The Stone Sorceress

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Astraea went to the window, where, down below, she saw a man look back at her astride his winged beast. The leonine woman receded into darkness.

"Wherever could you be going at this late hour my child?" Daoine's silhouette was at the far end of the hallway.

"I couldn't sleep," she said whilst bringing a hand behind her back where it grasped the hilt of a dagger. Daoine said; "Neither could I. Come, let us walk a moment together this night." He held out his arm, and waited for Astraea. In the darkness, it was as if she grew while she poised to strike.

"What are you both doing up?"

Eros had heard the voices, and endeavoured to investigate. Astraea withdrew her blade, and assumed that air of feigned nonchalance that became her so well. "We could not sleep," returned Daoine in that peculiar tone unique to him, "What of you mighty Eros?"

Under a flickering candle, the chevalier glanced at Astraea's visage, and opened his mouth to speak, but a force of water building to a crescendo outside interrupted him. He rushed to the window where he saw a monster.

"How?" Eros saw Sutekh and Uroboros. He turned to Daoine and Astraea, "How did he know we were here?"

Astraea's countenance didn't betray her secret, but even if it had, behind the impasse of love, Eros was blind. She darted for the stairs citing that she would meet Sutekh, and take her revenge.

Uroboros detonated a roar, and crashed its body against the ancient ramparts. Sabriel and Typhon together with Skoll and Aurora hastened from their beds. Eros was flying down the stairs upon the 3rd floor, while Astraea had already gained the ground.

Water from the dragon's mouth broke across the fort. The glass in the windows smashed, Daoine was swept up, and cracked his head against a table. Sabriel saw the old man fall. She ran to the windows, and fired her pistols.

The dragon wrapped itself around the fort when Astraea stood panting before Sutekh. She asked for her orders, but Eros, who had dived out of an upper floor window, interrupted his response, and, while broken glass crashed to the floor underneath, he drove his sword into the dragon. But the beast's viscosity rendered the attack ineffectual, and he landed onto the hard courtyard below.

Sutekh told Astraea to remain in cover, that he would require her there.

"Astraea," Eros shouted, "The others need you, I'll fight him."

Astraea beat a retreat, and, turning, she saw Eros and Sutekh oppose one another. With their swords unsheathed, she concentrated on the pair before at last tearing herself away.

"Who are you?" Eros said, but his nemesis didn't respond. "Surrender, and there may be terms." Sutekh tightened his grip on his sword because there would be no surrender. Eros persisted in trying to talk his enemy down, "If you won't stop, you leave me no choice: we must fight." It was no use, but Eros had tried to reason with Sutekh.

Lord Sutekh's feet were well positioned, he held his sword before him: his form and posture were that of a skilled swordsman. Eros's trained eye perceived the quality of the crusader, and knew it would not be an easy fight. He struck from high to low, a blow that Sutekh parried and countered with a strike of his own. Eros in turn deflected it, and endeavoured to slide inside Sutekh's guard, but with adroit footwork and rapidity of blade, the villain denied him. Flurry after flurry continued, the spectacle a marvel, but neither hand could obtain a decisive advantage.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the battlefield, Typhon had gained the roof of Daoine Maithe's apartments. Uroboros's head hovered precipitously above, biting, hissing. It lunged at Typhon seeking to swallow him whole, but Typhon evaded, and countered with a series of electrical attacks. The night sky lit up a brilliant azure. Sabriel wasn't far away: from the ramparts, wielding the pistols of Medusa, she fired. Augmented by Typhon's magic, that is to say, coated in electricity, the bullets tore away at the monster's hide. Astraea and Skoll joined the fight in the fort.

Uroborous perceived that it might perish by a thousand cuts, and withdrew into the sky. Cloud cover obscured the moon; the serpent had vanished. All that could be discerned was the clash of swords from the courtyard below.

Sabriel searched the sky with her eyes, when all at once the attack was launched. Without warning a prodigious tsunami came crashing down from the heavens. The fortress couldn't take it; it buckled, and, with a terrific moan, cracked along the centre. The fort broke in two. Uroboros washed half of it away.

Typhon and Sabriel lay amongst the debris, barely conscious, they endeavoured to regain their footing. Their wearied limbs guaranteed their failure. Vulnerable and exposed they lay while the saturated wood and garments became dry; the droplets congealed in the sky above, and Uroboros prepared a final attack.

Eros had turned in horror at the cries of the dying fortress. Seeing his friends taken by such force, he knew the battle had gone ill. He hastened to dispatch his foe, who had resisted him thus far. Indeed the duel appeared without end: the pair were symmetrical in style. It was at great length that the swords became locked, separated and, during a clash, both blades shattered.

Eros sprang back holding the hilt of a broken sword, a broken heart in his chest. He knew his opponent's style because he'd fought it on countless occasions, and even then, he couldn't prevail upon it. There was something he now recognised in the man stood before him.

Astraea meanwhile, in the aftermath of the assault, had rushed to what remained of the ruined fort. Amongst the debris she searched for life. At length she heard the groans of an old soul, the life within was barely audible, "Daoine."

"My child," Daoine Maithe lay upon open ground where he tried to not move, "Come closer."

Astraea knelt beside him.

"This belongs to you," he pressed a stone into the palm of her hand, "it always has."

Astraea's eyes lingered upon the old fool before she scrutinised that which he had bequeathed her; the stone possessed a dark reddish hue, and something moved inside. While Uroboros hovered above, she held it forth.

Out of a tornado of flame a second dragon emerged. Uroboros knew the signature well; it was its brother. Sutekh, who'd been looking from his broken hilt to Eros, witnessed the conflagration manifest in the sky. Things had not gone according to plan for him, and it was time to retreat. He pounced upon his stallion at the far end of the courtyard with Eros on his heels. When the horse galloped away, Sutekh turned to the despairing knight, and said, "Let's call it a draw."

Eros screamed, but Sutekh had already sped off into the night, recalling Uroboros to its stone. Eros cast down his destroyed weapon that clanged as the metal struck the stone of the courtyard.

The fire dragon flew in the night sky; a cacophonous roar deafened the eardrums before it landed in the fort's ruins. The very sight of this fire breathing creature was enough to make a man flee, but in the face of the dragon Astraea felt that she had seen it before. She could have swore that it was the dragon from her dreams.

It waited for her to do something. Astraea, instinctively, slipped off her right glove, and revealed her mark. The dragon returned to its stone upon command. Skoll had come up the rear just in time to see this scene unfold, "What was that?" He said.

"Daoine," Astraea turned once more to the old man who looked quite peaceful now, "He gave it to me."

"He saved our lives," Typhon said, still shaking the haze out of his head, his hand on Sabriel's shoulder who knelt beside him.

Eros - recomposed from his earlier outburst - arrived at the scene. He paused at perceiving the fallen Daoine, and lowered his head. Everything went quiet, only the final groanings of the fort remained.

"How did he know we were here?"

"What the hell do we do now?"

Many questions were cast about, but Eros cited that in the immediate aftermath of battle, much fatigued, they were susceptible of reaching false conclusions. As such, they were to take shelter in the corners of the fort that afforded it, and would discuss matters tomorrow when clearer heads were likely to prevail.

Three shadows lingered in the recesses of the fallen fortress. The demons had been following Sutekh, that was their job, however, one, taken by a curiosity of Astraea, had traced her steps on the battlefield. It too had seen what Skoll had before all three retreated into the shadows.