The Dancing Stones

[Revenant]

Closed to Cade Smith
“Welcome friend William,” the Ai’Bron monk known as Kenneth greeted William Arcus just inside the doors to the Citadel of Radasanth, “it has been quite some time since your last visit. I do hope that everything is going well for you?”

Though innocently phrased, William knew that Kenneth was questioning how he was dealing with the constant, murderous desires he felt. It was one of the downsides of his existence as a revenant, and until only recently, it had been an addiction, ruling over him, and dictating his every action. Kenneth had been instrumental in helping William overcome those urges, allowing him to come to terms with his dualistic, human/demon nature.

“Of course, my friend,” William smiled his odd, shark’s grin at the monk. Though it was a slightly off-putting grin, William still hadn’t reacquired a pleasant smile, it did enough to let Kenneth know that he remained master of himself. “Today I’m just here to blow off a little steam. Sort of a special treat to myself, one might say.”

Kenneth visibly relaxed at William’s reassurance before laughing deeply.

“William, if this is your idea of a special treat, remind me never to tell you when my birthday is,” the monk clapped William on his cloaked shoulder. “May I be so bold as to inquire what occasion in your life deserves such a treat?”

William waved the question off, “oh nothing special in particular. It’s been a while since I let my aggression out is all.”

“You’re sure you haven’t lost control at all?” Kenneth quirked an eyebrow at his friend.

“Not even a little you nosy bastard.”

“Well then I see no reason to deny your request,” Kenneth waved William towards the winding corridors which filled the Citadel’s interior.

“As if,” William snorted.

The maze-like quality of the Citadel’s interior never failed to impress, or disorient, the revenant. Smooth stone, polished wood, and smokeless candles blurred together until he had lost all sense of direction. It was an odd effect for a place of ‘friendly competition’, but William found he rather enjoyed it.

Within moments, Kenneth deftly weaved the duo through the corridors with practiced ease, coming to a stop in front of a small alcove. The tiny room contained only enough space to house a one-seat bench for storing items during a battle, and the familiar iron-bound door that would lead him to the battle chamber.

“Any requests?” Kenneth asked, questioning if William had any current preference for an arena. The Citadel’s magic chambers could conjure almost any known, or unknown, vista on which the combatants could test themselves.

“Just the usual,” William shrugged, beginning the process of removing the bulky clothes he typically wore to shield his constantly smoldering flesh from prying eyes.

“Chaotic and dangerous it is then. Good luck,” Kenneth smiled before departing back down the twisting alleys of the Citadel’s corridors. Bare chested and ready for combat, William opened the iron-bound door and entered without hesitation.

The view inside the chamber was stunning. Deep blue sky filled surrounded him as far as the eye could see, broken only periodically by a tuft of cloud, and the sun hung strong and bright above him. The sudden brilliance left William dazed for a moment, and thus it was a few seconds before he realized that the world was moving.

No, not the world, he thought, the ground.

Glancing at his feet, William saw that he stood near the edge of a pillar of stone, roughly a hundred feet across. The movement that he had felt was the swaying of the pillar, moving as the wind caught and pushed it around. A quick two-step brought him to the pillar’s edge and let him look down, an act that sent him scurrying back to his original position.

There was no ground for the pillar to rest on, at least not as far as he could see. The shaft merely fell away for hundreds of feet, ending only when roiling clouds below engulfed it.

I’m guessing falling is something I should avoid.

Fortunately, the pillar that he stood on wasn’t alone. His pillar appeared to be the central one of a set of tiers. Each tier being five feet below the preceding one, with multiple pillars existing on each level. The pillars grew steadily smaller by ten to twenty feet as they descended, narrowing the space the combatants would have to fight. Finally, each pillar was only three to four feet from the pillars next to it, meaning that movement between the pillars next to or tiered below would be easy, while moving back up a tier would require a lot of effort.

The wind caused each and every pillar to move and sway in a complex dance, though none of them got close enough to touch one another. All it would take was one misstep to send himself or his rival plummeting far, far below.

“Leave it to the monk,” William chuckled, basking in the sunlight and waiting for his opponent to arrive.

[Cade_Smith]

Quietly, the young man walked through the silent maze of the Citadel. He rounded corners and made his way towards the door that had been assigned to him. The monks had only given him a number, and told him to find it. Monks, and their annoying, troublesome ways. Cade was left with a labyrinth to navigate and a guide who could have helped, but had been more interested in seeing a famous face to his battle. The hooded man had been short with the sorcerer, sudden and rather rude in his motioning to the battle that Cade had been scheduled for.

Train. More like come and get killed, learn nothing, and then try it again. Disgruntled, but not willing to quit, the boy shifted like a small child about to throw a fit. He had spent a week fighting random strangers, and one friend, and had learned more about himself than he had about anything else. Battle would always be the same. It would be one force aligned against another. But at the heart of it all, Cade had realized that a person’s heart and will was just as important as what weapons and skills they brought with them into combat.

“Ah, finally.” Cade put his hand on the door. It slid aside easily, and he was completely overwhelmed when the arena suddenly appeared around him. The sorcerer turned around twice when the world evolved and suddenly made him have a feeling of vertigo. He was standing on the edge of the massive column. It swayed as soon as he entered, the wind whipping his light brown coat around his black pants and off-white shirt.

The sky was bright and welcoming; the clouds were lazily wandering across the sky. It was a nostalgic arena that caught Cade’s mind. He was looking at a sky from home, a sky that made him remember where he had come from. Days spent in the merchant’s outpost from his childhood had looked like the arena. The sorcerer almost forgot about his opponent, the man standing on the other side of the massive pillar. He turned towards the man, nodded at him, and swung his staff out in front of himself.

[Revenant]

Just a boy, William thought, watching the entry of his chosen opponent. The chocolate-haired youth that the monks had paired him with could barely have been half the revenant’s age. He took a few moments to adjust to his situation, fondly watching the clouds pass peacefully by the stone pillar before coming to and adopting a combat stance.

“Presenting wood instead of steel,” William called out, loud enough that the breeze couldn’t dull his words, “that’s a welcome change of pace.” Standing still, William cut a stoic silhouette against the backdrop of the azure sky. But his external calm belied the conflict that raged in his head.

He’s too young to face me, the human part of William’s mind railed, completely unwilling to unleash his rage upon the boy.

Bah, the demon’s voice argued back, if he’s old enough to step into the arena, he’s old enough to bleed. Besides, wasn’t this what I came here for?

I came here to fight a warrior, not him, his humanity snapped back.

Says the one who hides a demon in his flesh, the demonic urges laughed.

His mind waged war, back and forth, but it was clear that the demon was gaining ground.

“I warn you boy, I will give you no quarter,” William’s humanity called out in one last ditch effort, “leave while you can if you value your skin.”

Offer given, excitement pulsed under William’s skin like drops in the pool gathering towards a steady flood. Heat radiated off of his naked torso in waves, sending ripples washing over his flesh; ashen scars that split open only to be fused back together by his restorative abilities. William could barely hold his transformation back as he waited for the young man’s reply, and his fists clenched and released as if he could already feel the bone claws pushing through their surface.

[Cade_Smith]

The black eyes, as dark as night, shifted across Cade’s body. He could feel an eerie unsettling feeling that brewed within the man, could almost taste it warping and twisting the arena around him. There was a strange sensation behind the words of the other man. The sorcerer tightened his hands around the staff, hoping that his intuitions about the other man were little more than concerns born of inexperience. The young man, born of nothing but a simple loving past, was not one to understand the troubled mind of his opponent. He watched as the veins of darkness split the man’s skin, breaking the tanned exterior like sudden wounds blooming. They slowly closed and new ones opened in other places. Cade did not know what to make of it.

Maybe he isn’t human? Maybe he’s a demon or something, like a monster from a fairytale? Concern spread itself across the young boy’s face and he knelt a little closer towards the ground to balance himself. The pillar underfoot shifted as a new breeze struck it. The wind had changed direction, coming from directly ahead of him and sending his cloak whipping behind him. If he had magic and prestige to back up his appearance, he doubted many would want to stand against him. Imagination made Cade see himself as a hero, one day, and the battle before him was just another stepping stone towards the future.

“I cannot stand down from a battle simply because you have offered me no quarter. I know the way the Citadel works and I know that coming in here means that I could die. But that doesn’t scare me.” The sorcerer clenched his jaw and steadied his gaze as the pillar offered him little comfort. He could see the lip of the stone column jolt just enough to block out the horizon. It left his opponent the only focus against the sun. “Likewise, I am prepared and ready to give no quarter as well. If one of us is going to fall, it will be because of the monk’s arena that we do, at this rate anyway.”

Cade waited for the man to make the first move. His ability with a staff as his weapon was meager, at best. The spells he had at his command were trivial and more childish than they were powerful. The young man was a sorcerer, not a master mage or a famed wizard. He would play the defensive as much as possible and as long as he could.

[Revenant]

The kid has guts, William thought, breaking his lips into a vicious smile. His opponent’s defiant stance, emphasized by the shifting winds buffeting the platform, roused the revenant’s excitement, sending him hurtling over the line of control. The boy had made his decision and William’s humanity could no longer argue against it. Feeling his blood will be all the more worth it now.

A stomp of William’s feet rooted him firmly to the pillar and sent a small dust cloud swirling into the wind towards the boy. Mentally releasing the flood-dam holding back his transformation, William felt the molten heat thrum to the surface, its searing pulse rhythmically pulsing in time with the swaying pillar.

A small moan of ecstasy escaped from the revenant’s lips, and the smell of hot, burning flesh soon wafted on the breeze as William’s demonic power overcame his body’s ability to heal itself. Skin charred into hardened nodes, revealing the raw, red meat beneath which bulged out, swelling obscenely between the rents in his skin as William’s power rushed through his veins, swelling him to massive proportions. He could feel the inhuman strength of his new body, twitching and restless, hungry for a kill.

“Do you hear it?” William hissed through jagged teeth, taking a step towards his defiant victim, “Do you hear the screams, boy, or the delightful music of rent flesh and shattered bone?”

Shards of blackened bone pushed painfully through the surface of his hands, twisting together to form a single composite casing. Sharp, grating sounds could be heard from where the wickedly sharp claws ground against each other.

Transformation complete, William took another step forward, his heavy footfall rumbling in the dust.

“You will,” the revenant’s voice took on the sound of blocks of jagged coal rubbing together, “oh yes, you will.”

Roaring, William charged.

[Cade_Smith]

The transformation from man to beast was an unsettling sight for the young sorcerer. He had never fought anything other than regular humans. He had never seen anything in the world other than humans, and one passing elf. Knowledge of the outside world was something that he was not privy to, and in turn he was left with questions lingering on his mind that could hardly be answered mid-battle. Cade looked at the flesh that tore and ripped, watching the black rivulets of what seemed to be arcane energy grow effortlessly across his foe’s body. It was a sickening sight. He had never seen a man cause so much damage to himself, nor knew what to expect from the outcome of the change. What have I gotten myself into? Another battle where I will suffer defeat in order to learn nothing?

Worry painted his young face, masking his smooth cheeks and causing his forehead to wrinkle. The winds of the arena were frivolous in their choice of direction. Sometimes they would send the boys cloak flapping one way, sometimes another. When they shifted back to where the breeze was pushing against the back of the deviant towards the sorcerer he was instantly struck with an overpowering smell that forced the bile from his stomach into his throat. He barely restrained his composure. Accosted by the scent of burning flesh and raw, rotten meat the young man was instantly reminded that he was a novice in the field of battle. The man before him, he could not tell thoroughly, but it appeared that he was something far more deadly than a simple warrior looking for entertainment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cade muttered through quivering lips. His opponent was no longer making sense. His words were callous and harsh, his sentences spoken with more than a tinge of madness. The light brown eyes of the sorcerer attempted to meet the obsidian eyes of his opponent, but he could gaze into them for a split second. His vision was removed from the splintered face of his opponent, away from the darkness that tore at his visage. “Madness,” he muttered to himself, “That is what this is, madness that takes over the body of the man and leaves him an empty shell of darkness.”

Whatever it was that had created the change in his opponent, he was unwilling and uninterested in discovering. If it was magical by design, he would eventually find out what sort of magic had been vested in the transformation through study. Cade brought the staff before him like a spear, watching as his opponents bone enwrapped his hands. It’s now or never, he reminded himself.

Like a lion seeing an equal challenge, the man roared and struck forward. His pace was terribly quick, his mouth open and his teeth barred. The sorcerer knew behind him the edge of the pillar was yards away. He could feel the breeze lift over its stone edge and catch the bottom of his hooded cape. Defensive maneuvers were not going to be useful when perilous conditions created by the arena itself were aligned against him. He bent at the knees. His staff extended with a knightly pose. In a matter of seconds he was going against his nature and thrusting his small frame at the other man. The staff was held back by his bent elbow, a snake coiled and ready to strike. In his opposite hand he summoned one of his spells, a small ball of fire to create a secondary offensive attack.

[Revenant]

The platform wasn’t terribly large, but it was large enough that, as he charged, William had a enough time to watch his opponent register a variety of conflicting emotions. Surprise, intrigue, disgust, fright, and even a hint of determination came and went from the boy’s demeanor. This situation was obviously new and exciting, but foreign and terrifying at the same time. Though he was initially caught off guard by William’s transformation and rapid approach, he took in it stride, processed the information, and reacted.

This one’s got nerves, the voice in the back of William’s mind laughed as the boy sprung towards him in a counter-charge, but a cornered animal is a cornered animal.

Having intimately studied the reactions of those in life-or-death situations, it came as no surprise to William that the boy acted the way that he did. Those lacking disciplined training almost always acted in one of two ways, either they let the shadow of their fate fall upon them or they defended everything that they had to lose with animalistic fury. Those who survived invariably came out stronger and wiser in the end. People called it bravery, but William knew that it was nothing more than survival instinct.

But it doesn’t mean anything when you know that the damned monks will just patch you up, William thought as he and his opponent met. Holding the staff in a single hand, the boy had used some form of magic to conjure a small ball of flame in his other hand. The revenant twisted in close to the boy to minimize any strike from the staff, trusting in his supernaturally tough skin to absorb most of the blow, and at the same time brought his closest claw around in a low arc, angling it at the boy’s waist.

As the two men clashed, William felt his molten power swell around him like an aura, though the intense heat wouldn’t do much more than discomfort the younger man. He could also hope that, though his aura wouldn’t do much to protect his already charred flesh from burning any further, it might lead caster to think it would.

“Fucking mages,” the revenant snarled.

[Cade_Smith]

Possibility of death, however trite and meaningless one within the Citadel was, took not even a sliver of conscious thought. [i]Prepare to die, and prepare to be torn to pieces, [i] that was what Cade had convinced himself of before walking to the halls of warriors. It was a place of people that were far superior to him in every combative way. He had accepted his fate as a weak and uninspiring example of a mage. Fight after fight he had found the results the same, bloodied and broken. His body could be mended, arms joined to body and mortal wounds closed. It was the mental blows that lasted like hideous scars on his thoughts. Like a tree he had a base of understanding to fall back upon, and every scarring loss was another axe taking a chunk from that sliver trunk.

He was determined to keep the demons of disdain from taking another part of his foundation.

Cade felt a slight shutter as the winds of the arena shifted across him. They flowed around his whipping cloak and gave him the appearance of a regal warrior. The mental picture of paladin of fantasy uniting his troops against a powerful demon left a streak of a smile across his face. Though nothing more than illusions of grandeur, the boy rallied the mental delusion to fill himself with hope. False hope, but hope was always better than utter despair, no matter whether it was conjured and fake or realistic in its design.

The two combatants closed quickly. Their feet were pounding against the smooth stone. Cade let his feet fall instinctually, shifting on the balls of his feet to keep his balance. His momentum was fighting against his own speed, and the shifting of the pillar was assisting only in countering the continued attempts to keep his footing. Brown eyes caught the movement of the demonic warrior before him, how he turned to absorb the blow. He saw the light of the sun dance across the macabre claw, extended and waiting to sweep across him as soon as the distance was cut.

Lashing out, the staff was thrust forward like a knightly lance. It was aimed poorly, but the body of the larger man was still a moderately large target even when only the profile of him was present. He pushed forward as much as he thought proximity would allow. The staff was a good bit longer than the claws, and he wanted to keep the advantage of reach present at all times. Whether the staff connected or not, he could not tell. His adrenaline was fueling his instincts, and they were demanding immediate removal from the conflict.

Without allowing his body to become close enough for the shorter claws to reach him, his feet planted firmly on their soles. His momentum was immediately shifted and he ducked to the same side as the shoulder lowered at him. There was no possibility that he would land squarely, as his momentum and the sudden change of direction caused his body to twist. Cade had no cat like grace to accompany the move, and his staff side shoulder met the ground. He could feel the pressure of the stone compress his muscles, but rolled to minimize the effect and the potential bruise. As soon as he rolled a full twist he cast his open hand outwards and launched the fireball at the body of his opponent, hopefully having his entire back exposed instead of a profile to aim at.

[Revenant]

Shit, William’s mind spat as his younger opponent’s staff waveringly thrust forward and prodded him in the ribs. William had twisted, expecting a more focused, precise strike from the young sorcerer, in a way that would carry his body through the force of a solid blow. Surprisingly, though the sorcerer’s one-handed thrust had lacked the force to cause any significant injury to William’s supernaturally toughened hide, it had also lacked the force to bring the revenant’s momentum to a full stop. Instead of being brought to a stop within striking range, William was tripped up as his body spun into itself and he tumbled head over heels, landing on his back like a heavy sack of potatoes.

Cursing his own amateur mistake, William at least had the satisfaction of watching his opponent tumble to the ground as well. From his upside down view of the world, it looked as if William’s sudden fall had taken his opponent by surprise as much as it had him. But where William landed heavily, the boy tucked in, using the forward momentum of his charge to absorb the impact and bring him back around in an offensive crouch. Determination and focus were writ large on the boy’s face as he brought his other hand around, hurling the ball of magical fire at William’s recumbent form.

That’ll teach me, William snarled internally, forcing his body into action as the ball of flame hurtled across the short gap between the combatants. Despite his inhuman strength, William would never have been able to heave his charred frame out from under the flame strike under any normal set of circumstances, but fortunately the luck of the battle chamber was with him this time. Shifting wind patterns caught the massive stone pillar in an ethereal grasp and swung it in the direction of William’s motion. The movement wasn’t much, but it gave the revenant just enough assistance to heave himself out from under the splash of the fireball. Still, the strike had been close enough that he wasn’t left completely untouched as a lick of spreading flame washed over the already bare flesh of his back.

“Grah!” William roared in pain, letting his dodging roll carry him up, like a hunting cat, onto all fours. Wisps of smoke rose from the flaking skin where the mage’s fire had caressed him, only to be whipped away by the high altitude winds dancing around the two of them. The blackened flesh of his lips curled into a bloodthirsty snarl as he stared, face-to-face, at the man who had dared to burn him. Every savage instinct in the back of William’s mind screamed for blood, urging him to spring forward and tear the sorcerer asunder, but William resisted the sirens call of his bloodlust, forcing it from the front of his mind.

“Well done, mage,” William growled, “it seems I overestimated myself.”

Carefully controlling his movements to minimize the searing pain he felt along the side of his back, William pushed himself to a standing position. Bringing his gauntleted hands in front of him like a shield and keeping his eyes on the young man’s wooden staff, the revenant advanced a step.

“But not again.”

[Cade_Smith]

Cade’s wide eyes watched with the utmost concern. His body was shaking. His lip was quivering. The adrenaline that coursed through him was fire in his veins, almost as hot as the ball that had careened towards his opponent. Instead of striking the body of the demon, the fireball exploded under him. Winds that had shifted the pillar to protect their precious creator were blowing towards the sorcerer. Burning flesh and charred stone caught the nose of the young boy, and he smelled brimstone and something disgusting that no human would ever be used to. By the gods, he cursed, A fireball that should have hit is a miss because of the arena. It can’t protect him forever though.

“Overestimated yourself?” The sorcerer called out as he rose from the ground. His open hand was scuffed and scraped, but not in pain. The knuckles on the hand that held the staff were also a little scuffed, but not troubling him much. Instead of initiating another attack he kneeled down and pointed the staff towards his opponent like a pike waiting to impale a charging horse. “It doesn’t seem that you are doing anything. It seems that this creation of yours, this arena, has given you everything you need to defend yourself. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that you took the time to create something that keeps you from being harmed and makes it so that you don’t have to be good. You just have to keep up the illusion of luck, but you certainly don’t need skill.”

[Revenant]

The boy’s defiant, sarcastic words stopped William in his tracks an arm’s length from the boy’s defensive squatting position. The burning orbs of William’s eyes blinked twice in surprise before the demonic man burst forth in laughter, a grating sound like the barking of an angry dog, His entire body, a walking mass of charred flesh, shook in time with the roaring laughter, a grotesque, surreal sight bordering on madness.

“You’ve got a lot to learn boy,” William called out, finally stifling his laugh, “there is no luck in a fight like this.”

William winced slightly and hissed as the whipping wind around the pillar shifted again and punched him in the seared flesh where the burst of fire had licked. Rather than feeling soothing, the icy wind dug into his pained skin like a claw. It wasn’t a major injury, and the pain was far less than many wounds William had felt in his existence, but it was enough to spark a different idea in his mind.

William looked at the end of the boy’s staff, steadily held only a foot in front of him. In all likelihood, if he were to spring forward, he would be able to grab a hold of the staff, or at least push it aside, and bring himself inside the boy’s guard. Whatever defensive magic the boy knew was unlikely to prevent a bloody massacre if that were to happen, but William felt like that wouldn’t be enough. The boy’s words had struck a spark in the revenant’s breast, and for some reason he felt like he should leave the boy with a true lesson in brutal combat rather than just mutilating him.

“Come on then boy,” William ground the bone of his claws in front of him, beckoning the young mage forward, “test your … luck.”

Challenge given, William turned and ran across the platform as quickly as his singed back would allow. The edge of the platform neared quickly, and beyond it, the pillars waited.

[Cade_Smith]

Infuriated at the turn of events that continued to come up from time to time, Cade felt his hands quivering and his arms tightening. Blood was flowing freely, furiously, and muscles were beginning to quickly grow tense. Instead of immediately responding to the anger, the beast laughed. Manic laughter, scary laughter, the kind that came from the mentally deranged; the young sorcerer felt a chill run up his spine as if the winds were from Berevar. Bitter, dangerously uncomfortable worry worked its way through his body, throbbing through his veins. His bones held sharp pains, the marrow absorbing his concern like a sponge and holding the bite greedily.

“That’s all you have…” Cade muttered under his breath. Still crouched, waiting for an assault, he watched as the man did something unexpected. He challenged Cade, which was expected completely. However, he turned suddenly and began to run. Suicide seemed to be the next course of action, and the demonic human-thing had taken that as his next course of action. “What are you doing?”

Without waiting, the sorcerer dropped his defensive stance and held his staff with his weak hand. In a quick, fluid movement he removed his sling and loaded a small river-rock into the leather. If the man was going to jump, he wanted to make sure that the man didn’t go out without a reminder of who he had faced. Cade rushed after the man. The leather sling was whirling, the quick spin of the force far stronger than the rush of wind that passed over the pillar.

[Revenant]

The feel of the whipping wind on the plateau almost cooled the burns on William’s charred back. The high pitched shriek of the wind and it cut past William’s ears perfectly mirrored the exulted feeling that swelling in William’s chest. A split-second look behind him let the revenant know that his young opponent was on his feet and moving in time with William. The look on the young man’s face alternated between confusion and frustration, which amused William. But there was no amusement when the revenant saw the sling whipping around in his young opponent’s hand.

Damn, William cursed. His experiences thus far in the Citadel had been completely close-combative in nature and the revenant had assumed that the sorcerer’s earlier charge meant this one would be the same. His wild flight to the edge of the central pillar was only intended to lure the young man down to the next ring of pillars where there would be less room to maneuver, less room for sorcerous trickery. But if the man had any proficiency with the sling that he carried, which William supposed that he did given how well he twirled the weapon, then William would be trapped on the lower level and his opponent could pick him off at his leisure.

Cursing, William planted his lead foot and pivoted, throwing his weight onto the braced. At the moment just before his momentum carried him over his own center of balance, William pushed off his planted foot with all his strength and reversed him motion, bringing his motion sweeping back towards the trailing mage. No words were spoken by the revenant as he began to charge back at the boy, and the only indication that he gave of the young man’s threat was to bring his hands up to use his iron hard bone gauntlets to attempt to deflect any ranged attack sent his way while he closed the gap between them.

[Cade_Smith]

Cade’s crass rush was spurred by the desire and need of the young man to remind his opponent that there wasn’t just a child with a fireball standing against him. He wanted to make his name, be a powerful mage, and do something with his life that would be remembered. Over the course of multiple battles, he had come to find one thing was always true: the Citadel did not make heroes, it made victims and murderers. A smooth stone was not a killing blow, or at least it had never been against anything bigger than a lone hare in the past. The sorcerer’s plan was to sling the stone and let the demonic figure against him know what could have been, not to kill.

However, the man turned before reaching the edge. At such a speed, it was a maneuver that took not only intense concentration but also solid footwork. He moved fluidly and with movements that the kid knew he could not have made in similar circumstances. Instead of leaping off the edge he rushed back towards Cade. The sorcerer continued to run forward, but slowed his pace significantly to a quick jog instead of a run. “Keep moving or dodge?”

The question tore at the mind of the child. Seconds split him from his opponent, and the two would meet in a game of chicken when that time came. The closer he and Revenant grew, the more sweat beaded on his forehead. Stress, doubt, and concern nipped at his heels as it clawed its way up the back of his legs and settled into the tensed muscles of his lower back. As quickly as he could, when the distance was mere paces, he dropped his staff.

A clatter of wood against the stone pillar was a sound as distant as a whisper in the middle of the Bazaar on a busy day. Cade paid as much attention to it as the muted chatter, focusing all his attention on the open hand and the magic shield summoned. Instead of going head to head, he turned to his still swinging sling side and attempted to use the shield as a barrier. If his opponent took the chance to strike, he’d find only a magical barrier. The attempted strike would allow Cade to spin on his weak side and launch the sling and stone all at once at the back of Revenant.

[Revenant]

Frustration and anger filled William to bursting. This young boy, this mage, had already survived far longer than was proper against him, and had managed to hurt the revenant in the process. It was … infuriating, and the red tide of rage built within him as a response. It wasn’t often that William was overcome anymore, losing himself to the demonic beast within, but his opponent had managed to be frustrating enough to summon his rage from its chained prison deep within William’s core.

William’s world narrowed to the oncoming boy. The Citadel, the gentle breeze over the swaying pillars, even the stinging sensation of his burnt flesh all drowned in the bubbling rage which blacked out his mind until the only things in existence were his claws and his opponent. Blaring a roar of inhuman passion, William poured every ounce of himself into that rushing, headlong charge. No novice to one-on-one struggles, and knowing him capabilities, William waited for just the right moment, when there would be no way for the boy to dodge his strike, and drove his claws towards the mage’s tender flesh like the biting blade of an axe descending into the meat of a fallen tree. But instead of finding purchase, instead of the rush of fresh, hot blood, William’s claws met with a flash of magical energy and were turned aside.

Nooooo, the beast in his mind roared, denied the wonderful carnage that it so desperately sought. Nothing so coherent escaped his lips however, and the sound of his primal scream of frustration echoed into the open, cloud filled sky around the arena. Even worse, William’s spirited charge left no time for a follow-up strike, no time to test the boy’s magical prowess against his iron-hard claws of demonic power, as the boy’s thin frame sailed past him, twisting all the while.

William was too far gone, too lost in his blood lust to actively process the danger that the boy presented. The demon cared not for its own safety, why should it when even the most crippling wound would be repaired by the power housed within its mortal flesh? All the demon cared for was blood and pain, death and destruction, and that would not be enough to stop the mage’s sling from crashing its stone projectile into the small of the creature’s back.

As his back was already raw from the burst of mage fire, the stone cracked into him with a force that broke through the mindless rage that filled the revenant. Another scream, but this one of pain, tore from William’s charred lips as his legs pumped uselessly over the pillar’s gritty stone surface. The demon fell heavily, trashing on the stone in agony. He was momentarily stunned, that much was for certain, but it was also obvious that he would regain his feet if given the chance, wounded but not out of the fight.