Chương 67: Feather and Lightning

Outside the cave, the storm raged, tearing across the dunes below the stone protrusions. The desert landscape had become unrecognizable since daybreak, transformed from frozen waves of sand into a howling typhoon. In the murky darkness, lightning struck half-buried armor. With each crack of thunder, shields and plates shuddered. Then they rose, sewn together by blue wisps of lightning into marching figures of rusted steel and energy. From the air, cawing answered with the same fury as the storm itself.

An endless murder of crows swooped down, attacking the figures as they ceaselessly pushed southeast towards a destination unknown. It was a battlefield between the birds and the storm itself. Some crows were as large as dogs, diving as if catapulted from siege engines, crashing into the animated ranks of the storm who in turn retaliated with wing-severing strikes of their swords. On one of the rock columns that littered the landscape sat a hunched figure, draped in an armored jacket far too large.

The rain drenched him. In his black, clawed hands rested a limp and scorched arm. A crow shot off from the chaos, swooping down towards the dead flesh in his hand. In a flash, a third hand burst forth from the coat, snatching the bird out of the air and dragging it under the coat. Something shifted under the jacket but soon grew still, the figure sitting motionless throughout. The flock didn't notice, preoccupied with its fierce battle against the storm and lightning.

Later in the cave, Wretch plucked feathers off a row of dead birds, then placed the last of the wood on the fire to urge it back to life. He butchered the birds with his claws, using a stick like a skewer. Now and then, a lightning strike shook the cave, answered by a furious symphony of croaks from the thousands of crows littering the skies.

"It's time to eat. How else would a hunter perform?" he said. The girl was pale and slick with sweat, whimpering as if she was in a nightmare. He got behind her, holding up her larger body as best he could. He had filled water in the only container he could find, his own boot. Carefully, he poured some into her quivering mouth. He gave a nod when she swallowed it down greedily.

"Sorry about this," he said as he ripped a piece of sizzling bird meat from the makeshift skewer. He chewed it thoroughly. The meat was meager, but after two days with only water, he had to stop himself from devouring it himself. Using his claws to pick tiny pieces from his own mouth, he placed them in hers. Either by reflex or willfully, she pushed them down. When he was satisfied with the amount, he laid her down on a bed of black feathers, returning her armored jacket like a quilt.

Crouching by the entrance, he too feasted on the sizzling bird meat. It wasn't bad, not at all by his standards. He chewed as he watched the battle unfolding outside, hugging the Blinking Blade to his naked chest. The figures of lightning each took down hundreds, if not thousands, of birds as they marched to the east.

But the crows seemed unending, pelting the figures in pecks and black feathers until they finally stumbled and were drowned in a mound of fluttering wings, while beaks ripped at the seams of lightning holding them together.

"What kind of place is this?" he said to himself.

"How could this ever have belonged to us?" Neither the birds nor the figures of lightning produced any coals as they fell. As far as he knew, that could only mean that they were the product of another Blessing. I can't even imagine it. What kind of power would one need to produce a scene like this.

Slowly, the storm died down and, as the crows cawed in victory over a light drizzle, he moved to the fire and let himself fall into a comfortable sleep against the rocks, wrapping his own tail around his torso for warmth. Hours later, all that remained from the night's battle were rusted armor and a few black wings sticking out from the sand. Shifting dunes had erased all the other traces. Despite the heavy rain mere hours before, the soil and air were dry.

The two suns, one slightly darker and the other with a hint of magenta, were high in the sky. In the cave, Elenya was crouched to the side with the stump of her severed arm held against her chest. Wretch pressed his palm against her forehead. She was still feverish, but no longer soaked in sweat. He bent down and sniffed at her wound, bandaged with the remains of his shirt. It smelled of iron, lacking that strange sweet scent he had noticed before.

He gave her another few gulps of water from his boot, then nodded in approval.

"There, there. It gets better, that pain is a weapon. You just have to wield it," he said, patting her on the head as his tail snagged the water-filled shoe and set it on the ground. He went to the exit and carefully climbed down the strange rock formation. It was a hard climb without extra hands, but his tail had become like a capable extra limb. He shielded his eyes from the suns as his naked feet touched the sand. It was blistering hot, but the arid wind blew dust that dimmed the light.

He went to work collecting firewood, careful to never stray too far from their hideout. A few warped trees and bushes had found shelter under the hollowed-out rock columns, and he hacked them down with his weapon or snapped them apart with his claws. It took him a few trips to fill up the stock. On his last trip back, something caught his eye. It was neither rusted armor nor a broken wing, but revealed black stone jutting from the ground.

He knelt and brushed away the sand, revealing the corner of a buried structure, swallowed by the dunes in ages past. What do we have here? He got to digging, gradually revealing the edge of a toppled monolith made of a dark ebony material. After a few minutes of labor, he pulled back. An engraving covered the exposed surface, sharp lines depicting figures leading an army, cresting a peak beneath hovering orbs. Humans?

At the center of the masterful artwork stood a mountain of a man in intricate armor, towering over the rest. In one hand he held a fire, and in the other, a broken banner. His face had been defaced, scratched beyond recognition, while over the army a single figure flew with outstretched arms. Those two were the only individuals marked by a halo behind their heads. Blessed leading an army, and the flying one is the same as on the metal armor. With twelve orbs overhead. Or are those…

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. He shielded his eyes and gazed upon the two suns lowering towards the horizon. One darker, the other with a hint of magenta, both flickering through the heat shimmer across the dunes. Wretch crouched down, his tail snaking forward to draw in the scorching sand. It spelled out crude letters: Death The Blessed below the spires had spoken of the Flame of Ends. Grendel had called it the Death-Flame.

He gave the shriveled corpse beside his own Flame a quick glance. Dimitrov, you had powers over your dead family. That fits. His tail spelled out another word. Beast Like me, the hounds, and perhaps even that terrorist, Grendel the White Death. Things with thick skins and sharp claws. The tail slithered through the sand, completing the final word. Ingenuity The Blessings to make things, according to Grendel at least. The Gulschaks, and maybe the professor too.

If each is represented by an orb, there are still nine missing. Is there one for healing like Astrid's? Bloodshed like Elenya's? But what's Edmund's? And why are there only two suns now instead of twelve? He shook his head and trailed his gaze back to the stone carving. An endless army led by the faceless giant towards a destination that was missing.

"What really happened to this world?" He scrutinized the smaller figures, each with their faces scratched and marred. One made him raise an eyebrow. A woman obscured by two wings and feathers. He knew her well, he had seen her depictions since he was a child. The Saint, but with two wings instead of four. Looks like you really are just a Blessed. I bet you know what happened? Another beside her was a man in armor with two long knives, the face similarly marred and unrecognizable.

He squinted at it, but the depiction was too damaged and crude. He pushed up to his feet from the deep sand with a shake of his head that sent drops of sweat scattering. His skin and the soles of his feet had blistered from the heat, so he regenerated them with a simple thought. A year ago, that pain would have made him scream. Now it was second nature. His scaled upper body, on the contrary, was managing the heat well, though it lacked the ability to sweat.

He climbed back up to the hideout, placing some more gnarly sticks on the fire and pouring some more water down Elenya's throat. The heat of the desert evaporated almost instantly as the suns got low, and the rocks of the cave were already chilling to his bare feet. She was mumbling, and he decided that was a good sign. The last few drops he poured into his own mouth.

"Let's hope for some more rain tonight, eh?" he said as he stretched his arms and tail. The girl only muttered in response. He adjusted the feathers of the makeshift bed and made sure the fire had grown enough. Giving a satisfied nod, he climbed up to the top of the rock column. He could see the edge of the crater to the west, a thin rim of green that must have been the carnivorous forest with the dreams. To the east, rock columns stretched to the horizon.

The lightning figures had all tried to walk in that direction.

"The same way we are heading," he said to himself. The hot and dry wind blew at him as he sat atop the rock, watching the surrounding desert. His hair was becoming long again, and he made a mental note to ask Astrid to cut it whenever they got back. That and to ask for her thoughts regarding all the different Flames. The tiny scholar was sure to have a theory. He used the time to take stock of his inner flame, the space where his fiery power resided, a space only he could see.

It was burning much brighter than when he was a lowly Ember. Different monsters kneeled before it in veneration, foes of past battles. They ranged from his first kill, the now much less impressive rat-beast, to Jonah's multi-armed form of black skin and claw. Most numerous were the different Blessed slaughter hounds. The different horrors filled out the first row around the flame and continued in a spiraling pattern outwards.

He moved on to the information that had been readily available to him since the day he became a Blessed, just as visible and true as the sight of his flame or the sensation of his own tongue. Wretch, Collector of Wounds Fireling Times Kindled: 8 Regeneration: Consume flame to restore broken flesh. Purging rot and poison. Greater wounds demand greater cost. Flesh Stealer: Consume flame to reshape the body and take the form of any Blessed you have slain and devoured. The change can be overwritten only by a new shape.

Each change decreases your maximum flame permanently. Form Weave: Weave flame into temporary flesh. A fast, unstable, and temporary change from the Blessed forms at your disposal. Costs a large amount of flame to use and to maintain"Eight times kindled… already closing in on ten."

"I really should learn more forms and add some more changes with Flesh Stealer…" he said to himself, extending a hand against the backdrop of the dunes. So far, he had two black claws for hands, a ratlike tail, strong black bones, sharp teeth, improved hearing and smell. Scales covered his upper body, and his previously brown eyes were now completely black and could see in the dark. Despite his monstrous look, he wasn't satisfied, not in the slightest. It was weak, shattered too easily.

He would like something that made him faster or improved the sharpness of his eyes. Perhaps some thick skin instead of the itching fish scales. He eyed the Blessed hound with a blade of bone protruding from each forearm, Bwiri, spawn of Vishnii. Its bones were light and brittle, too frail for his liking, but the tendons were another matter entirely, strong and built to handle the creature's quick lunges. Those would suit his black bones just fine. Another area to improve.

But let's wait until the deep sleeper wakes up. Over the edge of the crater to the west, grey clouds rolled forward, dimming the sky overhead. From his viewpoint, it looked like a crescent of dark clouds that stretched for dozens of kilometers. From the east, distant cawing echoed in the dry wind.

"Every night, huh?" He wondered where that number of birds could come from, but realized he would probably find out if he kept heading east. The grey clouds darkened the sky above him as a figure moved at the edge of his vision, and he snapped his head around, straining his eyes. From the edge of the crater, a tiny dot advanced along the sand and rocks. Wretch's eyes shot wide as he recognized it. It was small, no bigger than a large dog, with long fur that left a trail in the rapidly cooling sand.

He looked beside him, a thin plume of grey smoke from their cave. From the hundreds of meters separating them, they locked eyes. Fiery pupils opened among the fur along its tiny body. A name appeared in his mind. But this one, he knew. Vishnii, Eyes in the Mist. Wretch, Collector of Wounds, didn't look away.

"Walk past," he said out loud where he sat with the Blinking Blade in his lap. The cawing grew louder and a slight trickle of rain fell on his naked shoulders.

"I won't leave her." The tiny creature moved with purpose, heading in his direction, and he stood up.

"You think I'll run just because you are stronger?"

"I will throw away everything, every ounce of potential, every secret of the Flame, just to hurt you. I'll wring my life away just to make you suffer. I'll grow blades of bone, nails, and claws, rip myself to shreds to leave scars that will itch forever. So walk away." The first lightning strike shook the air in the distance, and the trickle of rain turned into a downpour. From under the fur of the tiny hound, mist billowed out, twirling as if blown by a wind. It flew up to the rock formation opposite his.

In the haze of rain, the mist pulled together into a thick white cloud, taking the form of a claw, then a hairy leg, until finally the entire beast materialized in its larger form. A twisted humanlike hound, four meters tall, standing on two legs with long fur that fell down every inch of its body. Underneath, dozens of fiery pupils opened, each one trained on him. Its long claws scraped against the rock, and a thin snout sniffed the air. Two stitched slits where its regular eyes should have been.

A dozen lightning strikes rattled from the west as the storm roared forward. A sea of black dots came from the east, crows numerous enough to blot out the sky ready to battle once again. The two Blessed stood between the two advancing armies. From across the gap between the rock columns, the hound laughed, and the hunter growled.