Chapter Sixty: A Resemblant Distraction

  The clang of steel emanated through the forest like a blacksmith tempering a blade. That was mixed with the pained death throes and the crunch of bones behind Selriph—Emmett’s handiwork, in all likelihood.

  In the same moment, Selriph flashed his estoc in a choreographed dance as it found its mark—the palm of a chainmail-adorned mercenary. The strike came not as a wild swing, but like a precise dart, drilling through the mercenary’s chainmail gauntlet and into his palm. The axe that he wielded fell to the ground as a pained howl erupted from him.

  “Aargh, what the…! You little shit—” as he bellowed out, holding his shield up, charging at the youth. Selriph attempted to sidestep; however, his stride stopped in its tracks as he felt the distinct tingle, his instincts commanding him to halt his evasive manoeuvre of the oncoming shield.

  He felt the energy, the bolt whizz past—behind him. His eyes caught the robed figure, which had just emerged from beyond the cart. The figure’s face was plastered with surprise—as would be expected given the quick falling of the plate-armoured figure—but flaring with holy-arcane energy.

  It felt like a battering ram, the wooden shield hitting him and making him stagger, fumbling backwards and almost falling.

  Selriph steadied himself, digging his heels into the earth, and confronted the holy mage and the staggering chainmail-clad figure.

  Damn, I can’t deal with them without using my magic. I cannot risk it; I should—

  Before Selriph could muster arcane energy into his hand, he felt something else brush past his legs—fur. The matted grey mass moved with lethal grace as it pounced onto the shield-bearing mercenary; the full mass of the dire wolf rendering the protective implement all but moot.

  A resounding thud signalled the chainmail-clad warrior’s collapse beneath the forest creature’s bulk. The dire wolf swung its barred fangs in an arc, the sheer force knocking the shield out of the prone humanoid.

  Selriph’s eyes, however, darted away from the spectacle—something that he’d already seen many times already, and instead responded to his body’s innate instinct—his estoc flashing in a defensive swing.

  The steel intercepted the approaching bolt, or more accurately, the radiant energy blast, cutting it in two. The projectile, which was the size of a gryphon’s egg, split in two. Selriph staggered back several feet because the residual energy impacted him, as if something hammered his ribs, buffering through the translucent arcane veil surrounding his seemingly unarmoured frame.

  “Argh!” Selriph clutched his chest with his free hand. Whatever holy energy that made it past his arcane shield tingled through, travelling up his chest. His mind raced through the pain, yet also appraised it. The aftereffects of the attack felt like the same static, the frequency that he was all too familiar with in the long, drawn sanctimonious nonsense that were the holy rites he experienced daily.

  The surrounding woods blurred and spun as Selriph oriented himself. As his vision righted itself, his breath returning into his lungs, his eyes registered the second blast, a twin to the first as it streaked towards him.

  This time, he pivoted; the estoc a silver blur. The blade came at an angle, the projectile hitting the flat side of the thin blade. This time, the projectile did not split, but instead the vibrations travelled up his arm as the projectile travelled along the length of the blade; a metallic, almost a grinding sound, rang through the forest.

  The radiant energy eventually travelled to the tip of the blade—parried, deflected, as if it were a common blade strike, sent careening towards a nearby tree, where it struck with a resounding thud. The force of the impact scattered splinters and dust, leaving a mark that looked purposefully carved.

  Selriph stared at the holy mage, who appeared taken aback by the attacker’s ability to withstand the holy bolt’s impact and simultaneously, skillfully deflect the subsequent barrage, as if carving through steel, or rather, rerouting holy or magical energy.

  As the mage sanctioned by the crest hesitated, Selriph began to charge, his body low to the ground in a sprint, his sword dragging behind him. Bolts were thrown by the figure, yet they struck the forest floor, the surrounding trees, and the onrushing phantom wielding steel, which either dodged or deflected them.

  “What are you … How…! As the holy mage whispered, his confusion unanswered, he started backing away and soon found himself cornered by the merchant cart, the mobile prison that held their valuable, nascent seer.

  From the holy mage’s perspective, it was as though this assailant were capable of understanding, forecasting, and perceiving the course of the bolts, almost like they intimately knew the magical energy—how dense, how powerful, how fast, and in what direction it would happen.

  As Selriph got within striking distance, the holy mage’s eyes grew wide with understanding and recognition as the final, desperate spell he cast lit up his attacker’s face.

  Selriph reached out, and the light flickered—a last desperate act of resistance from the holy mage. The cause? A surgical thread, a needle of arcane energy, had impacted the forming bolt, a precise arcane counterforce that dismantled the forming holy energy in a mere second.

  The blade found its mark, embedding itself in the holy mage’s pale robes, with blood quickly soaking into the worn garments. Flesh or bone, but the wooden barrier behind his ribs halted the estoc’s progress not.

  The holy mage, wracked with agony, winced as he surveyed the scene; his eyes were wide with terror, not just because he was on the brink of death, but also from what he had probably seen.

  For it was the same expression the woodsman bore when he had witnessed the aftermath of the slaughter brought about by the bear all that time ago in the Shera woods.

  In this instance, that similar tableau was mixed with pained howls and a slurry of bone and flesh, and the dire wolf was no doubt rending his latest victim: the chainmail-adorned mercenary. The gruesome scene would have also included the chest’s headless remains, and the disfigured state of the leather-armoured figure—if it even remotely resembled its living form.

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  Then the brown eyes of the holy mage met the ocean blue of Selriph, a sly grin plastered on his face.

  “Hah... You…” escaped his lips, and his vision, dimming, landed on the face of the person who had brought about the destruction, this foretold embodiment of death.

  Selriph Daryth, a runaway mage, responsible for the death of scores of faithful servants of the light.

  Selriph’s eyes gazed upon the aftermath—the sight of exposed humanoid ribcage, flesh, torn band protruding bone now a familiar sight to him, the contents of his stomach barely roused to return whence they came, as if his gullet had been forged shut from the sights of his arduous journey thus far.

  The youth’s bloodied hands patted down the remains of the mercenaries, focused only on the monetary contents. After all, that was the only thing of value they had for now, given the dire wolf had all but reduced the monetary value of their armour to nothing.

  “Why couldn’t you just….” Selriph’s voice was a near-inaudible whisper, cut off as he noticed the dire wolf pacing towards the merchant cart.

  “Emmett, don’t. Stop,” Selriph warned, his crimson-stained hand held up. Though typically unruly, or rather, selectively disobedient, the wolf halted. Its eyes locked on the voice, ears alert, though it maintained a posture suggesting it still intended to approach the cart.

  The desire to scavenge the remains for valuables did not solely motivate his reluctance to address the metaphorical dragon in the castle. No, there were greater considerations at play, far beyond being a gold-glimmer, something which the boy had no disposition towards in the first place.

  For one, Selriph’s hands were searching for more than just loose gems, gold, or anything he could sell in Solvelis; he was looking for something crass, dry, crisp, or perhaps even soaked. A parchment, anything holding information as to the identity of this person, chained and caged in the merchant cart.

  For whoever this person was, it brought together this curious mix of holy servants and sellswords who had decided to abduct and intended to carry all the way across to the capital of Caer Eldralis, where Selriph had just spent the past 2 months putting as much distance between.

  Selriph’s hands, as if guided by destiny, located the item he sought: a folded message within the deceased holy mage’s lower pocket. He withdrew it, spotless, untouched by the dried, reddish-brown bloodstain that had marked the spot where Selriph’s estoc had struck.

  He unfolded the parchment, appraising its contents;

  “Theurgist... naturally, that’s what they’d call themselves.” Hypocrites to the core, mages in all but name, all because of that damnable purge and crest. Selriph recalled the image of the burnt bodies in the Greyspire Mage’s college halls following the destruction.

  His mind drifted to the second consideration, bypassing the sanctimonious veil and justification found on the rest of the document before him. His arcane senses reached out to what was around him.

  The source of what had drawn them there in the first place, not the arcane signature of the slain holy mage, or rather, Theurgist, his was but a mere candle flame compared to the actual source that was permeating through whatever was in the merchant cart.

  The words rang in his mind that played from the deceased theurgist before him, “I cannot provide an answer as to why the holy bindings do not affect her, accompanied by the soft, persistent sounds of someone struggling against the chains, emanating from the cart positioned behind Selriph.

  If these bindings are made of anything resembling the dark onyx pendant Vick gave me….

  Selriph glanced behind him, the static pressing against his face, the pressure from the magical signature now evident to him, now that he had closed the distance from where he had initially detected it, a trek that took five minutes through the woods.

  Whoever is bound by these bindings has to be incredibly powerful… to have this much magical energy leaking through…

  That was the justification the Selriph had toyed with.

  After all, based on the information he had just gleaned, this woman—Lady Eilweth—in the cart was likely the daughter of some noble in Solvelis, a mere inconvenient day’s stroll away from here.

  There was no reason to get involved with her, or any further distractions for that matter. Selriph had his objective, and all previous instances of him acquainting himself with people on his journey had ended in tragedy and distraction.

  First, with rescuing the woman in the rapids, and the subsequent run-in with the woodsman.

  Then, with the encounter with vengeful twins and the debacle in the mithril vault.

  He wasn’t going to repeat the same mistake three times in a row.

  At most, I will undo the bindings… make sure she doesn’t see my actual face. She should be more than powerful enough to find her way back to Solvelis on her own.

  Selriph’s features shifted as his hand moved across his face, instantaneously transforming the guise of the fugitive mage into that of a plump, middle-aged man. The chosen disguise was meant to be consistent with the masculine grunts he made during his altercation with the mercenaries and the holy theurgist.

  As Selriph rose to his feet, he heard the muffled vocalisation from the captive—what sounded like a voice up against a cloth.

  Did they actually muzzle her? The cruel barbarians…

  Subsequently, Selriph rounded the corner to view the scene that had previously been obscured from his approach to the camp.

  What met him was a mix of what he expected and what he did not.

  What he had predicted was partially right—glyph-adorned chains wrapped around a feminine figure, two bracelets, or rather, golden cuffs around her figure. A piece of grimy and dirty linen cloth gagged her mouth, which the so-called pious and noble servant of the light had undoubtedly placed there.

  The conviction that had fuelled his initial decision to leave her well enough alone after undoing the bindings—something which he intended after knocking her out and using his forge-worthy pyromantic flames — evaporated as he saw who they had captured.

  It wasn’t someone he recognised, but the ocean blue eyes bore a striking resemblance to his own—the face of someone who seemed to resemble his own facial features.

  No, impossible!… she looks just like—

  Of course, it couldn’t. After all, the youngest child of his estranged family, Fionil Daryth, should be safely within the confines of the Daryth estate.

  Eilweth… Lady Eilweth… House Eilweth!

  House Eilweth is a distant noble house with familial links to the Daryth estate in Caer Eldralis.

  Selriph appraised the person before him. She no doubt bore such a resemblance—not just because of possible familial resemblance, but also the number of cycles this person, this prisoner, this victim had likely roamed the material plane.

  A woman, or rather a girl, no older than perhaps fourteen cycles of age, lay bound, gagged, tears brimming in her eyes—a golden, erratic pulsing golden-blue arcane light illuminated her body, which was convulsing as if struck by the potent venom of a Kanut python.

  With the barely muffled words finally audible, ringing in Selriph’s ears.

  “Make it… stop…the voices… the noise… helps me….”