The demon had done many terrible things to this place, but D’Arden had trouble imagining what horrors might be lurking amongst the moss-covered, crumbling stones of Old Calessa.
The sounds of battle reached his ears; strange sounds indeed for such a cold and desolate night. With one hand he drew the crystalline manna blade from the sheath on his back, and it came free with a low rasp. The cerulean light emitted forth in a gentle glow, forcibly adding color to the rapidly fading colors of the world around him.
He took a few steps towards the gate. The sounds of battle were unmistakable; steel on steel. He was almost certain he heard arrows flying through the air and hitting against something solid, possibly stone. Holding the sword parallel to the ground, he broke into a dead run through the gate, only flinching slightly as he crossed the threshold separating his power from the enemy’s.
D’Arden skidded to a halt at the intersection of what had once been two roads, with the buildings crumbled around him, a few of them showing their foundations through large holes in the walls. Directly ahead of him were two soldiers, dressed in full armor, crouched behind rubble as arrows broke against their cover. They had no ranged weapons of their own. Up ahead he could hear the sound of ringing steel clearly in the darkened evening.
One of the soldiers pulled what looked like a knife out of a hidden holster within his boot, and stood up, perhaps to throw it at the enemy. Instead, an arrow pierced his throat. Gagging, the soldier stumbled backwards, clutching at the bladed shaft with his hands while blood streamed down over his silvery armor and stained it bright red. Choking, gasping, he collapsed to the ground and shortly expired.
The other soldier looked back in his direction, and surprise registered on her face. “Who are you?” she demanded, as another arrow snapped and shattered into many small pieces on the stones around them.
“My name is D’Arden Tal,” he answered. “I am an Arbiter.”
The soldier shut her eyes tightly as a gasp came from the road up ahead. It was followed shortly by a guttural male scream, the sound a man makes as his innards are unexpectedly released by the point – or the blade – of a sword.
“That’s it… I’m the last one,” she whispered. “I’m going to die.”
D’Arden began boldly striding forward. He had no idea what it was that lay beyond those rocks, and he had no inkling as to what it might be that had managed to slay at least these two soldiers in such a short amount of time with such deadly accuracy. If they were using steel, they could not be touched too deeply by the corruption – elsewise they would simply be using their ill-gotten manna gifts.
As he passed the rubble that the soldier was using for cover, they came into view. They were about his height, but they had dusky, leathery red-grey skin that covered their entire bodies. Protrusions of bone stuck out from their heads and their backs, and great tusks adorned their broken faces. These were zagoths, related to true demons, but not the dangerous, corruption-spreading kind. These demons were simple warriors, minions perhaps of the greater demon that dwelled within the city, but perhaps not. These creatures plagued the landscape, raiding cities and slaughtering neither for food nor sustenance, but purely for the joy of killing. They thrived off it, requiring nothing else to fuel them and drive them onward for more killing. They were disgusting things, but they were sharply intelligent and their dark eyes glittered with malevolence.
Two of them nocked arrows in their bows, both of which were likely made of human bones. The arrows flew at him, and the world itself seemed to slow down.
His manna blade flashed cobalt in the night air as he swung it once and then again in rapid succession before him. Each arrow shattered as the sword cut through it, the bladed tips knocked harmlessly away. Not breaking his stride, he took three more steps forward and cut down sharply at the zagoth holding a curved and serrated steel blade, standing over the body of the third soldier. It turned to face him, but not in time. The manna sword cut through the flesh and bone of the shoulder, and the demon let out a howl that echoed amongst the crumbling buildings. Blood came forth, not the red blood of a human wound, but instead the thick, black ooze that flowed through the bodies of the dark ones that walked the land. The manna fire could not take hold in these demons, for they did not rely on the corrupted manna for their power. There was nothing to be purified here – these creatures, such as they were, were natural.
The sword was his only weapon here – collected blasts of manna worked well against demons and those touched by the corruption, but they could do little against the pure and the natural. So, rather than rely on the manna fire to dissolve the zagoth that now shrieked in agony before him, he brought his sword around for another swing that separated the demon’s head from its shoulders in a flash of light.
He spun gracefully around, having heard two more arrows leave the strings of the bone bows. The sword followed his movements, neatly deflecting two more arrows and shattering their shafts into hundreds of tiny shards. With a cry, he charged forward as one of them attempted to load another arrow, but it never came out of the quiver. D’Arden’s blade whistled through the air and cut through the zagoth ’s left arm and deep into the chest cavity, causing the black ooze to spout forth and the demon to groan and collapse into the dirt.
Just one aggressor left. He heard the next arrow coming, but he did not have time to spin and deflect it with his sword. It sank deep into the side of his thigh as he came around, and he cried out in pain as the metal pierced flesh and rent muscle in its path. Blood began to flow down his right leg as he rushed forward, too lost in the battle for the arrow to do much to slow his momentum. As the manna blade came around at the last demon, it attempted to hold up its bow to deflect the incoming attack. The bone was too brittle, and it shattered even as the blade cut into the crown of the zagoth ’s head, separating a good three inches of skull off above its eyes. There was a spray of dark, pitch-like blood that splattered against the walls of the nearby stone foundations, and then all was silent.
As the adrenaline faded from his veins, D’Arden felt the pain of the arrow in his leg very sharply. He cried out once more and sagged heavily against the closest stone wall, closing his eyes and breathing deeply to regain his balance. The world swam around him. He only hoped – he did not pray, for to pray was to die – that the arrows had not carried any kind of poison on their tips. A flesh wound he could live with, and might even be able to seal long enough for him to finish his mission without too much undue scarring, but he would not be able to deal with a poisoned arrow. A toxin would overcome him in minutes, as his body was weakened against attacks which bore no trace of manna, but simply natural danger.
Gripping the arrow shaft tightly in one hand, he snapped it off. He closed his eyes tightly and groaned against the agony as the arrow moved and blood flowed out more strongly. Holding what remained of the shaft as tightly as possible, though it was slick with blood, he pulled hard on it and it came free with little additional damage. The arrow was not bladed nor was it barbed, but a simple round point designed for a pinpoint, killing shot. These zagoths had known that they would be fighting soldiers.
They hadn’t counted on an Arbiter.
He turned back to where the soldier was still hiding behind the rubble. He saw her face appear from behind the rocks, and then, as she sensed that the danger had passed, she emerged from her cover.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
He slid his manna blade home into its sheath that hung from his back, and it clicked as it locked into place. “Practice.”
She looked down at the wound on his leg. “You’re bleeding.”
“It will pass,” he grunted, the pain of the wound still very fresh and at the forefront of his mind. “I’ll be fine. It wasn’t deep nor was it crippling. I was very glad to determine that the arrows weren’t poisoned.”