The group of three boys and three girls left the sanctuary. The terrain before them looked a lot more jagged and foreboding to Gabrielle. Her breathing became labored and her chest became tight. Something landed on her shoulder, so she turned to see Skyler's hand resting on it. He gave her a reassuring smile and immediately her chest loosened up and the knot in her throat disappeared.
They saw a barrack in the distance. Pain turned to the group and gestured them to get down. They all went down on their chests and army crawled up to it, pokey terrain be damned. Once they got up to the walls, they put their backs up to the wall, and sneaked to the entrance.
"Okay, time to end this," Pain whispered, and summoned his scythe.
Everyone summoned their weapons as well, Skyler took off his glove and his lower arm morphed into a smaller sword. They went inside and attacked a group of Mole Darklings. After they quickly defeated those, they started going through the tents. The third tent they entered had a dark figure inside. It turned around, and it was absolutely horrifying. It had six black lidless spider-like eyes, a sideways mouth filled to the brim with thin sharp teeth, and fleshy pink tentacles protruding from the holes on the bottom of it's pale face.
"Oh Jesus." Gabrielle's stomach turned as she stared at the monster.
"It's a Cultist Darkling, one of the mages." Skyler ran up to it.
The Cultist raised its hands and black sigils formed in front of it, but before it could use the spell, He cut it in half.
"Well, it was one." He chuffed.
"Keep your voice down, there could be others." Pain quietly shushed him.
"Alright," Skyler whispered
They kept looking through the tents, but there was nothing.
"They must all be at the front except that one." Pain shrugged with his hands.
"Where's the front?" Gabrielle was confused.
"In front of the castle, of course." Pain nodded slowly.
"How close are we to the castle?" She asked.
"We aren't too far now. They probably already know we will show up, so there's no sense trying to hide," he said.
"Well, we'd best be going." Skyler turned and started to walk out of the barracks.
They left the barracks and headed towards the front. They could see black figures in the distance, it was Wrackivorn's army. A dark purple spell whizzed past Gabrielle's head and almost hit Lunara.
"Damned cultists," Skyler growled, his lower arm turning into a large crossbow.
"A crossbow? Where did you learn to do that?" Gabrielle was shocked, she didn't think he could do anything more complex than a shotgun.
"No time for that now, get down." He launched a black arrow out of the crossbow.
She looked over, and Pain pointed down to the black hole in the ground in front of them.
"What about the Mole Darklings?" She was worried they would get attacked by those tiny monsters.
"There are no holes in the bottom, I just dug it out." He pointed to his scythe, a sharp tongue going back into one of the eyes.
"Just get in." Skyler daintily nudged her forward. Fira, Lunara and Drake were already in the hole by that time and were staring up at her with blank looks on their faces.
She slid into the crevice, a cloud of dust forming behind her. She was surprised that Pain made a trench without kicking up even a tiny bit of dust. Pain and Skyler jumped in after her. Skyler went right to the front of the trench and started firing off arrows again.
"Can you cast a spell from here?" Pain turned to her.
Lunara was firing off glowing blueish-white arrows from her bow that glowed the same. Gabrielle nodded. She stepped up to the front of the trench and raised her hands. A large amount of white sigils materialized above her. They started to spin, and she closed her eyes, focusing her energy forward and outward. She heard a flash, so she opened her eyes. All the Mole Darklings out on the front were decimated.
"Excuse me, god king Skyler." An unfamiliar male voice spoke up.
She turned around, and there was a pale floating figure cloaked in a gray hooded robe. He was tapping Skyler's shoulder. Skyler turned and looked to him, confused at first, but then a smile broke out onto his face.
"Ah, it's you Gravekeeper Darkling guys, you sure do know how to show up at the right time." Skyler turned to the floating cloaked man.
"We will give you enough cover to get past the battlefront. May you succeed, my god king." The man bowed, his long gray hair drooping with him.
"You don't have to keep calling me that, I'm really not that special." Skyler gave a small frown.
"Oh but you are! You are the chosen one who will end the war that has been waged for centuries! My men, fire!" The Gravekeeper Darkling turned and shouted. The Gravekeeper Clan seemed more human looking than the other clans, and if they didn't float in the air, Gabrielle would have thought they were completely human, albeit their paleness.
"Oh boy, not this again." Skyler sighed, turned around and continued firing at the enemy.
"Shouldn't we be going?" Gabrielle prodded Skyler's shoulder.
"In a bit, yeah." Skyler didn't look at her and kept firing.
"Alright, just tell me when." She raised her hands and fired off another spell.
"You should conserve your energy, I don't want you to pass out again. I wish we had more time..." Skyler made a pained expression.
"Should I stop?" She didn't want to pass out either, but she also wanted to help.
"I'm going to try something." Fira stepped up and threw her sword forward, it landed its mark on a few enemies. She raised her hand, and her sword rose and flew back into her hand.
"Wow." Lunara stopped firing and stared at Fira.
"Where'd you learn that?" Skyler's face softened and he smiled.
"I just kinda thought it up, I want to be useful too." Fira smiled back.
Dark purple spells whizzed above their heads from both directions. Gabrielle didn't want to be in a war zone, it made her extremely anxious, she wanted to get out. She would catch looks at Skyler in between casting smaller spells, wondering if the look on her face would pressure him to move out of the ditch they were in.
"Let's go." Skyler motioned for everyone to follow him.
They carefully got out of the trench. Pain helped Fira up, and Drake and Lunara crawled out by themselves. Gabrielle got out by herself and helped Skyler up.
"Trying to be the leader I see." Gabrielle smiled.
"I was going to help you up instead but this works too." Skyler didn't seem worked up about it.
"Remember to zigzag when you run so they don't know where to aim." Pain looked at everyone.
"Alright" Fira nodded, a fearful look on her face.
They all started running for the front. There were a bunch of Darklings waiting for them.
"Why were they waiting?" Drake turned his head towards Skyler as he ran.
"I have no fucking idea." Skyler sighed, visibly exasperated.
A spell hit Lunara, and she dropped onto the black ground. Drake was the first one to stop, he quickly ran back to her, everyone else followed behind him.
"Lunara! Are you alright?" Drake knelt down and helped Lunara up.
"I think... I'll be fine." She was visibly shaken but only lightly injured.
"Guy's I'm sorry but we really, really have to go." Skyler huffed, his hands on his knees.
They continued running, and got to the front of the group. A few large lizard-like Darklings stared them down.
"You may not pass," One of them boomed, they were all clad in black armor and brandished axes.
"Like that means anything." Skyler morphed his lower hand into a large blade, like the first time Gabrielle had seen his lower arm transform.
"We know why you came, godkiller." Another one of them hissed.
"Hey, thanks, that's a nice title." He smiled.
"You slew your own father, bastard," A third one spoke up.
"And I'd do it again after what he did to Mother." Skyler's smile turned into a demonic grin and his face crackled as his Fallen mouth appeared.
The three of the lizard-like Darklings roared and brought their axes down at Skyler. He jumped out of the way and hopped closer to the first one. He made one quick slash and the lizard-like Darkling's axe holding arm was separated from his body. It made a pained screeching noise, and the other two hissed and brought down their axes again. One of the axes sliced a bit into his cheek and the side of his neck.
"Ah, fuck." He grabbed his bleeding neck and his mouth returned to normal.
"Do you need me to heal you?" Gabrielle walked up to him.
"Listen, we'll hold them off, you go kill Wrackivorn," Pain said. The lizard-like Darklings looked at them angrily
Drake took off his shirt, revealing a large deformed scar over his heart, and a bunch of smaller circular scars across his chest in vital areas, with one large scar across his chest.
"I'm ready." He summoned the machine that Wira had made for him, and put it on his shoulder and neck as the lizard-like Darklings stared in confusion.
Glitch materialized next to him.
"G-Glitch? Is it really you?" Lunara ran up to Glitch.
"Wow, it's Drake's scary twin." Fira shuddered
"I see you've gotten yourself into some deep shit." Glitch looked to both Lunara and Drake.
"Come on!" Drake removed his gloves and wiggled his clawed fingers.
"Well fuck me this is bad." Glitch looked up to the large, beastly enemies.
"Let me heal you first." Gabrielle brought her hands onto Skyler's neck.
"Okay but make it quick," Skyler said, visibly worried.
She healed him while Glitch, Drake, Lunara, Fira and Pain fought the lizard monsters.
"Thank god they were distracted, stupid assholes." Skyler smiled.
"You two had better get going." Pain turned his head towards Skyler. The four of them were busy fighting the giant monsters and distracting them from Skyler and Gabrielle.
"Alright, thanks." Skyler nodded.
Gabrielle and Skyler slipped past the fight.
"Let's fly the rest of the way there." Skyler sprouted his wings.
"Okay." Gabrielle nodded again.
She got onto his back and he flew into the air. They were very close to the castle, so it wouldn't take them long to get there. The black trees there had purple roses sprouting from their branches.
"I see Wrackivorn hasn't renovated since Pain was in power." Skyler smiled.
"Did Pain do this? It's very pretty." She had never seen purple roses, let alone ones that grew on trees.
"Yeah, the Gravekeeper Darklings call him the God of Death." Skyler didn't slow down even though the beautiful trees were passing them by.
"Are there any girl Gravekeeper Darklings?" She was going to ask that Gravekeeper Darkling earlier, but they were in the middle of fighting.
"Yeah, although they all look very similar to each other." Skyler gave a small nod.
They saw the castle before them, it was large and strangely white, it was even Greek looking, with Greek pillars in the front. Skyler landed and she looked to him, confused as to why the castle was white.
"Why is the castle… You know… Not black?" She did a double take to him and pointed at the castle.
"White is the absence of color and shade, at least that's what my father told me his father said." Skyler shrugged.
"Was your grandfather any different to your father?" She started to walk towards the castle.
"Yes, my father was the one to start the war up again. My grandfather was the one who built the Ruby Citadel, which I want to reopen, it's been closed for a long time, I want to share the knowledge of whatever is inside with the whole world." His eyes sparkled as he talked about it.
"That's real nice of you, I'd like to see it too after we're done here." She smiled at him.
"Let's go, there's not much time." He patted her on the shoulder.
She was scared but excited to go inside. She wondered what Wrackivorn looked like, and imagined a black Centaur as big as a building. She was sure that Skyler had the tools to defeat Wrackivorn, and he wouldn't let Wrackivorn live unfortunately, even though she would like to talk Skyler out of it. Wrackivorn endangered her, and Skyler was hellbent on killing anyone who endangered the one he loved.
Read the rest of The Light Maiden's Mark here: https://moonquill.com/book/46