Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 6: Chapter 13: Wyrmblighted

A single bolt of lightning wreathed the sky, and in its flash the nightmare lifted its head high and revealed a forked tongue as though tasting the storm. Nearly two hundred knights and more than a thousand bystanders stared, trapped in a lasting moment of eerie stillness.

It had no wings, and eight limbs to support its ungainly mass. The first two looked disturbingly like human arms, twisted and stunted to curl over a bulging pot belly set below an emaciated chest. Two tails whipped the air, viscous strings of bloody membrane connecting them. A crown of sickly yellow horns weighed down its arrow-shaped head, no two grown in quite the same shape. Its scales grew in a patternless chaos, even bursting from one eye socket like a cancer. The remaining eye looked white and blind.

Indeed, it did not seem to notice the rest of us. The creature’s head swayed back and forth, almost drunkenly, an unbroken hiss escaping its parted jaws to produce a sound like building steam.

I spoke to the knight next to me, keeping my voice low. “Take some of these others with you and get the emperor and empress out of here. Start clearing the stands.”

The lordly knight remained still a moment. Though the bearded mask of his helmet hid his face, I sensed he was stunned.

“Do you hear me?” I said more urgently. “Start evacuating the Coloss, now.”

He startled. In that same moment, one of the knights lost control of his animal. It reared, screaming, and the wyrm’s head tilted towards it.

Everything went wrong. People up on the walls started shouting. So did the tourney knights. One baronet began to shout prayers at the creature like it were a demon he meant to banish. The dragon stilled its swaying, then in an almost ponderous movement its towering neck dropped like a felled tree.

But not because that pious knight’s invocation had hurt it. The neck fell, and crushed the praying man beneath it along with his chimera.

Its six twisted legs began to work like an insect’s, propelling the creature’s mass forward at shocking speed. Dust and gravelly island rock erupted around it as it crawled on its belly, keeping its horned head low to the ground. Its maw opened, snapped shut over a fully armored cockatrice, dislodging its rider only to crush him underfoot. Blood splattered knights more than twenty feet away.

The monster passed perhaps thirty feet to my right, ploughing through tourney knights as it went and killing at least six by doing little more than moving through them. When one Westvale lancer tried to get away on his nimble kynedeer, the wyrm caught him with its horns — more like antlers, I realized — and gored him straight through. The man remained stuck to that crown, flailing and still alive, as the dragon began to turn.

It had another man in its mouth. Ser Gerard, I realized. Even in the moment I registered that, it lifted its head to toss the man, opened its maw wide, and swallowed him whole. His choked scream cut off abruptly.

The monster made an odd gulping motion, like a pelican taking a fish too big for it. Its neck wasn’t particularly large just below the jaws, and I could see the bulge where Gerard was, see his legs kicking in the air a moment before the thing’s mouth closed. It made a horrible sound, a sort of bass, hiccupping gulp as it worked the muscles in its throat. A man I’d fought alongside and almost died with was gone, just like that.

What was happening? What was this nightmare? Jocelyn had been a dragon?

No. This didn’t feel like a discarded disguise. I recalled his last words before the change.

Wyrmblight.

Calerus and Karog, who’d been on the verge of having their long awaited showdown, both stared at the monster just like everyone else. By the prince’s expression, I decided this wasn’t another one of his family’s insidious schemes.

Cursing, I lifted my sword and focused my will. This was a crisis, no longer a cautious game where I needed to concern myself with misdirection and strategy. If I didn’t act, people would die. Some already had. I’d never faced this kind of creature before, only knew the stories, but the feeling in my soul and the cold sweat on my skin told me a simple truth.

It was dangerous. More so by far than the storm ogre. My emperor and empress were threatened.

What did I do? I wanted to go straight to Rosanna, get her out safely rather than trusting anyone else to do it. I wasn’t responsible for all these other lives, and there was every chance Hyperia or Yith might take this opportunity to act against us. Perhaps they’d even set this up somehow, and not warned Calerus.

A stretch, but…

No. I’d stop it here, make sure it didn’t get out into the city. I had a responsibility as a knight.

Morgause did not hesitate to move forward, the brave girl, and we advanced on the scaled nightmare like a black wind. I took my sword in both hands, levering it back in preparation for a swing. I aimed for one of the creature’s ankles on its back leg, the sturdiest looking of the set. If I could cripple it, maybe—

A flash of movement made me instinctively pull back on my chimera’s reins. She let out a sound somewhere between a chirp and a whinny. One of the wyrm’s tails whipped through the air, huge and fast as a sudden breeze. I saw the lesions on it, the ill-grown scales, the yellow, brittle-looking spines.

I swung my sword, and probably saved my chimera’s life. I cut the end of that tail clean off. The second tail, however, struck me like a giant’s club and took me off my saddle. The world spun, blurred, and for the second time that day I hit the island hard enough to lose all the air in my lungs.

Slam, crash, roll. An uncontrollable movement. I lost my sword, had to tuck my arms and legs in. My armor probably saved me from being flayed by the sharp rocks. My left leg twisted under me. A lightning bolt of pain exploded in it.

The situation escalated within the half minute it took me to get a knee under me and stop the world from spinning. Everything was chaos under the black, flickering clouds spiraling above the arena. Knights moved about, some trying to get out of the way and others trying to fight the monster.

There, I saw one brave man couch his lance and charge. His chimera looked like an ox of some kind, a tri-horn from the pastoral baronies of the Gylden. He was using a tourney lance, useless against this enemy, but even as I watched him build speed a pale light formed around his weapon, increasing its length and making it shine like a star.

He hit. The lance broke, but the aura he’d wreathed it in held the force of a cannonball. A cascade of steaming blood exploded from the wyrm’s hind leg as scales shattered and muscle ruptured. The knight turned his mount and went under the thing’s tail, getting out of the way.

Emboldened by this, others turned to fight. These were warriors, some of them veterans of the Fall, and they were not unprepared to defend themselves. I saw the wounded, half blind Ser Konrad front and center, his remaining axe glowing red as he shouted orders.

Turning my attention from that, I found Morgause. She cantered a distance away, keeping her distance. I left her be for the time, instead trying to get a lay of the battlefield.

I didn’t see the knight with the masked helm. Hopefully, he’d gone to do what I’d told him and get people out.

Then, just when I prepared to move again, a voice like thunder crashed down on the island as the Emperor spoke.

“Knights of the Accord, stall that creature while the arena is emptied. Do not let it out from this place!”

A figure appeared at my side, getting a hand under my arm to help me up. My left leg almost buckled as I put weight on it, and I found an unsettlingly deep dent in my breastplate from where the monster’s tail struck me. Pain throbbed dully through my ribs. I’d fractured some, probably.

The one who’d helped me was the knight in the mushroom helm. “Are you alright?” He asked.

I startled as I recognized the voice within. “Fen Harus? What—”

“I wished to test this generation for myself,” the disguised elf said flatly, none of his usual wizened bemusement showing. The knight looked too short to be the seydii elf, but his people were very good at glamour and not married to their forms like humans are.

“What is happening?” I demanded.

“A troubling curse,” the oradyn said. “One I believed better controlled, but it seems the power gathering here had unforeseen effects.”

“You knew about this!?”

“Later. Focus, Alder Knight.”

The wyrm moved again. Getting struck by the jouster seemed to have stunned it a minute, but now more of the knights were pelting it with weapons and Art. Our land is not inexperienced in warfare against monstrous foes. Those with spears or lances charged from different directions, surrounding it, while others attacked where they had openings with phantasmal blades and other auratic weapons that could breach its hard scales. I saw Karog slouching behind the mounted riders, looking for an opening rather than charging recklessly.

And Calerus… where was he? There, not far from Ser Konrad. He held a broadsword of middling size and a round shield old as his armor. He’d been standing near the creature’s path during its destructive charge, and seemed to have lost his mount.

“Wyrmblight…” I tried to recall what I knew about it. “It can spread, right? Like a disease?”

“Only from a true dragon,” Fen Harus corrected. “Jocelyn is infested, yes, but he is not that. If he were, this city would be doomed. This creature is a lindwurm. But you must listen, Ser Alken, it is also—”

He was cut off by a shout nearby. One of the knights pointed to the sky. Following his motion, I saw at what. The Fulgurkeep gargoyles were circling above us, drawn by the command of their lord. They came in all sorts of forms, each more devilish in appearance than the last, and held halberds and poleaxes fashioned in the armories of House Forger.

The flock swarmed the wyrm, diving and striking at it with their weapons. I’d seen this before, during the siege of Garihelm in the last year of the war. They’d turned back the Recusants and all their fiendish weapons, emerging from the palace in such numbers they’d blotted out the moons.

Not so many now. Many, perhaps most, died during that siege eight years before. But there were at least thirty of the creatures, plenty enough to be deadly.

One caught the lindwurm across its face, marking it. The creature let out a furious hiss that sounding like nothing so much as an angry geyser. Its serpentine head reared back, and the milky orb of its left eye suddenly seemed to brighten. Its jaws opened, revealing more of that cancerous growth of scales inside, cramming for space with yellow teeth.

A light appeared inside its maw. I knew enough of the stories to understand what that meant.

“GET BACK!” I roared.

Almost as though in mockery of my attempted warning, the sky broke out into a furious barrage of lightning, the ensuing thunder drowning out all other sound.

The wyrm breathed fire. It was not a majestic sight, but more like watching something sick vomit a cascade of deadly bile. The creature’s long neck bulged, glowing from within, its one eye popped open so wide I thought it might burst out of the socket, and amber-green death flooded from between its teeth. It ripped that plume across the swarming gargoyles first, melting many in their own stone flesh. Where the fire, half gas and half liquid, fell in a rain across the knights, they boiled inside their own armor along with their chimera.

The screams were terrible. Some of the worst I’d ever heard.

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The wyrm twisted its neck around in a circle several times, showering the entire field. Some of that spew made it all the way to the wall, killing some of the spectators who were still clamoring towards the exits and blocking their paths by leaving pools of toxic steam.

“We need to bring it down.” I finished standing. A shock of pain through my side made me gasp.

“Buy me time,” Fen Harus instructed.

I didn’t know what he planned, but he seemed to know more about this creature than I did. The lindwurm paused a moment, sucking in labored breaths from its open maw. Viscous glowing drool dripped from between its fangs, sizzling on the ground. The smoking, melting corpses of gargoyles, humans, and chimeric animals alike surrounded it.

It froze suddenly, coughed, then spat something onto the ground. A twisted, blackened thing like a piece of wet charcoal landed beneath it.

I realized in a moment of horror it was what remained of Ser Gerard.

Only a few minutes, and it had caused this much damage.

A shape clamored up onto the winded monster’s back. Karog, scrabbling up the beast like an ape. The wyrm noticed him and bucked, twisting its long neck around to snap at him. Karog dodged the blow, slashed at its eye to force it to recoil, then leapt up to grab the base of its skull.

The ogre was heavy, and the lindwurm’s head relatively small compared to the rest of its bulk. His weight slammed the thing down, giving me a clear shot at it. I stepped forward, almost keeled over as another bolt of pain shot through my side. I was injured badly, but had no time to deal with it. I’d fought through pain before.

The wyrm’s jaws opened, and once again that hellish glow lit within. Karog saw it and got the creature’s jaws into a lock, clamping it closed. It tossed its head, nearly dislodged him. Its thrashing brought its head close enough to threaten me and I swung, but all I claimed was a single two-pronged antler, which broke like brittle bone and spat green ichor from the hollow remains. Where that substance touched my sword, it steamed and began to melt.

I stared at the fine sword, now ruined, and felt something hollow creep through my battle focus. This thing had to be made of phantasm, and yet it seemed so real

The creature backpedaled away from me, still trying to throw Karog off. This gave me some space, and before I could advance again a huge armor clad beast took up position next to me. When Ser Konrad saw my sword, he cursed.

“Acid blood!?”

“Something like that,” I agreed.

“Just like the wyverns who haunt the southern coasts,” the Lord of Burncastle muttered darkly. “This isn’t my first time fighting a wyrmblighted thing.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

He didn’t answer. Atop the lindwurm’s neck, Karog managed to get his cleaver up and drive it back down. Perhaps he missed the brain, or the aura-born creature just didn’t have any such thing it needed, because instead of dying it lashed out with its twin tails and struck him off.

Freed, the beast lifted its head and glowered down at the scattered knights. It seemed to be searching for something. Its forked tongue flicked out twice, tasting the air while it turned its head about. It seemed blind, but reacted violently at most noise. Karog rolled onto his stomach a distance away, his cleaver broken off in the monster’s scales. I saw some of its tail spines still stuck into his back, where they’d punched right through his bronze plate.

“We don’t kill it,” a dry voice said to my left.

I glanced at Calerus Vyke. He stared at the dragon, his shadowed eyes wide beneath his helm in an intense expression. He’d lost his mount at some point, and I recalled him being near the path of the wyrm’s destructive charge. He seemed uninjured.

When he caught my look, he explained. “That beast is all aura, little different from the mist that clings to a wight’s bones. You don’t strike the mist, but break the skeleton. Destroy what anchors the will and it will disperse.”

I understood. Jocelyn. He was still inside that thing.

Suddenly, the lindwurm’s head tilted sharply to one side. I glanced in the direction of its gaze, and saw a small figure atop the Coloss wall, her hands clutching the edge. I recognized dark skin, black hair, a green dress.

Laessa. Her escape had been cut off by the lindwurm’s shower of burning ichor, and now she stood, trapped and watching the scene unfold. The wyrm watched her intently. I could not make out her own expression, but she seemed frozen to the spot, a bird caught in the eyes of a serpent.

Another voice rang out through the storm. Fen Harus, still wearing his knightly disguise, strode towards the beast with slow, cautious steps. He spoke in his people’s own language, the words ringing out with an unnatural timbre. I could not parse each word, but felt a solid grasp on their meaning. A sleeping chant, almost a lullaby. The wyrm turned towards him and bared its fangs in an angry hiss.

It breathed flame again, the toxic-looking amber stream carving its way in a straight line across the island. I thought Fen Harus dead a moment, but suddenly he leapt and the short, plump looking knight was gone, replaced by a taller figure with thinner proportions. He moved swiftly, almost flying as he avoided the blast of fire. He no longer canted at the thing.

I took up my damaged blade, and beneath my helmet I closed my eyes in concentration. Within me, the Alder’s fire burned hot in agitation. This creature, while not abgrüdai, still registered as profane to my senses. The flame wanted me to smite it, but the sensation felt strange. Ambivalent, almost. Perhaps even afraid.

I knew the aureflame had a will of its own, but I’d never ascribed anything like personality to it. I’d never imagined it could balk at a threat, and I’d always assumed all doubt came from me.

A question for Fen Harus later perhaps, if we survived this. I focused on the words of my oath, and began to shape a weapon I knew could bring low any enemy, no matter how large and strong. Godsven’s Dawn would certainly reveal me to those present, but that didn’t seem high on my list of priorities just then.

The mechanisms of my altered soul began to reshape it, ghostly words murmuring through my thoughts, warmth blooming somewhere in my chest. I took the claymos in both hands, lifting it up above my head. The power surged, flared, became visible as tongues of gilt light along the sword’s blade.

Both Konrad and Calerus must have seen it, but neither said anything. I opened my eyes and fixed them on the wyrmblighted. “I need it to stay still,” I said aloud, my voice humming with an uncanny music. It would take time for this Art to fully form, and I could not risk missing.

If I’d had Faen Orgis in hand, I would have attempted to bind the thing with the Malison Oak, but there were no shadows dark enough to draw the axe out. Besides, best to just destroy it. If it was pure phantasm, then the Dawn would burn it away.

Without any objection, both the Prince of Talsyn and the Lord of Burncastle moved forward. Konrad’s ornate gold-plated axe glowed with heat, while Calerus showed no signs of any particular magic. He only gave his broadsword a flourish and lifted his shield.

The lindwurm suddenly lifted its head. One of the almost bat-like ears growing from its skull twitched. It turned toward me. By this point, I was wreathed in golden fire already in the process of forming itself into abstracted symbols as my Art took form. The creature bared its fangs.

Sense this might hurt you, eh? I slowly brought my sword up above my head.

The lindwurm began to move, advancing toward me like an evil wave of scales and fangs and burning ichor. Its jaws opened wide, once more revealing that infernal glow.

Konrad’s heavy mount swept past it. His axe lashed out, carving along the muscles of one thigh. The creature snapped at him, missed, and he managed to get clear. Calerus came in a moment later, but he didn’t have the mounted knight’s mobility. He used the wyrm’s distraction to dash forward, stabbing at its exposed chest where the scales seemed thinner, giving way to thin-looking hide. His blade struck, drawing more acid blood as he pulled savagely to one side to open the wound wider.

Calerus danced away from the ensuing spray. He moved like a wraith, so fast I had trouble tracking him. The lindwurm’s twisted forelimbs clawed at him uselessly, then its tails swept in just as when it’d knocked me off my chimera.

Calerus ducked the first tail, twisted, and slashed the second as he came up at a sharp angle. More blood splattered. His sword steamed, its blade already deforming as the ichor ate at it, but he seemed calm and focused as he backed away. When the lindwurm turned on him, he lifted his shield and slapped at it with the flat of his blade, producing a mocking ring.

But this was no animal. It glared down at the prince, practically glowing with hate, then turned back to me. Its eye fell on me, and I felt its malice like a sudden ray of desert sunlight.

It lowered down onto its belly, protecting its vulnerable underside from further attack, and charged.

No one else would stop it this time. Karog was badly injured and still down, Konrad too far away, and Calerus’s sword left useless. I blew out a golden breath, took a single step forward, and brought my blade down.

That blast of power held just as much strength as the blow I’d used to cleave Rose Malin in half. All the aureflame circling me condensed into a blinding golden thunderbolt that ripped across the ground between me and the creature. It was a blade of sunlight, an auratic storm that flickered like a hundred bonfires, hummed like an angel’s chorus. It struck the monster dead center, engulfed it, turned it into a shadow within a nova of white-gold light.

The creature reared up, let out a trumpeting howl. More natural lightning flickered above, as though drawn to it.

The light of my Art faded. The lindwurm remained fully intact. It glowed like a coal for a moment, but then that light vanished. No, it did not fade, but receded into the creature’s body. Just like when it had taken Gerard, it made that odd gulping hiccup.

It stared down at me with a yellow eye slitted by a red pupil, bared its teeth, and let out a long sigh.

It had grown bigger.

It devoured my Art.

And not just mine. Already its wounds were closing, its form swelling. I recalled all the sorcery and auratically enhanced weapons the other knights had barraged it with.

This thing could eat aura. The realization left me stunned. My most powerful technique, and it hadn’t left a scratch. My shoulders slumped. What remained of my sword cracked, a piece of the blade falling away. Other knights on the field had seen my attack fail, and many of them paused. Those who’d been ready to charge into the fray hesitated. Some even started backing away as their morale wavered. We’d seemed to be winning, but…

A sudden, unexpected sound filled the air. The dragon’s pointed ears flicked, and its now unblinded eye moved to my right. I followed its gaze, and saw the knight who was actually Fen Harus standing alone on the field. He still wore his pale armor, though it looked oddly organic now, like it were made from petrified plant matter. His cloven hooves were revealed, his arms turned long and ungainly, but the toadstool shaped helm remained. He had a white flute in hand, carved from ivory or bone by the look of it. One end of the instrument was hidden inside a hole in his helmet near where his mouth would be.

He played a melody on the flute, and as that second set of notes met my ears my vision blurred. I stumbled, caught myself, shook my head furiously against the alien will I felt.

Strangely, few of the other knights seemed as affected. Calerus just frowned, while Ser Konrad watched in silence. A few seemed to waver as I had, but the animals were more strongly affected. One cockatrice who’d lost its rider simply lay down on its belly and went to sleep right there. I saw Morgause in the distance, and the scadumare tossed her black mane as though shaking off a biting fly.

By the fifth refrain, I wasn’t certain I could resist the pull into blackness. With a force of will I kept my eyes on the lindwurm. Its head swayed back and forth, like a snake charmed by some magician’s flute. Its one eye drifted closed, opened, then closed again.

We all watched, transfixed, as the elf lulled the dragon to sleep. It took many minutes, and for all that time even the storm seemed to quiet so it could listen. It was a bittersweet melody, full of yearning and a sort of dark triumph. Images flashed through my mind, but I could not parse them. I tried not too, fearful that lingering on them would drag me down into unconsciousness.

The wyrm began to breathe harder, its lower jaw drooping open to reveal a swollen, hanging tongue. It hissed in rage, but the sound seemed half hearted.

Then, it did something else I didn’t expect. It began to melt. Starting from its spiked cranium, its scaled hide began to slough away like mud under rain to reveal a green skeleton beneath. That too started to crumple, and before long only the cracked and smoking remnants of its bones remained.

And there, kneeling within that pile of molten bones, was Jocelyn of Ekarleon. He looked intact and still in armor. He slumped on his knees, his head bowed and hair fallen to obscure his face.

I tried to walk forward. My left leg buckled. I went down to a knee, gasping. My ribs were afire, and my leg throbbed with sharp, razor lines of agony. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get the helmet off, but couldn’t muster the strength.

Fen Harus approached me, and by his drooping posture I sensed he felt a similar fatigue. “The Lindwurm drained your strength,” he told me. “Your healing and tolerance for pain are nearly mortal right now. Best not to move. You’ve got a twisted leg and broken ribs, I think.”

“Why didn’t you use that flute earlier?” I asked him in a hoarse voice.

He showed it to me. It was an ugly piece closer up, twisted and lumpy. Definitely bone. I felt a sense of disgust looking at it, and almost vomited before averting my eyes.

“What is that thing?”

“Something I would rather have not used,” the elf said sadly.

I followed his gesture, and saw many of those who’d been wounded and left where they lay. They were all still and unmoving. One of them was the yellow-clothed knight in blue armor I’d fought before Jocelyn had changed. His fine steel looked rusted now, the cloth mottled as though eaten by moths, and within…

Just bones. The dragon hadn’t done that.

I shivered at the realization. “Then is it dead?” I croaked.

Fen Harus was quiet a moment, then shook his head. “It is not so easy to slay. It remains within Ser Jocelyn.”

My gaze went to the unconscious Ironleaf, lying amid all the other bodies in a ring of smoking gray sand. Many knights were beginning to gather close. One of the gates had lowered, and a retinue of fresh and fully armored reynish soldiers came through. At their head was the Emperor. The Twinbolt Knight shadowed him. There were more troops on the walls now, city guard armed with arbalests.

Markham approached to stand just outside the ring of burnt ground around the Ironleaf, took a long look at the man, then set his face into a grim mask.

One of those knights who’d survived the battle saw the Emperor’s look and stepped forward. Lady Evangeline Ark looked almost half a corpse herself, her beautiful armor warped and melted over much of the left side of her body, the arm curled stiffly against her stomach. She’d been caught in the burning rain early in the fight. How she remained standing and not screaming I had no idea, but her face was terrible as she stepped up behind the kneeling Jocelyn and lifted her sword high.

“Wait!”

Fen Harus glided to Markham’s side and removed his helmet before sinking to one knee. “Please, O’ King of Kings, spare him. He is not a danger now.”

Markham glowered, his face pitiless as it took in all the destruction. “He carries the Blight. He is a danger to this entire realm.”

“It cannot spread from him!” The elf insisted.

Markham’s face darkened further. “You knew?”

The oradyn bowed his head. “Yes.”

There were murmurs among the knights. Markham paused, considering the elf’s words. Then, reaching a decision he turned to his soldiers and nodded to Jocelyn.

“Put this man in chains.” He wheeled on the Seydii ambassador. “The Ardent Round will have answers from you, oradyn. You will come with me to the court. Now.”