• • Raydorn: The War in the Black
• May 5, 2024

Raydorn: The War in the Black (Chapter 57)

“There’s only so much one can learn from failure before it feels like the world is just cheating.”

Hotan Kol, the Bat, 447 A.C.A.

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Thwack! Thwack!

CRACK!

Andy’s skull didn’t crack as the scepter connected with her skull, but it felt like it did.

Andy fell sideways into the wet sand. If it weren’t for the numbing pain, Andy would have to spit out the sand that the tide washed in. She found herself coughing it up instead.

“I… can’t express how happy I am to have finally found you,” the warlock asked. She approached Andy’s form as she laid on all fours. “I gotta be honest, can I be honest with you? I feel like I can be honest with you.” Just as Andy was pushing herself onto her knees, a swift kick sent her to her side. “You have that kind of face.”

Andy mumbled as she coughed up sand and seawater onto herself.  “What the fuck does that mean…” 

Then she heard the whispers of a language long dead.

‘Move Andelyn!’ the presence screeched in the voices of thousands.

“No shit!” Andy said as adrenaline kicked in, and she rolled over her head. The moment she was on her feet-

Plume!

-she was sent flying by the blast of air. 

As she soared through the air, Andy didn’t hear the spells that followed. Not the one that stopped her midair, not the one that slammed her down on her face, and not the one that made sure she would hear every word that Amidala saw fit to say.

“When I first saw you back at the Tribus Eilean…” Amidala pursed her lip before twiddling her fingers on atop them, “I thought, ‘gGumly-gook, my luck had come back.’ I mean, another of the Faedrielle bloodline? What were the odds? But I was so shocked that I let you get away.” 

Faedrielle?

‘Do not get distracted!’

As another spell lifted her to her knees by her arms, arms held in place by hard sand, Andy couldn’t help but think, What do you expect me to do?

Amidala leaned down slowly giving Andy an eyeful of the warlock and a robe that was more suited for a late-night snack than a raid. Then, even while drenched in seawater, Andy could not mistake the smell of wine on the warlock’s lips.

As Amidala took Andy by the chin, she loomed large over the legionnaire. Andy faced life or death, but for the warlock, this seemed like a day off from work.  

But the low growl told Andy different. “I’m not going to let you go again, Andy.” 

As sweat dripped down her face alongside the ocean water, Andelyn did what others would not do. She stuttered, she quipped, and then, worst of all… she blinked. 

“If-if you wanted a date, you could have just bought me a beer!” 

Amidala slowly stood up, wrapping her fingers around Andy’s throat, and lifting her up with the help of the sand around Andy’s arms. She held the white-haired woman over her head and laughed like she was picking a drunken friend off the ground. “Oh, and you’re funny too! Perfect!

“The others weren’t.” 

Andy struggled to mutter out, “Others?” 

The presence cowered in her mind at the thought, lost in memories they would not share. 

You knew.

The presence remained silent in the face of a statement that demanded an answer.

But Amidala was not privy to such a conversation, and even if she had been, she continued to prove that she waited on no one. “You’re the last I need… hopefully, I did say that about the last one, but your blood should be enough.” 

Splash! Splash!

Andy looked behind her, and upon realizing it, she reached for Amidala’s face, seeking to claw out eyes she couldn’t reach. 

The whole effort only made Amidala scoff as she turned and saw the sound of survivors making their way onto the short. 

Her attack on the S.S. Thassia left few survivors but there were survivors nonetheless.

Amidala looked back to Andy and reached for her face, her fingers barely caressing the warlock’s face as they shared a look of understanding.

The warlock immediately turned and shouted, “Ignis!”

Flume!

“AaaaahhhhhHHHHH!!!!”

The sounds of pirates screaming as they burned left an unremarkable smirk on the warlock’s face. As she turned back to Andy, she learned what her would-be victim thought of her.

Pfft!

Andy’s spit caught Amidala right in her eye. With a shriek of disgust, the warlock released Andy’s neck, and as her hands wet to rub the fluid from her eye, she released her control over the sand.

When it dropped Andy, Andy clasped her hands together and dropped her hands on the warlock.

The warlock responded with a thrust of her scepter.

Poom!

This time Andy only slid back a few feet. She was going to rush the warlock again, but the warlock summoned fire to the end of her scepter with a flick of her other wrist. 

She stared Andy down with one eye, the other red and irritated by the spit Andy hit her with.

‘Run,’ Andy was warned.

There’s nowhere to run to.

‘Better to die running.’

If this life has taught me anything, it’s that you couldn’t be more wrong.

As Andy was held in place under the threat of incineration, the warlock was able to relax her muscles. She dropped her stance but kept her scepter aimed at the woman with the blood she needed, not the limbs, skin, or face.

She rubbed her eye as it still stung more than it should, and refused to feel… clean. 

The feeling made the warlock grind her teeth, but the sight of Andy acting so defiantly had her trying to hold back her grin. How long it must have been since she had last been challenged by someone and suffered a blow… as meaningless as it must have appeared…

“You didn’t really think I would let them get away?” Amidala asked Andy. 

All the warlock received was a twisted expression of malice that spoke more than enough. 

What Amidala didn’t receive, that she was betting on the most, was some semblance of fear. Despite all of the overwhelming power the warlock had been using to physically dominate Andy, all Andy had was rage.

It left Amidala exasperated. 

“You know, you’d think people would fear me more,” she muttered, her scepter pointed at Andy as a threat she could cash in on at any moment. 

But she’s not going to use it, because this bitch likes to talk.

‘There are many like her in every era.’

Must be a bad case of deja vu for you.

Amidala looked down at her free hand, tempting Andy. The legionnaire’s feat shuffled, and Amidala pressed her weapon with a fire burning from the orb on its head. Even under the threat of fire, Andy still stood firm. Amidala expected her to shake a bit, but she wouldn’t even do that.

“I have power the priests say belongs to the gods, and yet…” Amidala tried to speak to hear herself talk, but the flagrant lack of a response outside of hostility was silencing the words in her throat. 

She had to wonder in that moment why fear wasn’t consuming Andelyn Stella. Fear should consume any who stood against her and the power she wielded. Who could challenge her? Yet, this woman, stripped of any ability to attack did nothing to betray fear.

Why? 

Amidala began to mutter to herself, pondering the deceptive question. She looked away for a moment to bite her nail, but this time Andy didn’t take the bait. “Maybe it’s because that old bastard has kept me in the Tower. I’m only called out for war, or so the king has someone pretty to call him a blind old fool. 

“When that’s all you know of me, why fear me?

“Yes, yes… that must be why. How could you fear me?” she asked without even looking at the woman in question. “If only I had been able to roam…”

The warlock finally turned her eyes back to Andelyn, her hand covering half of her face.

“You’re going to change all of that for me, Andelyn. For most of my life, I’ve felt like I’ve been robbed of the opportunity for greatness, there’s nothing great about a pristine cage.” 

For a moment, Andy’s expression softened. Her memories failed to mind themselves, and that was all Amidala needed to see.

“You understand that… don’t you?” the warlock muttered, raising her chin at her captive, seeing something that may or may not be there. “Maybe you’ll be the last sacrifice I have to make, and the first of them to forgive me?” 

Andy’s jaw dropped. 

“Are you fucking crazy?” 

Whatever resembled hope disappeared from Amidala’s eyes. Then she shrugged. 

“I guess not.” 

Plume! 

The fire blasted Andy back into the water, putting out the fire just as quickly as she burned. 

That still left Andy’s arms and legs nearly paralyzed by their burns. She should have drowned, or at least she would have if the water hadn’t started to surround and ensnare her just like the sand. 

As it wrapped around her limbs dunking her under the water repeatedly, Andy still heard the warlock’s voice chirping in her ear.

“I’m not crazy, that’s pejorative. I’m just a bit drunk and upset, you’ve never been reminded of a dead friend and gotten drunk afterward? Men do it all the time but when I do it, I’m crazy!” 

As she ranted, she slowly solidified the water into ice so she could force Andy to listen to her. She kept talking even as Andy was coughing up water, or rather, throwing it up.

Once Andy was no longer drowning, she was still out of breath, huffing and puffing as Amidala talked her ear off. 

“Umm…” Andelyn said between breaths, “I was actually… referring to the sacrifices and me forgiving you, you crazy backwater bitch.” 

Amidala’s face twitched a bit before her head slowly tilted. “Backwater… I’ve never been called that before. I wonder how backwater would feel about you using it as an insult.” 

Andelyn never saw it coming.

Amidala whispered more spells as her eyes began to glow… a rather familiar lime green.

‘No!’ the presence screamed in her head, over and over as she reached for Andy’s face, but the legionnaire had no idea what she was even supposed to be panicking over. Not that it mattered, there wasn’t anything she could do as a familiar curse was forced upon her.

Andy had looked into the past by looking through many different objects. She’s looked into the past of weapons, of animals she’s eaten, of ships she’s ridden on, and of people she’s known. 

But water? The memory of water was the memory of thousands of little particles flowing around the isles. It was thousands of different images and physical feelings that no mortal mind was made to comprehend.

The presence tried to restrain it, to help Andy push out the memories rather than force them upon her. It was like the image of water was trying to flood her mind, and the presence was a dam that was beginning to crack.

Luckily for Andelyn, the presence saw it that way as well and relieved the pressure by opening the floodgates somewhere else. Water was not the only thing touching Andy, and it allowed her mind to find safety in the memories of something else… someone else.

Amidala offered up her own memories without even realizing it. By the time she did, it was too late, Andy had escaped her touch of madness, but whether or not it was better, was debatable.

With the wild flow of a rushing river, Andy saw flashes of Amidala’s memories, starting with her opening the doors to the Bard of the Song and the white-haired people he gave her. 

It was only for a moment. Andy watched the memory for a fraction of the time she did when she was looking through Henry Lockley’s mind, but that moment made all the difference. 

All Henry saw was the back of their heads, and the long faraway look over their shoulders.

They looked up to Amidala. They looked into her open arms, her welcoming embrace, and they smiled up at her… because she was smiling down at them.

She was inviting them to die and she was smiling down at them. For a bitter, disgusting moment, Andelyn was in Amidala’s shoes, and she felt the way the corners of her mouth curved. 

What followed were images of the Archmage and the King of Raydorn, and yet, despite the battle plans they spoke of, the betrayals they planned, and the magic they connived to use, none of it could permeate Andy’s mind. She could only feel the absolute venom that came with knowing that you were going to butcher and maim people who trusted you.

Andy was a killer, she had slain dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers at this point in her life after nearly a decade with the Black Legion. And yet, not even the ones she had to stab in the back could say that they trusted her to do any differently. She never had to look someone in the eye who was shocked that she was killing them. 

They may have been shocked as to how, or that they had lost, but they were never shocked that she tried to kill them.

She had never known what it was like to think about how you’re going to betray someone… and then have to contain her laughter.

But now she did, because she had touched the mind of Amidala Kain, and it was a mind that no one could ever quite untouch. 

The sight kept haunting her until she was on her knees, and there was no reason for the water to hold her up anymore. 

Even as the water fell to where it belonged, she still felt a wet feeling dripping from her eyes, nose, and ears.

When Andy was blind to nothing but someone else’s sadistic glee, she did not see how she bled from her orifices. The vision that would not leave her would only turn red.

“Rest your head, Andelyn,” Amidala told her she knelt to take her head in her hands and raise it to her own as her face bled as Andy’s did. “Raise your head and maybe then the world will stop swirling.” 

Andy was putty in her hands, her soul removed from her body, and her mind from her inner self. When Amidala gifted her a bloody kiss, Andy couldn’t even feel it, not how their blood mixed, nor how Amidala licked it from her lips.

Her mind only went black, and she was the witch’s to take.

“It’ll soon be over. It’ll soon be over… and then I shall rise as no one else should.”

*****

To fight a gauntlet of warriors is a challenge, but the most skilled of knights can do it. Fight two at once? A challenge, surely, but not impossible. But three? That would challenge even the best of the best.

To try one’s hand against five though… was arrogance at its finest, or it would be if someone weren’t doing it.

The Aurora Knight deftly deflected the sword strikes and axe swipes of the two Jitari Blade wielders, keeping the pace at which he backs up steady. He moved his sword back and forth, before his face and behind his head, blocking the blows being rained down upon him as they scurried around him in circles like rats.

They thought it was an excellent distraction for the tentacles.

As Lucy’s tentacle arm tried to strike his feet, he jumped and twirled his sword so he could strike down into it. He stabbed through the tentacle in one millisecond and plunged his blade into the ground in the next. 

Instantly, the Aurora Blade blasted the two around him. Astrid was blown back but Malum was able to stand his ground with the help of his wings. 

The Aurora Knight set his eyes on him but had to bend back under the cleaver that Quintus swung towards his chest.

Kion watched the blade scrape over the nose of his helm, a blade the giant claimed was trying to disable him. 

The Aurora Knight righted his blade to show the giant what he thought of his claims, but the assassin was there still. 

Siwang clashed with the Aurora Blade, but not for long. The knight had to pivot on his feet almost immediately to trip up the assassin who the giant had to rein himself in from hitting. 

The Aurora Knight was raising his blade again when the Wind tried to blow him down.

He could turn and see Jack hold his hand out to him, orchestrating the power of his Iligsia with a little fiddling of his fingers. 

The knight’s cape blew in the wind, prompting him to strike his sword into the ground to stop himself from moving. 

As he did so, the axe woman was back, using the Wind to fly straight for him. The knight had to hide behind his blade as her fiery steel clanged against the magic power of the sword.

As she pulled back her second swing, he pulled his sword out of the ground and barely blocked in time.

This time, the fire of Kan Bujian let loose a barrage of sparks as it stood against the aurora glow of the knight’s sword.

He had to know, even in his delusions, that he was losing ground. Holding out against these five opponents for so long was already an accomplishment. Any lesser warrior would have died several times by now, but he has broken even.

But surely, he could only do so for so long.

Or maybe not, for he stood to his feet against Astrid’s fiery blast, even as the heat began to cook him in his armor. 

He loomed over the short woman who was putting her back into and raised his freed hand to the back of his blade.

Then he pushed her back.

As soon as Astrid lost ground, Jack threw the full power of the Wind behind her, blowing the sparks and small flames of her axe right into Kion’s face.

It made him turn his head away, but not even the scalding metal helm on his face could make him stop pushing down on Astrid. At least, nothing in front of him.

Sizz…

The sound of flesh burning didn’t draw the knight’s eye when it should have, because his flesh would not sizzle underneath his armor. A mistake that nearly cost him several limbs.

Suc-suc-suc.

The knight realized his mistake when the tentacle tightened around his leg. He did not receive much time to regret it.

The tentacle pulled the Aurora Knight back, and when his leg gave out he fell forward flat on his face, but not without an axe sinking into his shoulder.

Brennnkk!

He barely had any time to recognize the sound of shredded metal before the Wind stopped and the tentacle dragged him across the round. 

Dirt and dust flooded his helmet, blinding him just before the tentacle flung him up into the air.

The rush of air cleared the dust and dirt away from his eyes, but what could his sight do other than show him the assassin’s foot a millisecond before it connected with his face?

Malum kicked the knight back down to earth, and the Aurora Knight hit it with a slam and a bit of blood from his shoulder. Those around him heard the hard and loud jangling of his armor, but all the Aurora Knight could hear was a deafening thud. 

Most men would have closed their eyes there and then. They would have been happy with the effort they put forward, and closed their eyes to let Osera take them to the afterlife.

Kion forced his eyes open and saw the assassin flying straight down for him.

With a simple blast of power, the Aurora Knight flew from the spot where he lay, and dashed away from the assassin. 

The assassin had to outspread his wings to catch himself before he dropkicked the ground, but that was alright for him because he drove the Aurora Knight into another enemy.

Kion felt the giant’s shadow before he heard the swing of his blade, or even felt it for that matter. 

Then he was swallowed up by darkness, and then pain.

Shrieekkk!!

Quintus appeared at his side and swiped the knight’s head with his cleaver. The blade made a rather loud shrieking noise as its serrated edges cut into the knight’s armor. 

Clang!

It made more of a ringing clang when Quintus landed a successive blow across the chest…

Clang!

… and then the knight’s head again… 

Clang!

… and again…

Clang!

… and again, until the Knight’s thoughts began to go quiet.

Then the knight’s helm gave way. 

Quintus landed a blow that drew blood and splattered it across the ground, along with pieces of the knight’s helmet. The faceplate of his eyes was ripped off, along with the upper left corner. It appeared like shrapnel over the ground, and the bit of white hair that eeked out of the hole made the Aurora Knight appear a little more human.

Just human enough for Quintus to uppercut.

Quintus’s fist came up, got caught on the hook of his helm’s chin, and lifted the knight up and into the air.

Kion made a full rotation through the air before landing on his feet, and immediately crumbling to his knees.

Surely, this would have been the point where he gave up. He would look upon his five enemies spreading out to surround him, to finally bring him down, and accept defeat.

That man’s body was breaking, or at least it should have been, but they would never know…

… because he stood back up, and he looked at them with his own eye.

Quintus led the charge, and he was the first to be stopped. He looked into Kion’s newly revealed eyeball or rather the piercing red glow atop a black ball that sat where an eyeball should have been.

The look of it stopped Quintus dead in his tracks, which stopped his allies right behind him. All of their eyes converged on the red eye of a demon looking back at them, but only Quintus had an inkling of its origin. 

Where they all thoughtlessly blamed the witch, Quintus recognized a symptom he had known all too well.

Koreida’s Eye of Corruption, Quintus thought, you poor soul.

Kion was a poor soul in Quintus’s eyes but there was about to be one even poorer after green lights began popping up around the Icy Pearl Isles. 

There were puffs of smoke in every direction off in the distance. Since the smoke had begun to die down, the legionnaires could see the green residue floating up into the air. Before they could even consider what it may be, one popped up on the outskirts of the crater.

Out trotted out the witch who had introduced them to this new life they suffered, with dried blood on her lips and streaking down her cheeks and her gown. She appeared as if a poltergeist straight from the darkest pits of Hedone, and capable of holding their attention long enough that they didn’t notice whose body she dragged by their head.

“Yoohoo, Kion dear, I bought the treat we came here for, time to go!” Amidala called to the Aurora Knight like he was a little boy wandering about the market with his mum.

And she pulled Andy’s limp body by her bloodied white hair as if she were a basket full of fruit.

One by one, the legionnaires took note of one of their own firmly beaten and unresponsive in their enemy’s grasp. It made half of them into fools, and those fools started to get the other half killed.

Quintus was one such fool, calling out his friend’s name, “Andy!” and immediately taking several steps to charge the warlock.

He didn’t get far. 

“Quintus, look out!” Lucy called but it was Malum who was fast enough to save him.

Quintus had left his back completely open to the Aurora Knight in his mad dash for his friend. He barely took three steps before the knight leaped at his back, his sword raised over his head, and ready to cut him down. 

Malum flew between them and blocked the blow with his own sword, but the knight’s strength slammed Malum down on Quintus’s back, bringing them both to the dirt. 

Quintus was humbled and stuck with his friend struggling to save both their lives as another’s life hung in the balance. And what could he do about it?

Nothing.

In the next moment, he would think himself lucky that he was one of many.

Broom!

The flicker of fire, the scratch of ash, and the scent of smoke came and left in a puff, and so did Astrid. 

She seemed to ride the rod of her axe to boost herself up and over the heads of the floundering boys.

The Aurora Knight leapt off Malum and Quintus to go after her only for the invisible Wind to beat him to the ground.

Astrid had a bead on the warlock and was going to reach her in record time. Then the warlock spoke her magic words, “Pereat mundus,” and the world before her feet crumbled.

Seemingly before Astrid could react, the ground was giving way under her feet. 

But Astrid was not one to be taken out by a rockslide. She twirled her axe until it burned bright directly over her head, and slammed it down into the rock in front of her. With her great strength, she pulled herself forward and threw a rock back. 

The one push was all she needed to step on the next tumbling rock and then the next. She touched them for less than a second to keep going and avoid being pulled under.

But the ground was giving way faster than she could move so midleap, she moved her axe under her feet, then let all the fire stored in the axe’s steel go full throttle.

Boom!

The fact that the ground was collapsing under her stopped mattering the moment she decided to defy the will of gravity. 

She went up in an arch and readied her shining, burning axe over her head, ready to bring it down and split Amidala’s head in two. 

Astrid expected Amidala to have a shield, but she swung her axe with the belief that she could shatter through it. She held firm in that belief and when Astrid’s axe swung, nothing stopped it. It followed through.

But it didn’t strike a thing.

The bulb at the peak of Amidala’s elaborate scepter glowed stark white, much like the light glowing from Astrid that held the legionnaire in place.

“I’m not going to ask,” the warlock said, “you clearly thought it would be that easy.” With a tilt of her scepter, she pulled back Astrid’s arms so her head was bent down and her axe was facing away from the warlock. “You should know by now little girl, it’s never that easy.”

Then she flicked her scepter to the side and sent Astrid flying back through the air. 

The small woman flew so fast that if she had hit the ground, her back would have shattered. 

She was lucky she was caught by the Wind, and as she was slowly brought down to the ground, her friends were able to breathe a sigh of relief. 

For a moment, Quintus had forgotten how their greater numbers proved to not matter. 

It was as he stood up and could not find the Aurora Knight around him, that he was reminded how foolish they were, and how taken they could be by the moment. 

A moment was all it took for them to breathe a sigh of relief that one friend had lived, and for another to take their breath away. 

By the time they had set their eyes on the warlock, the Aurora Knight had already retreated to her side. 

Quintus started running, but Malum had taken off ahead of him. The two of them rushed to get to the warlock as she raised her scepter to the head of the portal, and began to pull it shut.

Malum flew at speeds birds had never achieved, his head reaching out for Andy in Amidala’s grasp, but it was a futile effort, and they all knew it. 

Still, he had to try and fail to know.

When the portal closed and their friend was taken, Malum kept flying and crashed into the dirt, his hand still outstretched. Then one by one all of those who called Andy friend and ally found their way to their knees.