Chapter 48 – Of Death

When news came that one of Arascus’ Divines was approaching. Soldiers would pray and hope it was Kassandora leading an army or Fer leading a warherd. Or Irinika too for that matter, the Goddess of Darkness was used largely as we used as our Allasaria, a champion to employ when the situation called for it. Any of those three, or Anassa and even Arascus himself, soldiers would sigh with relief.

Malam, Olephia and Baalka would generally cause full retreats if they appeared out of nowhere, but their locations were easy to track. No one wanted to end up as a toy for Of Hatred, an experiment for Of Chaos or a pet project for Of Disease.

And then there was Of Death…

- Excerpt from the autobiography: “Eternal Struggle”, by Goddess Fortia, of Peace.

To be a formal member of Allasaria’s Golden Order, one had to be a master of the Spear, a master of the Sword, a trained commander, disciplined and loyal. Only one in fifty men managed to withstand the brutal five-year training regimen, and then it would be a further three years before being bestowed a cape to signify status of a real Seeker.

Elijah and his men all wore the red capes. The moment he gave the shout to cleanse the undead, the Seekers broke formation, each man adopting his own fighting style. They weren’t Maisara’s Paladins, who would retain their precious formations at all costs.

If before, the organised blasts of light were a lightshow at a party, then now they were the opening to an annual celebration. Beams of light travelled in every direction as golden armour started to dance among the undead beastmen. Brutish bodies of rotted skin were split apart as Seekers cut them down, blades encased in light split bone as if they were red-hot blades sliding effortlessly through butter. Spears pierced into chests, then the tips cascaded holy light outwards into all directions to devastate the walking corpses.

Elijah saw a Seeker being pushed back as he duelled his own pair of beastmen, the man was fighting a half-rotten corpse of a wolfman. He stabbed the creature’s shoulder with his spear, then slashed the other arm with his blinding sword. The blade, encased in light, slid through the arm and it fell to the floor. The detached arm grabbed at the calf of the Seeker.

The man, in his confusion, stabbed his spear downwards, the wolfmen then lurched forwards, its jaw wrapping around the man’s arm. Golden plate crumbled and blood burst from the arm. The Seeker screamed, took a step back and was impaled through the chest by a huge rotten minotaur, its hand was missing and the stub ended only in sharp, shattered bones.

Elijah roared, he spun around and decapitated the two monsters that were trying to slow him down. Heads rolled to the ground but bodies kept moving. Another slash, and he made one legless. The chest rolled on the ground as the legs collapsed. Elijah took a step back, swung the spear like a long axe and dug it into the other monster’s side. He took a heavy breath and channelled more of Allasaria’s power.

The tip of the spear started to shine in one instant and in the next it burst forth with magical power. The monster’s chest simply disappeared in a small ball of bright light. Bone, muscle, fur and the hordes of insects that had buried themselves into the undead simply vanished. It collapsed down and lay still, what automotive function the body had drifted away in a few final spasms.

Elijah turned to face the minotaur, his body operating entirely on instinct, all thoughts left him as his brown eyes refocused on the target. It was a huge hulking beast, half again his height and more than twice as wide. It’s skin entirely devoured and its body almost entirely skeletal, one arm ended in a bony fist, each finger almost as thick as his forearm and the other had been snapped off. Now it was a stabbing dagger made of sharp bone, covered in blood from the man it had just killed.

The creature lunged forwards, thrusting with that broken arm and trying to impale Elijah. He sidestepped the attack, turned and swung down with his blade. The golden hilt had warmed up with the constant magic flowing from it. The blade, glowing as if it was a beam of solid light, merely touched the bone and instantly incinerated it.

The minotaur gave no reaction, it swung forwards with that fist into the side of Elijah’s chest. He barely stepped away from the blow, a moment later and his spine would have been cracked. Then he followed up. A slash at that arm with the blade and a stab into the creature’s exposed spine with his spear. Both weapons gave no feedback to the damage they were inflicting. Elijah may as well have been practicing his swings through the open air.

The minotaur collapsed into two pieces with the separation of its spine. Elijah split its skull into three pieces with a quick swipe of his sword for good measure and turned to assess the damage.

To say the fight had ended was wrong, but it was over. Some Seekers lay on the cracked stone tiles, blood spilling out, but for every that had fallen, five more still stood. They finished their individual duels with their opponents. The last of the beastmen fell when a Seeker slashed with his blade of light at the monster’s chest. It took another step and then the torso slid off the legs.

Elijah counted the men still standing. Thirty-three. A further six were picking themselves up off the ground and tending to their wounds. Good thing he had taken bandages. Then he tried to do the count of the corpses of their attackers. Tried to, even with nothing but a glance, he could tell there were at least a hundred, maybe two hundred, just in the throne room. Then the corridors… they could be counted later. Elijah took a step back and checked Atis’ soul jar. It was still on the throne, a little golden vase reinforced with steel. “What now High Seeker?” Samuel walked up to Elijah and asked, his breathing was heavy, clouds of condensation escaping from his helmet with each tired breath the man was taking. “This has to be reported, doesn’t it?”

“It does, we will…” His voice trailed off as he looked past the man at the main hallway leading to the throne room. One soul still stood there.

A woman in a heavy black cloak.

Elijah raised his hand as the Seekers combat instincts activated again. They got into a tight phalanx formation around Elijah as the woman took a step. She was pale, her skin so ghastly she may have never even seen the sun, her hair was the total opposite of that ashen visage, it was a black so black it made the darkness around it seem dull, as if an artist had created a painting and left a part untouched.

She took a step forwards and Elijah’s hand instinctively tightened around his spear. She was tall. Far too tall to be a human, even an elf. He had spent long enough on Olympiada to know when a Divine was about and she, even shrouded in that darkness, was as Divine as they came. “WHO ARE YOU?!” Elijah shouted. The woman took another step and entered the throne room.

Her eyes were a pale grey. She looked the room, at the corpses of the Seekers and tutted. “I ASKED A QUESTION! WHO ARE YOU?!” Elijah repeated himself, the woman still ignored him. “SEEKERS! PHALANX FORMATION! READY SPEARS!” If she wasn’t going to introduce herself, then she obviously wasn’t coming for a friendly chat. The woman’s grey eyes swept over the Golden Order and Elijah felt a chill go down his spine.

“Allasaria’s men.” The woman said, her voice was like a cold silk cloth. Smooth and pleasant to the ears, but chilly and detached. Elijah blinked. That was it? Of course they were Seekers! Who else would wear the golden armour of the Order?

“We are Seekers of Goddess Allasaria.” Elijah said loudly over the multitude of helmet before him. None of the men eased their spears.

“Why is Atis dead?” The woman asked.

“That’s what we came here to find out!” Elijah shouted back. “Now which Divine are you?” The woman ignored him again.

“Did you kill Atis?”

“Kill him? NO! That’s what we came here to find out!” Elijah shouted back.

“Then Leona is dead?” The woman asked again.

“Goddess Leona? NO!” Elijah shouted again. What was she? A Divine here? Allasaria had told him nothing about it. So was she a rogue Divine then? Buthere?

“So Leona lives and yet the Pantheon lost a member?” The woman replied. She shook her head, smelled the air and then looked straight at Elijah’s chest. No. Not at him, through him, directly at the soul jar behind him. “How very interesting, it has been a long time since I’ve chatted to a God.” She said idly.

“We…” Elijah swallowed the lump in his throat that was creeping up. “We are to bring Atis’ soul back to Goddess Allasaria immediately, you may come with us. There are monst…” Elijah didn’t finish the sentence, it was a gambit he knew he failed the moment he began, his voice merely trailed off. The woman’s bored expression told him everything he needed to know.

“I was not asking for your permission.” The woman said. “Besides, are you not all Pantheon bootlickers? Should you not bow at my Divine feet? Or are you too good for me?” Elijah didn’t need to hear anymore.

“SEEKERS! CHARGE SPEARS!” He shouted, the spears pointed at the woman began to glow. She finally showed a hint of emotion on that ghastly mask of a face. A smile. A crazed smile, her grey eyes almost glowing with glee.

The woman was faster.

She raised her hand as if giving an order to an army and pointed with fingers extended at the Seekers. “Kill them.”

Where those figures came from, Elijah did not know. One moment, he was looking at the woman, the next, he was facing an ancient breastplate. A sword pierced his chest. Then the figure disappeared. He collapsed to his knees as a ghastly apparition, a knight on a horse charged out of thin air and impaled a Seeker on his lance. The Seeker fell and the knight disappeared. An elven blademaster, grey as if all colour had been leeched out of him fell from the ceiling and disappeared into the floor. Two Seekers fell alongside him.

An arrow out of nowhere. A dwarven axe crushed a Seeker’s leg. Another knight. A mob of peasants rushed them. A Royal guard, one of Maisara’s Paladins, then a bandit in leather armour. An endless tide of apparitions appearing and disappearing one after the other. They fell from the ceiling, they climbed out of the floor, they shot from the hallways, stabbed from behind, or simply materialized before Elijah.

And then they disappeared just as fast, each one bringing a Seeker with him. They didn’t even have time to blast a single beam of light out. Elijah rolled onto his back as the woman stepped over him. She took Atis’ soul jar into her delicate hands and smiled hungrily at it. “Who…” Elijah forced the final words out of his mouth. “Who… are… you…?” The woman looked down at him, those grey eyes were dull once again.

“Gatekeeper to the World Beyond, Daughter Goddess of Arascus, Queen of the Spectral Legions. Mistress to…” The Goddess kept listing off her titles as Elijah’s consciousness slowly faded away and the last breath left his body. Just before he died, he heard the woman say her own name:

“Neneria, Goddess of Death.”