The Hybrid: Chasing Destiny (Chp7:Ep4)

Chapter 7

Episode 4 - The Illest Omen

Ava stood at the edge of the collapse with the frost crystal in her hand. It permeated with such begrudging acceptance to complete the task ahead that she wondered why it suggested it in the first place. Oswin and newly armoured Ser Derric stood a pace away, watching her with the group of knights and mages. It had not taken them long to organise once they had Everard’s Knight-Captain on board. The men seemed almost relieved to put some distance between themselves and the ruins.

The wait for Earland’s signal was nerve-wracking and stilted in the tense silence. Eventually, the sorcerer exited the communication tent and nodded to her, rushing to join the rest. She released the frost crystal, and it floated to the centre of the rubble. Ava backed away. There was an audible gasp from the onlookers as it transformed into the woman and then gradually turned into the raging vortex that she remembered from Spectermere.

It enveloped her before she could clear the edge, and she wrapped her cloak around her body to stave off some of the biting frost. A barrier of flames surrounded her, but it shattered instantly at the contact with the winds.

“I will need to work on strengthening my barrier,” Oswin lamented when she reached his side.

Earland snorted at his comment, and Oswin scowled while conjuring a ball of fire for her to use to warm back up.

Ava shivered as she watched the whirlwind pick up the rubble and toss it further in the distance. She felt the spirit recoil and bend in disgust at the feel of the fell debris, each piece it touched sapped at its magic. She panicked, her heart dropping in her chest.

“What are you doing?” Oswin asked, grabbing her arm.

She had started moving toward the Spirit without realising it.

“I-I don’t know. It’s struggling,” Ava answered.

“Go to it now, and you could get hit by a piece of rubble. Barring that, Oswin says you may have a higher tolerance than normal to its cold effects, but resistance is not immunity,” Earland said with a quizzical look on his face.

“Earland is right, all we can do now is trust that it knows what it is doing,” Oswin responded.

“High-Master! High-Master Earland,” Earland corrected.

“Bah!” Oswin waved him away and the two men scowled at each other.

The last few bits of rubble fell to the ground as the strong winds died down into the Frost child once more. Ava rushed to the spirit. The normally emotionless face looked exhausted. She managed to reach its outstretched hand before it transformed into the crystal.

“Take your prince and begone from this place. The cursed magics and tragedy here have created a creature most foul,” it warned.

“Is it alright?” Oswin asked, stopping next to her as Earland and the men ran past them to check on the survivors.

“It is weaker, but I think she may be – sleeping?”

The Frost Spirit seemed alive but unresponsive, like a troll hibernating for the frost season. The contact with the fell rubble had drained it more than she originally thought. But one thing was certain: the frost spirit was right. There was something foul down there. She could feel it in the shifting darkness.

The world was so keenly out of focus, so silent and surreal that she was the one who was now struggling to breathe. Oswin and Ser Derric tugged her along the edge of the massive hole and pointed to Caeden milling among the survivors below.

The prince was covered in grime and soot, his left arm mangled and hung limp and bloody at his side, while his right held her diamond-encrusted sword. He surveyed his surroundings warily. Ser Morley struggled to a stand in the corner of the blackened ruins, a tortured look haunting his face. Two knights were trying to carry an unconscious, burly man closer to the edge to be hauled up, while Elise fussed over a moaning Eliza.

Caeden looked up when he heard Oswin’s excited voice. The tired relief in his smile was evident, but his expression became puzzled when she could not return it.

Ava's gaze landed on the source of her unease. A body lay abandoned and separated from the surviving group. Its armour was blackened from soot, but she could make out patches of deep purple in its singed cape. The center of his chest plate was dented inward. A spirit unlike any she had seen so far wriggled irascibly within, consuming the eerie darkness around it, and deforming into a darkened, frenzied blob with tentacles. The spirit felt and looked cumbersome.

It raged against its destiny, cursing it, unable to come to terms with the lot it had been given. It refused to. Waves and waves of anger and hatred vibrated off the spirit as it shrieked in pain and Ava flinched from the sound. She drew her bow and retrieved an arrow from her quiver.

“What is it?” Oswin asked, eyeing her curiously.

“It’s – Tell them to hurry up,” Ava said, her eyes never leaving the spirit.

It should have surprised her that Oswin and Earland listened to her after exchanging worried glances. After harrying the men working to drop a stretcher down, Earland returned to her side.

“That is Ser Lukas, Knight Commander to King Raeburn. The King succumbed to the ancient madness and attacked Eliza. He broke her arm before Ser Lukas got in between them and took a maul to the chest. Prince Caeden knocked him unconscious while the Knight-Commander held his attention,” Earland explained. “He is dead.” The statement held a hint of a question, as though he were seeking confirmation of that fact.

Resolved, the foul spirit sank into the chest. The body started and murky eyes shot open. An aura of darkness surrounded it as it sat up and moved to stand, warping the armour and corpse within. It brandished a broadsword in one hand and a dark chain in the other. Its breath misted through its helm and echoed angrily in the stunned silence. It stared at Prince Caeden with bitter hatred.

The prince watched the monster wide-eyed, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, and too shocked to move beyond bringing her sword up to face it.

“Revenant!” Earland shouted.

The men moved in a frenzy as his voice reverberated through the air. They tried to lower the stretcher faster, while the rest filed around the edge of the ruined pit and shot arrows at the creature. Most bounced off its armour with a click—a few buried themselves within. The revenant ignored them all and stepped toward the survivors.

It whipped its black chain, sending it toward the prince. Caeden dodged out of the way, but the grimace on his face and his sluggish movement told Ava that he had no strength for a fight. The creature whipped its chain again, wrapping it around the prince and locking his arms to his sides. Caeden groaned in pain as they squeezed against his injured arm. He was yanked toward the Revenant and stumbled, then straightened and strained against its pull. It was futile. The revenant brought its broad sword forward, intent on impaling the prince on its end.

Ava aimed and loosed, shooting one of the few diamond-crust arrows she had left into the taut chain between the creature and the prince. It shattered on impact, the profane magic it was formed from evaporating into the surrounding darkness. Caeden fell back and the female sorcerers came to his side to offer aid. She knew from the way they struggled to hold themselves upright that they were no match for the revenant either. She would have to draw it away.

She nocked another diamond-crust arrow and shot the creature in the shoulder. It stumbled and paused before grunting angrily and turning in her direction.

“Hybrid spawn! Accursed demonkin! Illest of omens!” the Revenant growled. The force of its anger was now focused solely on her.

It jumped from the deep pit and landed before her. Ava stumbled back and fell. She felt a hand tangle into her hair and grab the back of her shirt collar. She was jerked back to her feet and thrown a short distance away. She looked back to see Ser Derric and a few Everard Knights charge the creature, joining the rest to intercept and surround it. It fought them off with forceful swings of its sword. Steel clanged against steel, but as the revenant pushed back one knight, another took their place. Ser Derric was in their midst, swinging and dodging the creature's mighty blows.

The creature fell to a knee, its hateful gaze never leaving her form. Unperturbed by the swords hacking and slashing against his back. Darkened air swirled menacingly to its chest and the Revenant released it in a force-filled explosion. The knights ragdolled away from the creature and Ava lost sight of Ser Derric among them. The revenant stood and stepped toward her.

She shot her second-to-last diamond-crust arrow into his chest. It lodged itself into the chest piece and the creature paused, stunned. It recovered quickly and moved toward her again. She grabbed a steel arrow this time and ran. The diamond crust seemed to work on its chain but not on the Revenant itself.

She strained to run forward, and her breathing laboured. She could not understand why until she realised the darkness was moving against her. The Revenant had created a void that was pulling her towards it. Her legs gave out and she fell. She looked back in fear as she was dragged across the ground toward the tip of the creature’s broadsword.

Ava felt the chill in the air before she saw the wall of blue ice form between her and the revenant. Her body slammed against it and the pull of the void ended. She saw flashes of a fiery explosion through the wall. Ignoring the pain in her body, she touched the ice and wondered where it came from. She usually could feel the Frost Spirit stir before it used its power, but it was still and unresponsive in her satchel.

“Ava!” Earland yelled from the top of a ruined tower. He was joined soon after by Oswin.

“We need to destroy the revenant’s armour to get at the corpse beneath it!” Oswin shouted.

The creature smashed through the ice wall and towered over her, lifting its broadsword for the killing blow.

A large chunk of ice hit it in the side, knocking the revenant off balance. It stumbled and struggled against the ice that crept up from its legs to envelop its body. Ava turned and ran, hearing the ice crack and shatter. A piece of it ricocheted against her back.

The revenant threw his broadsword at the magic wielders in the tower. They dived out of the way as the void bent inward, then outward. The tower exploded and Ava scurried across the ground, dodging the falling rubble. She saw Earland and Oswin float to the ground in what she assumed was a psionic barrier bubble from the corner of her eye.

Ava turned and loosed another arrow into the revenant’s frosted armour. The creature growled. Small cracks appeared around the arrow hole. She heaved a sigh of relief. Earland and Oswin had not only distracted the revenant to save her, but their efforts had made the creature's armour brittle. But would my arrows be enough to break it, though?

The creature pulled its sword back into its hand and rushed at her. She dodged the downward slash and nocked an arrow. As she aimed, she noticed a fiery swirl around the steel arrow. It sparked and crackled. Oswin. She released.

Nothing. The revenant did not flinch when it lodged itself in his chestplate. Was Oswin waiting for something more? She dodged another of the revenant's charges and nocked another arrow. Again, Oswin's crackling fire swirled around the arrowhead, and she sent it into the creature.

Again nothing. She groaned and tried to put some distance between herself and the revenant, shooting the creature with Oswin's magic arrows as she dodged its swings and charges. It stopped moving, its armour riddled with arrows and the dark air shifted again.

Ava tried to run behind a wall, but a void pulled her in. She fell on her back, the wind knocked from her lungs, and she gasped. She could already feel the tip of the sword pressing against her body at any moment now. She tried to turn to face the creature, and a piece of rubble hit her shoulder.

The fiery explosion echoed through the ruins. The orange light it emitted reflected against the ruins. The sudden force pushed her in the opposite direction, and she rolled along the ground to a stop. She watched the blackened chest pieces fall from the charred corpse as she struggled to get to her feet.

It was still moving and had grown more wrathful. Ava paled in the face of such unbridled anger. It began consuming the darkness again, attempting to reform the armour. Stronger than before.

She reached for her last diamond-crust arrow and nocked it. Oswin’s magic swirled around it again and intensified. The frosty white obsidian turned a vibrant, almost blinding, orange. The crackle in the magic became manic, popping in tiny explosions around the arrowhead.

Ava aimed at the revenant’s heart and sent the arrow flying. The arrow whistled across the ruins and lodged itself in the Revenant’s chest. The creature reeled from the impact and exploded. The force pushed her a fair distance back. She covered her face from the flying debris and launched herself behind a wall to wait it out.

She peeked out once the air had settled and saw the darkened spirit hovering midair. The pain and distress at the loss of its body were palpable and its anger and bitterness increased. Ava knew this spirit would be a menace to the living world if it were left alone and unchecked.

Creeping out from her protection, she walked toward it. How does one banish a spirit to The Deep? She reached out and tried to call it. It begrudgingly answered, moving warily toward her. Its tentacles whipped around threateningly. She felt the spirit’s need to lash out and harm her, despite its compliance. Feeling evermore uncertain and afraid as it grew closer, she rescinded her invitation. Rejected, it grew angrier.

“This spirit is beyond you,” she heard someone say.

“What?” she asked, the guilt of what she had unwittingly done to the spirit plaguing her conscience.

The dark spirit wrenched away from her, falling into the hand of a silhouetted figure standing among the trees beyond the ruins. She squinted through the darkness for a clearer view of the person and was oddly unable to make out anything. She could not even tell if they were real or an aspect of the darkness twisting around this accursed place.

“Your lack of control is astonishing, Oswin! That last blast could have killed us all!” Earland admonished Oswin.

“Bah!” Oswin grunted. “Miss Ava, come. All the survivors are secured, and we are evacuating and quarantining the area. The Mage’s Guild will send magic wielders more adept at dealing with this – mess.”

“Oswin, do you see that?” she asked, pointing toward the dark figure.

Oswin squinted into the darkness, trying to determine what she was referring to. A worried frown etched on his face.

“See what? Is it a spirit?” he asked.

Ava looked at the silhouette. She blinked and it was gone. She looked around, but it was no longer there.

“No, it is nothing.”

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