Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

Princess Kristie followed the tale of woe and revenge all the way through, because she couldn’t stop the rush of recollections now if she wanted to.

Eleonora’s brutal and non-stop training to become one of the greatest swordmasters in all of Viamont, Silveran swordplay added to Viamontian knightly training, all for the purpose of taking her revenge.

And revenge she’d gained, in a tournament sponsored by the Corcosi, when that smug prince Renlen, confident that no noble lord or lady would dare to strike him down, had moved overconfidently into the final match against her. Assured of his victory, he had been stunned at his loss, outraged at her effrontery, and refused to yield at the crucial moment, even demanding that she surrender after she had so clearly bested him!

And so she was given leave and right to cut him down by the Viamontian codes of honor, and so she did.

The Corcosi, of course, cared nothing for the codes of honor when such things restrained them. The killing was just an excuse to make war on the Bellenesse, finally and forever bringing them to heel, and so start a civil war.

The Royalist forces had greatly outnumbered those of Bellenesse, old clan rivals finding reason to profit from attacking them, and the Royalists had aimed to extinguish the Bellenesse clan entirely.

The defeats. Burning the land and its wealth to deny it to the invaders. The siege at the castle, and then the appearance of the Portal, which had given them a way out to a new land and place, leaving the Corcosi and their corruption behind.

Until the Royal Army, led by Renlen’s elder brother Varicci, had followed.

Victories had followed in the new land, and then…

The betrayal by Binwas Loc. The ambush and the slaughter, and the capture.

The torture by the perverted, arrogant whelp, massive efforts made so that she could not be resurrected made, to the point where they had cut out her heart while she still lived.

It had taken her days to die, and the sneering face of Varicci II, and the arrogant disdain of Binwas Loc, filled her eyes and mind…

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The raw fury inside the bellows and screams that erupted almost in tandem crawled right down my back. There were cracks and crunches as really hard things left sitting around just in case there was a need to vent were vented upon.

They were pretty loud, too, and everyone was staring at the building the two of them were in, wondering just what the Hell was going on, and who was going to get it so bad when everything finally shook out.

There was a good ten minutes of rock crunching, and several holes put in the walls, and a couple sections fell down when a really sharp sword slashed through them too fast to see, only the sparkles of Lost Light left behind even letting anyone know it had happened.

The roof falling down on the pair of them finally settled them down a bit, as they had to dig themselves out from under it, cursing black streaks as they did so.

The door and part of the wall fell in as I pushed it. I whipped the dust in the air away in a swirl of magic, leaning against the ruins of the jamb as Briggs picked up a rafter before Kris hacked it apart, and slowly helped her up.

Man, when his face got mean like that, it got really, really mean. He really was a gentle giant, but when the right buttons were pushed, Briggs could be as elemental as any berserker born.

Kris left Quaver sticking in the floor, latching onto Briggs’ arm, and just stood there holding him, her pale violet eyes smoking, while Briggs’ emerald eyes were almost glowing.

“Darren?” she gasped out, in a very Viamontian accent.

“Ele…” was the soft rumble in reply, and Briggs shuddered, some of the wrath leaving his eyes as he slowly bent his head to knock into hers.

“I killed him for you,” Kris hissed. “I slit his throat in a duel, the honorless twat, right in front of his fucktard of a father and brothers.”

“Good,” Briggs rumbled again. “Ah, gods, Kris, I heard what happened to her…”

“Treachery and more treachery,” she spat. “That snake of the Locs…”

“You said… you said your folks wiped the nobles and royal line of Viamont to the bone and sand.”

“They did. I’m betting they were someone the Viamontians treated like absolute shit, too. Probably Aluvians. Rebels gutted and strung up like fish, or subjects of studies in torture…”

“I’m going to wipe every royalist left loyal to the Corcosi name from the face of this world.”

Fate trembled under the Oath of a Source. A Pillar of Reality had made a solemn promise, and now the river of destiny was starting to turn, the blades of doom were being polished, and things were going to start to go all wrong for them.

Kris transferred her grip from his arm to his neck, and was lifted effortlessly off the ground in a rib-crushing hug which would have broken the bones of anyone softer.

I just watched it all as the Mick wandered up behind me, taking in the holes pounded in things, the many things cut into many pieces, and the general degree of messiness involved.

“Something a wee bit drastic, I’m thinking?” he asked softly.

“Meet the reincarnations of Eleonora di Bellenesse and the love of her life, Darren di Marden. Both of them murdered by Corcosi treachery,” I whispered over my shoulder.

The Mick’s right eye twitched, just once. “The Lady Bellenesse?” he repeated quietly, not a little awed. “That were… that were a really bad end, lass...”

I made a show of looking around the room. “Are you sure? I don’t see any signs of that,” I lied badly.

He looked at the two Warlords, just sitting there and holding onto one another, tears of grief and joy and other emotions running down their faces.

But their eyes were closed now, because when they opened, they’d only be shining with fury.

“If he’s not dead already with all his twats, he’s so fucking screwed,” the Mick said, nodding slowly to himself.

“Get those Fellowships all set up?” I asked him. “We’re going back to Asheron’s Island in twelve hours or so.”

“Yeah, they’re all ready to go, lass.” I pushed him back and away from the door, leaving the two to just work out whatever emotions were slamming them the hardest. “Are the two of them going to be okay?” He didn’t sound too worried about that, but it was best to ask.

“I think you’ll notice it first. Wasn’t the Lady Bellenesse supposed to be one of the best swordsmasters in Viamont?”

He looked back sharply. “Aye,” he confirmed from memory. “At the least, none of the Corcosi were her equal, that were certain.”

“Well, she just relived ALL of that experience.”

His black eyebrows rose sharply. “On top of her being screaming death on wheels already?” he protested. “That be totally unfair, lass!”

“Yeah, yeah, she just closed up your twenty-some year headstart,” I rolled my eyes, giving him a knock on the arm (it bounced). “So I’m betting she’s clocking paramount as soon as she digests everything and starts adding it to her skills.”

I doubted Briggs’ preincarnation had gotten anywhere near that level of skill, but still, it wouldn’t have hurt him. He was just a whole lot bigger and stronger now than he’d been back then.

“Ye said she needed to be in position t’ kill the Harbinger when things go to shit and gone,” he recalled. “That’s some mighty convenient time for a big Level-up.”

“It’s like she’s a cunning bitch looking for an edge, and if she has to relive the second most harrowing experience of her existence, well, so be it.”

“Second? What be the first?” he had to ask.

“The thing which turns them into a Rantha Hag, of course. Warps the body, warps the soul, tries to turn them into true Hags, and they have to fight it and overcome it with raw willpower as it is corrupting them mind, body, and soul into something they can’t and won’t become.

“Definitely number one. Death by treachery and torture come in distant seconds. She can handle it, and so can he. Sources hate people who break their own codes of honor the most.”

A wind was blowing towards the Hlaetian Islands off the northwest of Dereth, and a hammer and a sword were going to be riding it.

The Viamontian Empire and the Corcosi were dead on Ispar, and the treacherous, arrogant son of the Corcosi here was going to join his forebears and relatives.

If the bastard were still alive. Seems they were going to be doing some exploring soon…

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No remorans or sleeches bothered us around Asheron’s Island, for some reason. In truth, the number of them seen further south had declined precipitously a few weeks back, for reasons most people were entirely ignorant of.

It meant the Wagon wasn’t bothered from where it was sitting outside the Shoreward of the island now.

The place was still crawling with Elementals of all types, there was still a major Rift leaking raw magic cutting down the center of the island from north to south, and there was still a whole lot of raw magic gathered at the top of each of those mountains.

There were a bunch of Disks, a couple towed trailers on Disks, and Archers and the like mounted on their own Disks.

I was keeping watch on the waters, making sure nothing unintended tried to do something stupid from below. The waters weren’t deep here, so nothing too big was going to get close, but a pack of remorans flying up would have been annoying… and stupid, with this many archers ready.

Archers and crossbowmen all ready with OMA quivers, limitless ammo, and Potions to combat muscle fatigue.

It was going to be a Karmic Buffet, but spellcasting was not, not, not on the menu, except outside the Shoreward. So, we’d had to stockpile a bunch of Healing Potions for this trip, just in case, but were hoping to not have to use many, what with the reinforced Mantlets protecting the floating Barge-trailers and the Wagons, and mounted on the Disks used by the more skilled people here.

In addition, Prismatic Stones gleamed on grips and stocks of their Weapons, gleaming with anti-Elemental killing power as hadn’t been seen in nigh on fifteen years.

No spellcasting, because the Elemental Harbinger would sense it and bombard us to Hell and back, forcing us to run.

Nope, this was ALL about the archers, and a whole lot of armor-piercing arrows about to be expended.

Kris was moving quickly across the island, aiming for the Rift. The Elementals hadn’t noticed her with some camouflage and her crazy Stealth check, especially with her Null out, and so there was no disturbance at a distance yet…

Then Lost Light flared and flashed, and an Inferno went down on the edge of the Rift, sliced apart in vivic fire.

At which point she turned and booked for distance, heading a couple hundred yards south of us as she did so.

No spellcasting from us, the Harbinger would feel the magic going off, but not at who or what. Caught within the walls of the castle, it could at best look down from the hole smashed in the walls there and see… absolutely nothing at this distance, she was running too fast.

Also, there was a distraction as an Entropy Wisp abruptly congealed at the edge of the Rift out of nowhere. Finding Elementals all around it, it promptly opened up with magic to attack them, and the Elementals both returned the blasts in kind and charged in to the attack, destroying the thing in seconds.

Six seconds later, two Wisps congealed out of nowhere after it blew apart above the vivus, and the area of whiteness expanded…