.

He took another step toward the Archmage. Blood pouring from every orifice completely failed to materialize.

A faint sparkle of golden light surrounded the false Founder. His dark brown eyes were smoldering with rage. Hirash didn’t understand what had happened.

Nobody could stop [Unmending Destruction]! Nobody!

He let loose [Break], a stone-based spell that shattered the ground between them like a giant’s axe falling from the heavens. It ripped through the dozens of feet between them in the blink of an eye.

And in a copper flash of light, the false Founder disappeared.

***

Hal didn’t even bother to spin up his essences. He sensed the intrusion in the Manatree’s barrier the moment it had happened. He had no idea what that pale light was, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.

Much faster than he had ever been able to work his Sigils before, he had used [Vault], [Preserve], and [Seal] in quick succession to capture and hold the strange spell.

He didn’t want to risk damaging any of the work he was doing by letting the spell go off.

When it became clear that the mage was here to challenge him, a surge of white-hot fury flooded his body. He was trying to work,and somebody had come to fight him?

Another spell ripped out toward him, but Hal only had to summon his newly granted Copper Kol’thil and use [Pathway]. He folded in on himself in a shimmer of copper and appeared behind the mage.

“You must have some death wish, pal,” Hal snarled. “I don’t have time to deal with you, so I’m going to make this quick. There’s a host of Copper Sigils I still haven’t tried out yet, so let’s see if I’m actually worthy of inheriting this Kol’thil, eh?”

The hawknosed man turned and raised his hands defensively as a lashing barrage of copper lines rolled out of Hal. The Copper Kol’thil shone brightly on his opposite hand.

[Shred] was a simple Sigil. It allowed the wielder to create lines of copper light that cut through both the physical and spiritual with ease. It was one of the Sigils he had been using to sculpt the mountains while he was still overflowing with the energy of gaining another Kol’thil.

There was no telling how long the surge of strength would last and so Hal sped off to make the greatest use of it possible. There was no Experience lost for using the Sigils, and he intended to wring every drop of potential out of that.

And now this idiot was wasting his time!

Hal recognized the man a bit too late as the mage wove a shield that looked like clear glass. He started to spool up his eldritch essence when something caused him to stop.

It wasn’t that he felt a conflict between the Kol’thil powers and his Beastborne essences.

This was Hirash, the Archmage that had warned them off when they first arrived at the entrance to the Shiverglades. How was he here? Was Rinbast here as well? The other Kinslayers already?

If the Archmage was foolish enough to charge ahead, then using his Beastborne powers might draw attention from the other Kinslayers. And yet… as Hal watched the copper threads press against the Archmage’s shield, he realized he didn’t need his Beastborne powers.

How sweet it will be to put down one of Rinbast’s followers using my own Founder abilities and nothing else.

He had to admit, there was a certain poetry to it.

Hirash was clearly struggling with just a single use of [Shred]. The barrier he had woven was cracking slowly, but surely. Hal was a little impressed that it stood up so well, but then again, the man did claim he was the Archmage.

“Let’s turn up the heat a little,” Hal said with a grin as he summoned [Copper Sigil: Heat Space]. The air began to warp and twist around the Archmage as he continued his battle against the copper net that was slowly but surely melting through his defenses while [Heat Space] was cranking up the temperature every second.

Hal could feel the heat of an oven from here. The grass around the Archmage charred black. The man’s clothes were beginning to smoke and smolder. The Archmage glared at him as his skin blistered and began to bubble unpleasantly.

There were other Copper Sigils that Hal could have used. Ones that would have maimed and wounded but not killed or tortured. At the moment, he didn’t care. This man had invaded his home, and he was going to pay.

Nothing else mattered.

The scream that issued from Hirash’s mouth was tortured beyond belief, but Hal did not relent. The Archmage’s clothes burst into flames, and yet the man still managed to hold the shield in place to keep the copper threads of [Shred] away from him.

Despite himself, Hal was impressed. This man had clearly earned the title of Archmage. But it wasn’t enough. Not against his Kol’thil. Perhaps if he was still crippled and only had access to his Beastborne magicks, maybe. But that wasn’t the case.

A golden necklace melted and charred the man’s collarbone, filling the air with a foul rankness.

Various gemstones set into countless rings on Hirash’s fingers shattered, creating a screen of white mist. The shield shattered at the same moment and the copper lines of [Shred] vanished into the mist.

Oh, no you don’t!

[Gust] cleared the space in a heartbeat and made a twisting inferno of super-heated steam that swept up toward the blue sky above.

Hirash was gone.