Book 6: Chapter 46: Battle on the Bluff
Victor watched Karl, or Karl the Crimson if this was the guy Victoria had told him about, continue to stride closer, and as he crested the rise, Victor took his measure. He was a true giant of a man, easily as large as the monstrosities he’d sent against the keep but not misshapen and lumpy. His gigantic plates of flat black armor made him even more impressive to behold. Victor felt a wave of excitement at the prospect of a good battle, felt his annoyance at the weakling undead begin to fade to background noise as he twisted his fist on Lifedrinker’s haft. He didn’t reply to the giant’s taunt, but his teeth were bared in a hungry grin as he stalked toward his new opponent.
“I thought you’d moved on, taking your little army toward Hector and your inevitable destruction. I’m pleased I’ll have a big, fat head to mount on my next creation.” With a grinding clatter, Karl dragged his giant axe over the stony ground and swung it with a whoosh up to his shoulder, gripping the haft with both hands. Victor didn’t answer, but a low growl began to rumble through his chest as he thought about the flimsy giants this man had just claimed credit for.
“Come,” Victor growled, and then he danced forward. He moved like a bear, power evident in every step, every flex of his wrist as he wove Lifedrinker left and right. He wasn’t impressed by the giant axe; when did making something big make it better? True, as a titan, he wasn’t known for being small, and much of his dominating power came from his size, but he wasn’t a giant, overfilled sack of bones like those creatures he’d just slain; he was Quinametzin, and he was hard as steel. The cords of muscle standing out on his forearms, shoulders, and back were powerful, ready to snap into action like pressure-driven pistons. Karl might have more bulk than he, especially with all that plate armor, but Victor saw him as a concrete wall, and he was the sledgehammer.
Karl waited for him to get near, then, like a spring snapping a beartrap closed, he ripped his great axe in an overhead smash, aiming to split Victor in half. The axe fell like a lightning-charged guillotine, slicing the air and crashing into the stony ground, showering the vicinity with shards of gray rock and hundreds of brilliant sparks. Victor wasn’t there to appreciate the mighty blow, however; he’d darted to the left, and as he skirted around the black-clad giant, he hacked Lifedrinker not once but three times into his armor-covered side, taking advantage of Karl’s arms being extended, swinging that giant axe.
Lifedrinker had cooled during the lull between Victor’s slaughter of the undead and this new contest. As he swung her, though, she burst into molten fury, her inner heat adding to the power of his enchantment. She still shed brilliant sparks of glory-attuned Energy, but they were hot and sizzled the air as they fell, scoring the stony ground with black burn marks. Her gleaming edge shimmered hotly, heating the air to the point that even getting near her edge was a dangerous proposition. Karl’s armor screeched as she split it, carving deep grooves in the dense material, so hot that she liquified the metal where her blade touched it.
When Karl regained his momentum and hacked his gigantic axe in a wide, flat arc, hoping to catch Victor still on his flank, his face beneath the black metal visor of his helm was crimson with fury and pain as blood sizzled against the torn, hot metal plates on his side. Victor wasn’t there to receive the blow; he’d continued to circle the giant, and this time, he darted forward and delivered one mighty hack to the side of Karl’s right knee. Lifedrinker didn’t have to cut through any inch-thick metal plates; he struck the gap between the jointed, round cap over Karl’s knee and his thigh plate. Lifedrinker screamed her excitement and lust for violence as she split the air, slicing through the chain armor like it wasn’t there and burying herself deep in the giant’s flesh, biting into his bone.
Karl roared in agony and swept his axe around, kicking out with his other leg, trying to get at Victor. Victor ducked the whooshing blade and yanked on Lifedrinker, using her grip on Karl’s bone to pull his leg out from under him. The armor-plated giant’s sweeping kick turned into a pirouette as he toppled and crashed to the ground with a tremendous thud and the rattle and clank of metal. Victor stepped on Karl’s outflung forearm, holding it to the ground, and then he lifted Lifedrinker high, her blade smoking as it scorched the very air, and chopped her at the giant’s face with enough force to split stone.
Lifedrinker’s eager, high-pitched warcry echoed and bounced off the stone as she fell toward the giant, a lightning-fast streak of burning metal, but just as she was about to deliver her fatal blow, Karl exploded with cold death-attuned Energy twisted with something else, something familiar to Victor from his duels with Valla—iron. The Energy billowed out of Karl like an expanding shell, and Lifedrinker smashed into it. The defensive ability or spell was effective in that it slowed her decent, but it wasn’t enough to stop her; Lifedrinker struck that shell with such burning, deadly force that its blue-gray surface turned white at the point of impact and instantly began to shatter and come apart.
Though Lifedrinker broke through the barrier, she’d been slowed enough for Karl to lift an armored forearm and deflect her deadly blow. Still, Victor ground down on Karl’s other arm, keeping him in place as he lifted Lifedrinker for another hack. Karl wasn’t out of surprises, though; his right hand was pinned, and he hugged his left arm in front of his face, yet, somehow, his giant axe smashed into Victor’s back, splitting his wyrm-scale armor and gouging deep into his tough, Quinametzin flesh.
Victor stumbled at the unexpected blow, growling in fury as he spun, expecting to see some undead remnants of Karl’s army had interfered with their contest. Instead, he saw the enormous axe wielded by a ghostly, translucent replica of Karl sans his armor. Karl’s spirit form glowed with a deathly blue Energy, and Victor knew this was some kind of Death Caster magic. He instantly poured a torrent of fear-attuned Energy into his pathways and summoned his bear totem—if Karl wanted to bring friends into the fight, Victor would oblige.
As he stepped back, lifting Lifedrinker, warily circling the spectral copy of Karl, a dark, roiling mound of shadows rose from the ground, and deep, angry roars echoed out of it. Victor grinned as he heard his bear brother’s fury. The giant axe-wielding spirit dove at him, whipping the enormous axe in a great cleave, and Victor backed away, tapping the clumsy strike with a quick thrust of Lifedrinker’s head, adding to its momentum and then stepping into the blow as it whooshed past him. Meanwhile, with a bone-rattling roar, his great, dark, shadow-clad bear erupted from the pile of darkness and fixed its furious, purple-lit eyes upon Karl as he struggled to rise.
While Victor went to work on the spirit, his bear pounced on the giant. Even big as it was, the bear looked more like a dog as it slammed into him, but Karl’s knee wasn’t working right, and he wasn’t armed. They both tumbled to the ground in a furious grappling melee as Victor’s totem swiped its dark, eight-inch claws in a frenzy, snapping its great maw against Karl’s arms as he tried to throw the bear off him. Victor hacked Lifedrinker, one-handed like a killer with a hatchet, to great effect on the spirit-like copy, cleaving off big hunks of its essence, which splattered to the stone ground in steaming, gel-like puddles.
The spirit opened its mouth in silent screams as Victor whittled it down, easily dodging the clumsy swings of the massive axe, a weapon ill-suited for up close, dirty fighting. The spirit seemed to know what it was doing, constantly backpedaling to get some room to swing the weapon. Even so, it was trivial for Victor, an epic-ranked axe fighter, to press his advantage, to stay inside the big axe’s arc, and continue to deliver blow after devastating blow to the spirit’s form. It grew paler and paler, and after a final, powerful hack that seemed to shatter its essence, it exploded into a cold, damp, softly glowing mist and faded away.
As Karl’s axe fell to the stone with a cacophonous clatter, he turned to the giant only to see him finally on his feet, lifting his bear above his head, ready to throw Victor’s brave totem down the rocky slope toward the ocean. Victor growled in fury, released his bear to return to the Spirit Plane, and then, as Karl stumbled, suddenly holding nothing but air, he cast Energy Charge, powering it with glory-attuned Energy.
In a shower of golden sparks and a streak of bright light, he ripped over the rocky ground to slam into Karl’s exposed flank. The giant wasn’t ready. How could he be? Victor hit him like a battering ram, the concussion so deafening that boulders broke free of their centuries-long resting places and tumbled from the heights, crashing their way down the mountain slopes, many bouncing and cracking all the way to the sea. Victor nearly drained his glory-attuned pool of Energy as the spell worked to deflect the force of the impact. Karl wasn’t so lucky.
As Victor smashed into Karl’s back, a ripple of energy tore through the giant that exploded blood vessels, ruptured organs, and sent fluids bursting out of Karl’s every orifice. Many of his armor plates ripped free of the chains holding them, flying out over the rocky slope, and then Karl’s body followed them, tumbling as he cried out in a final gasp of surprise and agony. He soared past the winding gravel road to land with a great thump, flopping like a broken toy from one rocky shelf to the next until he came to rest on the edge of the beach.
Victor watched Karl’s descent with a wild grin, and even before Karl’s body came to a rest, he leaped down after him. He wouldn’t leave the giant any room for some pinché undead recovery. In two Titanic Leaps, he stood on the beach and approached the broken giant with Lifedrinker buzzing in his hand, hungry for her due. As Victor’s heavy footprints shook the ground and the giant, amazingly not yet dead, opened his blood-soaked eyes, he wheezed, “What are you?”
Victor regarded the giant. Much of his armor had fallen away as he’d bounced his way down the rocky slope. His exposed flesh was pale and deathly, and Victor knew he was undead. His arms were twisted and broken, his knee that Lifedrinker had chopped was utterly ruined, and that foot rested near his shoulder, so badly bent was the leg. His helmet had broken free, and his thick head of orange-red hair lay spread on the sand, almost like a pool of blood. Victor’s anger was cooling quickly; he felt only contempt for this unnatural giant. He lifted Lifedrinker high, her smoldering blade dripping hot sparks on Karl’s broken chest. “I’m a titan!”
“But,” Karl wheezed, “You’re smaller than I . . .”
“You’re a giant of a man, Karl, but a giant next to a titan is like wood before steel. Make your peace.” With that, Victor brought Lifedrinker down in a devastating chop, planting her gleaming, white-hot edge directly through the center of Karl’s breastplate. She split the metal like a sheet of paper-thin tin, burying herself to the wood of her haft into Karl’s chest. Karl’s bloody eyes widened almost comically, and he opened his beard-covered mouth in a silent O of pain and dismay. Then, the light faded from his eyes as Lifedrinker earned her name.
As Victor’s rage cooled further and he lost his Iron Berserk, he stood beside the gigantic corpse and waited until Lifedrinker finished. After he’d yanked her free and hung her in her harness, he pulled the rings from Karl’s giant fingers, three of them the size of bracelets. That done, he cast Honor the Spirits, watching as the brilliant white, ghostly fire consumed the massive corpse. As the flames died away, the ethereal smoke vanishing into nothing, he turned and began trudging up the slope to the keep.
He was glad to have won, glad there hadn’t been any terrible surprises with the army’s attack, but he also felt uneasy, like he was wasting time. The giant had claimed not to know Victor was there, but the whole thing almost felt like a distraction. He supposed it would be strange for Karl to throw his life away for a distraction. Victor shook his head, continuing up the ramp, ears peeled, listening for the sounds of battle from the keep. They were still there; clashes of metal on metal, men and women shouting, but they were infrequent, and nothing sounded desperate. He figured the undead were struggling to do anything against the walls now that the giants were gone, and their commander was dead. The soldiers were probably whittling them down from safety.
When he reached the top of the slope and paused by the scene of his battle, he stooped to pick up the gigantic axe. Now that he was back to his normal size, the weapon seemed more monstrous, even absurd. It was a dark, gleaming gray-black, singular piece of metal molded into a haft and an axe head, utilitarian and plain. The blade was shaped like a gigantic wedge, a simple shape for an axe, but large and heavy and clearly designed to cut through anything with that deadly sharp blade. Victor lifted it, his muscles straining from the weight, and laughed at the absurdity; the weapon was bigger than he was. “Are you alive?”
No answer was forthcoming, so he lowered the weapon and continued toward the gate, dragging it behind him, digging a trail in the blood-spattered gravel. He walked past hundreds of dead zombies and shamblers with only a vague recollection of slaying them all. There’d been more than he thought. He had to force his way through piles of the undead in the gate tunnel, and when he finally emerged, he paused to watch as the soldiers continued their slaughter. They’d come out of the gatehouse and their shelter in the higher, inner courtyard walls to surround the bailey, raining death upon the shambling, lurching monsters.
The rain had ceased when Victor engaged Karl, and the clouds that had obscured the moon were gone. Fiery bolts, arrows streaking with Energy, lightning, frost, and even stone projectiles fell from the heights. Only a few dozen of the undead, already battered and broken, still stumbled about on the cobbles, listless and undirected in their failed assault. Victor leaned against the giant axe, propping the cold metal haft against his shoulder as he watched the slaughter. It was only minutes before the battle was over, and golden motes began to gather around the mounds of corpses.
Victor chuckled, turning to look through the tunnel, but couldn’t see anything through the massive clouds of golden stuff. “Here we go,” he laughed, then let the massive axe haft fall to the ground with a clang as he braced himself. Seconds later, he was struck with a torrent of Energy; his conscious thoughts were dashed away as he spun on a wave of euphoria, drifting through rainbow-colored hallucinations of ecstasy. He swore he saw Valla dancing through his visions, laughing and smiling like he’d rarely seen her in reality. Tingles of pleasure danced through his skin as his muscles spasmed, and the reward for his efforts washed through him. The influx recharged and renewed him, leaving him gasping on his hands and knees minutes later.
Victor grinned, still debilitated by the afterglow of the infusion, when he saw the System message before his eyes:
***Congratulations! You have achieved level 57 Battlemaster, gained 10 strength, 9 vitality, 4 agility, 4 dexterity, 3 will, and 3 intelligence.***
“Huh. Nothing more? I guess it wasn’t that hard a fight.” Victor stood, lifting the big axe again, and walked across the bailey, dragging the giant weapon. He could hear the soldiers cheering and celebrating all around him, and when he reached the inner gate, Rano was there, bloody but happy, snapping a perfect salute.
“Sir! Well fought! You slaughtered those giants!”
“Good fight to you, Rano. You and your soldiers didn’t give an inch. Do me a favor and secure that outer gate, then write a message in the command book.”
“What’s the message, sir?”
“Tell Borrius to quit twiddling his thumbs and attack High Keep; I just killed Karl the Crimson, and it should be easy pickings.”
“That was one of the barons? I was on the outer wall when you threw him from the ledge! You smashed him like a training dummy!”
“Heh. Well, let’s hope whatever’s holding the citadels dies as easily, huh? All right, get to it. Oh, one more thing. Get some men together and take this axe into the great hall. Hang it above the biggest fireplace.”
“Yes, sir!” Rano saluted again, then hurried toward the outer gates, hollering for some soldiers on the wall to join him.
A few minutes later, Victor sat on the floor at the foot of his bed, watching the weird, colorful steam swirling around Valla. “Well, you missed a good one, Valla. Eh, not really. It was just a bit of a workout. You probably wouldn’t have liked it—no chance for fancy sword work.” Of course, she didn’t stir, so Victor looked at his Core and saw his Energies throbbing with potential, ready for anything. He’d run a little low on rage during the battle and almost burned up his glory-attuned Energy once, but he’d never really been in danger of running dry. It would take a much longer battle to do that.
Looking at his Core, though, studying his different Energies, a thought occurred to him: Why hadn’t he tried to build any new Energy attunements? He’d learned to make courage and justice, but many more combinations were possible now that he had his glory affinity. What would glory and fear create? Glory and rage? What about glory and inspiration? “Then there’s the triple combos like justice. What if I replaced inspiration in the justice weave with glory? What about glory, inspiration, and fear or rage? What if I could weave them all together?”
He was just thinking out loud, but he pitched his voice as though he were speaking to Valla. When she didn’t respond, he sighed and pulled out a stack of paper sheets and some differently colored pens. “I think I’ll start working on some ideas while you’re resting, amor mío.” He felt Lifedrinker vibrate slightly in her harness and chuckled. “Don’t be jealous, chica. I love you differently.” With no further protest from the axe, Victor smiled and settled down to his work.
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