The Fire Rises: Attack on Tylmerande

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

If Storm Veritas had been wondering why Shinsou had placed so much faith in the young Hayate Amatsukami's abilities, the carnage that followed in those blurry seconds would have put paid to such questions.

Quite simply, the young Akishiman had unleashed hell upon the remainder of the naval garrison. As furniture and weapons flew chaotically about the enclosed space, bones were broken and blood splattered over the ironwork flooring of the port authority's main base of operations, the Brotherhood's latest student cleared enough of a path for Shinsou and Storm to rush into action through Hayate's drag. One of the braver, surviving soldiers tried to anticipate the advancing pair's approach and darted from behind a pillar, military issue sword drawn, hoping to bring his blade to bear against the stomachs of his onrushing opponents. His feet pounded the metal grates underfoot and scattered the splattered gore in splashes all around.

It was too late. The Telgradian, to Storm's right as they lashed forwards into the murky complex behind Hayate, had already sensed the man's presence and roared into action. Scooping Enpera from the ground with a quiet grunt and guiding it expertly into a powerful upward arc, the nameless soldier's head snapped back violently on contact, only a pitiful whimper escaping his lips. As Shinsou Vaan Osiris and Storm Veritas sprinted past him without a second thought, the soldier crashed to the floor, his long, matted black hair whipping the air about his head. A jagged crevice up the man's chest and neck was all that his courage had earned him.

Ten meters ahead, to Storm's left, another soldier, this time a stocky female, held her nerve amongst the slaughter and attempted to dive at the electromancer's unprotected neck with a hunting knife. Needing slightly more focus to deal with the threat than Osiris, Storm twisted his lithe and finery swathed body just in time, pivoting on his heel and thrusting a palm towards the blade of the lethal dagger. His fearsome magnetism was more than enough to overpower the woman's control over the weapon and barely a second passed before the knife had turned and plunged deep into her smartly adorned abdomen. A pair of once bright, alert eyes that had gleamed beneath strands of golden blonde hair faded as a spurt of crimson stained her pristine blue uniform. Their last moments saw Storm Veritas's stern visage snarling back at them, the electromancer's creased face smattered with splashes of blood from the force of the brutal attack. The dying woman, carried by her own momentum, rolled carelessly over a fallen table, behind which some of Hayate's victims had clumped; a crimson pool forming below the face-down corpses.

"More coming!" Yelled the Telgradian to Hayate ahead, and Storm to his left, as he sensed a dense cluster of life forces converging on their route out of the base. He knew that the hellacious racket and screams of the dying would have alerted every remaining soldier in the building, and now the only plan was to go route one. The garrison could be heard long before they came into sight. Their quick footsteps stomped heavily on the metal that blanketed every uneven surface in the base, the crunches of their booted feet upon the oily iron and the pounding of their breath upon the air the only signs of their existence. To the un-trained ear, it was as if the patter of raindrops had reached Tylmerande. To those present, it was the coming of death’s agents.

Shinsou clung to the hilt of his sword tighter as the noises grew closer and closer. Knowing that their exit was cut off, and slowing their run, collectively, the trio patiently waited for the first attacks to come. This section of the base was the forwardmost part, the bulkhead before the entrance, but had a berth wide enough to accommodate an influx of soliders a hundred strong from two corridors either side. The light was poor and the growing number of audible steps, mixed with the rattling of arms, and above it all the tell-tale grunting as dozens of men flanked the trio told the Telgradian that they were badly outnumbered. Before Shinsou had even had a chance to respond, they were in view; the remainder of the men in the base appearing in perfect double rank formation. The lines of blue uniforms, their curved, polished sabres unsheathed, waited.

Suddenly, the sound of a bowstring snapping panged through the air, and from an unseen part of the room a crossbow bolt thundered through the air and struck the Telgradian in his left shoulder. Shinsou recoiled immediately, face grimacing in agony as the iron missle carved though flesh and sinew, the head lodging itself near his collarbone. Through watering eyes, Osiris could now see the maddened eyes of the soldiers that advanced towards him, snorting and hissing clouds of white vapour.

“Storm, Hayate, get down!” Shinsou seethed, almost screaming.

Whatever Hayate, Storm or the soldiers had yelled in response was lost in the chaos.

Behind the bleeding Shinsou, a few feet above the crest of his oaken hair, powerful arcane energies began to meld together in the ambient light of the base internals. Crashing tendrils of black and purple convulsed and converged around each other to form a portal of black and purple energy that stretched almost the entire breadth of the room. The sheer corrosive force of the dark magic chewed into the grimy brickwork either side of the Telgradian, opening up a massive semi-circle into each of the walls flanking him that left a whistling expanse of space where solid stone used to be.

Storm Veritas, now familiar with the workings of Shinsou Vaan Osiris's dark magic, had witnessed the beginnings of Enpera Kurohitsugi before - but his expression instantly told that something was different. He had seen nothing from Shinsou on this scale before. The violence of the electrical activity, the throbbing of energy and the heat radiating from the spell was simply ravaging, full of anger and almost feral. Out of the black chasm that gaped behind him, protruding from the wall of marbled purple and jet, were almost countless lances of dark matter, a number far superior to what Veritas thought capable of his Telgradian counterpart. Shinsou’s mind raced. He tried to calculate through the pain the trajectories for killing his targets, consisting of about forty men. It would not be an easy feat, of that he was sure. But whatever the method, he had to do it now.

Without even having to motion, Shinsou commanded the hellstorm of lances forwards. They shot out of the portal and wildly tore towards their intended recipients, forks of blue and purple electricity ripping at the masonry, pipes and iron around them and scorching everything confined within as they travelled. Through the electric trail of his powerful volley, Shinsou gave the base's final stand an incredulous stare.

Die.

***

Emerging from the concrete maw of the slaughtered naval garrison, a visibly perturbed Telgradian, flanked by the electromancer and his own understudy, made their way on foot back towards the centre of a now militarily deprived Tylmerande, where their horses had been left. The crossbow bolt had been removed from his shoulder, and Storm had graciously cauterized the wound using some of his most tame magic, but even a heavily controlled portion of his friend's ability had felt as if he had been stung by a Fallien scorpion.

The quiet of the sun drenched townscape seemed completely at odds with the events of the last thirty minutes, given that they had just committed a small scale genocide at the port, although it would have been difficult for the townspeople to have heard much from within those thick concrete walls. The good news for the trio was that the threat of the other half of the garrison returning anytime soon was nil, given the interception distance from the phoney orders.

"At worst," The Telgradian panted, rubbing his shoulder, "We have two days before-"

Suddenly, a tingling sensation erupted within the pit of his stomach. It was then, as the sensation settled, that the swordsman felt it; a power that felt like a sudden burst of light amongst a gigantic sheet of seething icy shadow. It was faint at first, barely even registering in his gut, but became heavier quickly, as if approaching him at speed. Shinsou had felt that same power not too long ago.

Vaeron?!

As suddenly as the first power had, a second energy manifested within the range of Shinsou’s senses. This one he recognised instantly as it clashed against the first. It was bathed in electric red and felt as if a kiln of burning energy had overturned inside him. It wasn't human, but it was unmistakeable, and far more intense than he had ever remembered.

Veridian...Vaeron and Veridian. If you two are here, where is...

Everything was fuzzy around the edges. The amount of energy he had expended on his Enpera Kurohitsugi hadn't done him much good, but now something else crept up on the wily Telgradian. Images of her. Earlier, he had instructed both the men in his presence to be prepared for the inevitable kickback of their conquests; the time when their friends would take a stand against these perceived slights. But, ironically, not once had Shinsou considered the impact that all of this would have on his relationship with Philomel van der Aart, his closest friend, his lover; the one woman he...

As the two energies grew closer to him to the point of being on top of him, Shinsou steeled himself and prepared to face the consequences of what he wrought.

If you two are here, it can only be at her direction. If she has sent you here, then...