Determined now, Er’it set off to the right, thinking any direction as good as the next. Pulling his sword free to cut away what he could, Er’it shouldered his way through the limbs and branches. Boots snagging on hidden roots and unseen vines, he cursed a vivid bloody streak and made his way forward. Kal followed tight on Er’it’s heels, snapping his teeth at the shadows, his rumbles and rasping sounds creating a storm around them. Er’it did not doubt the Phylix kept a greater danger than a bit of greenery at bay.
Night wore on around them, every step forward hard earned with sweat and blood. Just as it seemed to be thinning, Er’it fell to his knees with a ragged cry.
Searing through him, it was like swallowing liquid winter. Wine dark and twice as intoxicating, it burned his veins, crackling along his skin and painting his lungs in ice. As his fingers delved deep into the ground rumbling beneath him, Er’it’s shout became a roar. Sweet as spring, it flooded his senses, caressing his very soul with the chill of snow as his back bowed with the strain of remaining on hands and knees. The force of it pushed him into the soft earth, dirt that was no longer fetid and slimy but dark with life.
Whispering cries fled through the surrounding trees, whipping the branches into a frenzy. Slapping and groaning, the blood-curdling screech of wood and stone grinding together filled the air. Splintering wood cracked through the darkness like a whip.
It was her. It was Aida, and she was near, had to be for him to feel her like this. Er’it prayed to the Hat’or that she was, that this magic had not found such crazed heights. She was too small, too weak to control such power. His medallion had failed, the layers of spells and protection neutered in the wake of one slip of an Omega and all that she was.
Lunging to his feet, Er’it grappled with a sapling bolting from the dirt and growing as thick as his thigh within a breath. Its leaves, a brilliant chartreuse, burst into life before settling into rich emerald then lusty gold. It continued to soar upwards, branches unfurling and blocking the path.
“Come on, Kal,” Er’it shouted through the screaming wind. Hacking at the maniacal growth, he began to rush through the thickening forest becoming as lush and beautiful as the mirage at the edge of the road.
Phylix thundering behind him, Er’it ran, no longer trying to make a way clear of spiraling limbs but dodging them as best he could. Bolting through the forest intent on passing through the seasons and years within the space of a few panting breaths, he dodged what he could, slapping his way through what he couldn’t. More than once, he fell, tripping over something new flinging itself from the darkness of the ground. Kal was forced to leap more often than not as his way became blocked, his bulky body more hindrance than advantage in such close quarters.
“Aida! You must stop this,” Er’it bellowed into the night, his dull blade grinding through a branch threatening to split Kal in two.
Shadows swept over them in a barren rush. Wind whipped at the new growth, killing the leaves on their boughs. It turned everything it touched into oily sludge, leaving a black scar upon the forest floor and stretching well into the trees. Heading north, the narrow path of rot and decay was devoid of any glimmer of life.
It all stopped without warning. The sudden stillness was deafening as Kal came up beside him and nudged Er’it. As the sounds of the night began to filter toward them, cautious in their reemergence, Kal tossed his head and set the multitude of beads and rings in his mane singing. Snorting, his eyes were wild as he fixated on the path of ruination the darkness had left in its wake.
Snapped from his stupor, Er’it took a fistful of Kal’s mane in hand, steadying them both as Er’it moved down the Phylix’s side in preparation to climb onto his back. “It’s going after her, Kal. We have to find her.”
With a sound akin to a whine, Kal tossed his head, a clear denial that Er’it ignored until Kal checked him with a hip. Boot sliding across the ground, he sank deep into the mire of the blackened streak, the sludge sucking at his feet until Er’it managed to yank himself free with the aid of Kal and a twisted tree branch. Panting from the exertion it took, topaz gaze near hidden behind the squint of his lids, Er’it began to curse. At first quiet, each ragged breath contained a single vile word until he was shouting them. Pacing at the edge of the dark muck, he let loose his rage.
He sank ankle deep without even stepping into the worst of it. Kal would be mired down within moments. Despite the path, free of barriers and straight as an arrow, they would be forced to find an alternate way. Hours would be lost, perhaps even days.
“No. I will not accept it.” Er’it stood with feet shoulder breadth apart, arms held out from his body before him. Hands clenching over the cool night air, he ground the ragged edge of his nails into his palms. Scraping over the myriad of small punctures and scratches he’d accumulated, he managed to draw forth a few precious smears of blood. He wasn’t rested enough by half, not after she had sapped his power not once but twice. Still, he’d gained something back while Kal stormed through the forest.
Magic crawling over his fingers itched and burned, sucking at his skin as it threaded its way over his wrists and arms. The paltry, sputtering glow gave his bronzed skin a ruddy cast, but little beyond was illuminated. Seeking out every hurt, the scratching fingers of crimson grew stronger as they found more weeping cuts.
Er’it swayed, the dry click of his throat loud in the surrounding stillness. As soon as the fear he might pass out before completing the act snared his thoughts, he shoved it away with brutal determination. He would see it done, even if Kal had to carry him over his back like a sack of goods. Dropping to one knee with his hands still held out in front of him, Er’it thought it might just come to that.
Wrapping around his ankles, it sifted through the crinkling leaves with a sigh. Tangling its way up his calves and thighs, it wrapped tighter with every circuit it made before Er’it could distinguish the numbing cold from the deadened sensation of exhaustion. Shout ragged, filthy brow furrowed, he watched on in horrified fascination as the glimmering blue light crept farther up his body. Unable to climb to his feet, there was nothing he could do as the last shreds of his power guttered and threatened to blink out of existence.
Only it began to surge anew. The lurid ruby light turned night into glorious, blood-shaded day before the snapping azure overtook it, twining over and through the strengthening red of his magic and turning it plum dark as it mingled and spread. Not just hovering over his skin but sinking deep into the flesh down to his very bones, it gave Er’it the strength of twenty men as he lurched to his feet with a victorious roar.
Kal thundered behind him, trumpeting into the darkness, the lustrous circle of power held at bay. The resonating call trembled through the earth as jagged flashes of pure white light scored the blackened ground, building in waves as Kal reared and came down with silvery hooves again and again.
Laugh bordering on mad, drunk on this wild surge of power that kept building inside him, Er’it spread his hands at the ravaged scar. Palms out, he found words of power on his lips not in his language. Soft and wild, they fled from his tongue, shaping the power limning his arms into something he had never seen before. Smooth and sharp, a well-honed blade that grew stronger and paler, it crackled and popped like a fire throwing off sultry violet sparks into the chill-dark air. The tempest reached up to his shoulders before Er’it’s lips formed a sigh into a command.
Shooting from his outstretched arms, it struck the rotten dirt with a shower of sparkling amethyst. Glittering with a light all its own, it furrowed the sundered ground and spread in widening circles. A rock of glorious magic in a pond of filth and decay, its ripples of energy coated every slimy clump of greenery and sodden trunk. Transforming it in a frenzy, power lashed at everything it touched. Whipcords of it snapped around trees and vines, digging deep into the earth until the crumbling soil glowed the same incandescent purple hue.
Hands delving deep into the sweet-smelling loam, Er’it continued to laugh, amazement turning his face boyish as the years of toil and hardship slipped away under the incredible onslaught. Veins scalded by it, heart stuttering in his chest, he tipped his head back still and laughed at the glittering stars peeking through the thickening canopy.
This could all be his, no more sacrifices needed to be made once he had this power. Able to heal the lands he took, return them to their unruined states, he could give his people a place to call a true home and not the gritty, lingering death shroud of Denath. To take even more, he could be the ruler of all. None would defy him with this phenomenal power.
As if triggered by his thoughts, the power feeding him swelled and stunned, lurid spots dancing through his vision, and Er’it laughed all the harder. Pulling on the violent blue energy, he tucked it close against his very soul where the intoxicating fragrance of spring and snow grew stronger with every vicious wave.
It was the pain of Kal’s large teeth crunching through the cloth and flesh at his shoulder that pulled him from the cycle. Scream hoarse as he tumbled to the side, Er’it slapped a hand to the wound and lunged to his feet with all the grace of a drunken goose.
“What is wrong with you?” Er’it snarled, staunching the sticky flow of blood by bunching his shirt over it.
Kal’s lips rolled up, baring his blood-smeared teeth. The swath of red staining the dusty silver of his lips gave Er’it pause. Phylix were creatures of protection, sometimes of war, but they would never attack the person they aligned themselves with. Kal was even less inclined by the debt they owed one another. For him to bite Er’it so, either Kal felt the debt paid without warning, or he had good reason.
Shudder rippling down his spine as Kal’s liquid black eyes peered at him from under the thick fringe of silvered lashes, Er’it took several deep breaths, working his way back through the power-drugged memories swamping his mind with the desire to feel it all again. Even his cock was hard, straining against his pants in the aftermath of all that magic at his disposal.
“Aida…” He’d forgotten her in those moments, the whole point of this mad journey lost with a mere taste of the power contained within her. That thing could be after her still, could have her.
