The Darksteel Eye

Chapter 7: Tinte

Somehow I managed to muster up all of my strength and get up. Okay so maybe I still had jello legs from my out of body experience, but I was still operating. Standing above me were Jessica and Alaric, both looking worried.No, worried probably isn't the right word. How about terrified. That sounds more accurate. They both looked at me as though I was using some sort of magical bullshit they really didn't want to deal with, but that they knew they had to. They were also worried about the name that I had just dropped. Seuche. I recalled the last time I had heard that name. It was back when Alaric was commenting on me killing a Verräter. And that Seuche used them as minions. And that his dad was death. So I totally understood, that if someone's dad is death, you get to be very worried if hes coming to kill you. Anyways, we decided that sitting around like cowards was not what we had to do, so we all headed to some conference room, where some other official looking people were gathered. Alaric addressed them all in a somewhat frantic matter.

"We have it on good authority that Seuche is leading forces to assault us. We are strong. We will fight back. I need groups of warriors to attempt to neutralize as much of the threat of the monsters as possible. All craftsmen are to get to the underground bunker and stay there until we have everything under control. Warlocks are to direct all attacks at Seuche. We can do this men. Today we win this battle. Today we cancel the apocalypse!" Alaric exclaimed confidently.

It sounded really cheesy to me. I didn't fit into any of those categories, but Alaric realized that I had magical potential, so he sent me out with the warlocks.

A group of warlocks ran down and tunnel, and I followed them. After running for a few minutes, we emerged into the bright daylight, exiting a tunnel at the base of the mountain. The leader of the group pointed to Seuche, in the middle of a small group of Verräter who were coming straight towards us. It appeared that Seuche and this small band of Verräter had broken off, while the rest of the army headed for the frontal attack.

We hurried forward towards the enemy, when one of the warlocks turned to me.

"Do you even know how to cast a fireball?" he asked me.

"I have no idea." I replied honestly.

"Great." he replied sarcastically.

Not wanting to disappoint,  I envisioned fire forming in the shape of a ball in my palm. As we ran, it got bigger, until it reached the size of a small dodge ball.

"Not bad." the warlock I had spoken to earlier noted.

"Um. Thanks." I said.

I hurled the ball at Seuche's group with all my might. Which probably did something, because as it flew the air it got bigger. Much bigger. Like, 2 feet in diameter big. It flew towards Seuche, but right before it hit him, he put out his hand. A giant cloud of smoke obscured what had happened. He had put his hand out and when the fireball hit him. he was unharmed. That was not the case of his Verräter escorts.

Seuche glanced at the group of warlocks I was running amongst with  a look of annoyance and anger. He stopped moving forward and began to wave his arms about him, black patterns appearing in the air around his hands.

"Your turn to die." he said angrily, as lightning began to spark out from his hand towards us.

Panicking seemed like a good first response, so I began to wave my arms about. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt right. Blue patterns began to fill the air. Glyphs floated all around me. The bolts of lightning bounced off the glyphs and dissipated. Seuche put his hand to his temple and put his other hand out towards me. I could feel waves of energy rolling over me, and the glyphs I had created began to fade.I focused on the glyphs harder than before, and they stayed there, but my energy was fading fast. I felt tired. No. I felt like I was going to pass out again. I looked up, hoping that some angel would come down and save us. It was a black shadow that swept over me that allowed me to relax temporarily before collapsing to the ground, exhausted. I didn't pass out (miraculously). But I was completely drained. I could barely move my head to watch what happened. I saw a figure land. He had black wings, dripping with jet black liquid. The wings began to fold into the figure's bare back, but as the wings did so, they began to disappear. The were gone by the time they would have reached the man's back, and they were replaced by a pair of black wing tattoos. The ink below his skin began to blur, and seeped out of his back. The ink began to materialize into something other than wings this time. A black biker's jacket formed around the man's body.