Paladin of the Seraph, page 36
Captain Gaviel arched his back, letting out a scream of agony even as he sliced through Thorn’s throat with his broken blade.
Commander Thorn shoved Gaviel off him and tore his helmet off, gushing golden blood from his wound. Face pale, he held his hand to the wound. His other hand scrambled for the bag of holding tied to his belt. He withdrew a vial of thick red liquid, splashed half in his mouth and half on the wound. When he pulled his hand away he was healed.
He turned his eyes to Gaviel, bleeding and groaning on the ground. He reached for his sword, still skewered through Gaviel’s side. He planned to finish his old rival off once and for all.
He never got the chance. While Gaviel and Thorn fought to the death, Darren finished off the other two seraphim who’d ambushed them. Then, he turned and met Commander Thorn’s eyes.
“I don’t know where Gaviel found you, but you’re on the wrong side of history,” Commander Thorn said. “Throw down your weapon, and you won’t meet the same fate as your commander.”
It was Darren’s turn to let out a low chuckle.
“Join Kalaziel?” He shook his head. “I would rather die.”
Commander Thorn’s face turned grim. “That can be arranged.” He dove for his sword, and Darren ran to intercept him.
Darren was faster, but Commander Thorn was closer. He gripped the handle of his blade and roughly tore it free from Gaviel’s side. Gaviel groaned, face turning pale as Divine Aura leaked out of him. He wouldn’t last much longer.
Absolute Analysis: Item Analysis
Inevitability, The Heavenly Blade (Legendary)
This sword was crafted by the Lord of Light’s own hand and is capable of sundering all bonds of Divine and Demonic Aura, rendering magical defenses utterly useless against it.
Melancholy was also a legendary blade, and its power was more than just magic. But even still, Darren was wary. This was the first time he’d ever feared meeting another sword with his own.
Commander Thorn lashed out with a ruthless thrust. Darren dodged, but space shifted around him as Thorn activated a skill, and suddenly the sword was still headed straight for Darren’s heart.
But Darren had tricks of his own. He pulled back and activated Fists of Peace. Glowing energy hands reached up and wrapped around Thorn’s ankles while Darren pulled back just a hair out of reach.
Thorn activated a barrier before Darren lashed out with a single cut. Thorn dodged, but Darren had seen his dodge born in the twist of his shoulders and the flickering of his eyes, and Melancholy’s tip sliced through the leather loop of Thorn’s belt.
“Ha! You missed!” Thorn taunted as the severed scraps of his belt fell to the ground.
Their next few exchanges were a game of cat and mouse. Thorn tried to kill Darren with every attack, and Darren dodged and wove around each blow.
He remembered this feeling. The last time he and Commander Thorn fought in Salsroth, he’d also led him on a chase.
“Fight me like a man!” Commander Thorn demanded.
Darren ignored the taunting, ducking and weaving until he spotted the perfect opportunity.
It came suddenly. Thorn thrust too hard and too fast. The move carried him too far forward. At the apex of his lunge, when he was most overextended, Darren struck.
Melancholy swept upward and across in one swift and smooth motion, severing Commander Thorn’s overextended hand.
Darren twisted with the blow, smashing the heel of his boot across Commander Thorn’s jaw in a follow-up attack while snatching Thorn’s sword with the other.
In an instant, he’d gone from desperately dodging Commander Thorn’s attacks to looming over him with two swords in his hands while Commander Thorn lay on his back, gasping and moaning.
Commander Thorn scooted backward, putting some distance between himself and Darren.
“It’s not over yet!” he shouted. He went for the pouch at his waist with his good hand, only to grasp nothing but air.
Darren gave him a small smile. “I didn’t miss.”
He feared Commander Thorn might have more tricks like this legendary sword. So he’d cut his bag of holding right off his hip early on in the fight.
“You’re a fool, backing Prime Saint Horon,” Commander Thorn spat. “He cares only for his honor and reputation. You might as well place a peacock on the Heavenly Throne. He only hates Kalaziel because Kalaziel’s name is spoken more frequently than his own!”
Darren ignored Commander Thorn’s speech, inspecting his new sword. This would come in handy. As fond as he was of Demon-slaying swords, his collection could use a little more variety. He also bent low to check on Gaviel. The seraph was unfortunately already dead, but Darren wasn’t worried. With his Resurrection skill, he could still bring the captain back.
The real question was what to do with Commander Thorn. Darren certainly didn’t plan to let him go after all the people he killed in Salsroth. But what if he could look into Commander Thorn’s memories?
If he was as closely tied to Kalaziel as he seemed, there was a lot Darren could learn from him.
“You will tell me what you know,” Darren said.
“Will I now?” Commander Thorn grimaced. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Fetch a healing potion from my bag, and maybe I’ll be more inclined to answer your questions...”
He’d calmed down, thinking he was regaining control of the situation. Darren wasn’t about to execute him, and he no doubt had plenty of information to bargain with.
Unfortunately for him, Darren had no intention of bargaining for anything. He was just going to take what he wanted to know.
He activated his Soul Weaving ability again. He would pry Kalaziel’s secrets directly from Commander Thorn’s mind.
“What was that?” Commander Thorn asked, voice tinged with worry. “I felt something. And where’s my health potion? I’m bleeding here!”
Darren placed a boot on Commander Thorn’s chest to keep him in place, prying through his recent memories.
Compared to this, looking into the memories of the villager had been easy. Commander Thorn was several orders of magnitude more complicated. One image after another flashed before his eyes, and it would take hours to make sense of what he was seeing. He only recognized the forms of a few naked women viewed from afar from a device much like Thalia’s telescope. Darren had always suspected they could use her new toy for such things.
Darren needed something to focus Commander Thorn’s mind like he’d done by asking the villager questions.
“What is Kalaziel planning?” Darren demanded.
“I won’t answer any questions until I get that healing potion,” Commander Thorn spat in reply.
“How many men does Kalaziel have?” Darren asked.
“May you fuck a feral badger,” Commander Thorn replied. That resulted in Darren viewing some rather unpleasant imagery. If he didn’t know better, he would guess Commander Thorn had firsthand experience to visualize the scene so well.
“Where are you based? What happened to the souls of Whiteguard? Where is Kalaziel now?” Darren asked one question after another, receiving more unpleasant images in reply. For all his faults, Commander Thorn was very good at hiding his thoughts. Darren suspected the commander had caught on that he was peering into his thoughts.
He needed something a little more drastic if he wanted real answers. Something that would shock and surprise Commander Thorn down to his very core. There was only one thing Darren could think of.
“Do you know who I am, Thorn?” Darren asked.
Commander Thorn squinted up at Darren. Confusion plastered his furrowed brows. While there were many Fifth-Order seraphim, they were long-lived and most would know each other well, especially those who specialized in combat. It was strange for Commander Thorn to not know of someone as powerful as Darren.
Darren withdrew his aura, revealing himself as a human.
“How about now?”
Commander Thorn drew in a sharp breath. “The Heavengrace brat!”
Darren smiled. He saw an image of himself fighting in Salsroth, viewed through Commander Thorn’s own eyes. He saw Kalaziel pointing to an image of him and his mother when he was a child. He heard Kalaziel mutter the word ‘problem’ as he pointed. And last of all, he saw a flash of a chair sitting alone in an empty hall. Though he only saw the image, the name came to mind. The Heavenly Throne.
Commander Thorn grabbed hold of himself when he saw the smile forming on Darren’s face and quickly shifted his focus to a dozen inane subjects that were of no use to Darren.
But just as he was about to start prying further, a powerful aura washed over the entire area. Darren had only felt such a sensation from Kalaziel, and he realized he was dealing with a Sixth-Order seraph. So he activated his passive abilities one after another and prepared for the fight of his life.
But the voice that followed a moment later didn’t belong to Kalaziel. It felt younger and smoother. If Kalaziel issued orders like a king upon his throne, this voice was like that of a prince among his comrades. It was gentler and kinder but no less full of authority.
“Captain Gaviel! I am here! Rats of Kalaziel, flee before me or perish! Horon is here.”
The man himself appeared a moment later. He wore a set of golden armor, though he had no helmet. His long auburn hair was even straighter and glossier than Cassandra’s, which Darren would never have thought possible.
The man’s manicured appearance reminded Darren of the Gateguard, though instead of pure glamor, Darren felt an edge to this man. His armor was shiny, but it wasn’t just for show. This man had an edge to him, though it was buried beneath a gilded scabbard.
His eyes darted to Gaviel’s deceased form, lying on the ground and dispersing into Divine Aura with each passing moment. Finally, he drew his sword, a straight bar of shining silver, and pointed it at Darren and Commander Thorn.
This was Prime Saint Horon, the man Gaviel and Darren had come to meet. That he’d come himself to rescue one of his subordinates spoke volumes to his character. Perhaps this Prime Saint of Honor could be an ally, given time.
“Servants of Kalaziel! You will pay for killing one of mine.” He pointed his sword straight at Darren.
It was then that Darren looked around himself and the blood and bodies surrounding him with his sword in hand as he interrogated Commander Thorn, who was currently doing his best impression of a corpse.
This was not exactly the first impression he’d been hoping for.
35
“By my honor, I have sworn to protect all those who have given their oaths to me!” Horon declared as he looked down the length of his sword at Darren. “I will not suffer the death of a loyal man so near the steps of my own home.”
Darren had found himself in a rather tricky situation. Fighting Horon would only lead to more problems. If he lost, he’d be entirely reliant on his Phoenix's Blessing and his other bodies to recover. He’d be left in a weakened position at a time when Kalaziel was reaching for ever greater heights of power. And if he won, he’d have lost a valuable potential ally against Kalaziel. There was simply no winning position for him.
He needed to talk his way out of this. But unfortunately, out of all of Darren’s skills, talking wasn’t one of them. He wished he had Thalia or Cassandra with him. Even Sasha would be better at getting out of this situation than he was.
But he was on his own. So he scrambled to come up with the right thing to say.
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
“I trust my own eyes more than your words. I don’t know you, and you’re not even a seraph. Which lands do you hail from, and what offer has Kalaziel given to recruit your help? Did he offer you rule over one of the mortal kingdoms of the Sacred Seas? I wouldn’t put it past him to sell our mortal charges off to a foreign power for a few more swords at his side. He knows nothing of honor or our ancient sacred duty.”
Horon squinted at Darren, eyes fixed tightly on him. Darren received a warning from his own analysis skill.
Prime Saint Horon has used his identification skill, Soulsight (Mythic).
Your realm of power and your most recent hundred battles have been revealed to him!
Darren grimaced. What poor luck. He’d killed a couple of seraphim, and before that he’d fought the feral seraphim who’d been corrupted by the evil eggs of Kalaziel’s minions. Most of those people had been former Protectors. This was going to look very bad for him.
He needed someone to advocate for him. He reached for Gaviel’s corpse. Darren needed to cast Resurrection on the dead man before it was too late.
But Horon pointed his sword at Darren when he moved. “I sense a skill brewing within you. You will not defile a Protector’s remains in my presence. If you hope to transform his soul into a minion of yours to aid your escape, know that I will strike you down.”
“I am bringing him back to life.” Darren continued channeling his Resurrection ability. The only way to prove what he was saying was by doing it, and once Captain Gaviel was alive again, he could explain everything.
“So be it!” Horon said. His brows drew tight with anger as he saw Darren desecrating the body of his fallen subordinate. He lunged forward like a fencer, springing off his back heel with incredible speed and force. Trapped in a tunnel as he was, Darren hardly had any room to dodge. He’d have to meet the attack head-on.
He was afraid to risk Melancholy against whatever weapon the Prime Saint wielded, so he drew his new sword, Inevitability, and held it edge-first to intercept the blade. The ground cracked beneath Horon’s feet, and a spiderweb of cracks spread out in all directions.
When the tip of Horon’s sword met Inevitability’s edge, Horon’s sword exploded in a shower of Divine Aura and broken metal. The shards of metal shredded Darren’s Protector’s uniform, leaving him bare-chested. Wind whipped through the tunnel, sweeping in Darren’s direction with the force of a storm at sea. The effect tousled his hair, and sweat gleamed off his brow from the effort.
Horon withdrew as quickly as he attacked. He looked Darren up and down, and a look of annoyance crossed his face for an instant.
“I will not have you duel me at a disadvantage,” Horon declared. He reached behind his back and pulled on the straps there, and suddenly his armor fell to the ground beside him, leaving him just as bare-chested as Darren. “There. Now the two of us are on even footing, and my honor is satisfied.”
Horon reached for a pouch at his hip. From it, he withdrew another sword identical to the one Darren had just destroyed. He tried his thrust again, and Darren blocked it just like the first. But this time, he used Fists of Peace to sweep Horon’s footing out from under him as he tried to retreat. Against the Fifth-Order seraph he’d fought before, this had been enough to end the fight. But Horon was in another league. He sensed Darren’s trap before it was sprung, and in all the futures Darren explored with his Oracle Sight, not once did his sword find flesh.
The two probed one another several more times, neither willing to fully commit. Between the two, Horon was faster and stronger, but how long could he keep up the fight? As the battle wore on, Darren’s unique skills would make his power grow even greater. Could this Prime Saint say the same?
It was looking like he’d find out.
Darren realized he would have to be the one to strike first blood. Perhaps then the Prime Saint would finally be willing to negotiate. He drew Melancholy, pressing it into his other hand. His sweat-slickened palms gripped the familiar metal easily, and his heart beat faster in his chest than it had in a long time.
He thought he was prepared for anything, but when Melancholy lit with a brilliant white glow, he was surprised. He was so concentrated on any unexpected moves from Horon that he hadn’t expected any from Ashe.
Divine Aura swirled on an empty patch of ground in front of him, and Horon instantly materialized an energy shield to defend himself against this unknown attack. But this was no attack.
Ashe manifested her humanoid body, shining wings spreading from one wall of the tunnel to the other before she folded them around herself. She opened her eyes and met his gaze, and her bright expression met Horon’s wary eyes.
A moment later, Horon’s eyes lit with recognition, quickly followed by shock.
“By the Heaven beyond the Heavens... Ashe? What are you doing here?”
Ashe smiled in reply. “Hello, Horon. It’s been a long time.”
By her mere appearance, Ashe had quickly diffused what had been about to become a life-and-death battle between Darren and Prime Saint Horon.
“How are you here? I thought you were destroyed, and your remains corrupted into a demon?” Horon asked.
“For a time, I was a demon. But Darren here cured me. Well, mostly. I have to use his sword for my body because my true body is in Kalaziel’s clutches, along with the bulk of my old power,” Ashe explained.
Horon looked at Darren with new eyes. “You can heal someone corrupted by the Lady of Darkness? How remarkable. What realm are you from, warrior?”
Darren didn’t really know how to answer that question. He shrugged. “I was born in Whiteguard, but I call Limedeep home.”
Horon’s brows scrunched tight. “Whiteguard? Limedeep? But those are both in the Sacred Seas.”
Darren nodded.
“Darren is from the Sacred Seas, though he spent a lot of time fighting demons in the Seven Hells,” Ashe explained. “If you’ve been watching the mortal world over the past year, you’d have heard of him.”
Horon grimaced. “I’m afraid there has been far too much going on in the Heavens to divert my attention to mortal matters. Doubly so now that the ophanim can’t be trusted to be impartial. I suppose I will have to take your word that he is indeed from the Sacred Seas, not that such origins change much if he allies himself with Kalaziel. He has many exceptional human subordinates, as of late.”
Ashe shook her head. “Darren doesn’t work for Kalaziel. Far from it. In all the Sacred Seas, you’ll find no mortal man who’s caused our wayward brother more trouble than Darren Heavengrace.”
