The Great Pandemonium: Nobilitas Obligat

Part VII. Shield of the Wolves

Part VII. Shield of the Wolves

Staff in-hand Drystan tore through the battered streets, always heading towards the part of the City which Arathron directed him to. The exact compass point it sat at was impossible to tell as there was no real sun, only a permanently frosted horizon which dissolved into a starscape far above the tree. Everything was centered around Imbrusil and Leilenheim at its roots, and it seemed that only a denizen of the City knew where they were going.

One who had lived in it, or one who had come to conquer it.

Buildings gave way to a wide, desolated plain littered with the frozen dead, those of the City and those who had invaded from Pandemonium alike. He had thought they had been heading in the opposite direction, but somehow he had returned to the place where he had first entered: the Field of the Fallen. It was a different area than the one where Nocis' mirror had ended up, but Arathron thought the name to be fitting of the place and called it as such.

Beyond the Field was the Gate of Pandemonium, though it looked nothing like any gate Drystan was familiar with. Beyond a dark bridge was a blackened area of the horizon overgrown with vines whose thorns were sharper than the most well-honed blades. The vines, like Imbrusil itself, seemed to go on forever, rising up out of a placid river and stretching on until they were swallowed up by thick storm clouds overhead. Despite the fact that the entire City lay frozen in ice the whole area smelled like damp swampland, though every now and again the wind would shift over the still water and he could catch the scent of sulfur matches.

Sacha, having embedded every arrow in her quiver deep in the torso of the Enkiri Exile, was doing everything she could to hack away at it with her sword while still avoiding the overwhelming sweeping strikes that had cut both him and Coord down unprepared. The Exile was missing several fingers from its hands and no longer had use of its eyes but the thing pushed on as though it were merely a spirit bound to a killing field the size of the frozen City itself. Perhaps that was exactly what it was.

Noticing that Erathi was nowhere to be seen, Arathron explained to him, She has taken control of Sacha's body. They are at their limit.

Drystan looked past them and saw the dark bridge take a solid shape as Sacha backed up further along it. Spanning the width of the still river it looked like an impossible construction, without any supports sunk into the riverbed to keep it upright as it reached across and vanished into the thorny vines of the Gate. At the center of the bridge stood the frozen form of a two-headed wolf, its left head barring its fangs at the Gate while the right was uplifted towards the sky in a silent howl.

Tou-Rinna, the Wolf at the Bridge, said Arathron. One of only a few Guardians who were joined mages.

Charging across the short length of the Field left Drystan took a wide and rather clumsy swing at the back of the Exile. The length of the staff slammed across the lower back of the creature with much more force than he thought he had put into the strike, sending it staggering forward almost to collapse atop Sacha. At the last moment she pushed off from the bridge and vaulted over the Exile's lowered head, driving her sword down into its shoulder with a vicious curse in no language he had heard before. With a slight grin he found that even Arathron was at a loss for how to exactly translate the foul incantation into a language his new partner would understand.

“I see you finally decided to quit toying with his spirit,” snapped Sacha, casting a fiery red-eyed glare back at him that made Drystan shudder.

Arathron seemed a bit embarrassed as he admitted, Perhaps I should have mentioned that Erathi is one of my jilted lovers from my wanderlust years.