54.3 Last Stand

General Summary

As Dorimen guides us towards the fortress, we hear the sounds of fighting once again. Suddenly, we are surrounded by enormous trolls, angry fae, and ancient Osyr — swimming through the air with webbed hands and merged, whale-like tails. The conflict continues as some notice us and attack, hardly caring whether they are fighting us or their sworn enemies. We don’t have time for this — I simply shift into Softwing, battering their tiny bodies aside and crushing them beneath my claws. Around us, the winding ribbon of pathway expands to accommodate my enormous form and Dorimen steps around me to slice through the skulls of the bodies I’ve left.  

Their will is between their ears. If you injure them in any other way, they’ll keep coming.

  A tiny autumn fae scrabbles at my hide and takes a bite out of me and for a moment, I can feel something nibbling at my memories of being with No Moon. I swing around and swallow the tiny fae whole — the memory returns easily abbut I feel the intrusive push of being a warrior on the fae side of the War of Fire. I lower my enormous head into the fray and open my jaws  

No matter how much you take from me, I can simply swallow you whole and then there will be nothing left of you.

  Artemisia empowers my aura of fear with the energy of nightmares and all the trolls and Osyr flee, along with Thalien and Dorimen until I snatch them up in my claws. Artemisia seems unrepentant.   Our long walk continues and I return to my humanoid form, distracting us all with conversation about the Empire, the Empress, and the Collective. Dorimen has some scattered questions about elves and fae — apparently he has met a fae here who attacked him with particular vengeance and had allied herself with the trees. So I tell him the story of fae of leaf and vine, and switch into my own growth cycle form to show him. Indeed, the fae who attacked him must have been truly ancient; she was also leaf and vine.   But all of this shifting of forms makes me aware that in this land of madness and erosion, I’m at risk of my own myriad cycles splintering into separate entities. The concept makes no sense to me in my right mind…yet it feels so probable that I can’t ignore it. I’ll stay in my normal elvish-fae form, with only some new dragon scales coming to the surface to armour me. As we press onwards, I draw out my heart song and wrap it around us, shielding all of us from the nagging feeling that we are losing track of ourselves.   The final barrier of trees before the fortress is woven tightly together, impassable to the usual denizens of the forest. It is easy enough to wither it away with Galfen’s magic and pass through it under the protection of Dorimen’s defensive shadow magic.   On the other side, trees are hung with bone cages of fleshy, bloody bodies trying to pull themselves together or tearing themselves apart. I see chunks of flesh shivering and trying to reach other bits strewn across the ground or imprisoned in other cages. It’s horrific, far more so than the many battlefields and medical tents I have witnessed.   Each piece of flesh…each body part gives off a familiar, recognizable aura or protection and guardianship. Each piece represents a sworn protector who died in someone else’s stead. For a horrible minute, I can see Doraal here. I can see Alder, Nina, Catena, even Black Tourmaline before the idea becomes so absurd that I shake it off. There are no sworn elves here, and certainly no dragons.   Within the structure, I can sense a Treeborn presence similar to Magdalena but it feels raw and savage, incomplete. I can also feel immense sadness — something so compassionate and tortured that its own heart its constantly breaking. Sitka, I imagine, from reputation.   We are devising a strategy for entering the fortress when the drawbridge lowers and the portcullis raises. Standing there is a particularly holy looking zephyr — Erak the Sentinel. He is clad in silver armour, carrying a gleaming silver shield and an enormous mace soaked in blood.  

Leave or stay forever. This is the place I defend.

  He seems steadfast, unperturbed by our presence. But as I probe and prod with questions and relentless curiosity, I see the cracks in his willpower. He has no answers, and I think he is trying to trick us into leaving.   Erak appeals to me as a fellow protector of people, though I don’t think much of his protectorship. He asks what I would be if I weren’t a guardian to my people and I have to laugh. I would be a happy farm girl, I imagine. Or perhaps an unhappy one, if there was no one to stop the Collective sweeping over my village. He asks if I could really be happy as just a farm girl, what with all the power I have. He is a fool — it is the guardianship that brought me power, not the other way around.   But he pushed a little too hard in this foolishness by offering to give me the answers I’m looking for in exchange for my guardianship of my people. He says he’ll take it over for me, and I will no longer have the responsibility.   Erak the Sentinel, mortal zephyr-turned-deity, creator of an elevated Lesser Race that was never meant to have such power grafted onto them. His people suffer and he doesn’t care, doesn’t intervene, doesn’t teach them a path to a better life. His guardianship is worthless, but I hope I can keep him talking about it.   With that sentiment, I send a thread of lightning quick magic trying to get past him, but it is just a fraction too energetic and he notices in time to catch it with his shield. Artemisia darts towards the gate and I send another thread of magic with her in case she needs me elsewhere while the gentlemen and I prepare to kill a ‘god’.   With my thread of magic so close to him, I pull on my spirit blades and the memory of when I danced with swords in the desert. They carve away at his shield and bracer and they fall away, leaving his arm bare and exposed. Beneath the shining armour he looks so…human. So weak and vulnerable beneath the shell of protection he has donned.   But his wings unfurl and he flies towards us, cloaking himself in the blood rage of a protector whose charge is threatened. The three of us move almost as one — Dorimen blocking the attack entirely with his own enormous sword as Thalien shreds the cloak of rage with his paired blades. My starry wildling is fuelled by his own righteous rage and I can see his eyes gleam with fury. Another bracer falls beneath my phantom blade and he falls to a knee before me.   The aura of No Moon swells within me and I focus the entirety of it upon him, seeing the fear in his eyes. His armour goes dull against the darkness I project and I hope he remembers what it was like when my brother hunted zephyr to protect his own family.   With another flurry of sword strikes and rays of light from my phantom Daybreaker, his armour sloughs off like dead scales. In a desperate attempt to regain some defence, he reaches to Dorimen’s chest and pulls out a living shadow that forms itself into a shield between Erak and me. I can feel Dorimen’s sworn guardianship travel out of him and shift to Erak, breaking itself away from my Imperial influence.   He holds it up between us and I snarl, encapsulating us all in a dome of pure darkness that simply absorbs the lightless shield. The entire field of darkness condenses and returns to Dorimen, gasping on the ground as he reabsorbs his own identity. At this, Erak stumbles away and turns to flee into the forest, but my phantom blades and beams of light follow him relentlessly. His armour is carved away piece by piece, then his wings, and finally the beams rip him apart entirely. The Sentinel is dead.   But we didn’t come here for him. Raising Dorimen to his feet again, I feel Artemisia tugging on the thread of magic I’d sent with her and I transport us along it instantly. Deep within the fortress is a room that looks part prison cell, part horrible laboratory.   Sitka is there, shackled with heavy enchanted chains inscribed with many runes that I don’t recognize. I sorely wish Qing Chen were here. The Weaver tells me that they are made with both zephyr and troll magic to anchor her to this very place in the laboratory, as well as forcing her to obey the other five ‘gods’. Unlike the other zephyr I’ve seen, she is humble and drab with wings more like a sparrow than a swan or eagle.   But her state is nothing compared to Evismora. The Treeborn has been dismembered — her wing bones are present but the filament has been cut away and framed on the walls like an obscene painting. Her hands and feet have been removed and preserved in nearby jars. Her eyes are gone entirely and I don’t see any evidence of them in the room. Her mouth is open, teeth filed into points that shred her tongue constantly. The rest of her body is scarred and stitched together as though constantly cut open and closed up again. She trembles as I approach, and I can feel her fear sharp in the air.  

Are you here to finally let her die?

  Sitka seems genuinely protective of her fellow prisoner, and she breathes easier when I tell her that we’re here to bring Evismora home. I let my own sleep magic overwhelm the decrepit Treeborn so that she can rest easily while we escape. Sitka’s chains will be best dealt with back home, so for now all we can do is destroy the laboratory and fortress entirely, leaving no ‘place’ for the chains to bind her.   When the walls have all withered and fallen away, we are left facing the forest once again. The scattered pieces of Erak’s armour and body are gone, with only traces of an enormous net dragging across the ground where they fell. I wish Isurus had stayed long enough to meet his end as well.