Burn The Ashes: Taking Action, Part 1

[Taking Action, Part 1]

It was a strange mix of nostalgia and comfort that followed Tanya through the air as she and a small contingent of other Devils headed towards the field of battle. She had not led a squad of soldiers in quite a long time. With Liltotto on one side and Caílte on the other, surrounded by subordinates and allies alike, it was just like in the Empire. She hadn’t remembered how much she missed it.

Though these fools are certainly not the 203rd, she thought, brow twitching at a pulse of magic behind her.

She looked past her burning wings to lock eyes with a conventionally handsome man perhaps twice her age. He was snickering quietly among his friends, though his laughter quickly froze as he saw her glare.

“If you’re of the mind that it’s a good idea to waste magic on your own amusement, then maybe I made a mistake bringing you along,” Tanya said icily. “This could very well be a life or death situation we’re walking into, and you are certainly not in the position to waste mana. If I catch you doing that again, I will personally show you how much use you could have gotten out of what you just wasted, is that understood?”

The man paled spectacularly at the teenager’s threat. “Y-Yes, Lady Phenex.”

Tanya nodded before raising her voice to the others, “And that goes for the rest of you! I understand that many of you have never seen active combat, but that does not excuse foolish behavior. This is not a training exercise; it is life or death. I expect you to treat it seriously.”

A chorus of affirmatives answered her after a short pause, and Tanya clicked her tongue at the insincerity hidden in a few of the voices. They’d learn.

Their flight took them miles into the mountainous wastes just outside of Lord Berith’s territory. As they approached the hidden territory of their enemies, Tanya suddenly stopped in her tracks, holding one hand up to halt the contingent following closely behind.

Liltotto skated up beside her, looking down at the scene before them. “I guess they didn’t want to make it easy on us.”

A monolithic barrier of black energy stretched taut over the land before them. Made of shadows threaded tightly together by unknown magic, Tanya could feel the power radiating from its surface even from so far above it, thick and potent. It was a far cry from the obfuscation that they’d encountered before. It seemed that now that the jig was up, they’d gone for a more conventional method of fortifying themselves.

Caílte whistled beside them. “That’s a pretty big barrier. I can feel it’s well made too. How in the world did you get past it last time?”

“Last time, it served more to hide them rather than defend them. They changed it.” Tanya studied the barrier’s structure with squinted eyes. Holding out a hand, she sent a sliver of magic forth to probe the defences, letting it lap against the barrier.

The barrier seemed to glow where her magic made contact, the light quickly rippling across the entire barrier in a wave before dissipating entirely. Tanya pulled her hand back with a frown as she recognized what she was looking at. The barrier was layered, composed of several dozen individual spells working in conjunction to absorb and redistribute force across its surface and throughout its mass. Hitting any one spot would be the same as hitting it in its entirety unless pinpoint precision was applied or the spell was otherwise disrupted. Whoever conjured it certainly knew what they were doing.

Still, Tanya was fairly certain she could destroy it. Precision magic was her bread and butter, as they say.

However, before she could even try, Liltotto held a hand out, skating in front of her.

“I’ve got this one,” she said, eying the barrier. “Save your magic for the actual threat.”

Curious to see what the girl was truly capable of, Tanya nodded and floated backward to allow her space to do what she needed.

Liltotto closed her eyes, seemingly preparing herself. Holy magic surged to life around her, casting her in a faint yellow glow and causing the Devils behind Tanya to flinch back in surprise and concern. The feeling only grew exponentially, until it was so large that it honestly surprised Tanya with its intensity, sizzling her skin where it brushed against it and forcing her to fly further away to avoid the ill effects.

Holy power blazed, and Liltotto was suddenly engulfed in her own aura which rocketed into the air as a pillar of light. When it faded, she was sporting a new pair of ethereal wings, as well as a sharp halo above her head. The Devils behind Tanya muttered about Angels, but somehow Tanya knew this was nothing of the sort. Liltotto’s power was holy, without a doubt, but something else lurked in the depths of this energy. Something Tanya had not yet encountered.

Reaching into her pack, Liltotto retrieved a strange-looking contraption that suddenly burst apart, revealing a small bow held between the saw-like teeth of a bear trap. She pointed it at the barrier with one hand, while the other reared back as if she were already holding an arrow. As Tanya watched, magic coalesced in her grip, forming a crackling shaft of energy that quickly calmed into its proper shape, albeit with a head shaped like a pair of jaws rather than a standard arrow.

“Let’s get this over with,” she muttered, then let go.

The arrow was loosed. It soared toward the barrier like a meteor and struck it with a sound like a thunderclap. The impact caused ripples in the magic, yet the arrow didn’t dissipate with the violent collision, maintaining its momentum as it pushed against the writhing wall of darkness.

Back and forth they went, an immovable object against an unstoppable force. Liltotto’s arrow, which should have long since lost whatever power was pushing it forward, seemed to show no sign of stopping. Scrutinizing it, Tanya realized why. The arrow was feeding on the barrier.

Tiny jaws crunched down on the surface of roiling darkness, seemingly using the barrier’s own magic to fuel itself as it dug deeper and deeper. It grew in both strength and size, and soon enough, the outcome of the battle was clear.

The barrier’s ability to redistribute force was working against it now as every ounce of power the arrow exerted pulled from it in its entirety, thinning the whole structure and unbalancing the delicate magic keeping it stable.

A crack appeared. Then another. Soon enough, the entire barrier was sporting scars that only grew larger and spread further, like cracks in an ice sheet. The barrier struggled, managing one last pulse of its own energy, and then shattered wholesale.

The arrow didn’t disappear as its job was finished, shearing through the air like a bullet on a shockwave of holy energy. Tanya’s eyes tracked it as it screamed downward into the Black City below. Moments later, it erupted in a dome of golden light, and a building or two ceased to exist.

Somewhere within the city, an angry shout resounded. Tanya suspected it was either the entity at the heart of all this or perhaps the one who cast the barrier in the first place. Whoever it was, they weren’t especially happy.

Liltotto sighed, shoulders slumping slightly before turning back to them and saying simply, “Barrier’s gone.”

“So it is. Well done,” Tanya complimented, before turning to the rest of the group. “That’s your cue! Move forward, move forward, spread out, and maintain elevation. Do not engage the city directly until I give the order or I’ll be using you for target practice.”

The Devils surged forward, pouring past her and into the city. They were far from the 203rd, but they’d at least retained enough discipline to follow basic orders without tripping over their own feet. Small mercies.

Tanya’s expression sharpened as black shapes bubbled up from the shadows of the city below. They were two dozen, vaguely humanoid and wrapped in veils of smoke that trailed behind them as they soared up towards Tanya’s vanguard who turned to meet them.

The first contact of this little skirmish passed in confusion as the first of the Devils moved to meet the oncoming threat only for their attacks to pass through them like smoke. There was some displacement of their forms but not enough to do damage and clearly not enough to be lethal, as the creature just flowed backwards well out of combat range and re-coalesced before engaging again.

Subsequent attacks accomplished much the same. It seemed that whatever these things were made of wasn’t really prone to being damaged by might or magic. Though, that wasn’t to say it was prone to being damaged either. Tanya noted that very little headway was made by either side as neither force could truly harm the other.

That didn’t stop her side from trying, of course. Green as they were, her company of Devils threw themselves at the intangible entities with everything they had, and it was abundantly clear that that was exactly the purpose of these entities.

“Pull back!” Tanya barked, her voice cutting through the din of clashing magic and shouting Devils. “They mean to wear us down! You’re wasting your energy!”

Some obeyed immediately, breaking off from their phantom attackers and retreating upward. Others were less prompt, too caught up in the frustration of combat to hear or too stubborn to disengage from an enemy they couldn’t hurt. Tanya’s eye twitched.

“Whoever remains standing on the battlefield in the next five seconds will be incinerated by my hand!” Tanya snapped, letting loose a thread of power to solidify the ultimatum. She was lying, of course, but the waves of heat roiling off her wings gave enough credence to the threat that the stragglers withdrew with commendable speed.

As the battlefield cleared, Tanya turned to her companion. “Can you deal with this, Caílte?”

The man gave her an eager grin. “With pleasure.”

Caílte cracked his neck, shook his legs as if to rid them of knots, and then was gone. The only vestige of his disappearance was a deafening crack echoing through the air, which was soon repeated as the man went about the job that Tanya had tasked him with.

The specters around the battlefield suddenly jerked in place, squirming as a shadow blur passed them by and they suddenly found themselves in a completely different locale. One by one, they were all rounded up into a tight bunch in the middle of the air. Several tried to drift away, but were placed back before they could make any headway, as if they were sheep being herded by an invisible shepherd.

“How’s he going to deal with them?” Liltotto asked as they watched the spectacle. Tanya’s eyes darted around the battlefield, doing her best to keep up with her mentor’s piece and mostly failing. He was incredibly fast, as expected.

“Caílte has a weapon especially suited for dealing with beings that don’t want to be dealt with,” she answered, crossing her arms. “It’s likely one of the reasons that Lord Falbium saw fit to lend him to us considering our unknown foe. He should have no trouble exterminating these things.”

Once all of them were together, Caílte made his appearance once again, floating in the air above them. The shockwave of his reemergence was amplified by a wave of magic that resonated through the air itself as he drew the sword resting at his hips, raising it high above his head.

Cruadh-Chosgarach was a simple blade. Made of quality steel wrapped in leather and tempered fairly with a ring pommel attached to its hilt, it would have been a serviceable weapon to carry onto the battlefield even without its special properties. As Caílte lifted the blade, light gathered along its length, sharpening it far beyond its means, pushing something simple into the realm of divinity.

The gathered specters squirmed and twisted in their invisible prison, seemingly sensing the danger that was about to befall them, but it was far too late. With an excited grin and a laugh, Caílte brought the blade down.

A crescent of green light erupted from the edge of Cruadh-Chosgarach, shearing through the air like a jagged sheet of wind. It expanded as it flew, quickly dominating the entire sky, and even the specters who had managed to escape the huddle didn’t stand a single chance of escaping.

Screams of the damned echoed through the night as the ghastly creatures were touched by the light and found themselves unraveled at the barest level of their own existence. Layer by layer, they were torn apart until nothing remained of them but fading wisps of darkness and darker magic which quickly dissolved into the empty air like ink in water, and very quickly, the skies were clear once more.

Still smiling, Caílte sheathed his sword and turned to Tanya, looking as if he had just waved a hand through the air rather than scoured several beings from existence. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to stretch my legs. Not quite a proper scrap, mind you, but you work with what you’re given.”

Tanya hummed, before turning as her senses prickled. “Well you’re in luck. More are coming.”

As if on cue, more shapes rose from the city. These weren’t quite as ethereal as the last. They seemed more solid, substantial. They flew on wings of solid shadow that Tanya could actually hear whipping through the air and were much larger than the phantoms Caílte had just dispatched.

Caílte followed her gaze, his grin widening rather than diminishing. “Aye, it seems I do. Hopefully these are more proper foes!”

He unsheathed his sword again, raising it high into the air. “Come on, lads! Let’s give them a hell they won’t soon forget!”

His words were met with cheers, and Tanya drifted away from the throng alongside Liltotto, sticking to the plan. “We’ll leave you to it. Good luck, Caílte.”

“Luck is for the weak!” He laughed as he raced forward toward the specters, intent on his own fun.

Tanya and Liltotto descended into the Black City, leaving the sounds of battle echoing behind them. The streets were just as empty as they had been during their reconnaissance, though the ambient darkness seemed thicker now, pressing in from all sides like the walls of a throat preparing to swallow. There was not a speck of actual light on the cobbles anymore, and even the reflective windows seemed shaded by some presence. Every step they took seemed as if it was being watched and judged by an unseen presence.

They glided low over the buildings. Tanya’s flames burned bright beside whatever technique Liltotto has active, practically broadcasting their presence to the city itself, and yet nobody deigned to meet them as they moved toward the monolithic tower in the center.

“So much for battling him on our terms. He seems intent on making us come to him,” Tanya noted as they flew over yet another empty street.

“He might be preparing something. He clearly didn’t want us to get in.”

“All the more reason to break down his door, then.” Tanya looked back at Liltotto, eying her wings and halo. “What is that technique you’re using, by the way? I’ve never felt such an incredible concentration of holy magic in one place before.”

“Quincy Vollständig.” Liltotto recited. “All Quincy are trained to subconsciously lock away portions of their power to use for special occasions. I wasn’t able to use my powers for a while so I had a lot stored up. Usually I can only keep it up for a few minutes, but with how much I have stored, I can probably go for an hour or two.”

A handy tool, and one Tanya was surprised that she hadn’t thought of before. Having a reservoir of energy to pull from in desperate times was an excellent idea, and one she was definitely going to steal for herself.

The darkness grew even more oppressive as they pressed further into the city’s heart. The buildings faded to grey and black blurs, their crumbling facades carved with symbols that Tanya didn’t recognize, that glowed with a ghostly blue light that was the only illumination beside their wings.

The tower dominated the skyline now, close enough that Tanya could make out individual stones in its construction. Black masonry was fitted without mortar as if each block had been grown into place rather than set. A sickly blue glow pulsed from somewhere deep within its walls, casting faint light through narrow windows that looked more like slits than proper openings.

“I don’t like this,” Liltotto said, her voice tense, and Tanya simply nodded.

“Neither do I.”

They rounded a final corner and emerged into a wide plaza that opened before the tower’s base. The space was empty save for rubble and the ever-present smog, and at its end, was a figure.

Clad in black armor and sat upon a midnight steed, a knight had been posted to block their way. Upon closer inspection, however, it was clear that the chivalrous facade was exactly that, as his knightly appearance gave way to something much more ghastly upon closer inspection. His armor was pitted and scratched, and the stallion he had mounted himself upon was about as alive as the stones beneath their feet, its flesh stripped away and jaw hanging loose as it stared at them with blank eyes.

And to top off this lovely picture, the man didn’t have a head. Instead, a pyre of flickering blue seemed to sprout from the space between his shoulders, rising to about head height, but holding nothing of the sort in its chilling grasp. A literal headless horseman. No doubt, this was one of the generals.

The horseman made no move to attack as they landed in the courtyard. His undead steed whinnied, but he steadied it with a single raised hand. His armor shifted as he turned his body to indicate that he had noticed them, Liltotto tensed beside Tanya as he raised a hand, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Peace, Devils,” he said. “I have no intention of quarreling with the likes of you.”

Though his words were clearly meant to disarm, Tanya only tensed further. “Is that so?”

“It is,” the horseman confirmed, his voice layered with that deep, otherworldly resonance. “And I would ask that you please cease your own hostilities as well.”

Tanya raised an eyebrow in false confusion, but the being’s horse suddenly stamped a hoof against the cobblestone, sending a wave of magic rolling outward. The air at the edges of the courtyard shimmered and peeled back, revealing dozens of glowing magic circles hidden in the darkness, each one bearing Tanya’s crest, pointing directly at the horseman.

Tanya’s lips pressed into a thin line as her trap was revealed. She had placed them the moment they landed, carefully hiding them within the ambient magic around them to obscure their existence and purpose. She’d been rather confident they’d go unnoticed, and yet here they were, exposed as easily as pulling away a sheet.

“Such control,” the horseman noted. “Quite impressive for one so young...”

He gazed downward where tongues of flame licked at his horse’s feet. A magic circle the size of a large fountain blinked up at him, ready and waiting to incinerate both him and his horse at a moment’s notice. “Very impressive.”

Tanya’s jaw tightened as she let the magic circles fade, dissolving them back into the ether rather than triggering them. No point wasting the energy if the target already knew they were there. Behind her, Liltotto shifted her weight, looking around as if wondering what else Tanya had done without her knowing.

She reigned in her irritation for the moment, focusing on the being in front of her. “You are one of the generals, are you not?”

The horseman tilted his head, the blue flame flickering with the movement as he spoke in that ghastly voice.

“I am one of Chernabog’s generals, indeed. For that is who you intend on facing today, a foe whose power is as potent as his hatred for your kind.” He turned, seeming to look up at the tower. “But my loyalties lie elsewhere, with one whose name I shall not speak in this place.”

Tanya racked her mind for mention of the deity and came up mostly blank. The name was vaguely Slavic, but she had not delved into the theology or mythology of that particular region of the world in any of her three lives.

“And what is your purpose in revealing this?” She questioned “If you truly serve another master, then why speak with us at the risk of blowing your own cover?”

“Because Chernabog’s crusade is unsanctioned,” the horseman stated. “The Council of Death does not answer to one being alone, regardless of how powerful he believes himself to be. Many are pleased with his decision to rid the underworld of the Devils, certainly, but they know well that such an action would leave the powers that be considerably less pleased.”

“And you represent the latter?”

“I represent the will of my master. And my master would see Chernabog fail.”

An ally of convenience, then. Or perhaps a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hoping that they would let him close only to slip a dagger between their ribs. This deep in hostile territory, and with a battle raging in the skies above, Tanya would not take any chances.

“What proof do you offer of your claims?”

“None.” Tanya was taken aback at the blunt statement, her eyes narrowing. “But I am well aware that time is not on your side. Your companion has found herself in Chernabog’s grasp, and he does not suffer traitors lightly.”

Tanya could feel Liltotto tense beside her. The horseman turned his attention to the girl. “She has not yet passed into the realm beyond, despite all she has suffered, but it is only a matter of time.”

“Gigi’s not easy to kill.” Despite her words, Liltotto’s jaw was clenched with clear anxiety, as if she was trying to assure herself of the fact rather than the being before them.

The horseman nodded. “Beings who toy with death itself find themselves hard pressed to accept its embrace as their own, but at the end of the eve, she is still human. She will die as they all do. If you wish to save her, you cannot waste time here.”

He turned, pointing at the tower’s entrance. “I will undo the seals on Chernabog’s chamber and take care of his remaining general alongside your allies. You must put an end to this farce before it spirals any further.”

Tanya frowned, noticing something. “Remaining general? I was under the impression there were three of you.”

“Chernabog does not take failure lightly. When you destroyed the barrier, he decided that the one responsible for its inadequacy had outlived his usefulness.”

Tanya stared at the horseman, scarcely believing what she had heard. Chernabog, a being who was likely millennia old, if not older, had outright murdered a key piece of his already dwindling forces simply because a single barrier fell?

She felt a headache coming on and pressed her fingers to her temple, barely able to even rationalize the very concept. She had seen commanders send battalions to their deaths by ignoring intelligence, watched as bureaucrats gutted entire departments just to raise their own budget by way of woeful inadequacy, but this...

“It’s like something out of a children’s cartoon,” she muttered, rubbing her temples.

Liltotto shot her a sideways look. “You good?”

“Fine. Just wondering if we haven’t overestimated the intelligence of our opponent.” Tanya straightened, regaining some semblance of her previous poise as she regarded the horseman once more. He stared back at her with flickering flames that gave nothing away. She frowned, then sighed.

“I don’t trust you in the least, but if you’re offering to make our journey easier, then I’ll play along for now.”

The horseman inclined his head. “A pragmatic stance. I would expect nothing less from such...”

His words died off as Tanya snapped her fingers and the air around him erupted. No less than ten magic circles burned themselves into existence as the spell keeping them hidden came unraveled. The horseman’s steed reared back, its skeletal hooves clattering against stone, and for the first time since their encounter, the being seemed genuinely taken aback.

“What?” He turned in alarm, taking in the orange motes around him. “How did you—”

“As you said yourself, my control over my magic is impressive.” Tanya’s voice was somewhat smug as she watched his reaction. “Though it strikes me as a little arrogant to let your guard down after making such a statement.”

The horseman stared at her, before a chuckle resounded through the courtyard. “...It seems I underestimated you.”

“People have a tendency to do that. I’m not entirely sure why.” With a wave of her hands, Tanya dispersed the remaining magic circles and strode forward. Liltotto followed just a step later, and they passed the horseman by, stepping up to the entrance of the tower. “Make good on your promise and perhaps it won’t come back to bite you.”

He watched them go, his shoulder turned in their direction as they strode past him, before, with a chuckle, he turned forward and spurred his horse onward.

“Good luck, child of the loom...”

Tanya paused at the threshold, glancing back over her shoulder. The courtyard behind them lay empty, the horseman and his steed having vanished with nary a breeze to mark their disappearance.

“Spooky,” Liltotto said, and Tanya frowned, before turning back to the tower.

“Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste here.”