Chương 17: Blessed Are The Oathkeepers

The ridgeline extended before him, knife-edged and jagged. At its end some hundred yards distant was the peak, another black monolith crowning its top, and around it danced his enemy. Two witches circled the plinth, long hair streaming and robes flapping in the rising wind, calling out arcane curses or simply cavorting in ecstasy. Asgar had no way to know, and cared even less. After what he'd seen them do to Gendry, he'd tear them apart even if they were busy baking cakes for a little girl's naming ceremony.

Before he could make it to them though, he'd have to fight past the four goatmen that stood silently around the peak. They wielded sharpened farming implements—sickles and scythes modified into crude weapons—but held by their muscular arms, they seemed vicious enough. He rolled his shoulders, checked his weapons were secure and ready in their sheaths, then strode forwards. He knew he wouldn't get far with stealth, and that wasn't his way, besides. He was a Squire of Slaughter, not a Squire of Sneaking.

Two deep breaths, and then Asgar activated blood rage. He started running, and before he'd got twenty paces in, they'd seen him. Horrible laughter rose into the wind, barely heard over the squall, and the goatmen charged his way. Leaping from rock to rock, he thundered over the sharp ridge until one of the witches pointed and sent a burst of virulent green power shooting his way. He dove aside, tumbling a few feet to land on the path below.

Behind him, the rock he'd been standing on sizzled and bubbled where it had been hit by the bolt of foul magik. He was back up with a grunt and running once more, jumping over a broken boulder to see the goatmen nearly upon him. The witches were both watching keenly, one turning to the other to say something no doubt horrific. He took the opportunity, vaulting up onto the ridge once more and jumping for every inch of height.

He threw mid-air, his spear whistling as it cut through the clag to slam into the chest of the first witch. She was thrown back, the weapon wedging itself into the earth between two boulders to leave her body dangling in place. One of the goatmen collapsed, but the other three kept moving. Asgar landed on the path and sprinted at the leading abomination. He hit it like a charging chimera, knocking it to the ground where he left his hatchet embedded in its caprine skull.

Standing in time to meet the charge of the next creature, Asgar slipped aside from the clumsy thrust as it lunged with its spear, then grabbed the haft and yanked the unbalanced enemy towards him. A heavy kick to its chest had the goatman wailing as it flew off the edge of the ridgeline to dash apart on the rocks far below. Before the scream had even cut-off, Asgar was slammed into the rock behind by the third and final creature.

Fetid breath hit him as the goatman shrieked in his face, and he gasped when one of its horns ripped into his cheek. He wriggled, pushing the creature off for just a moment, but it reared its head back, clearly intending to slam its thick skull into his face and gore him with its front-facing horns. Armour of Avarron sheathed him the instant before it struck and Asgar gloried in the pained grunt from the creature as its horn broke against the unyielding bulwark of his helm.

The force of the blow still rocked his head back, but Asgar was used to having his bell rung by now, and the awesome power of his class and his armour let him stay in the fight. He kicked out, stomping the beast's knee backwards, then followed up with a brutal gauntlet-clad punch to the side of the head. Taking a single heartbeat to look over one shoulder, Asgar saw the witch pointing his way, and frantically spun himself and the goatman in his arms around. It screamed as virulent power splashed over its back.

With the stench of burning fur still scorching his nose, Asgar dropped the creature with a headbutt of his own and ran on, trampling its body as he did so. He was thirty yards away now, and this was the most dangerous part of the fight. He juked aside from another bolt, then jumped back up to the ridge and vaulted over it to run along the other side, using the rocky crest to shield him from the witch's devastating ranged attacks.

He knew he wouldn't be able to close the distance completely without risking a hit, but he trusted in his armour to protect him for the few moments he'd need. Besides, the blood rage was pulsing through his body by now and he doubted he could bring himself to slow at this point. It urged him on with every heartbeat, every step. Kill, it demanded. Rend, rip, burn the heretic. He let the desire carry him on wings of rage and burst up over the ridge.

Magik splashed across his chest plate, but there was nothing for it to destroy. No insignias for it to tarnish, no paint for it to eat through. The curved, black mass of its dull surface was already scarred and as far from burnished as possible, and Asgar made it through the attack with nary a burn on his body. She spat something foul at him and twirled her hands together, fingers dancing a sick little jig amongst one another before she flung them his way, but Asgar couldn't find it in himself to care.

His machete was already rising, already painting an arc of blood through the air between them, and once it met the canvas of her flesh, it created its first masterpiece. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The witch screamed as he severed her right arm, the left only spared the same fate by her shockingly fast reflexes. He dove low, sliding on his knees across the scree-top hill in a screech of metal against stone to bury his long knife in her guts.

He grinned in satisfaction as he felt the blood start to flow, but then a clawed hand grabbed him by the throat and pulled him into the air. The witch laughed, black lips pulling back from rotting teeth as she held him aloft above her. His machete was still buried in her guts, her right arm ending in a stump that dripped black ichor to the ground, but she'd stopped his momentum completely and now held him a couple feet above the ground. With one arm.

Her grip was crushing, the metal of his gorget groaning as it gave slowly beneath her unnatural power.

"Did you think mortal steel enough to stop me, boy?" She cackled, and dozens of black crows sprung from nowhere to circle above her.

"I'll have my pretties pluck the eyes from your head last so you can watch what I do to your body before the end." He kicked out, but his sabbatons thudded into flesh to no response, and where his fingers found purchase against her gnarled arm, it felt like he was grasping at stone. Asgar growled and thrashed, the blood rage commanding him to crush her bones and break her apart, but his flesh was not up to the task. She was beyond him, her fell power billowing out from her such that he could taste it on the air.

A tang, a sickening sore in the magikal skein hidden beneath the world that he was only just starting to get a glimpse of. He burned with anger, with helpless rage. Despite all his levels, all his skills and the power he'd earned in such a short time, he wasn't fucking strong enough. Forget Lady Valentia or the Golden-fucking-Lance, he couldn't even kill this evil old bitch. Green eyes, so bright they were blinding, held his own, and her rotten mouth turned up in a smile.

"Don't worry, little one, I've plenty of experience with this. Just wait and see what I do with your bones! We'll dance a pretty jig together, you and I." Asgar cast about frantically as she brought her other arm up to eye-level. The stump had already stopped leaking its black puss, and from that congealed mess emerged a new hand; shrivelled, diminutive, and clawed like an insect's. It reached out towards him, strong despite its size, and ripped the helm from his head.

He recoiled to escape the questing limb, but there was nowhere to go. Then his eye caught the strip of cloth around his bicep. Worth a shot. He tore it free and slapped it against the witch's neck. The effect was almost instantaneous. Slithering like a snake, the fabric wound itself around her neck and constricted. The witch dropped.

Asgar landed on his feet and coughed, kneeling to wrench his blade from the witch's stomach and pull the tourniquet from her neck before drawing back to cut her twisted head from her twisted shoulders. The crunch of gravel was the only warning he got before a shape hit him, and then he was airborne again. His short flight ended against another boulder, the clang of his plate armour against the stone a reminder of its role in saving his life for the third time.

The half-melted form of the final goatman, the one he'd failed to kill, filled his vision as it lifted him bodily and slammed him into the rock behind. Asgar tried to slash its neck, but the angle was wrong and it slapped his blade aside. He raised a gauntlet but his soul guttered at that very moment, his armour abruptly vanishing in a swirl of black ash to leave his form unprotected once more. He was out of options; weapons gone, strength fading. He had one trick left though, and it had already worked once.

If it ain't broke… Asgar slapped the cloth against the goatman's stitched-together neck, and it wrapped around, tightening immediately. Nothing happened though. A glance at the creature's chest showed why. It was missing a heart, the empty cavity filled with pulsing green light. If a creature had no heart, what need had it for blood? Seemed the only way to kill them conclusively was to destroy the head, or kill the witch that spawned them. He struggled in vain.

His greater strength should have given him advantage in this struggle, but the beast was powered by unnatural magik and Asgar had no leverage held aloft as he was. Not to mention the exhaustion. The witch shifted and spluttered, coming to from the temporary asphyxiation. Seems he would die here anyway, his oath unfulfilled. Both of his oaths, now. Sorry Gendry. Then a screech split the air and a new form entered the fray.

"Remember me!" Gendry screamed, head down, as he charged at them. His human head took the goatman squarely in the chest and Asgar heard a crack. Both creatures tumbled over the edge, flailing in a tangle of limbs out into open air. Asgar pulled himself to his feet again—he couldn't even count how many times it had happened this day—and stumbled towards the witch. She was groaning and rolling onto her back, and Asgar cast about for his weapon frantically. No time. He grabbed a rock and drove it into her face.

Then again. Straddling her, he lifted the rock high and brought it back down, over and over again. He was screaming, and only when there was nothing but a ruined mess before him and his voice had gone hoarse did he stop, slumping to one side to lie beside the corpse and stare up at the heavens. Avarron approves of your slaughter. You have gained a level. Level 17 achieved.

"That's for you, Gendry," he groaned.

"There's your fucking vengeance." The air shivered again, growing charged. Asgar's soul shivered with it and then lightning speared down from on high to crack against the plinth of jetstone nearby. It bounced around inside the monolith, coruscating beneath its surface and seeming to grow and change, then shot back out. Right at Asgar. He had time to widen his eyes in panic before it hit him, and the world went white for a single second.

The smell of ozone greeted him as he blinked away the glare, but he was unhurt, still lying atop the peak with the howling wind above and the grey stone below. Oath fulfilled. The Mountain Father takes note. New Blessing received.