Chapter 42 - The sorcerer knight of House Winterscar (Patreon)

The powers of a Deathless. 

Lord Atius had offered me knowledge. And I drew on what he’d taught me.

Deep inside my chest, the fractal of mirrors flared bright, connected with to soul and my will. I sent it instructions, and it responded. 

A pale blue translucent hand lifted up from trapped arm, moving right through the net, immaterial to reality. Held firmly in that spectral hand was a mirror of the Occult blade my physical hand carried.  The ghost apparition intercepted the slaver’s strike, that occult edge the only material part, blocking him then and there. He recovered fast, taking a step back as the arm faded from existence, dissolving like powder swept away in water.

A half breath passed and three more wraith arms sprang superimposed on my body as I rapidly pulsed my will into the fractal again and again.  Everywhere the ghostly blades scythed through, the net fell apart. Like a hydra of old, each struck out as if independent.

The metal crumpled, weight snapping the chains apart as a blur of occult blue shredded everything around me.

Cathida took command.

The real knife and longsword flared out, slicing through the rest of the netting in critical locations, and she leaped straight up, relic armor ripping apart whatever chains were left. What was left behind were pale half-formed images of me, each striking out at the screaming slavers before fading away as if blown by wind.

My body landed back on solid ground, longsword and knife taking the familiar stance of an imperial crusader. “Nice trick.” She whispered in my ear. “I admit your little hockus pokus might have been worth spending time on.”

I couldn’t speak back. Too much of me was disconnected from my body, too far removed. Cathida hadn’t waited for an answer anyhow, instead bolting straight for the knight to my right.

The slavers tried to rally. They struck out, once more trying to surround and corner us.

This time however, I didn’t need to pay attention to what my body was doing. I could focus completely on the mirror fractal and it’s abilities. No small feat by itself, I had to imagine and ‘program’ each movement the images would take, one after another, as quick as I could think. When I’d seen Atius use the skill, he could send out entire phantoms, moving for whole seconds out in the world, striking out.

At my skills, I could only make partial manifestations, and only long enough for a single quick swing. Arms and the blades. Occasional parts of the torso. It was enough.

Any attack that the slavers launched from behind Cathida, I manifested a counter defence.

I followed behind her strikes, attacking with equal ferocity from all kinds of angles that couldn’t have been physically possible. Her already quick attacks had nearly doubled in lethality with my additions.

In life, Cathida had been fast.

I’d seen the video archive of her training, and some of the battles with the machines. Much of her dedication to the combat arts had allowed her to master certain moves to their limits. It made her deadly underground, capable of striking out with some attacks at speeds only masters could reach.

In death, she had none of those limits.

Every movement she made was at a master’s level, even to simply reposition. All the commands were coming directly from the armor itself.

Speed wasn’t the only thing crushing into the slaver knights. Cathida had only known the imperial style of combat when she’d died in that cave. But she’d been watching me over these past months.

And she’d learned. With Journey recording the exact data, she only needed to see me perform a move once in order to replicate it.

The mixup of imperial style and surface style was something the slavers hadn’t seen before. Telegraphed attacks instantly turned into a ruse, flowing right back into stream like attacks, and back to heavy handed swings. It jarred them, forcing them to fight in unnatural ways their muscle memory hadn’t been prepared for. Worse - I recognized moves I hadn’t personally used due to lack of practice, moves only Kidra had delivered while sparring with me.

Cathida hadn’t just learned from me. She had learned from everyone I’d ever fought since her inception. Kidra, Ironreach, even Shadowsong. Journey brought the style to life, moving with far more grace than I could, as the Occult raged around the armor, ghostly manifestations striking out against anything that drew too close with far more primal and simpleminded strikes.

A rhythm of battle wordlessly clicked into place between us. The armor focused fully on taking out one slaver at a time, putting all of its trust on me to hold off the other two trying to strike at any exposed sides. Neither of us spoke the plan to one another, we both immediately understood the other, as if we were each one part of the whole.

The fight turned hard against the slavers. Another set of swings and the next slaver’s shields flashed and broke.

The man broke with it, turning all the while screaming incoherently, trying to sprint away. He got one step in, before he found himself staring at the end tip of a longsword, skewed right through his chest and heart. His last sight of the world, before the sword was pulled free and the man collapsed onto the ground, dead.

Journey turned and began to methodically cut apart the next slaver.

That one tried to hold back the flurry of attacks, utterly failing to even parry a single blow, his shields being whittled away in seconds. And then he realized he’d been abandoned by his teammate.

The slaver leader had decided discretion was the better part of valor, turning and sprinting straight out through the winterscar gates, leaving the last man as a speed bump.

Journey cut into that final knight without much effort. In between the armor’s precise strikes, I wove out my own ghostly hits, from alternate directions like I’d seen Atius do in his own fight.

With only one knife, and nowhere near the speed of To’Accar, the slaver stood no chance at all.

His shields finally came near the limit with an errant strike of Journey’s knife. A ghostly strike a half second after completed the job, shattering the shield entirely and cutting deep into his bicep before fading from existence. The slaver never had the time to notice, as Journey skewered him right through the helmet in a pre-committed thrust halfway after the physical knife had done its work. Quick and clean kill.

The body twitched, crashing down onto the ground without further sound.

“Well. Wasn’t that exciting?” Cathida said. “Almost unfair to the poor dears.”

“He died too quickly.” I growled, slowly returning to my senses, my soul returning to the Winterblossom configuration.

The courtyard around us was silent. Winterscar soldiers had surrounded the perimeter, all of them waiting for the next autocannon to arrive, or the next moment where their rifles could potentially distract the enemy. A few had tried to run into the fight, likely planning on using their own bodies to buy me even a moment more.

And then the fight had changed, even the most battle hardened of them had stopped and stared.

I brought my sword up, swung it clear of blood and turned it off. At some point into the fight the alarms across the clan had stopped.

A beat passed in the now quiet courtyard, and the soldiers closest to me knelt down. The rest of the winterscars followed in suit, some making signs of the divine with their hands, many outright praying.

There were footsteps coming from beyond the broken gate. That seemed to break whatever spell had been cast on the soldiers around me, they all leaped back up into a frenzy of activity. A dozen were sent out right away to recover the dead slavers and strip them of armor.

Soldiers came to my side, setting up defenses, while others were trying to seal the gates shut once more with whatever scrap and welders they had on hand.

A figure walked to the edge of the ruined gate. Relic armor gauntlet held clamped tightly on the helmet of a dead knight, dragging the bloody body behind.

I recognized the armor this time. The body being dragged was unmistakably a slaver knight. Both his arms had been cut cleanly off, and so had the legs.

The one dragging the body was none other than Shadowsong. He continued walking into the clearing, pointing a sword at one of my soldiers. “You.” He spoke. “Get cauterizing iron here. Now. We have wounded that need to be tended to.”

Two more slaver knights stepped behind Shadowsong. He didn’t turn to fight them off. No, these new knights had makeshift Winterscar tabards draped across their chest plates, and both were carrying wounded soldiers with one hand, while their other hand held the carbon fiber blades I’d designed.

In moments a whole team of medics descended on the two stolen armors, plucking the wounded soldiers out of their hands and getting to work on them.

Behind, a small troop of Shadowsong guards and my own personal guard walked in next, including captain Sagrius. He looked haggard, with a white gauze bandage tightly wrapped around his left arm, but otherwise seemed to have made it in one piece. Great luck on his part, considering the last I’d seen of him, he and two others took on an entire army of six relic knights, an outright death sentence in all but name.

“I see I had nothing to worry for.” Shadowsong noted as he strode in, helmet shifting around, taking talley of the dead slavers and cut nets. “You’ll have to tell me how you pulled off the feat of going five against one, and winning. No doubt some very clever tricks and tactics.”

“Six, not five. The last one escaped a moment ago. I had to burn up a few secrets to survive.” I told him honestly.

“Secrets?” Shadowsong turned his armored helmet to one of the Winterscar soldiers, who glanced up.

The unworded question was clear, and the soldier answered it promptly. “Lord Keith fought them all off with blade and some support from the rest of us.” He said quickly, almost rambling. “Was a display of sword skills I hadn’t seen in all my life, only Lady Kidra could have matched it. He moved like the wind itself, as if the gods had blessed him.”

The other soldiers nodded, each adding that I’d pulled off the feat with no mention of the Occult I had manifested. All of them banding together, making a convincing communal story on the spot.

Shadowsong listened patiently for a moment, humming. Then he raised a hand up, silencing the courtyard chatter.

“Lord Keith?”

• Next chapter - Damage control