[Ashborn-B1] 67. Devils Talk (Patreon)

LXVII

Devils Talk

The lesser drakes continuously cast glares over their shoulders.

‘Our army must be burning holes in their back.’

I was in the middle of all of them next to Erri and a few of her elites. It was a last-minute request on her part to have us walk together. I could’ve fought the decision, or at least wormed a few of my own allies into the mix, but I honestly didn’t care.

Erri had let her helmet dissolve until her neckline. She side-eyed me as we walked.

“What is it?” I said. “Can’t believe I said yes that easily?”

She didn’t speak and merely kept staring at me, but her elite spoke for her.

“You’re overconfidence will be your end, human.”

I raised my brow at Erri. She snarled at her clanmate, and the drake spun away as if they’d been struck.

A snort brushed past my nostrils. I turned back to the unfolding path of the shrine.

Erri had made a last minute request for me to walk ‘in their middle.’ I could’ve fought the decision or at least wormed a few of my allies into the mix, but I honestly didn’t care.

“Besides,” I said, “this works in my favour, too.”

Erri’s scaled forehead scrunched up.

“You won’t be able to dodge from this close with your injures,” I added.

Her muscles relaxed. She shook her head. “Humans. Your logic always perplexes me. What’s the point of killing me if you die yourself.”

I shrugged. ‘I don’t plan on dying,’ I didn’t say.

Our conversation tapered off. Around us, essence flowed through the air like a river. We followed the transparent energy’s bends and traversed the path.

The silence jumped out at me.

‘The ghosts are gone.’ I thought back to the battle. ‘They weren’t in the chamber either.’ That fact had passed me by due to the battle. ‘Where did they go?’ Had Raven bursting to the wall made them flee?

…No. They hadn’t been present from the start. If they had, we would’ve lost many more members.

The reverberations of claws digging through the ice trembled in my ears. The fog from over two hundred beings breathing entered the air and cloaked the road. Only the myriad of arts flashing from the army kept the shrine from going dark.

Somehow, the ghosts not being here made the voyage creepier than it’d been before.

My chicks scattered through the area and did their best to catch sight of a single face stuck in the walls.

They found none.

I exhaled my growing concern. My chicks hadn’t found the ghosts, but they had bumped into the group of Black Fangs again that we’d seen on the way here. They were seated around a campfire.

‘They didn’t lose any members.’

Given their heads swivelled back to the walls from time to time, they were just as suspicious of the absent ghosts as I was—

Erri sniffed deep as we rounded the bend of a tunnel. She turned in the direction of the Black Fang squad.

“You’ve got a sharp sense of smell,” I said. “Black Fangs. Around fifteen of them. They’re not in our way.”

They were likely waiting for the approaching signal of the Black Fangs behind us. Their addition to the opposing army wouldn’t change anything. Neither could we veer-off our path quickly to kill them without the others noticing.

“You don’t look surprised,” Erri said. “You knew they were there?”

“I did.”

Once more, the Dragonflight princess held my gaze.

“I don’t understand it,” she said.

My head tilted.

Heels covered in plate echoed on the ice like water dripping from rock. “You must be aware of the requirement of the token,” she said. “Absorbing them makes your summons more powerful. Why wouldn’t you kill them all? It should’ve been child’s play for you.”

‘Ah, that’s what she meant.’

I smiled softly. “I may not look like it, but I’m human. Not all of us are set on killing those who haven’t done us any wrong for personal gain.”

Smoke trailed through the gaps in her armour, followed by the beginnings of a chuckle. Reflecting in one of the walls was her image. A tall, lithe serpentine figure. Her bronze scales an extension of her face, which gleamed in the low lighting. “I pity that beast of yours if it really is a dragon. For a divine beast to serve a spineless child is nothing but a mockery to the heavens.”

The sound reflecting from her boots deepened.

“But I understand ,” the princess whispered. “To mercilessly slaughter others, to take what’s rightfully theirs—” she held out her arm and balled her claw into a fist. “—and make it yours…someone capable of that could only be a monster.”

I breathed in. The point of her tail rose behind her as she walked and poised like a serpent ready to strike. The firelight coming from behind us cast her face in a shadowed light that split her face in two halves.

Part of me saw the monster underneath it all. The beast which didn’t care for killing humans more than I cared for swatting a fly.

The other part of me thought back to my conversation with the Black Fang, after I’d saved Ori.

‘You must not have anyone to chase them away.’

Everyone had an origin. A reason for why they acted as they did…

I exhaled.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m just surprised,” I said with a small shake of the head.

Now, it was her turn to raise her brow.

“Wasn’t everything yours to begin with?” I asked. “‘The right of dragons,’ and such.”

Her gauntlets waved me away. “That’s what we tell our young. The belief helps them live with their deeds.”

“But you?”

She shrugged. “I accept the nature of our world. Power is respected. The strong feed on the weak. And if following those rules makes us monsters, so be it.”

Ice shattered and clattered under her boots. Her vertically-slit pupils flashed with the greed of a thousand serpents longing to become dragons.

“However, that’s the difference between us, Ashe.”

The intensity in her gaze made my heart skip. “What is?”

She smiled in that way only her inhuman clan could. “I’m not afraid of a label. Should it help my clan rise to greater heights, I shall gladly become the queen of hell.”

The frost sizzled from the heat escaping her pores.

‘They’re monsters.’

But I already knew that.

Erri huffed when I didn’t answer and returned her attention to road.

I thought back to the crying Dawnflame woman. ‘Queen of hell, huh.’ Erri was right to a degree. I already absorbed and killed many; there was no going back. So why was I trying to hold onto my morals?

“Admit what you are!” Ray’s phantom voice yelled.

Brows depressed and my features smoothed out. No matter what, I’d do what was required.

“That’s a nice look on your face,” Erri chuckled.

I huffed. “Whatever you say.”

Ahead of us, the paths narrowed and lengthened. The essence still guided us forwards…but there was a strange sensation in the air. My chicks didn’t spot anything out of order. Yet my insides began to squirm.

My thoughts returned to the absent ghosts. ‘Would they really disappear like this?’ I remembered the palpitations in my chest the first time I saw them. Their grinning faces as they dragged the elites through the ice towards eternal imprisonment. Those were the faces of hungry spirits. Souls longing for company in torment. They wouldn’t let a party of our size go if they could help it.

I rested a hand on my blade’s hilt and surveyed the ice. Only parts of it were lit. The rest was dark, empty, and cold.

There was nothing else.

“Say,” I said, and waited until I had Erri’s attention. “The first shrine had a guardian. Did you see one in this shrine?”

Her head tilted in an unnatural fashion. “No.”

A flash of essence dismantled my chicks to create space for Skul. The elites around me drew their weapons—Erri merely crossed her arms and studied him up close.

I covered my right eye with my palm. The gesture wasn’t necessary for sharing our sight, but it made the process easier. Skul’s azure world spawned in the shadows covering my sight. The walls were empty even in his vision, but he saw something I would’ve never caught.

Claw marks streaked beneath the frozen walls. They were like echoes, mere lasting effects from something more permanent. Yet the essence lingering around them told me enough.

“We need to run,” I said. Every second longer we spent in this tunnel was putting us at risk.

A moment passed. Then Erri turned to who I assumed was her second-in-command with a tilt of the head.

I looked over my shoulder. “Raven! We’re running. Tell the others to drop any dead weight.” We didn’t have many wounded who couldn’t run, luckily.

He blinked as the sound waves reached him and shared a glance with Kayle, who looked equally as confused. We’d specifically chosen to march at an easy pace. Running through these tunnels in formation wasn’t possible, so if the Black Fangs and Immortals decided to launch an ambush, we’d be out of position and tired. Better to conserve our stamina, especially since we still had time to make it back.

And now I was telling them to run.

I added some weight to my expression, which made Raven nod and pass the command.

Korin and Ori dashed ahead of the Dawnflames to reach my side. “What’s going?”

“We need to get out of here as quick as possible.” I increased my pace as they arrived, as did Erri and her elites. “The ghosts didn’t leave themselves.”

Korin frown and studied the walls. “They didn’t? Then what—”

“Don’t ask,” Ori said. “You’ll jinx us.”

Korin sighed. “Don’t be childish. That’s not—”

I let the rest of their bickering pass me by. Skul flew behind me as my head swivelled and I scanned the walls, with his sight. The trail of one particular streak was so long we still hadn’t passed the end despite running for some breaths.

“Korin, Ori,” I said. My tone drew the gaze of those around us. “Stop talking and run.”

And they must’ve seen it on my face, for the pair quickly nodded and shut up.

I cast a last glance behind me as I called another chick into being.

“Rin! Ren!” The two, who were also not giving it their all running, looked up. My arm swiped the air. “Drop the act! We need to move! Leave everyone that’s not fast enough!”

I didn’t wait for a response or confirmation. I inhaled in tune with my foot hitting the floor and spun the flaming essence through my veins. The ground depressed underneath my soles as I pushed off. I bounded past Erri and her elites.

The others, now seeing that I was serious beyond doubt, fired their own movement arts.

My heart began to skip beats. A pounding force emerged in the back of my head, which made me consider taking out Ashwing, but the roads were too narrow for her to manoeuvre freely, and I needed Skul to see the threat approach.

A lesser drake I was about to pass up thought he was cute and made to slam into me. Skul shouldered him out of the way and the beast tumbled.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” one of the elites behind me yelled.

My attention remained on the walls.

It’s coming.

A dark light pulsed within the walls like a heartbeat. It wasn’t only visual, for the entire path vibrated with its passing.

The wide eyes of the disciples scattered all around us. And then everyone who hadn’t already started running like their lives depended on it.

The whole hall rumbled. Foundations of ice cracked. Far below our feet, too far down to discern anything but the darkness, a swath of shadow moved.

It was bigger than any creature I’d ever seen. The body was long, sinuous—limbless like that of a snake—and multiple sets of what I could only guess were wings were attached to its back. I didn’t get a better look than that, for when the shadow lurched upwards, I unsummoned Skul and called Ashwing into being.

There may have been a need to see it coming, but there was nothing to do about it now it was here but run.

Judith didn’t leap out of the way of the boulder.

“Behind me, Milady!” Garen yelled.

A great barrier many times her fused together overhead in the way of the rock. Though the light cracked, it didn’t break.

Judith raised the tip of her staff. Her lips pressed together as the laser surged, carved a path through the sky, and ripped through the golem’s chest. ‘This is wasting our time.’

Who knew how many of their own Vyke was hunting down while they were here fighting these mindless golems?

“There’s a hidden entrance on the side!” Tirion yelled. His thick dagger sliced through the legs of a golem, toppling the beast.

Judith studied the walls again where he was pointing. He was right.

Bursting through was a matter of selecting the right members for the job while Garen and the rest of the frontline shielded them. The ice split, revealing a frozen staircase that descended into the darkness. It was big enough for at least thirty people to stand side-by-side.

Garen made sure their army retreated orderly—they’d been afraid the golems would chase them, but they didn’t enter nor even throw their boulders at anyone who crossed the boundary.

That gave all of them a free pass into the unknown.

“Keep your guards up,” Garen called. His claymore brightened.

“It’s like we’re travelling between realms,” Tirion said.

No matter how far they shone their light, there was nothing in this space beyond the staircase, and the landing strip at the bottom. It was unnerving. Anything could jump out at any moment. Luckily, though, their journey towards the bottom was uncontested.

An entrance unveiled another chamber. This one had natural illumination.

Judith shielded her eyes against the light as the first of their frontline passed through. Silhouettes on the other side made her peer. Black cloaks. Hoods pulled over their heads. The Fallen Immortal disciples stopped inspecting the stone tablets and looked up in shock at the army suddenly pushing into the chamber.

Without another word, Judith raised her staff.