Victor of Tucson

Valla stood atop the parapet and watched as the world burned. When Victor had come up with the idea to burn the trees, to start a fire that would hopefully kill the undead hordes hiding in that foggy forest, she’d tried to visualize what it would be like. She’d never seen a forest fire, never seen one of the brush fires that sometimes brought refugees into Gelica from the northern plains. She’d smelled the smoke in the air and seen the sun turn into a hazy, red-orange globe in the sky, but she’d never been close enough to see the flames. She’d never seen the night sky light up with such an evil, amber glow.

“I didn’t realize how big it would be . . .” she muttered, mostly to herself, but Edeya heard her.

“It’s like we unleashed a monster, something a hundred times worse than the undead lurking in those trees.” Apparently, the young Ghelli was also struggling to come to grips with what they’d done. The flames hadn’t yet reached the trees directly bordering the extensive clearing around the keep, but they couldn’t be far off. Valla could hear the fire, a low, incessant, rumbling roar. If you didn’t focus on it, you could almost forget it was there, a testament to the adaptability of the mind, almost like living near a loud river or waterfall.

“Hard to believe that low rumble is the sound of the fire. Imagine! If you broke down those noises, you’d hear crackling flames, cracking and popping wood, falling branches and trees, thrashing, burning undead. Stampeding animals!” She turned to Edeya, looking into her bright, blue eyes, her pale face highlighted by the beautiful, blue, shimmering lights of her new wings. “The flames will reach us soon. Sarl has his Wind Casters ready to funnel the smoke away while it passes.”

“Good for us, but what of all the creatures that made this forest their home?”

Valla frowned. “As Victor said, if we don’t beat these undead invaders, this forest would soon be dead or twisted, the animals worse off. At least they can flee the flames.”

“True. However, many creatures have perished already. Did you see the stampede a couple of hours ago? I’ve never seen so many woodland animals together!”

“I was corresponding with Rellia, but Sarl told me about it.” Valla gripped the smooth, black stones of the parapet and, still staring out into the glowing orange smoke, quietly asked, “Do you think they’ve made it yet?”

“Victor?” When Valla’s only response was a quick nod, Edeya clasped her slender hand around her wrist. “I’m sure they have. You’ve seen how fast that great spirit mount can run!”

“I know! She . . . gives me a bad feeling. I suppose it’s primarily because she’s one of them.” Edeya gestured toward the forest, and Valla knew she meant the undead. “Still, I worry that she’s taking advantage of Victor’s big, stupid heart.” She laughed to soften the words, and Valla chuckled along with her.

“He certainly suffers from that affliction. Too much heart.” Her smile fell away, and she looked upward, blinking rapidly. “Of course, that’s what I love about him, too.”

“I know. I know!” Edeya squeezed her wrist again, and Valla cleared her throat, glancing up and down the parapet, confirming that the soldiers on watch weren’t staring at her.

“Well, that’s enough misty-eyed nonsense. Those flames will be here soon, and with their passage, we’ll learn how effective they were at culling the undead.”

#

At the urging pressure of Victor’s will, his nightmarish alter ego, struggling in a slashing, gnashing, grappling match with the huge wampyr, took note of the warmth in his otherwise cold, hard chest. Now that he was aware, that fire within vied for his attention, almost outshining the brilliant crimson-orange-yellow spirit with which he fought. The heat tickled there, almost like an itch, like a pressure that wanted to release. Yes, that was it; it wanted out. It wanted to vent forth!

Gripping Dunstan with his talons, slashing at him with his razor beak, the Aspect of Terror flapped his wings, fighting against Dunstan’s near-equal strength as the huge wampyr gripped and clawed at his shadowy flesh and pushed and pulled with his own wings. The two wrestled and rolled, smashing into stones and sliding over the enormous cavern’s floor. They tore through great fungi mounds, slid through brackish, muddy water, and scattered ancient bones left over from some vast predator’s meal. They screamed and shrieked and cried out with fury and pain, though the latter came only from the wampyr; the Aspect of Terror felt no pain, only hunger.

As they battered and struggled, Victor’s nightmare form exuded fear, pushing it out in cloudy, purple-black waves. His roiling shadows sought to wrap around the wampyr, tried to enter his wounds and twist his spirit. Dunstan was powerful, though, and his will resisted him. The nightmare’s frustration mounted, and he continued to ponder the fire in his chest, seeking a way to send it forth. Victor, tiny in that dark corner of his mind, was aware of his hungry nightmare form’s frustration, and he tried to guide it. He willed it to breathe, to open its Energy pathway, and exhale.

With a triumphant shriek, the Aspect of Terror finally made the connection. With a minute shift of his will, the Energy pathway to his lungs opened, the roiling flames of its breath Core drained into his lungs, and he opened his mouth to let them pour forth. Dunstan instantly released his hold on Victor’s terror-born aspect. His monstrous face twisted in agony and surprise as those hot, liquid flames bathed his chest and neck, pouring down over his torso and splashing onto his arms, face, and legs. He thrashed desperately, trying to get free, but the nightmare held him, claws bone-deep in his shoulders and thighs.

As Dunstan thrashed and his flesh burned away, his magical healing halted by the fire, Victor’s monstrous archon of fear began to taste the echo of that dark emotion in Dunstan’s heart. Finally, he’d overcome the wampyr’s prodigious will. That bright spirit began to bleed out in dark, purple-black waves, and he took it in. Dunstan moaned and writhed, but he grew ever weaker as his spirit dimmed and Victor’s Core expanded with his feeding frenzy. Victor felt it, knew what was happening, and let go of any control he’d been fighting to maintain; his alter ego had earned his reward.

Sometime later, he opened his eyes to utter darkness. He lay flat on his back on a hard surface, and the only sounds he could make out were faint drips of water, distant rustles like a paper blown by a breeze, and occasional scrabbling scratches that evoked images of mice or rats in his mind. The last thing he remembered was being a passenger to his Aspect of Terror, watching and helping as it sought to kill Dunstan. He remembered the glorious release of his breath Core and the subsequent feasting on Dunstan’s spirit, but then he’d let go, exhausted by his struggles with the Aspect’s will.

It was a strange thing to think about. The Aspect was him. The will he’d been struggling against was his own. What part of him was putting up that fight? What part of him was “Victor,” and what part was the Aspect? He knew, objectively, that the part of him that was ruled by fear, that hungered for its release, took over when he transformed, but that was just his Energy. No, he corrected himself; it was a part of his spirit, of who he was, and it was strong. He supposed “Victor,” when it came to those struggles, was the rest of him, the other facets of his nature.

Shaking his head at his waking musings, Victor pushed himself to a sitting position, immediately noting that he clutched Lifedrinker’s haft in one hand. “Como estas, beautiful?” The axe didn’t answer him with words, but she vibrated comfortingly in his hand—she was fine. “Let’s get some light on this subject!” Victor built the pattern for Globe of Insight and pushed a huge amount of Energy into it. Like a flare igniting, a brilliant ball of white-gold light exploded into being above his head. Victor willed it to rise and watched as his surroundings were revealed.

He knew immediately that he was still in the great cavern beneath Dunstan’s castle. He could tell from the hunks of rock, the pools of water, the mounds of fungi. Even in the brilliant light of his orb, he couldn’t see the walls, couldn’t see the distant ceiling. “Where is that pendejo?” Victor frowned, realizing he had no System messages waiting for him. Even so, he’d only recently leveled. There was a good chance he hadn’t gained anything tangible from the death of the wampyr lord—the System wouldn’t tell him if he’d improved skills or levels unless they’d crested the next threshold.

He scanned the ground nearby, saw scattered bones, smears, and smudges of mud and blood, and knew he’d been fighting the wampyr nearby. Had he sacrificed his body to his ancestors? No, the Aspect wouldn’t do that, and Victor would remember if he had. He turned in a slow circle, looking for clues, and then he saw, on the other side of a shallow, brackish pool, smears of silty clay and blood, almost like something had been dragged through the water and out the other side. “Or like something dragged itself,” he grunted, striding forward, willing his globe to follow.

He splashed through the shallow pool, only sinking to his ankles in the thin sediment at the bottom, and when he emerged on the other side, he stood stock still, closed his eyes, and listened. He heard dripping water nearby and in the distance. He heard the soft flutter of tiny wings, the scuttle of little clawed feet, and then, almost too soft to notice, the faint, panting breaths and scuffing rustle of flesh dragging over stone. Victor opened his eyes and walked toward the sound. He rounded a large boulder, skirted a monstrous mushroom, and saw his pitiful quarry.

Dunstan’s body was withered and frail. One wing was gone, burned to a blackened stump; his torso was similarly charred, and both of his arms were more like something you’d see on a rotting corpse than a vital, powerful vampiric creature. Through his blackened, charred flesh, Victor could see the white of bones, and he knew his enemy must be on death’s door. “Leaving?” he asked, striding forward, Lifedrinker in a loose, two-handed grip.

Dunstan grunted and hissed, twisting to peer back at him through a face half burned to the skull. Only one eye reflected the glow of his light as he coughed in a wheezing voice, “Leave me.”

“Is that a request?”

“Mercy, devil!”

“Oh? I’m the devil? Wasn’t it you who threatened everyone I knew, said you’d make their lives an eternity of suffering?” Victor wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. No, he liked to think he only enjoyed fighting and killing when his blood was hot. Nonetheless, he couldn’t find any mercy in his heart for the twisted, ignoble monster crawling before him. He had questions he’d like to ask, information he’d like to gather from this man, this thing, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of bargaining with the fiend. Though he didn’t feel any qualms about finishing him off, he couldn’t bring himself to embrace the idea of torture, either.

“I’ll help you against Hector!”

Just as Victor had surmised, he was bargaining already. Could he take his information with false promises? Say he’d let him live, get what he wanted, and then kill him? He felt that was taking things beyond justice and into territory that might feed the darker parts of his soul. Instead, he tried honesty. “I’m going to end your suffering, Dunstan. I will not allow you to recover and will not bargain with you. Is there anything you’d like to tell me before the end?” As he mentioned allowing Dustan to recover, Victor wondered what that would entail. Did he need blood like the vampires in the stories on Earth? Did he simply need time? Rather than risk it, he summoned his Banner of the Champion and watched as its glittering yellow light joined that of his globe, and Dunstan cried out, recoiling and curling into a fetal position.

“Devil!” he croaked. “Kill me, then! Know that I’ll curse you to hell and back. If I don’t kill you in this life, I . . .” His words stopped short as Lifedrinker’s smoking edge severed his thick, blackened neck. Victor watched the wampyr’s misshapen head roll away, and then he kicked the giant, charred corpse with his boot, flipping it onto its back. He lifted Lifedrinker and chopped at the blackened flesh over the ribs, hacking again and again until she split through those lifeless bones. The corpse was less resilient than in life, and soon, he’d made a large opening.

“Thank you, chica.” He carefully wiped Lifedrinker’s edge on his sturdy leather pants and slung her into her harness. “Come here, bastard.” He grabbed the edges of the wampyr’s ribs and pulled, straining to widen the opening. When the dead bones still resisted him, he remembered his Sovereign Will bonus and switched it from dexterity to strength. As his muscles swelled and he felt a surge of vigor, he yanked and pulled on those bones, eliciting wet crunches and cracks as the cartilage and bone cracked and tore. When the hole was big enough, he plunged his fist into the opening and dug until he wrapped his fingers around the huge, stiff muscle of the creature’s heart.

Victor tugged and jerked, but the damn thing wouldn’t come loose. In frustration, he let his rage loose into his pathways, and as his vision reddened and his anger began to mount, he gave in and cast Iron Berserk. His fist was still closed around the heart, and as he exploded with size, mass, and power, he roared and yanked, ripping the heart out of the creature with a triumphant bellow. Bits of flesh, blood, and bone showered down as he beheld the glistening prize in his fist. His chest heaved with the effort, and his mouth began to salivate at the sight.

A soft crackling sound distracted him enough to look away from the heart. Looking down, he saw that the wampyr’s corpse was slowly blackening further, and as the flesh fell off, he saw the bones had become like blackened coals with orange embers burning their way out from the inside. The creature was burning to ash before his eyes! Even in his rageful state, Victor wasn’t dumb, and when he felt the heart growing hot in his hand, he understood what was happening—his trophy would burn up and join the rest of the wampyr as it dissolved. Without a second thought, he opened his titanic jaws and bit the organ in half, choking it down as quickly as he could before stuffing the other half in.

Beneath his rage, Victor felt satisfaction; even in death, Dunstan had tried to cheat him of his due, but he’d acted quickly and decisively. He wanted to laugh, roar, and taunt Dunstan’s departing spirit, but his mouth was full, and he could feel the flesh trying to ignite despite his efforts. It was hot, like he’d gulped a ladle of boiling soup, but he didn’t care. He was Flame-Touched and a child of the Quinametzin. Hot flesh wouldn’t dissuade him. Victor chomped the rest of the meaty, bitter heart and swallowed it down. As it ignited in his belly, he lifted his head and roared into the enormous cavern. Echoes responded—titans roaring back to him, and he smiled at the sound as he fell to his knees, then tilted backward as darkness took him.

#

In the light of dawn, Valla looked out again over the castle’s ramparts. She saw nothing but a blackened, twisted wasteland that surrounded the keep. She walked the parapets, looking in every direction for signs of the undead, for signs of other enemies, and, most of all, for signs of Victor. The fires had come an hour after sunset and burned with the fury of mythical hells—walls of flame that rose hundreds of feet into the air, higher than the tallest trees surrounding the keep. If there hadn’t been half a mile of damp, misty grass between the forest and the keep, she wasn’t sure even the Pyromancers and Wind Casters could have saved them. They might have cooked to death inside the stone walls.

As it was, the casters of the Ninth had been taxed, working for hours to funnel the smoke and heat away from the keep while the wall of fire slowly burned its way past them. Valla couldn’t see any undead moving on the scorched fields around the keep, and nothing moved in the blackened forest. She wasn’t surprised; she didn’t know how anything could live through that. Had Victor even made it through? She’d seen him leap and knew he was resistant to fire, but even so, she had a new worry now that she’d seen the fire’s ferocity.

She stopped her tour on the north side of the keep, looking to where the fire had gone, wondering if it had reached the edge of the trees. Had it consumed all the fuel, starved itself, and ended its brief, violent reign of terror? That’s where she stood, hands gripping the black stone parapet with white knuckles, her tension bleeding into her every move when a soft flutter behind her and a sparkle of blue light told her Edeya had found her. “Did Sarl give you the news?” she asked as she settled onto the stone beside her.

“No! Tell me!”

“They rescued the Naghelli, almost all of them. Kethelket brings them here, but he says Victor stayed. He ordered Kethelket to get the Naghelli out while he created a distraction and tried to kill Dunstan.”

“Why are they coming here? We’re only hearing this now?” Valla practically shrieked.

“I asked the same. Ronaga, one of Kethelket’s lieutenants, let me read the message. His people were badly injured, missing their armor and weapons. They were fleeing pursuit, and he knew we couldn’t leave until the fire passed anyway, so he didn’t write immediately. He didn’t want to leave, Valla, but Victor told Kethelket not to let his people die trying to help him. He says . . .”

“Damn him!” Valla interrupted and didn’t know if she was angry at Kethelket or Victor. She turned and reached for her sword hilt, trusting in the spirit within the blade to calm her. She’d yet to awaken it, to hear its conscious thoughts, but she swore she could feel things from it. As she’d hoped, the cool, vibrant Energy within the hilt helped to ground her. “Go on.”

“He says that his people need to recover, but he wants to join you and the Ninth in taking Dunstan’s keep. He says that the keep’s defenders are weakened whether Victor wins or not. He says it may not be too late to help Victor.” Edeya stopped speaking and watched Valla’s face, and when Valla’s emotions and thoughts spun out of control, and she struggled to find a response, Edeya said, “Let’s claim this keep right now and march! Leave a hundred soldiers to hold it with Kethelket’s wounded people.”

Edeya’s words were like a slap in the face, snapping her out of it. Of course! They needed to march! Victor might be in trouble, might need her help. Despite her conscious thought, a tiny voice in the back of her mind said, “Or he might be dead.” She scowled, squelching that dissenting fragment of her mind, and started jogging for the nearest stairway. “Let’s go! I’ll meet you by the System stone!”

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