Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

The moment seemed to last an eternity.

I knelt there, wounded, drenched in filth and still clutching my dagger. My sword lay just in front of me, within easy reach. She was still forming, still waking up and vulnerable, and I had a chance to strike.

But in the moment, it didn't even cross my mind to attack. All I could do was stare into the red mist and the scarlet light, transfixed, eyes wide and mouth agape like some idiot. I had been struck dumb, in a way.

The demon unfolded her slender limbs and settled her mismatched feet in the blood. She almost lost her balance, very fawn-like, as the leg that ended in a hoof plopped down into the liquid. Her long hair clung to her shoulders and breasts, drenched and darkened near to black by the blood. Her whole body was covered in it.

Her silver eyes blinked drowsily and she stretched her neck. Then she seemed to focus, saw me, and those uncanny eyes went wide. Her lips moved as she spoke a single word.

Alken.

The sound of my name didn't just emerge from her throat. The word seemed to fill the whole world. It slithered into my mind, rang in my ears, plucked at my soul like a harp's chord. The sensation hit me so hard it almost made me forget the pain of the claw marks on the left side of my face, which were burning like fire and leaking blood down my neck.

Her mark.

I couldn't read the expression on her face in that moment. Disbelief? Hatred? Hard to tell with the mask of blood, the veil of clinging hair. We stared at one another from a distance and neither one of us seemed able to break that hold. Her right hand started to lift as though she meant to reach for me.

Then someone else said something. Shouted it. I was so fixated on her that I didn't catch the words, but the voice was familiar. An enemy?

A devil. Krile. She'd given an order.

The moment broke.

The fetterfiends hurled javelins at the abrüdai, including the newest one. Some struck those on the platform, eliciting cries of rage. The silence ended instantly, and a war older than my world started anew right there in the room.

"We must not allow them to have it!" Krile screamed. "Retrieve it, now!"

A barbed dart of iron grazed Fid — Shyora — across the shoulder. She flinched and held up an arm, baring white teeth in a hiss of pain as the hell-forged javelin instantly cauterized the wound. The slash on her shoulder steamed.

"Shy!" Delphine called out. She was still on the podium, her hands clutching its sides. Her face was panicked and streaked with tears. Shyora glanced up at her.

Move, you idiot. I directed the thought at myself, compelling my hand to grasp the sword and lift it. I'd proven I could handle this, hadn't I?

That had just been her shadow, a mimic. This was the real her, and I'd never thought I'd have to do this again.

There is no real her, there never was. Burn that weakness out of you. Kill it.

I thought I already had.

I started moving forward as pandemonium broke out across the crypt, but my mind refused to quiet into its battle focus. Words kept ringing inside my head.

"We were meals to that thing, meals and toys, nothing more."

"If you believe that, then why were you crying?"

"No, I—"

"You were! I saw it. You looked like your heart was breaking apart when you swung that axe. There was no triumph in your face, no satisfaction. You were grieving."

My steps slowed and the sword suddenly felt impossibly heavy in my hands.

"Ah, my heart."

"We could have lived in a dream."

"Keep your oaths then, and see if they warm you!"

Move, move, move, move—

The memories wouldn't stop spinning through my mind. I kept flashing back to that moment, to her scalding blood on my hand, to the way she'd stared at me as though I'd betrayed her, rather than the other way around. I thought I'd gotten past it, overcome it, but the thought of experiencing it again…

My body wouldn't obey, and I couldn't stop looking at her.

But she'd been distracted by the flying iron, the bellows of the Credo's minions, and by the frightened figure standing above. The look of drowsy confusion on the demon's face fled. Her eyes narrowed and her bloodstained face became a hard mask.

Then Shyora's eyes flicked back to me, saw the sword in my hands, and she let out a silent snarl. The bloody pool she stood in started to boil violently. She wrenched one shoulder in a savage motion, pulling at the web of viscera attaching her to the flesh she'd formed her body from.

She strained, and with a sickening snapping sound she tore free. She did it again with the right shoulder, tearing away fully from the cocoon.

Only… not fully. Large sections of the pod remained attached to her back, and only when they lifted and sprayed blood across the crypt with a single mighty flap did I realize they were wings.

They were nightmarish, formed of long fingers of bruise-colored bone and crimson membrane that crawled with pulsing veins. The main joints sported extra hands with enlarged forefingers and vicious claws.

Born anew and blazing with power stolen from the remnants of dozens of dead humans, fiends, and even a Zosite seraphim, the demon called Shyora folded her wings around herself. The womanly shape vanished within a cocoon of barbed ligaments and tortured sinew, then rose into the air. I felt heat wash out from it, a mere foreshadowing of what happened next. The clawed fingers sprouting from the main joint on either wing flexed into strange configurations, very much like the hand signs a cleric will use before casting a Sacred Art. It reminded me of how Lisette wove her magic, weaving her aura into complex patterns.

I gathered my will on instinct, sensing danger.

The wings erupted outward, stretching out to a full span exceeding twenty feet. A vermillion pulse of energy went out from the demon, and wherever it caught one of the Credo they burst into blood-colored flames and fell screaming, many of them clutching at their faces as their flesh began to slough off as though that eerie light had been made of acid.

The blast struck her own kindred too, the violence of it indiscriminate. Only… it didn't seem to touch the doctor, who stood just behind and above her.

The wave of power that accompanied that roar hit me, and I threw up an arm to shield my eyes. I felt my own magical defenses burn hot to counter the spell. The heat was tremendous, but it didn't last long. I skidded back several feet, and my armor was left steaming when it abated. Warm blood started to trickle out of my ears and nose.

I lowered my arm just in time to see her staring at me again. I still couldn't understand that expression. Her eyes were wide and glaring, but the rest of her face remained an expressionless mask.

Cold. A cold rage was building in those eyes.

"Alken." When she said it this time, it didn't have that note of surprise from before, or the sense of calling. She spoke my name like a curse.

A hand gripped my wrist. I growled and almost turned my blade on the owner, but when my gaze flinched to the side I saw a familiar face there. It took me a moment to register who it was.

"Eilidh?"

The vampire had taken injuries. Her dress was ruined with gore, sticky blood caked her jaw and neck, and her eyes were a feral shade of red.

"We need to get out of here!" She hissed.

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I just stared at her, unable to process the words at first. Leave? Why would I leave? The Zoscian was still here and in the hands of the enemy. Dei was right there. Between those horrible wings, behind the mask of blood and hate, it was her face.

I turned to her again just in time to see her take a step towards me. More of that sanguine fire flickered around her left hand, and her white teeth were bared to reveal sharp canines.

I took my sword in both hands. It was like a mirror in my memory. Just like the last time. Ignoring everything else around us, this was how it happened. She'd leap at me, and I would pull the blade back just in time to thrust. My body remembered the movements and acted through them even as my mind went blank.

Perhaps it would be different. This blade didn't have a stabbing end.

"Shy!" Delphine cried out again from the podium. Her voice was strained with desperation. "Please, don't!"

The demon paused. She glanced back towards the doctor, just for a moment.

"Stay out of this, Delphine! You've done enough." It took me a moment to realize that hateful snarl had come from me.

She ignored me, keeping her attention on Shyora. "This isn't why I brought you back! Remember what you told me back then. Please, remember! There's still time, but we need to get away from here. He'll be close."

Shyora blinked once. I could see hesitation on her face.

"I can't lose you again!" Delphine, Sister Vera, sobbed through the words.

What was she talking about? Who was she talking about?

I didn't care. This wasn't about her, though she would answer for it.

The demon didn't attack. Without saying a word, Shyora beat her wings and carried herself high into the air. She landed on the platform just behind Delphine, then wrapped her arms around the doctor and folded her wings to shield them both from the burning projectiles streaking through the air. The other demons were fighting tooth and claw with Zosite servants, but I barely registered them.

Even if I tried, I felt the nuances of that horror would be lost on me. There was too much that didn't make sense, too many limbs and eyes, powers that seemed to unravel the borders of what was comprehensible.

Shyora stretched her wings again and took to the air with the doctor in her arms. Delphine stared at me with wide eyes, but she didn't look afraid. Her expression was full of regret, but also resolve.

I just stared after them as they went higher. When the room had reconfigured itself before, the ceiling had vanished to reveal a shaft stretching high up, its depths lost in gloom so it seemed like a bottomless pit in reverse. It must have gone all the way up, because snow fell down through it. Or was that ash?

By the time I considered trying to stop them, it was too late. Even as I watched the pair vanished into the hole and were gone. The tension in my arms started to ease, and I let out a breath.

What had I just done? I could have stopped them. She'd been in my reach.

Eilidh tugged at my arm again. "We have to go! Sans is ready for us."

Sans? How had he gotten here?

Then I remembered. The plan, the strategy we'd worked out. But I couldn't leave without…

I stared at the podium where the scroll had rested through this whole nightmare. It wasn't there anymore.

Delphine had taken it.

"Vera." There was the anger.

"Now!" Eilidh tugged harder.

I turned with reluctance just in time to shove the vampire to one side before a spear skewered her through the skull. The thrown weapon was followed by a charging devil who bellowed and rattled with chains as it advanced with all the weight and momentum of a war chimera.

I sidestepped, sheared through its unarmored knees, then left it to whine and struggle on the ground without finishing it off.

"Where is he?" I snapped at Eilidh.

She tore her eyes from the maimed creature and blinked at me, then pointed to a spot not far away. I could make out a fissure in the floor there. Mist came out of it like steam from a geyser. "There. Maryanne is already through."

"She survived?"

Eilidh nodded. "She's hurt, but yes. Are you coming or not?"

I'd lost track of Oraise, but helping him escape had never been in the plan. I nodded reluctantly. "Fine. Let's get out of here."

"That demon took Miss Roch," Eilidh said, hesitating. "Are we going to—"

"No."

I said nothing else, instead marching towards the spot where mist was emerging. As we drew closer, the fissure in the crypt's floor seemed to become wider. I could make out light beneath. I helped Eilidh down first, then prepared to leap into the pit myself.

Something large and fast hit me. I went soaring through the air, hit the ground in an uncontrollable roll and lost my sword in it. I ended on my back, groaning in agony as the fresh impacts jostled the tusk still embedded in my side.

I blinked the haze from my vision just in time to see Chamael — what was left of him — drifting towards me like some hovering ghost. His limp wings didn't even beat, just trailed behind. One of his multiple pairs of hands rose to grasp me.

I got myself into a kneeling position, tensed, then threw myself to the side just as he drew close. I rolled over my sword and took it up, found my feet. Chamael was already turning in a languid movement.

Slow. He reacted slow. The Chamael I remembered had been fast as wind and strong enough to break castles with his fist. This wasn't him, and cutting him wouldn't accomplish anything.

I focused my powers into my vision and found the black threads of demonic ichor holding the abused seraph up. The spider demon wasn't far, crouching above between two of the pillars. It had no face, just a bloodshot eye emerging from a bloated abdomen. It worked the Saint of Blood like a marion with multiple human hands dangling below the eye.

"Enough!" A deep voice drawled. "Enough, Thanacora. He is marked, can't you see?"

Chamael paused in middair, going perfectly still as though he'd been frozen in time. The spider-thing, however, chittered angrily as its enlarged eye flicked to the side.

I followed its gaze. The crowfriars seemed to be in retreat, even though they well outnumbered the demons. I saw none of Kale's men alive. They'd all been killed, or they'd fled.

Save for the king himself. He stood a short distance away, and he'd been the one to speak. Kale Stour turned and caught my gaze. He held a bloodied sword in his hand, and he'd been mauled. His rich armor was ruined, his left arm hung limp and broken at his side, and most of the flesh around his jaw had been torn away to reveal teeth and bone beneath.

A dyghoul? Had he died and been unlucky enough to have his soul trapped inside his body, like Kieran, Hyperia, and Penric? It happened most often in situations like this. He should have been in too much pain to move, yet he smiled at me.

His teeth were very sharp, and his eyes…

It wasn't him anymore. The king said something, and even though he spoke softly and stood far enough I shouldn't have been able to hear him, the words found my ears anyway, like he were whispering from directly behind me.

"You cut it out," the Lion said. "Shame. Why didn't you strike when you had the chance?"

I stared in shock. Had he been hiding inside the king all this time, or infested the body just now?

Ager Roth turned his stolen face away from me. The other demon shivered in rage and said something in a tongue that belonged more to insects than speaking beings.

"You know our ways," Ager Roth said back to it. "She has marked him as hers. Now that she is here, his soul is hers to claim. We poach from Pernicious Shyora at our peril, old friend. You know how vengeful she can be."

"How are you here?" I demanded.

He turned back to me with that leonine grin plastered to his mangled face. "Ah, you mean inside this monarch?" He lifted Kale's hand and studied it critically. "I told you before, there is a beast in all of us. And this little king... ah, he longed for war! He has one, now."

He pointed at the fissure. "Go, Alder Knight. Flee this place and live to fight another day. There isn't time to dally."

Almost on cue, the whole crypt rumbled. One of the pillars cracked with a sound so loud it deafened me a moment. Dust began to rain down from the ceiling, followed by larger chunks of masonry.

The undercroft is collapsing, I realized. The crypt's make had been rearranged when Orkael was seeping into the mortal coil, but now the way was closed and those changes hadn't reversed. The integrity of the cathedral had been compromised.

It was all going to collapse on our heads and bury us.

Even still… my gauntlets tightened on the executioner sword's grip. If I could take even one of these monsters out, wouldn't it be worth it? Ager Roth wouldn't be as strong inside a mortal shell. I could hurt him. I could at least try to free what remained of Chamael. We hadn't liked one another, but we were on the same side in the grand scheme of things. He didn't deserve to be desecrated like this.

It would be easier to fight here than to face the world above after all of this.

Ager Roth let out a frustrated sound. Kale's jaw had broken, giving it a swollen, lopsided look that only served to make the nature of what infested him more obvious. "Do not be a fool, boy. There is such an entertaining war ahead of us, and you would throw your life away in this pit?"

I shivered as I felt the attention of more demons fall on me. The Credo were mostly all dead or gone, and I was surrounded by even worse monsters. A host of nightmares stood all around me, seeming unconcerned by the collapsing walls.

I wanted to fight. Wanted to butcher them. I was still strong enough to take some with me.

Where had this feeling been a few minutes ago, when I'd needed it?

Ager Roth snarled and started to stalk forward. "So be it."

A chunk of masonry large as a boulder landed between us with a thunderous boom. The ensuing cloud of dust blocked the demon from my sight, made me flinch back. A pillar splintered and fell over the crypt doors. There'd be no escape that way.

"We must go, Ser Knight."

I glanced back and saw Casimir the wight standing within arm's reach. Had he come out of that hole in the ground? I almost cut him when I saw that skull's face.

"And let all of these vermin leave!?" I demanded.

"You cannot slay them all," the undead swordsman said. He almost sounded sad. "I would aid you if I could, but in this I council that you live to fight another day. The way down will close soon. Hurry."

He pointed a fleshless finger at the fissure nearby. It glowed with pale light, but that was already fading.

I stared at that gap, that way out, and resented it. Casimir's hollow eyes must have seen that.

"I thought you fought for love, not for hatred. There are people waiting for you in the sunlight, Alken Hewer."

I stared at him. "Who are you?"

Casimir just pointed again at the fissure.

"Damn it. Fine!" The wight was correct. There were people in the world above waiting for me. I felt some shame having forgotten that, even for a moment.

Ager Roth, in the guise of Kale of Osheim, leapt up onto the boulder that'd fallen between us. His ruined chainmail rattled as he flourished his sword. He saw Casimir and frowned. "What are you doing here, wretch? This matter is none of your realm's concern."

"We are the other side of the coin," the wight said. "You are but a bad memory that refuses to let go. Be gone with thee, abgrüdai. You carry your abyss with you, and it calls you back."

The growl of anger that escaped Kale's animate corpse was that of a lion.

I cast one last look at the opening above. She was gone. It was too late.

She'd be out there. It wasn't too late. This was just beginning.

I went down into the fissure just as the ceiling collapsed to bury that place.