12 Miles Below

They hadn’t been prepared. They hadn’t understood. By the time they realized, one was already dying, head cut off while his body followed behind, slumping down. My blade had scythed through the air, faster than he could see, catching him right on his throat guard, ripping apart his weakened shield, and biting through armor and flesh all in one savage swing.

A blur in the air, a trailing arc of occult blue, death following behind.

The other took things far more seriously after that, lashing out at me with furious knife strikes all while screaming curses. But far too late to save his friend.

I took a step away, parried a second swing with ease, and retaliated by kicking the exposed slaver right into the wall in a spinning kick. He crunched deep into the metal, sinking into it, breath knocked flat out of him with a frenzied gasp.

My blade raced forward, straight at his helmet.

Some instinct screamed inside his mind to duck but the reflex was nowhere near fast enough to escape me. The crusader blade struck, weakening the shields significantly as it shrieked against the occult edge. Still, he followed through on his training, shifting his head to the side, and lunching out with a stab. A desperate, fumbling thing, trying to prevent a follow-up attack from me by sheer aggression.

All too easy for me to backhand the stab away, throwing off both his arm and aim, while my sword once more bit deep into his relic shields to finish the job. The shield flared, trying to hold off against it a second time - and broke a moment after in a flash of blinding light.

The man fumbled back, and found he was still against a wall. There was nowhere to run.

Realizing, he threw out two desperate attacks in panic, missing both. The second stab I twirled under and lunged out. My cape billowed behind me, like a great white sheet, tracing where I had been moments ago. The extended index of my other hand mirrored my strike in parallel, guiding my blade like a river guides the stream. A beautiful flowing motion I'd seen my sister perform time and time again.

Cathida’s longsword sank through the chestplate and heart with no resistance, impaling the slaver into the wall.

"H-how...?" He coughed out in a whisper, choking, head wobbling for a moment before dropping back down for good. The man's extended arm going limp over my shoulder, his occult knife falling to the ground from the slackening gauntlet.

The longsword withdrew slowly, letting the body slump down and out of my way. These slavers really had no idea just who they'd fucked with. And I wasn't going to give them a second chance to fix their error.

I turned around to the frightened servants that had huddled at the far end of the vault. To them, the fight must have started and ended in a few heartbeats, too fast to keep track of. One looked up at me, eyes wide. “We’ll be fine.” He said, voice trying hard to keep a tremor away. “Please, master Keith, you have to save the others, please!”

I give him a curt nod, turned and sprinted through the ruined vaultway, into the center of a massive explosion. No identifiable body parts, only burnt carbon and gore. The blackened auto turret remained standing, but the barrel had been sliced cleanly in two. The soldiers must have known they’d likely not make it out alive, and they’d brought explosives with them to detonate. One last attempt to weaken the enemy.

No time to think about that. Instead I continued my sprint, hunting down the other two intruders, wherever they were. There was bloodthirst in my eyes, and my veins pumped with rage. Building up with every step as my shocked mind slowly began to catch up with the events that happened. The amount of people who’d died trying to protect me.

The first slaver I found was back in the room where the three winterscar soldiers had made their last stand. I hadn't been fast enough to save any of the three doomed men who'd known they were trading their lives to give me just a chance. Their bodies were all cut and mangled, left with little respect.

The slaver knights was sitting at the side of a wall, trying to stem the blood flow from a cleanly cut arm. Using piece of Winterscar uniform from a dead body to do it. By his side were all three Occult Winterscar swords, gathered all up.

He looked up, faceless helmet staring at me as if in disbelief. Then the man screamed out in panic, legs flailing around, trying to push himself away.

Without relic shields, and one hand holding nothing but a bandage, he was dead where he sat and he knew it. My hand snapped out, grabbing the screaming man's head, crushing his shieldless helmet under my fingers. Journey's gauntlets digging heavy indents into the metal. The helmet collapsed under the pressure, breaking apart with a groan, massive seams exposing pink flesh under. Even in this state, the relic armor was still designed to break apart, to give the user the most amount of time possible.

No matter.

The fractal of heat flared to life in my palm. An inferno of fire engulfed everything before my hand, wrapping around his trapped features, the burning temperature sinking into the open seams in between his ruined helmet. The slaver’s screams took a different pitch, body shaking wildly under me as the helmet began to glow a dim red under my assault. The shaking soon turned into little more than sporadic twitching.

There was no mercy in me, not a single drop for any of these animals. The body fell limp as I let go of the charred head. The finger plates on my hand rapidly cooled from a dim molten glow back to their dark colors, the air still a haze above my palm and digits.

Three dead, one to go. "Where's the last one?" I hissed out.

“Out in the courtyard.” Cathida said. “Sounds of fighting.”

I nodded, reaching out for the spare swords, bundling them up in an arm, and continued my dead sprint.

The courtyard was utter chaos. A few dozen soldiers were opening fire on a single laughing slaver knight at the center, whose armor didn’t even trigger shields against the bullet spray. “Is that the best you lot got?” He shouted. “I got friends coming for you sorry scrapshits and you can barely handle even one of me.” He shifted a rifle of his own around, taking return shots at soldiers, forcing them into cover, laughing all the while like a lunatic.

I strode into that courtyard, tossing the Winterscar blades to the soldiers nearest to me, while I continued my way to the offending slaver, longsword held at my side.

He turned, not understanding why all the soldiers had started pointing behind him and cheering. His head tilted in confusion until he saw me walking towards him. He promptly tossed the rifle to the ground, drawing out his knife, laughing the whole while. “Finally a real challenge. Love it when dinner comes to me. I’ll try to be gentle with you boy, gotta bring your head back home alive. Can’t guarantee it won’t hurt. Might make you suffer a bit. Heh.”

“I guarantee I’ll make you suffer.” I snarled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

I lunged for him. One moment I had been a dozen feet away from the man, the next I was already at his throat. Dust, smoke and whistling air flowed behind my mass as my blade struck against the slaver’s shields in a heartbeat.

Three more fast strikes came from my blade, battering him from all sides, before reflexes finally caught up to him, and he properly swung back at me. I easily ducked under that, using the motion to reposition to the slaver's side, delivering a pair of strikes and following it with a roundhouse kick that launched him across the air. He went tumbling on the floor, skidding until he hit the opposite wall with a heavy dent.

The slaver's shields went down far under fifty percent, according to Journey. The man scrambled away, trying to make space for himself while I was still a distance away.

Behind him, a Winterscar soldier lunged out at his back, one of my newly forged Occult blades lit up, the carbon edge flecked with blood.

The slaver turned, intercepting the attack with his knife. He brought his blade back up to cleave the soldier down from neck to hip, only for his blade to be intercepted by mine as I flew across the ground, catching up to him. I struck hard enough even his relic armor couldn't hold onto the grip, the knife flying away and slicing deep into a wall before the Occult edge turned off.

The winterscar soldier didn’t pause for a beat, going right back on the attack, more of the slaver’s shields dropping with each blade strike. Two other Winterscars sprinted at his other sides, their own recovered weapons striking out in tandem.

The slaver tried to fight back. Each time he tries to punch or kick, I was there to block it, slapping the hand away, leaving him for my soldiers to cut to pieces. The soldiers smelled the blood in the air, shifting their tactics, relying on me to be their shields while the three went on systematic offence.

They ripped him apart with cuts. Striking out while the enemy was helpless to fight back.

I made no moves to end his life. I wanted this animal to die slowly, in panic, to the very people he thought had been worms just a moment ago.

Rage, fury, revenge and bloodlust, it wasn’t a pretty sight. There was almost an unworded agreement between us Winterscars. We wanted vengeance and blood for those who’d given it all. The gods watch us, we would get our pound of flesh.

Half a minute into the fight, I no longer needed to bother trying to protect anyone. They’d done enough damage that the slaver couldn’t properly fight back anymore. Likely only his armor was moving the body now, too many tendons and muscles had been cut. Soon even the armor couldn’t move itself anymore.

The rest of the Winterscar soldiers slowly surrounded the dying knight in a circle, kicking him back into the fight anytime he stumbled too close in some misguided attempt to flee. It wasn’t every day they saw a relic knight being torn to shreds by mortal men. A reminder that no matter how powerful someone is, they still bleed.

I watched from the sidelines, arms folded across my chest as the enemy knight was brought low by my soldiers.

He collapsed on his back when one of the legs had finally taken too much and snapped from the weight. Blood had filled his lungs up, choking whatever final words of mercy begged out. He reached an outstretched hand to one of the soldiers, as if asking her to spare his life. Or maybe deluding himself that his hand could possibly stop her.

It didn’t. She stabbed right through the palm, ripped half of it apart, and then cut again, this time through the arm with an audible snarl. The arm flew clear off. Another soldier stabbed the blade down through the relic helmet at the same time. The slaver twitched, a tremor passed through the body as the sword sank deeper into the broken helmet, and then everything was still.

It was over. All the intruders had been killed.

A massive cheer rose among the crowd, and held for a few strong seconds up until the more level headed seniors brought everyone into order. Shouts and commands flooded the previous noise. Sargents shuffled soldiers around, calling medics to take the wounded, cycling fresh faces into the ranks while forcefully retiring the ones that had been exhausted. A group of four soldiers were already circling around the dead slaver, stripping the armor off of him in chunks, tossing them into a hoversled that had appeared from seemingly nowhere.

A lieutenant came up to me, giving a curt salute. “Master Keith, there's likely other relic knights on approach given the taunting this one did. We should prepare. I’ve ordered a full defense to setup and for the servants to hide. We’ve got reports of three spare relic armors being salvaged from dead slavers further inside the estate. This one will make a fourth. Expecting these to be operational again and under our command in fifteen to thirty minutes. Orders?”

“Have we heard anything from my personal guards, or captain Sagrius?”

He shook his head. “No sir. Nothing on comms yet. Clan communications have been scrambled. Whatever the raiders planned with their slaver allies, they hit multiple parts of the colony at the same time. Last I heard, there were other slaver knights storming through the city. Recommend waiting until we have their armors online before we set out to help stabilize the city.”

“Any word from Shadowsong, or Lord Atius?” I asked, without much hope. He shook his head again. I debated the merits of going back out there by myself, to search for my missing guards and help bring them home.

I didn’t get to make that choice. A shout came out across the courtyard, and through the ruined Winterscar estate gates, six figures walked into the clearing, two carrying a large crate with them. That must be the reinforcements they'd called. Just a few shy minutes too late to save their overextended team.

Three dozen rifles snapped up into attention, aiming down sights at the incoming slaver knights. No one opened fire, they all knew to save ammunition for more vulnerable targets.

“You stupid fucks.” The knight taking point said, motioning for his men to set the crate down. “I don’t know how you managed to kill four of my men, but I’m going to flay the rest of you alive for that. Could fuckin’ hear it on the comms, had to mute the shitstain's screaming.” Then he pointed a longsword at me. “And you, Winterscar princess. You just had to make it a mess. Could have just surrendered, avoided all this. Now I have to butcher everyone to get even.”

“Funny. The last four of your men said the same thing.” I said. “They’re dead now.”

“Oh well I fuckin’ see that. Didn’t like them anyhow, more loot for the rest of us so you did me a favor. Don’t know how you did it, probably split them apart and stabbed them all in the back like a fuckin' coward. Now, the six of us here? We ain’t dumb. There's no splitting us up. Just all six of us against the one of you.”

I shrugged, taking my stance with deliberate motion. “They also told me they outnumbered me. That I wouldn’t win. Again, they’re dead now.”

He patted the crate at his side, laughing. “Exactly why I took the time to fetch this baby here, before coming for the party. Part of the original plan, this bit. Didn’t think we’d need to drag it all the way out here, but con-gratu-fucking-lations. You’ve gone and made us all mad. Now, I'm not taking any more half-assed chances dealing with you.”

Father had told me once that skill was enough to overcome two against one. But three against one was almost universally a losing fight. Even he couldn’t take on three knights and expect to win without some way to funnel the enemy. Hold them off maybe, but not win. And four would have killed any amount of skill the moment they surrounded their victim.

I wasn’t feeling too confident about my chances, even with the Winterblossom technique. But I wasn’t going to allow more of my new family to die here. I beat them, or they beat me and took me away, leaving everyone else alive. Either way it ends here. Sure they could sputter about massacring the whole House, but we all knew they didn't have the time anymore for that.

Three Occult blades snapped to life behind me.

I turned my gaze behind and saw three of my soldiers taking their own stances at my side, matching my own. “This isn’t a battle you can survive.” I told them. “Fall back. I’ll handle this alone. I’m not out of cards to play yet.”

“Negative, sir.” The one on my left said, refusing to elaborate.

“I’ll see you in my misconduct hearing after this.” The one on the right said. “Happy to scrub toilets for a year if it means I get a chance to kill slavers. Talen smiles down on me today.”

“This is serious. We've lost too many good people today. You’ve survived so far and I commend you all for the sheer bravery you've shown in the face of death. I couldn't have asked for better men and women at my side. But if you fight here, your luck is going to end. There’s only three blades, no where near enough to turn the tides.”

“Might be only three blades, but plenty more waiting for their turn after I’m done.” He said, an odd smile on his face.

I noticed then that the rest of the winterscar soldiers hadn’t fled. No, they were all huddling behind cover, waiting.

The slaver leader pointed a sword at me. “How cute. Clanners asking to get killed for muh honoru. A fucking gods damned classic.” He mocked, shook his head and waved a lazy hand. “Fine. You know what? I don’t give a shit anymore. Kill them all, boys. Don’t leave any of them alive except for him.”

The soldier at my right flashed me a salute to the dead. “House Winterscar.” He whispered. Then turned and dove forward, the other two following behind in sync, all screaming out Winterscar, up against six relic knights.

No time to argue, I drew out my spare knife into my other hand in a reflexive flourish, and charged forward, easily leaping past the three and diving deep into the fight in a whirlwind of blades.

It was a nightmare. My soldiers were clearly far more skilled and trained then the mercenary knights they fought. But the relic armors were giving advantages my soldiers couldn’t overcome. Each Winterscar had no second chances. They had no shields. No armor that could support their wounds and let them continue after. And they were outnumbered.

They fought through it all anyhow, at my side.

With my blades in tandem, I dove deep into Father’s fighting style, everything I could remember of it. My sword flashed around, far faster than any of the enemy knights, a near blur in the air. Methodically striking any unguarded plates until shields would break.

They weren’t able to overwhelm me, anytime they tried to surround me, my soldiers would dive in with a ferocity unmatched, forcing a hole I could slip away through. Often at terrible costs.

They hit the ground bleeding, one after the other. I protected them wherever I could, but ultimately I knew I was only buying them a few more seconds of life. Even after they were cut apart, legs or arms severed, they still fought. And if they couldn’t, they turned and threw their occult blades out past into the courtyard, where another soldier would charge out, pick it up and join the battle.

The rest of the Winterscars stalked the sides, opening fire with rifles, trying to land distracting shots on relic helmets anytime they had a clear vision. The courtyard was ablaze with sounds of occult blades zipping through the air and rifle shots pinging against armored knights.

A few of the more bold soldiers dove empty handed into the fight, dragging away wounded Winterscars back behind friendly lines. Medics swarmed their side, immediately cauterizing blade wounds and handling triage mere feet away from the slavers. One soldier had even brought out a fire extinguisher, funnelling a massive torrent of white in an attempt to blind a knight. Didn’t work, it took a lot to obscure vision from relic armor given the sheer spectrum of sight and scanning abilities they had.

All through the battle, I fought at the center of the maelstrom, my sword and knife lashing out as fast as I could think. Relic shields started to break. Amor was cut into, following heads. I nailed one, slicing his hand, leaving him exposed and weaponless. I kicked him backwards, right against the House soldiers. Without means to fight back and already on his back, he didn’t last long as they tore him apart.

Another I slammed onto the ground with a casual twist of my arm, in front of a woman who’d just picked up a fallen Witnerscar blade from the last wounded soldier. She didn’t hesitate to drive that blade straight into the slaver's head, before dive rolling away from another slaver trying to decapitate her in turn.

The slaver tactics changed in moments. They realized the extra three blades being passed around was giving me just enough leeway to fight them all off. And their window of being able to take me down was quickly being whittled away, one dead slaver at a time. The combined might of my House behind my back was pulling the odds in my favor.

They stomped down on the blades, outright destroying one, and claiming the other two after suffering another dead knight to take it. Without the striking soldiers to distract and add mayhem into the fight, the remaining three knights pressed down on me, finally forcing me into a defensive retreat, using my own blades against me.

I gave ground only when needed, but the fight was rapidly turning against my favor now. As fast as I was, I couldn’t block three simultaneous knife strikes from three different directions and two additional longer reaching swords. Father or my sister might have the intuition and outright genius to twist and dodge in just the right ways, but I wasn’t them. My shields were dropping rapidly with each coordinated attack.

Cannon fire lit up the clearing, massive rounds striking the slaver knight in front of me, forcing his shields to power on to block the hit, throwing him stumbling away mid strike. He growled, pointing at the cannon. Another slaver peeled off and raced across to deal with it, while the Winterscar crew on the other end opened fire and held the line against the speeding tank.

It gave me a window of opportunity. If I could rush one of the knights down, I could handle the other even without any shields left.

I sprang forward and was instantly stopped. A massive metal net wrapped itself around me, the heavy chain balls on all ends slamming into the ground and denting the metal from the sheer weight. The whole thing bogged me down, putting an instant halt to my motions. It was a struggle just to turn and see where the net had come from.

The slaver leader pulled a second net from the crate his men originally carried into the courtyard. He moved with quick motions, looking panicked. My occult blades began to rip the net apart, until a heavy set of hands closed down on my own, struggling to hold me still. It wasn't outright stopping me, but slowing down by ability to get free. More nets were thrown, each one further entangling around me, restricting my movements.

Journey began to groan at the stress building up on the joints, now pressured by the weight of three metal nets and another relic armor trying to pin it down. Before I could swipe again, two more arms reached out and grabbed my rightmost hand, forcing my blade to come to a complete stop.

The third knight had returned. And now the two holding my arms. Both slowly prying my hands open, trying to disarm me. It was only a matter of time until they overwhelmed Journey's grip.

The leader of the slavers strode forward, his own sword flashing. “If I have to cut off your legs and arm to get you to stay fuckin’ still, I fuckin’ will. Swear on the gods… No. You know what? You don’t deserve that offer. I’m going to toss you to that metal fuck as a cripple, and he’s just going to have to deal with it.”

“Cathida.” I said under my breath, voice oddly still as the armor struggled to hold onto my weapons. Trying to stay upright as the two slavers and the net robbed me of any mobility.

“You got an idea there honey? I hope you do, I don’t think they want to shake hands and sing hymns to the goddess.”

“Generate a combat engram of yourself and take over.”

“Don’t see why not, Journey has plenty of data for an accurate one. Don’t think I’ll be any better than you are though. You’re kind of stuck, so I’ll be just as stuck.”

“I know what I have to do. Do it."

The slaver got closer, blade flashing up in light. I could almost see that sadistic smile hiding behind the helmet he wore.

“Fine. Hope your plan works.” Cathida said, HUD elements rearranging across my vision, showing additional subroutines triggered and loaded. Journey's original monotone returned, speaking words I'd heard a lifetime ago. "Releasing safety locks. Loading predictive engram..."

I reached deep into myself, disconnecting my soul from the rest of my body and severing the winterblossom technique completely. As my hands went limp, another set of hands came to life, clenching tightly on the sword and knife that were being pried away. I could feel the armor move on its own, struggling against the net.

It was a faraway feeling. The world became peaceful, my struggles ending. Further and further I receded from reality, until the soul fractal and the occult sight were the only thing left and I floated, suspended in the slow ebing current of my own mind.

My eyes opened in that darkness, searching for what I knew was there. What I had left behind, meticulously carved and studied in the safety of my sanctum.

Somewhere, deep on the inside of my chestplate, a fractal lit to life at my touch.

Occult blue began to spread across my armor, faint whisps floating up, shocks of pale lighting crackling across the plate. The slaver leader stopped in his tracks, one boot taking an uncertain step back. He whispered a curse, hand raising up to point at me. "He's a d-deathless."

A beat passed. And then knight dove forward in panic, blade in hand, racing to end me as quickly as he could. A dozen trained rifles all opened fire on him that very instant, the winterscar soldiers desperate to stop his charge any way they could. A few had outright started to sprint empty handed, no plan other than to somehow get in between me and that blade, even if they had to jump in front.

None of them would reach us in time.

The slaver ignored the weapons fire, hundreds of yellow sparks dancing across all sides of his armor as the bullets pinged off. His knife unerringly dived down, straight for my heart.

I focused my mind one last time. In that dim darkness, only I and the fractal remained. My focus clenched around it, commanding it to fully rouse awake. It responded to my thoughts, burning like a bonfire in my occult senses, and pulsed out.

Reality seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.

Then, it bent to my will.

Next chapter - The Sorcerer Knight of House Winterscar

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