-Steelheart Saga-

Chapter XIV - Thy Hallowed Ascent

The party collected their information before the two teams pursued their designated assignments, Krysté and her companions venturing out from the ruins of O'Karr and traveling North towards the Tainted River. The Wo'enne Elf yawned, following just behind Wigund, who was outfitted with a dented chrome helmet and clutched a mildly rusted axe at his side. The sun crested over the horizon, the sky illuminated with the orange pinks of a fresh dawn, unveiling the grounds beneath their boots.
Patches of land which boasted vibrant greens, bursting with lush flora and shaded by sprawling coniferous trees bid their farewells as the party crossed into the Northern reach of the Sainted Lands. Once a region richly populated with roaming animals, buzzing insects, and tranquil fields, the sins of man wrought the Goddess' wrath in ages long past, rendering the rolling fields and rushing river sullied for all time. As they marched, the Elven trio and their Orc allies noticed the grass turn from green to yellow to brown. What trees they spotted were long dead and they heard not the song of birds nor the call of beasts.
After an hour of traveling, the party arrived at a severance in the landscape known as the Valley of Gryphs. Krysté and her companions spotted the dreaded Spire overlooking fractured ground. Though it was still morning, the sunlight vanished behind storm clouds, the tipping and tapping of rain splashing against dead soil. True to its name, the valley was stalked by Gryphons, Harpies, and all manner of winged beasts. With the terrain too tall and jagged for the party to navigate, there was only a collapsed bridge and a gauntlet of mythic beasts standing between them and the Spire, where their Demoness supposedly awaited.
Krysté drew her Blod'ven, raised the broadside to her face, and recited an Elven prayer, her companions readying their own weapons and bracing for the series of encounters ahead. Wigund trembled as lightning cracked against the landscape, leaving a scorch mark seconds before thunder roared from the heavens.
"What a lovely mess this is bound to be." Rynor snickered while retrieving his staff and conjuring his Mana.
"Krysté, love?" Vana said while drawing her bow. "As the resident monster hunter, have you any suggestions regarding our approach?"
The Wo'enne Huntress nodded, her eyes fixed on the circling Gryphs above. "Certainly. The path is narrow, so keep a generous distance from me, I'll need room to swing my Blod'ven. Aim for the head or the wings. Vana, stay at the back of the line and keep your eyes up, Rynor, use whatever spells you can to thin their numbers. Wigund, Kor, Legs, I'm afraid our weapons will only do so much here. Wait for these creatures to approach, then swat them down as best you can. Keep your balance, no matter what. Are there any questions?"
"No, ma'am!" Kor said, clutching his battle axe. "Let's kill us some bloody Gryphs, ye?"
"Show us what you've got, little Elves." Legs said.
"With any luck, we'll be ascending the Spire in no time." Rynor grinned beneath the brim of his cap. "I'll do all I can to ease the process."
"And what about you, my tiny Goblin friend?" Vana asked Wigund, who was quaking in his boots.
"Wigund stays!" He cried.
"Oh? What's the matter, sweet pea? We'll keep you safe from these scary monsters, Knight's honor!" Vana promised. "We've come this far, no? Tis only a few meters from our destination!"
"I shan't!" The Goblin chief shrieked.
"Coward!" Kor barked at the trembling Goblin. "It's you we're waiting on!"
"Relax, Kor." Said Legs. "No one ever said Goblins were a courageous lot. We'll just have to clear the way for him."
Kor scoffed. "What a pitiful creature."
"Hmm, what do you think, Mr. Wigund?" Vana asked. He nodded without uttering a single word, his movements jittery. "Very well then, little Gob!" Vana lined up at the back of the row. "Fear not, for you are under the protection of the Kristenalian Guard!" The Elven Lieutenant proudly proclaimed.
"I don't mean to alarm you all, but the Gryphs do seem to be headed our way." Rynor said.
"Form up, everyone." Krysté commanded. "The Spire awaits."
The party followed the Huntress' instructions, beginning their approach in a single file line, each member of the group keeping an arm's length apart while leaving a larger gap for the Blod'ven wielder at the front of the line. The Gryphs squawked, fluttering their wings as their golden eyes shimmered through the storm. Krysté led the party to the very edge of the collapsed bridge, where a narrow stone pathway stood as the only thread of land connected to the great Spire. Falling rain wet the path as the Gryphons took flight, flanked by Harpies and ravens as they glided over the severed lands, coordinating a strike on the trespassers who dare violate their home.
Krysté felt the wind beneath her as she inched over the edge of a steep, fatal drop. The Wo'enne Elf raised the flat of her blade, planting her feet against the rickety bridge while resisting the kicking talons of the leading Gryphon. In moments, the party was surrounded by the flock.
Vana loaded her bow and shot her first triplet of arrows soaring through the weeping sky, piercing a lesser Gryph's wing and drawing a pained squawk from the hostile creature. Down came the Gryphons, talons and beaks kicking and biting at the party of Elves and Orcs. Wigund witnessed the whole encounter from behind a stone outcrop, back at the start of the collapsed bridge. Rynor cast Blind on the winged beasts, sending their swipes and pecks straight over the party's heads. Vana drove her arrows into the bodies of the Gryphons as Legs swung her axe for the aerial beasts, severing a Gryph's foot and cleaving a Harpy's wing, blood spraying and beasts whimpering.
Krysté swung her blade overhead, cleaving into the torso of the attacking Gryphon, its blood drenching her as the flying creature shrieked. Her monstrous greatsword sliced through, its weight pulling Krysté down to the left, where her sword caught against a wooden post. The Elf pulled and pulled against her Blod'ven, but it wouldn't budge.
"Move aside, woman!" Kor shouted over thunder and squawks, swiping his axe at the lingering, blinded beasts. "There's not time to wretch the blade free! Not without the strength of an Orc!"
"Your hands stay clear of my blade!" Krysté barked. She arched her back and pulled with as much strength as she could muster, the blade loosening with the aid of the rainfall though remaining firmly wedged.
Vana's arrows downed a Gryphon, which came crashing into the depths of the valley. The ravens fled as the Harpies flung themselves at the party on behalf of their blinded masters, many of them missing their dives and crashing headfirst into stone, their skulls caving on impact and their bodies tumbling down. "Krysté, darling, it's okay!" The Elven Lieutenant shouted over the commotion of the storm. "Our ancestors would see you no lesser for this! "
"You don't know that!" Krysté hollered while tugging against the hilt of her wedged greatsword. "If I am to die here, I'd like to see my parents in the heavens beyond, not let that witch Nora claim my soul!"
"Let it go, Krysté!" Rynor demanded, raising his staff skyward and siphoning lightning from the storm, which sparked and zapped around his staff. "Let not your honor impede us here!"
"Shut the hell up!" Krysté snapped.
"Stubborn sharpear!" Kor stepped over, shoving Krysté aside and wrapping his hands around the leathery hilt of the Blod'ven, pulling with all his might. "Damn sword's as pigheaded as his master!"
Krysté grunted as she recovered, grasping a post and scowling at the Orc warrior struggling fruitlessly against the weight of her blade. Thus was the pact of the Blod'ven. One may not lift a Blod'ven no more than they may move a mountain. Perhaps if his clan had communed with the Elves they'd enslaved, he'd know that a Blod'ven and its wielder must exist as one. Even in the end of days, there was no hope of the Elven blade relenting to Orcish hands.
"Away, you brute!" Krysté snapped at Kor, Gryphons attacking viciously only to miss and circle back around. Rynor hopped away from an incoming bite, gracefully landing and sparking elemental lightning into the sky, volts rippling throughout the bodies of the Gryphons and what scant Harpies remained. "You ignorant buffoon! My blade shall not obey your will!" Krysté snapped at Kor while ducking creatures overhead.
"Put a lid on it, will ye?" Kor shot back, grunting as he exerted himself against the uncooperative sword. "A little bit of gratitude would—" A Gryphon crashed into the Orc warrior, having followed the sound of his voice right to him and sending him dropping into the valley.
"Kor!" Legs called out, but it was far too late.
Krysté stepped over, lifting her Blod'ven from the wooden post in a desperate bid and swinging back at a Gryphon, slicing its eye and sending it fluttering away with a reviled shriek.
"Strike true!" Rynor's words jarred Legs to attention, the Mage just a few steps behind the Lady Orc. "This trifle nears its end!" The Arcanist flared a bursting orb of Divinity skyward, the light scattering out and repelling the Gryphs.
Vana fired a quartet of arrows at the Gryphon who'd slain Kor as it came swerving around and diving again towards the party, only for its skull to be punctured. The Gryphon crashed into a cliffside then dropped into the great chasm, the remaining Gryphons regaining their sight only to flee at the sight of their strongest felled by Elven arrows.
"Belligerent man!" Krysté spat, peering over the collapsed bridge to glimpse the green and red splatter that was Kor the Mutilator. "He suffered an easily avoided death at the cost of his own ego!"
Legs shot Krysté a look fit to kill, but alas, she was a warrior on assignment from her Chieftain. "Mind your tongue!" The Lady Orc demanded.
Krysté scoffed. "Resent me not for the actions of the deceased! He acted of his own volition, despite my warnings, did he not?"
"Enough, Krysté!" Vana shouted from the back of the row as she slung her bow around her back with a deep sigh. Krysté heeled at her superior's command with a brisk, defiant grunt. "Though we've triumphed, tis hardly a victory. Still, there remains the path to be crossed." Vana said. "His loss shall be mourned whence we return to O'Karr, yes?"
Legs huffed, her fist clenched tightly around her battle axe, though the encounter itself was at its end. "Tis no time for squabbles." She said. "Know that should any more fall under your watch, I shall hold you personally responsible, Sir Knight."
"Aye." Krysté flicked her rain soaked hair aside, gazing up at the Spire ahead. "Rynor? Surely, with the Gryphs and their ilk thwarted, an Anti-Gravitation spell would be no trouble?"
The Mage groaned. "You've no idea the kind of toll such spells take on an intermediate such as myself."
"Is that a yes?" Krysté side-eyed the apathetic Mage.
"It's certainly preferable to risking any more deaths by the hand of this precarious crossing." Rynor relented. "Stand back. I shall open the way." The Arcanist tapped his staff against the rickety bridge, harnessing his Mana and preparing the spell.
Vana whipped around, staring at Wigund with a cheerful grin. "Yoohoo, my sweet Gobling babe! Come along now, dear, I'll carry you aloft!"
Wigund hesitated briefly before scrambling out and rushing into Vana's arms. She lifted the Hobgoblin as if he were a child as light particles sprinkled around, lifting them above the slippery chasm, rain barreling against soil and stone. Wigund whimpered, shivering in the Lieutenant's arms as she kicked her feet as if swimming, whistling a classic tune the whole way.
The party swam through the air, across the chasm to the winding path up to the Spire's base. Rynor landed first and guided the others to their feet one at a time until the whole of the group had crossed safely.
Krysté spared a final glance down at Kor. The vultures were upon him now. She understood not why he'd committed to his actions, though the outcome was inarguable. The path to the Demoness lie ahead, and at the very least she planned to lend meaning to his death.
Wigund scurried on ahead, his eyes darting all around in a paranoid rush as he followed Legs' every step up to the monolithic Spire. The massive structure bore a thick moss coating over its stone bricks, cracks splintering throughout its ancient foundations, eroded gargoyles standing guard as defenders of an era long forgotten. As the Elves approached the grand tower, the whisperings of dark spirits picked at their ears. The search proved thankless, lethal, and fraught with trickery, but alas, they were nearing the enemy.
It was not a belief, but a truth known by all at the precipice of the ascent. At the towering double doors of the Spire, the party each felt a chill within, certainly a warning from the Goddess. Beyond the doors, her breath would grace her children no longer. Despite the sinister forces stirring beyond and the sliver of doubt within each of their beating hearts, their decision was unanimous, and each understood without a word between them.
The doors creaked open, Krysté pushing open the left and Legs pushing the right, the sound echoing throughout the silhouetted entrance chamber. Many layers of dust had settled against the furnishings of the nigh untouched interior. Rynor conjured a light at the end of his staff, illuminating the vacant chamber and revealing a set of hooved footprints leading up the spiraling, ever climbing stairs coiling around the inner Spire.
"Footprints? So the Demoness truly walks this place." Krysté muttered, following the trail a step at a time.
"And she hasn't come alone, by the sounds of it." Rynor added. "You've all heard it, I presume?"
"Mm-hmm." Vana nodded, a hand hovering over her broadsword as she kept pace with Krysté. "Tis beyond hearing. You all feel her presence, no?"
"Thought it was nerves..." Legs muttered.
"Whatever we plan to do, we ought make haste!" Krysté said. "Tis no telling when the cruel witch sh—"
Wigund sprayed an odorous black bile onto the floor.
"Contain your fluids, creature!" Krysté snapped at the Goblin chief, who remained trembling.
"Wigund? Are you alright?" Vana asked.
The Goblin collapsed on the spot, convulsing in his own vomit, his mouth frothing as he squirmed and twitched.
"What's wrong with him!?" Legs fell back from the party's sickly guide.
"Nora's handiwork, no doubt!" Rynor snapped to attention, retrieving his staff and performing a Perception spell, searching high and low for any traces of the Demoness or her legions.
Wigund fell still. The jittery, animated Goblin dare not blink. He stared, unbreathing.
"Wigund?" Vana stepped across, locking her fist around the hilt of her broadsword. "Are you well?"
"Alas, thou feeble, fleshbound creatures arriveth in vain hope of extinguishing thou's final salvation?" Nora's sinister voice resonated from the Goblin's lips. "Thou art slaves unto thine own habits, always and forever. Merciful, am I, in offering thee a scant glimmer of enlightenment afore thine inevitable fate befalls thee." The Demoness laughed, Wigund's face contorting into twisted glee as he again convulsed on the spot.
"Face us, false prophet!" Krysté barked, swiping her Blod'ven at the air and scattering dust particles about. "Too long you've fled our fated duel. The blow I rended into your flesh was but an inkling of what fury I reserve for you, degenerate heathen!"
Nora cackled in an amused mixture of cruelty and condescension. "Ahh, brimming with delicious pride art thou. Ask not, child, for thou hast proven ever the good girl for thy Demoness, and so thou shalt receive thy highest blessing. Righteous trial by combat against thy accuser! Determineth right of thy soul, shall it."
"Easily done!" Krysté scoffed. "Now release the Goblin. He is but no one in our battle to come."
The Demoness cackled again, sending Wigund into contorting flinches and violent shakes. "Oh, miniscule Elf, but thy Goblin is a deceitful, wicked creature. Twas he whom devoteth the souls of his brethren unto me. Makes pacts in the shadows, doth he, the albatross feigning wits of a foole as he lures thee fragile canaries unto the serpent's den."
"Heed not her lies!" Vana encouraged the party, drawing her broadsword. "The words of a demon mean naught at all! Tis her aim to shake our convictions. We'll not allow this deceiver to wilt our mettle!"
"With you all the way, Lieutenant!" Rynor clutched his staff, his eyes sharp as he studied the chamber despite his spell's failure to yield any useful findings. "Let us banish this unholy cretin back to the accursed pits of Hell whence she came!"
"Aye!" Legs grasped her battle axe, steeling herself for the onslaught ahead. "By Kor's memory, we shall wage glorious battle and arise victorious! Tonight, we bathe in the Demoness' blood!"
Krysté strolled about, her monstrous blade ever the monolith of hope, erected from her iron grip. Here, in the sanctum of memory's shadow, the girl from Wo'enne Village felt the gaze of each generation of fallen Elves weighing upon her soul. Within this Spire awaited the fiend responsible for purging her people from the Lands of Virtue. Across the seas the Blod'ven wielding warrior journeyed to pursue she whom cast a fateful reaving upon her homeland. She whose legions razed fire upon the innocent and slaughtered the Goddess' devout servants in cold blood. She who spat upon the cycles of nature in vain conquest to claim divine right against the disciples of virtue. All her life Krysté trained to be a Huntress, and before her now awaited the ultimate monster. All that remained was to track the beast and finish the Great Hunt.
"The Goblin's fate is irrelevant." Krysté declared, raising her blade towards the heavens. "Long, has the journey been, but here we shall put our crusade to rest. Face your execution with dignity, trifling witch! Reveal yourself, and let fate decide its victors."
"Thy words dishonor thy Demoness." Nora's words reverberated throughout the chamber. "A witch is a simple evil, devised by magicks and realized by one's vain urges. Thy Demoness is evil without bounds. The Abyss made manifest. The instrument of thy world's destruction and thy deliverer of justice unto thou's bespoiled lands. Know me as thy saint of scorn."
Lightning scarred the landscape, flashing briefly through the Spire windows, crackling, hellish thunder rumbling through. The Demoness' laughter mocked the party from the lips of the possessed Goblin chief. He rolled over and climbed back to his feet, retrieving his rusted, bile-stained axe from the stone Spire floor and swung for his allies, giggling like a mad fool. He whiffed, only to swing back the other way, his axe nearly grazing Krysté's knee.
The Elven Knight swung her massive blade down with a skull splintering crack! Wigund's axe clattered against stone, his face solidified as the picture of ecstasy as blood trickled down from his split cranium. His body fell limp in moments. Lieutenant Vana gasped partially from fright, moreso out of revulsion.
"Krysté, stop!" She yelped, but the Goblin had already been slain.
The Wo'enne Knight used her foot to shove Wigund's body off her blade, her Blod'ven stained by his blood, which dripped to the floor. "His mind was gone already!" Krysté said.
"No, dear, he was our friend!" Vana cried. "A friend you've put down as if he were a common beast!"
Krysté flicked the dripping blood from her blade, then directed her attention fully on the Lieutenant. "He was an agent of Nora, thus his fate was sealed."
"With Rynor's help, we could've reversed what had been done!" Vana shot back. "Isn't that right, Rynor?"
"The Dark Arts are a murky practice." Rynor said. "Even I cannot be sure whatever hex the Demoness cast upon him was reversible."
"It matters not!" Krysté barked, baring her teeth at her beloved Lieutenant. "I thought you understood, the mission comes first! Hesitation is death, and I'll not suffer an abrupt end at mercy's hand!"
"That so?" Vana asked, raising an eyebrow at the Private. "Then, what'd be the outcome, say, one of us falls prey to Nora's sorcery?"
The Wo'enne Elf was frozen by the question. Silence weighed heavy upon the room. Legs had turned away from the sight of Wigund's corpse. It wasn't long before the flies were upon him. "We've lost two men thus far." Legs reminded the Elven trio. "Let us brave this Spire and conclude this wretched expedition at last, afore anymore are lost to our enemy's foul games."
"Agreed, we ought to begin our ascent urgently." Rynor added.
"Aye." Krysté clicked her greatsword to her back and followed the hooved footprints before her. Vana kneeled before Wigund's body and spoke an Elven prayer before rising to follow the party up the Spire, the depraved whisperings of the occult chattering away at the edges of their pointed ears.